A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [240]
The more she was recommended not to exert herself the less she was able to exert herself, until she appeared to live only for her illness. She became obsessed with the decay of her body, and finally wanted the girls to search her head for lice. No louse could have survived the hourly dousing with bay rum which her head received, but she was enraged when the girls found nothing. She called them liars, pinched them, pulled their hair. Sometimes she was only hurt; then she shuffled out to the verandah and sat, taking her veil to her lips, feeding her eyes on the green, as Mrs Tuttle had recommended. She would speak to no one, refuse to eat, reject all care. She would sit, feeding her eyes on the green, the tears running down her slack cheeks below her dark glasses.
Of all hands she liked Myna’s best. She wanted Myna to search her head for lice, wanted Myna to kill them, wanted to hear them being squashed between Myna’s fingernails. This preference created some jealousy, upset Myna, annoyed Mr Biswas.
‘Don’t go and pick her damn lice,’ Mr Biswas said.
‘Don’t worry with your father,’ Shama said, unwilling to lose this unexpected hold over Mrs Tulsi.
And Myna went and spent hours in Mrs Tulsi’s room, her slender fingers exploring every strand of Mrs Tulsi’s thin, grey, bay-rum-scented hair. From time to time, to satisfy Mrs Tulsi, Myna clicked her fingernails, and Mrs Tulsi swallowed and said, ‘Ah,’ pleased that one of her lice had been caught.
An additional constraint came upon the house when Shekhar and his family paid one of their visits to Mrs Tulsi. If Shekhar had come alone he would have been more warmly welcomed by his sisters. But the antagonism between them and Shekhar’s Presbyterian wife Dorothy had deepened as Shekhar had prospered and Dorothy’s Presbyterianism had become more assertive and excluding. There had almost been an open quarrel when Shekhar, approached by the widows for a loan to start a mobile restaurant, had offered them jobs in his cinemas instead. They regarded this as an insult and saw in it the hand of Dorothy. Of course they refused: they did not care to be employed by Dorothy and they would never work in a place of public entertainment.
Shekhar could never appear as more than a visitor. He came in his car, led his wife and five elegant daughters upstairs, and for a long time nothing was heard except occasional footsteps and Mrs Tulsi’s low voice going evenly on. Then Shekhar came downstairs by himself, forbiddingly correct in white short sleeved sports shirt and white slacks. Having listened to his mother, he now listened to his sisters, staring them in the eye and saying, ‘Hm – hm,’ his top lip hanging over his lower lip and almost concealing it. He spoke little, as though unwilling to disturb the set of his mouth. His words came out abruptly, his expression never changed, and everything he said seemed to have an edge. When he tried to be friendly with the readers and learners he only frightened them. Yet he never appeared unkind; only preoccupied.
After lunch, prepared by Basdai and Sushila and eaten upstairs, Dorothy and her daughters passed downstairs, Dorothy booming out her greetings, her daughters remaining close together and speaking in fine, almost inaudible voices. Then Dorothy would look at her watch and say, ‘Caramba! Ya son las tres. Dónde está tu Padre? Lena, va a llamarle. Vamos, vamos.