A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [31]
Ramchand came from the kitchen and sank in the most relaxed way on to the earth floor. He stretched out one short-trousered leg and held his hands around his upright knee. The corrugations of his thick hair glinted with oil. He smiled at Mr Biswas, smiled at the baby, smiled at Dehuti. He asked Mr Biswas to read the writing on the calendar pictures and the Sunday school cards on the walls, and listened in pure pleasure while Mr Biswas did so.
‘You are going to be a great man,’ Ramchand said. ‘A great man. Reading like that at your age. Used to hear you reading those things to Ajodha. Never known a healthier man in all my life. But one day he is going to fall really sick, let him watch out. He’s just asking for it. I feel sorry for him, to tell you the truth. I feel sorry for all these rich fellows.’ It turned out that Ramchand felt sorry for many other people as well. ‘Pratap now. He’s got himself into a mess because of these donkeys he keeps on buying, heaven knows why. The last two died. Did you hear about it?’ Mr Biswas hadn’t, and Ramchand told of the bloody end of the donkeys; one had speared itself on a bamboo stake. He also spoke of Prasad and his search for a wife; with tolerant amusement he mentioned Bhandat and his mistress. He became increasingly avuncular; it was clear he thought his own condition perfect, and this perfection delighted him. ‘Not finished with these decorations,’ he said, pointing to the walls. ‘Getting some more of those Sunday school pictures. Jesus and Mary. Eh, Dehuti?’ Laughingly he flung the matchstick he had been chewing at the baby.
Dehuti closed her eyes in annoyance, puffed out her pimply cheeks a little more and turned her face away. The matchstick fell harmlessly on the baby.
‘Making some improvements too,’ Ramchand said. ‘Come.’
This time Dehuti did not suck her teeth. They went to the back and Mr Biswas saw another room being added to the hut. Trimmed tree-branches had been buried in the earth; the rafters, of lesser boughs, were in place; between the uprights the bamboo had been plaited; the earth floor was raised but not yet packed. ‘Extra room,’ Ramchand said. ‘When it is finished you can come and stay with us.’
Mr Biswas’s depression deepened.
They went on a tour of the small hut, Ramchand pointing out the refinements he had added: shelves set in the mud walls, tables, chairs. Back in the verandah Ramchand pointed to the hatrack. There were eight hooks on it symmetrically arranged about a diamond-shaped glass. ‘That is the only thing here I didn’t make myself. Dehuti set her heart on it.’ He slumped down on the floor again and flung the little ball of earth he had been rolling between his fingers at the baby.
Dehuti closed her eyes and pouted. ‘Me? I didn’t want it. I wish you would stop running round giving people the idea that I have modern ambitions.’
He laughed uneasily and scratched his bare leg; the nails left white marks.
‘I have no hat to hang on a hatrack,’ Dehuti said. ‘I don’t want a mirror to show me my ugly face.’
Ramchand scratched and winked at Mr Biswas. ‘Ugly face? Ugly face?’
Dehuti said, ‘I don’t stand up in front of the hatrack combing my hair for hours. My hair is not pretty and curly enough.’
Ramchand accepted the compliment with a smile.
In the verandah, black and yellow in the light of the oil lamp, they sat down on low benches to eat. But although he was hungry, and although he knew that both Dehuti and Ramchand had much affection for him, Mr Biswas found that his belly was beginning