House for Mister Biswas Part 13

'All right. Close your eyes. Now open them. First time you see me. You just see me. What you would say I was?'

She couldn't say.

'That is the whole blasted trouble,' he said. 'I don't look like anything at all. Shopkeeper, lawyer, doctor, labourer, overseer I don't look like any of them.'

The Samuel Smiles depression fell on him.

Shama was a puzzle. Within the girl who had served in the Tulsi Store and romped up and down the staircase of Hanuman House, the wit, the prankster, there were other Shamas, fully grown, it seemed, just waiting to be released: the wife, the housekeeper, and now the mother. With Mr Biswas she continued to be brisk, uncomplaining and almost unaware of her pregnancy. But when she was visited by her sisters, who made it plain that the pregnancy was their business, Tulsi business, and had little to do with Mr Biswas, a change came over her. She did not cease to be uncomplaining; but she also became someone who not so much suffered as endured. She fanned herself and spat often, which she never did when she was alone; but pregnant women were supposed to behave in this way. It was not that she was trying to impress the sisters and get their sympathy; she was anxious not to disappoint them or let herself down. And when her feet began to swell, Mr Biswas wanted to say, 'Well, you are complete and normal now. Everything is going as it should. You are just like your sisters.' For there was no doubt that this was what Shama expected from life: to be taken through every stage, to fulfil every function, to have her share of the established emotions: joy at a birth or marriage, distress during illness and hards.h.i.+p, grief at a death. Life, to be full, had to be this established pattern of sensation. Grief and joy, both equally awaited, were one. For Shama and her sisters and women like them, ambition, if the word could be used, was a series of negatives: not to be unmarried, not to be childless, not to be an undutiful daughter, sister, wife, mother, widow.

Secretly, with the help of her sisters, the baby clothes were made. A number of Mr Biswas's floursacks disappeared; later they turned up as diapers. And the time came for Shama to go to Hanuman House. Sus.h.i.+la and Chinta came to fetch her; the pretence was still maintained that Mr Biswas didn't know why.

Then he discovered that Shama had made preparations for him as well. His clothes had been washed and darned; and he was moved, though not surprised, to find on the kitchen shelf little squares of shop-paper on which, in her Mission-school script that always deteriorated after the first two or three lines, Shama had pencilled recipes for the simplest meals, writing with a disregard for grammar and punctuation which he thought touching. How quaint, too, to find phrases he had only heard her speak committed to paper in this handwriting! In her instructions for the boiling of rice, for example, she told him to 'throw in just a little pinch of salt' he could see her bunching her long fingers and to use 'the blue enamel pot without the handle'. How often, crouched before the chulha chulha fire, she had said to him, 'Just hand me the blue pot without the handle.' fire, she had said to him, 'Just hand me the blue pot without the handle.'

During the idle hours in the shop he had begun to choose names, mostly male ones: he never thought anything else likely. He wrote them on shop-paper, rolled them on his tongue, and tried them out on customers.

'Krishnadhar Haripratap Gokulnath Damodar Biswas. What do you think of that for a name? K. H. G. D. Biswas. Or what about Krishnadhar Gokulnath Haripratap Damodar Biswas. K. G. H. D.'

'You are not leaving much room for the pundit to give the child a name.'

'No pundit is giving any name to any child of mine.'

And on the back endpaper of the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare, Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare, a work of fatiguing illegibility, he wrote the names in large letters, as though his succession had already been settled. He would have used a work of fatiguing illegibility, he wrote the names in large letters, as though his succession had already been settled. He would have used Bell's Standard Elocutionist, Bell's Standard Elocutionist, still his favourite reading, if it had not suffered so much from the kick he had given it in the long room at Hanuman House; the covers hung loose and the endpapers had been torn, exposing the khaki-coloured boards. He had bought the still his favourite reading, if it had not suffered so much from the kick he had given it in the long room at Hanuman House; the covers hung loose and the endpapers had been torn, exposing the khaki-coloured boards. He had bought the Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare Collins Clear-Type Shakespeare for the sake of for the sake of Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar, parts of which he had declaimed at Lal's school. Every other play defeated him; the volume remained virtually unread and now, as a repository of the family records, proved to be a mistake. The endpaper blotted atrociously. parts of which he had declaimed at Lal's school. Every other play defeated him; the volume remained virtually unread and now, as a repository of the family records, proved to be a mistake. The endpaper blotted atrociously.

