A Son Of The Circus (95 page)

‘I’m going to take you home,’ Julia warned him. Then she noticed how tired he looked, and how utterly out of place – how lost. Christianity had tricked him; India was no longer his country. When Julia kissed his cheek, she realized he’d been crying.

‘Please do take me home,’ Farrokh told her.

Danny Mills died following a New Year’s Eve party in New York. It was Tuesday, January 2, before Martin Mills and Dr Daruwalla were notified. The delay was attributed to the time difference – New York is 10 1/2 hours behind Bombay – but the real reason was that Vera hadn’t spent New Year’s Eve with Danny. Danny, who was almost 75, died alone. Vera, who was 65, didn’t discover Danny’s body until the evening of New Year’s Day.

When Vera returned to their hotel, she wasn’t fully recovered from a tryst with a rising star of a light-beer commercial – an unbefitting fling for a woman her age. She doubtless failed to note the irony that Danny had died with the DO
NOT
DISTURB
sign hanging optimistically from their hotel-room door. The medical examiner concluded that Danny had choked on his own vomit, which was (like his blood) nearly 20 percent alcohol.

In her two telegrams, Vera cited no clinical evidence; yet she managed to convey Danny’s inebriation to Martin in pejorative terms.

YOUR
FATHER
DIED
DRUNK
IN A
NEW
YORK
HOTEL

This also communicated to her son the sordidness, not to mention the inconvenience; Vera was going to have to spend nearly all of that Tuesday shopping. Coming from California — their visit was intended to be short – neither Danny nor Vera had packed for an extended stay in the January climate. Vera’s telegram to Martin continued in a bitter vein.

BEING
CATHOLIC
,
ALTHOUGH
HARDLY
A
MODEL
OF
THE
SPECIES
,
I’M
SURE
DANNY
WOULD
HAVE
WANTED
YOU
TO
ARRANGE
SOME
SUITABLE
SERVICE
OR
LAST
BIT
OR
WHATEVER
IT’S
CALLED

‘Hardly a model of the species’ was the sort of language Vera had learned from the moisturizer commercial of her son’s long-ago and damaged youth.

The last dig was pure Vera – even in what passed for grief, she took a swipe at her son.

WILL
OF
COURSE
UNDERSTAND
COMPLETELY
IF
YOUR
VOW
OF
POVERTY
MAKES
IT
IMPOSSIBLE
FOR
YOU
TO
ASSIST
ME IN
THIS
MATTER
/
MOM

There followed only the name of the hotel in New York. Martin’s ‘vow of poverty’ notwithstanding, Vera wasn’t offering to pay for his trip with her money. Her telegram to Dr Daruwalla was also pure Vera.

I
FAIL
TO
IMAGINE
HOW
DANNY’S
DEATH
SHOULD
ALTER
YOUR
DECISION
TO
KEEP
MARTIN
FROM
ANY
KNOWLEDGE
OF
HIS
TWIN

So suddenly it’s my decision, Dr Daruwalla thought.

PLEASE
DON’T
UPSET
POOR
MARTIN
WITH
MORE
BAD
NEWS

So now it’s ‘poor Martin’ who would be upset! Farrokh observed.

SINCE
MARTIN
HAS
CHOSEN
POVERTY
FOR
A
PROFESSION
,
AND
DANNY
HAS
LEFT
ME A
WOMAN
OF
INSUFFICIENT
MEANS
,
PERHAPS
YOU’LL
BE SO
KIND
AS TO
AID
MARTIN
WITH
THE
AIRFARE
/ OF
COURSE
IT’S
DANNY
WHO
WOULD
HAVE
WANTED
HIM
HERE
/
VERA

The only good news, which Dr Daruwalla didn’t know at the time, was that Danny Mills had left Vera a woman of even less means than she supposed. Danny had bequeathed what little he had to the Catholic Church – secure in the knowledge that if he’d given anything to Martin, that’s what Martin would have done with the money. In the end, not even Vera would consider the amount worth fighting for.

