House for Mister Biswas Part 44

There were times when she wished to have children about her. Then she summoned the readers and learners to scrub the floor of the drawingroom and verandah, or she made them sing Hindi hymns. Her mood changed without warning, and the readers and learners were perpetually apprehensive, never knowing whether they were required to be solemn or amusing. Sometimes she stood them in lines in her room and made them recite arithmetic tables, flogging the inaccurate with as much vigour as her arms would allow, flabby, muscleless arms, broad and loose towards the armpit, and swinging like dead flesh. Miss Blackie burst into squelchy laughter when a child made a stupid mistake or when Mrs Tulsi made a witticism; and Mrs Tulsi, her eyes masked by dark gla.s.ses, would give a pleased, crooked smile. In sterner moments Miss Blackie grew stern as well and moved her jaws up and down quickly, saying 'Mm!' at every blow Mrs Tulsi gave.

Another trial for the readers and learners was Mrs Tulsi's concern for their health. Every five Sat.u.r.days or so she called them to her room and dosed them with Epsom salts; and between these gloomy, wasted week-ends she listened for coughs and sneezes. There was no escaping her. She had learned to recognize every voice, every laugh, every footstep, every cough and almost every sneeze. She took a special interest in Anand's wheeze and doglike cough. She bought him some poisonous herb cigarettes; when these had no effect she prescribed brandy and water and gave him a bottle of brandy. Anand, while hating the brandy and water, drank it for its literary a.s.sociations: he had read of the mixture in d.i.c.kens.

Sometimes she sent for old friends from Arwacas. They came and camped for a week or so, and listened to Mrs Tulsi. She, refreshed, talked all day and late into the night, while the friends, lying on bedding on the floor, made drowsy mechanical affirmations: 'Yes, Mother. Yes, Mother.' Some visits were cut short by illness, some by carefully doc.u.mented dreams of bad omen; those visitors who stayed to the end went away fatigued, doped, bleary-eyed.

Regularly too, she had pujas, pujas, austere rites aimed at G.o.d alone, without the feasting and gaiety of the Hanuman House ceremonies. The pundit came and Mrs Tulsi sat before him; he read from the scriptures, took his money, changed in the bathroom and left. More and more prayer flags went up in the yard, the white and red pennants fluttering until they were ragged, the bamboo poles going yellow, brown, grey. For every austere rites aimed at G.o.d alone, without the feasting and gaiety of the Hanuman House ceremonies. The pundit came and Mrs Tulsi sat before him; he read from the scriptures, took his money, changed in the bathroom and left. More and more prayer flags went up in the yard, the white and red pennants fluttering until they were ragged, the bamboo poles going yellow, brown, grey. For every puja puja Mrs Tulsi tried a different pundit, since no pundit could please her as well as Hari. And, no pundit pleasing her, her faith yielded. She sent Sus.h.i.+la to burn candles in the Roman Catholic church; she put a crucifix in her room; and she had Pundit Tulsi's grave cleaned for All Saints' Day. Mrs Tulsi tried a different pundit, since no pundit could please her as well as Hari. And, no pundit pleasing her, her faith yielded. She sent Sus.h.i.+la to burn candles in the Roman Catholic church; she put a crucifix in her room; and she had Pundit Tulsi's grave cleaned for All Saints' Day.

The more she was recommended not to exert herself the less she was able to exert herself, until she appeared to live only for her illness. She became obsessed with the decay of her body, and finally wanted the girls to search her head for lice. No louse could have survived the hourly dousing with bay rum which her head received, but she was enraged when the girls found nothing. She called them liars, pinched them, pulled their hair. Sometimes she was only hurt; then she shuffled out to the verandah and sat, taking her veil to her lips, feeding her eyes on the green, as Mrs Tuttle had recommended. She would speak to no one, refuse to eat, reject all care. She would sit, feeding her eyes on the green, the tears running down her slack cheeks below her dark gla.s.ses.

Of all hands she liked Myna's best. She wanted Myna to search her head for lice, wanted Myna to kill them, wanted to hear them being squashed between Myna's fingernails. This preference created some jealousy, upset Myna, annoyed Mr Biswas.

