Few of the visitors knew Mr. Biswas or knew the position he held in the house. And all at once this position became uncertain. He found himself squeezed into one room, and for periods lost track of Shama and his children. “Eight dollars,” he whispered to Shama. “That is the rent I pay every month. I have my rights.”
The rose-bushes and the lily-pond suffered.
“Set up trip-wires,” he told Shama. “Then let them carry on. ‘Arй, what have we here?’ He imitated an old woman talking Hindi. “Then, oops! Trip! Bam! Fall. All the pretty clothes get dirty like hell. Face wet with mud. Let that happen a few times. Then they will learn that flowers don’t just grow like that.”
After two days he gave up his flowers as lost. He went for long walks in the evening and stayed out as late as possible, calling at various police stations on the chance of picking up a story. One night he stayed out until the street dogs began their round, futile creatures that hunted in packs, fled at the sound of a human foot and left a trail of overturned dustbins and sifted garbage. The house was alive but subdued when he got back. He found four children on his bed. They were not his. Thereafter he occupied his room early in the evening, bolted the door and refused to answer knocks, calls, scratches and cries.
And all at once, too, the bond between Owad and himself seemed to have evaporated. Owad was out for much of the time making farewell calls; when he came to the house he was immediately besieged by friends and relations who gazed on him and wept and offered advice which they later discussed among themselves, to prove their concern: advice about money, the weather, food, alcohol, women.
The time came for photographs. Husbands, children and friends watched as Owad posed with Shekhar, with Mrs. Tulsi, with Shekhar and Mrs. Tulsi, with Shekhar, Mrs. Tulsi and the whole array of the sisters who, because the occasion was sad, ignored the pleas of the Chinese photographer and scowled at the camera.
On the last day Seth arrived. He wore his khaki uniform; his bluchers rang on the floor; he dominated, imposing formality wherever he went. His absence had been noted, and now everyone was expectant. But after the final family council Owad, Shekhar, Mrs. Tulsi and Seth looked only solemn, which could have been a sign of disagreement, or sorrow.
Mr. Biswas achieved a minor notoriety when he brought the Sentinel photographer to the house, cleared the drawing-room and did his best to appear to be directing both Owad and the photographer. But on the following morning the story, on page three-TRINIDAD MAN OFF TO U.K. FOR MEDICAL STUDIES-was given little attention, for those who were not occupied with dressing their children for the wharf or getting wharf passes were at the service Hari was conducting in the tent.
Finally they went to the wharf. Only newborn babies and their mothers stayed behind. The Tulsi contingent stared at the ship; and the ship’s rails were presently lined with in-transit passengers and members of the ship’s company, getting an unusually exotic glimpse of Port of Spain harbour. The word went around that well-wishers could go aboard and in a matter of minutes the Tulsis and their friends had overrun the ship. They stared at officers and passengers and the photographs of Adolf Hitler, and listened attentively to the guttural language around them, to mimic it later. The older women kicked at decks and rails and the sides of the ship, testing its seaworthiness. Some of the more susceptible took it in turns to sit on Owad’s bunk and weep. The men were shyer, and more respectful before the might of the ship; they wandered about silently with their hats in their hands. Whatever doubts remained about ship and crew vanished when an officer began giving out presents: lighters to the men, dolls in country dress to the women. And all the time, unnoticed by those he was seeking to impress, Mr. Biswas scurried knowingly about the ship, talking to the foreigners and writing in his notebook.
They came out of the ship and massed formally in front of a magenta-coloured shed with French and English notices forbidding smoking. From somewhere a chair had been obtained and Mrs. Tulsi sat on it, her veil pulled low over her forehead, a handkerchief crushed in one hand, with Sushila, the sickroom widow, at her side.
Owad started to kiss, strangers first. But they were too many; soon he abandoned them and concentrated on the family. He kissed each sister into a spurt of tears; he shook the men by the hand, and when it was Mr. Biswas’s turn he smiled and said, “No more ducking.”
Mr. Biswas was unaccountably moved. His legs shook; he felt unsteady. He said, “I hope war doesn’t break out-” Tears rushed to his eyes, he choked and could say no more.
Owad had passed on. He embraced the children; then Shekhar; then Seth, who cried copiously; and finally Mrs. Tulsi, who didn’t cry at all.
He went into the ship. Presently he appeared at the rails and waved. A passenger joined him; they began to talk.
The passengers’ gangway was drawn up. Then there were shouts, raucous, unsustained singing, and three Germans with bruised faces and torn and dirty clothes came staggering along the wharf, comically supporting one another, drunk. Someone from the ship called to them harshly; they shouted back and, drunk and collapsing though they were, and without touching the rope-rail, they walked up the narrow gang-board at the stern. All the doubts about the ship were re-excited.
Whistles: waves from ship, from shore: the ship edging away: the dock less protected, the dark, dirty water surfaced with litter. And soon they stood quite exposed in front of the customs shed, staring at the ship, staring at the gap it had left.
The weakness that had come to him at the touch of Owad’s hands remained with Mr. Biswas. There was a hole in his stomach. He wanted to climb mountains, to exhaust himself, to walk and walk and never return to the house, to the empty tent, the dead fire-holes, the disarrayed furniture. He left the wharves with Anand and they walked aimlessly through the city. They stopped at a cafй and Mr. Biswas bought Anand icecream in a tub and a Coca Cola.
The paper would sprawl on the sunny steps in the morning; there would be stillness at noon and shadow in the afternoon. But it would be a different day.
2. The New Regime
Having no further business in Port of Spain, Mrs. Tulsi returned to Arwacas. The tent was taken down and after a few days the house was cleared of stragglers. Mr. Biswas set about restoring his rose-beds and the lily-pond, whose edges had collapsed, turning the water into bubbling mud. He worked without heart, feeling the emptiness of the house and not knowing how much longer he would be allowed to stay there. None of Mrs. Tulsi’s furniture had been removed: the house there seemed to be awaiting change. Some of the savour went out of his job at the Sentinel. He needed to address his work mentally to someone. At first this had been Mr. Burnett; then it had been Owad. Now there was only Shama. She seldom read his articles; when he read them aloud to her she showed neither interest nor amusement and made no comments. Once he gave her the typescript of an article and she infuriated him by turning over the last page and looking for more. “No more, no more,” he said. “I don’t want to strain you.”
And from Hanuman House came more reports of disturbance. Govind, the eager, the loyal, was discontented; Shama reported his seditious sayings. Nothing had outwardly changed, but Mrs. Tulsi no longer directed and her influence was beginning to be felt more and more as only that of a cantankerous invalid. With her two sons settled, she appeared to have lost interest in the family. She spent much of her time in the Rose Room, acquiring illnesses, grieving for Owad. As for Seth, he still controlled; but his control was superficial. Though nothing had been said openly, Shekhar’s reported displeasure, uncontradicted, lay against him and made him suspect to the sisters. When all was said and done Seth was not of the family and he alone could not maintain its harmony, as had been shown by his helplessness when squabbles had arisen between sisters during Mrs. Tulsi’s absences in Port of Spain. Seth ruled effectively only in association with Mrs. Tulsi and through her affection and trust. That trust, not officially withdrawn, was no longer so fully displayed; and Seth was even beginning to be resented as an outsider.