A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [39]
Seth came back to the hall, his bluchers resounding on the floor. He had washed and was without his topee; his damp hair, streaked with grey, was combed flat. He sat down across the table from Mrs Tulsi and fitted a cigarette into his cigarette holder.
‘What?’ Mr Biswas said. ‘Somebody saw me put that down?’
Seth laughed. ‘Nothing to be ashamed about.’ He clenched his lips over the cigarette holder and opened the corners of his mouth to laugh.
Mr Biswas was puzzled. It would have been more understandable if they had taken his word and asked him never to come to their house again.
‘I believe I know your family,’ Seth said.
In the gallery outside and in the kitchen there was now a continual commotion. A woman came out of the black doorway with a brass plate and a blue-rimmed enamel cup. She set them before Mrs Tulsi and, without a word, without looking right or left, hurried back to the blackness of the kitchen. The cup contained milky tea, the plate roti and curried beans. Another woman brought similar food in an equally reverential way to Seth. Mr Biswas recognized both women as Shama’s sisters; their dress and manner showed that they were married.
Mrs Tulsi, scooping up some beans with a shovel of roti, said to Seth, ‘Better feed him?’
‘Do you want to eat?’ Seth spoke as though it would have been amusing if Mr Biswas did want to eat.
Mr Biswas disliked what he saw and shook his head.
‘Pull up that chair and sit here,’ Mrs Tulsi said and, barely raising her voice, called, ‘C, bring a cup of tea for this person.’
‘I know your family,’ Seth repeated. ‘Who’s your father again?’
Mr Biswas evaded the question. ‘I am the nephew of Ajodha. Pagotes.’
‘Of course.’ Expertly Seth ejected the cigarette from the holder to the floor and ground it with his bluchers, hissing smoke down from his nostrils and up from his mouth. ‘I know Ajodha. Sold him some land. Dhanku’s land,’ he said, turning to Mrs Tulsi.
‘O yes.’ Mrs Tulsi continued to eat, lifting her armoured hand high above her plate.
C turned out to be the woman who had served Mrs Tulsi. She resembled Shama but was shorter and sturdier and her features were less fine. Her veil was pulled decorously over her forehead, but when she brought Mr Biswas his cup of tea she gave him a frank, unimpressed stare. He attempted to glare back but was too slow; she had already turned and was walking away briskly on light bare feet. He put the tall cup to his lips and took a slow, noisy draught, studying his reflection in the tea and wondering about Seth’s position in the family.
He put the cup down when he heard someone else come into the hall. This was a tall, slender, smiling man dressed in white. His face was sunburnt and his hands were rough. Breathlessly, with many sighs, laughs and swallows, he reported to Seth on various animals. He seemed anxious to appear tired and anxious to please. Seth looked pleased. C came from the kitchen again and followed the man upstairs; he was obviously her husband.
Mr Biswas took another draught of tea, studied his reflection and wondered whether every couple had a room to themselves; he also wondered what sleeping arrangements were made for the children he heard shouting and squealing and being slapped (by mothers alone?) in the gallery outside, the children he saw peeping at him from the kitchen doorway before being dragged away by ringed hands.
‘So you really do like the child?’
It was a moment or so before Mr Biswas, behind his cup, realized that Mrs Tulsi had addressed the question to him, and another moment before he knew who the child was.
He felt it would be graceless to say no. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I like the child.’
Mrs Tulsi chewed and said nothing.
Seth said: ‘I know Ajodha. You want me to go and see him?