A Son of the Circus

comfort Mr. Lal’s widow. The Bannerjees would never have guessed that the second Mrs. Dogar’s rude outburst was as premeditated as her intentions to soon join Mrs. Lal in the state of widowhood. Rahul had married Mr. Dogar out of eagerness to become his widow.

Also deliberately, Mrs. Dogar had turned to Mr. Sethna and said, “My dear Mr. Sethna, would you kindly call us a taxi? My husband is in no condition to drive us home.”

“Promila, please…” Mr. Dogar began to say.

“Give me your keys,” Mrs. Dogar commanded him. “You can take a taxi with me or you can call your own taxi, but you’re not driving a car.”

Sheepishly, Mr. Dogar handed her his ring of keys.

“Now just sit here—don’t get up and wander around,” Mrs. Dogar told him. Mrs. Dogar herself stood up. “Wait for me,” she ordered her husband—the rejected designated driver. When Mr. Dogar was alone, he glanced at the Bannerjees, who looked away; not even the waiter would look at the condemned drunk, and the busboy had slunk into the circular driveway to smoke a cigarette.

Rahul timed how long everything took. He—or, rather, she (if outward anatomy is the measure of a man or a woman)—walked into the men’s room by the door from the foyer. She knew no one could be in the men’s room, for none of the wait-staff were permitted to use it—except Mr. Sethna, who so disapproved of peeing with the hired help that he made uncontested use of the facilities marked FOR MEMBERS ONLY. The old steward was more in charge of the Duckworth Club than any member. But Mrs. Dogar knew that Mr. Sethna was busy calling a taxi.

Since she’d become a woman, Mrs. Dogar didn’t regret not using the men’s room at the Duckworth Club; its decor wasn’t as pleasing to her as the ladies’ room—Rahul loathed the men’s room wallpaper. She found the tiger- hunting motif brutal and stupid.

She moved past the urinals, the toilet stalls, the sinks for shaving, and into the darkened locker room, which extended to the clubhouse and the clubhouse bar; these latter facilities were never in use at night, and Mrs. Dogar wanted to be sure that she could navigate their interiors in darkness. The big windows of frosted glass admitted the moonlight that reflected from the tennis courts and the swimming pool, which was presently under repair and not in service; it was an empty cement-lined hole with some construction debris in the deep end, and the members were already betting that it wouldn’t be ready for use in the hotter months ahead.

Mrs. Dogar had sufficient moonlight to unlock the rear door to the clubhouse; she found the right key in less than a minute—then she relocked the door. This was just a test. She also found Mr. Dogar’s locker and unlocked it; it took the smallest key on the ring, and Mrs. Dogar discovered that she could easily find this key by touch. She unlocked and relocked the locker by touch, too, although she could see everything in the moonlight; one night, she might not have the moon.

Rahul could quite clearly make out the shrine of old golf clubs displayed on the wall. These were the clubs of famous Golfers Past and of some living, less famous Duckworthians who had retired from active play. Mrs. Dogar needed to assure herself that these clubs could be easily removed from the wall. After all, it had been a while since Rahul had visited the men’s locker room; she hadn’t been there since she’d been a boy. When she’d handled a few of the clubs to her satisfaction, she went back into the men’s room—after assuring herself that neither Mr. Sethna nor Mr. Bannerjee was using the facilities. She knew her husband wouldn’t leave the table in the Ladies’ Garden; he did what he was told.

When she could see (from the men’s room) that there was no one in the foyer, she returned to the Ladies’ Garden. She went directly to the Bannerjees’ table—they weren’t friends of the Dogars’s—and she whispered to them, “I’m sorry for my outspokenness. But when he’s like this, he’s virtually a baby—he’s so senile, he’s not to be trusted. And not only in a car. One night, after dinner—he had all his clothes on—I stopped him just before he dove into the club pool.”

“The empty pool?” said Mr. Bannerjee.

