On the dance floor, the staid Duckworthians who dared to dance—they’d been waiting for a slow number— kept their distance from Dhar and Muriel, who was clearly no lady. Mr. Sethna, the old eavesdropper and lip-reader
“I think she’s a stripper,” said Mrs. Dogar—Rahul had honed a sharp eye for such social details.
“Perhaps she’s an actress,” Mr. Dogar said.
“She’s acting, but she’s no actress,” Mrs. Dogar replied.
From what Farrokh could see of Rahul, the transsexual had inherited the reptilian scrutiny of her Aunt Promila; it was as if, when she looked at you, she were seeing a different life-form—certainly not a fellow human being.
“It’s hard to tell from here,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “I don’t know if she’s attracted to him or if she wants to kill him.”
“Maybe with her,” said the deputy commissioner, “the feeling is one and the same.”
“Whatever else she feels, she’s attracted,” Nancy said. Her back was the only part of her that Rahul could see, if Rahul had been looking. But Rahul had eyes for John D. only.
When the band played a faster number, Dhar and Muriel grew even rougher with each other, as if invigorated by the slower interlude or by their closer contact. A few of the cheap sequins were torn from Muriel’s dress; they glittered on the dance floor, reflecting the light from the ballroom chandelier—when Dhar or Muriel stepped on them, they crunched. A constant rivulet of sweat ran its course in Muriel’s cleavage, and Dhar was bleeding slightly from a scratch on his wrist; the cuff of his white shirt was dotted with blood. Because of how tightly he held Muriel at her waist, a sequin had scratched him. He paid the scratch only passing attention, but Muriel took his wrist in her hands and covered the cut with her mouth. In this way, with his wrist to her lips, they kept dancing. Mr. Sethna had seen such things only in the movies. The steward didn’t realize that this was what he was seeing: a screenplay by Farrokh Daruwalla, a movie starring Inspector Dhar.
When Muriel left the Duckworth Club, she made a fuss over her departure. She danced one last dance (another slow one) with her shawl on; she downed a nearly full glass of champagne in the foyer. Then the exotic dancer leaned on Vinod’s head while the dwarf walked her to the Ambassador.
“A to-do worthy of a slut,” said Mr. Dogar. “I suppose she’s going back to the brothel.”
But Rahul merely glanced at the time. The second Mrs. Dogar was a close observer of Bombay’s low life; she knew that the hour for the first show at the Eros Palace was fast approaching, or maybe Dhar’s tart worked at the Wetness Cabaret—the first show there was 15 minutes later.
When Dhar asked the Sorabjees’ daughter to dance, a new tension could be felt throughout the main dining room and the Ladies’ Garden. Even with her back to the action, Nancy knew that something unscripted had happened.
“He’s asked someone else to dance, hasn’t he?” she said; her face and the nape of her neck were flushed.
“Who’s that young girl? She’s not part of our plan!” said Detective Patel.
“Trust him—he’s a great improviser,” the screenwriter said. “He always understands who he is and what his role is. He knows what he’s doing.”
Nancy was pinching a pearl on her necklace; her thumb and index finger were white. “You bet he knows,” she said Julia turned around, but she couldn’t see the ballroom—only the look of loathing that was unconcealed on Mrs. Dogar’s face.
“It’s little Amy Sorabjee—she must be back from school,” Dr. Daruwalla informed his wife.
“She’s only a teenager!” Julia cried.
“I think she’s a little older,” the real policeman replied.
“It’s a brilliant move!” the screenwriter said. “Mrs. Dogar doesn’t know
“I know how she feels,” Nancy told him.
“It’ll be all right, sweetie,” the deputy commissioner told his wife. When he took her hand, she pulled it away.
“Am I next?” Nancy asked. “Do I wait in line?”
Almost every face in the main dining room was turned toward the ballroom. They watched the unstoppable sweating movie star with his bulky shoulders and his beer belly; he was twirling little Amy Sorabjee around as if she were no heavier than her clothes.
Although the Sorabjees and the Daruwallas were old friends, Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee had been surprised at Dhar’s spur-of-the-moment invitation—and that Amy had accepted. She was a silly girl in her twenties, a former university student who hadn’t merely come home for the holiday; she’d been withdrawn from school. Granted, Dhar wasn’t mashing her; the actor was behaving like a proper gentleman—excessively charming, possibly, but the young lady seemed delighted. Theirs was a different kind of dancing from Dhar’s performance with Muriel; the friskiness of the youthful girl was appealingly offset by the sure, smooth quality of the older man’s gestures.
“Now he’s seducing children!” Mr. Dogar announced to his wife. “He’s going to dance his way through all the women—I’m sure he’ll ask you, too, Promila!”
Mrs. Dogar was visibly upset. She excused herself for the ladies’ room, where she was reminded of how she hated this aspect of being a woman—waiting to pee. There was too long a line; Rahul slipped through the foyer and into the closed and darkened administrative offices of the old club. There was enough moonlight for her to type by, and she rolled a two-rupee note into the typewriter that was nearest a window. On the money, the typed message was as spontaneous as her feelings at the moment.
A MEMBER NO MORE
This was a message meant for Dhar’s mouth, and Mrs. Dogar slipped it into her purse where it could keep company with the message she’d already typed for her husband.
…BECAUSE DHAR IS STILL A MEMBER
It comforted Mrs. Dogar to have these two-rupee notes in place; she always felt better when she was prepared for every contingency. She slipped back through the foyer and into the ladies’ room, where the line ahead of her wasn’t so long. When Rahul returned to her table in the main dining room, Dhar was dancing with a new partner.
Mr. Sethna, who’d been happily monitoring the conversation between the Dogars, was thrilled to note Mr. Dogar’s observation to his coarse wife: “Now Dhar’s dancing with that hefty Anglo who came with the Daruwallas. I think she’s the white half of a mixed marriage. Her husband looks like a pathetic civil servant.”
But Mrs. Dogar was prevented from seeing the new dancers. Dhar had wheeled Nancy into the part of the ballroom that wasn’t visible from the main dining room. Only intermittently did a glimpse of them appear. Earlier, Rahul had taken little notice of the big blonde. When Mrs. Dogar glanced at the Daruwallas’ table, the Daruwallas were bent in conversation with the out-of-place “pathetic civil servant,” as her husband had described him. Maybe he was a minor magistrate, Rahul guessed—or some controlling little guru who’d met his Western wife in an ashram.
Then Dhar and the heavy woman danced into view. Mrs. Dogar sensed the strength with which they gripped each other—the woman’s broad hand held fast to Dhar’s neck, and the biceps of his right arm was locked in her armpit (as if he were trying to lift her up). She was taller than he was; from the way she grasped his neck, it was impossible for Rahul to tell if Nancy was pulling Dhar’s face into the side of her throat or if she was struggling to prevent him from nuzzling her. What was remarkable was that they were whispering fiercely to each other; neither one of them was listening, but they were talking urgently and at the same time. When they danced out of her sight again, Rahul couldn’t stand it; Mrs. Dogar asked her husband to dance.
“He’s got her! I told you he could do it,” said Dr. Daruwalla.
“This is only the beginning,” the deputy commissioner replied. “This is just the dancing.”
