A House for Mr. Biswas

by V. S. Naipaul

  Govind tore down the cricket pavilion one day. A rough cowshed went up in its place, and Mr Biswas heard, with astonishment, that his cow was to be stabled there.

  ‘Cow? My cow?’

  It turned out that the cow, whose name was Mutri, was one of Shama’s secret possessions, like her sewingmachine.

  Mutri had been kept on the estate at Arwacas with all the other Tulsi cows. She was an old black cow, tired, with short bruised horns.

  ‘What about the milk?’ Mr Biswas asked. ‘The calves?’

  ‘What about the grass?’ Shama replied. ‘The water? The feed?’

  Govind looked after the cows and for that reason alone Mr Biswas made no further inquiries. Govind was becoming increasingly surly. He scarcely spoke to anyone, and worked off his rages on the cows. He beat them with thick lengths of wood and at milking time the slightest misdemeanour threw him into a rage. The animals didn’t moan or wince or show anger; they only tried to move away. No one protested; there was no one to complain to.

  Mr Biswas said, ‘Poor Mutri.’

  Before cows and sheep the cricketers retreated. The cricket field turned to mud and manure, and someone planted a pumpkin vine at the edge of it.

  Then the tree-cutting began. In less than a morning the reader of W. C. Tuttle cut down the gri-gri palms along the drive. He came back sweating to the house and, since none of the watertaps worked, had a bath at a waterbarrel. Mrs Tulsi ate the hearts of the trees, which had been recommended to her by one of her Arwacas friends, and the children consoled themselves with the red berries. Govind, asserting himself, then cut down the orange trees: they were blighted, encouraged snakes, and could conceal thieves.

  ‘Damn stupid thieves if they think they could find anything in this place,’ Mr Biswas said. ‘They cut down the trees only to make it easier to pick the oranges, that is all.’

  The oranges were collected by Govind and Chinta and their children, put into sacks and sent to Port of Spain by bus. Everyone wondered who took the money. The trees were chopped into logs and burned in the kitchen, the moss-covered barks making excellent kindling.

  The children lost heart. They now had to be compelled to gather tonka beans, to pick oranges and avocado pears to be sent to Port of Spain. On some Saturdays they pulled up weeds from the drive, urged on by the adults to hollow competitions to see who could amass the highest pile of weeds.

  The plumbing remained unrepaired. Some lesser husbands built a latrine on the hillside. The house toilet, unused, became a sewingroom.

  In place of the orange trees and the palm trees seedlings were planted along the drive and hedged around with bamboo stakes. The cows broke down the cricket field fence. The sheep, escaping, broke down the bamboo stakes and stripped the seedlings clean. The silt rose in the canal at the side of the drive. Weeds grew from the cracks in the concrete culvert and up the wide, shallow steps.

  Every morning Hari said his prayers and rang his bell and beat his gong in his boxboard kennel in the ruined garden; and every evening the man Mr Biswas now thought of as W. C. Tuttle said his prayers before the framed print in the drawingroom. The rubbish heap started by the Tulsis at the foot of the hill grew higher and wider. The sheep, neglected, unfruitful, survived. The cows were milked. The pumpkin vine spread rapidly in the manured mud and broke into frail yellow flower. The first pumpkin, the first Tulsi fruit, was welcomed with enthusiasm; and since, because of a Hindu taboo no one could explain, women were forbidden to cut pumpkins open, a man was invited to do so. And the man was W. C. Tuttle.

