A Son of the Circus

Police Inspector, Colaba Station.

But Nancy had never been to the East. She didn’t know where she was. She had no idea.

12. THE RATS

Four Baths

In Bombay, in his bedroom, where Dr. Daruwalla sat shivering in Julia’s embrace, the unresolved nature of the majority of the doctor’s phone messages depressed him: Ranjit’s peevish complaints about the dwarf’s wife; Deepa’s expectations regarding the potential bonelessness of a child prostitute; Vinod’s fear of the first-floor dogs; Father Cecil’s consternation that none of the Jesuits at St. Ignatius knew exactly when Dhar’s twin was arriving; and director Balraj Gupta’s greedy desire to release the new Inspector Dhar movie in the midst of the murders inspired by the last Inspector Dhar movie. To be sure, there was the familiar voice of the woman who tried to sound like a man and who repeatedly relished the details of old Lowji’s car bombing; this message wasn’t lacking in resolution, but it was muted by excessive repetition. And Detective Patel’s cool delivery of the news that he had a private matter to discuss didn’t sound “unresolved” to the doctor; although Dr. Daruwalla may not have known what the message meant, the deputy commissioner seemed to have made up his mind about the matter. But all these things were only mildly depressing in comparison to Farrokh’s memory of the big blonde with her bad foot.

“Liebchen,” Julia whispered to her husband. “We shouldn’t leave John D. alone. Think about the hippie another time.”

Both to break him from his trance and as a physical reminder of her affection for him, Julia squeezed Farrokh. She simply hugged him, more or less in the area of his lower chest, or just above his little beer belly. It surprised her how her husband winced in pain. The sharp tweak in his side—it must have been a rib—instantly reminded Dr. Daruwalla of his collision with the second Mrs. Dogar in the foyer of the Duckworth Club. Farrokh then told Julia the story: how the vulgar woman’s body was as hard as a stone wall.

“But you said you fell down,” Julia told him. “I would guess it was your contact with the stone floor that caused your injury.”

“No! It was that damn woman herself—her body is a rock!” Dr. Daruwalla said. “Mr. Dogar was knocked down, too! Only that crude woman was left standing.”

“Well, she’s supposed to be a fitness freak,” Julia replied.

“She’s a weight lifter!” Farrokh said. Then he remembered that the second Mrs. Dogar had reminded him of someone—definitely a long-ago movie star, he decided. He imagined that one night he would discover who it was on the videocassette recorder; both in Bombay and in Toronto, he had so many tapes of old movies that it was hard for him to remember how he’d lived before the VCR.

Farrokh sighed and his sore rib responded with a little twinge of pain.

“Let me rub some liniment on you, Liebchen,” Julia said.

“Liniment is for muscles—it was my rib she hurt,” the doctor complained.

Although Julia still favored the theory that the stone floor was the source of her husband’s pain, she humored him. “Was it Mrs. Dogar’s shoulder or her elbow that hit you?” she asked.

“You’re going to think it’s funny,” Farrokh admitted to Julia, “but I swear I ran right into her bosom.”

“Then it’s no wonder she hurt you, Liebchen,” Julia replied. It was Julia’s opinion that the second Mrs. Dogar had no bosom to speak of.

Dr. Daruwalla could sense his wife’s impatience on John D.’s behalf, but less for the fact that Inspector Dhar had been left alone than that the dear boy hadn’t been forewarned of the pending arrival of his twin. Yet even this dilemma struck the doctor as trivial—as insubstantial as the second Mrs. Dogar’s bosom—in comparison to the big blonde in the bathtub at the Hotel Bardez. Twenty years couldn’t lessen the impact of what had happened to Dr. Daruwalla there, for it had changed him more than anything in his whole life had changed him, and the long-ago memory of it endured unfaded, although he’d never returned to Goa. All other beach resorts had been ruined for him by the unpleasant association.

Julia recognized her husband’s expression. She could see how far away he was; she knew exactly where he was. Although she wanted to reassure John D. that the doctor would join them soon, it would have been heartless of her to leave her husband; dutifully, she remained seated beside him. Sometimes she thought she ought to tell him that it was his own curiosity that had got him into trouble. But this wasn’t entirely a fair accusation; dutifully, she remained silent. Her own memory, although it didn’t torture her with the same details that made the doctor miserable, was surprisingly vivid. She could still see Farrokh on the balcony of the Hotel Bardez, where he’d been as restless and bored as a little boy.

“What a long bath the hippie is taking!” the doctor had said to his wife.

“She looked like she needed a long bath, Liebchen,” Julia had told him. That was when Farrokh pulled the hippie’s rucksack closer to him and peered into the top of it; the top wouldn’t quite close.

“Don’t look at her things!” Julia told him.

“It’s just a book,” Farrokh said; he pulled the copy of Clea from the top of the rucksack. “I was just curious to know what she was reading.”

“Put it back,” Julia said.

“I will!” the doctor said, but he was reading the marked passage, the same bit about the “umbrageous violet” and the “velvet rind” that one customs official and two policemen had already found so spellbinding. “She has a poetic sensibility,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

“I find that hard to believe,” Julia told him. “Put it back!”

But putting the book back presented the doctor with a new difficulty: something was in the way.

“Stop groping through her things!” Julia said.

“The damn book doesn’t fit,” Farrokh said. “I’m not groping through her things.” An overpowering mustiness embraced him from the depths of the rucksack, a stale exhalation. The hippie’s clothing felt damp. As a married man with daughters, Dr. Daruwalla was particularly sensitive to an abundance of dirty underpants in any woman’s laundry. A mangled bra clung to his wrist as he tried to extract his hand, and still the copy of Clea wouldn’t lie flat at the top of the rucksack; something poked against the book. What the hell is this thing? the doctor wondered. Then Julia heard him gasp; she saw him spring away from the rucksack as if an animal had bitten his hand.

“What is it?” she cried.

“I don’t know!” the doctor moaned. He staggered to the rail of the balcony, where he gripped the tangled branches of the clinging vine. Several bright-yellow finches with seeds falling from their beaks exploded from among the flowers, and a gecko sprang from the branch nearest the doctor’s right hand; it wriggled into the open end of a drainpipe just as Dr. Daruwalla leaned over the balcony and vomited onto the patio below. Fortunately, no one was having afternoon tea there. There was only one of the hotel’s sweepers, who’d fallen asleep in a curled position in the shade of a large potted plant. The doctor’s falling vomit left the sweeper undisturbed.

“Liebchen!” Julia cried.

“I’m all right,” Farrokh said. “It’s nothing, really—it’s just… lunch.” Julia was staring at the hippie’s rucksack as if she expected something to crawl out from under the copy of Clea.

“What was it—what did you see?” she asked Farrokh.

“I’m not sure,” he said, but Julia was thoroughly exasperated with him.

“You don’t know, you’re not sure, it’s nothing, really—it just made you throw up!” she said. She reached for the rucksack. “Well, if you don’t tell me, I’ll just see for myself.”

“No, don’t!” the doctor cried.

“Then tell me,” Julia said.