“Hello!” he said.
Shama tied one bootee and slipped on the other.
“Going somewhere?”
She tied the other bootee.
At last she said in Hindi, “You may have lost all shame. But everyone hasn’t. Just remember that.”
He knew that the Tulsi daughters who lived with their husbands often went back after a quarrel to Hanuman House, where they complained and got sympathy and, if they didn’t stay too long, respect. “All right,” he said. “Pack up and go. I suppose they are going to give you some medal at the monkey house.”
After she left, he stood in the shop doorway, fondling his belly and watching his creditors coming back from the fields. The only thing that gave him pleasure was the thought of the surprise these people were going to get in a few days: a flutter of disturbances throughout The Chase for which he, inactive in his shop, would be responsible.
“Biswas!” Mungroo shouted from the road. “Come out, before I come in.”
The day had arrived. Mungroo was holding a sheet of paper in one hand and slapping at it with the other.
“Biswas!”
A crowd was beginning to gather. Many held papers.
“Paper,” Mungroo said. “He has sent me a paper. I am going to make him eat this piece of paper. Biswas!”
Unhurriedly Mr. Biswas lifted the counter-flap, pulled the little door open and passed to the front of the shop. The law was on his side-he had, indeed, brought it into play-and he felt this gave him complete protection. He leaned against the doorpost, felt the wall quiver, stifled his fear about the wall tumbling down, and crossed his legs.
“Biswas! I am going to make you eat this paper.”
Women screamed from the road.
“Touch me,” Mr. Biswas said.
“Paper,” Mungroo said, stepping into the yard.
Touch me and I bring you up.”
Still Mungroo advanced.
“I bring you up and you spend Carnival in jail.”
The effect was startling. Carnival was less than a month away. Mungroo halted. His followers, seeing themselves leaderless during the two most important days of the stick-fighting year, at once ran to Mungroo and held him back.
“I call all of all-you as witnesses,” Mr. Biswas said, unaware of the reasons for his deliverance. “Let him touch me. And all of all-you have to come to court to be my witnesses.” He believed that by being the first to ask them he had bound them legally. “Can’t ask my wife,” he went on. “They don’t take wife as witness. But I asking all of all-you here.”
“Paper. The man has sent me a paper,” Mungroo muttered, while he allowed himself, without loss of prestige, to be pushed slowly back to the road by his followers.
“Well,” Mr. Biswas said. “One man get his paper. He had it coming to him a long time. Let me tell you, eh. Don’t let Tom, Dick or Harry think he can play with me, you hear. One man get his paper. A lot more going to get their paper before I finish. And don’t come to talk to me. Go and talk to Seebaran.”
When he came to the shop, a week later, Moti was businesslike. As soon as he greeted Mr. Biswas he took out a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket, spread it on the counter and began ticking off names with his fountain pen. “Well, Ratni pay up,” he said. “Dookhni pay. Sohun pay. Godberdhan pay. Rattan pay.”
“We frighten them, eh? So, no legal proceedings against them, then?”
“Jankie ask for time. Pritam too. But they going to pay, especially as they see the others paying up.”
“Good, good,” Mr. Biswas said. “I could do with their money right now.”
Moti folded the sheet of paper.
“So?” Mr. Biswas said.
Moti put the paper in his pocket.
Mr. Biswas pretended he hadn’t been waiting for anything. “And Mungroo?”
“I glad you ask about him. As a matter of fact, he giving us a little trouble.” Moti took out a long envelope from his trouser pocket and handed it to Mr. Biswas. “This is for you.”
It was a communication, on stiff paper, from the Attorney-General.
Mr. Biswas read with disbelief, annoyance and distress.
“Who is this damn Muslim Mahmoud who stamp his dirty name down here? He is a solicitor and conveyancer too, eh? I thought Seebaran was handling all the work in the Petty Civil.”
“No, no,” Moti said soothingly. “This is Assize Court business.”
“Assize. Assize! So this is what Seebaran land me up in!”
“Seebaran ain’t land you up in nothing. You land yourself. Read the schedule.”
“O God! Look, look. Mungroo bringing me up for damaging his credit!”
“And he have a good case too. You shouldn’t go around telling people he owe you money. Over and over I hear Seebaran telling clients, ‘Leave everything to me and keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut and leave everything to me.’ Over and over. But clients don’t listen. I know clients who talk their way straight to the gallows.”
“Seebaran didn’t tell me a damn thing. I ain’t even see the blasted man yet.”
“He want to see you now.”
“Just let me get this straight. Mungroo owe me money. I say so and I damage his credit. So now he can’t go around taking goods on trust and not paying. So he bring me up. Exactly what the hell this is? And what about those slips?”
“They wasn’t signed. I did warn you about that, remember. But you didn’t listen. Clients don’t listen. Is a serious business, man. It got Seebaran worried like anything. I could tell you.”
“Hear you. It got Seebaran worried. What about me?”
“Seebaran don’t think you would have a chance in court. He say it would be better to settle outside.”
“You mean shell out. All right. Pounds, shillings and pence, dollars and cents. Let me hear who have to get how much. This is the way Seebaran handling all the work in the Petty Civil, eh?”
“Seebaran only want to help you out, you know. You could take your case to some K c or the other and pay him a hundred guineas before he ask you to sit down. Nobody stopping you.”
Mr. Biswas listened. He learned with surprise that there had already been friendly discussions between Mungroo’s lawyer, Mahmoud, and Seebaran; so that the case had been raised and virtually settled without his knowing anything about it at all. It appeared that Mungroo was willing, for one hundred dollars, to call off the action. The fees of both lawyers came to a hundred dollars as well, though Seebaran, appreciating Mr. Biswas’s position, had said he would accept only such money as he could recover from Mr. Biswas’s creditors.
“Suppose,” Mr. Biswas said, “that all the others decide to behave like Mungroo. Suppose that every manjack bring me up.”
“Don’t think about it,” Moti said. “You would make yourself sick.”
As soon as he could, Mr. Biswas cycled to Arwacas to ask Shama to come back. He did not tell her what had happened. And it was not from Mrs. Tulsi or Seth that he borrowed the money, but from Misir, who, in addition to his journalistic, literary and religious activities, had set up as a usurer, with a capital of two hundred dollars.
More than half the time that remained to Mr. Biswas in The Chase was spent in paying off this debt.
In all Mr. Biswas lived for six years at The Chase, years so squashed by their own boredom and futility that at the end they could be comprehended in one glance. But he had aged. The lines which he had encouraged at first, to give him an older look, had come; they were not the decisive lines he had hoped for that would give a commanding air to a frown; they were faint, fussy, disappointing. His cheeks began to fall; his cheek bones, in a proper light, jutted slightly; and he developed a double chin of pure skin which he could pull down so that it hung like the stiff beard on an Egyptian statue. The skin loosened over his arms and legs. His stomach was now perpetually distended; not fat: it was his indigestion, for that affliction had come to stay, and bottles of Maclean’s Brand Stomach Powder became as much part of Shama’s purchases as bags of rice or flour.