A Son Of The Circus (90 page)

‘I didn’t like the way she looked when she left here.’ That was all the detective would say.

Back at their table, Dr Daruwalla told them that he had a plan to ‘introduce’ the top half of the pen; Mr Sethna was involved — it sounded complicated. John D. repeated that he hoped Rahul was going to make him a drawing.

‘That would do it, wouldn’t it?’ Nancy asked her husband.

‘That would help,’ the deputy commissioner said. He had a bad feeling. He once again excused himself from the table, this time to call Crime Branch Headquarters. He ordered a surveillance officer to watch the Dogars’ house all night; if Mrs Dogar left the house, he wanted the officer to follow her – and he wanted to be told if she left the house, whatever the hour.

In the men’s room, Dhar had said that he’d never felt it was Rahul’s intention to bite his lip off, nor even that taking his lip in her teeth was a deliberate decision – it wasn’t something she’d done merely to scare him, either. The actor believed that Mrs Dogar hadn’t been able to stop herself; and all the while she’d held his lip, he’d felt that the transsexual was unable to let go.

‘It wasn’t that she
wanted
to bite me,’ Dhar had told the detective. ‘It was that she couldn’t help it.’

‘Yes, I understand,’ the policeman had said; he’d resisted the temptation to add that only in the movies did every murderer have a clear motive.

Now, as he hung up the phone, a dreary song reached the deputy commissioner in the foyer. The band was playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’; the drunken Duckworthians were murdering the lyrics. Patel crossed the dining room with difficulty because so many of the maudlin members were leaving their tables and traipsing to the ballroom, singing as they staggered forth. There went Mr Bannerjee, sandwiched between his wife and the widow Lai; he appeared to be manfully intent on dancing with them both. There went Dr and Mrs Sorabjee, leaving little Amy alone at their table.

When the detective returned to the Daruwallas’ table, Nancy was nagging Dhar. ‘I’m sure that little girl is dying to dance with you again. And she’s all alone. Why don’t you ask her? Imagine how she feels. You started it,’ Nancy told him. She’d had three glasses of champagne, her husband calculated; this wasn’t much, but she never drank – and she’d eaten next to nothing. Dhar was managing not to sneer; he was trying to ignore Nancy instead.

‘Why don’t you ask
me
to dance?’ Julia asked John D. ‘I think Farrokh has forgotten to ask me.’

Without a word, Dhar led Julia to the ballroom; Amy Sorabjee watched them all the way.

‘I like your idea about the top half of the pen,’ Detective Patel told Dr Daruwalla.

The screenwriter was taken aback by this unexpected praise. ‘You do?’ Farrokh said. ‘The problem is, Mrs Dogar’s got to think that it’s been in her purse –that it’s
always
been there.’

‘I agree that if Dhar can distract her, Mr Sethna can plant the pen.’ That was all the policeman would say.

‘You
do?’
Dr Daruwalla repeated.

‘It would be nice if we found other things in her purse,’ the deputy commissioner thought aloud.

‘You mean the money with the typewritten warnings – or maybe even a drawing,’ the doctor said.

‘Precisely,’ Patel said.

‘Well, I wish I could write
that!’
the screenwriter replied.

Suddenly Julia was back at the table; she’d lost John D. as a dance partner when Amy Sorabjee had cut in.

‘The shameless girl!’ Dr Daruwalla said.

‘Come dance with me,
Liebchen
,’ Julia told him.

Then the Patels were alone at the table; in fact, they were alone in the Ladies’ Garden. In the main dining room, an unidentified man was sleeping with his head on one of the dinner tables; everyone else was dancing, or they were standing in the ballroom — apparently for the morbid pleasure of singing ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ The waiters were beginning to scavenge the abandoned tables, but not a single waiter disturbed Detective Patel and Nancy in the Ladies’ Garden; Mr Sethna had instructed them to respect the couple’s privacy.

Nancy’s hair had come down, and she had trouble unfastening the pearl necklace; her husband had to help her with the clasp.

‘They’re beautiful pearls, aren’t they?’ Nancy asked. ‘But if I don’t give them back to Mrs Daruwalla now, I’ll forget and wear them home. They might get lost or stolen.’

‘I’ll try to find you a necklace like
this
,’ Detective Patel told her.

‘No, it’s too expensive,’ Nancy said.

‘You did a good job,’ her husband told her.

‘We’re going to catch her, aren’t we, Vijay?’ she asked him.

‘Yes, we are, sweetie,’ he replied.

