House for Mister Biswas Part 41

Govind came. His mood had changed since the morning. He slammed the door of his taxi hard and paced up and down outside the school gates, smiling at the pavement, humming, his hands behind his back.

A flutter as of pigeons in the hall: papers being collected. A steady and prolonged banging of desk-lids, a shuffling and a sc.r.a.ping, footsteps more a.s.sertive than in the morning, a disorderly rash of white shirts, many broken lines of blue serge: as though the disciplined battalion of a few hours before had been routed and were retreating hurriedly, their equipment abandoned. And the Daddies advanced, like people welcoming a train, some purposefully, claiming their own, some getting lost in the eddies of white and dark blue, and hesitating.

Even in this disorder the hampers were noted, and two provided surprises, for their recipients were mild mannered and insignificant; they were now being bullied by maids and led to cla.s.srooms.

Everywhere Daddies were getting reports. Question papers were displayed, inkstained fingers pointed. Already, too, backs were being turned, and brown paper parcels and white paper parcels unwrapped and furtively explored.

Mr Biswas saw Vidiadhar first: running down the steps, a lime bulging clearly in each trouser pocket, clothes a little battered, but a face as gay and as fresh and as unstained as when he went in. The little thug. He joined a group of fatherless who had gathered around the cla.s.s-teacher. No longer posing for the Daddies or one another, they were anxious, excited and shrill.

Anand avoided them when he came out. The pen Mr Biswas had lent him, just in case, had leaked in his shirt pocket and left a large wet stain: it was as though his heart had bled ink. His hair was disordered, his lips black and moustached with ink, his cheeks and forehead smudged. His face was drawn; he looked dejected, exhausted and irritable.

'Well,' Mr Biswas said, smiling, his heart sinking. 'It went all right?'

'Take your bicycle clips off!'

Stunned by the boy's vehemence, Mr Biswas obeyed.

Anand handed him the question papers, clumsily folded, already dirty. Mr Biswas began opening them.

'Oh, put it in your pocket,' Anand said, and Mr Biswas obeyed again.

A worried Chinese boy, looking irreparably scruffy, with over-broad and over-long serge trousers flapping below thin knees, left the group around the teacher and came up to them. In one small hand he unashamedly held a large cheese sandwich, far too thick, it would have seemed, for his narrow mouth; but one end of the sandwich was already irregularly pinked. In the other hand he had a bottle of aerated water. His shrunken face was distorted with anxiety: sandwich and aerated water were irrelevant.

'Biswas,' he said, paying no attention to Mr Biswas. 'That sum about the cyclist -'

'Oh, don't bother me,' Anand said.

Mr Biswas smiled apologetically at the boy, but the boy didn't notice. Daddyless, he wandered off, alone with his anxieties, no one to a.s.sure him that his answer was right, the teacher's wrong.

'You shouldn't behave like that,' Mr Biswas said.

'Here. Take back your pen.'

Mr Biswas took back his pen. It dripped with ink.

'And your wrist-watch.' Anand was anxious to get rid of every reminder of the morning's preparations.

Govind and Vidiadhar had gone. So had the other cars. The yard was less noisy. Mr Biswas took Anand to the Dairies for lunch. Crowded with boys and their fathers, it had become an unfamiliar place. As a treat Anand had a chocolate drink instead of milk; but he didn't enjoy that or anything else: it was only part of the day's sacrificial ritual.

The schoolyard filled again. Cars came back, deposited boys, and left. The hampers and the maids left. When the bell rang there was not the instant and complete silence of the morning: there was chatter, shuffling and banging, dwindling to silence.

Mr Biswas opened Anand's question papers. The arithmetic paper was filled in its margins with crabbed and frantic figures: fractions being reduced, and many little multiplications, some completed, some abandoned. Mr Biswas didn't like the look of them. Then he saw that on the geography paper Anand had written his initials elaborately, outlining them in pencil, shading them in pencil; and this dismayed him entirely.

