Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

The younger god furrowed his brow, opened his eyes wider and wider until they were expressionless, and attempted to set his small, plump-lipped mouth.

“You think they can’t read and write too?”

“See them in the store,” Mrs. Tulsi said. “Reading and selling. Reading and eating and selling. Reading and eating and counting money. They are not afraid of getting their hands dirty.”

Not with money, Mr. Biswas told her mentally.

The younger god got up from the hammock and said, “If he don’t want to take the job on the estate, that is his business. It serve you right, Ma. You choose your son-in-laws and they treat you exactly how you deserve.”

“Sit down, Owad,” Mrs. Tulsi said. She turned to Seth. “This boy has a terrible temper.”

“I don’t blame him,” Seth said. “These paddlers go away, paddling their own canoe-that is how it is, eh, Biswas?-and as soon as trouble start they will be running back here. Seth is just here for people to insult, the same people, mark you, who he trying to help. I don’t mind. But that don’t mean I can’t see why the boy shouldn’t mind.”

The younger god frowned even more. “Is not because my father dead that people who eating my mother food should feel that they could call she a hen. I want Biswas to apologize to Ma.”

“Apologize-ologize,” Mrs. Tulsi said. “It wouldn’t make any difference. I don’t see how anyone can be sorry for something he feels .”

There is, in some weak people who feel their own weakness and resent it, a certain mechanism which, operating suddenly and without conscious direction, releases them from final humiliation. Mr. Biswas, who had up till then been viewing his blasphemies as acts of the blackest ingratitude, now abruptly lost his temper.

“The whole pack of you could go to hell!” he shouted. “I not going to apologize to one of the damn lot of you.”

Astonishment and even apprehension appeared on their faces. He noted this for a lucid moment, turned and ran up the stairs to the long room, where he began to pack with unnecessary energy.

“You don’t care what mess you get other people in, eh?”

It was Shama, standing in the doorway, barefooted, veil low over her forehead, looking as frightened as on that morning in the store.

“Family! Family!” Mr. Biswas said, stuffing clothes and books -Self Help , Bell’s Standard Elocutionist , the seven volumes of Hawkins’ Electrical Guide -into a cardboard box whose top flaps bore the circular impressions of tins of condensed milk. “I not staying here a minute longer. Having that damn little boy talk to me like that! He does talk to all your brother-in-laws like that?”

He packed with such energy that he was soon finished. But his anger had begun to cool and he reflected that by leaving the house again so soon he would be behaving absurdly, like a newly-married girl. He waited for Shama to say something that would rekindle his anger. She remained silent.

“Before I go,” he said, unpacking and re-packing the condensed milk case, “I want you to tell the Big Boss-because it is clear that he is the big bull in the family-I want you to go and tell him that he ain’t pay me for the signs 1 do in the store.”

“Why you don’t go and tell him yourself?” Shama was now angry and near to tears.

He tried to see himself asking Seth for money. He couldn’t. “You and all,” he said, “don’t start provoking me. You think I want to talk to that man? You know him for a long time. He is like a second father to you. You must ask him.”

“And suppose he ask for what you owe him?”

“I would give you straight back to him.”

“You owe him more than he owe you.”

“He owe me more than I owe him.”

They reduced it to a plain argument, which not only killed what remained of his anger, but even left him exhilarated, though a little puzzled as to what he should do next.

Before he could decide, C and Padma, Seth’s wife, came without knocking into the room. C was crying. Padma begged Mr. Biswas, for the sake of family unity and the family name, not to do anything in a temper.

He became very offended, turned his back to Padma and C and walked heavily up and down the small room.

With the arrival of the women Shama’s attitude changed. She ceased to be irritated and suppliant and instead looked martyred. She sat stiffly on a low bench, thumb under her chin, elbow on her knee, and opened her eyes until they were as wide and empty as the younger god’s had been a few minutes before in the hall.

“Don’t go, brother,” C sobbed. “Your sister is begging you.” She tried to grab his ankles.

He skipped away and looked puzzled.

C, sobbing, noticed his puzzlement and elucidated: “Chinta is begging you.” She mentioned her own name to indicate the depth of her unhappiness and the sincerity of her plea; and she began to wail.

By coming up to plead with him Chinta had as good as confessed that it was her husband Govind who had reported Mr. Biswas’s blasphemies to Seth; she was also claiming that Govind had triumphed. Mr. Biswas knew that when husbands quarrelled it was the duty of the wife of the victorious husband to placate the defeated husband, and the duty of the wife of the defeated husband not to display anger, but skilfully to suggest that her unhappiness was due, in equal measure, to both husbands. Shama, following Chinta’s arrival, had cast herself as the defeated wife and was making a commendable first attempt at this difficult role.

There was no means of protesting at this subtle humiliation. Up to that moment Mr. Biswas had never felt that he had enemies. People were simply indifferent to him. But now an enemy, the enemy, had declared itself. And he resolved not to run away.

And having made his resolve, he felt he had already won. And, already a winner, he looked upon Chinta and Padma with charity. Chinta was sobbing to herself, dabbing at her eyes with her veil. He said to her, kindly, “Why your husband don’t take a job with the Gazette , eh? He is a born reporter.” This had no effect on the flow of tears from Chinta’s bright eyes. Shama still sat martyred and unmoving, eyes wide, knees apart, skirt draped over knees. “What the hell you playing you thinking, eh?” She didn’t hear. Padma continued to behave with fatigued dignity. He said nothing to her. She resembled Mrs. Tulsi but was fatter and looked older. Her sallow, unhealthy skin was oily, and she continually fanned herself, as though tormented by some inner heat. After her first plea she hadn’t looked at Mr. Biswas or spoken to him. She didn’t cry or look sadder than usual. She had come on too many of these missions for them to thrill her the way they still thrilled Chinta: there was not a man in the house with whom Seth had not quarrelled at some time or other. Padma simply came, made her plea, sat and looked unwell. She never, in the hall or elsewhere, expressed approval of Seth’s actions or disapproval of those of her nieces’ husbands; this won her much respect and made her a good peacemaker.

Sternly and impatiently Mr. Biswas said, “All right. All right. Dry your tears. I not going.”

Chinta gave a short loud sob; it marked the end of her tears.

“But just tell them not to provoke me, that’s all.”

Sighing, Padma rose, heavily and unhealthily; and without another word she and Chinta left the room.

Shama unstiffened. Her eyes narrowed a little, her fingers left her chin. She began to cry, silently, and her body underwent a relaxing, melting process which fascinated Mr. Biswas and infuriated him. Her arms seemed to grow rounder; her shoulders rounded and drooped; her back curved; her eyes softened until they were quite liquid with tears; her wrists rested on her knees as if broken; her hands flapped loose; her long fingers swung lifelessly, as if broken at every joint.