A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul
While he hesitated a fat Negro woman went to Shama’s counter and asked for flesh-coloured stockings, which were then enjoying some vogue in rural Trinidad.
Shama, still smiling, took down a box and held up a pair of black cotton stockings.
‘Eh!’ The woman’s gasp could be heard throughout the shop. ‘You playing with me? How the hell all-you get so fresh and conceited?’ She began to curse. ‘Playing with me!’ She pulled boxes and bolts of cloth off the counter and hurled them to the floor and every time something crashed she shouted, ‘Playing with me!’ One of the Tulsi sons-in-law ran up to pacify her. She cuffed him back. ‘Where the old lady?’ she called, and screamed, ‘Mai! Mai!’ as though in great pain.
Shama had ceased to smile. Fright was plain on her face. Mr Biswas had no desire to comfort her. She looked so much like a child now that he only became more ashamed of the note. The bolt of cloth which concealed it had been thrown to the ground, and the note was exposed, caught at the end of the brass yardstick that was screwed to the counter.
He moved towards the counter, but was driven back by the woman’s fat flailing arms.
Then silence fell on the shop. The woman’s arms became still. Through the back doorway, to the right of the counter, Mrs Tulsi appeared. She was as laden as Tara with jewellery; she lacked Tara’s sprightliness but was statelier; her face, though not plump, was slack, as if unexercised.
Mr Biswas moved back to his tins and brushes.
‘Yes, ma’am, I want to see you.’ The woman was breathless with anger. ‘I want to see you. I want you to beat that child, ma’am. I want you to beat that conceited, rude child of yours.’
‘All right, miss. All right.’ Mrs Tulsi pressed her thin lips together repeatedly. ‘Tell me what happened.’ She spoke English in a slow, precise way which surprised Mr Biswas and filled him with apprehension. She was now behind the counter and her fingers which, like her face, were creased rather than wrinkled, rubbed along the brass yardstick. From time to time, while she listened, she pressed the corner of her veil over her moving lips.
Mr Biswas, now busily cleaning brushes, wiping them dry, and putting soap in the bristle to keep it supple, was sure that Mrs Tulsi was listening with only half a mind, that her eyes had been caught by the note: I love you and I want to talk to you.
Mrs Tulsi spoke some abuse to Shama in Hindi, the obscenity of which startled Mr Biswas. The woman looked pacified. Mrs Tulsi promised to look further into the matter and gave the woman a pair of flesh-coloured stockings free. The woman began to retell her story. Mrs Tulsi, treating the matter as closed, repeated that she was giving the stockings free. The woman went on unhurriedly to the end of the story. Then she walked slowly out of the shop, muttering, exaggeratedly swinging her large hips.
The note was in Mrs Tulsi’s hand. She held it just above the counter, far from her eyes, and read it, patting her lips with her veil.
‘Shama, that was a shameless thing to do.’
‘I wasn’t thinking, Mai,’ Shama said, and burst into tears, like a girl about to be flogged.
Mr Biswas’s disenchantment was complete.
Mrs Tulsi, holding her veil to her chin, nodded absently, still looking at the note.
Mr Biswas slunk out of the store. He went to Mrs Seeung’s, a large café in the High Street, and ordered a sardine roll and a bottle of aerated water. The sardines were dry, the onion offended him, and the bread had a crust that cut the inside of his lips. He drew comfort only from the thought that he had not signed the note and could deny writing it.
When he went back to the store he was determined to pretend that nothing had happened, determined never to look at Shama again. Carefully he prepared his brushes and set to work. He was relieved that no one showed an interest in him; and more relieved to find that Shama was not in the store that afternoon. With a light heart he outlined Punch’s dog on the irregular surface of the whitewashed column. Below the dog he ruled lines and sketched BARGAINS! BARGAINS! He painted the dog red, the first BARGAINS! black, the second blue. Moving a rung or two down the ladder he ruled more lines, and between these lines he detailed some of the bargains the Tulsi Store offered, in letters which he ‘cut out’, painting a section of the column red, leaving the letters cut out in the whitewash. Along the top and bottom of the red strip he left small circles of whitewash; these he gashed with one red stroke, to give the impression that a huge red plaque had been screwed on to the pillar; it was one of Alec’s devices. The work absorbed him all afternoon. Shama never appeared in the store, and for minutes he forgot about the morning’s happenings.
Just before four, when the store closed and Mr Biswas stopped work, Seth came, looking as though he had spent the day in the fields. He wore muddy bluchers and a stained khaki topee; in the pocket of his sweated khaki shirt he carried a black notebook and an ivory cigarette holder. He went to Mr Biswas and said, in a tone of gruff authority, ‘The old lady want to see you before you go.’
Mr Biswas resented the tone, and was disturbed that Seth had spoken to him in English. Saying nothing, he came down the ladder and washed out his brushes, doing his soundless whistling while Seth stood over him. The front doors were bolted and barred and the Tulsi Store became dark and warm and protected.