The afternoon session was shorter, and at the end of it few Daddies were in the schoolyard. Only one car came. The drama of the day was over. There was no rush out of the hall. The boys took off their ties, folded them and put them in their shirt pockets with the broad end hanging out (a recent fashion). An invigilator, in a dingy jacket and bicycle clips, brought his rickety bicycle down the steps: no longer remote and awesome, only a man going home after work.

Anand, his tie in his shirt pocket, his collar turned up, ran smiling to Mr Biswas. 'Look!' he said, showing the English paper.

One of the essay subjects was the Grow More Food Campaign.

They smiled at each other, conspirators.

'Biswas!' a boy called. 'You coming to the Savannah?'

'Yes, man!'

He ran to join the boys; and Mr Biswas, loaded with the pen and pencils, the ruler and erasers and bottle of ink, cycled home.

It was strange that, having talked about football and racing all through the term, the boys should now, watching an important football match, talk about nothing but the examination.

Anand returned home shortly after nightfall. His serge trousers were dusty, his shirt wet with perspiration, and he was very gloomy.

'I've failed,' he said.

'What happened?' Mr Biswas asked.

'In the spelling paper. The synonyms and h.o.m.onyms. They were so easy I thought I'd leave them for last. Then I just didn't do them.'

'You mean you left out a whole question?'

'I realized it in the Savannah.'

The gloom spread to Savi and Myna and Kamla and Shama, and was deepened by the joy of Vidiadhar's brothers and sisters. Vidiadhar had been untouched by the day's events, and was at that moment in the Roxy Theatre, seeing the complete serial of Daredevils of the Red Circle. Daredevils of the Red Circle. He had brought home question papers that were quite clean except for gay ticks at the side of those questions he had answered. His arithmetic answers, neatly written on a strip of paper, were all correct. He had known the meanings of all the difficult words; he had spotted the synonyms and had not been fooled by one h.o.m.onym. And he had not had private lessons. He had not had private lessons after private lessons. No one had taken him Ovaltine and sandwiches at five. He had not been going for very long to a Port of Spain school; he had drunk little milk and eaten few prunes. He had brought home question papers that were quite clean except for gay ticks at the side of those questions he had answered. His arithmetic answers, neatly written on a strip of paper, were all correct. He had known the meanings of all the difficult words; he had spotted the synonyms and had not been fooled by one h.o.m.onym. And he had not had private lessons. He had not had private lessons after private lessons. No one had taken him Ovaltine and sandwiches at five. He had not been going for very long to a Port of Spain school; he had drunk little milk and eaten few prunes.

'I always say,' Shama said, though she had never said anything of the sort, 'I always say that carelessness was going to be your downfall.'

'In a few years you will look back on this and laugh,' Mr Biswas said. 'You did your best. And no true effort is ever wasted. Remember that.'

'What about you?' Anand said.

And though they slept on the same bed, neither spoke to the other for the rest of the evening.

Anand had no more work to do that year and no more milk to drink, but on Monday he went to school. All Sat.u.r.day's candidates were there. They had become a superior, leisured caste. A few boys did spend the day writing the examination as nearly as possible as they had done on Sat.u.r.day. (The Chinese boy, with a mortification that amounted almost to terror, got the correct answer to the sum about the cyclist.) The others flaunted their idleness. At first they were content to be in the cla.s.sroom and not of the cla.s.s, seeing the exhibition discipline enforced on next year's candidates. But this soon palled, and they wandered out into the yard. Their att.i.tude to the examination had changed since Sat.u.r.day afternoon: they all now had tales of disaster. Anand, believing none of them, magnified his own blunder. In the end they were all boasting of how badly they had done; and apparently none of them really cared. Time hung heavily on their hands, and the afternoon was only partially enlivened by a packet of cigarettes: disappointing, but a prank, at last. For the first time for many years Anand was free to go home as soon as the afternoon bell rang. Up to last week this had seemed the supreme freedom. But now he dreaded leaving the boys, dreaded going back to the house. He did not get home till six.

Unusually, Mr Biswas was below the house, in that section of it which Shama used as a kitchen. He was in his working clothes, and tired, but very gay.

