A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [192]
Anand drew his feet together, bowed, and said, ‘Bingen on the Rhine.’ He joined his palms, rested his head on them, and recited:
‘A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers.’
He was pleased to see that the smiles of Hari and his wife had been replaced by looks of the utmost solemnity.
‘There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears.
‘But a comrade stood beside him while his life blood ebbed away.’
Anand’s voice quavered with emotion. Hari stared at the floor. His wife fixed her large eyes on a spot somewhere above Anand’s shoulder. Anand had not expected such a full and immediate response. He increased the pathos in his voice, spoke more slowly and exaggerated his gestures. With both hands on his left breast he acted out the last words of the dying legionnaire.
‘Tell her the last night of my life, for ere this moon be risen,
‘My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison.’
Hari’s wife burst out crying. Hari put his hand on hers. In this way they listened to the end; and Anand, after being given a six-cents piece, left them shaken.
Less than a week later Hari died. It was only then that Anand learned that Hari had known for some time that he was going to die soon. W. C. Tuttle, ferociously brahminical in an embroidered silk jacket, did the last rites. The house went into mourning for Hari; no one used sugar or salt. He was one of those men who, by a negativeness that amounts to charity, are thought of kindly by everyone. He had taken part in no disputes; his goodness, like his scholarship, was a family tradition. Everyone had been used to seeing Hari as the officiating pundit at religious ceremonies; everyone had been used to receiving the consecrated foods from him every morning. Hari, in dhoti, his forehead marked with sandalwood paste; Hari doing morning and evening puja; Hari with his religious texts on the elaborately carved bookrest: these had been fixed sights in the Tulsi house. There had been no one to take Seth’s place. There was no one to take Hari’s.
The duty of the puja was shared by many of the men and boys. Sometimes even Anand had to do it. Untutored in the prayers, he could only go through the motions of the ritual. He washed the images, placed fresh flowers on the shrine, diverted himself by trying to stick the stem of a flower in the crook of a god’s arm or between the god’s chin and chest. He put fresh sandalwood paste on the foreheads of the gods, on the smooth black and rose and yellow pebbles, and on his own forehead; lit the camphor, circled the flame about the shrine with his right hand while with his left he tried to ring the bell; blew at the conch shell, emitting a sound like that of a heavy wardrobe scraping on a wooden floor; then, his cheeks aching from the effort of blowing the conch shell, he hurried out to eat, first making the round of the house to offer the milk and tulsi leaves which, unbelievably, he had consecrated. When he dressed for school he brushed the caked sandalwood marks from his forehead.
About a fortnight after Hari died news came from Arwacas of another death. Anand was working at the table in the room on the upper floor one evening, and Mr Biswas was reading in bed, when the door was thrown open and Savi ran in and said, ‘Great Aunt Padma is dead!’
Mr Biswas closed his eyes and put his hand on his heart.
Anand screamed, ‘Savi!’
She stood still, her eyes shining.
From downstairs a deep-drawn lamentation burst out and spread through the house, rising, falling, relayed from one sister to the other and back again, like the barking of dogs at night.
Sharma’s death had done little more than upset routine. Hari’s had saddened. Padma’s terrified. She was Mrs Tulsi’s sister: death had come closer to them all. She had known them all their lives; she had died away from them. The sisters said these things over and over as they embraced each other and