A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [258]
Shekhar still sat at the table, playing with the cards.
A mumble came from the watchers.
‘You!’ Anand turned to them. ‘What the hell are you standing up there for? Puss-puss, puss-puss all the blasted night, talk-talk-talk.’
The effect was unexpected and humiliating. They laughed. Even Shekhar lifted his head and gave his grunting laugh, shaking his shoulders.
Shama’s gravity made her almost absurd.
The watchers broke up. Everyone went back to his task. A lightness that was like gaiety spread through the house.
Shekhar stacked the cards neatly on the table, rose, put his hands on Anand’s shoulders, sighed, and went upstairs.
They heard Owad moving about from room to room.
Anand found Mr Biswas lying in vest and pants on the bed, his back to the door, papers on his drawn-up knees. He said without turning, ‘You, boy? Here, see if you can work out these blasted travelling expenses right.’ He passed the pad. ‘What’s the matter, boy?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’
‘All right, just work those figures out. Everybody else making a fortune out of their cars. I sure I losing.’
‘Pa.’
‘Just a minute, boy. Ought oughts are ought. Two fives are ten. Put down ought. Carry one.’ Mr Biswas was relaxed, and even clowning: he knew that his method of multiplying always amused.
‘Pa. We must move.’
Mr Biswas turned.
‘We must move. I can’t bear to live here another day.’
Mr Biswas heard the distress in Anand’s voice. But he was unwilling to explore it. ‘Move? All in good time. All in good time. Just waiting for the revolution and my dacha.’
These happy moods of his father were getting rare. And Anand said nothing more.
He did the complicated sums for the travelling expenses. Presently he heard the dry, crisp sounds of the ping-pong ball, the exclamations of Owad and Vidiadhar and Shekhar and the others.
He did not go down to have the lunch to which he had looked forward; and when Shama brought it up he could not eat or drink. Mr Biswas, his clowning mood persisting, squatted on the chair and pretended to spit on his food, to save it from Anand’s gluttony. He knew this trick infuriated Anand. But Anand did not respond.
Downstairs the men were getting ready to go to the sea. Sons asked their mothers for towels, mothers urged their sons to be careful.
‘Not going with them?’
Anand didn’t reply.
Mr Biswas had withdrawn from these excursions. They were far too energetic, and the example of Owad led to dangerous competitive feats. Instead, after lunch he went for a walk by himself, looking at houses, occasionally making inquiries, but mostly simply looking.
The brightness of their aunts and cousins, their new and excluding chumminess, drove Savi and Kamla and Myna to join Anand in their room, where they lay on the bed, for want of places to sit, and made disjointed, selfconscious conversation.
Anand sipped his orange juice. The ice had melted, the juice gone flat and warm. The girls went for a walk to the Botanical Gardens. Shama had her bath: Anand heard her singing in the open-air bathroom and washing clothes. When she came up her hair was wet and straight, her fingers pinched, but for all her songs her anxiety had not gone.
She said in Hindi, ‘Go and apologize to your uncle.’
‘No!’ It was the first word he had spoken for a long time.
She petted him. ‘For my sake.’
‘The revolution,’ he said.
‘You wouldn’t lose anything. He is older than you. And your uncle.’
‘Not my uncle. Shooting rice from aeroplanes!’
Shama began to sing softly. She flung her hair down over her face and beat it with a stretched towel. The noises were like muffled sneezes.
The girls came back from their walk. They were brighter and talked more easily.
Then they were silent.
The men had returned.