A Son Of The Circus (48 page)

The Father Rector, Father Julian, would also have been horrified to see such antiquities of mortification as these; they were artifacts of an earlier time — even Father Cecil would have been horrified, or else much amused. Whips and leg irons had never been notable parts of the Jesuit ‘way of perfection.’ Even the
culpa
beads were an indication that Martin Mills might not have a true Jesuit vocation.

As for the customs official, the scholastic’s books contributed further to the authenticity of Inspector Dhar’s ‘disguise,’ which is what the customs official took all of this to be – an actor’s elaborate props. Doubtless Dhar was preparing himself for yet another challenging role. This time he plays a
priest
? the customs official wondered. He looked over the books –all the while winking and smiling in ceaseless approval, while the baffled missionary kept winking and smiling back. There was the 1988 edition of the
Catholic Almanac
and many pamphlets of something called
Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits;
there was a
Pocket Catholic Catechism
and a
Compact Dictionary of the Bible;
there was both a Bible and a Lectionary, and a thin book called
Sadhana: A Way to God
by Anthony de Mello, S.J.; there was
The Autobiography of St Ignatius Loyola
and a copy of the
Spiritual Exercises —
there were many other books, too. Altogether, there were more books than there were Hawaiian shirts and clerical collars combined.

‘And where will you be staying – for three months?’ the customs official asked Martin Mills, whose left eye was growing tired from all the winking. ,

‘At St Ignatius in Mazagaon,’ the Jesuit replied. !

‘Oh, of course!’ said the customs official. ‘I greatly admire your work!’ he whispered. Then he gave the surprised Jesuit one more wink for the road.

A fellow Christian where one least expected to meet one! the new missionary thought.

All this winking would leave poor Martin Mills ill prepared for the ‘native behavior’ of most Bombayites, who find winking an exceptionally aggressive, suggestive and rude thing to do. But thus did the scholastic pass through customs and into the shit-smelling night air – all the while expecting a friendly greeting from one of his brother Jesuits.

Where were they? the new missionary wondered.

Delayed in traffic? Outside the airport there was much confusion; at the same time, there was little traffic. There were many standing taxis, all parked at the edge of an immense darkness, as if the airport were not huge and teeming (as Martin Mills had first thought), but a fragile wilderness outpost in a vast desert, where unseen fires were dying out and unseen squatters were defecating, without interruption, throughout the night.

Then, like flies, the taxi-wallas lighted on him; they pecked at his clothes, they tugged at his suitcase, which — although it was extremely heavy — he would not relinquish.

‘No, thank you, I’m being met,’ he said. He realized that his Hindi had abandoned him, which was just as well; he spoke it very poorly, anyway. The weary missionary suspected himself of suffering from that paranoia which is commonplace to first-time travelers to the East, for he grew increasingly apprehensive of the way the taxi-wallas looked at him. Some were in utter awe; others appeared to want to kill him. They assumed he was Inspector Dhar, and although they flitted near to him like flies, and darted away from him like flies, they seemed entirely too dangerous for flies.

After an hour, Martin Mills was still standing there, warding off newly arrived flies; the old flies hovered at a distance, still watching him but not bothering to approach him again. The missionary was so tired, he got the idea that the taxi-wallas were of the hyena class of animal, and that they were waiting for him to exhibit a loss of vital signs before they swarmed over him en masse. A prayer fluttered to his lips, but he was too exhausted to utter it. He was thinking that the other missionaries were perhaps too old to have met his plane, for he’d been informed of their advanced ages. He also knew about the jubilee celebration that was pending; surely the proper recognition of 125 years of service to God and to humanity was more worthwhile than meeting a newcomer’s plane. This was Martin Mills in a nutshell: he practiced self-deprecation to such a degree that it had become a vanity with him.

He shifted the suitcase from one hand to the other; he wouldn’t allow it to rest on the pavement, not only because this sign of weakness would invite the lingering taxi-wallas to approach him but also because the weight of the suitcase was steadily becoming a welcome chastisement of his flesh. Martin Mills found a certain focus, a pleasing purpose, to the specificity of such pain. It was neither as exquisite nor as unending a pain as the leg iron when properly tightened around the thigh; it wasn’t as sudden or breathtaking a pain as the whip on his bare back. Yet he greeted the pain of the suitcase warmly, and the suitcase itself bore a reminder of the ongoing task of Martin’s formation, of his search for God’s will and the strength of his self-denial. Inscribed in the old leather was the Latin
Nostris
(‘Ours’) — meaning us
Jesuits
, meaning ‘the Life’ (as it was called) in the Society of Jesus.

