A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [36]
The news of the girl at Arwacas spread and Mr Biswas enjoyed some glory at Pagotes until Bhandat’s younger son, a prognathous, contemptuous boy, said, ‘I feel you lying like hell, you know.’
When Mr Biswas went to Hanuman House the next day he had a note in his pocket, which he intended to give to Shama. She was busy all morning, but just before noon, when the store closed for lunch, there was a lull and her counter was free. He came down the ladder, whistling in his way. Unnecessarily, he began stacking and restacking his paint tins. Then, preoccupied and frowning, he walked about the store, looking for tins that were not there. He passed Shama’s counter and, without looking at her, placed the note under a bolt of cloth. The note was crumpled and slightly dirty and looked ineffectual. But she saw it. She looked away and smiled. It was not a smile of complicity or pleasure; it was a smile that told Mr Biswas he had made a fool of himself. He felt exceedingly foolish, and wondered whether he shouldn’t take back his note and abandon Shama at once.
While he hesitated a fat Negro woman went to Shama’s counter and asked for flesh-coloured stockings, which were then enjoying some vogue in rural Trinidad.
Shama, still smiling, took down a box and held up a pair of black cotton stockings.
‘Eh!’ The woman’s gasp could be heard throughout the shop. ‘You playing with me? How the hell all-you get so fresh and conceited?’ She began to curse. ‘Playing with me!’ She pulled boxes and bolts of cloth off the counter and hurled them to the floor and every time something crashed she shouted, ‘Playing with me!’ One of the Tulsi sons-in-law ran up to pacify her. She cuffed him back. ‘Where the old lady?’ she called, and screamed, ‘Mai! Mai!’ as though in great pain.
Shama had ceased to smile. Fright was plain on her face. Mr Biswas had no desire to comfort her. She looked so much like a child now that he only became more ashamed of the note. The bolt of cloth which concealed it had been thrown to the ground, and the note was exposed, caught at the end of the brass yardstick that was screwed to the counter.
He moved towards the counter, but was driven back by the woman’s fat flailing arms.
Then silence fell on the shop. The woman’s arms became still. Through the back doorway, to the right of the counter, Mrs Tulsi appeared. She was as laden as Tara with jewellery; she lacked Tara’s sprightliness but was statelier; her face, though not plump, was slack, as if unexercised.
Mr Biswas moved back to his tins and brushes.
‘Yes, ma’am, I want to see you.’ The woman was breathless with anger. ‘I want to see you. I want you to beat that child, ma’am. I want you to beat that conceited, rude child of yours.’
‘All right, miss. All right.’ Mrs Tulsi pressed her thin lips together repeatedly. ‘Tell me what happened.’ She spoke English in a slow, precise way which surprised Mr Biswas and filled him with apprehension. She was now behind the counter and her fingers which, like her face, were creased rather than wrinkled, rubbed along the brass yardstick. From time to time, while she listened, she pressed the corner of her veil over her moving lips.
Mr Biswas, now busily cleaning brushes, wiping them dry, and putting soap in the bristle to keep it supple, was sure that Mrs Tulsi was listening with only half a mind, that her eyes had been caught by the note: I love you and I want to talk to you.
Mrs Tulsi spoke some abuse to Shama in Hindi, the obscenity of which startled Mr Biswas. The woman looked pacified. Mrs Tulsi promised to look further into the matter and gave the woman a pair of flesh-coloured stockings free. The woman began to retell her story. Mrs Tulsi, treating the matter as closed, repeated that she was giving the stockings free. The woman went on unhurriedly to the end of the story. Then she walked slowly out of the shop, muttering, exaggeratedly swinging her large hips.
The note was in Mrs Tulsi’s hand. She held it just above the counter, far from her eyes, and read it, patting her lips with her veil.
‘Shama, that was a shameless thing