A House for Mr. Biswas

by Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul

  “Show me!” he cried. “Show me!”

  His rage shocked her out of her tears. She came down the steps and he followed her through the gallery at the end of the hall into the yard, past a half-full copper reflecting a deep blue sky, and a black riveted tank where fish, bought alive from the market, swam until the time came for them to be eaten.

  And there, below the almost bare branches of the almond tree that grew in the next yard, he saw it, thrown against a dusty leaning fence made of wood and tin and corrugated iron. A broken door, a ruined window, a staved-in wall or even roof-he had expected that. But not this. The doll’s house did not exist. He saw only a bundle of firewood. None of its parts was whole. Its delicate joints were exposed and useless. Below the torn skin of paint, still bright and still in parts imitating brickwork, the hacked and splintered wood was white and raw.

  “O God!”

  The sight of the wrecked house and the silence of her father made Savi cry afresh.

  “Ma mash it up.”

  He ran back to the house. The edge of a wall scraped against his shoulder, tearing his shirt and tearing the skin below.

  Sisters had now left the stairs and kitchen and were sitting about the hall.

  “Shama!” he bawled. “Shama!”

  Savi came slowly up the steps from the courtyard. Sisters shifted their gaze from Mr. Biswas to her and she remained in the doorway, looking down at her feet.

  “Shama!”

  He heard a sister whisper, “Go and call your aunt Shama. Quick.”

  He noticed Anand among the children and sisters.

  “Come here, boy!”

  Anand looked at the sisters. They gave him no help. He didn’t move.

  “Anand, I call you! Come here quick sharp.”

  “Go, boy,” Sumati said. “Before you get blows.”

  While Anand hesitated, Shama came. She came through the kitchen doorway. Her veil was pulled over her forehead. This unusual touch of dutifulness he noted. She looked frightened yet determined.

  “You bitch!”

  The silence was absolute.

  Sisters shooed away their children up the stairs and into the kitchen.

  Savi remained in the doorway behind Mr. Biswas.

  “I don’t mind what you call me,” Shama said.

  “You break up the dolly house?”

  Her eyes widened with fear and guilt and shame. “Yes,” she said, exaggeratedly calm. Then casually, “I break it up.”

  “To please who?” He was losing control of his voice.

  She didn’t answer.

  He noticed that she looked lonely. “Tell me,” he screamed. “To please these people?”

  Chinta got up, straightened out her long skirt and started to walk up the stairs. “Let me go away, eh, before I hear something I don’t like and have to answer back.”

  “I wasn’t pleasing anybody but myself Shama was speaking more surely now and he could see that she was gaining strength from the approval of her sisters.

  “You know what I think of you and your family?”

  Two more sisters went up the stairs.

  “I don’t care what you think.”

  And suddenly his rage had gone. His shouts rang in his head, leaving him startled, ashamed and tired. He could think of nothing to say.

  She recognized the change in his mood and waited, at ease now.

  “Go and dress Savi.” He spoke quietly.

  She made no move.

  “Go and dress Savi!”

  His shout frightened Savi and she began to scream. She was trembling and when he touched her she felt brittle.

  Shama at last moved to obey.

  Savi pulled away. “I don’t want anybody to dress me.”

  “Go and pack her clothes.”

  “You are taking her with you?”

  It was his turn to be silent.

  The children who had been shooed away into the kitchen pushed their faces out of the doorway.

  Shama walked the length of the hall to the stairs, where sisters, sitting on the lower steps, pulled their knees in to let her pass.

  At once everybody relaxed.

  Sumati said in an amused voice, “Anand, are you going with your father too?”

  Anand pulled his head back into the kitchen.

  The hall became active again. Children drifted back, and sisters hurried between kitchen and hall, laying out the evening meal. Chinta returned arid started on a light-hearted song, which was taken up by other sisters.

  The drama was over, and Shama’s re-entry, with ribbons, comb and a small cardboard suitcase, did not have the same attention as her exit.