In Bombay, the day after Jubilee Day was a big one for news. Danny’s death and Vera’s manipulations overlapped with Mr Das’s announcement that Madhu had left the Great Blue Nile with her new husband; both Martin Mills and Dr Daruwalla had little doubt that Madhu’s new husband was Mr Garg. Farrokh was so sure of this that his brief telegram to the Bengali ringmaster was a statement, not a question.

YOU
SAID
THAT
THE
MAN
WHO
MARRIED
MADHU
HAD
A
SCAR
/
ACID
, I
PRESUME

Both the doctor and the missionary were outraged that Mr and Mrs Das had virtually sold Madhu to a man like Garg, but Martin urged Farrokh not to take the ringmaster to task. In the spirit of encouraging the Great Blue Nile to support the efforts of the elephant-footed cripple, Dr Daruwalla concluded his telegram to Mr Das in Junagadh on a tactful note.

I
TRUST
THAT
THE
BOY
GANESH
WILL
BE
WELL
LOOKED
AFTER

He didn’t ‘trust’; he
hoped
.

In the light of Ranjit’s message from Mr Subhash (that Tata Two had given Dr Daruwalla the
HIV
test results for the wrong Madhu), the doctor had sizably less hope for Madhu than for Ganesh. Ranjit’s account of Mr Subhash’s offhand manner – the ancient secretary’s virtual dismissal of the error – was infuriating, but even a proper apology from Dr Tata wouldn’t have lessened the fact that Madhu was HIV-positive. She didn’t have
AIDS
yet; she was merely carrying the virus.

‘How can you even think “merely”?’ cried Martin Mills, who seemed to be more devastated by Madhu’s medical destiny than by the news of Danny’s death; after all, Danny had been dying for years.

It was only midmorning; Martin had to interrupt their phone conversation in order to teach a class. Farrokh agreed to keep the missionary informed of the day’s developments. The upper-school boys at St Ignatius were about to receive a Catholic interpretation of Graham Greene’s
The Heart of the Matter
, while Dr Daruwalla attempted to find Madhu. But the doctor discovered that Garg’s phone number was no longer in service; Mr Garg was lying low. Vinod told Dr Daruwalla that Deepa had already talked to Garg; according to the dwarf’s wife, the owner of the Wetness Cabaret had complained about the doctor.

‘Garg is thinking you are being too moral with him,’ the dwarf explained.

It was not morality that the doctor wanted to discuss with Madhu, or with Garg. The doctor’s disapproval of Garg notwithstanding, Dr Daruwalla wanted the opportunity to tell Madhu what it
meant
to be HIV-positive. Vinod implied that any opportunity
for
direct communication with Madhu was unpromising.

‘It is working better another way,’ the dwarf suggested. ‘You are telling me. I am telling Deepa. She is telling Garg. Garg is telling the girl.’

It was hard for Dr Daruwalla to accept this as a ‘better’ way, but the doctor was beginning to understand the essence of the dwarf’s Good Samaritanism. Rescuing children from the brothels was simply what Vinod and Deepa did with their spare time; they would just keep doing it — needing to succeed at it might have diminished their efforts.

‘Tell Garg he was misinformed,’ Dr Daruwalla told Vinod. Tell him Madhu is HIV-positive.’

Interestingly, if Garg was uninfected, his odds were good; he probably wouldn’t contract
HIV
from Madhu. (The nature of
HIV
transmission is such that it’s not easy for a woman to give it to a man.) Depressingly, if Garg
was
infected, Madhu had probably contracted it from him.

The dwarf must have sensed the doctor’s depression; Vinod knew that a functioning Good Samaritan can’t dwell on every little failure. ‘We are only showing them the net,’ Vinod tried to explain. ‘We are not being their wings.’

‘Their wings?
What
wings?’ Farrokh asked.

‘Not every girl is being able to fly,’ the dwarf said. ‘They are not all falling in the net.’

It occurred to Dr Daruwalla that he should impart this lesson to Martin Mills, but the scholastic was still in the process of watering down Graham Greene for the upper-school boys. Instead, the doctor called the deputy commissioner.

