A Son of the Circus

just so. A time-consuming vanity for a man in his forties, Farrokh imagined; or maybe someone else shaved the deputy commissioner—possibly a younger woman, with an untrembling hand.

“In summary,” the detective was saying to Dhar, “I don’t suppose you know who all your enemies are.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I suppose we could start with all the prostitutes—not just the hijras—and most policemen.”

“I would start with the hijras,” Farrokh broke in; he was thinking like a screenwriter again.

“I wouldn’t,” said Detective Patel. “What do the hijras care if Dhar is or isn’t a member of this club? What they want is his penis and his testicles.”

“You’re telling me,” said Inspector Dhar.

“I very much doubt that the murderer is a member of this club,” said Dr. Daruwalla.

“Don’t rule that out,” Dhar said.

“I won’t,” said Detective Patel. He gave both Dr. Daruwalla and Inspector Dhar his card. “If you call me,” he said to Dhar, “you better call me at home—I wouldn’t leave any messages at Crime Branch Headquarters. You know all about how we policemen can’t be trusted.”

“Yes,” the actor said. “I know.”

“Excuse me, Detective Patel,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “Where did you find the two-rupee note?”

“It was folded in Mr. Lal’s mouth,” the detective said.

When the deputy commissioner had departed, the two friends sat listening to the late-afternoon sounds. They were so absorbed in their listening that they didn’t notice the prolonged departure of the second Mrs. Dogar. She left her table, then she stopped to look over her shoulder at the unresponsive Inspector Dhar, then she walked only a little farther before she stopped and looked again, then she looked again.

Watching her, Mr. Sethna concluded that she was insane. Mr. Sethna observed every stage of the second Mrs. Dogar’s most complicated exit from the Ladies’ Garden and the dining room, but Inspector Dhar didn’t appear to see the woman at all. It interested the old steward that Mrs. Dogar had stared so exclusively at Dhar; not once had her gaze shifted to Dr. Daruwalla, and never to the policeman—but then, Detective Patel had kept his back to her.

Mr. Sethna also watched the deputy commissioner make a phone call from the booth in the foyer. The detective was momentarily distracted by Mrs. Dogar’s agitated condition; as the woman marched to the driveway and ordered the parking-lot attendant to fetch her car, the policeman appeared to make note of her attractiveness, her haste and her expression of something like rage. Perhaps the deputy commissioner was considering whether or not this woman looked like someone who’d recently clubbed an old man to death; in truth, thought Mr. Sethna, the second Mrs. Dogar looked as if she wanted to murder someone. But Detective Patel paid only passing attention to Mrs. Dogar; he seemed more interested in his phone call.

The apparent topic of conversation was so domestic that it surpassed even the interest of Mr. Sethna, who eavesdropped only long enough to assure himself that D.C.P. Patel was not engaged in police business. Mr. Sethna was certain that the policeman was talking to his wife.

“No, sweetie,” said the detective, who then listened patiently to the receiver before he said, “No, I would have told you, sweetie.” Then he listened again. “Yes, of course I promise, sweetie,” he finally said. For a while, the deputy commissioner shut his eyes while he listened to the receiver; in observing him, Mr. Sethna felt extremely self-satisfied that he’d never married. “But I haven’t dismissed your theories!” Detective Patel suddenly said into the phone. “No, of course I’m not angry,” he added with resignation. “I’m sorry if I sounded angry, sweetie.”

Not even as veteran a snoop as Mr. Sethna could stand another word; he decided to permit the policeman to continue his conversation in privacy. It was only a mild surprise to Mr. Sethna that D.C.P. Patel spoke English to his own wife. The old steward concluded that this was why the detective’s English was above average—practice. But at what a demeaning cost! Mr. Sethna returned to that part of the dining room nearest the Ladies’ Garden, and to his lengthy observation of Dr. Daruwalla and Inspector Dhar. They were still absorbed in the late-afternoon sounds. They weren’t much fun to observe, but at least they weren’t married to each other.

