Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

Their destination and length of the holiday had been disclosed. The manner of transportation was still kept secret: it was to be the final surprise. It also caused Mr. Biswas much anxiety. All week he had been dreading the arrival of Miss Logie in her brand-new Buick. He intended the gap between her arrival and their departure to be as brief as possible. Under no circumstances was she to be allowed to get out of the car. For then she might go through the gate and get a glimpse of what went on below the house; she might even go there. Or she might go up the steps and knock on the front door; W. C. Tuttle would come out, and heaven knows what pose he would be in that morning: yogi, weight-lifter, pundit, lorry-driver at rest. At all costs she had to be prevented from entering the front room and seeing the Slumberking where Mr. Biswas had lain and written his formal acceptance of the post of Community Welfare Officer, seeing the destitute’s dining-table still stacked with books on sociology, village reconstruction in India, cottage industries and juvenile delinquency.

Accordingly, although Miss Logie had said she would arrive at nine, the children were fed and dressed by eight, and set up as sentinels by the gate. From time to time they deserted their posts; then, after agitated search, they were extricated from groups of readers and learners or hurried out of the lavatory. Shama was finding she had forgotten all sorts of things: toothbrushes, towels, bottle-opener. Mr. Biswas himself could not decide what book to take, and was in and out of the front room. Eventually all was ready and they stood strung out on the front steps, waiting to pounce. Mr. Biswas was dressed as for holiday: tieless, with Saturday’s shirt bearing the impress of Saturday’s tie, his coat over his arm and his book in his hand. Shama was in her ornate visiting clothes; she might have been going to a wedding.

Waiting, they were infiltrated by readers and learners. “Haul your little tail,” Mr. Biswas whispered savagely. “Get back inside. Go and comb your hair. And you, go and put on some shoes.” A few of the younger were cowed; the older, knowing that Mr. Biswas had no rights, flogging or ordering, over them, were openly contemptuous and, to Mr. Biswas’s dismay, some went out on to the pavement, where they stood like storks, jamming the sole of one foot against the smudged and streaked pink-washed wall. The gramophone was playing an Indian film song; Govind was whining out the Ramayana ; Chinta’s scraping voice was raised querulously; Basdai was shrilling after some of her girls to come and help with the lunch.

Then the cries came. A green Buick had turned the corner. Mr. Biswas and his family were down the steps with suitcases and hampers, Mr. Biswas shouting angrily now to the readers and learners to get away.

When the car stopped, Mr. Biswas and his family were standing right on the edge of the pavement. Miss Logie, sitting next to the chauffeur, smiled and gave a little wave, using fingers alone. She appeared to recognize what was required of her and did not get out of the car. Expressionlessly the chauffeur opened doors and stowed away suitcases and hampers in the boot.

W. C. Tuttle came out to the verandah, the lorry-driver at rest. His khaki shorts revealed round sturdy legs, and his white vest showed off a broad chest and large flabby arms. Leaning over the half-wall of the verandah, under the hanging ferns, he put a long finger delicately to one quivering nostril and, with a brief explosive noise, emitted some snot from the other nostril.

Mr. Biswas chattered on in a daze, to divert attention from the readers and learners and W. C. Tuttle, to drown the noises from the house, the sudden piercing cry from Chinta, as from someone in agony: “Vidiadhar and Shivadhar! Come back here this minute, if you don’t want me to break your foot.”

Shy, interested readers and learners streamed steadily through the gate.

“There’s lots of room,” Miss Logie said, smiling. “It won’t be a squeeze for long. I shan’t be going all the way to Sans Souci. I don’t feel very well and a day at the beach would be too much for me.”

Mr. Biswas understood. “Only these four,” he said. “Only these four.” He kicked backwards in the direction of the readers and learners. The circle merely widened.

“Orphans,” Mr. Biswas said.

Then mercifully they were off, some of the orphans racing the Buick a little way down the street.

They commiserated with Miss Logie on her indisposition and begged her to change her mind; there would be no pleasure for them if she did not come. She said she hadn’t intended to go bathing at all; she had intended to come with them only for the ride. But presently, when it was established without doubt that there were only four children in the car and that there would be no stops for more, her resolution weakened and she said the fresh air had revived her a little and she would come with them after all.

When people stared from the road the children didn’t know whether to smile, frown or look away; those who were near the straps held on to them. Never, as from the windows of that Buick, did North Trinidad look so beautiful. They noted, as though they had never seen it before from a bus, how the landscape changed, from marsh just outside Port of Spain, to straggling suburb, to hilly country, to country village, to country town, to rice fields and sugarcane fields, with the Northern Range always on their left. They drove along the smooth new American highway, were checked on entering and leaving the American army post by soldiers with helmets and rifles. Then they drove along a winding road overarched by cool trees to Arima, which welcomed careful drivers; and on to Valencia, where the road ran straight for miles, with untouched bush on either side.

They were, Anand reflected, driving with hampers-laden hampers-to the sea. The English composition had come true.

Mr. Biswas was worried about Shama. Sitting plumply next to Miss Logie on the front seat, her elaborate georgette veil over her hair, Shama was showing herself self-possessed and even garrulous. She was throwing off opinions about the new constitution, federation, immigration, India, the future of Hinduism, the education of women. Mr. Biswas listened to the flow with surprise and acute anxiety. He had never imagined that Shama was so well-informed and had such violent prejudices; and he suffered whenever she made a grammatical mistake.

They stopped at Balandra, and walked to the dangerous part of the bay where the waves were five feet high and a sign warned against bathing. Never had water seemed so blue; never had sand shone so golden; never had bay curved so beautifully, waves broken so neatly. It was a perfect world, the curve of the coconut trees repeated in the curve of the bay, the curl of the waves, the arc of the horizon. Already they could taste the salt on their lips. The fresh wind blew; the trousers of Mr. Biswas and the chauffeur sausaged out; the women and girls held down their skirts.

They bathed where it was safe.

(And later Anand pointed out to Mr. Biswas that in spite of what she had said Miss Logie had brought her bathing suit.)

They opened the hampers and ate on the dry sand in the dangerous shade of coconut trees (“Over a million coconuts will fall on the East Coast today,” had been the hollow bright opening of a feature he had written for the Sentinel on the copra industry).

Then they drove to Sans Souci, through narrow, ill-tended roads darkened by bush on both sides. Small villages surprised them here and there, lost and lonely. And now the sea was always with them. Unseen, it thundered continuously. The wind never ceased to rage through the trees; above the swaying bush, the dancing plumes of green, the sky was high and open. From time to time they had glimpses of the sea: so near, so unending, so alive, so impersonal. What would happen if, by some accident, they should drive off the road into it?