'Don't go and pick her d.a.m.n lice,' Mr Biswas said.

'Don't worry with your father,' Shama said, unwilling to lose this unexpected hold over Mrs Tulsi.

And Myna went and spent hours in Mrs Tulsi's room, her slender fingers exploring every strand of Mrs Tulsi's thin, grey, bay-rum-scented hair. From time to time, to satisfy Mrs Tulsi, Myna clicked her fingernails, and Mrs Tulsi swallowed and said, 'Ah,' pleased that one of her lice had been caught.

An additional constraint came upon the house when Shekhar and his family paid one of their visits to Mrs Tulsi. If Shekhar had come alone he would have been more warmly welcomed by his sisters. But the antagonism between them and Shekhar's Presbyterian wife Dorothy had deepened as Shekhar had prospered and Dorothy's Presbyterianism had become more a.s.sertive and excluding. There had almost been an open quarrel when Shekhar, approached by the widows for a loan to start a mobile restaurant, had offered them jobs in his cinemas instead. They regarded this as an insult and saw in it the hand of Dorothy. Of course they refused: they did not care to be employed by Dorothy and they would never work in a place of public entertainment.

Shekhar could never appear as more than a visitor. He came in his car, led his wife and five elegant daughters upstairs, and for a long time nothing was heard except occasional footsteps and Mrs Tulsi's low voice going evenly on. Then Shekhar came downstairs by himself, forbiddingly correct in white short sleeved sports s.h.i.+rt and white slacks. Having listened to his mother, he now listened to his sisters, staring them in the eye and saying, 'Hm hm,' his top lip hanging over his lower lip and almost concealing it. He spoke little, as though unwilling to disturb the set of his mouth. His words came out abruptly, his expression never changed, and everything he said seemed to have an edge. When he tried to be friendly with the readers and learners he only frightened them. Yet he never appeared unkind; only preoccupied.

After lunch, prepared by Basdai and Sus.h.i.+la and eaten upstairs, Dorothy and her daughters pa.s.sed downstairs, Dorothy booming out her greetings, her daughters remaining close together and speaking in fine, almost inaudible voices. Then Dorothy would look at her watch and say, 'Caramba! Ya son las tres. Donde esta tu Padre? Lena, va a llamarle. Vamos, vamos. Es demasiado tarde. 'Caramba! Ya son las tres. Donde esta tu Padre? Lena, va a llamarle. Vamos, vamos. Es demasiado tarde. Well, all right, people,' she would say, turning to the outraged sisters and the wondering readers and learners, 'we got to go.' Since they had taken to spending holidays in Venezuela and Colombia, Dorothy used Spanish when she spoke to her children or to Shekhar in the presence of her sisters-in-law. Later the sisters agreed that Shekhar was to be pitied; they had all noted his unhappiness. Well, all right, people,' she would say, turning to the outraged sisters and the wondering readers and learners, 'we got to go.' Since they had taken to spending holidays in Venezuela and Colombia, Dorothy used Spanish when she spoke to her children or to Shekhar in the presence of her sisters-in-law. Later the sisters agreed that Shekhar was to be pitied; they had all noted his unhappiness.

Before they left, Shekhar and Dorothy always called on Mr Biswas. Mr Biswas did not relish these calls. It wasn't only that Shekhar's party was campaigning against the Community Welfare Department. Shekhar had never forgotten that Mr Biswas was a clown, and whenever they met he tried to provoke an act of clowning. He made a belittling remark, and Mr Biswas was expected to extend this remark wittily and fancifully. To Mr Biswas's fury, Dorothy had also adopted this att.i.tude; and from this relations.h.i.+p there was no escape, since anger and retaliation were counted parts of the game. Shekhar came into the front room and asked in his brusque, humourless manner, 'Is the welfare officer still well-fed?' Then he hoisted himself on to the dest.i.tute's diningtable and threatened Mr Biswas with the destruction of the department and joblessness. For a time Mr Biswas responded in his old way. He told stories about civil servants, spoke of the trouble he had making up his expense sheets, the work he had looking for work. But soon he made his annoyance plain. 'You take these things too personally,' Shekhar said, still playing the game. 'Our differences are only political. You've got to be a little more sophisticated, man.' 'Be a little more sophisticated,' Mr Biswas said, when Shekhar left. 'On a hungry belly? The old scorpion. Wouldn't care a d.a.m.n if I lose my job tomorrow.'

