Encouraged by Shama, he took an increasing interest in his personal appearance. In his silk suit and tie he had never ceased to surprise her by his elegance and respectability; and whenever she bought him anything, a shirt, cufflinks, a tiepin, he said, “Going to buy that gold brooch for you, girl! One of these days.” Sometimes, while he was dressing, he would make an inventory of all the things he was wearing and think, with wonder, that he was then worth one hundred and fifty dollars. Once on the bicycle, he was worth about one hundred and eighty. And so he rode to his reporter’s job and its curious status: welcomed, even fawned upon, by the greatest in the land, fed as well as anybody and sometimes even better, yet always, finally, rejected.
“A hell of a thing today,” he told Shama. “As we were leaving Government House H.E. asked me, ‘Which is your car?’ I don’t know. I suppose reporters in England must be rich like hell.”
But Shama was impressed. At Hanuman House she started dropping names, and Padma, Seth’s wife, traced a tenuous and intricate family relationship between Seth and the man who had driven the Prince of Wales during his visit to Trinidad.
On herself Shama spent little. Unable to buy the best and, like all the Tulsi sisters, having only contempt for the second-rate in cloth and jewellery, she bought nothing at all and made do with the gifts of cloth she received every Christmas from Mrs. Tulsi. Her bodices became patched on the breasts and under the arms; and the more Mr. Biswas complained the more she patched. But though her indifference to clothes seemed at times almost like inverted pride, she did not wholly lose her concern for appearances. At Hanuman House a wedding invitation to Mrs. Tulsi was meant for her daughters as well; and one large gift, invariably part of the Tulsi Store stock, went from the House. But now Shama got invitations in her own right and during the Hindu wedding season she borrowed deeply from the rent money, committing herself to almost inextricable entanglement with her accounts, to buy presents, usually water-sets.
“Forget it this time,” Mr. Biswas said. “They must be so used by now to seeing you with a water-set in your hand that I am sure they would believe that you did carry one.”
“I know what I am doing,” Shama said. “My children are going to be married one day too.”
“And when they give back all the water-sets poor Savi wouldn’t be able to walk, for all the glasses and jugs. If they remember, that is. At least leave it for a few more years.”
But weddings and funerals had become important to Shama. From weddings she returned tired, heavy-lidded and hoarse after the night-long singing, to find a house in confusion: Savi in tears, the kitchen in disorder, Mr. Biswas complaining about his indigestion. Pleased at the wedding, the gift that did not disgrace her, the singing, the return home, Shama would say, “Well, as the saying goes, you never miss the water till the well runs dry.”
And for the following day or two, when she held Mr. Biswas and the children absolutely in her power, she would be very gloomy; and it was at these times that she said, “I tell you, if it wasn’t for the children-”
And Mr. Biswas would sing, “Going to buy that gold brooch for you, girl!”
As important as weddings and funerals were to Shama, holiday visits became to the children. They went first of all to Hanuman House. But with every succeeding visit they felt more like strangers. Alliances were harder to take up again. There were new jokes, new games, new stories, new subjects of conversation. Too much had to be explained, and Anand and Savi and Myna often ended by remaining together. As soon as they went back to Port of Spain this unity disappeared. Savi returned to bullying Myna; Anand defended Myna; Savi beat Anand; Anand hit back; and Savi complained.
“What!” Mr. Biswas said. “Hitting your sister! Shama, you see the sort of effect one little trip to the monkey house does have on your children?”
It was a two-fold attack, for the children preferred visiting Mr. Biswas’s relations. These relations had come as a revelation. Not only were they an untapped source of generosity; Savi and Anand had also felt up to then that Mr. Biswas, like all the fathers at Hanuman House, had come from nothing, and the only people who had a proper family were the Tulsis. It was pleasant and novel, too, for Savi and Anand and Myna to find themselves flattered and cajoled and bribed. At Hanuman House they were three children among many; at Ajodha’s there were no other children. And Ajodha was rich, as they could tell by the house he was building. He offered them money and was absurdly delighted that they should know its value sufficiently well to take it. Anand got an extra six cents for reading That Body of Yours; it would have been worth it for the praise alone. They were feted at Pratap’s; Bipti was embarrassingly devoted and their cousins were shy and admiring and kind. At Prasad’s they were again the only children and lived in a mud hut, which they thought quaint: it was like a large doll’s house. Prasad didn’t give money, but a thick red exercise book, a Shirley Temple fountain pen and a bottle of Waterman’s ink. And so, with this encouragement to milk and prunes, the profitable round of holiday visits ended.
Then came the news that Mrs. Tulsi had decided to send Owad abroad to study, to become a doctor.
Mr. Biswas was overwhelmed. More and more students were going abroad; but they were items of news, remote. He had never thought that anyone so close to him could escape so easily. Concealing his sadness and envy, he made a show of enthusiasm and offered advice about shipping lines. And at Arwacas some of Mrs. Tulsi’s retainers defected. Forgetting that they were in Trinidad, that they had crossed the black water from India and had thereby lost all caste, they said they could have nothing more to do with a woman who was proposing to send her son across the black water.
“Water on a duck’s back,” Mr. Biswas said to Shama. “The number of times that mother of yours has made herself outcast!”
There was talk about the suitability and adequacy of the food Owad would get in England.
“Every morning in England, you know,” Mr. Biswas said, “the scavengers go around picking up the corpses. And you know why? The food there is not cooked by orthodox Roman Catholic Hindus.”
“Suppose Uncle Owad want more,” Anand said. “You think they will give it to him?”
“Hear the boy,” Mr. Biswas said, squeezing Anand’s thin arms. “Let me tell you, eh, boy, that you and Savi come out of the monkey house as going concerns only because of the little Ovaltine you drink.”
“No wonder the others can hold Anand and beat his little tail,” Shama said.
“Your family are tough,” Mr. Biswas said. He spat the word out and made it an insult. “Tough,” he repeated.
“Well, I could say one thing. None of us have calves swinging like hammocks.”
“Of course not. Your calves are tough. Anand, look at the back of my hands. No hair. The sign of an advanced race, boy. And look at yours. No hair either. But you never know. With some of your mother’s bad blood flowing in your veins you could wake up one morning and find yourself hairy like a monkey.”
Then, after a trip to Hanuman House, Shama reported that the decision to send Owad abroad had reduced Shekhar, the elder god, married man though he was, to tears.
“Send him some rope and soft candle,” Mr. Biswas said.
“He never did want to get married,” Shama said.
“Never did want to get married! Never see anybody skip off so smart to check mother-in-law’s money.”