Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

The sisters masked their excitement by frowns and complaints of fatigue that fooled no one. Mrs. Tulsi herself came to the store from time to time, spoke to people she knew, and on occasion even sold something. The two gods strode sternly about, superintending, signing bills, checking money. The elder god was especially stern this Christmas and the children were afraid of him. His behaviour had grown a little strange. He had not yet left the Roman Catholic college, but efforts were being made to find him a wife from among the handful of eligible families. He expressed his disapproval by random angry outbursts, tears and threats of suicide. This was construed as a conventional shyness and, as such, was a source of amusement to sisters and brothers-in-law. But the children were frightened when he talked of leaving the house and buying rope and soft candle; they were not sure what he wanted the soft candle for; and they stayed out of his way.

On the morning of Christmas Eve excitement was at its height, but before the afternoon was out had subsided so far that the displays had ceased to be magical, their gaiety became disorder, and the disorder could be seen to be superficial. So that before Christmas came, in the shop it was felt to be over. And throughout the afternoon attention turned more and more to the hall and kitchen where Sumati, the flogger, was in charge of the baking, and Shama, who had no recognized talents, was one of her many helpers. The smells from the kitchen had an added savour because, as always at Hanuman House, the food continued to be ordinary and bad up to the very day of a festival.

The Tulsi Store was closed, the toys left in darkness which would transform them into stock and the brothers-in-law prepared to leave Hanuman House for their families. As Mr. Biswas cycled through the night to Green Vale, he remembered he had not got presents for Savi and Anand. But they expected none from him; they knew they would find their presents in their stockings on Christmas morning.

Because the sisters were busy the children were given a skimpier dinner than usual. Then hunts were started for stockings. There were none to be had. The providential, mostly the girls, had acquired theirs days before, and the boys had to be content with pillowcases. There was talk of staying awake, but one by one the children dropped out of card games and fell asleep to the songs that came from their mothers in the kitchen.

Anand had a moment of alarm when he got up. His pillowcase, lying at the foot of his bedding on the floor, looked empty. But when he shook the pillowcase out he found he had got what the other boys had: a balloon, one of those he had seen for weeks past in the store, a red apple in a dark blue wrapper, one of those he had seen in the boxes in the store, and a tin whistle. In her stocking Savi found a balloon, an apple and a tiny rubber doll. Presents were compared, and when it was established that there was no cause for jealousy, the children ate their apples, blew up balloons, and raised a feeble chirruping with tin whistles. Many whistles were soon silenced by spittle or some fundamental mechanical defect, and most of the boys burst their balloons before going downstairs to kiss Mrs. Tulsi. Those boys who were to grow up into detestable men gave a single toot on their whistles, nibbled at their apples and blew up their balloons hardly at all, in this resembling the girls, who already showed their pleasure in possession and anticipation rather than fulfilment. Then the children, in varying degrees of contentment, went downstairs and found Mrs. Tulsi waiting at the long pitchpine table. Their mothers were waiting as well, happy Santa Clauses. When a discontented child forgot to kiss Mrs. Tulsi and impatiently hurried off to see about food, his mother called him back.

After breakfast-tea and biscuits from the drum-the children waited for lunch. More whistles were silenced; more balloons burst. The girls seized the scraps of the boys’ burst balloons and blew them up into many-coloured bunches of grapes which they rubbed against their cheeks to make a noise like heavy furniture dragging on an unpolished floor. Lunch was good. And after lunch they waited for tea: Sumati’s cakes, a local and fraudulent cherry brandy doled out by Chinta, and icecream, made by Chinta again, who, against annual evidence, was supposed to have an especial gift for making icecream. And that was that. Dinner was as bad as usual. Christmas was over. And, like all other Christmases at Hanuman House, it had turned out to be only a series of anticipations.

At the barracks there were no apples, no stockings, no baking of cakes, no churning of icecream, no refinements to be waited for. It was from the start a day of abandoned eating and drinking and was to end, not with the beating of children, but with the beating of wives. Mr. Biswas went to see his mother and had dinner at Tara’s. On Boxing-day he visited his brothers; they had married nondescript women from nondescript families and spent Christmas with their wives.

The following day Mr. Biswas cycled from Green Vale to Arwacas. When he turned into the High Street the sight of the stores, open again and carelessly displaying Christmas goods at bargain prices, reminded him of the presents he had forgotten. He got off his bicycle and leaned it against the kerb. Before he had taken off his bicycle clips he was accosted by a heavy-lidded shopman who repeatedly sucked his teeth. The shopman offered Mr. Biswas a cigarette and lit it for him. Words were exchanged. Then, with the shopman’s arm around his shoulders, Mr. Biswas disappeared into the shop. Not many minutes later Mr. Biswas and the shopman reappeared. They were both smoking and excited. A boy came out of the shop partly hidden by the large doll’s house he was carrying. The doll’s house was placed on the handlebar of Mr. Biswas’s cycle and, with Mr. Biswas on one side and the boy on the other, wheeled down the High Street.

Every room of the doll’s house was daintily furnished. The kitchen had a stove such as Mr. Biswas had never seen in real life, a safe and a sink. As they progressed towards Hanuman House Mr. Biswas’s excitement cooled; his extravagance astonished, then frightened him. He had spent more than a month’s wages. He couldn’t take back the doll’s house now; he was attracting continuous attention. And he had bought nothing for Anand. It was always like this. When he thought of his children he thought mainly of Savi. She was part of those early months at The Chase and he knew her. Anand belonged completely to the Tulsis.

At Hanuman House they knew about the doll’s house before it arrived. The hall was packed with sisters and their children. Mrs. Tulsi sat at the pitchpine table patting her lips with her veil.

The children exclaimed when the doll’s house was set down, and in the hush that followed Savi came forward and stood near it proprietorially.

“Well, what you think?” Mr. Biswas asked the hall, using his quick, high-pitched voice.

The sisters were silent.

Then Padma, Seth’s wife, usually taciturn and oppressed and unwell, began on a long and involved story, which Mr. Biswas refused to believe, about an incredible doll’s house one of Seth’s brothers had made for somebody’s daughter, a girl of exceptional beauty who had died shortly afterwards.

As Padma spoke, the children, boys and girls, gathered round the house. Mr. Biswas was not altogether happy about this, but was pleased when the children acknowledged Savi’s ownership by asking her permission to open doors and touch beds. Even as she explored, Savi tried to give the impression that she was familiar with everything.

“What have you brought for the others?”

It was Mrs. Tulsi.

“Didn’t have room,” Mr. Biswas said gaily.

“When I give, I give to all,” Mrs. Tulsi said. “I am poor, but I give to all. It is clear, however, that I cannot compete with Santa Claus.”