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.
When the land was bare Seth said, “They will want to dig up the roots. Don’t let them.”
It was not long before Mr. Biswas had to report that some roots had been dug up.
Seth said, “It looks as though I will have to horsewhip one or two of them.”
“No, not that. You go back every night to sleep safe and sound in Arwacas. I have to stay here.”
In the end they decided to employ a watchman, and the land was prepared, without further trouble, for the new crop.
“You think the whole thing worth it?” Mr. Biswas asked. “Paying watchman and everything?”
“In a year or so we wouldn’t have any trouble,” Seth said. “People get used to everything.”
And it seemed that Seth was.right. The dispossessed labourers, though they saw Mr. Biswas every day, contented themselves with sending him messages by other labourers.
“Dookinan says that he know you have a kind heart and wouldn’t want to do anything to harm him. Five children, you know.”
“Is not me,” Mr. Biswas said. “Is not my land. I just doing a job and drawing a salary.”
The labourers’ acceptance, at first touched with hope, turned to resignation. And resignation turned to hostility, directed not against Seth, who was feared, but against Mr. Biswas. He was no longer mocked; but no one smiled at him, and outside the fields he was ignored.
Every night he bolted himself in his room. As soon as he was still he felt the stillness around him and he had to make movements to destroy the stillness, to challenge the alertness of the room and the objects in it.
He was rocking hard on the creaking board one night when he thought of the power of the rockers to grind and crush and inflict pain, on his hands and toes and the tenderer parts of his body. He rose at once in agony, covering his groin with his hands, sucking hard on his teeth, listening to the chair as, rocking, it moved sideways along the cambered plank. The chair fell silent. He looked away from it. On the wall he saw a nail that could puncture his eye. The window could trap and mangle. So could the door. Every leg of the green table could press and crush. The castors of the dressing-table. The drawers. He lay face down on the bed, not wanting to see and, to drive out the shapes of objects from his head, he concentrated on the shapes of letters, working out design after design for the letter R. At last he fell asleep, with his hands covering the vulnerable parts of his body, and wishing he had hands to cover himself all over. In the morning he was better; he had forgotten his fears.
There had been many changes at Hanuman House, but though he went there two or three times a week he noticed the changes as from a distance and felt in no way concerned. Marriage had taken away one wave of children, among them the contortionist. Marriage had also overtaken the elder god, though for some time it had looked as though he might be reprieved. The search among the eligible families had failed to provide someone beautiful and educated and rich enough to satisfy Mrs. Tulsi or her daughters, who, notwithstanding the chancy haste of their own marriages, based solely on caste, thought that their brother’s bride should be chosen with a more appropriate concern. For a short time afterwards a search was made for an educated, beautiful and rich girl from a caste family who had been converted to Christianity and had lapsed. Finally, it was agreed that any educated, beautiful and rich Indian girl would do, provided she had no Muslim taint. The oil families, whatever their original condition, were too grand. So they searched among the families in soft drinks, the families in ice, the transport families, the cinema families, the families in filling stations. And at last, in a laxly Presbyterian family with one filling station, two lorries, a cinema and some land, they found a girl. Each side patronized the other and neither suspected it was being patronized; after smooth and swift negotiations the marriage took place in a registry office, and the elder god, contrary to Hindu custom and the traditions of his family, did not bring his bride home, but left Hanuman House for good, no longer talking of suicide, to look after the lorries, cinema, land and filling station of his wife’s family.
His departure was followed by another. Mrs. Tulsi went to live in Port of Spain, not caring for the younger god to be in that city by himself, and not trusting anyone else to look after him. She bought not one house, but three: one to live in, two to rent out. She travelled up to Port of Spain with the god every Sunday evening and came down with him every Friday afternoon.
During her absences the accepted degrees of precedence at Hanuman House lost some of their meaning. Sushila, the widow, was reduced to nonentity. Many sisters attempted to seize power and a number of squabbles ensued. Offended sisters ostentatiously looked after their own families, sometimes even cooking separately for a day or two. Padma, Seth’s wife, alone continued to be respected, but she showed no inclination to assert authority. Seth exacted the obedience of everyone; he could not impose harmony. That was reestablished every week-end, when Mrs. Tulsi and the younger god returned.