A Son of the Circus

Mr. Lal Has Missed the Net

And then, suddenly, a small and seemingly unimportant incident distracted Dr. Daruwalla from his entrancement with Lady Duckworth’s bosom. The doctor would need to be in touch with his subconscious to remember this, for it was only a slight disturbance from the dining room that drew his attention. A crow, with something shiny seized in its beak, had swept in from the open veranda and had landed rakishly on the broad, oar- shaped blade of one of the ceiling fans. The bird precariously tilted the fan, but it continued to ride the blade around and around, shitting in a consistently circular form—on the floor, on a portion of one tablecloth and on a salad plate, just missing a fork. A waiter flapped a napkin and the crow took flight again, raucously cawing as it escaped through the veranda and rose above the golf course that stood shimmering in the noon sun. Whatever had been in its beak was gone, perhaps swallowed. First the waiters and busboys rushed to change the befouled tablecloth and place setting, although it was still early for lunch; then a sweeper was summoned to mop the floor.

Owing to his early-morning surgeries, Dr. Daruwalla lunched earlier than most Duckworthians. Farrokh’s appointment for lunch with Inspector Dhar was at half past noon. The doctor strolled into the Ladies’ Garden, where he located a break in the dense bower that afforded him a view of the expanse of sky above the golf course; there he seated himself in a rose-colored wicker chair. His little pot belly seemed to get his attention, especially when he sat down; Farrokh ordered a London Diet beer, although he wanted a Kingfisher lager.

To Dr. Daruwalla’s surprise, he saw a vulture (possibly the same vulture) above the golf course again; the bird was lower in the sky, as if it was not en route to or from the Towers of Silence but as if it was descending. Knowing how ferociously the Parsis defended their burial rites, it amused Farrokh to imagine that they might be offended by any distraction caused to any vulture. Perhaps a horse had dropped dead on the Mahalaxmi race course; maybe a dog had been killed in Tardeo or a body had washed ashore at Haji Ali’s Tomb. Whatever the reason, here was one vulture that was not performing the sacred chore at the Towers of Silence.

Dr. Daruwalla looked at his watch. He expected his luncheon companion at any moment; he sipped his London Diet beer, trying to pretend it was a Kingfisher lager—he was imagining that he was slim again. (Farrokh had never been slim.) While he watched the vulture carve its descending spirals, another vulture joined it, and then another; this gave him an unexpected chill. Farrokh quite forgot to prepare himself for the news he had to deliver to Inspector Dhar—not that there was any good way to do it. The doctor grew so entranced by the birds that he didn’t notice the typically smooth, eerily graceful arrival of his handsome younger friend.

Putting his hand on Dr. Daruwalla’s shoulder, Dhar said, “Someone’s dead out there, Farrokh—who is it?” This caused a new waiter—the same waiter who’d driven the crow off the ceiling fan—to mishandle a soup tureen and a ladle. The waiter had recognized Inspector Dhar; what shocked him was to hear the movie star speak English without a trace of a Hindi accent. The resounding clatter seemed to herald Mr. Bannerjee’s sudden arrival in the Ladies’ Garden, where he seized both Dr. Daruwalla and Inspector Dhar by an arm.

“The vultures are landing on the ninth green!” he cried. “I think it’s poor Mr. Lal! He must have died in the bougainvillea!”

Dr. Daruwalla whispered in Inspector Dhar’s ear. The younger man’s expression never changed as Farrokh said, “This is your line of work, Inspector.” Typical of the doctor, this was a joke; yet without hesitation Inspector Dhar led them across the fairways. They could see a dozen of the leathery birds flapping and hopping in their ungainly fashion, dirtying the ninth green; their long necks rose above and then probed into the bougainvillea, their hooked beaks brightly spattered with gore.

Mr. Bannerjee wouldn’t step on the green, and the smell of putrefaction that clung to the vultures took Dr. Daruwalla by surprise; he stopped, overcome, near the flag at the ninth hole. But Inspector Dhar parted the stinking birds as he kicked his way, straight ahead, into the bougainvillea. The vultures rose all around him. My God, thought Farrokh, he looks like he’s a real police inspector—he’s just an actor, but he doesn’t know it!

