A House for Mr. Biswas - V.S. Naipaul [69]
Mr Biswas found himself a stranger in his own yard. But was it his own? Mrs Tulsi and Sushila didn’t appear to think so. The villagers didn’t think so. They had always called the shop the Tulsi Shop, even after he had painted a sign and hung it above the door:
THE BONNE ESPERANCE GROCERY
M. Biswas Prop
Goods at City Prices
With one bedroom reserved for Hari, the other for Mrs Tulsi, and with the shop full of babies, Mr Biswas could retreat nowhere. He stood before the shop, fondling his belly under his shirt and working out the quarrel he would have with Shama afterwards.
A scampering and a series of cries came from the shop.
Then Sushila’s voice was heard, raised in undoubted authority. ‘Get away from here. Go and play in the open. Can’t you see you are waking up the babies? Why do you big children like the dark so much?’
Every sister was perpetually on the alert for any sign, however slight or veiled, of sexual inclination among the children.
Mr Biswas knew the disagreeable rumpus that would follow. He had no taste for it, and walked away from the shop to the boundary of the lot. Here, under a hedge, he came upon a group of children playing house.
‘You are Mai,’ a girl said to another girl. And to a boy, ‘You are Seth.’
Mr Biswas withdrew. But the girl – whose litter did she belong to? – saw him and, raising her voice from the whisper with which games of house should be played, said with unmistakable malice, ‘And who will be Mohun? You, Bhoj. You have three-quarter white pants. And you are a great fighter.’
There was a round of childish laughter which filled Mr Biswas’s mind with thoughts of murder, though even as he hurried away he felt some desire to see what Bhoj looked like.
For the last three days, since the arrival of her sisters, Shama had become a Tulsi and a stranger again. Now she was unapproachable. The ceremony in the tent was about to begin and she sat in front of Hari, listening to his instructions with bowed head. Her hair was still wet from her ritual bath and she was dressed in white from top to toe. She looked like someone waiting to be sacrificed and Mr Biswas thought he could detect pleasure in the curve of her back. Her status, like Hari’s, was only temporary; but while the ceremony lasted, it was paramount.
Mr Biswas didn’t want to witness the ceremony. It meant sitting with the brothers-in-law in the tent; and he was sure that the sight of Shama’s submissive and exultant back would eventually infuriate him. Also, it occurred to him that if he kept moving about he might prevent some of the Tulsi army from looting.
It was then that he thought of the shop.
He nearly ran there. It was dark, with the front doors closed, and he had to be careful. The shop smelled of babies, who were asleep everywhere: on the counter, flanked by pillows and boxes to keep them from rolling off; under the counter; on the floor planks behind the counter. Then, slowly in the darkness, a group of squatting children defined itself in one corner. They were silent and intent. With equal silence and intentness Mr Biswas picked his way past the babies to the counter.
The little group was methodically breaking soda water bottles and extracting the crystal marbles from the necks. The bottles were wrapped in sacking to muffle the noise. There was a deposit of eight cents on every bottle. The sweet jars on the bottom shelf were disarrayed. The Paradise Plums had dwindled substantially. So had the Mintips, a mint sweet with the elasticity and lastingness of rubber. So had the salted prunes. Many tin-lids had not been screwed on properly. Mr Biswas put out a hand to straighten a lid. It felt sticky. He dropped it. A baby bawled, the children in the corner became alert, and Mr Biswas shouted, ‘Get out of here before I lay my hand on some of you.’ And at the same time, with the dexterity of the practised