'Ah, the young man himself,' he greeted Anand. 'I've been waiting for you. I've got something for you, young man.' He took out an envelope from his jacket pocket.

It was a letter from an English judge. He said he had been following Mr Biswas's work in the Sentinel, Sentinel, admired it, and would like to meet Mr Biswas, to try and persuade him to join a literary group he had formed. admired it, and would like to meet Mr Biswas, to try and persuade him to join a literary group he had formed.

'What about me, eh. What about me. I tell you, man, no true effort is wasted. Not that I expect to get anything from that blasted paper. Or from you.'

Mr Biswas's elation was extravagant. Anand thought he knew why. But he was in no mood to give comfort, to a.s.sociate himself with weakness. He handed back the letter to Mr Biswas without a word.

Mr Biswas took the letter absently, told Shama to send up his food, and went to the front room. He was alone, too, when he awoke in the night to the snoring house, Anand asleep beside him, and looked through the window at the clear, dead sky.

He saw the judge the next day, and went to the meeting of the literary group on Friday evening. He was especially glad to be out of the house then, for on Friday evenings the widows came up from Shorthills and spent the night below the house. Encouraged by the success of Indian shirtmakers, the widows had decided to go into the clothesmaking business. Since none of the five could sew at all well, they had decided to learn, and every Friday they went to the sewing cla.s.ses at the Royal Victoria Inst.i.tute, each widow specializing in a different aspect of the craft. They came in the late afternoon, they were rapturously welcomed by the readers and learners, and Basdai fed them. The readers and learners, not subject to Basdai's floggings while their mothers were present, were unusually vociferous; there was an air of festival.

Mr Biswas found himself a little out of his depth in the literary group. Apart from the poems in the Royal Reader Royal Reader and and Bell's Standard Elocutionist, Bell's Standard Elocutionist, the only poems he knew were those of Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x and Edward Carpenter; and at the judge's the emphasis was on poetry. But there was much to drink, and it was late when Mr Biswas came back and wheeled his bicycle below the house, his head ringing with the names of Lorca and Eliot and Auden. The readers and learners were asleep on benches and tables. The widows, dressed in white and singing softly, sat below a weak bulb, playing cards, drinking coffee, and handling pieces of sewing which had grown grubby over the weeks of tuition. He went up the dark front stairs and turned the light on in his room. Anand sprawled on the bed behind the bank of pillows. He undressed and squeezed himself between the diningtable and the bed. Shama came from the inner room, in answer to the light, and noted those symptoms, of slowness, precision and silence, which she a.s.sociated with his Sunday excursions to Pagotes. the only poems he knew were those of Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x and Edward Carpenter; and at the judge's the emphasis was on poetry. But there was much to drink, and it was late when Mr Biswas came back and wheeled his bicycle below the house, his head ringing with the names of Lorca and Eliot and Auden. The readers and learners were asleep on benches and tables. The widows, dressed in white and singing softly, sat below a weak bulb, playing cards, drinking coffee, and handling pieces of sewing which had grown grubby over the weeks of tuition. He went up the dark front stairs and turned the light on in his room. Anand sprawled on the bed behind the bank of pillows. He undressed and squeezed himself between the diningtable and the bed. Shama came from the inner room, in answer to the light, and noted those symptoms, of slowness, precision and silence, which she a.s.sociated with his Sunday excursions to Pagotes.

As a condition of his acceptance by the group he had to read something of his own. He didn't know what to offer them. He couldn't write poetry, and he had thrown away the 'Escape' stories. He knew that story well, however; it could be written again. He still could think of no satisfactory end, but he had read enough of modern prose to know that a neat end might offend the group. He couldn't make his hero the faceless 'John Lubbard', who was 'tall, broad-shouldered, handsome'; he would be laughed down. He had to be ruthless. His hero would be Gopi, a country shopkeeper, 'small, spare and shrunken'. He took a Sentinel Sentinel pad, got into bed and, neatly, began to write the familiar words: pad, got into bed and, neatly, began to write the familiar words: At the age of thirty-three, when he was already the father of four children... At the age of thirty-three, when he was already the father of four children...