“I’m glad you understand,” Mrs. Dogar replied. “That’s what I’m talking about. If I don’t treat him like a child, he’ll hurt himself!”

Then she went to her husband, leaving the Bannerjees with this impression of Mr. Dogar’s senility and self- destructiveness —for her husband being found dead in the deep end of the club’s empty pool was one of the possible outcomes for the first draft that the second Mrs. Dogar was hard at work on. She was merely foreshadowing, as any good storyteller does. She also knew that she should set up other options, and these alternative endings were already in her mind.

“I hate to treat you like this, darling, but just sit tight while I see about our cab,” Mrs. Dogar told her husband. He was bewildered. Although his second wife was in her fifties, she was a young woman in comparison to what Mr. Dogar had been used to; the old gentleman was in his seventies—he’d been a widower for the last 10 years. He supposed these swings of mood were characteristic among younger women. He wondered if perhaps he had drunk too much. He did remember that his new wife had lost a brother to an automobile accident in Italy; he just couldn’t recall if alcohol had been the cause of the wreck.

Now Rahul was off whispering to Mr. Sethna, who disapproved of women whispering to men—for whatever reason.

“My dear Mr. Sethna,” the second Mrs. Dogar said. “I do hope you’ll forgive my aggressive behavior, but he’s simply not fit to wander about the club—much less drive a car. I’m sure he’s the one who’s been killing the flowers.”

Mr. Sethna was shocked by this allegation, but he was also eager to believe it was true. Something or someone was killing the flowers. An undiagnosed blight had struck patches of the bougainvillea. The head mali was stymied. Here, at last, was an answer: Mr. Dogar had been pissing on the flowers!

“He’s… incontinent?” Mr. Sethna inquired.

“Not at all,” said Mrs. Dogar. “He’s doing it deliberately.”

“He wants to kill the flowers?” Mr, Sethna asked.

“I’m glad you understand,” Mrs. Dogar replied. “Poor man.” With a wave, she indicated the surrounding golf course. “Naturally, he wanders out there only after dark. Like a dog, he always goes to the same spots!”

“Territorial, I suppose,” said Mr. Sethna.

“I’m glad you understand,” Mrs. Dogar said. “Now, where’s our cab?”

In the taxi, old Mr. Dogar looked as if he wasn’t sure if he should apologize or complain. But, before he could decide, his younger wife once more surprised him.

“Oh, darling, never let me treat you like that again—at least not in public. I’m so ashamed!” she cried. “They’ll think I bully you. You mustn’t let me. If I ever tell you that you can’t drive a car again, here’s what you must do… are you listening, or are you too drunk?” Mrs. Dogar asked him.

“No… I mean yes, I’m listening,” Mr. Dogar said. “No, I’m not too drunk,” the old man assured her.

“You must throw the keys on the floor and make me pick them up, as if I were your servant,” Mrs. Dogar told him.

“What?” he asked.

“Then tell me that you always carry an extra set of keys and that you’ll drive the car home, when and if you choose. Then tell me to go—tell me you wouldn’t drive me home if I begged you!” Mrs. Dogar cried.

“But, Promila, I would never …” Mr. Dogar began to say, but his wife cut him off.

“Just promise me one thing—never back down to me,” she told him. Then she seized his face in her hands and kissed him on his mouth. “First, you should tell me to take a taxi—you just carry on sitting at the dinner table, as if you’re smoldering with rage. Then you should go to the men’s room and wash your face.”

“Wash my face?” said Mr. Dogar with surprise.

“I can’t stand the smell of food on your face, darling,” Mrs. Dogar told her husband. “Just wash your face— soap and warm water. Then come home to me. I’ll be waiting for you. That’s how I want you to treat me. Only you must wash your face first. Promise me.”

It had been years since Mr. Dogar had been so aroused, nor had he ever been so confused. It was difficult to understand a younger woman, he decided—yet surely worth it.