For some time there had been rumours. And now at last the news was given out: Owad, Mrs Tulsi's younger son, was returning from England. Everyone was excited. Sisters came up from Shorthills in their best clothes to talk over the news. Owad was the adventurer of the family. Absence had turned him into a legend, and his glory was undiminished by the numbers of students who were leaving the colony every week to study medicine in England, America, Canada and India. His exact attainments were not known, but were felt by all to be extraordinary and almost beyond comprehension. He was a doctor, a professional man, with letters after his name! And he belonged to them! They could no longer claim Shekhar. But every sister had a story which proved how close she had been to Owad, what regard he had had for her.

Mr Biswas felt as proprietary as the sisters towards Owad and shared their excitement. But he was uneasy. Once, many years before, he had felt that he had to leave Hanuman House before Owad and Mrs Tulsi returned to it. Now he experienced the same unease: the same sense of threat, the same need to leave before it was too late. Over and over he checked the money he had saved, the money he was going to save. His additions appeared on cigarette packets, in the margins of newspapers, on the backs of buff government folders. The sum never varied: he had six hundred and twenty dollars; by the end of the year he would have seven hundred. It was a staggering sum, more than he had ever possessed all at once. But it couldn't attract a loan to buy any house other than one of those wooden tenements that awaited condemnation. At two thousand dollars or so they were bargains, but only for speculators who could take the tenants to court, rebuild, or wait for the site to rise in value. Now, his anxiety growing with the excitement about him, Mr Biswas scanned agents' lists every morning and drove about the city looking for places to rent. When for one whole week the City Council bought pages and pages in the newspapers to serialize the list of houses it was putting up for auction because their rates had not been paid, Mr Biswas turned up at the Town Hall with all the city's estate agents; but he lacked the confidence to bid.

He could not avoid Mrs Tulsi when he returned to the house. She sat in the verandah, feeding her eyes on the green, patting her lips with her veil.

And though he had nerved himself for the blow, he grew frantic when it came.

It was Shama who brought the message.

'The old b.i.t.c.h can't throw me out like that,' Mr Biswas said. 'I still have some rights. She has got to provide me with alternative accommodation.' And: 'Die, you b.i.t.c.h!' he hissed towards the verandah. 'Die!'

'Man!'

'Die! Sending poor little Myna to pick her lice. That did you any good? Eh? Think she would throw out the little G.o.d like that? O no. The G.o.d must have a room to himself. You and me and my children can sleep in sugarsacks. The Tulsi sleeping-bag. Patents applied for. Die, you old b.i.t.c.h!'

They heard Mrs Tulsi mumbling placidly to Sus.h.i.+la.

'I have my rights,' Mr Biswas said. 'This is not like the old days. You can't just stick a piece of paper on my door and throw me out. Alternative accommodation, if you please.'

But Mrs Tulsi had provided alternative accommodation: a room in one of the tenements whose rents Shama had collected years before. The wooden walls were unpainted, grey-black, rotting; at every step on the patched, shaky floor wood dust excavated by woodlice showered down; there was no ceiling and the naked galvanized roof was fluffy with soot; there was no electricity. Where would the furniture go? Where would they sleep, cook, wash? Where would the children study?

He vowed never to talk to Mrs Tulsi again; and she, as though sensing his resolve, did not speak to him. Morning after morning he went from house to house, looking for rooms to rent, until he was exhausted, and exhaustion burned out his anger. Then in the afternoons he drove to his area, where he stayed until evening.

Returning late one night to the house, which seemed to him more and more ordered and sheltering, he saw Mrs Tulsi sitting in the verandah in the dark. She was humming a hymn, softly, as though she were alone, removed from the world. He did not greet her, and was pa.s.sing into his room when she spoke.

