Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

“Good. Good . I don’t want any food.” And in a great rage he left the hut.

Anger gave him energy, and he determined to walk until he was tired. On the Main Road he took the other direction now and went past the office of F. Z. Ghany, dingier but still intact, closed because it wasn’t market day; past the same array of shops, it seemed, the same owners, the same goods, the same assistants; and it all filled him with the same depression.

Late in the afternoon, when he was some miles out of Pagotes, a slender young man with shining eyes and a thick shining moustache came up to Mr. Biswas and tapped him on the shoulder. He was embarrassed to recognize Ramchand, Tara’s delinquent yard boy, now Dehuti’s husband. He had sometimes seen him at Tara’s, but they had not spoken.

Ramchand, so far from showing embarrassment, behaved as though he had known Mr. Biswas well for years. He asked so many questions so quickly that Mr. Biswas had time only to nod. “How is everything? It is good to see you. And your mother? Well? Nice to hear. And the shop? A funny thing. You know Parakeet and Indian Maiden and The White Cock? I make that rum now. They are the same, you know.”

“I know.”

“No future working for Tara, I can tell you. As you know, I am working at this rum place now, and do you know how much I am getting? Come on. Guess.”

“Ten dollars.”

“Twelve. With a bonus every Christmas. And rum at the wholesale price into the bargain. Not bad, eh?”

Mr. Biswas was impressed.

“Dehuti talks about you all the time. At one time everybody thought you were drowned, remember?” Then, as though this knowledge had removed whatever unfamiliarity remained between them, Ramchand added, “Why don’t you come and see Dehuti? She was talking about you only last night.” He paused. “And perhaps you could eat something as well.”

Mr. Biswas noticed the pause. It reminded him that Ramchand was of a low caste; and though it was absurd in the Main Road to think that of a man earning twelve dollars a month in addition to bonuses and other advantages, Mr. Biswas was flattered that Ramchand looked upon him as someone to be flattered and conciliated. He agreed to go to see Dehuti. Ramchand, delighted, talked on, revealing much knowledge of other members of the family. He told Mr. Biswas that Ajodha’s finances were not as sound as they appeared, and that Tara was offending too many people. Tara may have vowed never to mention Ramchand’s name again; he appeared anxious to mention hers as often as possible.

Mr. Biswas had never questioned the deference shown him when he had gone to Tara’s to be fed as a Brahmin and on his rounds with Pundit Jairam. But he had never taken it seriously; he had thought of it as one of the rules of a game that was only occasionally played. When he got to Ramchand’s he thought it even more of a game. The hut indicated lowness in no way. The mud walls had been freshly whitewashed and decorated with blue and green and red palm-prints (Mr. Biswas recognized Ramchand’s broad palm and stubby fingers); the thatch was new and neat; the earth floor was high and had been packed hard; pictures from calendars were stuck on the walls, and in the verandah there was a hatrack. It was altogether less depressing than the crumbling, neglected hut in the back trace.

But it seemed that to Dehuti marriage had brought no joy. She was uneasy at being caught among her household possessions, and tried to hint that they had nothing to do with her. When Ramchand started to point out some attractive feature of the hut, she sucked her teeth and he desisted. Mr. Biswas couldn’t believe that Dehuti had ever spoken about him, as Ramchand had said. She hardly spoke, hardly looked at him. Without expression she brought out an ugly baby from an inner room, asleep, and showed it, suggesting at the same time that she had not brought it out to show it. She looked careworn and sulky, untouched by her husband’s bubbling desire to please. Yet in her unhurried way she did what she could to make Mr. Biswas welcome. He understood that she feared rebuff and the reports he might take back, and this made him uncomfortable.

Dehuti, never pretty, was now frankly ugly. Her Chinese eyes looked sleepy, the pupils without a light, the whites smudged. Her cheeks, red with pimples, bulged low and drooped around her mouth. Her lower lip projected, as though squashed out by the weight of her cheeks. She sat on a low bench, the back of her long skirt caught tightly between her calves and the backs of her thighs, the front draped over the knees. Mr. Biswas was surprised by her adulthood. It was the way she sat, knees apart, yet so decorously covered; he had associated that only with mature women. He tried to find in the woman the girl he had known. But seeing her growing needlessly impatient while Ramchand, at her instructions, lit the fire and prepared to boil the rice, Mr. Biswas felt that this sight of Dehuti had wiped out the old picture. This was a loss; it added to the unhappiness he had begun to feel as soon as he entered the hut.

Ramchand came from the kitchen and sank in the most relaxed way on to the earth floor. He stretched out one short-trousered leg and held his hands around his upright knee. The corrugations of his thick hair glinted with oil. He smiled at Mr. Biswas, smiled at the baby, smiled at Dehuti. He asked Mr. Biswas to read the writing on the calendar pictures and the Sunday school cards on the walls, and listened in pure pleasure while Mr. Biswas did so.

“You are going to be a great man,” Ramchand said. “A great man. Reading like that at your age. Used to hear you reading those things to Ajodha. Never known a healthier man in all my life. But one day he is going to fall really sick, let him watch out. He’s just asking for it. I feel sorry for him, to tell you the truth. I feel sorry for all these rich fellows.” It turned out that Ramchand felt sorry for many other people as well. “Pratap now. He’s got himself into a mess because of these donkeys he keeps on buying, heaven knows why. The last two died. Did you hear about it?” Mr. Biswas hadn’t, and Ramchand told of the bloody end of the donkeys; one had speared itself on a bamboo stake. He also spoke of Prasad and his search for a wife; with tolerant amusement he mentioned Bhandat and his mistress. He became increasingly avuncular; it was clear he thought his own condition perfect, and this perfection delighted him. “Not finished with these decorations,” he said, pointing to the walls. “Getting some more of those Sunday school pictures. Jesus and Mary. Eh, Dehuti?” Laughingly he flung the matchstick he had been chewing at the baby.

Dehuti closed her eyes in annoyance, puffed out her pimply cheeks a little more and turned her face away. The matchstick fell harmlessly on the baby.

“Making some improvements too,” Ramchand said. “Come.”

This time Dehuti did not suck her teeth. They went to the back and Mr. Biswas saw another room being added to the hut. Trimmed tree-branches had been buried in the earth; the rafters, of lesser boughs, were in place; between the uprights the bamboo had been plaited; the earth floor was raised but not yet packed. “Extra room,” Ramchand said. “When it is finished you can come and stay with us.”

Mr. Biswas’s depression deepened.

They went on a tour of the small hut, Ramchand pointing out the refinements he had added: shelves set in the mud walls, tables, chairs. Back in the verandah Ramchand pointed to the hatrack. There were eight hooks on it symmetrically arranged about a diamond-shaped glass. “That is the only thing here I didn’t make myself. Dehuti set her heart on it.” He slumped down on the floor again and flung the little ball of earth he had been rolling between his fingers at the baby.