A Son Of The Circus (78 page)

As for the girl, the steward detected something lascivious in her posture; furthermore, Mr Sethna concluded that Madhu had never been in a restaurant before — she stared too openly at the waiters. Dr Daruwalla’s grandchildren would have been better behaved than this; and although Inspector Dhar had proclaimed to the press that he would sire only Indian babies, these children bore no resemblance to the famous actor.

As for the actor, he looked
awful
, Mr Sethna thought. Possibly he’d forgotten to wear his makeup. Inspector Dhar looked pale and in need of sleep; his gaudy shirt was outrageous, there was blood on his pants and overnight his physique had deteriorated – he must be suffering from acute diarrhea, the old steward determined. How else does one manage to lose 15 or 20 pounds in a day? And had the actor’s head been shaved by muggers, or was his hair falling out? On second thought, Mr Sethna suspected that Dhar was the victim of a sexually transmitted disease. In a sick culture, where movie actors were revered as demigods, a lifestyle contagion was to be expected. That will bring the bastard down to earth, Mr Sethna thought. Maybe Inspector Dhar has AIDS! The old steward was sorely tempted to place an anonymous phone call to
Stardust
or
Cine Blitz;
surely either of these film-gossip magazines would be intrigued by such a rumor.

‘I wouldn’t marry him if he owned the Queen’s Necklace and he offered me
half
.’ cried Mrs Kohinoor’s unmarried sister. ‘I wouldn’t marry him if he gave me all of London!’

If you were
in
London, I could still hear you, thought Dr Daruwalla. He picked at his pomfret; the fish at the Duckworth Club was unfailingly overcooked – Farrokh wondered why he’d ordered it. He envied how Martin Mills attacked his meat kabobs. The meat kept falling out of the flatbread; because Martin had stripped the skewers and tried to make a sandwich, the missionary’s hands were covered with chopped onions. A dark-green flag of mint leaf was stuck between the zealot’s upper front teeth. As a polite way of suggesting that the Jesuit take a look at himself in a mirror, Farrokh said, ‘You might want to use the men’s room here, Martin. It’s more comfortable than the facilities at the airport.’

Throughout lunch, Dr Daruwalla couldn’t stop glancing at his watch, even though Vinod had called Indian Airlines repeatedly; the dwarf predicted a late– afternoon departure at the earliest. They were in no hurry. The doctor had called his office only to learn that there were no messages of any importance; there’d been just one call for him, and Ranjit had handled the matter competently. Mr Garg had phoned for the mailing address, in Junagadh, of the Great Blue Nile Circus; Garg had told Ranjit that he wanted to send Madhu a letter. It was odd that Mr Garg hadn’t asked Vinod or Deepa for the address, for the doctor had obtained the address from the dwarf’s wife. It was odder still how Garg imagined that Madhu could read a letter, or even a postcard; Madhu couldn’t read. But the doctor guessed that Mr Garg was euphoric to learn that Madhu was
not
HIV-positive; maybe the creep wanted to send the poor child a thank-you note, or merely give her good-luck wishes.

Now, short of telling him that he wore a mint leaf on his front teeth, there seemed no way to compel Martin Mills to visit the men’s room. The scholastic took the children to the card room; there he tried in vain to teach them crazy eights. Soon the cards were speckled with blood; the zealot’s index finger was still bleeding. Rather than unearth his medical supplies from his suitcase, which was in the Ambassador –besides, the doctor had packed nothing as simple as a Band-Aid – Farrokh asked Mr Sethna for a small bandage. The old steward delivered the Band-Aid to the card room with characteristic scorn and inappropriate ceremony; he presented the bandage to Martin Mills on the silver serving tray, which the steward extended at arm’s length. Dr Daruwalla took this occasion to tell the Jesuit, ‘You should probably wash that wound in the men’s room –
before
you bandage it.’

But Martin Mills washed and bandaged his finger without once looking in the mirror above the sink, or in the full-length mirror – except at some distance, and only to appraise his lost-and-found Hawaiian shirt. The missionary never spotted the mint leaf on his teeth. He did, however, notice a tissue dispenser near the flush handle for the urinal, and he noted further that every flush handle had a tissue dispenser in close proximity to it. These tissues, when used, were
not
carelessly deposited in the urinals; rather, there was a silver bucket at the end of the lineup of urinals, something like an ice bucket without ice, and the used tissues were deposited in it.