'Mohun?' Her voice was groping, amiable.

He stopped.

'Mohun?'

'Yes, Mother.'

'How is Anand? I haven't heard his cough these last few days.'

'He's all right.'

'Children, children. Trouble, trouble. But do you remember how Owad used to work? Eating and reading. Helping in the store and reading. Checking money and reading. Helping head and head with everybody else, and still reading. You remember Hanuman House, Mohun?'

He recognized her mood, and did not wish to be seduced by it. 'It was a big house. Bigger than the place we are going to.'

She was unruffled. 'Did they show you Owad's letter?'

Those of Owad's letters which went the rounds were mainly about English flowers and the English weather. They were semi-literary, and were in a large handwriting with big s.p.a.ces between the words and big gaps between the lines. 'The February fogs have at last gone,' Owad used to write, 'depositing a thick coating of black on every window-sill. The snowdrops have come and gone, but the daffodils will be here soon. I planted six daffodils in my tiny front garden. Five have grown. The sixth appears to be a failure. My only hope is that they will not turn out to be blind, as they were last year.'

'He never took much interest in flowers when he was a boy,' Mrs Tulsi said.

'I suppose he was too busy reading.'

'He always liked you, Mohun. I suppose that was because you were a big reader yourself. I don't know. Perhaps I should have married all my daughters to big readers. Owad always said that. But Seth, you know ' She stopped; it was the first time he had heard her speak the name for years. 'The old ways have become oldfas.h.i.+oned so quickly, Mohun. I hear that you are looking for a house.'

'I have my eye on something.'

'I am sorry about the inconvenience. But we have to get the house ready for Owad. It isn't his father's house, Mohun. Wouldn't it be nice if he could come back to his father's house?'

'Very nice.'

'You wouldn't like the smell of paint. And it's dangerous too. We are putting up some awnings and louvres here and there. Modern things.'

'It sounds very nice.'

'Really for Owad. Though I suppose it would be nice for you to come back to.'

'Come back to?'

'Aren't you coming back?'

'But yes,' he said, and couldn't keep the eagerness out of his voice. 'Yes, of course. Louvres would be very nice.'

Shama was elated at the news.

'I never did believe,' she said, 'that Ma did want us to stay away for good.' She spoke of Mrs Tulsi's regard for Myna, her gift of brandy to Anand.

'G.o.d!' Mr Biswas said, suddenly offended. 'So you've got the reward for lice-picking? You're sending back Myna to pick some more, eh? G.o.d! G.o.d! Cat and mouse! Cat and mouse!'

It sickened him that he had fallen into Mrs Tulsi's trap and shown himself grateful to her. She was keeping him, like her daughters, within her reach. And he was in her power, as he had been ever since he had gone to the Tulsi Store and seen Shama behind the counter.

'Cat and mouse!'

At any moment she might change her mind. Even if she didn't, to what would they be allowed to come back? Two rooms, one room, or only a camping place below the house? She had shown how she could use her power; and now she had to be courted and pacified. When she was nostalgic he had to share her nostalgia; when she was abusive he had to forget.

To escape, he had only six hundred dollars. He belonged to the Community Welfare Department: he was an unestablished civil servant. Should the department be destroyed, so would he.

'Trap!' he accused Shama. 'Trap!'

He sought quarrels with her and the children.

'Sell the d.a.m.n car!' he shouted. And knowing how this humiliated Shama, he said it downstairs, where it was heard by sisters and the readers and learners.

He became surly, constantly in pain. He threw things in his room. He pulled down the pictures he had framed and broke them. He threw a gla.s.s of milk at Anand and cut him above the eye. He slapped Shama downstairs. So that to the house he became, like Govind, an object of contempt and ridicule. Beside him, the Community Welfare Officer, the absent Owad shone with virtue, success and the regard of everyone.

