Though he never ceased to feel that some nobler purpose awaited him, even in this limiting society, he gave up reading Samuel Smiles. That author depressed him acutely. He turned to religion and philosophy. He read the Hindus; he read the Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus which Mrs. Weir had given him; he earned the gratitude and respect of a stall-keeper at Arwacas by buying an old and stained copy of The Supersensual Life; and he began to dabble in Christianity, acquiring a volume, written mostly in capital letters, called Arise and Walk. As a boy he had liked to read descriptions of bad weather in foreign countries; they made him forget the heat and sudden rain which was all he knew. But now, though his philosophical books gave him solace, he could never lose the feeling that they were irrelevant to his situation. The books had to be put down. The shop awaited; money problems awaited; the road outside was short, and went through flat fields of dull green to small, hot settlements.
And at least once a week he thought of leaving the shop, leaving Shama, leaving the children, and taking that road.
Religion was one thing. Painting was the other. He brought out his brushes and covered the inside of the shop doors and the front of the counter with landscapes. Not of the abandoned field next to the shop, the intricate bush at the back, the huts and trees across the road, or the low blue mountains of the Central Range in the distance. He painted cool, ordered forest scenes, with gracefully curving grass, cultivated trees ringed with friendly serpents, and floors bright with perfect flowers; not the rotting, mosquito-infested jungle he could find within an hour’s walk. He attempted a portrait of Shama. He made her sit on a fat sack of flour-the symbolism pleased him: “Suit your family to a T,” he said-and spent so much time on her clothes and the sack of flour that before he could begin on her face Shama abandoned him and refused to sit any more.
He read innumerable novels, particularly those in the Reader’s Library; and he even tried to write, encouraged by the appearance in a Port of Spain magazine of a puzzling story by Misir. (This was a story of a starving man who was rescued by a benefactor and after some years rose to wealth. One day, driving along the beach, the man heard someone in the sea shouting for help, and recognized his former benefactor in difficulties. He instantly dived into the water, struck his head on a submerged rock and was drowned. The benefactor survived.) But Mr. Biswas could never devise a story, and he lacked Misir’s tragic vision; whatever his mood and however painful his subject, he became irreverent and facetious as soon as he began to write, and all he could manage were distorted and scurrilous descriptions of Moti, Mungroo, Seebaran, Seth and Mrs. Tulsi.
And there were whole weeks when he devoted himself to some absurdity. He grew his nails to an extreme length and held them up to startle customers. He picked and squeezed at his face until his cheeks and forehead were inflamed and the rims of his lips were like welts. When his skin became pitted with little holes, he studied these with interest and found the perfection of their shape pleasing. And once he dabbed healing ointments of various colours on his face and went and stood in the shop doorway, greeting people he knew.
He did these things when Shama was away. And more and more frequently she went to Hanuman House, even when there was no quarrel, and stayed longer.
Three years after Savi was born, Shama gave birth to a son. He was not given the names that had been written on the endpaper of the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare. Seth suggested that the boy should be called Anand, and Mr. Biswas, who had prepared no new names, agreed. Then it was Anand who travelled with Shama. Savi stayed at Hanuman House. Mrs. Tulsi wanted this; so did Shama; so did Savi herself. She liked Hanuman House for its activity and its multitude of children; at The Chase she was restless and badly behaved.
“Ma,” Savi said to Shama one day, “couldn’t you give me to Aunt Chinta and take Vidiadhar in exchange?”
Vidiadhar was Chinta’s newest baby, born a few months before Anand. And the reason for Savi’s request was this: by virtue of a tradition whose beginnings no one could trace, Chinta was the aunt who distributed all the delicacies that were given to the House by visitors.
Shama told the story as a joke, and couldn’t understand it when Mr. Biswas became annoyed.
Once a week he rode his Royal Enfield bicycle to Hanuman House to see Savi. Often he didn’t have to go inside; Savi was waiting for him in the arcade. At every visit he gave her a silver six-cents piece and asked anxious questions.
“Who beat you?”
Savi shook her head.
“Who shouted at you?”
“They shout at everybody.”
She didn’t seem to need a protector.
One Saturday he found her wearing heavy boots with long iron bands down the side of her legs and straps over her knees.
“Who put these on you?”
“Granny.” She was not aggrieved. She was proud of the boots, the iron, the straps. “They are heavy, heavy.”
“Why did she put them on? To punish you?”
“Only to straighten my legs.”
She had bow-legs. He didn’t believe anything could be done about them and had never tried to find out.
“They are ugly.” That was all he could say. “They make you look like a cripple.”
She frowned at the word. “Well, I like it.” Then, taking the six cents, “At least, I don’t mind.” She threw out her hands, then put them on her hips and looked away, just like one of the aunts.
The numbers of the Tulsis swelled continually. Fresh children were born to the resident daughters. A son-in-law who lived away died, and his brood came to Hanuman House, where they were distinguished and made glamorous by their mourning clothes of black, white and mauve. This Christian custom did not please everyone. And almost at once Shama had tales to take back to The Chase about the low manners and language of the new arrivals. There were even whispers of theft and obscene practises, and Shama reported the general approval when the widow, anxious to appease, took to inflicting spectacular punishments on her bereaved children.
All this made Mr. Biswas uneasy, and he was mortified to find that Savi now talked of nothing but the mourners, their misdeeds and their punishments.
“Sometimes,” Savi said, “their mother simply hands over to Granny.”
“Look, Savi. If Granny or anybody else touches you, you just let me know. Don’t let them frighten you. I will take you home right away. You just let me know.”
“And Granny tied Vimla to the bed in the Rose Room and blindfolded her and pinched her all over.”
“God!”
“It serves Vimla right. The language that girl has picked up.”
Mr. Biswas wanted to know whether Savi had been blindfolded and pinched herself; but he was afraid to ask.
“Oh, I like Granny,” Savi said. “I think she is very funny. And she likes me.”
“Yes?”
“She calls me the little paddler.”
He made no comment.