He followed Seth through the back door to the damp, gloomy courtyard, where he had never been. Here the Tulsi Store felt even smaller: looking back he saw lifesize carvings of Hanuman, grotesquely coloured, on either side of the shop doorway. Across the courtyard there was a large, old, grey wooden house which he thought must be the original Tulsi house. He had never suspected its size from the store; and from the road it was almost hidden by the tall concrete building, to which it was connected by an unpainted, new-looking wooden bridge, which roofed the courtyard.
They climbed a short flight of cracked concrete steps into the hall of the wooden house. It was deserted. Seth left Mr Biswas, saying he had to go and wash. It was a spacious hall, smelling of smoke and old wood. The pale green paint had grown dim and dingy and the timbers revealed the ravages of woodlice which left wood looking so new where it was rotten. Then Mr Biswas had another surprise. Through the doorway at the far end he saw the kitchen. And the kitchen had mud walls. It was lower than the hall and appeared to be completely without light. The doorway gaped black; soot stained the wall about it and the ceiling just above; so that blackness seemed to fill the kitchen like a solid substance.
The most important piece of furniture in the hall was a long unvarnished pitchpine table, hard-grained and chipped. A hammock made from sugarsacks hung across one corner of the room. An old sewingmachine, a baby-chair and a black biscuit-drum occupied another corner. Scattered about were a number of unrelated chairs, stools and benches, one of which, low and carved with rough ornamentation from a solid block of cyp wood, still had the saffron colour which told that it had been used at a wedding ceremony. More elegant pieces – a dresser, a desk, a piano so buried among papers and baskets and other things that it was unlikely it was ever used – choked the staircase landing. On the other side of the hall there was a loft of curious construction. It was as if an enormous drawer had been pulled out of the top of the wall; the vacated space, dark and dusty, was crammed with all sorts of articles Mr Biswas couldn’t distinguish.
He heard a creak on the staircase and saw a long white skirt and a long white petticoat dancing above silver-braceleted ankles. It was Mrs Tulsi. She moved slowly; he knew from her face that she had spent the afternoon in bed. Without acknowledging his presence she sat on a bench and, as if already tired, rested her jewelled arms on the table. He saw that in one smooth ringed hand she was holding the note.
‘You wrote this?’
He did his best to look puzzled. He stared hard at the note and stretched a hand to take it. Mrs Tulsi pulled the note away and held it up.
‘That? I didn’t write that. Why should I want to write that?’
‘I only thought so because somebody saw you put it down.’
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Seth came back to the hall, his bluchers resounding on the floor. He had washed and was without his topee; his damp hair, streaked with grey, was combed flat. He sat down across the table from Mrs Tulsi and fitted a cigarette into his cigarette holder.
‘What?’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Somebody saw me put that down?’
Seth laughed. ‘Nothing to be ashamed about.’ He clenched his lips over the cigarette holder and opened the corners of his mouth to laugh.
Mr Biswas was puzzled. It would have been more understandable if they had taken his word and asked him never to come to their house again.
‘I believe I know your family,’ Seth said.
In the gallery outside and in the kitchen there was now a continual commotion. A woman came out of the black doorway with a brass plate and a blue-rimmed enamel cup. She set them before Mrs Tulsi and, without a word, without looking right or left, hurried back to the blackness of the kitchen. The cup contained milky tea, the plate roti and curried beans. Another woman brought similar food in an equally reverential way to Seth. Mr Biswas recognized both women as Shama’s sisters; their dress and manner showed that they were married.
Mrs Tulsi, scooping up some beans with a shovel of roti, said to Seth, ‘Better feed him?’
‘Do you want to eat?’ Seth spoke as though it would have been amusing if Mr Biswas did want to eat.
Mr Biswas disliked what he saw and shook his head.
‘Pull up that chair and sit here,’ Mrs Tulsi said and, barely raising her voice, called, ‘C, bring a cup of tea for this person.’
‘I know your family,’ Seth repeated. ‘Who’s your father again?’
Mr Biswas evaded the question. ‘I am the nephew of Ajodha. Pagotes.’
‘Of course.’ Expertly Seth ejected the cigarette from the holder to the floor and ground it with his bluchers, hissing smoke down from his nostrils and up from his mouth. ‘I know Ajodha. Sold him some land. Dhanku’s land,’ he said, turning to Mrs Tulsi.
‘O yes.’ Mrs Tulsi continued to eat, lifting her armoured hand high above her plate.
C turned out to be the woman who had served Mrs Tulsi. She resembled Shama but was shorter and sturdier and her features were less fine. Her veil was pulled decorously over her forehead, but when she brought Mr Biswas his cup of tea she gave him a frank, unimpressed stare. He attempted to glare back but was too slow; she had already turned and was walking away briskly on light bare feet. He put the tall cup to his lips and took a slow, noisy draught, studying his reflection in the tea and wondering about Seth’s position in the family.
He put the cup down when he heard someone else come into the hall. This was a tall, slender, smiling man dressed in white. His face was sunburnt and his hands were rough. Breathlessly, with many sighs, laughs and swallows, he reported to Seth on various animals. He seemed anxious to appear tired and anxious to please. Seth looked pleased. C came from the kitchen again and followed the man upstairs; he was obviously her husband.
