A Son of the Circus

Vera’s telegram to Martin continued in a bitter vein.

BEING CATHOLIC, ALTHOUGH HARDLY A MODEL OF THE SPECIES, I’M SURE DANNY WOULD HAVE WANTED YOU TO ARRANGE SOME SUITABLE SERVICE OR LAST BIT OR WHATEVER IT’S CALLED

“Hardly a model of the species” was the sort of language Vera had learned from the moisturizer commercial of her son’s long-ago and damaged youth.

The last dig was pure Vera—even in what passed for grief, she took a swipe at her son.

WILL OF COURSE UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY IF YOUR VOW OF POVERTY MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO ASSIST ME IN THIS MATTER / MOM

There followed only the name of the hotel in New York. Martin’s “vow of poverty” notwithstanding, Vera wasn’t offering to pay for his trip with her money.

Her telegram to Dr. Daruwalla was also pure Vera.

I FAIL TO IMAGINE HOW DANNY’S DEATH SHOULD ALTER YOUR DECISION TO KEEP MARTIN FROM ANY KNOWLEDGE OF HIS TWIN

So suddenly it’s my decision, Dr. Daruwalla thought.

PLEASE DON’T UPSET POOR MARTIN WITH MORE BAD NEWS

So now it’s “poor Martin” who would be upset! Farrokh observed.

SINCE MARTIN HAS CHOSEN POVERTY FOR A PROFESSION, AND DANNY HAS LEFT ME A WOMAN OF INSUFFICIENT MEANS, PERHAPS YOU’LL BE SO KIND AS TO AID MARTIN WITH THE AIRFARE / OF COURSE IT’S DANNY WHO WOULD HAVE WANTED HIM HERE / VERA

The only good news, which Dr. Daruwalla didn’t know at the time, was that Danny Mills had left Vera a woman of even less means than she supposed. Danny had bequeathed what little he had to the Catholic Church— secure in the knowledge that if he’d given anything to Martin, that’s what Martin would have done with the money. In the end, not even Vera would consider the amount worth fighting for.

In Bombay, the day after Jubilee Day was a big one for news. Danny’s death and Vera’s manipulations overlapped with Mr. Das’s announcement that Madhu had left the Great Blue Nile with her new husband; both Martin Mills and Dr. Daruwalla had little doubt that Madhu’s new husband was Mr. Garg. Farrokh was so sure of this that his brief telegram to the Bengali ringmaster was a statement, not a question.

YOU SAID THAT THE MAN WHO MARRIED MADHU HAD A SCAR / ACID, I PRESUME

Both the doctor and the missionary were outraged that Mr. and Mrs. Das had virtually sold Madhu to a man like Garg, but Martin urged Farrokh not to take the ringmaster to task. In the spirit of encouraging the Great Blue Nile to support the efforts of the elephant-footed cripple, Dr. Daruwalla concluded his telegram to Mr. Das in Junagadh on a tactful note.

I TRUST THAT THE BOY GANESH WILL BE WELL LOOKED AFTER

He didn’t “trust”; he hoped.

In the light of Ranjit’s message from Mr. Subhash (that Tata Two had given Dr. Daruwalla the HIV test results for the wrong Madhu), the doctor had sizably less hope for Madhu than for Ganesh. Ranjit’s account of Mr. Subhash’s offhand manner—the ancient secretary’s virtual dismissal of the error—was infuriating, but even a proper apology from Dr. Tata wouldn’t have lessened the fact that Madhu was HIV-positive. She didn’t have AIDS yet; she was merely carrying the virus.

“How can you even think ‘merely’?” cried Martin Mills, who seemed to be more devastated by Madhu’s medical destiny than by the news of Danny’s death; after all, Danny had been dying for years.

It was only midmorning; Martin had to interrupt their phone conversation in order to teach a class. Farrokh agreed to keep the missionary informed of the day’s developments. The upper-school boys at St. Ignatius were about to receive a Catholic interpretation of Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter, while Dr. Daruwalla attempted to find Madhu. But the doctor discovered that Garg’s phone number was no longer in service; Mr. Garg was lying low. Vinod told Dr. Daruwalla that Deepa had already talked to Garg; according to the dwarf’s wife, the owner of the Wetness Cabaret had complained about the doctor.

“Garg is thinking you are being too moral with him,” the dwarf explained.

It was not morality that the doctor wanted to discuss with Madhu, or with Garg. The doctor’s disapproval of Garg notwithstanding, Dr. Daruwalla wanted the opportunity to tell Madhu what it meant to be HIV-positive. Vinod implied that any opportunity for direct communication with Madhu was unpromising.

“It is working better another way,” the dwarf suggested. “You are telling me. I am telling Deepa. She is telling Garg. Garg is telling the girl.”

It was hard for Dr. Daruwalla to accept this as a “better” way, but the doctor was beginning to understand the essence of the dwarf’s Good Samaritanism. Rescuing children from the brothels was simply what Vinod and Deepa did with their spare time; they would just keep doing it—needing to succeed at it might have diminished their efforts.

“Tell Garg he was misinformed,” Dr. Daruwalla told Vinod. “Tell him Madhu is HIV-positive.”

Interestingly, if Garg was uninfected, his odds were good; he probably wouldn’t contract HIV from Madhu. (The nature of HIV transmission is such that it’s not that easy for a woman to give it to a man.) Depressingly, if Garg was infected, Madhu had probably contracted it from him.

The dwarf must have sensed the doctor’s depression; Vinod knew that a functioning Good Samaritan can’t dwell on every little failure. “We are only showing them the net,” Vinod tried to explain. “We are not being their wings.”

“Their wings? What wings?” Farrokh asked.

“Not every girl is being able to fly,” the dwarf said. “They are not all falling in the net.”

It occurred to Dr. Daruwalla that he should impart this lesson to Martin Mills, but the scholastic was still in the process of watering down Graham Greene for the upper-school boys. Instead, the doctor called the deputy commissioner.

“Patel here,” said the cold voice. The clatter of typewriters resounded in the background; rising, and then falling out of hearing, was the mindless revving of a motorcycle. Like punctuation to their phone conversation, there came and went the sharp barking of the Dobermans, complaining in the courtyard kennel. Dr. Daruwalla imagined that just out of his hearing a prisoner was professing his innocence, or else declaring that he’d spoken the truth. The doctor wondered if Rahul was there. What would she be wearing?

“I know this isn’t exactly a crime-branch matter,” Farrokh apologized in advance; then he told the deputy commissioner everything he knew about Madhu and Mr. Garg.

“Lots of pimps marry their best girls,” Detective Patel informed the doctor. “Garg runs the Wetness Cabaret, but he’s a pimp on the side.”

“I just want a chance to tell her what to expect,” said Dr. Daruwalla.

“She’s another man’s wife,” Patel replied. “You want me to tell another man’s wife that she has to talk to you?”

“Can’t you ask her?” Farrokh asked.

“I can’t believe I’m speaking to the creator of Inspector Dhar,” the deputy commissioner said. “How does it go? It’s one of my all-time favorites: The police don’t ask—the police arrest, or the police harass.’ Isn’t that the line?”