This system seemed exceedingly fastidious and ultra-hygienic to Martin Mills, who reflected that he’d never wiped his penis with a tissue before. The process of urinating was made to seem more important, certainly more solemn, by the expectation of wiping one’s penis after the act. At least, this is what Martin Mills
assumed
the tissues were for. It troubled him that no other Duckworthians were urinating at any of the other urinals; therefore, he couldn’t be sure of the purpose of the tissue dispensers. He was about to finish peeing as usual – that is, without wiping himself – when the unfriendly old steward who had presented the Jesuit with his Band-Aid entered the men’s room. The silver serving tray was stuck in one armpit and rested against the forearm of the same arm, as if Mr Sethna were carrying a rifle.

Because someone was watching him, Martin Mills thought he should use a tissue. He tried to wipe himself as if he always completed a responsible act of urination in this fashion; but he was so unfamiliar with the process, the tissue briefly caught on the end of his penis and then fell into the urinal. What was the protocol in the case of such a mishap? Martin wondered. The steward’s beady eyes were fastened on the Jesuit. As if inspired, Martin Mills seized several fresh tissues, and with these held between his bandaged index finger and his thumb, he plucked the lost tissue from the urinal. With a flourish, he deposited the bunch of tissues in the silver bucket, which tilted suddenly, and almost toppled; the missionary had to steady it with both hands. Martin tried to smile reassuringly to Mr Sethna, but he realized that because he’d grabbed the silver bucket with both hands, he’d neglected to return his penis to his pants. Maybe this was why the old steward looked away.

When Martin Mills had left the men’s room, Mr Sethna gave the missionary’s urinal a wide berth; the steward peed as far away as possible from where the diseased actor had peed. It was definitely a sexually transmitted disease, Mr Sethna thought. The steward had never witnessed such a grotesque example of urination. He couldn’t imagine the medical necessity of dabbing one’s penis every time one peed. The old steward didn’t know for certain if there were other Duckworthians who made the same use of the tissue dispensers as Martin Mills had made. For years, Mr Sethna had assumed that the tissues were for wiping one’s
fingers
. And now, after he’d wiped his fingers, Mr Sethna accurately deposited his tissue in the silver bucket, ruefully reflecting on the fate of Inspector Dhar. Once a demigod, now a terminal patient. For the first time since he’d poured hot tea on the head of that fop wearing the wig, the world struck Mr Sethna as fair and just.

In the card room, while Martin Mills had been experimenting at the urinal, Dr Daruwalla realized why the children had such difficulty in grasping crazy eights, or any other card game. No one had ever taught them their numbers; not only could they not read, they couldn’t count. The doctor was holding up his fingers with the corresponding playing card — three fingers with the three of hearts – when Martin Mills returned from the men’s room, still sporting the mint leaf on his front teeth.

Their plane to Rajkot took off at 5-10 in the afternoon, not quite eight hours after its scheduled departure. It was a tired-looking 737. The inscription on the fuselage was legible but faded.

FORTY
YEARS
OF
FREEDOM

Dr Daruwalla quickly calculated that the plane had first been put in service in India in 1987. Where it had flown before then was anybody’s guess.

Their departure was further delayed by the need of the petty officials to confiscate Martin Mill’s Swiss Army knife — a potential terrorist’s tool. The pilot would carry the ‘weapon’ in his pocket and hand it over to Martin in Rajkot.

‘Well, I suppose I’ll never see it again,’ the missionary said; he didn’t say this stoically, but more like a martyr.

Farrokh wasted no time in teasing him. ‘It can’t matter to you,’ the doctor told him. ‘You’ve taken a vow of poverty, haven’t you?’

‘I know what you think about my vows,’ Martin replied. ‘You think that, because I’ve accepted poverty, I must have no fondness for material things. This shirt, for example – my knife, my books. And you think that, because I’ve accepted chastity, I must be free of sexual desire. Well, I’ll tell you: I resisted the commitment to become a priest not only because of how much I
did
like my few things, but also because I imagined I was in love. For ten years, I was smitten. I not only suffered from sexual desire; I’d embraced a sexual obsession. There was absolutely no getting this person out of my mind. Does this surprise you?’