Those words were never read to the group. This story, like the others, was never finished. For, even before Gopi could meet his barren heroine, news came that Bipti, Mr Biswas's mother, had died.

He called the children away from school and they went with Shama to Pratap's. From the road the open verandah and steps, thick with mourners, appeared to be draped with white. He had not expected such a crowd. Tara was there, and Ajodha, looking annoyed. But most of the mourners he didn't know: the families of his sister-in-law, his brother's friends, Bipti's friends. He might have been attending the funeral of a stranger. The body laid out in a coffin on the verandah belonged more to them. He longed to feel grief. He was surprised only by jealousy.

Shama did her duty and wept. Dehuti, who had been ostracized since her marriage, sat halfway up the steps, shrieking at new mourners and grabbing at their feet, as if anxious to trip them up, to prevent them going any further. The mourners, finding their trousers or skirts clutched to a wet face, stroked Dehuti's covered head and at the same time tried to shake their garments free. No one made any effort to move Dehuti. Her story was known, and it was felt that she was doing a penance which it would have been improper to interrupt. Ramchand was more controlled but equally impressive. He occupied himself with the funeral arrangements, and behaved with such authority that no one would have guessed that he had not spoken to Bipti or Mr Biswas's brothers.

Mr Biswas went past Dehuti to look at the body. Then he did not wish to see it again. But always, as he wandered about the yard among the mourners, he was aware of the body. He was oppressed by a sense of loss: not of present loss, but of something missed in the past. He would have liked to be alone, to commune with this feeling. But time was short, and always there was the sight of Shama and the children, alien growths, alien affections, which fed on him and called him away from that part of him which yet remained purely himself, that part which had for long been submerged and was now to disappear.

The children did not go to the burial ground. They strayed about Pratap's large yard, eyed other groups of children, town children versus country children. Anand, in his exhibition clothes, led his sisters through the vegetable garden to the cowpen. They examined a broken cartwheel. Behind the pen they surprised a hen and its brood scratching a dung heap. Girls and chickens fled in opposite directions, and the country children t.i.ttered.

Back in Port of Spain, they noticed Mr Biswas's stillness, his silence, his withdrawal. He did not complain about the noise; he discouraged, but gently, all efforts to engage him in conversation; he went alone for long night walks. He summoned no one to get his matches or cigarettes or books. And he wrote. He told no one what he was writing. He wrote with energy but without enthusiasm, doggedly, destroying sheet after sheet. He ate little, but his indigestion had gone. Shama bought him tinned salmon, his favourite food; she had the girls clean his bicycle and made Anand pump the tyres every morning. But he did not appear to notice these attentions.

She went to the front room one evening and stood at the head of the bed. He was writing; his back was to her. She was in his light, but he did not shout.

'What's the matter, man?'

He said in an expressionless voice, 'You are blocking the light.' He laid down paper and pencil.

She worked her way between the table and bed and sat on the edge of the bed, near his head. Her weight created a minor disturbance. The pillow tilted and his head slipped off it, falling almost into her lap. He tried to move his head, but when she held it he remained still.

'You don't look well,' she said.

He accepted her caresses. She stroked his hair, remarked on its fine quality, said it was going thin, but not, thank G.o.d, going grey like hers. She pulled out a hair from her head and laid it across his chest. 'Look,' she said, 'completely grey,' laughing.

'Grey all right.'

She looked over his chest to the sheets he had put down. She saw My Dear Doctor, My Dear Doctor, with the with the My My crossed out and written in again. crossed out and written in again.

'Who you writing to?'

She couldn't read more, for beyond the first line the handwriting had deteriorated into a racing scrawl.

He didn't reply.

For some time, until the position became uncomfortable for Shama, they remained like that, silent. She stroked his head, looked from him to the open window, heard the buzz and shrieks upstairs and downstairs. He closed his eyes and opened them under her stroking.

'Which doctor?' Though there had been a long silence, there seemed to be no break between her questions.

He was silent.

Then he said, 'Doctor Rameshwar.'

'The one who...'

'Yes. The one who signed my mother's death certificate.'