  It was W. C. Tuttle who dismantled the electricity plant and melted down the lead to make dumb-bells. And it was W. C. Tuttle who announced that a furniture factory was to be started. Scores of cedar trees were cut down, sawed and stacked in the garage, and W. C. Tuttle sent to his own village for a Negro called Théophile. Théophile was a blacksmith whose trade had declined with the coming of the motorcar. He was lodged in a small room below the drawingroom, fed three times a day and turned loose among the cedar planks. He made many benches; gaining confidence, he put together a vast, irregularly oval table; then a number of wardrobes like sentry-boxes. No joint was clean; no door fitted; and the soft wood showed many little clusters of hammer indentations. It was stated by W. C. Tuttle, his wife, his children and Théophile himself that stain and varnish would hide these flaws. And, Tulsi excitement mounting, Théophile went to work on morris chairs. W. C. Tuttle ordered a bookcase. Mr Biswas ordered a bookcase. The doors of Mr Biswas’s bookcase sloped at the top and would have formed a peak if they could meet: Théophile said it was a style. By this time the planks on the oval table had shrunk, the joints were loose and the wax had dropped out, and the wardrobe doors could never close. Théophile worked with saw and hammer and nails on the table and wardrobes; then the chairs and bookcases needed attention; then the wardrobes gave trouble again. Théophile was dismissed to his village, and there was no further talk about the furniture factory. The morris chairs fell apart and were used as firewood; some of the more adventurous children slept on the table at night. W. C. Tuttle, acting as Mrs Tulsi’s agent, sold the cedar planks in the garage. Shortly afterwards he bought a lorry, and hired it out to the Americans.

  Then the Americans came to the village. They had decided to build a post somewhere in the mountains, and day and night army lorries rolled through the village on skid chains. The lane next to the cemetery was widened and on the dark green mountains in the distance a thin dirt-red line zigzagged upwards. The Tulsi widows got together, built a shack at the corner of the lane and stocked it with Coca Cola, cakes, oranges and avocado pears. The American lorries didn’t stop. The widows spent some money on a liquor licence and, with great trepidation, spent more money on cases of rum. The lorries didn’t stop. One night a lorry crashed into the shack. The widows retreated.

  Though surrounded by devastation, Mr Biswas remained detached. He paid no rent; he spent nothing on food; he was saving most of his salary. For the first time he had money, and every fortnight it was increasing. He closed his heart to sorrow and anger at a dereliction he was powerless to prevent; and, recognizing with a thrill that it was now every man for himself – the phrase gave him much pleasure – he continued to plunder, enjoying the feeling that in the midst of chaos he was calmly going about his own devilish plans.

  Then the news of the ravages of W. C. Tuttle and Govind was whispered through the house. W. C. Tuttle had been selling whole cedar trees. Govind had been selling lorry loads of oranges and papaws and avocado pears and limes and grapefruit and cocoa and tonka beans. Mr Biswas felt exceedingly foolish next morning when he dropped half a dozen oranges into his bag. He wondered, too, how it was possible for someone to steal a cedar tree without being noticed. Shama, outraged like most of the sisters, explained the trees had been sold on the ground, for very little. The buyers’ lorries had come to the estate from the north, taking the roundabout, dangerous and virtually unused road over the mountains. Nothing would have been known had not the clearing on the hillside grown too large and attracted the attention of the estate overseer, a sad worried man who had come with the estate, like the mule, and without knowing what his duties were, had to look occupied to keep his job.

  Govind and Chinta ignored the whispers and silence. W. C. Tuttle replied to them by scowling and exercising with his dumb-bells. His wife looked offended. The nine little Tuttles refused to speak to the other children.

  The villagers at last banded against the Tulsis. Many of the Tulsi children were going to schools in Port of Spain and they filled the seven o’clock bus at the terminus near the graveyard. The villagers, who had hitherto found the hourly bus service to Port of Spain quite adequate, began to board the bus just before it reached the graveyard, paying the extra penny to be sure of their seat to Port of Spain. And the children found that the seven o’clock bus came in nearly full, and no one got out. There was no great competition for the vacant seats, and for many days most of the children did not go to school, until W. C. T
uttle, frowningly forgiving, offered, for no more than the bus fare, to take the children to school on his lorry.