  Offering the suitcase with outstretched hand, Shama said, “She is your daughter. You know what is good for her. You have been feeding her. You know-”

  He set his mouth, pulling his upper teeth behind his lower.

  Chinta broke off her singing to say to Savi, “Going home, girl?”

  “Put some shoes on her feet,” Shama said.

  But that meant washing Savi’s feet, and that meant delay; and, pushing away Shama when she tried to comb Savi’s hair, he led Savi outside. It was only when they were in the High Street that he remembered Anand.

  Market day was over and the street was littered with broken boxes, torn paper, straw, rotting vegetables, animal droppings and, though it hadn’t rained, a number of puddles. By the light of flambeaux stalls were being stripped and carts loaded by vendors, their wives and tired children.

  Mr. Biswas tied the suitcase to the carrier of his bicycle, and he and Savi walked in silence to the end of the High Street.

  When the red and ochre police station was out of sight, he put Savi on the crossbar of the cycle, took a short run and, with difficulty and some nervousness, hopped on to the saddle. The cycle wobbled; Savi held on to his left arm and made balance more uncertain. Presently, however, they had left Arwacas and there was nothing but silent sugarcane on either side of the road. It was pitch black. The bicycle had no lights and they couldn’t see for more than a few yards ahead. Savi was trembling.

  “Don’t frighten.”

  A light flashed in front of them. A gritty male voice said harshly, “Where you think you going?”

  It was a Negro policeman. Mr. Biswas pulled at his handbrakes. The bicycle leaned to the left and Savi slipped to the ground.

  The policeman examined the bicycle. “No licence, eh? No licence. No lights. And you was towing. You have a nice little case coming up.” He paused, waiting to be bribed. “All right, then. Name and address.” He wrote in his book. “Good. You go be getting a summons.”

  So they walked the rest of the way to Green Vale, through the darkness, and then below the dead trees to the barracks.

  They spent a miserable week. Mr. Biswas left the barracks early in the morning and returned in the middle of the afternoon. All that time Savi was alone. An old woman, who was spending time with her son, his wife and five children in a barrackroom, took pity on Savi and gave her food at midday. This food Savi never ate; hunger could not overcome her distrust of food cooked by strangers. She took the plate to the room, emptied it on to a sheet of newspaper, washed the plate, took it back to the old woman, thanked her, and waited for Mr. Biswas. When he came she waited for the night; when the night came she waited for the morning.

  To amuse her, he read from his novels, expounded Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, made her learn the quotations hanging on the walls, and made her sit still while he unsuccessfully tried to sketch her. She was dispirited and submissive. She was also afraid. Sometimes, especially during walks under the trees, he suddenly seemed to forget her, and she heard him muttering to himself, holding bitter, repetitive arguments with unseen persons. He was “trapped” in a “hole”. “Trap,” she heard him say over and over. “That’s what you and your family do to me. Trap me in this hole.” She saw his mouth twist with anger; she heard him curse and threaten. When they got back to the barracks he asked her to mix him doses of Macleans’ Bran
d Stomach Powder.

  They were both looking forward to Saturday afternoon, when Seth would come and take her back to Hanuman House. There was a good reason why she couldn’t stay any longer: her school was opening on Monday.

  On Saturday Seth came. He was not alone. Shama, Anand and Myna came with him. Savi ran to the road to meet them. Mr. Biswas pretended he didn’t see, and Seth smiled, as at the antics of children. Quarrels between Seth and his wife were unknown, and it was his policy never to interfere in quarrels between sisters and their husbands. But Mr. Biswas knew that despite the smile Seth had come as Shama’s protector.

  He immediately took out the green table to the yard, setting it some distance away from the room, and the labourers queued up, screening him from Shama. While he sat beside Seth, calling out tasks and wages and making entries in the ledger, he listened to Savi talking excitedly to Shama and Anand. He heard Shama’s cooing replies. Soon she was so sure of the children’s affection that she was even scolding them. What a difference there was, though, in the voice she used now and the voice she used at Hanuman House!

  And even while he noted Shama’s duplicity, he felt that Savi had betrayed him.