She went on stroking his head, and, slowly, he began to speak.

There had been some trouble about the certificate. No, it wasn't really trouble. Pratap had first dispatched messages; Prasad had come and they had both gone, with urgent grief, to the doctor's. It was midday, hot; the body would not last. They had been made to wait for very long in the doctor's verandah; they had complained, and the doctor had d.a.m.ned them and d.a.m.ned their mother. His bad temper continued all the way to the house; with anger and disrespect he had examined Bipti's body, signed the certificate, demanded his fee and left. This had been told to Mr Biswas by his brothers, not in anger; they told it simply as part of the tribulations of the day: the death, the sending of messages, the arrangements.

'And why didn't you tell me?' Shama asked in Hindi.

He didn't say. It was something that concerned him alone. By speaking of it he would have exposed himself to the disregard of Shama and the children; he would also have involved them in his own humiliation.

Shama's solace was a surprise. She spoke to the children, and he was further strengthened when they expressed, not hurt, but anger.

He became almost gay, and addressed himself to the letter now with something like zest. He read out to Anand the drafts he had made and asked for comments. The drafts were hysterical and libellous. But in his new mood, and after many re-writings, the letter developed into a broad philosophical essay on the nature of man. Both he and Anand thought it humorous, charitable and in parts correctly condescending; and it thrilled them to think of the doctor's surprise at receiving such a letter from the relation of someone he had thought to be only a peasant. Mr Biswas introduced himself as the son of the woman whose death the doctor had so rudely certified. He compared the doctor to an angry hero of a Hindu epic, and asked to be forgiven for mentioning the Hindu epics to an Indian who had abandoned his religion for a recent superst.i.tion that was being exported wholesale to savages all over the world (the doctor was a Christian). Perhaps the doctor had done so for political reasons or social reasons, or simply to escape from his caste; but no one could escape from what he was. This theme was developed and the letter concluded that no one could deny his humanity and keep his selfrespect. Mr Biswas and Anand hunted through the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare and found the play of and found the play of Measure for Measure Measure for Measure rich in things that could be quoted. They also quoted from the New Testament and the rich in things that could be quoted. They also quoted from the New Testament and the Gita. Gita. The letter ran to eight pages. It was typed on the yellow typewriter and posted; and Mr Biswas, exhilarated by his fortnight's work, said to Anand, 'How about a few more letters before Christmas? One to a business man. To fix up Shekhar. One to an editor. Fix up the The letter ran to eight pages. It was typed on the yellow typewriter and posted; and Mr Biswas, exhilarated by his fortnight's work, said to Anand, 'How about a few more letters before Christmas? One to a business man. To fix up Shekhar. One to an editor. Fix up the Sentinel Sentinel Publish them as a booklet. Dedicate it to you.' Publish them as a booklet. Dedicate it to you.'

But the wound was still there, too deep for anger or thoughts of retribution. What had happened was locked away in time. But it was an error, not a part of truth. He wished this stated; and he wanted to do something that would be a defiance of what had happened. The body, lying in earth, was unhallowed, and he owed it honour: the mother who had remained unknown and whom he had never loved. Waking in the night, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He longed for hands to cover him all over, and he could only fall asleep again with his hands over his navel, unable to bear the feel of any alien object, however slight, on that part of his body.

To do honour he had no gifts. He had no words to say what he wanted to say, the poet's words, which held more than the sum of their meanings. But awake one night, looking at the sky through the window, he got out of bed, worked his way to the light switch, turned it on, got paper and pencil, and began to write. He addressed his mother. He did not think of rhythm; he used no cheating abstract words. He wrote of coming up to the brow of the hill, seeing the black, forked earth, the marks of the spade, the indentations of the fork p.r.o.ngs. He wrote of a journey he had made a long time before. He was tired; she made him rest. He was hungry; she gave him food. He had nowhere to go; she welcomed him. The writing excited, relieved him; so much so that he was able to look at Anand, asleep beside him, and think, 'Poor boy. Failed his exam.'

