A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [99]
‘O God!’
The sight of the wrecked house and the silence of her father made Savi cry afresh.
‘Ma mash it up.’
He ran back to the house. The edge of a wall scraped against his shoulder, tearing his shirt and tearing the skin below.
Sisters had now left the stairs and kitchen and were sitting about the hall.
‘Shama!’ he bawled. ‘Shama!’
Savi came slowly up the steps from the courtyard. Sisters shifted their gaze from Mr Biswas to her and she remained in the doorway, looking down at her feet.
‘Shama!’
He heard a sister whisper, ‘Go and call your aunt Shama. Quick.’
He noticed Anand among the children and sisters. ‘Come here, boy!’
Anand looked at the sisters. They gave him no help. He didn’t move.
‘Anand, I call you! Come here quick sharp.’
‘Go, boy,’ Sumati said. ‘Before you get blows.’
While Anand hesitated, Shama came. She came through the kitchen doorway. Her veil was pulled over her forehead. This unusual touch of dutifulness he noted. She looked frightened yet determined.
‘You bitch!’
The silence was absolute.
Sisters shooed away their children up the stairs and into the kitchen.
Savi remained in the doorway behind Mr Biswas. ‘I don’t mind what you call me,’ Shama said. ‘You break up the dolly house?’
Her eyes widened with fear and guilt and shame. ‘Yes,’ she said, exaggeratedly calm. Then casually, ‘I break it up.’
‘To please who?’ He was losing control of his voice.
She didn’t answer.
He noticed that she looked lonely. ‘Tell me,’ he screamed. ‘To please these people?’
Chinta got up, straightened out her long skirt and started to walk up the stairs. ‘Let me go away, eh, before I hear something I don’t like and have to answer back.’
‘I wasn’t pleasing anybody but myself.’ Shama was speaking more surely now and he could see that she was gaining strength from the approval of her sisters.
‘You know what I think of you and your family?’
Two more sisters went up the stairs.
‘I don’t care what you think.’
And suddenly his rage had gone. His shouts rang in his head, leaving him startled, ashamed and tired. He could think of nothing to say.
She recognized the change in his mood and waited, at ease now.
‘Go and dress Savi.’ He spoke quietly.
She made no move.
‘Go and dress Savi!’
His shout frightened Savi and she began to scream. She was trembling and when he touched her she felt brittle.
Shama at last moved to obey.
Savi pulled away. ‘I don’t want anybody to dress me.’
‘Go and pack her clothes.’
‘You are taking her with you?’
It was his turn to be silent.
The children who had been shooed away into the kitchen pushed their faces out of the doorway.
Shama walked the length of the hall to the stairs, where sisters, sitting on the lower steps, pulled their knees in to let her pass.
At once everybody relaxed.
Sumati said in an amused voice, ‘Anand, are you going with your father too?’
Anand pulled his head back into the kitchen.
The hall became active again. Children drifted back, and sisters hurried between kitchen and hall, laying out the evening meal. Chinta returned and started on a light-hearted song, which was taken up by other sisters.
The drama was over, and Shama’s re-entry, with ribbons, comb and a small cardboard suitcase, did not have the same attention as her exit.
Offering the suitcase with outstretched hand, Shama said, ‘She is your daughter. You know what is good for her. You have been feeding her. You know —’
He set his mouth, pulling his upper teeth behind his lower.
Chinta broke off her singing to say to Savi, ‘Going home, girl?’
‘Put some shoes on her feet,’ Shama said.
But that meant washing Savi’s feet, and that meant delay; and, pushing away Shama when she tried to comb Savi’s hair, he led Savi outside. It was only when they were in the High Street that he remembered Anand.
Market day was over and the street was littered with broken boxes, torn paper, straw, rotting vegetables, animal droppings and, though it hadn’t rained, a number of puddles. By the light of flambeaux stalls were being stripped and carts loaded