A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [23]
One night he got up in a panic. The latrine was far from the house and to go there through the dark frightened him. He was frightened, too, to walk through the creaking wooden house, open locks, undo bolts and possibly waken Jairam who was fussy about his sleep and often flew into a rage even when awakened at a time he had fixed. Mr Biswas decided to relieve himself in his room on one of his handkerchiefs. He had scores of these, made from the cotton given him at the ceremonies he attended with Jairam. When the time came to dispose of the handkerchief, he left his room and tiptoed, the floor creaking, through the open doorway to the enclosed verandah at the back. He carefully unbolted the Demerara window, which hung on hinges at the top, and, keeping the window open with his left hand, flung the handkerchief as far as he could with his right. But his hands were short, the window was heavy, there was too little space for him to manoeuvre, and he heard the handkerchief fall not far off.
Not staying to bolt the window, he hurried back to his bed where for a long time he stayed awake, repeatedly imagining that a fresh call was upon him. He had just fallen asleep, it seemed, when someone was shaking him. It was Soanie.
Jairam stood scowling in the doorway. ‘You are no Brahmin,’ he said. ‘I take you into my house and show you every consideration. I do not ask for gratitude. But you are trying to destroy me. Go and look at your work.’
The handkerchief had fallen on Jairam’s cherished oleander tree. Never again could its flowers be used at the puja.
‘You will never make a pundit,’ Jairam said. ‘I was talking the other day to Sitaram, who read your horoscope. You killed your father. I am not going to let you destroy me. Sitaram particularly warned me to keep you away from trees. Go on, pack your bundle.’
The neighbours had heard and came out to watch Mr Biswas as, in his dhoti, with his bundle slung on his shoulder, he walked through the village.
Bipti was not in a welcoming mood when Mr Biswas, after walking and getting rides on carts, came back to Pagotes. He was tired, hungry and itching. He had expected her to welcome him with joy, to curse Jairam and promise that she would never allow him to be sent away again to strangers. But as soon as he entered the yard of the hut in the back trace he knew that he was wrong. She looked so depressed and indifferent, sitting in the sooty open kitchen with another of Ajodha’s poor relations, grinding maize; and it did not then surprise him that, instead of being pleased to see him, she was alarmed.
They kissed perfunctorily, and she began to ask questions. He thought her manner was harsh and saw her questions as attacks. His replies were sullen, defensive, angry. Her fury rose and she shouted at him. She said that he was ungrateful, that all her children were ungrateful and didn’t appreciate the trouble the rest of the world went to on their behalf. Then her rage spent itself and she became as understanding and protective as he hoped she would have been right at the beginning. But it was not sweet now. She poured water for him to wash his hands, sat him down on a low bench and gave him food – not hers to give, for this was the communal food of the house, to which she had contributed nothing but her labour in the cooking – and looked after him in the proper way. But she could not coax him out of his sullenness.
He did not see at the time how absurd and touching her behaviour was: welcoming him back to a hut that didn’t belong to her, giving him food that wasn’t hers. But the memory remained, and nearly thirty years later, when he was a member of a small literary group in Port of Spain, he wrote and read out a simple poem in blank verse about this meeting. The disappointment, his surliness, all the unpleasantness was ignored, and the circumstances improved to allegory: the journey, the welcome, the food, the shelter.
After the meal he learned that there