A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [38]
He heard a creak on the staircase and saw a long white skirt and a long white petticoat dancing above silver-braceleted ankles. It was Mrs Tulsi. She moved slowly; he knew from her face that she had spent the afternoon in bed. Without acknowledging his presence she sat on a bench and, as if already tired, rested her jewelled arms on the table. He saw that in one smooth ringed hand she was holding the note.
‘You wrote this?’
He did his best to look puzzled. He stared hard at the note and stretched a hand to take it. Mrs Tulsi pulled the note away and held it up.
‘That? I didn’t write that. Why should I want to write that?’
‘I only thought so because somebody saw you put it down.’
The silence outside was broken. The tall gate in the corrugated iron fence at the side of the courtyard banged repeatedly, and the courtyard was filled with the shuffle and chatter of the children back from school. They passed to the side of the house, under the gallery formed by the projecting loft. A child was crying; another explained why; a woman shouted for silence. From the kitchen came sounds of activity. At once the house felt peopled and full.
Seth came back to the hall, his bluchers resounding on the floor. He had washed and was without his topee; his damp hair, streaked with grey, was combed flat. He sat down across the table from Mrs Tulsi and fitted a cigarette into his cigarette holder.
‘What?’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Somebody saw me put that down?’
Seth laughed. ‘Nothing to be ashamed about.’ He clenched his lips over the cigarette holder and opened the corners of his mouth to laugh.
Mr Biswas was puzzled. It would have been more understandable if they had taken his word and asked him never to come to their house again.
‘I believe I know your family,’ Seth said.
In the gallery outside and in the kitchen there was now a continual commotion. A woman came out of the black doorway with a brass plate and a blue-rimmed enamel cup. She set them before Mrs Tulsi and, without a word, without looking right or left, hurried back to the blackness of the kitchen. The cup contained milky tea, the plate roti and curried beans. Another woman brought similar food in an equally reverential way to Seth. Mr Biswas recognized both women as Shama’s sisters; their dress and manner showed that they were married.
Mrs Tulsi, scooping up some beans with a shovel of roti, said to Seth, ‘Better feed him?’
‘Do you want to eat?’ Seth spoke as though it would have been amusing if Mr Biswas did want to eat.
Mr Biswas disliked what he saw and shook his head.
‘Pull up that chair and sit here,’ Mrs Tulsi said and, barely raising her voice, called, ‘C, bring a cup of tea for this person.’
‘I know your family,’ Seth repeated. ‘Who’s your father again?’
Mr Biswas evaded the question. ‘I am the nephew of Ajodha. Pagotes.’
‘Of course.’ Expertly Seth ejected the cigarette from the holder to the floor and ground it with his bluchers, hissing smoke down from his nostrils and up from his mouth. ‘I know Ajodha. Sold him some land. Dhanku’s land,’ he said, turning to Mrs Tulsi.
‘O yes.’ Mrs Tulsi continued to eat, lifting her armoured hand high above her plate.
C turned out to be the woman who had served Mrs Tulsi. She resembled Shama but was shorter and sturdier and her features were less fine. Her veil was pulled decorously over her forehead, but when she brought Mr Biswas his cup of tea she gave him a frank, unimpressed stare. He attempted to glare back but was too slow; she had already turned and was walking away briskly on light