Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

As soon as Shama had seen Mr. Biswas safely to their room she left him, and he heard her running across the Book Room and down the stairs.

Mrs. Tulsi often fainted. Whenever this happened a complex ritual was at once set in motion. One daughter was despatched to get the Rose Room ready, and Mrs. Tulsi was taken there by other daughters working under the direction of Padma, Seth’s wife. If, as often happened, Padma was ill herself, Sushila took her place. Sushila’s position in the family was unique. She was a widowed daughter whose only child had died. Because of her suffering she was respected, but though she gave herself the airs of authority her status was undefined, at times appearing as high as Mrs. Tulsi’s, at times lower than Miss Blackie’s. It was only during Mrs. Tulsi’s illnesses that anyone could be sure of Sushila’s power.

In the Rose Room, then, after a faint, one daughter fanned Mrs. Tulsi; two massaged her smooth, shining and surprisingly firm legs; one soaked bay rum into her loosened hair and massaged her forehead. The other daughters stood by, ready to carry out the instructions of Padma or Sushila. The gods were often there as well, looking grimly on. When the massage and the bay rum-soaking was over Mrs. Tulsi turned on her stomach and asked the younger god to walk on her, from the soles of her feet to her shoulders. The elder god had done this duty in the past but had grown too heavy.

The sons-in-law found themselves alone in the wooden house with the children, who knew without being told that they had to be silent. All activity was suspended; the house became dead. One of the sons-in-law was invariably responsible for precipitating Mrs. Tulsi’s faint. He was now hounded by silence and hostility. If he attempted to make friendly talk many glances instantly reproved him for his frivolity. If he moped in a corner or went up to his room he was condemned for his callousness and ingratitude. He was expected to stay in the hall and show all the signs of contrition and unease. He waited for the sounds of footsteps coming from the Rose Room; he accosted a busy, offended sister and, ignoring snubs, made whispered inquiries about Mrs. Tulsi’s condition. Next morning he came down, shy and sheepish. Mrs. Tulsi would be better. She would ignore him. But that evening forgiveness would be in the air. The offender would be spoken to as if nothing had happened, and he would respond with eagerness.

Mr. Biswas didn’t go to the hall. He remained on his blanket in the long room, doodling and thinking out subjects for the articles he had promised to write for the New Aryan, a magazine Misir was planning. He couldn’t concentrate, and soon the paper was covered with repetitions, in various styles, of the letters RES, a combination he had found challenging and beautiful ever since he had done a sign for a restaurant.

The room smelled of hartshorn.

“You happy, eh, now that you make Mai faint?”

It was Shama. Her hands were still oily.

“Which foot you rub?” Mr. Biswas asked. “You should be glad they allow you to touch a foot. You know, it does beat me why all you sisters so anxious to look after the old hen. She did look after you? She just pick you up and marry you off to any old coconut-seller and crab-catcher. And still everybody rushing up to rub foot and squeeze head and hand smelling-salts.”

“You know, nobody hearing you talk would believe that you come to this house with no more things than you could hang up on a one-inch nail.”

It was a familiar attack. He ignored it.

Next morning he went down to the hall and called briskly, “Morning, morning. Morning, everybody.” He got no reply. He said, “Shama, Shama. Food, girl. Food.” She brought him a tall cup of tea. Breakfast was tea and biscuits. The biscuits came in a vast drum, returnable to the biscuit makers: the largest economy size, the method of bulk-purchase used by cafй-owners. While he was diving into the drum, turning away straw, feeling for biscuits-a pleasant task, for the straw and biscuits together had a smell that was good and even better than the meal-while he was doing this, Mrs. Tulsi came into the hall, fatigued and heavy, looking almost as old as Padma. Her veil was low over her forehead and every now and then she pressed a handkerchief soaked in eau-de-Cologne to her nose. Without her teeth she looked decrepit, but there was about her decrepitude a quality of ever-lastingness.

“You feeling better, Mai?” Mr. Biswas asked, stacking some biscuits on a chipped enamel plate. He spoke very cheerfully.

The hall was hushed.

“Yes, son,” Mrs. Tulsi said. “I am feeling better.”

And it was Mr. Biswas’s turn to be astonished.

(“I was wrong about your mother,” he told Shama before he left that morning. “She is not a old hen at all. Nor a old cow.”

“I glad you learning gratitude,” Shama said.

“She is a she-fox. A old she-fox. What they call that? You know what I mean, man. You remember your Macdougall’s Grammar . Abbot, abbess. Stag, roe, Hart, hind. Fox, what?”

“I not going to tell you.”

“I going to find out. In the meantime, remember the name change. She is the old she-fox.”)

He remained on the staircase landing, sinking lower and lower through the torn seat of a cane-bottomed chair in front of the stained, battered, disused and useless piano, sipping his tea, cracking biscuits and dropping the pieces into the tea. He watched the pieces swell out and rescued them with his spoon just when they started to sink. Then swiftly, before the soggy biscuit that drooped over the spoon could fall off, he thrust the spoon into his mouth. All around him children were doing the same.

The younger god came down the stairs. He had been doing the morning puja . With his small dhoti, small vest, beads and miniature caste-marks he looked like a toy holy man. He carried a brass plate on which there was a cube of burning camphor. The camphor had been used to give incense to the images in the prayer-room; now it was to be offered to every member of the family.

The god went first to Mrs. Tulsi. She put her handkerchief in her bosom, touched the camphor flame with her fingertips and carried her fingertips to her forehead. “Rama, Rama,” she said. Then she added, “Take it to your brother Mohun.”

The hall was hushed again. And again Mr. Biswas was astonished.

Sushila, clinging to her sickroom authority of the previous evening, said, “Yes, Owad. Take it to your brother Mohun.”

The god hesitated, frowning. Then he sucked his teeth, stamped up to the landing and offered the aromatic camphor flame to Mr. Biswas. Mr. Biswas rescued more sodden biscuit from the enamel cup. He put his mouth under the spoon, caught the biscuit that broke off, chewed noisily and said, “You could take that away. You know I don’t hold with this idol worship.”

The god, annoyed just the moment before, was stupefied almost into argument and coaxing before the full horror of Mr. Biswas’s rejection came to him. He stood still, the camphor burning, melting on the plate.

The hall was still.

Mrs. Tulsi was silent. Forgetting her frailty and fatigue, she got up and walked slowly up the stairs.

“Man!” Shama cried.

Shama’s shout aroused the god. He walked down to the hall, tears of anger in his eyes, saying, “I didn’t want to go and offer him anything. I didn’t. I know the amount of respect he have for people.”

Sushila said, “Shh. Not while you are carrying the plate.”

“Man!” Shama said. “What you go and do now?”

Mr. Biswas drained his cup, used his spoon to scrape up the mess of biscuit at the bottom, ate that and, getting up, said, “What I do? I ain’t do nothing. I just don’t believe in this idol worship, that is all.”