A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [66]
During these weeks the strangeness of their solitude lessened. But they were as yet unused to their new relationship and though they never quarrelled their talk remained impersonal and constrained. The solitude embarrassed Mr Biswas by the intimacy it imposed, especially during the serving of food. The atmosphere of service and devotion was flattering, but at the same time unsettling. It strained Mr Biswas and he was even glad when abruptly, it broke.
One evening Shama said, ‘We must have a house-blessing ceremony, and get Hari to bless the shop and house, and have Mai and Uncle and everybody else here.’
He was taken completely by surprise, and lost his temper. ‘What the hell you think I look like?’ he asked in English. ‘The Maharajah of Barrackpore? And what the hell for I should get Hari to come and bless this place? This place? Look for yourself.’ He pointed to the kitchen and slapped the wall of the shop. ‘Is bad enough as it is. To feed your family on top of all this is really going too damn far.’
And Shama did something he hadn’t heard for weeks: she sighed, the old weary Shama sigh. And she said nothing.
In the days that followed he learned something new: how a woman nagged. The very word, nag, was known to him only from foreign books and magazines. It had puzzled him. Living in a wife-beating society, he couldn’t understand why women were even allowed to nag or how nagging could have any effect. He saw that there were exceptional women, Mrs Tulsi and Tara, for example, who could never be beaten. But most of the women he knew were like Sushila, the widowed Tulsi daughter. She talked with pride of the beatings she had received from her short-lived husband. She regarded them as a necessary part of her training and often attributed the decay of Hindu society in Trinidad to the rise of the timorous, weak, non-beating class of husband.
To this class Mr Biswas belonged. So Shama nagged; and nagged so well that from the first he knew she was nagging. It amazed him that someone so young should show herself so competent in such an alien skill. But there were things which should have warned him. She had never run a house, but at The Chase she had always behaved like an experienced housewife. Then there was her pregnancy. She took that as easily as if she had borne many children; she never spoke about it, ate no special foods, made no special preparations, and generally behaved so normally that at times he forgot she was pregnant.
So Shama nagged. With her gloom and a refusal to speak, first of all; then with a precise, economical and noisy efficiency. She didn’t ignore Mr Biswas. She made it clear that she noted his presence, and that it filled her with despair. At nights, next to him, but without touching him, she sighed loudly and blew her nose just at those moments when he was dropping off to sleep. She turned heavily and impatiently from side to side.
For the first two days he pretended not to notice.
On the third day he asked, ‘What happen to you?’
She didn’t reply, sitting next to him at the table, sighing, watching him while he ate. He asked again.
She said, ‘Talk about ungrateful!’ and was up and out of the room.
He ate with diminished appetite.
That night Shama blew her nose repeatedly, and turned over in bed.
Mr Biswas prepared to stick it out.
Then Shama was silent.
Mr Biswas thought he had won.
Then Shama snuffled, very low, as though ashamed that the sound had escaped her.
Mr Biswas grew very still, and listened to his own breathing. It sounded regular and unnatural. He opened his eyes and looked up at the thatched roof. He could make out the rafters and the loose straws