The waiter who’d saved the ceiling fan from the crow, and had wrestled with the soup tureen and ladle with less success, also followed the excited Duckworthians a short distance onto the golf course, but he turned back to the dining room when he saw Inspector Dhar scatter the vultures. The waiter was among that multitude of fans who had seen every Inspector Dhar movie (he’d seen two or three of them a half-dozen times); therefore, he could safely be characterized as a young man who was enthralled by cheap violence and criminal bloodshed, not to mention enamored of Bombay’s most lurid element—the city’s sleaziest underscum, which was so lavishly depicted in all the Inspector Dhar movies. But when the waiter saw the flock of vultures that the famous actor had put to flight, the reality of an actual corpse in the vicinity of the ninth green greatly upset him. He retreated to the club, where his presence had been missed by the elderly disapproving steward, Mr. Sethna, who owed his job to Farrokh’s late father.

“Inspector Dhar has found a real body this time!” the waiter said to the old steward.

Mr. Sethna said, “Your station today is in the Ladies’ Garden. Kindly remain at your station!”

Old Mr. Sethna disapproved of Inspector Dhar movies. He was exceptionally disapproving in general, a quality regarded as enhancing to his position as steward at the Duckworth Club, where he routinely behaved as if he were empowered with the authority of the club secretary. Mr. Sethna had ruled the dining room and the Ladies’ Garden with his disapproving frowns longer than Inspector Dhar had been a member—although Mr. Sethna hadn’t always been steward for the Duckworthians. He’d previously been steward at the Ripon Club, a club that only Parsis join, and a club unsullied by sports of any kind; the Ripon Club existed for the purpose of good food and good conversation, period. Dr. Daruwalla was also a member there. The Ripon and the Duckworth suited Farrokh’s diverse nature: as a Parsi and a Christian, a Bombayite and a Torontonian, an orthopedic surgeon and a dwarf-blood collector, Dr. Daruwalla could never have been satisfied by just one club.

As for Mr. Sethna, who was descended from a not-so-old-money family of Parsis, the Ripon Club had suited him better than the Duckworth; however, circumstances that had brought out his highly disapproving nature had led to his dismissal there. His “highly disapproving nature” had already led Mr. Sethna to lose his not-so-old money, and the steward’s money had been exceedingly difficult to lose. It was money from the Raj, British money, but Mr. Sethna had so disapproved of it that he’d most cunningly and deliberately pissed it all away. He’d endured more than a normal lifetime at the Mahalaxmi race course; and all he’d retained from his betting years was a memory of the tattoo of the horses’ hooves, which he expertly drummed on his silver serving tray with his long fingers.

Mr. Sethna was distantly related to the Guzdars, an old-money family of Parsis who’d kept their money; they’d been shipbuilders for the British Navy. Alas, it happened that a young Ripon Club member had offended Mr. Sethna’s extended-family sensibilities; the stern steward had overheard compromising mention of the virtue of a Guzdar young lady—a cousin, many times removed. Because of the vulgar wit that amused these younger, nonreligious Parsis, there’d also been compromising mention of the cosmic intertwinement between Spenta Mainyu (the Zoroastrian spirit of good) and Angra Mainyu (the spirit of evil). In the case of Mr. Sethna’s Guzdar cousin, the spirit of sex was said to be winning her favors.

The young dandy who was doing this verbal damage wore a wig, a vanity of which Mr. Sethna also disapproved. Therefore, Mr. Sethna poured hot tea on top of the gentleman’s head, causing him to leap to his feet and literally snatch himself bald in the presence of his surprised luncheon companions.

Mr. Sethna’s actions, although considered most honorable among many old-money and new-money Parsis, were judged as unsuitable behavior for a steward; “violent aggression with hot tea” were the stated grounds for Mr. Sethna’s dismissal. But the steward received the highest recommendation imaginable from Dr. Daruwalla’s father; it was on the strength of the elder Daruwalla’s praise that Mr. Sethna was instantly hired at the Duckworth Club. Farrokh’s father viewed the tea episode as an act of heroism: the impugned Guzdar young lady was above reproach; Mr. Sethna had been correct in defending the mistreated girl’s virtue. The steward was such a fanatical Zoroastrian that Farrokh’s fiercely opinionated father had described Mr. Sethna as a Parsi who carried all of Persia on his shoulders.

To everyone who’d suffered his disapproving frowns in the Duckworth Club dining room or in the Ladies’ Garden, old Mr. Sethna looked like a steward who would gladly pour hot tea on anyone’s head. He was tall and exceedingly lean, as if he generally disapproved of eating, and he had a hooked, disdainful nose, as if he also disapproved of how everything smelled. And the old steward was so fair-skinned—most Parsis