The chair fell over. Maneck caught one blow on the head, the rest landing harmlessly on his arms. To subdue Om without hurting him, he grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a close embrace; now the fists had no room to travel. There was the sound of something tearing. The pocket came away in his hand, and a rent appeared below the shoulder.
“Bastard!” screamed Om, redoubling his efforts. “You tore my shirt!”
The commotion grew loud enough for Ishvar to hear over the sound of his machine, bringing him to the verandah. “Hoi-hoi! What is this goonda-giri?”
In his presence their desire to fight suddenly evaporated. It was easy for him to separate them. Now the violence was all in the looks. They glared at each other for a moment before turning away.
“He tore my shirt!” cried Om, staring down at the disembowelled pocket.
“Such things happen if you fight. But why were you behaving like that?”
“He tore my shirt,” anguished Om again.
Meanwhile, Dina had heard the shouting and cut short her bath. “I can’t believe it,” she said, when Ishvar told her. “I thought it was ruffians on the street. You two? Why?”
“Ask him,” they each muttered.
“He tore my shirt,” added Om, “look,” and flapped the torn pocket before her.
“Shirt, shirt, shirt! Is that all you can say?” scolded Ishvar. “Shirt can be repaired. Why were you fighting?”
“I’m not rich like him, I only have two shirts. And he tore one.”
Maneck rushed to his room, grabbed the first shirt in sight, and returned to fling it at Om. He caught it and threw it back. Maneck let it lie where it fell.
“You are acting like two little babas,” said Dina. “Come on, Ishvarbhai, let’s get to work.” She felt they would reconcile faster if left to themselves, without the burden of saving face.
Maneck stayed in his room all day, and Om sat on the verandah. Ishvar’s attempts to joke about the sour- lime face or hero number zero were stillborn. Dina felt sorry that the vacation was winding down on a bitter note.
“Look at them,” she said, “two mournful owls nesting in my house,” and she made an owlish face at the boys. Ishvar laughed alone.
Next morning, Om announced with the air of a martyr that he wanted to work full days again. “This holiday has lasted much too long for my taste.” Maneck pretended not to have heard.
The sewing started badly, and developed into a full-blown disaster. Dina had to warn Om: “The company will not tolerate this. You must keep your bad humour out of the stitches.”
As a badge of his martyrdom he continued to wear the torn shirt, pocket hanging loose, though it would have taken less than ten minutes to fix. At mealtimes, he pointedly avoided the knife and fork, which he had mastered by now, and used his fingers. In the absence of speech, a war of noises broke out. Maneck’s cutlery clattered against the plate, sawing a potato as if it were a deodar log. Om replied by slurping from his fingers, his tongue sucking and licking like a floor mop sloshing industriously. Maneck speared meat like a gladiator lunging at a lion. Om retaliated by involving his palm as well, suctioning food off it with little gurgles.
Their extravagant performances might have been amusing were it not for the palpable misery around the table. Dina felt cheated of the happy family atmosphere she had come to rely on. Instead, this wretched gloom sat uninvited at dinner, residing unwanted in her home.
For a fortnight after Divali, sporadic firecrackers kept puncturing holes in the night before dying out altogether. “Peace and quiet at last,” said Ishvar, throwing away the cotton-wool plugs he had saved carefully beside his bedding.
Maneck got his marks for the first-term exams, and they were not very good. Dina said it was due to his neglecting his studies. “From now on, I want to see you with your books for at least two hours. Every night, after dinner.”
“Even my mother is not so strict,” he grumbled.
“She would be if she saw these marks.”
Prodding him into the study routine turned out to be easier than she expected. His resistance was nominal, for there was little else to occupy him. Since the fight with Om, they barely spoke, though Ishvar kept trying valiantly to rekindle their friendship. He also supported Dina’s attempt to make Maneck work harder.
“Think how happy your parents will be,” he said.
“Never mind your parents — study for your own sake, you foolish boy,” she said. “You listen, too, Om. When you have children, make sure you send them to school and college. Look how I have to slave now because I was denied an education. Nothing is more important than learning.”
“Bilkool correct,” said Ishvar. “But why were you denied an education, Dinabai?”
“It’s a very long story.”
“Tell us,” said Ishvar, Maneck, and Om together. It made her smile, especially when the boys frowned to disown the coincidence.
She began. “I never like to look back at my life, my childhood, with regret or bitterness.”
Ishvar nodded.
“But sometimes, against my will, the thoughts about the past come into my head. Then I question why things turned out the way they have, clouding the bright future everyone predicted for me when I was in school, when my name was still Dina Shroff…”
Sounds on the verandah announced the tailors’ preparation for sleep. The bedding was unrolled and shaken out. Soon, Om began massaging his uncle’s feet. Maneck could tell from the soft sighs of pleasure. Then Ishvar said, “Yes, that one, harder, the heel aches a lot,” and inside, bent over his textbook, Maneck envied their closeness.
He yawned and looked at his watch — everyone in neutral corners. He missed their company, the walks, the after-dinner gatherings in the front room with Dina Aunty working on the quilt while they watched, chatting, planning next day’s work, or what to cook for tomorrow’s dinner: the simple routines that gave a secure, meaningful shape to all their lives.
In the sewing room the light was still on. Dina was maintaining her vigil till Maneck closed his books, making sure he did not shave a few minutes off the end of his study shift.
The doorbell rang.
The tailors bolted upright on the bedding and reached for their shirts. Dina came to the verandah and demanded through the door, “Who’s there?”
“Sorry for the trouble, sister.”
She recognized the rent-collector’s voice. Absurd, she thought, for him to come at this hour. “What is it, so late?”
“Sorry to bother you sister, but the office has sent me.”
“Now? Couldn’t wait till morning?”
“They said it was urgent, sister. I do as I am told.”
She shrugged at the tailors and opened the door, holding on to the knob. The next moment, two men behind Ibrahim shoved the door aside, and her with it, charging in as though expecting to meet heavy opposition.
One of them was nearly bald and the other had a mop of black hair, but their straggly moustaches, cold eyes, and slouching, bulky torsos made menacing twins of them. They seemed to have fashioned their mannerisms on cinema villains, thought Maneck.
“Sorry, sister,” Ibrahim smiled his automatic smile. “Office has sent me to deliver final notice — orally. Please listen very carefully. You must vacate in forty-eight hours. For violating tenancy terms and regulations.”
Fear brushed Dinas face lightly, like a feather, before she blew it aside. “I’m calling the police right now if you don’t take your goondas and leave! The landlord has a problem? Tell him to go to court, I will see him there!”
The bald man spoke, soft and soothing. “Why insult us by saying goondas? We are the landlord’s employees. Like these tailors are your employees.”
The other one said, “We are acting in the place of courts and lawyers. They are a waste of time and money.