They moved the gla.s.s cabinet, Shama's dressingtable, Theophile's bookcase, the hatrack and the Slumberking to the tenement. The iron fourposter was dismantled and taken downstairs with the dest.i.tute's diningtable and the rockingchair, whose rockers splintered on the rough, uneven concrete. Life became nightmarish, divided between the tenement room and the area below the house. Shama continued to cook below the house. Sometimes the children slept there with the readers and learners; sometimes they slept with Mr Biswas in the tenement.

And every afternoon Mr Biswas drove to his area to spread knowledge of the finer things in life. He distributed booklets; he lectured; he formed organizations and became involved in the complicated politics of small villages; and late at night he drove back to Port of Spain, to the tenement which was far worse than any of the houses he had visited during the day. The Prefect became coated with dust which rain had hardened and dappled; the floormats were dirty; the back seat was dusty and covered with folders and old, brown newspapers.

His duties then took him to Arwacas, where he was organizing a 'leaders.h.i.+p' course. And, to avoid the long late drive to Port of Spain, to avoid the tenement and his family, he decided to spend the time at Hanuman House. The back house had been vacant for some time, and no one lived there except a widow who, pursuing an undisclosed business scheme, had stolen back from Shorthills, trusting to her insignificance to escape Seth's notice. There was little need for her to worry. For some time after the death of his wife Seth had acted wildly. He had been charged with wounding and using insulting behaviour, and had lost much local support. His skills appeared to have left him as well. He had tried to insuranburn one of his old lorries and had been caught and charged with conspiracy. He had been acquitted but it had cost much money; and he had thereafter grown quiescent. He looked after his dingy foodshop, sent no threats, and no longer spoke of buying over Hanuman House. The family quarrel, never bursting into incident, had become history; neither Seth nor the Tulsis were as important in Arwacas as they had been.

In the store the Tulsi name had been replaced by the Scottish name of a Port of Spain firm, and this name had been spoken for so long that it now fully belonged and no one was aware of any incongruity. A large red advertis.e.m.e.nt for Bata shoes hung below the statue of Hanuman, and the store was bright and busy. But at the back the house was dead. The courtyard was littered with packing cases, straw, large sheets of stiff brown paper, and cheap untreated kitchen furniture. In the wooden house the doorway between the kitchen and hall had been boarded over and the hall used as a storeroom for paddy, which sent its musty smell and warm tickling dust everywhere. The loft at one side was as dark and jumbled as before. The tank was still in the yard but there were no fish in it; the black paint was blistered and flaked, and the brackish rainwater, with iridescent streaks as of oil on its surface, jumped with mosquito larvae. The almond tree was still spa.r.s.e-leaved, as though it had been stripped by a storm in the night; the ground below was dry and fibrous. In the garden the Queen of Flowers had become a tree; the oleander had grown until its virtue had been exhausted and it was flowerless; the zinnias and marigolds were lost in bush. All day the Sindhis who had taken over the shop next door played mournful Indian film songs on their gramophone; and their food had strange smells. Yet there were times when the wooden house appeared to be awaiting reanimation: when, in the still hot afternoons, from yards away came the thoughtful cackling of fowls, the sounds of dull activity; when in the evenings oil lamps were lit, and conversation was heard, and laughter, a dog being called, a child being flogged. But Hanuman House was silent. No one stayed when the store closed; and the Sindhis next door slept early.

The widow occupied the Book Room. This large room had always been bare. Stripped of its stacks of printed sheets, surrounded by emptiness, the muted sounds of life from neighbouring houses, the paddy rising high in the hall downstairs, it seemed more desolate than ever. A cot was in one corner; religious and comforting pictures hung low on the walls about it; next to it was a small chest in which the widow kept her belongings.

