A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [214]
‘You go,’ Mr Biswas said.
Anand’s cheeks bulged over the mint sweet. He had stopped sucking it; it felt cold and wet. He shook his head. Shock had taken away all desire to see the films; if he stayed he would have to walk home alone at midnight.
They were continually jostled. They were in the way.
Mr Biswas said, ‘I’ll come back for you.’
Anand hesitated. But at that moment there was a new scramble up the tunnel; someone shouted, ‘Why the hell you don’t go if you going?’; the ticket-collector said, ‘Make up your mind. You blocking the way.’ And Anand said to Mr Biswas, ‘You go,’ and Mr Biswas, appearing to obey instantly, vanished behind many backs and was propelled into the cinema to see films he hadn’t wanted to see.
Anand stayed in the tunnel, pressed flat against the wall, while people passed inside. Presently, with the film well advanced, the tunnel was empty. The distempered ochre walls were rubbed shiny. In the lighted hole the hands were knitting.
He walked past the Woodbrook Market Square, the Chinese café, the Murray Street playground. The house, when he returned to it, was humming. But no one saw him. He went straight to the front room, took off his shoes and lay down on the Slumberking.
There Shama found him when she came upstairs and turned on the light.
‘Boy! You had me frightened. You didn’t go to the theatre?’
‘Yes. But I had a headache.’
‘And your father?’
‘He is there.’
The front gate clicked, and someone came up the concrete steps. The door opened and they saw Mr Biswas. ‘Well!’ Shama said. ‘You had a headache too?’
He didn’t answer. He worked his way between table and bed, and sat on the bed.
‘I can’t understand the pair of you,’ Shama said. She went into the inner room, came out with some sewing and went downstairs.
Mr Biswas said, ‘Boy, get me the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare. And my pen.’
Anand climbed over the head of the bed and got the book and the pen.
For some time Mr Biswas wrote.
‘Blasted thing blot like hell. But, still, read it.’
On the fly-leaf, below the four masculine names that had been chosen for Savi before she was born, Anand read: ‘I, Mohun Biswas, do hereby promise my son Anand Biswas that in the event of his winning a College Exhibition, I will buy him a bicycle.’ Signature and date followed.
Mr Biswas said, ‘I think you’d better witness it.’
Anand wrote the latest version of his signature and added ‘witness’ in brackets.
‘All fair and square now,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Just a minute though. Let me see the book again. I think I left out something.’
He took the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare, changed the full stop of his declaration into a comma and added, war conditions permitting.
In the house the eruptions of sound had ceased. The humming had subsided to a low, steady burr. It was late. Shama and Savi came up and went to the inner room, where Myna and Kamla were already asleep. Anand lay down on the Slumberking, separated from Mr Biswas by a bank of pillows. He pulled the cotton sheet over his face to keep out the light, and soon fell asleep. Mr Biswas stayed awake for some time, reading. Then he got up, turned off the light, and felt his way back to the bed.
He awoke, as nearly always now, when it was still night. He never wished to know the time: it would be too early or too late. The house was full of sound: with renters, readers and learners upstairs and downstairs, the house snored. The world was without colour; it awaited no one’s awakening. Through the open window, above the silhouette of trees and the roof of the house next door, he could see the deep starlit sky. It magnified his distress. Anguish quickened to panic, the familiar knot in his stomach.
He slept late next morning; bathed in the open-air bathroom, ate in the sunny front room, put on yesterday’s shirt (he wore one shirt for two days), wrist-watch, tie, jacket, hat; and, respectably attired, cycled out to interview destitutes.
And at school, when confronted by his accuser,