“At least he spared me his favourite speech today, thanks to the Emergency,” said Dina when they got off the bus. “That’s something to be grateful for. And what is so terrible about marrying again?’“ she imitated in a sanctimonious voice. “ ‘You are still good-looking, I guarantee I can find you a good husband.’ You won’t believe the number of times he has said this to me.”
“But I do, Aunty,” said Maneck. “It’s the one thing on which I agree with your brother. You
She smacked his shoulder. “Whose side are you on?”
“On the side of truth and beauty,” he pronounced grandly. “But it must be quite funny when Nusswan and his business friends get together and talk their nonsense.”
“You know what I was remembering, in his office? When he was a young boy. He would talk about becoming a big-game hunter, about killing leopards and lions. And wrestling crocodiles, like Tarzan. One day, a little mouse came into our room, and our ayah said to him, Baba look, there is a fierce tiger, you can be the hunter. And Nusswan ran away screaming for Mummy.”
She turned the key in the lock. “Now he wants to eliminate two hundred million. His big talk never stops.”
They entered the flat and were confronted by the silent sewing-machines. Their laughter now seemed out of place; it dwindled rapidly and died.
X. Sailing Under One Flag
THE TRUCK GROWLED INTO THE CITY after midnight along the airport road. Sleeping shanty towns pullulated on both sides of the highway, ready to spread onto the asphalt artery. Only the threat of the many- wheeled juggernauts thundering up and down restrained the tattered lives behind the verges. Headlights picked out late-shift workers, tired ghosts tracing a careful path between the traffic and the open sewer.
“Police had orders to remove all jhopadpattis,” said Ishvar. “Why are these still standing?”
Beggarmaster explained it was not so simple; everything depended on the long-term arrangements each slumlord had made with the police.
“That’s not fair,” said Om, his eyes trying to penetrate the rancid night. Splotches of pale moonlight revealed an endless stretch of patchwork shacks, the sordid quiltings of plastic and cardboard and paper and sackcloth, like scabs and blisters creeping in a dermatological nightmare across the rotting body of the metropolis. When the moon was blotted by clouds, the slum disappeared from sight. The stench continued to vouch for its presence.
After a few kilometres the truck entered the city’s innards. Lampposts and neon fixtures washed the pavements in a sea of yellow watery light, where slumbered the shrunken, hollow-eyed statuary of the night, the Galateas and Gangabehns and Gokhales and Gopals, soon to be stirred to life by dawn’s chaos, to haul and carry and lift and build, to strain their sinew for the city that was desperately seeking beautification.
“Look,” said Om. “People are sleeping peacefully — no police to bother them. Maybe the Emergency law has been cancelled.”
“No, it hasn’t,” said Beggarmaster. “But it’s become a game, like all other laws. Easy to play, once you know the rules.”
The tailors asked to be let off near the chemist’s. “Maybe the nightwatchman will let us live in the entrance again.”
Beggarmaster insisted, however, on first seeing their place of work. The truck travelled for a few more minutes and stopped outside Dina’s building, where they indicated her flat.
“Okay,” said Beggarmaster, jumping out. “Let’s verify your jobs with your employer.” He asked the driver to wait, and strode rapidly to the door.
“It’s too late to wake Dinabai,” pleaded Ishvar, wincing as he hurried on his bad ankle. “She’s very quick- tempered. We’ll bring you here tomorrow, I promise — I swear upon my dead mother’s name.”
The beggars and injured workers in the truck shivered, yearning for the comforting arms of motion that had cradled them through the journey. The idling engine’s rumbles endowed the night with a menacing maw. They began to cry.
Beggarmaster paused at the front door to study the nameplate, and made a note in his diary. Then he shot out his index finger and rang the doorbell.
“Hai Ram!” Ishvar clutched his head in despair. “How angry she will be, pulled out of bed this late!”
“It’s late for me also,” said Beggarmaster. “I missed my temple puja, but I’m not complaining, am I?” He pressed the bell again and again when there was no answer. The truck driver sounded his horn to hurry him up.
“Stop, please!” begged Om. “At this rate we’ll surely lose our jobs!” Beggarmaster smiled patiently and continued his jottings. Writing in the dark posed no difficulty for him.
Inside, the doorbell agitated Dina as much as it did the tailors. She rushed to Maneck’s room. “Wake up, quick!” He needed a few good shakes before he stirred. “Looks like an angel but snores like a buffalo! Wake up, come on! Are you listening? Someone’s at the door!”
“Who?”
“I glanced through the peephole, but you know my eyes. All I can tell is, there are three fellows. I want you to look.”
She had not yet switched on the light, hoping the uninvited visitors would go away. Cautioning him to walk softly, she led the way to the door and held the latch. He took a peek and turned excitedly.
“Open it, Aunty! It’s Ishvar and Om, with someone!”
Outside they heard his voice and called, “Hahnji, it is us, Dinabai, very sorry to disturb you. Please forgive us, it won’t take long…” Their voices trailed off in a timorous question mark.
She clicked the switch for the verandah light, still cautious, and opened the door a bit — and then wide. “It
She made no attempt to disguise her relief. It surprised her: she relished the wholeness of it, her feelings rising straight to her tongue, without twisting in deception.
“Come inside, come!” she said. “My goodness, we worried about you all these weeks!”
Beggarmaster stood back as Ishvar limped over the threshold and forced a smile. From his ankle trailed Doctor sahab’s filthy strips of cloth. Om followed close behind him, stepping on the bandage in his haste. Through the darkened doorway they crept shamefacedly into the verandah’s revealing light.
“My goodness! Look at your condition!” said Dina, overcome by the haggard faces, dirty clothes, matted hair. Neither she nor Maneck spoke for a few moments. They stared. Then the questions rushed out, tripping one over the other, and the fragmented answers were equally frantic.
Still waiting at the door, Beggarmaster interrupted Ishvar and Om’s confused explanations. “I just want to check — these two tailors work for you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“That’s fine. It’s so nice to see everybody happy and reunited.” The truck honked again, and he turned to leave.
“Wait,” said Ishvar. “Where to make the weekly payment?”
“I’ll come to collect it.” He added that if they wanted to get in touch with him at any time, they should tell Worm, whose new beat would be outside the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel.
“What payment, what worm?” asked Dina when the door had shut. “And who is that man?”
The tailors digressed from the main story to explain, starting with Beggarmaster’s arrival at the work camp, then backing up to Shankar’s account, racing forward again, getting confused, confusing their listeners. The harrowing stretch of time in hell was over; exhaustion was flooding the place vacated by fear. Ishvar fumbled with the bandage to wrap it properly round his ankle. His hands shook, and Om tucked in the loose end for him.