  The labourers were paid. Seth said he wanted to have a look at the fields; it was not necessary for Mr. Biswas to come with him.

  Shama was sitting in the kitchen area. She held Myna in her arms and was playing with her, talking baby-talk. Savi and Anand looked on. When Mr. Biswas passed, Shama glanced at him but did not stop talking to Myna.

  Savi and Anand looked up apprehensively.

  Mr. Biswas went into the room and sat in the rocking-chair.

  Shama said loudly, “Anand, go and ask your father if he would like a cup of tea.”

  Anand came, shy and worried, and mumbled the message.

  Mr. Biswas did not reply. He studied Anand’s big head and thin arms. The skin at the elbow was baggy, and scarred purple with eczema. Had he too been fed on sulphur and condensed milk?

  Anand waited, then went outside.

  Mr. Biswas rocked. The floor-planks were wide and rough. One had cambered and cracked; whenever the rockers came down on it, it squeaked and snapped.

  Savi, not looking at Mr. Biswas, brought Myna into the room and laid her carefully on the bed.

  Shama was fanning the coal-pot.

  Savi, her pyromaniacal instincts aroused, hurried out of the room, saying, “Ma, you getting coal all over your clothes. Let me.”

  So. They had all forgotten the doll’s house. He drew up his feet on to the chair, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and rocked. The board replied.

  “Anand, take this to your father.”

  He heard Anand approaching but didn’t open his eyes. He wondered whether he shouldn’t take the tea and fling it over Shama’s fussy embroidered dress and smiling, uncertain face.

  He opened his eyes, took the cup from Anand, and sipped.

  When Seth came back he smiled at everyone benevolently and sat down on the steps. Shama gave him a large cup of tea and he drank it in three gurgling draughts, snorting and sighing in between. He took off his hat and smoothed his damp hair. Suddenly he began to laugh. “Mohun, I hear you have a case.”

  “Case? Oh, case! Small one. Tiny tiny. Baby case, really.”

  “You are a funny sort of paddler. Get your summons yet?”

  “Waiting for it.”

  “And Savi. You get your summons yet?”

  Savi smiled, as though there had been no terror in the dark road and the flash of the policeman’s torch.

  “Well, don’t worry.” Seth got up. “These people just want to see whether your dollar-notes look any different from theirs. I settle it up. Wouldn’t do anybody any good for your case to come up.”

  And he was gone.

  Mr. Biswas closed his eyes, rocked on the noisy board, and the children became anxious again.

  He remained in the chair until it was dark and time to eat. Oil lamps were lighted in many barrackrooms. Far down a drunk man was swearing.

  Savi and Anand ate sitting on the steps. As he ate at the green table Mr. Biswas became less torpid, and Shama correspondingly gloomier. Towards the end of the meal he even began to clown. He squatted on the chair, with his left hand squashed between calf and thigh, and asked banteringly, “Why you didn’t stay at the monkey house, eh?”

  She didn’t reply.

  After he had washed his hands and gargled out of the side window, Shama sat down on the steps to eat. He watched her.

  “Crying, eh?”

  Slowly the tears flowed out of her wide eyes.

  “So you vex up then?”

  One tear raced down her cheek and hung trembling over her top lip.

  “It tickling?”

  Her mouth was half full but she stopped chewing.

  “Don’t tell me the food so bad.”

  She said, as though to herself, “If it wasn’t for the children-”

  “If it wasn’t for the children, what?”

  She continued to chew with a loud and morose deliberation.

  In one corner Savi and Anand were rolling out sacks and sheets on which to sleep.

  “You come,” Shama said. “You come, you didn’t look right, you didn’t look left, you start getting on, you curse me upside down-”

  It was the beginning of her apology. He didn’t interrupt.