The widow, pursuing her business, visiting, was seldom in. Mr Biswas welcomed the silence, the stillness. He requisitioned a desk and swivel-chair from government stores (strange, such proofs of power), and turned the long room into an office. In this room, where the lotuses still bloomed on the wall, he had lived with Shama. Through the Demerara window he had tried to spit on Owad and flung the plateful of food on him. In this room he had been beaten by Govind, had kicked Bell's Standard Elocutionist Bell's Standard Elocutionist and given it the dent on the cover. Here, claimed by no one, he had reflected on the unreality of his life, and had wished to make a mark on the wall as proof of his existence. Now he needed no such proof. Relations.h.i.+ps had been created where none existed; he stood at their centre. In that very unreality had lain freedom. Now he was enc.u.mbered, and it was at Hanuman House that he tried to forget the enc.u.mbrance: the children, the scattered furniture, the dark tenement room, and Shama, as helpless as he was and now, what he had longed for, dependent on him. and given it the dent on the cover. Here, claimed by no one, he had reflected on the unreality of his life, and had wished to make a mark on the wall as proof of his existence. Now he needed no such proof. Relations.h.i.+ps had been created where none existed; he stood at their centre. In that very unreality had lain freedom. Now he was enc.u.mbered, and it was at Hanuman House that he tried to forget the enc.u.mbrance: the children, the scattered furniture, the dark tenement room, and Shama, as helpless as he was and now, what he had longed for, dependent on him.

On the baize-covered desk in the long room there were gla.s.ses and spoons stained white with Maclean's Brand Stomach Powder, sheafs and sheafs of paper connected with his duties as Community Welfare Officer, and the long, half-used pad in which he noted his expenses for the Prefect, parked in the grounds of the court house.

The redecoration of the house in Port of Spain proceeded slowly. Frightened by the price, Mrs Tulsi had not handed over the job to a contractor. Instead, she employed individual workmen, whom she regularly abused and dismissed. She had no experience of city workpeople and could not understand why they were unwilling to work for food and a little pocketmoney. Miss Blackie blamed the Americans and said that rapaciousness was one of her people's faults. Even after wages had been agreed Mrs Tulsi was never willing to pay fully. Once, after he had worked for a fortnight, a burly mason, insulted by the two women, left the house in tears, threatening to go to the police. 'My people, mum,' Miss Blackie said apologetically.

It was nearly three months before the work was done. The house was painted upstairs and downstairs, inside and out. Striped awnings hung over the windows; and gla.s.s louvres, looking fragile and out of place in that clumsy, heavy house, darkened the verandahs.

And Mr Biswas's nightmare came to an end. He was invited to return from the tenement. He did not return to his two rooms but, as he had feared, to one, at the back. The rooms he had surrendered were reserved for Owad. Govind and Chinta moved into Basdai's room, and Basdai, able now only to board, moved under the house with her readers and learners. In his one room Mr Biswas fitted his two beds, Theophile's bookcase and Shama's dressingtable. The dest.i.tute's diningtable remained downstairs. There was no room for Shama's gla.s.s cabinet, but Mrs Tulsi offered to lodge it in her diningroom. It was safe there and made a pleasing, modern show. Sometimes the children slept in the room; sometimes they slept downstairs. Nothing was fixed. Yet after the tenement the new arrangement seemed ordered and was a relief.

And now Mr Biswas began to make fresh calculations, working out over and over the number of years that separated each of his children from adulthood. Savi was indeed a grown person. Concentrating on Anand, he had not observed her with attention. And she herself had grown reserved and grave; she no longer quarrelled with her cousins, though she could still be sharp; and she never cried. Anand was more than halfway through college. Soon, Mr Biswas thought, his responsibilities would be over. The older would look after the younger. Somehow, as Mrs Tulsi had said in the hall of Hanuman House when Savi was born, they would survive: they couldn't be killed. Then he thought: 'I have missed their childhoods.'

6. The Revolution

A LETTER from London. A postcard from Vigo. Mrs Tulsi ceased to be ill and irritable, and spent most of her day in the front verandah, waiting. The house began to fill with sisters, their children and grandchildren, and shook with squeals and thumps. A huge tent was put up in the yard. The bamboo poles were fringed with coconut branches which curved to form arches, and a cl.u.s.ter of fruit hung from every arch. Cooking went on late into the night, and singing; and everyone slept where he could find a place. It was like an old Hanuman House festival. There had been nothing like it since Owad had gone away. from London. A postcard from Vigo. Mrs Tulsi ceased to be ill and irritable, and spent most of her day in the front verandah, waiting. The house began to fill with sisters, their children and grandchildren, and shook with squeals and thumps. A huge tent was put up in the yard. The bamboo poles were fringed with coconut branches which curved to form arches, and a cl.u.s.ter of fruit hung from every arch. Cooking went on late into the night, and singing; and everyone slept where he could find a place. It was like an old Hanuman House festival. There had been nothing like it since Owad had gone away.