And the baby was a girl. But it was born at the correct time; it was born without difficulty; it was healthy; and Shama was absolutely well. He expected no less from her. He closed the shop and cycled to Hanuman House, and found that his daughter had already been named.

'Look at Savi,' Shama said.

'Savi?'

They were in Mrs Tulsi's room, the Rose Room, where all the sisters spent their confinements.

'It is a nice name,' Shama said.

Nice name; when all the way from The Chase he had been working on names, and had decided on Sarojini Lakshmi Kamala Devi.

'Seth and Hari chose it.'

'You don't have to tell me.' Jerking his chin towards the baby, he asked in English, 'They had it register?'

On the marble topped table next to the bed there was a sheet of paper under a bra.s.s plate. She handed that to him.

'Well! I glad she register. You know the government and n.o.body else did want to believe that I was even born. People had to swear and sign all sort of paper.'

'All of we was register,' Shama said.

'All of all-you would would be register.' He looked at the certificate. 'Savi? But I don't see the name here at all. I only see Ba.s.so.' be register.' He looked at the certificate. 'Savi? But I don't see the name here at all. I only see Ba.s.so.'

She widened her eyes. 'Shh!'

'I not going to let anybody call my child Ba.s.so.'

'Shh!'

He understood. Ba.s.so was the real name of the baby, Savi the calling name. The real name of a person could be used to damage that person, whereas the calling name had no validity and was only a convenience. He was relieved he wouldn't have to call his daughter Ba.s.so. Still, what a name!

'Hari make that one up, eh? The holy ghost.'

'And Seth.'

'Trust the pundit and the big thug.'

'Man, what you doing?'

He was scribbling hard on the birth certificate.

'Look.' At the top of the certificate he had written: Real calling name: Lakshmi. Signed by Mohun Biswas, father. Real calling name: Lakshmi. Signed by Mohun Biswas, father. Below that was the date. Below that was the date.

They both felt that a government doc.u.ment, which should have remained inviolate, had been challenged.

He enjoyed her alarm, and looked at her closely for the first time since he had come. Her long hair was loose and spread about her pillow. To look at him she had to press her chin into her neck.

'You got a double chin,' he said. She didn't reply.

Suddenly he jumped up. 'What the h.e.l.l is this?'

'Show me.'

He showed her the certificate. 'Look. Occupation of father. Labourer. Labourer! Me! Where your family get all this bad blood, girl?'

'I didn't see that.'

'Trust Seth. Look. Name of informant: R. N. Seth. Occupation: Estate Manager.'

'I wonder why he do that.'

'Look, the next time you want a informant, eh, just let me know. Calling Lakshmi Ba.s.so and Savi. h.e.l.lo, Lakshmi. Lakshmi, is me, your father, occupation occupation what, girl? Painter?'

'It make you sound like a house painter.'

'Sign-painter? Shopkeeper? G.o.d, not that!' He took the certificate and began scribbling. 'Proprietor,' he said, pa.s.sing the certificate to her.

'But you can't call yourself a proprietor. The shop belong to Mai.'

'You can't call me a labourer either.'

'They could bring you up for this.'

'Let them try.'

'You better go now, man.'

The baby was stirring.

'h.e.l.lo, Lakshmi.'

'Savi.'

'Ba.s.so.'

'Shh!'

'Talk about the old thug. The old scorpion, if you ask me. The old Scorpio.'

He left the dark room with its close medicinal smells, its basins and its pile of diapers and came out into the drawingroom where at one end the two tall chairs stood like thrones. He went through the wooden bridge to the verandah of the old upstairs where Hari usually sat reading his unwieldy scriptures. Shyly, he came down the stairs into the hall, antic.i.p.ating much attention as the father of the newest baby in Hanuman House. No one particularly looked at him. The hall was full of children eating gloomily. Among them he recognized the contortionist and the girl who had been running the house-game at The Chase. He smelled sulphur and saw that the children were not eating food but a yellow powder mixed with what looked like condensed milk.

He asked, 'What is that, eh?'

