Liquid lizards kept swimming into Om’s thoughts, alternating with glassfuls of golden juice. Eventually the lizards won, squelching all desire for the drink. Instead, he bought a length of sugar cane, peeled and chopped into a dozen pieces. These he munched happily, chewing the juice out of them, one by one. He spat each husky mouthful in a tidy pile at the statue’s feet. His jaws tired quickly, but the ache was as satisfying as the sweetness.
The desiccated shreds attracted a curious gull. Next time he spat, he aimed for the bird. It dodged the missile and poked around in the macerated remnants, scattering the neat little hill before turning away disdainfully.
Om tossed it his last piece, unchewed. The gull’s interest was renewed. It investigated thoroughly, refusing to believe its beak was not up to tackling sugar cane.
A street urchin shooed away the gull and snatched the prize. She took it to the juice stall and washed off the sand in the bucket where the men were rinsing dirty glasses. Om felt drowsy watching her gnaw the chunk. He wished he could come here with the lovely shiny-haired girl. Shanti. He would buy bhel-puri and sugar cane for both of them. They would sit in the sand and watch the waves. Then the sun would set, the breeze would come up, they would snuggle together. They would sit with their arms around each other, and then, for sure…
Dreaming, he fell asleep. When he awoke the sun was still harsh, and shining in his eyes. An hour and a half of rental time remained on the bicycle, but he decided to turn it in anyway.
Ishvar was certain that his nephew had reached his goal, if the grinning insouciance with which he took his place at the Singer was any indication.
Dina, having returned hours ago, began scolding him. “Wasting time, that’s all it is. Were you taking a tour of the whole city? How far away is your doctor — at the southernmost tip of Lanka?”
“Yes, I was carried through the sky by Lord Hanuman,” he replied, wondering if she could have spied him on the bicycle.
“This fellow is getting very sharp.”
“Too sharp,” said Ishvar. “If he isn’t careful, he will cut himself again.”
“And how is the finger that was going to rot?” she inquired. “Has it fallen off yet?”
“It’s better. Doctor checked it.”
“Good. Do some work, then. Start pushing your feet, there are lots of new dresses.”
“Hahnji, right away.”
“My goodness. No more grumbling? Whatever medicine your doctor prescribed, it’s working. You should take a dose every morning.”
Unexpectedly, the last hour of the day, usually the most difficult, passed with banter and laughing. Why couldn’t it be like this every day, wished Dina. Before they left, she took advantage of their good mood to move part of the furniture from her bedroom into the sewing room.
“Are you rearranging the whole flat?” asked Ishvar.
“Just this room. I have to prepare for my guest.”
“Yes, the college boy,” said Om, remembering. They rolled up the mattress from the bed, carried in the frame and slats, then replaced the mattress. The Singers, stools, worktable were crammed closer together to make space. “When does he arrive?”
“Tomorrow night.”
She sat alone in the sewing room after they were gone, watching the floc and fibres float in the electric light. The heavily starched cloth from the Au Revoir mills mingled its cloying textile sweetness with the tailors’ scent of sweat and tobacco. She liked it while their bustle filled the room. But the smell was depressing during the empty evenings, when something acrid suspired from the bolts, stiffening the air, clouding it with thoughts of dingy factories, tubercular labourers, bleak lives. The emptiness of her own life appeared starkest at this hour.
“So. What’s the name of the company?” asked Ishvar.
“I don’t know.”
“The address?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why so pleased? Your cunning plan got you nothing.”
“Patience, patience,” he mimicked his uncle. “It got me something.” He flashed the money and narrated his afternoon’s adventures.
Ishvar began to laugh. “Only to you could such things happen.” Neither of them seemed disappointed — it may have been the money, or relief at the failure: finding the export company would have led to some difficult choices.
A mobile Family Planning Clinic was parked outside the hutment colony when they got home. Most of the slum-dwelling multitudes were giving it a wide berth. The staff were handing out free condoms, distributing leaflets on birth-control procedures, explaining incentives being offered in cash and kind.
“Maybe I should have the operation,” said Om. “Get a Bush transistor. And then the ration card would also be possible.”
Ishvar whacked him. “Don’t even joke about such things!”
“Why? I’m never getting married. Might as well get a transistor.”
“You will marry when I tell you to. No arguments. And what’s so important about a little radio?”
“Everybody has one nowadays.” He was imagining Shanti at the beach, twilight fading, while his transistor serenaded them.
“Everybody jumps in the well, you will also? Learning big-city ways — forgetting our good, humble small-town ways.”
“You get the operation if you don’t want me to.”
“Shameless. My manhood for a stupid radio?”
“No, yaar, it’s not your manhood they want. The doctor just cuts a tiny little tube inside. You don’t even feel it.”
“Nobody is taking a knife to my balls. You want a transistor? Work hard for Dinabai, earn some money.”
Rajaram came up, displaying the condoms he had collected at the clinic. They were handing out four per person, and he wondered if they would get their quota for him if they didn’t need it. “Who knows when the van will come this way again,” he said.
“Are you a frequent fucker or what?” said Om, laughing but envious. “Not going to keep us awake again tonight, are you?”
“Shameless,” said Ishvar and tried to whack him as he skipped away to visit the monkeys.
Dina reread the letter from Mrs. Kohlah that had arrived with the first rent cheque, postdated to Maneck’s moving day. The three pages listed instructions concerning the care and comfort of Aban Kohlah’s son. There were tips about his breakfast: fried eggs should be cooked floating in butter because he disliked the leathery edges that got stuck to the pan; scrambled eggs were to be light and fluffy, with milk added during the final phase. “Having grown up in our healthy mountain air,” continued the letter, “he has a large appetite. But please don’t give him more than two eggs, not even if he asks. He must learn to balance his diet.”
About his studies, Aban Kohlah wrote that “Maneck is a good, hardworking boy, but gets distracted sometimes, so please remind him to do his lessons every day.” Also, he was very particular about his clothes, the way they were starched and ironed; a good dhobi was indispensable to his sense of well-being. And Dina should feel free to call him Mac because that was what everyone in the family called him.
Dina snorted and put away the letter. Eggs floating in butter, indeed! And a good dhobi, of all things! The nonsense that people foisted on their children. When the boy had visited last month, he seemed nothing like the person described in his mother’s letter. But that was always the case — people hardly ever saw their children as they really were.
To prepare the room for his arrival, Dina carried out her clothes, shoes, and knickknacks, making space for them amid the tailoring paraphernalia. Place was found in the trunk on the trestle for her stock of homemade sanitary pads and snippets. The larger leftovers of fabric, with which she had recently started to design a quilt, went into her cupboard’s bottom shelf. The pagoda parasol remained hanging from the top of the boarder’s
