A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [42]
There was no one in Pagotes he could talk to, for pure shame had kept him from telling Tara or Bipti or Alec that he was going to be married. At Hanuman House, in the press of daughters, sons-in-law and children, he began to feel lost, unimportant and even frightened. No one particularly noticed him. Sometimes, during the general feeding, he might be included; but as yet he had no wife to single him out for attention, to do the little services he saw Shama’s sisters doing for their husbands: the ready ladle, the queries, the formal concern. Shama he seldom saw, and when he did, she ostentatiously ignored him.
It never occurred to him that he might withdraw. He felt he had committed himself in every legal and moral way. And, telling Bipti one morning that he would be away for a short time on a job, he took some of his clothes and moved to Hanuman House. It was only half a lie: he could not believe that the events he was taking part in had any solidity, and could change him in any way. The days were too ordinary for that; nothing unusual could befall him. And shortly, he knew, he would return, unchanged, to the back trace. As a guarantee of that return, he left most of his clothes and all of his books in the hut; it was partly, too, to guarantee this return that he lied to Bipti.
After a brief ceremony at the registrar’s, as make-believe as a child’s game, with paper flowers in dissimilar vases on a straw-coloured, official-looking desk, Mr Biswas and Shama were given part of a long room on the top floor of the wooden house.
And now he became cautious. Now he thought of escape. To leave the way clear for that he thought it important to avoid the final commitment. He didn’t embrace or touch her. He wouldn’t have known, besides, how to begin, with someone who had not spoken a word to him, and whom he still saw with the mocking smile she had given that morning in the store. Not wishing to be tempted, he didn’t look at her, and was relieved when she left the room. He spent the rest of that day imprisoned where he was, listening to the noises of the house.
Neither on that day nor on the following days did anyone speak to him of dowry, house or job; and he realized that there had been no discussions because Mrs Tulsi and Seth didn’t see that there were any problems to discuss. The organization of the Tulsi house was simple. Mrs Tulsi had only one servant, a Negro woman who was called Blackie by Seth and Mrs Tulsi, and Miss Blackie by everyone else. Miss Blackie’s duties were vague. The daughters and their children swept and washed and cooked and served in the store. The husbands, under Seth’s supervision, worked on the Tulsi land, looked after the Tulsi animals, and served in the store. In return they were given food, shelter and a little money; their children were looked after; and they were treated with respect by people outside because they were connected with the Tulsi family. Their names were forgotten; they became Tulsis. There were daughters who had, in the Tulsi marriage lottery, drawn husbands with money and position; these daughters followed the Hindu custom of living with their husband’s families, and formed no part of the Tulsi organization.
Up to this time Mr Biswas thought he had been especially favoured by the Tulsis. But when he came to see how the family disposed of its daughters, he wondered that Seth and Mrs Tulsi had gone to such trouble on two consecutive days to make marriage attractive to him. They had married Shama to him simply because he was of the proper caste, just as they had married the daughter called C to an illiterate coconut-seller.
Mr Biswas had no money or position. He was expected to become a Tulsi.
At once he rebelled.
Pretending not to know what was expected of him, he finished the signs for the Tulsi Store and decided that the time had come to escape, with Shama or without her. It looked as though it would have to be without