‘She didn’t recognize me!’ Nancy cried.

‘I told you she wouldn’t, didn’t I?’ the detective said.

‘She didn’t even see me! She looked right through me – like I didn’t exist! All these years, and she didn’t even remember me,’ Nancy said.

The deputy commissioner held her hand. She rested her head on his shoulder; she felt so empty, she couldn’t even cry.

‘I’m sorry, Vijay, but I don’t think I can dance. I just can’t,’ Nancy said.

‘That’s all right, sweetie,’ her husband said. ‘I don’t dance – remember?’

‘He didn’t have to unzip me – it was unnecessary,’ Nancy said.

‘It was part of the overall effect,’ Patel replied.

‘It was unnecessary,’ Nancy repeated. ‘And I didn’t like the way he did it.’

‘The idea was, you weren’t supposed to like it,’ the policeman told her.

‘She must have tried to bite his whole lip off!’ Nancy cried.

‘I believe she barely managed to stop herself,’ the deputy commissioner said. This had the effect of releasing Nancy from her emptiness; at last, she was able to cry on her husband’s shoulder. It seemed that the band would never stop playing the tiresome old song.

“‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet …”’ Mr Bannerjee was shouting.

Mr Sethna observed that Julia and Dr Daruwalla were the most stately dancers on the floor. Dr and Mrs Sorabjee danced nervously; they didn’t dare take their eyes off their daughter. Poor Amy had been brought home from England, where she hadn’t been doing very well. Too much partying, her parents suspected –and, more disturbing, a reputed attraction to older men. At university, she was notoriously opposed to romances with her fellow students; rather, she’d thrown herself at one of her professors – a married chap. He’d not taken advantage of her, thank goodness. And now Dr and Mrs Sorabjee were tortured to see the young girl dancing with Dhar. From the frying pan to the fire! Mrs Sorabjee thought. It was awkward for Mrs Sorabjee, being a close friend of the Daruwallas’ and therefore unable to express her opinion of Inspector Dhar.

‘Do you know you’re available in England – on videocassette?’ Amy was telling the actor.

‘
Am I?
he said.

‘Once we had a wine tasting and we rented you,’ Amy told him. ‘People who aren’t from Bombay don’t know what to make of you. The movies seem terribly odd to them.’

‘Yes,’ said Inspector Dhar. To me, too,’ he added.

This made her laugh; she was an easy girl, he could tell – he felt a little sorry for her parents.

‘All that music, mixed in with all the murders,’ Amy Sorabjee said.

‘Don’t forget the divine intervention,’ the actor remarked.

‘Yes! And all the women — you do gather up a lot of women,’ Amy observed.

‘Yes, I do,’ Dhar said.

‘“We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet for the days of auld lang syne!’” the old dancers brayed; they sounded like donkeys.

‘I like
Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer
the best – it’s the sexiest,’ said little Amy Sorabjee.

‘I don’t have a favorite,’ the actor confided to her; he guessed she was 22 or 23. He found her a pleasant distraction, but it irritated him that she kept staring at his lip.

‘What happened to your lip?’ she finally asked him in a whisper – her expression still girlish but sly, even conspiratorial.

‘When the lights went out, I danced into a wall,’ Dhar told her.

‘I think that horrid woman did it to you,’ Amy Sorabjee dared to say. ‘It looks like she bit you!’

John D. just kept dancing; the way his lip had swollen, it hurt to sneer.

‘Everyone thinks she’s a horrid woman, you know,’ Amy said; Dhar’s silence had made her
less
sure of herself. ‘And who was that first woman you were with?’ Amy asked him. ‘The one who left?’

‘She’s a stripper,’ said Inspector Dhar.

‘Go on – not really!’ Amy cried.

‘Yes, really,’ John D. replied.

‘And who is the blond lady?’ Amy asked. ‘1 thought she looked about to cry.’

‘She’s a former friend,’ the actor answered; he was tired of the girl now. A young girl’s idea of intimacy was getting answers to all her questions.

John D. was sure that Vinod would already be waiting outside; surely the dwarf had returned from taking Muriel to the Wetness Cabaret. Dhar wanted to go to bed, alone; he wanted to put more ice on his lip, and he wanted to apologize to Farrokh, too. It had been unkind of the actor to imply that preparing himself for the seduction of Mrs Dogar was ‘no circus’; John D. knew what the circus meant to Dr Daruwalla – the actor could have more charitably said that getting ready for Rahul was ‘no picnic.’ And now here was the insatiable Amy Sorabjee, trying to get him (and herself) into some unnecessary trouble. Time to slip away, the actor thought.