The suitcase itself called to memory Martin’s two years in the novitiate at St Aloysius; his room had only a table, a straight-backed chair, a bed and a two-inch-high wooden kneeler. As his lips formed the word
Nostris
, he could summon to his memory the little bell that signaled
flagellatio;
he recalled the 30 days of his first silent retreat. He still took strength from these two years: pray, shave, work, be silent, study, pray. His was no fit of devotion but an orderly submission to rules: perpetual poverty, chastity, obedience. Obedience to a religious superior, yes; but, more important, obedience to a community life. Such rules made him feel free. Yet, on the matter of obedience, it haunted him that his previous superior had once criticized him on the grounds that Martin Mills seemed more suited to a monastic order – a
stricter
order, such as the Carthusians. Jesuits are meant to go out into the world; if not on our terms ‘worldly,’ they are also not monks.

‘I am
not
a monk,’ Martin Mills said aloud. The nearby taxi-wallas understood this as a summons; once again, they swarmed around him.

‘Avoid worldliness,’ Martin cautioned himself. He smiled tolerantly at the milling taxi-wallas. There had been an admonition in Latin above his bed at St Aloysius; it was an indirect reminder that a man should make his own bed –
etiam si sacerdotes sint
(‘even if they be priests’). Therefore, Martin Mills decided, he would get himself into Bombay.

Of the taxi-wallas, there was only one who looked strong enough to handle the suitcase. He was tall and bearded, with a swarthy complexion and an exceedingly sharp, aggressive thrust to his nose.

‘St Ignatius, Mazagaon,’ Martin said to this taxi-walla, who struck the missionary as a university student with a demanding night job — an admirable young man, probably paying his way through school.

With a savage glare, the young man took the suitcase and hurled it into his waiting taxi. All the taxi-wallas had been waiting for the Ambassador with the thug dwarf driver, for none of them had really believed that Inspector Dhar would stoop to use any other cab. There’d been many depictions of taxi-wallas in Inspector Dhar films; they were always portrayed as reckless and crazy.

The particular taxi-walla who’d seized the missionary’s suitcase and now watched Martin Mills slide into the back seat was a violent-minded young man named Bahadur. He’d just been expelled from a hotel-management school for cheating on a food-services exam – he’d plagiarized the answer to a simple question about catering. (‘Bahadur’ means ‘brave.’) He’d also just driven to the airport from Bombay and had seen the posters advertising
Inspector Dhar and the Towers of Silence
, which had greatly offended his loyal sensibilities. Although taxi driving wasn’t his preferred profession, Bahadur was grateful to his present employer, Mr Mirza. Mr Mirza was a Parsi; doubtless Inspector Dhar and the Towers
of Silence
would be monstrously offensive to Mr Mirza. Bahadur felt honor-bound to represent the feelings of his boss.

Not surprisingly, Bahadur had hated all the earlier Dhar films. Before the release of this new offense, Bahadur had been hoping that Inspector Dhar would be murdered by offended hijras or offended female prostitutes. Bahadur generally favored the notion of murdering famous people, for he found it offensive to unfamous people that only very few people were famous. Moreover, he felt that driving a taxi was beneath him; he was doing it only to prove to a rich uncle that he was capable of ‘mingling with the masses.’ It was Bahadur’s expectation that this uncle would soon send him off to another school. The present interim was unfortunate, but one could do worse than work for Mr Mirza; like Vinod, Mr Mirza operated a privately owned taxi company. Meanwhile, in his spare time, Bahadur was seeking to improve his English by concentrating on vulgar and profane expressions. Should he ever encounter a famous person, Bahadur wished to have such expressions on the tip of his tongue.

The reputations of famous people were entirely inflated, Bahadur knew. He’d heard stories of how tough Inspector Dhar was supposed to be, also that Dhar was a weight lifter! One look at the missionary’s scrawny arms proved this to be a typical lie. Movie hype! Bahadur thought. He liked to drive by the film studios, hoping to give actresses a ride. But no one important ever chose his taxi, and at Asha Pictures –and at Rajkamal Studio and Famous Studio and Central Studio – he’d been accosted by the police for loitering.
Fuck
these film people! Bahadur thought.

