A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [126]
Of Shama he was not afraid; only envious, for her unthinking assurance. Then almost immediately he began to hate her. Her pregnancy was grotesque; he hated the way she sat down; when she ate he listened for the noises she made; he hated the way she fussed and clucked over the children; he hated it when she puffed and fanned and sweated in her pregnant way; he was nauseated by the frills and embroidery and other ornamentation on her clothes.
Shama, Savi and Myna slept on bedding on the floor. Anand slept with Mr Biswas on the fourposter. Dreading the boy’s touch, Mr Biswas built a bank of pillows between Anand and himself.
His fatigue deepened. The next day, Sunday, he scarcely got out of bed. Whereas before he felt he had to be out of the room, now he didn’t wish to leave it. He said he was sick and found it easy to simulate the symptoms of malaria.
When Seth came Mr Biswas told him, ‘Is ague, I think.’
After a week his fatigue hadn’t left him. Sitting up in bed he made kites and toy-carts for Anand and built a chest-of-drawers with matchboxes for Savi. The longer he stayed in the room the less he wanted to leave it. He became constipated. Yet from time to time he had to go outside; then he came back hurriedly, anxiously, relaxing only when he was on the bed again.
He continued to observe Shama closely, with suspicion, hatred and nausea. He never spoke to her directly, but through one of the children; and it was some time before Shama realized this.
As he was lying in bed one morning she came and placed her palm, then the back of her hand, on his forehead. The action offended him, flattered him, and made him uneasy. She had been cutting vegetables and he couldn’t bear their smell on her hand.
‘No fever,’ she said.
She undid his shirt and put her hand, large and dark and foreign, on his pale, soft chest.
He wanted to scream.
He said, ‘No, I not fat enough yet. You got to put me back and feed me some more. Here, why don’t you just feel my finger?’
She took her hand away. ‘Something on your mind, man?’
‘Something on your mind?’ he mimicked. ‘Something in my mind and you know what it is.’ He was violently angry; never before had he been so disgusted by her. Yet he wished her to remain there. Half hoping she would take him seriously, half hoping only to amuse and bewilder her, he said in his quick, high-pitched voice, ‘Something in my mind all right. Clouds. Lots of little black clouds.’
‘What you say?’
‘Is a funny thing. You ever notice that when you insult people or tell them the truth they always pretend not to hear you the first time?’
‘Is my own fault for meddling in what is not my business. I don’t know why I come here for. If it wasn’t for the children –’
‘So all-you send Hari with his little black box, eh? All-you must think I look like a real fool.’
‘Black box?’
‘You see what I mean? You didn’t hear the first time.’
‘Look, I just don’t have the time to stand up here talking to you like this, you hear. I wish you had a real fever. That would stop your mouth.’
He was beginning to enjoy the argument. ‘I know you want me to get a real fever. I know all-you want to see me dead. And then see the old she-fox crying, the little gods laughing, you crying – dressed up like hell to boot. Nice, eh? I know that is what all-you want.’
‘Dress-up and powder-up? Me? On what you give me?’
Abruptly Mr Biswas went cold with fear.
Seth and the land and the corrugated iron; Hari and the black box; the blessing; and now, since Shama had come, this fatigue.
He was dying.
They were killing him. He would just remain in this room and die.
She was in the kitchen area, cooing to the baby in the hammock.
‘Get out!’
Shama looked up.
He jumped out of bed and grabbed the walking-stick. He was cold all over. His heart beat fast and painfully.
Shama climbed up the step to the room. ‘Get out!
Don’t come inside. Don’t touch me!’
Myna was crying.
‘Man,’