Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

Bhandat had given an address in the city centre which might have led someone without a knowledge of the city’s slums to believe that Bhandat was a dealer in cocoa or sugar, an import-and-export king. In fact he lived in a tenement that lay between an importer of eastern goods and an exporter of sugar and copra. It was an old, Spanish style building. The flat faзade, diversified by irregular areas of missing plaster, small windows with broken shutters, and two rusty iron balconies, rose directly from the pavement.

From the exporter came the rancid smell of copra and the heavy smell of sacked sugar, a smell quite different from the fetid, sweet smell of the sugar factories and buffalo ponds Mr. Biswas remembered from his boyhood. From the importer came the many-accented smell of pungent spices. From the road came the smell of dust, straw, the urine and droppings of horses, donkeys and mules. At every impediment the gutters had developed a wrinkled film of scum, as white as the skin on boiled milk, with a piercing, acrid smell, which, blended and heated by the afternoon sun, rose suffocatingly from the road and pursued Mr. Biswas as he turned off into the sudden black shadow of an archway between the tenement and the exporter’s. He leaned his bicycle against the cool wall, fought off the bees from the exporter’s sugar, and made his way down a cobbled lane along which ran a shallow green and black gutter, glittering in the gloom. The lane opened out into a paved yard which was only slightly wider. On one side was the high blank wall of the exporter’s; on the other was the wall of the tenement, with windows that gaped black above dingy curtains. A leaning standpipe dripped on a mossy base and fed the gutter; at the end of the yard, their doors open, were a newspaper-littered lavatory and a roofless bathroom. Above was the sky, bright blue. Sunlight struck diagonally across the top of the exporter’s wall.

Beyond the standpipe Mr. Biswas turned into a passage. He was passing a curtained doorway when a shrill voice cried out, almost gaily, “Mohun!”

He felt he had become a boy again. All the sense of weakness and shame returned.

It was a low, windowless room, lit only by the light from the passage. A folding screen barred off one corner. In another corner there was a bed, and from it came gurgling happy sounds. Bhandat was not decrepit. Mr. Biswas, who had feared to find him shrunken to a melodramatic Indian decrepitude, was relieved. The face was thinner; but the bumps on the top lip were the same; the eyebrows, still those of a worrying man, bunched over eyes that were still bright.

Bhandat raised thin arms. “You are my child, Mohun. Come.” The shrillness in the voice was new.

“How are you, Uncle?”

Bhandat didn’t seem to hear. “Come, come. You may think you are a big man, but to me you are still my child. Come, let me kiss you.”

Mr. Biswas stood on the sugarsack rug and bent over the stale-smelling bed. He was at once pulled vigorously down. He saw that the distempered ceiling and walls were coated with dust and soot, felt Bhandat’s unshaven chin scraping against his neck, felt Bhandat’s dry lips on his cheek. Then he cried out. Bhandat had pulled sharply at his hair. He jumped back and Bhandat hooted.

Waiting for Bhandat to calm down, Mr. Biswas looked around the room. Clothes hung on one wall from nails that had been driven into the mortar between the stones. On the gritty concrete floor what had at first looked like bundles of clothes turned out to be stacks of newspapers. Next to the screen there was a small table with more newspapers, a cheap writingpad, a bottle of ink and a chewed pen: it was at that table, no doubt, that Bhandat had written his letter.

“You are examining my mansion, Mohun?”

Mr. Biswas refused to be moved. “I don’t know. It seems to me that you are all right here. You should see how some people live.” And he nearly added, “You should see how I live.”

“I am an old man,” Bhandat said, in his new, hooting voice. His eyes became wet, and a small, unreliable smile appeared on his lips.

Mr. Biswas edged further away from the bed.

Sounds came from behind the dingy cotton-print screen: a clink of a coal-pot ring, the striking of a match, brisk fanning. The Chinese woman. A thrill of curiosity ran through Mr. Biswas. White charcoal smoke rose above the screen, coiled about the room and escaped, racing, through the door.

“Why do you use Lux Toilet Soap?”

Mr. Biswas saw that Bhandat was staring at him earnestly. “Lux Toilet? I think we use Palmolive. A green thing-”

Bhandat said in English, “I use Lux Toilet Soap because it is the soap used by lovely film stars.”

Mr. Biswas was disturbed.

Bhandat turned on his side and began to rummage among the newspapers on the floor. “None of my worthless sons ever come to see me. You are the only one, Mohun. But you were always like that.” He frowned at a newspaper. “No. This one is over. Fernandes Rum. The perfect round in every circle. That is the sort of thing they want. Rum, Mohun. Remember? Ah! Yes, this is the one.” He handed Mr. Biswas a newspaper and Mr. Biswas read the details of the Lux slogan competition. “Help an old man, Mohun. Tell me why you use Lux Toilet Soap.”

Mr. Biswas said, “I use Lux Toilet Soap because it is antiseptic, refreshing, fragrant and inexpensive.”

Bhandat frowned. The words had made no impression on him. And Mr. Biswas knew for sure then, what he had intuited and dismissed: Bhandat was deaf.

“Write it down, Mohun,” Bhandat cried. “Write it down before I forget it. I don’t have any luck with these things. Crosswords. Missing Ball competitions. Slogans. They are all the same.”

While Mr. Biswas wrote, Bhandat began on an account of his life. His deafness must have occurred some time ago: he spoke in complete sentences, which gave his talk a literary quality. It was a familiar story of jobs acquired and lost, great enterprises which had failed, wonderful opportunities Bhandat had not taken because of his own honesty or the dishonesty of his associates, all of whom were now famous and rich.

He liked the slogan. “This is bound to win, Mohun. Now, what about the crosswords, Mohun. Couldn’t you make me win just one?”

Mr. Biswas was saved from replying, for just then the woman came from behind the screen. She moved briskly, furtively, setting an enamel plate with small yellow cakes on the table, pulling out the chair, placing it next to where Mr. Biswas stood, then hurrying behind the screen again. She was middle-aged, very thin, with a long neck and a small face. She gave an impression of perpendicularity: her unwashed black hair hung straight, her washed-out blue cotton dress dropped straight, her thin legs were straight.

Mr. Biswas looked at Bhandat for signs of embarrassment. But Bhandat went on talking undisturbed about the competitions he had entered and lost.

The woman came out again with two tall enamel cups of tea. She put a cup on the table and pushed the plate of cakes towards Mr. Biswas, who was now seated on the chair she had pulled out. She gave the other cup to Bhandat, who sat up to receive it, handing her the sheet of paper on which Mr. Biswas had written the slogan.

Bhandat sipped his tea, and for a moment he could have been Ajodha. The gesture was the same: the slow bringing of the cup to the lips, the half-closing of the eyes, the lips resting on the brim, the blowing at the tea. Then came the sip with closed eyes, as though the drink had been consecrated; and peace spread across the tormented face.

He opened his eyes: torment returned. “It good, eh?” he said to the woman in English. She glanced hastily at Mr. Biswas. She seemed anxious to return behind her screen.

“He is a big man now,” Bhandat said. “But you know, I did know him when he was a boy so high.” He gave a hoot. “Yes, so high.”