A snake had fallen on him. Very thin, and not long.

When they looked up they saw the parent snake, waiting to release some more.

With poles and brooms they tried to pull down the snakes. The asphalt only swung when they hit it. To grab at it was only to pull away a small snake, leaving the pregnant parent above.

He got a cocoa-knife and spent the following evening cutting down the snakes. It was not easy. Below the crust at the roots the asphalt was soft but rubbery. He scraped hard and felt the rust from the roof falling on his face.

By the next afternoon the snakes had begun to grow again.

He said he had another touch of malaria. He wrapped himself in the floursack sheet and rocked in his chair. Tarzan had his tail crushed; he leapt up with a yell, and went out of the room.

“Say Rama Rama Sita Rama, and nothing will happen to you,” Mr. Biswas said.

Anand repeated the words, faster and faster.

“You don’t want to leave me?”

Anand didn’t reply.

This had become one of Mr. Biswas’s fears. By concentrating on it-a power he had in his state-he managed to make it the most oppressive of all his fears: that Anand would leave him and he would be left alone.

Anand was rolling his tin-lid about the yard one afternoon when two men came to the house and asked whether he lived there. Then they asked for the driver.

“He in the fields,” Anand said. “But he coming back just now.”

Between the trees the road was cool. The men squatted there. They hummed; they talked; they threw pebbles; they chewed blades of grass; they spat. Anand watched them.

One of the men called, “Boy, come here.” He was fat and yellow-skinned with a black moustache and light eyes.

The other man, who was younger, said, “We digging for treasure.”

Anand couldn’t resist that. Pushing his tin-lid, he went to the road.

“Come on. Dig,” the younger man said.

The fat man cried, “Yaah!” and pulled out a cent from the gravel.

Anand went to where the fat man was and began scraping

Then the younger man called out, “Aha!” and took up a penny from the gravel.

Anand ran to him. Then the fat man called out again; he had found another cent.

Anand moved back and forth between the men.

“But I not finding any,” he said.

“Here,” the younger man said. “Dig here.”

Anand dug and found a penny. “I could keep it?”

“But is yours,” the younger man said. “You find it.”

The game went on for some time. Anand found two more cents.

Then the fat man appeared to lose interest. The driver taking long,” he said. “Where your father, boy?”

Anand pointed to the sky and was pleased when the fat man looked puzzled and asked, “The driver is your father, not so?”

“Well, everybody think he is my father. But he is not my father really. He is just a man I know.”

The men looked at one another. The fat man took up a handful of gravel and made as if to throw it at Anand. “Run away,” he said. “Go on, haul your little tail.”

“Is not your road,” Anand said. “Is the PWD road.”

“So you is a smart man into the bargain? Who the hell you think you talking to?” The fat man rose. “Since you so smart, give me back my money.”

“Find your own. This is mine.” Anand turned to the younger man. “You see me find it.”

“Leave the boy,” the younger man said.

“I not going to take cheek from a little boy who rob me of my last few cents,” the fat man said. “I going to teach him a lesson.” He seized Anand.

“Hit me and I tell my father.”

The fat man hesitated.

“Leave him, Dinnoo,” the younger man said. “Look, the driver.”

Anand broke away and ran to Mr. Biswas. “That fat man was trying to thief my money.”

“Afternoon, boss,” the fat man said.

“Haul your tail. Who the hell tell you you could lay your hand on my son?”

“Son, boss?”

“He try to thief my money,” Anand said.

“Was a game,” the fat man said.

“Haul off!” Mr. Biswas said. “Job! You not looking for any job. You not getting any either.”

“But, boss,” the younger man said, “Mr. Seth say he did tell you.”

“Didn’t tell me nothing.”

“But Mr. Seth say-” the fat man said.

“Leave them, Dinnoo,” the younger man said. “Father and blasted son.”

“Is in the blood,” the fat man said.

“You mind your mouth,” Mr. Biswas shouted.

“Tcha!” The man sucked his teeth, backing away.

Anand showed Mr. Biswas the coppers he had found.

“The road full of money,” he said. “They was finding silver. But I didn’t find any.”

Mr. Biswas was awake and lying in bed when Anand got up. Anand always got up first. Mr. Biswas heard him walk along the resounding boards of the unfinished drawingroom floor and step on to the staircase-that was a firmer sound. Then there was a silence, and he heard Anand coming back across the drawingroom.

Anand stood in the doorway. His face was blank. “Pa.” His voice was weak. His mouth remained half open and quivering.

Mr. Biswas threw off the sheet and went to him.

Anand shrugged off his father’s hand and pointed across the drawingroom.

Mr. Biswas went to look.

On the lowest step he saw Tarzan, dead. The body had been flung down carelessly. The hind quarters were on the step, the muzzle on the ground. The brown and white hair was clotted with black-red blood and stained with dirt; flies were thick about him. The tail was propped up against the second step, erect, the hair ruffled in the light morning breeze, as though it belonged to a living dog. The neck had been cut, the belly ripped open; flies were on his lips and around his eyes, which were mercifully closed.

Mr. Biswas felt Anand standing beside him.

“Come. Go inside. I will look after Tarzan.”

He led Anand to the bedroom. Anand walked lightly, very lightly, as though responding only to the pressure of Mr. Biswas’s fingers. Mr. Biswas passed his hand over Anand’s hair. Anand angrily shook the hand away. The tight, brittle body quivered and Anand, clutching his shirt with both hands, began dancing on the floor.

It was some seconds before Mr. Biswas realized that Anand had drawn a deep breath before screaming. He could do nothing but wait, watching the swollen face, the distended mouth, the narrow eyes. And then it came, a terrible whistle of a shriek that went on and on until it broke up into gurgles and strangulated sounds.

“I don’t want to stay here! I want to go!”

“All right,” Mr. Biswas said, when Anand sat red-eyed and snuffling on the bed. “I will take you to Hanuman House. Tomorrow.” It was a plea for time. In the anxiety that palpitated through him he had forgotten the dog, and knew only that he didn’t want to be left alone. It was a skill he had acquired: to forget the immediately unpleasant. Nothing could distract him from the deeper pain.

Anand, too, forgot the dog. All he recognized was the plea and his own power. He beat his legs against the side of the rumpled bed and stamped on the floor. “No! No! I want to go today.”

“All right. I will take you this afternoon.”

Mr. Biswas buried Tarzan in the yard, adding another mound to those thrown up by the energetic Edgar and now covered with a skin of vegetation. Tarzan’s mound looked raw; but soon the weeds would cover it; like Edgar’s mounds it would become part of the shape of the land.

The early morning breeze dropped. It became hazy. The heat rose steadily and no relieving shower came in the early afternoon. Then the haze thickened, clouds turned from white to silver to grey to black and billowed heavily across the sky: a watercolour in black and grey.

It became dark.

Mr. Biswas hurried from the fields and said, “I don’t think we can take you to Arwacas today. The rain is going to come any minute.”