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.

“Same thing he did to my house,” Mr. Biswas said to Anand.

Sharma’s widow shrieked, fainted, revived and tried to fling herself into the grave. The villagers watched with interest. Some of the knowing whispered about suttee.

W. C. Tuttle took over the job of driving the children to school. He placed all his children in the front seat next to himself and stuffed the others into the dicky seat. He complained about the behaviour of the car and attributed all its faults to Sharma. Soon there was talk that W. C. Tuttle was using the car to transport his subsidiary plunder. He threatened not to drive the car if the talk didn’t stop. There was no one else who could drive, apart from the surly Govind, and the talk stopped.

Despite W. C. Tuttle’s abuse Sharma was speedily forgotten. And one hot Sunday afternoon, when nearly everyone was out of doors, Anand came upon Hari and his wife sitting alone in the diningroom, at one end of the vast cedar table that had been made by W. C. Tuttle’s blacksmith. They made a sad couple. Hari’s wife had tears in her eyes, and Hari’s expressionless face was yellow. Anand, wishing to animate them and to show off a new accomplishment, offered to recite a poem to them. He had just mastered all the gestures illustrated on the frontispiece of Bell’s Standard Elocutionist. Hari and his wife looked moved; they smiled and asked Anand to recite.

Anand drew his feet together, bowed, and said, “Bingen on the Rhine.” He joined his palms, rested his head on them, and recited:

“A soldier of the legion lay dying in Algiers.”

He was pleased to see that the smiles of Hari and his wife had been replaced by looks of the utmost solemnity.

“There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth of woman’s tears.

“But a comrade stood beside him while his life blood ebbed away.”

Anand’s voice quavered with emotion. Hari stared at the floor. His wife fixed her large eyes on a spot somewhere above Anand’s shoulder. Anand had not expected such a full and immediate response. He increased the pathos in his voice, spoke more slowly and exaggerated his gestures. With both hands on his left breast he acted out the last words of the dying legionnaire.

“Tell her the last night of my life, for ere this moon be risen,

“My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison.”

Hari’s wife burst out crying. Hari put his hand on hers. In this way they listened to the end; and Anand, after being given a six-cents piece, left them shaken.

Less than a week later Hari died. It was only then that Anand learned that Hari had known for some time that he was going to die soon. W. C. Tuttle, ferociously brahminical in an embroidered silk jacket, did the last rites. The house went into mourning for Hari; no one used sugar or salt. He was one of those men who, by a negativeness that amounts to charity, are thought of kindly by everyone. He had taken part in no disputes; his goodness, like his scholarship, was a family tradition. Everyone had been used to seeing Hari as the officiating pundit at religious ceremonies; everyone had been used to receiving the consecrated foods from him every morning. Hari, in dhoti, his forehead marked with sandalwood paste; Hari doing morning and evening puja; Hari with his religious texts on the elaborately carved bookrest: these had been fixed sights in the Tulsi house. There had been no one to take Seth’s place. There was no one to take Hari’s.

The duty of the puja was shared by many of the men and boys. Sometimes even Anand had to do it. Untutored in the prayers, he could only go through the motions of the ritual. He washed the images, placed fresh flowers on the shrine, diverted himself by trying to stick the stem of a flower in the crook of a god’s arm or between the god’s chin and chest. He put fresh sandalwood paste on the foreheads of the gods, on the smooth black and rose and yellow pebbles, and on his own forehead; lit the camphor, circled the flame about the shrine with his right hand while with his left he tried to ring the bell; blew at the conch shell, emitting a sound like that of a heavy wardrobe scraping on a wooden floor; then, his cheeks aching from the effort of blowing the conch shell, he hurried out to eat, first making the round of the house to offer the milk and tulsi leaves which, unbelievably, he had consecrated. When he dressed for school he brushed the caked sandalwood marks from his forehead.

About a fortnight after Hari died news came from Arwacas of another death. Anand was working at the table in the room on the upper floor one evening, and Mr. Biswas was reading in bed, when the door was thrown open and Savi ran in and said, “Great Aunt Padma is dead!”

Mr. Biswas closed his eyes and put his hand on his heart.

Anand screamed, “Savi!”

She stood still, her eyes shining.

From downstairs a deep-drawn lamentation burst out and spread through the house, rising, falling, relayed from one sister to the other and back again, like the barking of dogs at night.

Sharma’s death had done little more than upset routine. Hari’s had saddened. Padma’s terrified. She was Mrs. Tulsi’s sister: death had come closer to them all. She had known them all their lives; she had died away from them. The sisters said these things over and over as they embraced each other and embraced their children. The house shook with footsteps, shrieks, wails and the crying of frightened children. Mrs. Tulsi was reported to be out of her mind; there were rumours that she too was dying. The children stuck pins into lamp wicks and murmured incantations to keep off fresh disaster. They heard Mrs. Tulsi clamouring to be taken to the body of her sister. The cry was taken up by some of the sisters, and despite the hour and despite the quarrel with Seth, preparations were made and the lorry and sports car set off for Arwacas, and only men and children were left in the house.

The women returned the following afternoon, with more than their grief. For most of them it had been their first visit to Arwacas since the move, their first glimpse of Seth. They had not spoken to him, but the truce had enabled them to inspect the property which Seth, still vigorously pursuing the quarrel, had bought on the High Street not far from Hanuman House, a first step, they had been told, to his buying over of Hanuman House itself. It was a grocery and it was large enough and new enough and well enough stocked to alarm the sisters. But there could be no talk of Seth just then.

Padma appeared in many dreams that night. In the morning every dream was recounted and it was agreed that Padma’s spirit had come to the house in Shorthills, which she had never visited while she lived. This was confirmed by the experience of one sister. In the middle of the night she had heard footsteps in the road. She recognized them as Padma’s. There was silence as Padma had crossed the gully, footsteps again as Padma came up the sandy drive and up the concrete steps. Padma had then made a tour of the house, sat down on the back steps and wept. Many people saw Padma after that. Much attention was given to the story of one of the Tuttle children. In broad daylight he had seen a woman in white walking from the graveyard towards the house. He caught up with her and said, “Aunt.” She turned. It wasn’t an aunt. It was Padma; she was crying. Before he could speak she pulled her veil over her face, and he had run. When he looked back he saw no one.