“My children! My children!” Shama said. “Well, the example set. They just following.”
The next day Mr. Biswas wrote an angry article about the lack of warning notices at Docksite. In the afternoon Anand came home from school a little more composed and, extraordinarily, without being asked, took out a copy book from his bag and handed it to Mr. Biswas, who was in the hammock in the back verandah. Then Anand went to change.
The copy book contained Anand’s English compositions, which reflected the vocabulary and ideals of Anand’s teacher as well as Anand’s obsession with the stylistic device of the noun followed by a dash, an adjective and the noun again: for example, “the robbers-the ruthless robbers”.
The last composition was headed “A Day by the Seaside”. Below that the phrases supplied by the teacher had been copied down: project a visit-feverish preparations-eager anticipation-laden hampers-wind blowing through open car-spirits overflowing into song-graceful curve of coconut trees-arc of golden sand-crystalline water-pounding surf-majestic rollers-energetically battling the waves-cries of delirious joy-grateful shade of coconut trees-glorious sunset-sad to leave-memory to be cherished in future days-looking forward in eager anticipation to paying a return visit.
Mr. Biswas was familiar with the clarity and optimism of the teacher’s vision, and he expected Anand to write: “With anticipation-eager anticipation-we projected a visit to the seaside and we made preparations-feverish preparations-and then on the appointed morning we struggled with hampers-laden hampers-into the motorcar.” For in these compositions Anand and his fellows knew nothing but luxury.
But in this last composition there were no dashes and repetitions; no hampers, no motorcar, no golden arcs of sand; only a walk to Docksite, a concrete sea-wall and liners in the distance. Mr. Biswas read on, anxious to share the pain of the previous day. “I raised my hand but I did not know if it got to the top. I opened my mouth to cry for help. Water filled it. I thought I was going to die and I closed my eyes because I did not want to look at the water.” The composition ended with a denunciation of the sea.
None of the teacher’s phrases had been used but the composition had been given twelve marks out of ten.
Anand had come back to the verandah and was having his tea at the table.
Mr. Biswas wished to be close to him. He would have done anything to make up for the solitude of the previous day. He said, “Come and sit down here and go through the composition with me.”
Anand became impatient. He was pleased by the marks but was fed up with the composition and even a little ashamed of it. He had been made to read it out to the class, and the confession that he had not struggled with laden hampers into a car and driven to palm-fringed beaches but had walked to common Docksite had caused some laughter. So had the sentences: “I opened my mouth to cry for help. Water filled it.”
“Come,” Mr. Biswas said, making room in the hammock.
“No!” Anand shouted.
But there was no one to laugh.
Mr. Biswas’s hurt turned to anger. “Go and cut me a whip,” he said, getting out of the hammock. “Go on. Quick sharp.”
Anand stamped down the back stairs. From the neem tree that grew at the edge of the lot and hung over into the sewerage trace he cut a thick rod, far thicker than those he normally cut. His purpose was to insult Mr. Biswas. Mr. Biswas recognized the insult and was further enraged. He seized the rod and beat Anand savagely. In the end Shama had to intervene.
“I can’t stand this,” Savi cried. “I can’t stand you people. I am going back to Hanuman House.”
Myna was crying as well.
Shama said to Anand, “You see what you cause?”
He said nothing.
“Good!” Savi said. “All this shouting and screaming make this house sound like every other house in the street. I hope the low minds of some people are satisfied.”
“Yes,” Mr. Biswas said calmly. “Some people are satisfied.”
His smile drove Savi to fresh tears.
But Anand had his revenge that evening.
Now that there were only a few days left to Owad in Trinidad, and very few before the family came to Port of Spain for the farewell, Mr. Biswas and Anand ate as many meals as possible with him. They ate formally, in the diningroom. And that evening, just before Mr. Biswas sat at the table, Anand pulled the chair from under him, and Mr. Biswas fell noisily to the floor.
“Shompo! Lompo! Gomp!” Owad said, roaring with laughter.
Savi said, “Well, some people are satisfied.”
Mr. Biswas didn’t talk during the meal. Afterwards he went for a walk. When he came back he went directly to his room and never once called to anyone to get his cigarettes or matches or books.
It was his habit to walk through the house at six in the morning, rustling the newspaper and getting everyone up. Then he himself went back to bed: he had the gift of enjoying sleep in snatches. He woke no one the next morning and didn’t show himself while the children were getting ready for school.
But before Anand left, Shama gave him a six-cents piece.
“From your Father. For milk from the Dairies.”
At three that afternoon, when school was over, Anand walked down Victoria Avenue, past the racketing wheels and straps of the Government Printery, crossed Tragarete Road for the shade of the ivory-covered walls of Lapeyrouse Cemetery, and turned into Phillip Street where, in the cigarette factory, was the source of the sweet smell of tobacco which hung over the district. The Dairies looked expensive and forbidding in white and pale green. Anand tiptoed to the caged desk, said to the woman, “A small bottle of milk, please,” paid, got his voucher, and sat on a tall pale green stool at the milky-smelling bar. The white-capped barman tried to stab off the silver top a little too nonchalantly and, failing twice, pressed it out with a large thumb. Anand didn’t care for the ice-cold milk and the cloying sweetness it left at the back of his throat; it also seemed to have the tobacco smell, which he associated with the cemetery.
When he got home Shama gave him a small brown paper parcel. It contained prunes. They were his, to eat as and when he pleased.
Both he and Savi were told to keep the milk and the prunes secret, lest Owad should hear of it and laugh at them for their presumptuousness.
And almost immediately Anand began to pay the price of the milk and prunes. Mr. Biswas went to the school and saw the headmaster and the teacher whose vocabulary he knew so well. They agreed that Anand could win an exhibition if he worked, and Mr. Biswas made arrangements for Anand to be given private lessons after school, after milk. To balance this, Mr. Biswas also arranged for Anand to have unlimited credit at the school shop; thus deranging Shama’s accounts further.
Savi’s heart went out to Anand.
“I am too glad,” she said, “that God didn’t give me a brain.”
In the week before Owad’s departure the house filled up with sisters, husbands, children and those of Mrs. Tulsi’s retainers who remained faithful. The women came in their brightest clothes and best jewellery and, though only twenty miles from their villages, looked exotic. Heedless of stares, they stared; and made comments in Hindi, unusually loud, unusually ribald, because in the city Hindi was a secret language, and they were in holiday mood. A tent covered the back of the yard where Anand and Owad had sometimes played cricket. Fire-holes had been dug on the pitch itself, and over these food was always being cooked in large black cauldrons specially brought from Hanuman House. The visitors had come with musical instruments. They played and sang late into the night, and neighbours, too fascinated to object, peeped through holes in the corrugated iron fences.