A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [241]
Before they left, Shekhar and Dorothy always called on Mr Biswas. Mr Biswas did not relish these calls. It wasn’t only that Shekhar’s party was campaigning against the Community Welfare Department. Shekhar had never forgotten that Mr Biswas was a clown, and whenever they met he tried to provoke an act of clowning. He made a belittling remark, and Mr Biswas was expected to extend this remark wittily and fancifully. To Mr Biswas’s fury, Dorothy had also adopted this attitude; and from this relationship there was no escape, since anger and retaliation were counted parts of the game. Shekhar came into the front room and asked in his brusque, humourless manner, ‘Is the welfare officer still well-fed?’ Then he hoisted himself on to the destitute’s diningtable and threatened Mr Biswas with the destruction of the department and joblessness. For a time Mr Biswas responded in his old way. He told stories about civil servants, spoke of the trouble he had making up his expense sheets, the work he had looking for work. But soon he made his annoyance plain. ‘You take these things too personally,’ Shekhar said, still playing the game. ‘Our differences are only political. You’ve got to be a little more sophisticated, man.’ ‘Be a little more sophisticated,’ Mr Biswas said, when Shekhar left. ‘On a hungry belly? The old scorpion. Wouldn’t care a damn if I lose my job tomorrow.’
For some time there had been rumours. And now at last the news was given out: Owad, Mrs Tulsi’s younger son, was returning from England. Everyone was excited. Sisters came up from Shorthills in their best clothes to talk over the news. Owad was the adventurer of the family. Absence had turned him into a legend, and his glory was undiminished by the numbers of students who were leaving the colony every week to study medicine in England, America, Canada and India. His exact attainments were not known, but were felt by all to be extraordinary and almost beyond comprehension. He was a doctor, a professional man, with letters after his name! And he belonged to them! They could no longer claim Shekhar. But every sister had a story which proved how close she had been to Owad, what regard he had had for her.
Mr Biswas felt as proprietary as the sisters towards Owad and shared their excitement. But he was uneasy. Once, many years before, he had felt that he had to leave Hanuman House before Owad and Mrs Tulsi returned to it. Now he experienced the same unease: the same sense of threat, the same need to leave before it was too late. Over and over he checked the money he had saved, the money he was going to save. His additions appeared on cigarette packets, in the margins of newspapers, on the backs of buff government folders. The sum never varied: he had six hundred and twenty dollars; by the end of the year he would have seven hundred. It was a staggering sum, more than he had ever possessed all at once. But it couldn’t attract a loan to buy any house other than one of those wooden tenements that awaited condemnation. At two thousand dollars or so they were bargains, but only for speculators who could take the tenants to court, rebuild, or wait for the site to rise in value. Now, his anxiety growing with the excitement about him, Mr Biswas scanned agents’ lists every morning and drove about the city looking for places to rent. When for one whole week the City Council bought pages and pages in the newspapers to serialize the list of houses it was putting up for auction because their rates had not been paid, Mr Biswas turned up at the Town Hall with all the city’s estate agents; but he lacked the confidence to bid.
He could not avoid Mrs Tulsi when he returned to