together and reported back to Nusswan?
During the two years since Shirin Aunty’s death, the bachelor had progressed from friend to lover. Though the idea of marriage was still difficult for Dina to entertain, she enjoyed Fredoon’s company because he was perfectly content to spend time in her presence without feeling compelled to make clever conversation or to participate in the usual social activities of couples. The two were equally happy sitting in his flat or walking in a public garden.
But when they ventured into the private garden of intimacy, it was a troubled relationship. There were certain things she could not bring herself to do. The bed — any bed — was out of bounds, sacred and reserved for married couples only. So they used a chair. Then one day, as she swung a leg over to straddle Fredoon, her action suddenly resurrected the image of Rustom flinging his leg over his bicycle. Now the chair, like the bed, was no longer possible.
“Oh God!” said Fredoon, groaning softly. He put on his trousers and made tea.
A few days later he persuaded her into the standing position, and Dina had no objections. He began to refine the procedure as much as he could, finding a low platform for her to stand on; their heights became more compatible during their embraces. Next he bought a stool, took some personal measurements, and sawed off precisely two and a quarter inches, adjusting it to the proper size for her to rest one leg. Sometimes she raised the left, sometimes the right. He arranged these accessories against the wall and suspended pillows from the ceiling at appropriate heights for her head and back, and under the hips.
“Is it comfortable?” he asked tenderly, and she nodded.
But the ultimate satisfaction of the bed could only be approximated. What should have been the occasional spice to vary the regular menu had become the main course, leaving the appetite often confused or unfulfilled.
The opposite wall of Fredoon’s room had a small window in it. Outside the window was a streetlamp. Once, between dusk and nightfall, as they were locked in their vertical lovemaking, it started to rain. A moist garden smell came in through the window. Through her half-open eyes Dina saw the drizzle float like mist around the lamplight. Occasionally, a hand or elbow or shoulder strayed beyond the pillows, onto the bare wall, and the cement felt deliciously cool against their heated flesh.
“Mmm,” she said, enjoying with all her senses, and he was pleased. The rain was heavier now. She could see it slanting in needles past the streetlamp.
She watched it for a while, then stiffened. “Please stop,” she whispered, but he continued moving.
“Stop, I said! Please, Fredoon, stop it!”
“Why?” he begged. “Why? Now what’s wrong?”
She shivered. “The rain…”
“The rain? I’ll shut the window if you like.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, something made me think of Rustom.”
He took her face between his hands, but she pushed them away. She swam out of his embrace and into the memory of that night from long ago: she was wearing Rustom’s warm raincoat; her umbrella had broken in the storm. And after the concert, at the bus shelter, they had held hands for the first time ever, their palms moist with the finely falling drizzle.
Remembering the purity of that moment, Dina contrasted it with the present. What Fredoon and she did in this room seemed a sordid, contraption-riddled procedure, filling her with shame and remorse. She shuddered.
Silently, Fredoon handed Dina her brassiere and underpants. She shrank towards the pillowed wall while she dressed, turning away from him. He put on his trousers and made tea.
Later, he tried to cheer her up. “In all the bloody Hindi movies, rain brings the hero and heroine closer together,” he complained. “But it is, from this moment onwards, the bane of my life.” She smiled, and he was encouraged. “Never mind, I’ll dismantle this and design a new set for our performance.”
And Fredoon kept trying. Despite his creative efforts and secret consultations of sex manuals, however, the past could only be imperfectly distanced. It was a slippery thing, he discovered, slithering into the present at the least excuse, dodging the strongest defences.
But he remained uncomplaining, and Dina liked him for it. She was determined to keep him a secret from Nusswan as long as possible.
“No boyfriend as yet?” said Nusswan, counting out the money from his wallet. “Remember, you are thirty already. It will be too late for children, once you have dried up. I can still find you a decent husband. For what are you slaving and slogging?”
She put the sixty rupees in her purse and let him have his say. It was the interest he extracted on his loan, she thought philosophically — a bit excessive, but the only currency that she could afford and he would accept.
The violin had sat untouched upon the cupboard for five years. During the biannual flat cleaning, when Dina wrapped a white cloth over her head and swept the walls and ceilings with the long-handled broom, she wiped the top of the cupboard without moving the black case.
For six more years, she continued to employ the same strategy against the violin, barely acknowledging its existence. Now it was the twelfth death anniversary. Time to sell the instrument, she decided. Better that someone use it, make music with it, instead of it gathering dust. She got up on a chair and took down the case. The rusted metal snaps squealed as her fingers flipped them open; then she raised the lid, and gasped.
The soundboard had collapsed completely around the f-holes. The four strings flopped limply between the tailpiece and tuning pegs, while the felt-lining of the case was in shreds, chewed to tatters by marauding insects. Bits of burgundy wool clung to her hands. Her stomach felt queasy. With a trembling hand she drew out the bow from its compartment within the lid. The horsehair hung from one end of it like a thin long ponytail; barely a dozen unbroken strands remained in place. She put everything back and decided to take it to L.M. Furtado amp; Co.
On the way, she had to duck inside a library while demonstrators rampaged briefly through the street, breaking store windows and shouting slogans against the influx of South Indians into the city who were stealing their jobs. Police jeeps arrived as the demonstrators finished their work and departed. Dina waited a few minutes longer before relinquishing the library.
At L. M. Furtado amp; Co., Mr. Mascarenhas was supervising the cleanup of the large plate-glass window, its shattered pieces glittering among two guitars, a banjo, bongos, and some sheet music for the latest Cliff Richard songs. Mr. Mascarenhas returned behind the counter as Dina entered the shop with the violin.
“What a shame,” she said, pointing at the window.
“It’s just the cost of doing business these days,” he said, and opened the case she put before him. The contents made him pause grimly. “And how did this happen?” He didn’t recognize Dina, for it had been a long time since Rustom had introduced her, when they had dropped in once to buy an E string. “Doesn’t anyone play it?”
“Not for a few years.”
Mr. Mascarenhas scratched his right ear and frowned fiercely around the thick black frames of his spectacles. “When a violin is in storage, the strings should be loosened, the bow should be slack,” he said severely. “We human beings loosen our belts when we go home and relax, don’t we?”
Dina nodded, feeling ashamed. “Can it be repaired?”
“Anything can be repaired. The question is, how will it sound after it is repaired?”
“How will it sound?”
“Horrible. Like fighting cats. But we can reline the case with new felt. It’s a good hard case.”
She sold the case to Mr. Mascarenhas for fifty rupees, leaving behind the remains of the violin. He said a beginner might buy the repaired instrument at a discount. “Learners squawk and screech anyway, the tone will make no difference. If it sells, I’ll pay you fifty more.”
She was comforted by the thought that an enthusiastic youngster might acquire it. Rustom would have liked that — the idea of his violin continuing to torment the human race.
From time to time, Dina’s guilt about the violin returned to anguish her. How stupid, she thought, to ignore it on top of the cupboard for twelve years, leaving it to destruct. She could at least have given it to Xerxes and Zarir, encouraged them to take lessons.
Then, one morning, someone came to the flat and announced that there was a delivery for Mrs. Dalai.
“That’s me,” she said.
The youth, wearing fashionably tight pants and a bright yellow shirt with the top three buttons left undone, returned to the van to fetch the item. Dina wondered if it might be the violin. Six months had passed since she had