The tennis balls were back in action, and someone was snoring in the reading room; the busboys, making their typical clatter, had cleared every dining table but the table where the doctor and the actor sat with their cold tea. (Detective Patel had polished off all the sweets.) The sounds of the Duckworth Club spoke distinctly for themselves: the sharp shuffling of a fresh deck of cards, the crisp contact of the snooker balls, the steady sweeping out of the dance hall—it was swept at the same time every afternoon, although there were rarely dances on weeknights. There was also a ceaseless insanity to the patter and squeak of the shoes on the polished hardwood of the badminton court; compared to the frenzy of this activity, the dull whacking of the shuttlecock sounded like someone killing flies.

Dr. Daruwalla believed that this wasn’t a good moment to give Inspector Dhar more bad news. The murder and the unusual death threat were quite enough for one afternoon. “Perhaps you should come home for supper,” Dr. Daruwalla said to his friend.

“Yes, I’d like that, Farrokh,” Dhar said. Normally, he might have said something snide about Dr. Daruwalla’s use of the word “supper.” Dhar disliked too loose a use of the word; in the actor’s fussy opinion, the word should be reserved for either a light meal in the early evening or for an after-the-theater repast. In Dhar’s opinion, North Americans tended to use the word as if it were interchangeable with dinner; Farrokh felt that supper was interchangeable with dinner.

There was something fatherly in his voice to Dhar when Dr. Daruwalla adopted a critical tone. He said to the actor, “It’s quite out of character for you to sound off in such accentless English to a total stranger.”

“Policemen aren’t exactly strangers to me,” Dhar said. “They talk to each other but they never talk to the press.”

“Oh, I forgot you knew everything about police business!” Farrokh said sarcastically. But Inspector Dhar was back in character; he was good at keeping quiet. Dr. Daruwalla regretted what he’d said. He’d wanted to say, Oh, dear boy, you may not be the hero of this story! Now he wanted to say, Dear boy, there are people who love you—I love you. You surely must know I do!

But instead, Dr. Daruwalla said, “As guest chairman of the Membership Committee, I feel I must inform the committeemen of this threat to the other members. We’ll vote on it, but I feel there will be strong opinion that the other members should know.”

“Of course they should know,” said Inspector Dhar. “And I should not remain a member,” he said.

It was unthinkable to Dr. Daruwalla that an extortionist and a murderer could so swiftly and concretely disrupt the most cherished aspect of the character of the Duckworth Club, which (in his view) was a deep, almost remote sense of privacy, as if Duckworthians were afforded the luxury of not actually living in Bombay.

“Dear boy,” said the doctor, “what will you do?”

Dhar’s answer shouldn’t have surprised Dr. Daruwalla as forcefully as it did; the doctor had heard the response many times, in every Inspector Dhar movie. After all, Farrokh had written the response. “What will I do?” Dhar asked himself aloud. “Find out who it is and get them.”

“Don’t speak to me in character!” Dr. Daruwalla said sharply. “You’re not in a movie now!”

“I’m always in a movie,” Dhar snapped. “I was born in a movie! Then I was almost immediately put into another movie, wasn’t I?”

Since Dr. Daruwalla and his wife thought they were the only people in Bombay who knew exactly where the younger man had come from and everything about who he was, it was the doctor’s turn to keep quiet. In our hearts, Dr. Daruwalla thought, there must abide some pity for those people who have always felt themselves to be separate from even their most familiar surroundings, those people who either are foreigners or who suffer a singular point of view that makes them feel as if they’re foreigners—even in their native lands. In our hearts, Farrokh knew, there also abides a certain suspicion that such people need to feel set apart from their society. But people who initiate their loneliness are no less lonely than those who are suddenly surprised by loneliness, nor are they undeserving of our pity—Dr. Daruwalla felt certain of that. However, the doctor was unsure if he’d been thinking of Dhar or of himself.

Then Farrokh realized he was alone at the table; Dhar had departed as eerily as he’d arrived. The glint of Mr. Sethna’s silver serving tray caught Dr. Daruwalla’s eye, reminding him of that shiny something which the crow had held so briefly in its beak.