“Tell me,” he said.
She stifled her sobs. “They break it up.”
“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’ Brand Stomach Powder.