Mr Biswas took another draught of tea, studied his reflection and wondered whether every couple had a room to themselves; he also wondered what sleeping arrangements were made for the children he heard shouting and squealing and being slapped (by mothers alone?) in the gallery outside, the children he saw peeping at him from the kitchen doorway before being dragged away by ringed hands.
‘So you really do like the child?’
It was a moment or so before Mr Biswas, behind his cup, realized that Mrs Tulsi had addressed the question to him, and another moment before he knew who the child was.
He felt it would be graceless to say no. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I like the child.’
Mrs Tulsi chewed and said nothing.
Seth said: ‘I know Ajodha. You want me to go and see him?’
Incomprehension, surprise, then panic, overwhelmed Mr Biswas. ‘The child,’ he said desperately. ‘What about the child?’
‘What about her?’ Seth said. ‘She is a good child. A little bit of reading and writing even.’
‘A little bit of reading and writing –’ Mr Biswas echoed, trying to gain time.
Seth, chewing, his right hand working dexterously with roti and beans, made a dismissing gesture with his left hand. ‘Just a little bit. So much. Nothing to worry about. In two or three years she might even forget.’ And he gave a little laugh. He wore false teeth which clacked every time he chewed.
‘The child – ’ Mr Biswas said.
Mrs Tulsi stared at him.
‘I mean,’ said Mr Biswas, ‘the child knows?’
‘Nothing at all,’ Seth said appeasingly.
‘I mean,’ said Mr Biswas, ‘does the child like me?’
Mrs Tulsi looked as though she couldn’t understand. Chewing, with lingering squelchy sounds, she raised Mr Biswas’s note with her free hand and said, ‘What’s the matter? You don’t like the child?’
‘Yes,’ Mr Biswas said helplessly. ‘I like the child.’
‘That is the main thing,’ Seth said. ‘We don’t want to force you to do anything. Are we forcing you?’
Mr Biswas remained silent.
Seth gave another disparaging little laugh and poured tea into his mouth, holding the cup away from his lips, chewing and clacking between pours. ‘Eh, boy, are we forcing you?’
‘No,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘You are not forcing me.’
‘All right, then. What’s upsetting you?’
Mrs Tulsi smiled at Mr Biswas. ‘The poor boy is shy. I know.’
‘I am not shy and I am not upset,’ Mr Biswas said, and the aggression in his voice so startled him that he continued softly, ‘It’s only that – well, it’s only that I have no money to start thinking about getting married.’
Mrs Tulsi became as stern as he had seen her in the store that morning. ‘Why did you write this then?’ She waved the note.
‘Ach! Don’t worry with him,’ Seth said. ‘No money! Ajodha’s family, and no money!’
Mr Biswas thought it would be useless to explain.
Mrs Tulsi became calmer. ‘If your father was worried about money, he wouldn’t have married at all.’
Seth nodded solemnly.
Mr Biswas was puzzled by her use of the words ‘your father’. At first he had thought she was speaking to Seth alone, but then he saw that the statement had wider, alarming implications.
Faces of children and women peeped out from the kitchen doorway.
The world was too small, the Tulsi family too large. He felt trapped.
How often, in the years to come, at Hanuman House or in the house at Shorthills or in the house in Port of Spain, living in one room, with some of his children sleeping on the next bed, and Shama, the prankster, the server of black cotton stockings, sleeping downstairs with the other children, how often did Mr Biswas regret his weakness, his inarticulateness, that evening! How often did he try to make events appear grander, more planned and less absurd than they were!
And the most absurd feature of that evening was to come. When he had left Hanuman House and was cycling back to Pagotes, he actually felt elated! In the large, musty hall with the sooty kitchen at one end, the furniture-choked landing on one side, and the dark, cobwebbed loft on the other, he had been overpowered and frightened by Seth and Mrs Tulsi and all the Tulsi women and children; they were strange and had appeared too strong; he wanted nothing so much then as to be free of that house. But now the elation he felt was not that of relief. He felt he had been involved in large events. He felt he had achieved status.
His way lay along the County Road and the Eastern Main Road. Both were lined for s
And when that evening Alec asked in his friendly mocking way, ‘How the girl, man?’ Mr Biswas said happily, ‘Well, I see the mother.’
Alec was stupefied. ‘The mother? But what the hell you gone and put yourself in?’
All Mr Biswas’s dread returned, but he said, ‘Is all right. I got my eyes open. Good family, you know. Money. Acres and acres of land. No more sign-painting for me.’
Alec didn’t look reassured. ‘How you manage this so quick?’
‘Well, I see this girl, you know. I see this girl and she was looking at me, and I was looking at she. So I give she a little of the old sweet talk and I see that she was liking me too. And, well, to cut a long story short, I ask to see the mother. Rich people, you know. Big house.’
But he was worried, and spent much time that evening wondering whether he should go back to Hanuman House. He began feeling that it was he who had acted, and was unwilling to believe that he had acted foolishly. And, after all, the girl was good-looking. And there would be a handsome dowry. Against this he could set only his fear, and a regret he could explain to no one: he would be losing romance forever, since there could be no romance at Hanuman House.