The contortionist grimaced and said, 'Sulphur and condensed milk.'

'Food getting expensive, eh?'

'Is for the eggzema,' the house-player said.

She dipped her finger in condensed milk, in sulphur, then put her finger in her mouth. Hurriedly she repeated the action.

Mrs Tulsi had come out of the black kitchen doorway.

'Sulphur and condensed milk,' Mr Biswas said.

'To sweeten it,' Mrs Tulsi said. Again she had forgiven him.

'Sweeten!' the contortionist whispered loudly. 'My foot.' Her achievements gave her unusual licence.

'Very good for the eczema.' Mrs Tulsi sat down next to the contortionist, took up her plate and shook back the sulphur from the rim, over which the contortionist had been steadily spilling sulphur on to the table. 'Have you seen your daughter, Mohun?'

'Lakshmi?'

'Lakshmi?'

'Lakshmi. My daughter. That is the name I I choose.' choose.'

'Shama looks well.' Mrs Tulsi brushed the spilled sulphur off the table on to her palm and shook the palm over the condensed milk, which the contortionist had so far kept virgin. 'I have put her in the Rose Room. My room.'

Mr Biswas said nothing.

Mrs Tulsi patted the bench. 'Come and sit here, Mohun.'

He sat beside her.

'The Lord gives,' Mrs Tulsi said abruptly in English.

Concealing his surprise, Mr Biswas nodded. He knew Mrs Tulsi's philosophizing manner. Slowly, and with the utmost solemnity, she made a number of simple, unconnected statements; the effect was one of puzzling profundity.

'Everything comes, bit by bit,' she said. 'We must forgive. As your father used to say' she pointed to the photographs on the wall 'what is for you is for you. What is not for you is not for you.'

Against his will Mr Biswas found himself listening gravely and nodding in agreement.

Mrs Tulsi sniffed and pressed her veil to her nose. 'A year ago, who would have thought that you would be sitting here, in this hall, with these children, as my son-in-law and a father? Life is full of these surprises. But they are not really surprising. You are responsible for a life now, Mohun.' She began to cry. She put her hand on Mr Biswas's shoulder, not to comfort him, but urging him to comfort her. 'I let Shama have my room. The Rose Room. I know that you are worried about the future. Don't tell me. I know.' She patted his shoulder.

He was trapped by her mood. He forgot the children eating sulphur and condensed milk, and shook his head as if to admit that he had thought profoundly and with despair of the future.

Having trapped him in the mood, she removed her hand, blew her nose and dried her eyes. 'Whatever happens, you keep on living. Whatever happens. Until the Lord sees fit to take you away.' The last sentence was in English; it took him aback, and broke the spell. 'As He did with your dear father. But until that time comes, no matter how they starve you or how they treat you, they can never kill you.'

They, Mr Biswas thought, who are they?

Then Seth stamped into the hall with his muddy bluchers and the children applied themselves with zeal to the sulphur powder.

'Mohun,' Seth said. 'See your daughter? You surprise me, man.'

The contortionist giggled. Mrs Tulsi smiled.

You traitor, Mr Biswas thought, you old she-fox traitor.

'Well, you are a big man now, Mohun,' Seth said. 'Husband and father. Don't start behaving like a little boy again. The shop gone bust yet?'

'Give it a little time,' Mr Biswas said, standing up. 'After all, is only about four months since Hari bless it.'

The contortionist laughed; for the first time Mr Biswas felt charitably towards this girl. Encouraged, he added, 'You think we could get him to un-bless it?'

There was more laughter.

Seth shouted for his wife and food.

At the mention of food the children looked up longingly.

'No food for none of all-you today,' Seth said. 'This will teach you to play in dirt and give yourself eggzema.'

Mrs Tulsi was at Mr Biswas's side. She was solemn again. 'It comes bit by bit.' She was whispering now, for sisters were coming out of the kitchen with bra.s.s plates and dishes. 'You never thought, I expect, that your own first child would be born in a place like this.'

He shook his head.

'Remember, they can't kill you.'

That 'they' again.

'Oh,' Mr Biswas said. 'So it have three in the family now.' She was warned by his tone.

'Send me a barrel,' he said loudly. 'A small coal barrel.'