A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [44]
He bit at a slice of pickled mango and nodded.
‘It is a modern custom,’ Tara said. ‘And like most modern customs, very economical.’
‘They didn’t even pay me for the signs.’
‘You didn’t ask?’
‘Yes,’ he lied. ‘But you don’t know those people.’ He would have been ashamed to explain the organization of the Tulsi house, and to say that his signs were probably considered contributions to the family endeavour.
‘You just leave this to me,’ Tara said.
His heart sank. He had wanted her to declare that he was free, that he needn’t go back, that he could forget the Tulsis and Shama.
And he was no happier when she went to Hanuman House and came back with what she said was good news. He was not to live at Hanuman House forever; the Tulsis had decided to set him up as soon as possible in a shop in a village called The Chase.
He was married. Nothing now, except death, could change that.
‘They told me that they only wanted to help you out,’ Tara said. ‘They said you didn’t want any dowry or big wedding and they didn’t offer because it was a love match.’ Reproach was in her voice.
‘Love match!’ Ajodha cried. ‘Rabidat, listen to that.’ He punched Bhandat’s younger boy in the belly. ‘Love match!’
Rabidat gave his contemptuous smile.
Mr Biswas looked angrily and accusingly at Rabidat. He held Rabidat, more than anyone else, responsible for his marriage and wanted to say it was Rabidat’s taunt which had made him write that note to Shama. Instead, ignoring Ajodha’s chuckles and shrieks, he said, ‘Love match? What love match? They are lying.’
In a disappointed, tired way Tara said, ‘They showed me a love letter.’ She used the English word; it sounded vicious.
Ajodha shrieked again. ‘Love letter! Mohun!’
Bhandat’s boy continued to smile.
Their mood seemed to infect Tara. ‘Mrs Tulsi told me that she believed you wanted to go on with your sign-writing and that Hanuman House was the best place to work from.’ She had begun to smile. ‘Everything’s all right now, boy. You can go back to your wife.’
The stress she gave to the word ‘wife’ wounded Mr Biswas.
‘You have got yourself into a real gum-pot,’ she added, more sympathetically. ‘And I had such nice plans for you.’
‘I wish you had told me,’ he said, without irony.
‘Go back and get your wife!’ Ajodha said.
He paid no attention to Ajodha and asked Tara in English, ‘You like she?’ Hindi was too intimate and tender.
Tara shrugged, to say that it was none of her business; and this hurt Mr Biswas, for it emphasized his loneliness: Tara’s interest in Shama might have made everything more bearable. He thought he would show an equal unconcern. Lightly, smiling back at Ajodha, he asked Tara, ‘I suppose they vex with me now over there, eh?’
His tone angered her. ‘What’s the matter? Are you afraid of them already, like every other man in that place?’
‘Afraid? No. You don’t know me.’
But it was some days before he could make up his mind to go back. He didn’t know what his rights were, didn’t believe in the shop at The Chase, and his plans were vague. Only, he doubted that he would return to the back trace, and when he packed, he packed everything, Bipti crying happily all the while. As he cycled past the unfinished, open houses on the County Road, he wondered how many nights he would spend behind the closed façade of Hanuman House.
‘What?’ Shama said in English. ‘You come back already? You tired catching crab in Pagotes?’
Despite the adventurousness and danger of his calling, the crab-catcher was considered the lowest of the low.
‘I thought I would come and help all-you catch some here,’ Mr Biswas replied, and killed the giggles in the hall.
No other comment was made. He had expected to be met by silence, stares, hostility and perhaps a little fear. He got the stares; the noise continued; the fear was, of course, only a wild hope; and he couldn’t be sure of the hostility. The interest in his return was momentary and superficial. No one referred to his absence or return, not Seth, not Mrs Tulsi, both of whom continued, as they had done even before he left, hardly to notice him. He