A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [163]
Mr Biswas was unaccountably moved. His legs shook; he felt unsteady. He said, ‘I hope war doesn’t break out – ’ Tears rushed to his eyes, he choked and could say no more.
Owad had passed on. He embraced the children; then Shekhar; then Seth, who cried copiously; and finally Mrs Tulsi, who didn’t cry at all.
He went into the ship. Presently he appeared at the rails and waved. A passenger joined him; they began to talk.
The passengers’ gangway was drawn up. Then there were shouts, raucous, unsustained singing, and three Germans with bruised faces and torn and dirty clothes came staggering along the wharf, comically supporting one another, drunk. Someone from the ship called to them harshly; they shouted back and, drunk and collapsing though they were, and without touching the rope-rail, they walked up the narrow gang-board at the stern. All the doubts about the ship were re-excited.
Whistles: waves from ship, from shore: the ship edging away: the dock less protected, the dark, dirty water surfaced with litter. And soon they stood quite exposed in front of the customs shed, staring at the ship, staring at the gap it had left.
The weakness that had come to him at the touch of Owad’s hands remained with Mr Biswas. There was a hole in his stomach. He wanted to climb mountains, to exhaust himself, to walk and walk and never return to the house, to the empty tent, the dead fire-holes, the disarrayed furniture. He left the wharves with Anand and they walked aimlessly through the city. They stopped at a café and Mr Biswas bought Anand icecream in a tub and a Coca Cola.
The paper would sprawl on the sunny steps in the morning; there would be stillness at noon and shadow in the afternoon. But it would be a different day.
2. The New Régime
HAVING NO further business in Port of Spain, Mrs Tulsi returned to Arwacas. The tent was taken down and after a few days the house was cleared of stragglers. Mr Biswas set about restoring his rose-beds and the lily-pond, whose edges had collapsed, turning the water into bubbling mud. He worked without heart, feeling the emptiness of the house and not knowing how much longer he would be allowed to stay there. None of Mrs Tulsi’s furniture had been removed: the house there seemed to be awaiting change. Some of the savour went out of his job at the Sentinel. He needed to address his work mentally to someone. At first this had been Mr Burnett; then it had been Owad. Now there was only Shama. She seldom read his articles; when he read them aloud to her she showed neither interest nor amusement and made no comments. Once he gave her the typescript of an article and she infuriated him by turning over the last page and looking for more. ‘No more, no more,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to strain you.’
And from Hanuman House came more reports of disturbance. Govind, the eager, the loyal, was discontented; Shama reported his seditious sayings. Nothing had outwardly changed, but Mrs Tulsi no longer directed and her influence was beginning to be felt more and more as only that of a cantankerous invalid. With her two sons settled, she appeared to have lost interest in the family. She spent much of her time in the Rose Room, acquiring illnesses, grieving for Owad. As for Seth, he still controlled; but his control was superficial. Though nothing had been said openly, Shekhar’s reported displeasure, uncontradicted, lay against him and made him suspect to the sisters. When all was said and done Seth was not of the family and he alone could not maintain its harmony, as had been shown by his helplessness when squabbles had arisen between sisters during Mrs Tulsi’s absences in Port of Spain. Seth ruled effectively only in association with Mrs Tulsi and through her affection and trust. That trust, not officially withdrawn, was no longer so fully displayed; and Seth was even beginning to be resented as an outsider.
Then came rumours