  The lorry had to be at the American base at six in the morning. Therefore the children could not be deposited at school much after half past five. To do this they had to leave Shorthills at a quarter to five. So they had to be up at four. It was still night when, sitting close together on planks fixed to the tray of the lorry, their teeth chattering, they drove through the chilly hills below the low dripping trees; and the street lamps were still on when they got to Port of Spain. They were put down outside their schools before newsboys delivered papers, before servants were up, before the school gates opened. They remained on the pavement and played hopscotch in the pre-dawn light. The caretaker of the girls’ school rose at six and dressed hurriedly and let them in, asking them not to make too much noise and disturb his wife, who was still asleep. The caretaker’s house was small, with only two rooms and a tiny, partly-exposed kitchen; and the caretaker had a numerous family. They had been used to wandering about the school yard in the early mornings dressed as they pleased; they brushed their teeth and spat in the sandy yard; they quarrelled; they slipped naked from house to outdoor bathroom and towelled themselves in the open; they cooked and ate under the tamarind tree; they hung up intimate washing. Now correctness was imposed on them from dawn. While the caretaker and his family breakfasted, in silence, the children became hungry again and ate the lunches which had been prepared for them three hours before. It was the best time to eat the lunches, for by midday the curry was beginning to go red and smell. The children who kept their food till lunchtime often gave it away then in exchange for things like bread and cheese; and, the reputation of Indian food surviving even Tulsi cooking, both sides thought they were getting the better bargain.

  The return to Shorthills had its own problems. The children left school at three. The lorry left the American base at six. It was therefore out of the question if the children were to get home before eight. And the bus service from Port of Spain became more difficult from week to week. Because of wartime shortages and restrictions there were fewer city buses, and the Shorthills bus was used by people who didn’t go all the way. To get the bus the children had to walk nearly three miles to the terminus at the railway station. The last uncrowded bus was the two-thirty; to get this meant leaving school shortly after lunch. The child who hoped to get the three-thirty left school at half past two, walked to the terminus and joined the waiting crowd. There was no queue and the bus on its arrival became the object of an immediate scrimmage. People scrambled through the open windows, climbing up on tyres and the cap of the petrol tank, and burst through the emergency exit at the back; so that even if a child managed to squeeze in first through the door he found the seats taken. So the children walked until they could be taken on by the bus when it was less full, or by the lorry returning from the American base. Mrs Tulsi sent word from her room that the children could lessen the fatigue of walking in the afternoon if they all sang; if the girls were molested they were to take off their shoes (they wore crêpe soles) and strike the molester on the head.

  Eventually, however, a car was bought, and one of the sons-in-law drove it to Port of Spain with the children and the oranges. It was a Ford V-8 of the early nineteen-thirties, not inelegant, and it might have performed less erratically if it carried a lighter load. Under the weight of children and oranges it sank low on the rear springs, the bonnet was slightly uptilted, and for the steeper climbs the children had to get off. Often the car broke down and then the driver, who knew nothing about cars, asked the children to push. Like ants around a dead cockroach the children surrounded the car (the girls in their dark blue uniforms) and pushed and pulled. Sometimes they pushed for more than a mile. Sometimes they pushed the car to the top of a hill, jumped aside as it rolled down, heard it start, raced after it, the driver urging them to hurry, sprang inside three at a time. Then the engine stalled; and they sat, crouched or half-stood, suffocated and silent, waiting for the fruitless, scraping whine of the starter. Sometimes the car got into Port of Spain with one side of the bonnet up and a child on the wing, operating a pump of some sort. Sometimes the car didn’t get to Port of Spain at all. This pleased the children more than the driver; he had no packed lunch. Sometimes the car was laid up for days. Then the children went to Port of Spain by lorry; or they surprised the villagers, who had relaxed their precautions, by taking the seven o’clock bus.

  The Ford V-8 was finally abandoned when some of the lesser sons-in-law, not profiting by the experience of the children, went in it one evening to a film-show in Port of Spain. The house blazed with lights all night; and the sisters concerned, armed with sticks to daunt molesters, made frequent sallies along the Port of Spain road. The men returned just before dawn, pushing. The children went to school by lorry. The car was pushed from the road into the gully and up to the clump of wild tannia under the saman tree, where, being presently stripped by an unknown person of its saleable parts, it remained, a plaything for the children.

  Another car was bought, another Ford V-8, but a sports model with a dicky seat. And into this, miraculously, all the children were squeezed, standing in the dicky seat like stemmed flowers in a vase. A second trip was made for the oranges. While they were in the country the children could pretend to be on the top of a stage-coach, but when they got to Port of Spain they attracted derisive attention and missed the shelter of the saloon.