Just then, Amy took a quick look over Dhar’s shoulder; she wanted to be exactly sure where her parents were. A doddering threesome had blocked Dr and Mrs Sorabjee from Amy’s view – Mr Bannerjee was struggling to dance with his wife and the widow Lai – and Amy seized this moment of privacy, for she knew she was only briefly free of her parents’ scrutiny. She brushed her soft lips against John D.’s cheek; then she whispered overbreathlessly in the actor’s ear. ‘I could kiss that lip and make it better!’ she said.

John D., smoothly, just kept dancing. His unresponsiveness made Amy feel insecure, and so she whispered more plaintively – at least more matter-of-factly – ‘I prefer older men.’

‘
Do
you?’ the movie star said. ‘Why, so do I,’ Inspector Dhar told the silly girl. ‘So do I!’

That got rid of her; it always worked. At last, Inspector Dhar could slip away.

It was January 1, 1990, a Monday. It was also Jubilee Day at St Ignatius School in Mazagaon – the start of the mission’s 126th year. Well-wishers were invited to a high tea, which amounted to a light supper in the early evening; this was scheduled to follow a special late-afternoon Mass. This was also the occasion that would formally serve to introduce Martin Mills to the Catholic community in Bombay; therefore, Father Julian and Father Cecil regretted that the scholastic had returned from the circus in such mutilated condition. The previous night, Martin had frightened Brother Gabriel, who mistook the mauled figure with his bloodstained and unraveling bandages for the wandering spirit of a previously persecuted Jesuit – some poor soul who’d been tortured and then put to death.

Earlier that same night, the zealot had prevailed upon Father Cecil to hear his confession. Father Cecil was so tired, he fell asleep before he could give Martin absolution. Typically, Martin’s confession seemed unending – nor had Father Cecil caught the gist of it before he nodded off. It struck the old priest that Martin Mills was confessing nothing more serious than a lifelong disposition to complain.

Martin had begun by enumerating his several disappointments with himself, beginning with the period of his novitiate at St Aloysius in Massachusetts. Father Cecil tried to listen closely, for there was a tone of urgency in the scholastic’s voice; yet young Martin’s capacity for finding fault with himself was vast — the poor priest soon felt that his participation in Martin’s confession was superfluous. For example, as a novice at St Aloysius, Martin confessed, a significantly holy event had been entirely wasted on him; Martin had been unimpressed by the visit of the sacred arm of St Francis Xavier to the Massachusetts novitiate. (Father Cecil didn’t think this was so bad.)

The acolyte bearing the saint’s severed arm was the famous Father Terry Finney, S.J.; Father Finney had selflessly undertaken the task of carrying the golden reliquary around the world. Martin confessed that, to him, the holy arm had been nothing but a skeletal limb under glass, like something partially eaten – like a leftover, Martin Mills had observed. Only now could the scholastic bear to confess having had such blasphemous thoughts. (By this time, Father Cecil was fast asleep.)

There was more; it troubled Martin that the issue of Divine Grace had taken him years to resolve to his satisfaction. And sometimes the scholastic felt he was merely making a conscious effort not to think about it. Old Father Cecil really should have heard this, for Martin Mills was dangerously full of doubt. The confession would eventually lead young Martin to his present disappointment with himself, which was the way he’d behaved on the trip to and from the circus.

The scholastic said he was guilty of loving the crippled boy more than he loved the child prostitute; his abhorrence of prostitution caused him to feel almost resigned to the girl’s fate. And Dr Daruwalla had provoked the Jesuit on the sensitive matter of homosexuality; Martin was sorry that he’d spoken to the doctor in an intellectually arrogant fashion. At this point, Father Cecil was sleeping so soundly, the poor priest never woke when he slumped forward in the confessional and his nose poked between the latticework where Martin Mills could see it.

When Martin saw the old priest’s nose, he knew that Father Cecil was dead to the world. He didn’t want to embarrass the poor man; however, it wasn’t right to leave him sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.

That was why the missionary crept away and went looking for Brother Gabriel: that was when poor Brother Gabriel mistook the wildly bandaged scholastic for a persecuted Christian from the past. After his fear had subsided, Brother Gabriel went to wake up Father Cecil, who thereafter suffered a sleepless night; the priest couldn’t remember what Martin Mills had confessed, or whether or not he’d given the zealot absolution.