  “You didn’t know what I had to put up with. Talking night and day. Puss-puss here. Puss-puss there. Chinta dropping remarks all the time. Everybody beating their children the moment they start talking to Savi. Nobody wanting to talk to me. Everybody behaving as though I kill their father.” She stopped, and cried. “So I had to satisfy them. I break up the dolly-house and everybody was satisfied. And then you come. You didn’t look right, you didn’t look left-”

  “Charge of the Light Brigade. You think Chinta would break up a dolly-house Govind buy? If you could imagine Govind doing anything like that. Tell me, what does that brother-in-law of yours use for food, eh? Dirt? You think Chinta would break up a dolly-house Govind buy?”

  She wept over her plate.

  Later she wept over the washingup, repeatedly interrupting her tears, first to blow her nose, then to sing sad songs softly, and finally to ask about Savi’s behaviour during the week.

  He told how Savi had thrown away the old woman’s food. Shama was gratified, and told other stories of the girl’s sensibility. Savi, still anxiously awake and only pretending to be asleep, listened with pleasure. Again Shama told of Savi’s dislike for fish and how Mrs. Tulsi had overcome that dislike. She also spoke of Anand, who was so sensitive that biscuits made his mouth bleed.

  Mr. Biswas, his mood now soft as hers, did not say that he thought this to be a sign of undernourishment. Instead he began to talk about his house and Shama listened without enthusiasm but without objection.

  “And as soon as the house finish, going to buy that gold brooch for you, girl!”

  “I would like to see the day.”

  They had come on Saturday. On Monday Savi had to go back to school.

  “Stay here,” Mr. Biswas said. “They don’t teach much on the first day.”

  “How you know?” Savi said. “You ever went to school?”

  “Yes, miss. I went to school. You are not the only one to go to school, you know.”

  “If I stay I will have to have an excuse to give Teacher.”

  “I will write one for you in two twos. Dear Teacher, My daughter Savi is unable to attend school for the first week because she has been staying with her grandmother and is suffering from serious undernourishment.”

  On Sunday evening Shama took Savi and Anand back to Arwacas. She went to Hanuman House again. And so for the rest of the term she came and left; and he never ceased to feel that he was alone, with the trees, the newspapers on the wall, the religious quotations, his books.

  One thing gave him comfort. He had claimed Savi.

  At Easter he learned that Shama was pregnant for the fourth time.


  One child claimed; one still hostile; one unknown. And now another.

  Trap!

  The future he feared was upon him. He was falling into the void, and that terror, known only in dreams, was with him as he lay awake at nights, hearing the snores and creaks and the occasional cries of babies from the other rooms. The relief that morning brought steadily diminished. Food and tobacco were tasteless. He was always tired, and always restless. He went often to Hanuman House; as soon as he was there he wanted to leave. Sometimes he cycled to Arwacas without going to the house, changing his mind in the High Street, turning round and cycling back to Green Vale. When he closed the door of his room for the night it was like an imprisonment.

  He talked to himself, shouted, did everything as noisily as he could.

  Nothing replied. Nothing changed. Amazing scenes were witnessed yesterday when. The newspapers remained as jaunty as they had been, the quotations as sedate. Of him I will never lose hold and he shall never lose hold of me. But now in the shape and position of everything around him, the trees, the furniture, even those letters he had made with brush and ink, there was an alertness, an expectancy.

  Seth announced one Saturday that there were to be changes on the estate at the end of the crop season. Some twenty acres which had for many years been rented to labourers were to be taken over. Seth and Mr. Biswas went from hut to hut, breaking the news. As soon as he entered a labourer’s hut Seth lost his briskness. He looked tired and sounded tired; he accepted a cup of tea and drank it wearily; then he spoke, as though the matter was trivial, burdensome only to him, and the land was being taken from the labourers purely for their benefit. The labourers listened politely and asked Seth and Mr. Biswas whether they wanted more tea. Seth accepted at once, saying it was very good tea. He played with the thin-limbed, big-eyed children, made them laugh and gave them coppers to buy sweeties. Their parents protested he was spoiling them.

  Afterwards Seth said to Mr. Biswas, “You can’t trust those buggers. They are going to give a lot of trouble. You better watch out.”

  The labourers never spoke about the land to Mr. Biswas, and while the crop was being reaped there was no trouble.