  So for the children Shorthills became a nightmare. Daylight was nearly always gone when they returned, and there was little to return to. The food grew rougher and rougher and was eaten more casually, in the kitchen itself, where the brick floor had been topped with mud, or in the covered space between the kitchen and the house. No child knew from one night to the next where he was going to sleep; beds were made anywhere and at any time. On Saturdays the children pulled up weeds; on Sundays they collected oranges or other fruit.

  At week-ends the children submitted to the laws of the family. But during the week, when they spent so much time away from the house, they formed a community of their own, outside family laws. No one ruled; there were only the weak and the strong. Affection between brother and sister was despised. No alliance was stable. Only enmities were lasting, and the hot afternoon walks which Mrs Tulsi had seen lightened by song were often broken by bitter fights of pure hate.

  Mr Biswas scarcely saw his children, and they became separated from one another. Anand felt disgraced by his sisters. They were all among the weak. Myna had developed a bad bladder; every journey with her involved shame. Sometimes the car stopped, sometimes it didn’t. Kamla walked in her sleep; but this was a novelty and was thought endearing, especially in one so young. Savi was unnoticed until she had been chosen to sing at a school concert organized by the distributors of a face lotion called Limacol. She had never used Limacol but agreed with the master of ceremonies that the slogan, ‘The Freshness of a Breeze in a Bottle’, was just. Then in a high voice and with many quaverings she sang ‘Some Sunday Morning’ and was given a miniature Limacol bottle. The Tulsi sisters were shocked. They spoke of Savi almost as of a public entertainer, and lectured their children. Thereafter Savi was mocked and ridiculed. She drew maps with minutely indented coastlines, on the basis of her observations at beaches. She had attempted to propagate this method and had some disciples; but now one of Govind’s daughters said that these indentations were as stupid and conceited as the quavers with which Savi had sung ‘Some Sunday Morning’, and Savi’s disciples recanted. When one evening she was put off the bus because she had lost her fare, and had to walk all the way to Shorthills, arriving after nightfall, ill with fright and fatigue, and having to be massaged by Shama, it was felt that justice had been done. The news of the massage in the room on the upper floor, Savi’s tears, Mr Biswas’s rage when he returned, quickly went round the house. Kamla, the petted sleep-walker, was pumped for details, and Kamla gave them, pleased to excite so much interest and amusement.

 
; Though no one recognized his strength, Anand was among the strong. His satirical sense kept him aloof. At first this was only a pose, and imitation of his father. But satire led to contempt, and at Shorthills contempt, quick, deep, inclusive, became part of his nature. It led to inadequacies, to self-awareness and a lasting loneliness. But it made him unassailable.

  The children were ready to go to school one morning. Their lunches, wrapped in brown paper, were stuffed in their bags, and the car was waiting on the road. Quickly the children filled the car. They squashed in. They wedged themselves in. They screwed themselves in. A door was slammed. Anand, somewhere in the dicky seat, heard a shriek and a groan. They came from Savi. The children, always breathless and bad-tempered when the car was stationary, shouted for the car to drive off. But someone cried, ‘Quick! Open the door. Her hand.’

  Anand laughed. No one joined him. The car emptied and he saw Savi sitting on the wet rabbit-grass of the verge. He could not bear to look at her hand.

  Shama and Mr Biswas and some of the sisters came out to the road.

  Myna said, ‘Anand laugh, Pa.’

  Mr Biswas slapped Anand hard.

  And Mr Biswas decided that the time had come for him to withdraw from the Shorthills adventure. A return to Port of Spain was impossible. When he went for walks about the estate he kept his eye open for a suitable site.

  Then, in quick succession, a number of deaths occurred.

  Sharma, the son-in-law who collected oranges and drove the children to school, slipped off a mossy orange branch one rainy morning and broke his neck. He died almost at once. The children did not go to school that day. Sharma’s widow tried to turn the holiday into a day of mourning. She sobbed and wailed and embraced everyone who went near her and asked for messages to be sent. Messages were sent and Sharma’s relations turned up in the afternoon, nondescript people, not able even in their sorrow to drown their shyness. They put Sharma in a plain coffin and carried him to the graveyard, where the village had assembled to see the Hindu rites. Hari, in white jacket and beads, whined over the grave and sprinkled water over it with a mango leaf.