Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

Govind nodded to Mr. Biswas, but didn’t speak, and went and sat in the tent, where he talked and laughed loudly with the brothers-in-law.

Chinta and Padma asked without warmth after Mr. Biswas’s health. Padma asked because it was her duty, as Seth’s representative; Chinta asked because Padma had done so. The two women were together for much of the time, and Mr. Biswas suspected that an equally close relationship existed between Govind and Seth.

It seemed, too, that Sushila, the childless widow, was enjoying one of her periods of authority. She had now joined Mrs. Tulsi and they both wandered about, peering and prodding and holding muted discussions in Hindi.

Mr. Biswas found himself a stranger in his own yard. But was it his own? Mrs. Tulsi and Sushila didn’t appear to think so. The villagers didn’t think so. They had always called the shop the Tulsi Shop, even after he had painted a sign and hung it above the door:

The Bonne Esperance Grocery

M. Biswas Prop

Goods at City Prices

With one bedroom reserved for Hari, the other for Mrs. Tulsi, and with the shop full of babies, Mr. Biswas could retreat nowhere. He stood before the shop, fondling his belly under his shirt and working out the quarrel he would have with Shama afterwards.

A scampering and a series of cries came from the shop.

Then Sushila’s voice was heard, raised in undoubted authority. “Get away from here. Go and play in the open. Can’t you see you are waking up the babies? Why do you big children like the dark so much?”

Every sister was perpetually on the alert for any sign, however slight or veiled, of sexual inclination among the children.

Mr. Biswas knew the disagreeable rumpus that would follow. He had no taste for it, and walked away from the shop to the boundary of the lot. Here, under a hedge, he came upon a group of children playing house.

“You are Mai,” a girl said to another girl. And to a boy, “You are Seth.”

Mr. Biswas withdrew. But the girl-whose litter did she belong to?-saw him and, raising her voice from the whisper with which games of house should be played, said with unmistakable malice, “And who will be Mohun? You, Bhoj. You have three-quarter white pants. And you are a great fighter.”

There was a round of childish laughter which filled Mr. Biswas’s mind with thoughts of murder, though even as he hurried away he felt some desire to see what Bhoj looked like.

For the last three days, since the arrival of her sisters, Shama had become a Tulsi and a stranger again. Now she was unapproachable. The ceremony in the tent was about to begin and she sat in front of Hari, listening to his instructions with bowed head. Her hair was still wet from her ritual bath and she was dressed in white from top to toe. She looked like someone waiting to be sacrificed and Mr. Biswas thought he could detect pleasure in the curve of her back. Her status, like Hari’s, was only temporary; but while the ceremony lasted, it was paramount.

Mr. Biswas didn’t want to witness the ceremony. It meant sitting with the brothers-in-law in the tent; and he was sure that the sight of Shama’s submissive and exultant back would eventually infuriate him. Also, it occurred to him that if he kept moving about he might prevent some of the Tulsi army from looting.

It was then that he thought of the shop.

He nearly ran there. It was dark, with the front doors closed, and he had to be careful. The shop smelled of babies, who were asleep everywhere: on the counter, flanked by pillows and boxes to keep them from rolling off; under the counter; on the floor planks behind the counter. Then, slowly in the darkness, a group of squatting children defined itself in one corner. They were silent and intent. With equal silence and intentness Mr. Biswas picked his way past the babies to the counter.

The little group was methodically breaking soda water bottles and extracting the crystal marbles from the necks. The bottles were wrapped in sacking to muffle the noise. There was a deposit of eight cents on every bottle. The sweet jars on the bottom shelf were disarrayed. The Paradise Plums had dwindled substantially. So had the Mintips, a mint sweet with the elasticity and lastingness of rubber. So had the salted prunes. Many tin-lids had not been screwed on properly. Mr. Biswas put out a hand to straighten a lid. It felt sticky. He dropped it. A baby bawled, the children in the corner became alert, and Mr. Biswas shouted, “Get out of here before I lay my hand on some of you.” And at the same time, with the dexterity of the practised shopkeeper, he lifted the flap of the counter and opened the little door, almost in one action, and was on the group in the corner.

He lifted a boy by the collar. The boy bawled, the girls with him bawled, the babies in the shop bawled.

From outside a woman asked, “What’s happening? What’s happening?”

Mr. Biswas dropped the boy he had seized, and the boy ran outside, screaming louder than the babies.

“Uncle Mohun beat me. Ma, Uncle Mohun beat me.”

Another woman, doubtless the mother, said, “But he wouldn’t touch you for nothing.” Her tone indicated that Mr. Biswas wouldn’t dare. “You must have been doing something.”

“I wasn’t doing nothing, Ma,” the boy wailed in English.

“He wasn’t doing nothing, Ma.” This was from one of the girls. Mr. Biswas knew her: a dumpy little thing, with big contemptuous eyes and full, pendulous lips; she was capable of fantastic physical contortions and often performed for visitors at Hanuman House.

“Blasted liar!” Mr. Biswas said. He ran out of the shop, past a woman who was coming, cooing, to a bawling baby. “Wasn’t doing nothing? And who break up all those soda water bottles?”

In the tent Hari droned imperturbably on. Shama remained bowed in her white cocoon. The brothers-in-law sat on their blankets, reverentially still.

Mr. Biswas was lucid enough to hope that he wasn’t antagonizing a father.

Padma went into the shop in her slow way and came out and said judicially. “Some bottles have been broken.”

“And is eight cents a bottle,” Mr. Biswas said. “Wasn’t doing nothing!”

The mother of the boy, suddenly enraged, flew to a hibiscus bush and began breaking off a switch. It was a tough bush and she had to bend the switch back and forth several times. Torn leaves fell on the ground.

The boy’s bawls were now touched with genuine anguish.

The mother broke two switches on the boy, speaking as she beat. “This will teach you not to meddle with things that don’t belong to you. This will teach you not to provoke people who don’t make any allowances for children.” She caught sight of the marks left on the boy’s collar by Mr. Biswas’s fingers, sticky from the tin-lid. “And this will teach you not to let big people make your clothes dirty. This will teach you that they don’t have to wash them. You are a big man. You know right . You know wrong . You are not a child. That is why I am beating you as though you are a big man and can take a big man’s blows.”

The beating had ceased to be a simple punishment and had become a ritual. Sisters came out to witness, rocking crying babies in their arms, and said without urgency, “You will damage the boy, Sumati.” And: “Stop it now, Sumati. You have beaten him enough.”

Sumati continued to beat, and didn’t stop talking.

In the tent Hari intoned. From the set of Shama’s back Mr. Biswas could divine her displeasure.

“House-blessing party!” Mr. Biswas said.

The beating went on.

“Is just a form of showing-off,” Mr. Biswas said. He had seen enough of these beatings to know that later it would be said admiringly, “Sumati beats her children really well”; and that the sisters would say to their children, “Do you want to be beaten the way Sumati beat her son that day at The Chase?”