A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [134]
Anand screamed and screamed.
Rain and wind smothered his voice, overturned the lamp, made the rockingchair rock and skid, rattled the kitchen safe against the wall, destroyed all smell. Lightning, flashing intermittently, steel-blue exploding into white, showed the ants continually disarrayed, continually re-forming.
Then Anand saw a light swaying in the dark. It was a man, bending forward against the rain, a hurricane lamp in one hand, a cutlass in the other. The living flame was like a miracle.
It was Ramkhilawan from the barracks. He had a jutebag over his head and shoulders like a cape. He was barefooted and his trousers were rolled up above his knees. The hum-cane lamp showed glinting streaks of rain, and, as he climbed the slippery steps, his footprints of mud, instantly washed away.
‘Oh, my poor little calf!’ he called. ‘Oh, my poor little calf!’
He closed the drawingroom door. The lamp illuminated a wet chaos. He struggled with the window. As soon as he had pulled it a little way from the wall to which it was pinned, the wind, rising, gave a push, and the window slammed shut, making Ramkhilawan jump back. He took off the dripping jutebag from his head and shoulders; his shirt stuck to his skin.
The oil lamp was not broken. There even remained some oil in it. The chimney was cracked, but still whole. Ramkhilawan brought out a damp box of matches from his trouser pocket and put a lighted match to the wick. The wick, waterlogged, spluttered; the match burned down; the wick caught.
6. A Departure
A MESSAGE had to be sent to Hanuman House. The labourers always responded to the melodramatic and calamitous, and there were many volunteers. Through rain and wind and thunder a messenger went that evening to Arwacas and dramatically unfolded his tale of calamity.
Mrs Tulsi and the younger god were in Port of Spain. Shama was in the Rose Room; the midwife had been attending upon her for two days.
Sisters and their husbands held a council.
‘I did always think he was mad,’ Chinta said.
Sushila, the childless widow, spoke with her sickroom authority. ‘It isn’t about Mohun I am worried, but the children.’
Padma, Seth’s wife, asked, ‘What do you think he is sick with?’
Sumati the flogger said, ‘Message only said that he was very sick.’
‘And that his house had been practically blown away,’ Jai’s mother added.
There were some smiles.
‘I am sorry to correct you, Sumati sister,’ Chinta said. ‘But Message said that he wasn’t right in his head.’
Seth said, ‘I suppose we have to bring the paddler home.’
The men got ready to go to Green Vale; they were as excited as the messenger.
The sisters bustled about, impressing and mystifying the children. Sushila, who occupied the Blue Room when the god was away, cleared it of all personal, womanly things; much of her time was devoted to keeping the mysteries of women from men. She also burned certain evil-smelling herbs to purify and protect the house.
‘Savi,’ the children said, ‘something happen to your pappa.’
And they stuck pins in the wicks of lamps to keep misfortune and death away.
In the verandah and in every bedroom upstairs beds were made earlier than usual, lamps were turned low, and the children fell asleep, lulled by the sound of the rain. Downstairs the sisters sat silently around the long table, their veils pulled close over their heads and shoulders. They played cards and read newspapers. Chinta was reading the Ramayana; she continually set herself new ambitions and at the moment wanted to be the first woman in the family to read the epic from beginning to end. Occasionally the card-players chuckled. Chinta was sometimes called to look at the cards one sister had; often the temptation was too great, and Chinta, adopting her frowning card-playing manner, and not saying a word, stayed to play the hand, tapping each card before she played it, throwing down the winning card with the crack she could do so well, then, still