Vidiadhar Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas

There had been many changes at Hanuman House, but though he went there two or three times a week he noticed the changes as from a distance and felt in no way concerned. Marriage had taken away one wave of children, among them the contortionist. Marriage had also overtaken the elder god, though for some time it had looked as though he might be reprieved. The search among the eligible families had failed to provide someone beautiful and educated and rich enough to satisfy Mrs. Tulsi or her daughters, who, notwithstanding the chancy haste of their own marriages, based solely on caste, thought that their brother’s bride should be chosen with a more appropriate concern. For a short time afterwards a search was made for an educated, beautiful and rich girl from a caste family who had been converted to Christianity and had lapsed. Finally, it was agreed that any educated, beautiful and rich Indian girl would do, provided she had no Muslim taint. The oil families, whatever their original condition, were too grand. So they searched among the families in soft drinks, the families in ice, the transport families, the cinema families, the families in filling stations. And at last, in a laxly Presbyterian family with one filling station, two lorries, a cinema and some land, they found a girl. Each side patronized the other and neither suspected it was being patronized; after smooth and swift negotiations the marriage took place in a registry office, and the elder god, contrary to Hindu custom and the traditions of his family, did not bring his bride home, but left Hanuman House for good, no longer talking of suicide, to look after the lorries, cinema, land and filling station of his wife’s family.

His departure was followed by another. Mrs. Tulsi went to live in Port of Spain, not caring for the younger god to be in that city by himself, and not trusting anyone else to look after him. She bought not one house, but three: one to live in, two to rent out. She travelled up to Port of Spain with the god every Sunday evening and came down with him every Friday afternoon.

During her absences the accepted degrees of precedence at Hanuman House lost some of their meaning. Sushila, the widow, was reduced to nonentity. Many sisters attempted to seize power and a number of squabbles ensued. Offended sisters ostentatiously looked after their own families, sometimes even cooking separately for a day or two. Padma, Seth’s wife, alone continued to be respected, but she showed no inclination to assert authority. Seth exacted the obedience of everyone; he could not impose harmony. That was reestablished every week-end, when Mrs. Tulsi and the younger god returned.

And just before the school holidays all quarrels were forgotten. The house was scrubbed and cleaned, the brass polished and the yard tidied, as though to receive passing royalty; and the brothers-in-law vied with one another in laying aside offerings for the god: a Julie mango, a bunch of bananas, an especially large purple-skinned avocado pear.

Mr. Biswas brought nothing. Shama complained.

“And what about my son, eh?” Mr. Biswas said. “He lost in the crowd? Who looking after him? He not studying too?”

For, halfway through the term, Anand had begun to go to the mission school. He hated it. He soaked his shoes in water; he was flogged and sent to school in wet shoes. He threw away Captain Cutteridge’s First Primer and said it had been stolen; he was flogged and given another copy.

“Anand is a coward,” Savi told Mr. Biswas. “He still frightened of school. And you know what Aunt Chinta say to him yesterday? ‘If you don’t look out you will come a grass-cutter just like your father.’ “

“Grass-cutter! Look, look, Savi. The next time your aunt Chinta open that big mouth”-he broke off, remembering grammar-“the next time she opens her big mouth-”

Savi smiled.

“-you just ask her whether she has ever read Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.”

These were household names to Savi.

“Munnih-munnih-munnih,” Mr. Biswas muttered.

“Munnih-munnih?”

“Money. Checking munnih-munnih-munnih. That is the only way your mother’s family like to get their fat little hands dirty. Look, the next time Chinta or anybody else says I am a grass-cutter, you just tell them that it is better to be a grass-cutter than a crab-catcher. You got that? Better to be a grass-cutter than a crab-catcher.”

And he opened the campaign himself. He had seen some large blue-backed crabs scrambling awkwardly about the black tank in the yard. “Whoo!” he said in the hall. “Those are big crabs in the tank. Where did they come from?”

“Govind bought them for Mai and Owad,” Chinta said proudly.

“Bought them?” Mr. Biswas said. “Anybody would say that he caught them.”

When he next went to Hanuman House he found that Savi had delivered all his messages.

Chinta came straight up to him and said, with the mannishness she put on when Mrs. Tulsi was away, “Brother-in-law, I want you to know that until you came to this house there were no crab-catchers here.”

“Eh? No what?”

“Crab-catchers.”

“Crab-catchers? What about crab-catchers? You don’t have enough here?”

“Marcus Aurelius-Aurelius,” Chinta said, retreating to the kitchen. “Shama sister, I don’t want to meddle in the way you are bringing up your children, but you are turning them into men and women before their time.”

Mr. Biswas winked at Savi.

Presently Chinta came out to the hall again. She had obviously thought of something to say. Sternly and needlessly she rearranged chairs and benches and straightened the photographs of Pundit Tulsi and a huge Chinese calendar which showed a woman of sly beauty against a background of tamed trees and waterfalls. “Savi,” Chinta said at last, and her voice was gentle, “you reach first standard at school and you must know the poetry Captain Cutteridge have in that book. I don’t think your father know it because I don’t think your father reach first standard.”

Mr. Biswas had not been brought up on Captain Cutteridge but on the Royal Reader . Nevertheless he said, “First standard? I skipped that one. I went straight from Introductory to second standard.”

“I thought so, brother-in-law. But you, Savi, you know the poetry I mean. The one about felo-de-se . The little pigs. You know it?”

“I know it! I know it!” a boy exclaimed. This was Jai, the expert lace-knotter, fourteen months younger than Savi. He had developed into something of an exhibitionist. He ran to the centre of the hall, held his hands behind his back and said, “The Three Little Piggies. By Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty.”

A jolly old sow once lived in a sty.

And three little piggies had she,

And she waddled about, saying, “Umph! Umph! Utnph!”

While the little ones said, “Wee! Wee!”

”My dear little brothers,” said one of the brats,

”My dear little piggies,” said he,

”Let us all for the future say, ‘Umph! Umph! Umph!’

”Tis so childish to say, ‘Wee! Wee!’”

While Jai recited Chinta moved her head up and down in time to the rhythm and stared smilingly at Savi.

“So after a time,” Jai went on,

So after a time these little pigs died,

They all died of “felo-de-se”,

From trying too hard to say, “Umph! Umph! Umph!”

When they could only say, “Wee! Wee!”

“A moral there is to this little song,” Chinta said, continuing the poem with Jai and wagging her finger at Savi. “A moral that’s easy to see.”

“Felo-de-se ?” Mr. Biswas said. “Sounds like the name of a crab-catcher to me.”

Chinta stamped, irritated as when she lost at cards, and, looking as though she was about to cry, went back to the kitchen.