A Son of the Circus

had mashed against the white wall above his cot. He’d killed it with the rolled-up issue of The Times of India after the mosquito was full of blood; the bloodstain on the wall was conspicuous and only a few inches below the crucifix that hung there, which gave Martin the gruesome impression that a sizable drop of Christ’s blood had spotted the wall.

In his inexperience, Martin had lit the last mosquito coil too close to his cot. When his hand trailed on the floor, his fingers must have groped through the dead ashes. Then, in his brief and troubled sleep, he’d touched his face. This was the only explanation for the surprising view of himself that he saw in the pitted mirror above the sink; his face was dotted with fingerprints of ash, as if he’d meant to mock Ash Wednesday—or as if a ghost had passed through his cubicle and fingered him. The marks struck him as a sarcastic blessing, or else they made him look like an insincere penitent.

When he’d filled the sink and wet his face to shave, he held the razor in his right hand and reached for the small sliver of soap with his left. It was a jagged-shaped piece of such an iridescent blue-green color that it was reflected in the silver soap dish; it turned out to be a lizard, which leaped into his hair before he could touch it. The missionary was frightened to feel the reptile race across his scalp. The lizard launched itself from the top of Martin’s head to the crucifix on the wall above the cot; then it jumped from Christ’s face to the partially open slats of the window blind, through which the light from the low sun slanted across the floor of the cubicle.

Martin Mills had been startled; in an effort to brush the lizard out of his hair, he’d slashed his nose with the razor. An imperceptible breeze stirred the ashes from the mosquito coils, and the missionary watched himself bleed into the water in the sink. He’d long ago given up shaving lather; plain soap was good enough. In the absence of soap, he shaved himself in the cold, bloody water.

It was only 6:00 in the morning. Martin Mills had to survive another hour before Mass. He thought it would be a good idea to go to St. Ignatius Church early; if the church wasn’t locked, he could sit quietly in one of the pews—that usually helped. But his stupid nose kept bleeding; he didn’t want to bleed all over the church. He’d neglected to pack any handkerchiefs—he’d have to buy some—and so for now he chose a pair of black socks; although they were of a thin material, not very absorbent, at least they wouldn’t show the bloodstains. He soaked the socks in fresh cold water in the sink; he wrung them out until they were merely damp. He balled up a sock in each hand and, first with one hand and then the other, he restlessly dabbed at the wound on his nose.

Someone watching Martin Mills dress himself might have suspected the missionary of being in a deep trance; a less kind observer might have concluded that the zealot was semiretarded, for he wouldn’t put down the socks. The awkward pulling on of his trousers—when he tied his shoes, he held the socks in his teeth—and the buttoning of his short-sleeved shirt… these normally simple tasks were turned arduous, almost athletic; these clumsy feats were punctuated by the ceaseless dabbing at his nose. In the second buttonhole of his shirt, Martin Mills affixed a silver cross like a lapel pin, and together with this adornment he left a thumbprint of blood on his shirt, for the socks had already stained his hands.

St. Ignatius Church was unlocked. The Father Rector unlocked the church at 6:00 every morning, and so Martin Mills had a safe place to sit and wait for Mass. For a while, he watched the altar boys setting up the candles. He sat in a center-aisle pew, alternately praying and dabbing at his bleeding nose. He saw that the kneeling pad was hinged. Martin didn’t like hinged kneelers because they reminded him of the Protestant school where Danny and Vera had sent him after Fessenden.

St. Luke’s was an Episcopalian place; as such, in Martin’s view, it was barely a religious school at all. The morning service was only a hymn and a prayer and a virtuous thought for the day, which was followed by a curiously secular benediction—hardly a blessing, but some sage advice about studying relentlessly and never plagiarizing. Sunday church attendance was required, but in St. Luke’s Chapel the service was of such a low Episcopalian nature that no one knelt for prayers. Instead, the students slumped in their pews; probably they weren’t sincere Episcopalians. And whenever Martin Mills would attempt to lower the hinged kneeling pad—so that he could properly kneel to pray—his fellow students in the pew would firmly hold the hinged kneeler in the upright, nonpraying position. They insisted on using the kneeling pad as a footrest. When Martin complained to the school’s headmaster, the Reverend Rick Utley informed the underclassman that only senior Catholics and senior Jews were permitted to attend worship services in their churches and synagogues of choice; until Martin was a senior, St. Luke’s would have to do—in other words, no kneeling.

