And the baby was a girl. But it was born at the correct time; it was born without difficulty; it was healthy; and Shama was absolutely well. He expected no less from her. He closed the shop and cycled to Hanuman House, and found that his daughter had already been named.
“Look at Savi,” Shama said.
“Savi?”
They were in Mrs. Tulsi’s room, the Rose Room, where all the sisters spent their confinements.
“It is a nice name,” Shama said.
Nice name; when all the way from The Chase he had been working on names, and had decided on Sarojini Lakshmi Kamala Devi.
“Seth and Hari chose it.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” Jerking his chin towards the baby, he asked in English, “They had it register?”
On the marble topped table next to the bed there was a sheet of paper under a brass plate. She handed that to him.
“Well! I glad she register. You know the government and nobody else did want to believe that I was even born. People had to swear and sign all sort of paper.”
“All of we was register,” Shama said.
“All of all-you would be register.” He looked at the certificate. “Savi? But I don’t see the name here at all. I only see Basso.”
She widened her eyes. “Shh!”
“I not going to let anybody call my child Basso.”
“Shh!”
He understood. Basso was the real name of the baby, Savi the calling name. The real name of a person could be used to damage that person, whereas the calling name had no validity and was only a convenience. He was relieved he wouldn’t have to call his daughter Basso. Still, what a name!
“Hari make that one up, eh? The holy ghost.”
“And Seth.”
“Trust the pundit and the big thug.”
“Man, what you doing?”
He was scribbling hard on the birth certificate.
“Look.” At the top of the certificate he had written: Real calling name: Lakshmi. Signed by Mohun Biswas, father. Below that was the date.
They both felt that a government document, which should have remained inviolate, had been challenged.
He enjoyed her alarm, and looked at her closely for the first time since he had come. Her long hair was loose and spread about her pillow. To look at him she had to press her chin into her neck.
“You got a double chin,” he said. She didn’t reply.
Suddenly he jumped up. “What the hell is this?”
“Show me.”
He showed her the certificate. “Look. Occupation of father. Labourer. Labourer! Me! Where your family get all this bad blood, girl?”
“I didn’t see that.”
“Trust Seth. Look. Name of informant: R. N. Seth. Occupation: Estate Manager.”
“I wonder why he do that.”
“Look, the next time you want a informant, eh, just let me know. Calling Lakshmi Basso and Savi. Hello, Lakshmi. Lakshmi, is me, your father, occupation-occupation what, girl? Painter?”
“It make you sound like a house painter.”
“Sign-painter? Shopkeeper? God, not that!” He took the certificate and began scribbling. “Proprietor,” he said, passing the certificate to her.
“But you can’t call yourself a proprietor. The shop belong to Mai.”
“You can’t call me a labourer either.”
“They could bring you up for this.”
“Let them try.”
“You better go now, man.”
The baby was stirring.
“Hello, Lakshmi.”
“Savi.”
“Basso.”
“Shh!”
“Talk about the old thug. The old scorpion, if you ask me. The old Scorpio.”
He left the dark room with its close medicinal smells, its basins and its pile of diapers and came out into the drawing-room where at one end the two tall chairs stood like thrones. He went through the wooden bridge to the verandah of the old upstairs where Hari usually sat reading his unwieldy scriptures. Shyly, he came down the stairs into the hall, anticipating much attention as the father of the newest baby in Hanuman House. No one particularly looked at him. The hall was full of children eating gloomily. Among them he recognized the contortionist and the girl who had been running the house-game at The Chase. He smelled sulphur and saw that the children were not eating food but a yellow powder mixed with what looked like condensed milk.
He asked, “What is that, eh?”
The contortionist grimaced and said, “Sulphur and condensed milk.”
“Food getting expensive, eh?”
“Is for the eggzema,” the house-player said.
She dipped her finger in condensed milk, in sulphur, then put her finger in her mouth. Hurriedly she repeated the action.
Mrs. Tulsi had come out of the black kitchen doorway.
“Sulphur and condensed milk,” Mr. Biswas said.
“To sweeten it,” Mrs. Tulsi said. Again she had forgiven him.
“Sweeten!” the contortionist whispered loudly. “My foot.” Her achievements gave her unusual licence.
“Very good for the eczema.” Mrs. Tulsi sat down next to the contortionist, took up her plate and shook back the sulphur from the rim, over which the contortionist had been steadily spilling sulphur on to the table. “Have you seen your daughter, Mohun?”
“Lakshmi?”
“Lakshmi?”
“Lakshmi. My daughter. That is the name I choose.”
“Shama looks well.” Mrs. Tulsi brushed the spilled sulphur off the table on to her palm and shook the palm over the condensed milk, which the contortionist had so far kept virgin. “I have put her in the Rose Room. My room.”
Mr. Biswas said nothing.
Mrs. Tulsi patted the bench. “Come and sit here, Mohun.”
He sat beside her.
“The Lord gives,” Mrs. Tulsi said abruptly in English.
Concealing his surprise, Mr. Biswas nodded. He knew Mrs. Tulsi’s philosophizing manner. Slowly, and with the utmost solemnity, she made a number of simple, unconnected statements; the effect was one of puzzling profundity.
“Everything comes, bit by bit,” she said. “We must forgive. As your father used to say”-she pointed to the photographs on the wall-“what is for you is for you. What is not for you is not for you.”
Against his will Mr. Biswas found himself listening gravely and nodding in agreement.
Mrs. Tulsi sniffed and pressed her veil to her nose. “A year ago, who would have thought that you would be sitting here, in this hall, with these children, as my son-in-law and a father? Life is full of these surprises. But they are not really surprising. You are responsible for a life now, Mohun.” She began to cry. She put her hand on Mr. Biswas’s shoulder, not to comfort him, but urging him to comfort her. “I let Shama have my room. The Rose Room. I know that you are worried about the future. Don’t tell me. 1 know.” She patted his shoulder.
He was trapped by her mood. He forgot the children eating sulphur and condensed milk, and shook his head as if to admit that he had thought profoundly and with despair of the future.
Having trapped him in the mood, she removed her hand, blew her nose and dried her eyes. “Whatever happens, you keep on living. Whatever happens. Until the Lord sees fit to take you away.” The last sentence was in English; it took him aback, and broke the spell. “As He did with your dear father. But until that time comes, no matter how they starve you or how they treat you, they can never kill you.”