A cable from Barbados threw the house into a frenzy. Mrs Tulsi became gay. 'Your heart, mum,' Miss Blackie said. But Mrs Tulsi couldn't sit still. She insisted on being taken downstairs; she inspected, she joked; she went upstairs and came downstairs again; she went a dozen times to the rooms reserved for Owad. And in the confusion a messenger was sent to summon the pundit even after the pundit had come, a self-effacing man who, in trousers and s.h.i.+rt, had pa.s.sed unnoticed in the growing crowd.

The sisters announced their intention of staying awake all that night. There was so much cooking to do, they said. The children fell asleep. The group of men around the pundit thinned; the pundit fell asleep. The sisters cooked and joyously complained of overwork; they sang sad wedding songs; they made pots of coffee; they played cards. Some sisters disappeared for an hour or so, but none admitted she had gone to sleep, and Chinta boasted that she could stay awake for seventy-two hours, boasting as though Govind was still the devoted son of the family, as though his brutalities had not occurred, as though time had not pa.s.sed and they were still sisters in the hall of Hanuman House.

They grew lethargic just before dawn, but the morning light kindled them into fresh, over-energetic activity. Children were washed and fed and dressed before the street awoke; the house was swept and cleaned. Mrs Tulsi was bathed and dressed by Sus.h.i.+la; on her smooth skin there were small beads of perspiration, although the sun had not yet come out and she seldom perspired. Presently the visitors started arriving, many of them only tenuously related to the house, and not a few the relations, say, of a grandchild's in-laws unknown. The street was choked with cars and bright with the dresses of women and girls. Shekhar and Dorothy and their five daughters came. Everyone fussed about something: children, food, wharf-pa.s.ses, transport. Continually cars drove off with an important noise. Their drivers, returning, showed pa.s.ses and told of encounters with startled harbour officials.

For Mr Biswas it had been a difficult night. And the morning began badly. When he asked Anand to bring him the Guardian Guardian Anand reported that the paper had been appropriated by the pundit and had disappeared. Then he was turned out of the room while Shama and the girls dressed. Downstairs was chaos. He took one look at the bathroom and decided not to use it that day. When he went back to the room it was filled with the slight but offensive smell of face powder and there were clothes everywhere. Miserably, he dressed. 'The wreck of the blasted Hesperus,' he said, using a comb to clean his brush of woman's hair, sniffing as the dust rose visibly in the sunlight that slanted in below the striped awning. Shama noted his irritability but did not comment upon it; this enraged him further. The house, upstairs and down, resounded with impatient footsteps, shouts and shrieks. Anand reported that the paper had been appropriated by the pundit and had disappeared. Then he was turned out of the room while Shama and the girls dressed. Downstairs was chaos. He took one look at the bathroom and decided not to use it that day. When he went back to the room it was filled with the slight but offensive smell of face powder and there were clothes everywhere. Miserably, he dressed. 'The wreck of the blasted Hesperus,' he said, using a comb to clean his brush of woman's hair, sniffing as the dust rose visibly in the sunlight that slanted in below the striped awning. Shama noted his irritability but did not comment upon it; this enraged him further. The house, upstairs and down, resounded with impatient footsteps, shouts and shrieks.

The cavalcade left the house in sections. Mrs Tulsi travelled in Shekhar's car. Mr Biswas went in his Prefect; but his family had split up and gone in other cars, and he was obliged to take some people he didn't know.

The liner, white and reposed, lay at anchor in the gulf. A chair was found for Mrs Tulsi and set against the dull magenta wall of the customs shed. She was dressed in white, her veil pulled over her forehead. She pressed her lips together from time to time and crumpled a handkerchief in one hand. She was flanked by Miss Blackie, in her churchgoing clothes and a straw hat with a red ribbon, and by Sus.h.i.+la, who carried a large bag with an a.s.sortment of medicines.