‘Yes, it does,’ Dr Daruwalla admitted humbly. He was also afraid of what the lunatic might confess in front of the children, but Ganesh and Madhu were too enthralled with the airplane’s preparations for takeoff to pay the slightest attention to the Jesuit’s confession,

‘I continued to teach at this wretched school – the students were delinquents, not scholars — and all because I had to test myself,’ Martin Mills told Dr Daruwalla. The object of my desire was there. Were I to leave, to run away, I would never have known if I had the strength to resist such a temptation. And so I stayed. I forced myself into the closest possible proximity to this person, only to see if I had the courage to withstand such an attraction. But I know what you think of priestly denial. You think that priests are people who simply don’t feel these ordinary desires, or who feel them less strongly than you do.’

‘I’m not judging you!’ said Dr Daruwalla.

‘Yes you are,’ Martin replied. ‘You think you know all about me.’

‘This person that you were in love with …’ the doctor began.

‘It was another teacher at the school,’ the missionary answered. ‘I was crippled by desire. But I kept the object of my desire
this
close to me!’ And here the zealot held his hand in front of his face. ‘Eventually, the attraction lessened.’

‘
Lessened
?’ Farrokh repeated.

‘Either the attraction went away or I overcame it,’ said Martin Mills. ‘Finally, I won.’

‘
What
did you win?’ Farrokh asked.

‘Not freedom from desire,’ the would-be priest declared. ‘It is more like freedom from the fear of desire. Now I know I can resist it.’

‘But what about her?’ Dr Daruwalla asked.

‘Her?’said Martin Mills.

‘I mean, what were
her
feelings for you?’ the doctor asked him. ‘Did she even know how you felt about her?’

‘
Him
,’ the missionary replied. ‘It was a he, not a she. Does that surprise you?’

‘Yes, it does,’ the doctor lied. What surprised him was how unsurprised he was by the Jesuit’s confession. The doctor was upset without understanding why; Farrokh felt greatly disturbed, without knowing the reason.

But the plane was taxiing, and even its lumbering movement on the runway was sufficient to panic Madhu; she’d been sitting across the aisle from Dr Daruwalla and the missionary — now she wanted to move over and sit with the doctor. Ganesh was happily ensconced in the window seat. Awkwardly, Martin Mills changed places with Madhu; the Jesuit sat with the enraptured boy, and the child prostitute slipped into the aisle seat next to Farrokh.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ the doctor told
her
.

‘I don’t want to go to the circus,’ the girl said; she stared down the aisle, refusing to look out the windows. She wasn’t alone in her inexperience; half the passengers appeared to be flying for the first time. One hand reached to adjust the flow of air; then 35 other hands were reaching. Despite the repeated announcement that carry-on baggage be stowed under the seats, the passengers insisted on piling their heavy bags on what the flight attendant kept calling the hat rack, although there were few hats on board. Perhaps the fault lay with the long delay, but there were many flies on board; they were treated with a vast indifference by the otherwise excited passengers. Someone was already vomiting, and they hadn’t even taken off. At last, they took off.

The elephant boy believed he could fly. His animation appeared to be lifting the plane. The little beggar will ride a lion if they tell him to; he’ll wrestle a tiger, Dr Daruwalla thought. How suddenly the doctor felt afraid for the cripple! Ganesh would climb to the top of the tent – the full 80 feet. Probably in compensation for his useless foot, the boy’s hands and arms were exceptionally strong. What instincts will protect him? the doctor wondered, while in his arms he felt Madhu tremble; she was moaning. In her slight bosom, the beating of her heart throbbed against Farrokh’s chest.

‘If we crash, do we burn or fly apart in little pieces?’ the girl asked him, her mouth against his throat.

‘We
won’t
crash, Madhu,’ he told her.

‘You don’t know,’ she replied. ‘At the circus, I could be eaten by a wild animal or I could fall. And what if they can’t train me or if they beat me?’

‘Listen to me,’ said Dr Daruwalla. He was a father again. He remembered his daughters – their nightmares, their scrapes and bruises and their worst days at school. Their awful first boyfriends, who were beyond redemption. But the consequences for the crying girl in his arms were greater. ‘Try to look at it this way,’ the doctor said. ‘You are
escaping
.’ But he could say no more; he knew only what she was escaping — not what she was fleeing to. Out of the jaws of one kind of death, into the jaws of another … I hope not, was all the doctor thought.