‘I suppose you know where St Ignatius is,’ Martin Mills said nervously, once they were under way. ‘It’s a Jesuit mission, a church, a school,’ he added, looking for some sign of recognition in the glare of the taxi-walla. When the scholastic saw that the young man was watching him in the rearview mirror, Martin did the friendly thing — at least he presumed it was the native-behavior thing to do. He winked.

That does it! Bahadur thought. Whether the wink was condescending, or whether it was the lewd invitation of a homosexual, Bahadur had made up his mind. Inspector Dhar should
not
be allowed to get away with the violent farce he made of Bombay life. In the middle of the night, Dhar wanted to go to St Ignatius! What was he going to do there? Pray?

In addition to everything else that was fake about Inspector Dhar, Bahadur decided that the man was a fake Hindu, too. Inspector Dhar was a bleeding Christian!

‘You’re supposed to be a Hindu,’ Bahadur told the Jesuit.

Martin Mills was thrilled. His first religious confrontation in the missionary kingdom – his first Hindu! He knew they were the majority religion here.

‘Well … well,’ Martin said cheerfully. ‘Men of all faiths must be brothers.’

‘Fuck your Jesus, and fuck you,’ Bahadur remarked coldly.

‘Well … well,’ Martin said. Possibly there was a time to wink and a time
not
to wink, the new missionary thought.

Through the smoldering, reeking darkness, the taxi careened, but darkness had never intimidated Martin Mills. In crowds, he could be anxious, but the black of night did not menace him. Nor did it concern the missionary that he was in danger of some violence. He meditated on the unfulfilled dream of the Middle Ages, which was to win back Jerusalem for Christ. He contemplated that St Ignatius Loyola’s own pilgrimage to Jerusalem had been a journey fraught with endless dangers and accidents. Ignatius’s attempted conquest of the Holy Land was a failure, for he was sent back; yet the saint’s desire to rescue unsaved souls remained ardent. It was always the Ignatian purpose to conform to the will of God. It was no coincidence that, to this end, the
Spiritual Exercises
of St Ignatius began with a vivid representation of hell in all its horror. The fear of God was purifying; it had long been so to Martin Mills. To see both the fires of hell and a union with God in mystical ecstasy, one needed only to follow the
Spiritual Exercises
and call upon ‘the eye of the imagination,’ for the missionary had no doubt that this was the clearest eye of all.

Toil and will,’ Martin Mills said aloud. This was his creed.

‘I said,
fuck
your Jesus, and
fuck
you!’ the taxi-walla repeated.

‘Bless you,’ Martin said. ‘Even you, and whatever you do to me, is God’s will – though you know not what you do.’

Most of all, Martin admired Ignatius Loyola’s notable encounter with the Moor on a mule and their ensuing discussion of the Holy Virgin. The Moor said he could believe that Our Lady had conceived without a man, but he could
not
believe that she’d remained a virgin after giving birth. After the Moor rode on, young Ignatius thought that he should hurry after the Muslim and kill him. He felt obliged to defend Our Lady’s honor. The defaming of the Virgin’s postbirth vaginal condition was gross and unacceptable behavior. Ignatius, as always, sought God’s will on the matter. Where the road parted, he let his own mule’s reins go slack; if the animal followed the Moor, Ignatius would kill the infidel. But the mule chose the other road.

‘
And fuck
your St Ignatius!’ the taxi-walla shouted.

‘St Ignatius is where I would like to go,’ Martin replied calmly. ‘But take me where you will.’ Where they went, the missionary believed, would be God’s will. Martin Mills was just the passenger.

He thought of the late Father de Mello’s renowned book
Christian Exercises in Eastern Form;
so many of these exercises had helped him in the past. For example, there was that exercise which concerned the ‘healing of hurtful memories.’ Whenever Martin Mills was troubled by the shame his parents had caused him, or by his seeming inability to love and forgive and honor his parents, he followed Father de Mello’s exercise verbatim. ‘Return to some unpleasant event’; such events were never hard to recall, but the selection of
which
horror to revisit was always an arduous decision. ‘Now place yourself before Christ Crucified’ – that always had a certain power. Even the depravities of Veronica Rose paled before such an agony; even the self-destruction of Danny Mills seemed a trifling pain. ‘Keep commuting between the unpleasant event and the scene of Jesus on the Cross’; for years, Martin Mills had engaged in such commuting. Father de Mello was a hero to him. He had been born in Bombay, and until his death was the director of the Sadharia Institute of Pastoral Counseling (near Poona); it had been Father de Mello who had inspired Martin Mills to come to India.