A tug hooted. The liner was being towed in. Some of the children, those who had learnt at school that one proof of the roundness of the earth was the way s.h.i.+ps disappeared beyond the horizon, exaggerated the distance between s.h.i.+p and wharf. Many said the s.h.i.+p would come alongside in two to three hours. s.h.i.+vadhar, Chinta's younger son, said it wouldn't do so until the evening of the following day.

But the adults were concerned with something else.

'Don't tell Mai,' the sisters whispered.

Seth was on the wharf. He stood two customs sheds away. He was in a cheap suit of an atrocious brown, and to anyone who remembered him in his khaki uniform and heavy bluchers he looked like a labourer in his Sunday suit.

Mr Biswas glanced at Shekhar. He and Dorothy were staring resolutely at the approaching s.h.i.+p.

Seth was uncomfortable. He fidgeted. He took out his long cigarette holder from his breast pocket and, concentrating, fixed a cigarette into it. With that suit, and with such uncertain gestures, the cigarette holder was an absurd affectation, and appeared so to the children who could not remember him. As soon as he had lighted the cigarette a khaki-uniformed official pounced and pointed to the large white notices in English and French on the customs sheds. Seth ejected the cigarette and crushed it with the sole of an uns.h.i.+ning brown shoe. He replaced the holder in his breast pocket and clasped his hands behind his back.

Soon, too soon for some of the children, the s.h.i.+p was alongside. The tugs hooted, retrieved their ropes. Ropes were flung from s.h.i.+p to wharf, which now, in the shadow of the white hull, was sheltered and almost roomlike.

Then they saw him. He was wearing a suit they had never known, and he had a Robert Taylor moustache. His jacket was open, his hands in his trouser pockets. His shoulders had broadened and he had grown altogether bigger. His face was fuller, almost fat, with enormous round cheeks; if he wasn't tall he would have looked gross.

'Is the cold in England,' someone said, explaining the cheeks.

Mrs Tulsi, Miss Blackie, the sisters, Shekhar, Dorothy and every granddaughter who had borne a child began to cry silently.

A young white woman joined Owad behind the rails. They laughed and talked.

'Are bap!' one of Mrs Tulsi's woman friends cried out through her tears. one of Mrs Tulsi's woman friends cried out through her tears.

But it was only a pa.s.sing alarm.

The gangway was laid down. The children went to the edge of the quay and examined the mooring ropes and tried to look through the lighted portholes. Someone started a discussion about anchors.

And then he was down. His eyes were wet.

Mrs Tulsi, sitting on her chair, all her effervescence gone, lifted her face to him as he stooped to kiss her. Then she held him round the legs. Sus.h.i.+la, in tears, opened her bag and held a bright blue bottle of smellig-salts at the ready. Miss Blackie wept with Mrs Tulsi, and every time Mrs Tulsi sniffed, Miss Blackie said, 'Hm-mm. Hm. Mm.' Children, ungreeted, stared. The brothers shook hands, like men, and smiled at one another. Then it was the turn of the sisters. They were kissed; they burst into new tears and feverishly attempted to introduce those of their children who had been born in the intervening years. Owad, kissing, crying, went through them quickly. Then it was the turn of the eight surviving husbands. Govind, who had known Owad well, was not there, but W. C. Tuttle, who had scarcely known him, was. Long brahminical hairs sprouted out of his ears, and he drew further attention to himself by closing his eyes, neatly shaking away tears, putting a hand on Owad's head and speaking a Hindi benediction. As his turn came nearer Mr Biswas felt himself weakening, and when he offered his hand he was ready to weep. But Owad, though taking the hand, suddenly grew distant.

Seth was advancing towards Owad. He was smiling, tears in his eyes, raising his hands as he approached.

In that moment it was clear that despite his age, despite Shekhar, Owad was the new head of the family. Everyone looked at him. If he gave the sign, there was to be a reconciliation.

'Son, son,' Seth said in Hindi.

The sound of his voice, which they had not heard for years, thrilled them all.