In St. Ignatius Church, Martin Mills lowered the kneeling pad and knelt in prayer. In the pew was a rack that held the hymnals and prayer books; whenever Martin bled on the binding of the nearest hymnal, he dabbed at his nose with one sock and wiped the hymnal with the other. He prayed for the strength to love his father, for merely pitying him seemed insufficient. Although Martin knew that the task of loving his mother was an insurmountable one, he prayed for the charity to forgive her. And he prayed for the soul of Arif Koma, Martin had long ago forgiven Arif, but every morning he prayed that the Holy Virgin would forgive Arif, too. The missionary always began this prayer in the same way.

“O Mother Mary, it was my fault!” Martin prayed. In a way, the new missionary’s story had also been set in motion by the Virgin Mary—in the sense that Martin held her in higher esteem than he held his own mother. Had Vera been killed by a falling statue of the Blessed Virgin—especially if such good riddance had occurred when the zealot was of a tender, unformed age—Martin might never have become a Jesuit at all.

His nose was still bleeding. A drop of his blood dripped on the hymnal; once more the missionary dabbed at his wound. Arbitrarily, he decided not to wipe the song book; perhaps he thought that bloodstains would give the hymnal character. After all, it was a religion steeped in blood—Christ’s blood, and the blood of saints and martyrs. It would be glorious to be a martyr, Martin thought. He looked at his watch. In just half an hour, if he could make it, the missionary knew he would be saved by the Mass.

Is There a Gene for It, Whatever It Is?

In his stepped-up efforts to save Madhu from Mr. Garg, Dr. Daruwalla placed a phone call to Tata Two. But the OB/GYN’s secretary told Farrokh that Dr. Tata was already in surgery. The poor patient, whoever she was, Dr. Daruwalla thought. Farrokh wouldn’t want a woman he knew to be subjected to the uncertain scalpel of Tata Two, for (fairly or unfairly) Farrokh assumed that the surgical procedures of the second Dr. Tata were second-rate, too. It was quickly apparent to Dr. Daruwalla that Tata Two’s medical secretary lived up to the family reputation for mediocrity, because the doctor’s simple request for the quickest possible results of Madhu’s HIV test were met with suspicion and condescension. Dr. Tata’s secretary had already identified himself, rather arrogantly, as Mister Subhash.

“You are wanting a rush job?” Mr. Subhash asked Dr. Daruwalla. “Are you being aware that you are paying more for it?”

“Of course!” Farrokh said.

“It is normally costing four hundred rupees,” Mr. Subhash informed Dr. Daruwalla. “A rush job is costing you a thousand rupees. Or is the patient paying?”

“No, I’m paying. I want the quickest possible results,” Farrokh replied.

“It is normally taking ten days or two weeks,” Mr. Subhash explained. “It is most conveniently being done in batches. We are normally waiting until we are having forty specimens.”

“But I don’t want you to wait in this case,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. “That’s why I called—I know how it’s normally done.”

“If the ELISA is being positive, we are normally confirming the results by Western Blot. The ELISA is having a lot of false positives, you know,” Mr. Subhash explained.

“I know,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “If you get a positive ELISA, please send it on for a Western Blot.”

“This is prolonging the turnaround time for a positive test,” Mr. Subhash explained.

“Yes, I know,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

“If the test is being negative, you are having the results in two days,” Mr. Subhash explained “Naturally, if it is being positive …”

“Then it would take longer—I know!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “Please just order the test immediately. That’s why I called.”