“Hari?” she said, and pulled herself up, realizing that she had begun to take part in the game.
He slapped his yellow, flabby calf and pushed his finger into the flesh. The calf yielded like sponge.
She pulled his hand away. “Don’t do that. I can’t bear to see you do that. You should be ashamed, a young man like you, being so soft.”
“That is all the bad food I eating in this place.” He was still holding her hand. “Well, as a matter of fact, I have quite a few names for him. The holy ghost. You like that?”
“Man!”
“And what about the two gods? It ever strike you that they look like two monkeys? So, you have one concrete monkey-god outside the house and two living ones inside. They could just call this place the monkey house and finish. Eh, monkey, bull, cow, hen. The place is like a blasted zoo, man.”
“And what about you? The barking puppy dog?”
“Man’s best friend.” He flung up his legs and his thin slack calves shook. With a push of his finger he kept the calves swinging.
“Stop doing that!”
By now Shama’s head was on his soft arm, and they were lying side by side.
Abandoning the brothers-in-law altogether, Mr. Biswas contented himself with the company of the Aryans at the Naths”. Pankaj Rai was no longer with them and no one was willing to talk about him. His place had been taken by a man who introduced himself as Shivlochan, BA (Professor). He was no purist. He spoke pompous Hindi and little English, and continually allowed himself to be bullied by Misir. Misir was keen on discussions and resolutions, and under his guidance they passed resolutions that education was important, that child marriage should be abolished, that young people should choose their own spouses.
Misir, who had suffered from his parents’ choice, said, “The present system is nothing more than cat-in-bag.”
(Mr. Biswas loved Misir’s phrases. “That is all your family do for you,” he said to Shama that evening. “Marry off the whole pack of you cat-in-bag.”
“Don’t think I don’t know where you picking up all that,” Shama said. “Go ahead.”)
“Look what I got,” Misir said, “from marrying cat-in-bag. What about you, Mohun? You happy about this cat-in-bag business?”
“As a matter of fact,” Mr. Biswas said, “I didn’t get married cat-in-bag. I did see the girl first.”
“You mean they let you see the child first?” Whatever remained of Misir’s orthodox instincts was clearly outraged.
“Well, she was just there, you know, in the shop, selling cloth and socks and ribbon. And I see her and then-”
“All the old confusion, eh?”
“Well, not exactly. Things just happen after that.”
“I didn’t know,” Misir said. “Well, you ask for what you get. Anyway, I think we could say we are against this early cat-in-bag marriage business.”
“We could say that,” Mr. Biswas said.
“Now, how are we going to put our ideas across to the masses?” Misir said, and Mr. Biswas noted that Misir’s manner was growing more and more like Pankaj Rai’s. “I suggest persuasion.”
“Peaceful persuasion,” Shivlochan said.
“Peaceful persuasion. Start like Mohammed. Start small. Start with your own family. Start with your own wife. Then move on. I want everybody here to go home this evening determined to pass the word on to his neighbours. And I promise you, my friends, that in no time Arwacas will become a stronghold of Aryanism.”
“Just a moment,” Mr. Biswas said. “Not so fast. Start with your own family? You don’t know my family. I think we better leave them out.”
“This is a helluva man,” Misir said. “You want to convert three hundred million Hindus and you let one backward little family of country bookies frighten you?”
“I telling you, man. You don’t know my family.”
“All right,” Misir said, a little of his bounce gone. “Now, supposing peaceful persuasion doesn’t work. Just supposing. What do you suggest, my friends? By what means can we bring about the conversion we so earnestly desire?” The last two sentences had occurred in one of Pankaj Rai’s speeches.
“By the sword,” Mr. Biswas said. “The only thing. Conversion by the sword.”
“That’s how I feel too,” Misir said.
“Just a minute, gentlemen,” Shivlochan, BA (Professor), said, rising. “You are rejecting the doctrine of non-violence. Do you realize that?”
“Rejecting it just for a short time,” Misir said impatiently. “Short short time.”
Shivlochan sat down.
“I think, then, that we could pass a resolution to the effect that peaceful persuasion should be followed by militant conversion. All right?”
“I think so,” Mr. Biswas said.
“I think this would make a good little story,” Misir said. “Going to telephone it in to the Sentinel straight away.”
On the country page of the Sentinel the next day there was an item, two inches high, about the proceedings of the Arwacas Aryan Association, the AAA. Mr. Biswas’s name was mentioned, as was his address.
He left an open and marked copy of the paper on the long table in the hall. And when that evening Shama came up as he was reading Reform the Only Way and said that Seth wanted to see him, Mr. Biswas didn’t argue. Whistling in his soundless way, he put on his trousers and ran down to face the family tribunal.
“I see you have got your name in the papers,” Seth said.
Mr. Biswas shrugged.
The gods swung slowly in the hammock, frowning.
“What are you trying to do? Disgrace the family? Here you have these boys trying to get on in the Catholic college. Do you believe this sort of thing is going to help them in any way?”
The gods looked injured.
“Jealous,” Mr. Biswas said. “Everybody just jealous.”
“What have you got for them to be jealous of?” Mrs. Tulsi asked.
The elder god got up, in tears. “I not going to remain sitting down in this hammock and have any-and-everybody in this house insulting me. Is your fault, Ma. Is your son-in-law. You just bring them in here to eat all the food my father money buy and then to insult your sons.”
It was a grave charge, and Mrs. Tulsi held the boy to her and embraced him and wiped away his tears with her veil.
“It’s all right, son,” Seth said. “I am still here to look after you.” He turned to Mr. Biswas. “All right,” he said in English. “You see what you cause. You want to get the family in trouble. You want to see them go to jail. They feeding you, but you want to see me and Mai go to jail. You want to see the two boys, who ain’t got no father, go through life without a education. All that is all right. This house is like a republic already.”
Sisters and brothers-in-law froze into attitudes of sullen penitence. Seth’s gratuitous remark about the republic was a rebuke to them all; it meant that Mr. Biswas’s behaviour was bringing discredit upon the other brothers-in-law.
“So,” Seth went on. “You want to see girl children educated and choosing their own husband, eh? The same sort of thing that your sister do.”
The sisters and their husbands relaxed.
Mr. Biswas said, “My sister better than anybody here, and better off too. And too besides, she living in a house a lot cleaner.”
Seth rested his elbow on the table and smoked sadly, looking down at his bluchers. “The Black Age,” he said softly in Hindi. “The Black Age has come at last. Sister, we have taken in a serpent. It is my fault. You must blame me.”
“I not asking to stay here, you know,” Mr. Biswas said. “I believe in the old ways too. You make me marry your daughter, you promise to do this and do that. So far I ain’t got nothing. The day you give me what you promise me, I gone.”
“So you want girl children learning to read and write and picking up boy-friends? You want to see them wearing short frocks?”