The poem written, his selfconsciousness violated, he was whole again. And when on Friday the five widows arrived in Port of Spain for their sewing lessons at the Royal Victoria Inst.i.tute, and the house resounded with clatter and chatter and shrieks and singing and the radio and the gramophone, Mr Biswas went to the meeting of his literary group and announced that he was going to read his offering at last.

'It is a poem,' he said. 'In prose.'

Everything glowed richly in the judge's dimly-lit verandah. On the table there were bottles of whisky and rum, ginger and soda water, and a bowl of crushed ice.

Mr Biswas sat in the chair below the reading light and sipped his whisky and soda. 'There is no t.i.tle,' he said. And, as he had expected, this was received with satisfaction.

Then he disgraced himself. Thinking himself free of what he had written, he ventured on his poem boldly, and even with a touch of selfmockery. But as he read, his hands began to shake, the paper rustled; and when he spoke of the journey his voice failed. It cracked and kept on cracking; his eyes tickled. But he went on, and his emotion was such that at the end no one said a word. He folded the paper and put it in his jacket pocket. Someone filled his gla.s.s. He stared down at his lap, as if angry, as if he had been completely alone. He said nothing for the rest of the evening, and in his shame and confusion drank much. When he went home the widows were singing softly, the children were asleep, and he shamed Shama by being noisily sick in the outdoor lavatory.

Whatever happened, Anand would go to college. So Mr Biswas and Shama decided. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be cruel and foolish to give the boy nothing more than an elementary school education. The girls agreed. They had not had any milk and prunes, and their chances of going to high schools were slight; but they did badly in their cla.s.ses and did not consider themselves worthy. Myna and Kamla insisted that Mr Biswas should make a public declaration that Anand was going to the college, for Vidiadhar was behaving as though he had already won the exhibition and was openly learning Latin and French and algebra and geometry, the wonderful subjects taught at the college.

The declaration was made, though neither Mr Biswas nor Shama could say where the money was going to come from.

Shama talked of recovering her cow Mutri from Shorthills.

'Where you going to keep it?' Mr Biswas asked. 'With the boarders downstairs?'

'Milk selling at ten and twelve cents a bottle,' Shama said.

'What about gra.s.s, eh? You think you could just tie out Mutri in Adam Smith Square or the Murray Street playground? You've been reading too much Captain Cutteridge. And how much milk you think poor old Mutri going to give after living all those years with your family?'

Commercial ventures were running high in Shama's mind since one of the widows, despairing of any but long-term returns from the clothesmaking scheme, had brought up a bag of oranges from Shorthills one Friday. She was exceptionally grave. She called one of her sons aside and ordered him to place the oranges on a tray, the tray on a box, and the box on the pavement. Then she went to the Royal Victoria Inst.i.tute. The widow's idea was simplicity itself: it required little effort and no outlay. There was much agitated discussion among the sisters that evening; many plans were adumbrated, and futures tremulously envisaged. The widow herself said nothing, and continued as grave and mournful as before, sucking thread, threading needles, and sewing.

The appearance of a shallow heap of oranges on a tray outside the tall blank walls of the house created a small sensation in the residential street. And it increased Mr Biswas's dread of being traced to his home by impatient dest.i.tutes.

With the exhibition examination and the death of his mother he had been neglecting the dest.i.tutes. Correspondence had acc.u.mulated, and as he was sitting in the Sentinel Sentinel office one morning and typing for the tenth time, office one morning and typing for the tenth time, Dear Sir, Your letter awaited me on my return from holiday..., Dear Sir, Your letter awaited me on my return from holiday..., a reporter came to his desk and said, 'Congrats, old man.' a reporter came to his desk and said, 'Congrats, old man.'

It was the Sentinel's Sentinel's education correspondent. He held some typewritten sheets. They were the exhibition results. education correspondent. He held some typewritten sheets. They were the exhibition results.

In a page of names the name stood out.

Anand had been placed third, had got one of the twelve exhibitions.

As bewitching as the news was the generosity with which it was welcomed by the older members of the staff. The very young, who had sat the examination not many years before, were aloof and unimpressed.