‘Patel here,’ said the cold voice. The clatter of typewriters resounded in the background; rising, and then falling out of hearing, was the mindless revving of a motorcycle. Like punctuation to their phone conversation, there came and went the sharp barking of the Dobermans, complaining in the courtyard kennel. Dr Daruwalla imagined that just out of his hearing a prisoner was professing his innocence, or else declaring that he’d spoken the truth. The doctor wondered if Rahul was there. What would she be wearing?

‘I know this isn’t exactly a crime-branch matter,’ Farrokh apologized in advance; then he told the deputy commissioner everything he knew about Madhu and Mr Garg.

‘Lots of pimps marry their best girls,’ Detective Patel informed the doctor. ‘Garg runs the Wetness Cabaret, but he’s a pimp on the side.’

‘I just want a chance to tell her what to expect,’ said Dr Daruwalla.

‘She’s another man’s wife,’ Patel replied. ‘You want me to tell another man’s wife that she has to talk to you?’

‘Can’t you
ask
her?’ Farrokh asked.

‘I can’t believe I’m speaking to the creator of Inspector Dhar,’ the deputy commissioner said. ‘How does it go? It’s one of my all-time favorites: “The police don’t
ask
– the police arrest, or the police harass.” Isn’t that the line?’

‘Yes, that’s how it goes,’ Dr Daruwalla confessed.

‘So do you want me to harass her – and Garg, too?’ the policeman asked. When the doctor didn’t answer him, the deputy commissioner continued. ‘When Garg throws her out on the street, or when she runs away, then I can bring her in for questioning.
Then
you can talk to her. The problem is, if he throws her out or she runs away, I won’t be able to find her. From what you say, she’s too pretty and smart to be a street prostitute. She’ll go to a brothel, and once she’s in the brothel, she won’t be out on the street. Someone will bring her food; the madam will buy her clothes.’

‘And when she gets sick?’ the doctor asked.

‘There are doctors who go to the brothels,’ Patel replied. ‘When she gets so sick she can’t be a prostitute, most madams would put her out on the street. But by then she’ll be immune.’

‘What do you mean, “immune”?’ Dr Daruwalla asked.

‘When you’re on the street and very sick, everyone leaves you alone. When nobody comes near you, you’re immune,’ the policeman said.

‘And then you could find her,’ Farrokh remarked.

‘Then we
might
find her,’ Patel corrected him. ‘But by then it would hardly be necessary for you to tell her what to expect.’

‘So you’re saying, “Forget her.” Is that it?’ the doctor asked.

‘In your profession, you treat crippled children — isn’t that right?’ the deputy commissioner inquired.

‘That’s right,’ Dr Daruwalla replied.

‘Well, I don’t know anything about your field,’ said Detective Patel, ‘but I would guess that your odds of success are slightly higher than in the red-light district.’

‘I get your point,’ Farrokh said. ‘And what are the odds that Rahul will hang?’

For a while, the policeman was silent. Only the typewriters responded to the question; they were the constant, occasionally interrupted by the revving motorcycle or the cacophony of Dobermans. ‘Do you hear the typewriters?’ the deputy commissioner finally asked.

‘Of course,’ Dr Daruwalla answered.

‘The report on Rahul will be very lengthy,’ Patel promised him. ‘But not even the sensational number of murders will impress the judge. I mean, just look at who most of the victims were – they weren’t important.’

‘You mean they were prostitutes,’ said Dr Daruwalla.

‘Precisely,’ Patel replied. ‘We will need to develop another argument – namely, that Rahul must be confined with other women. Anatomically, she is a woman…’

‘So the operation was complete,’ the doctor interrupted.

‘So I’m told. Naturally, I didn’t examine her myself,’ the deputy commissioner added.

‘No, of course not…’ Dr Daruwalla said.

‘What I mean is, Rahul cannot be imprisoned with men — Rahul is a woman,’ the detective said. ‘And solitary confinement is too expensive – impossible in cases of life imprisonment. And yet, if Rahul is confined with women prisoners, there’s a problem. She’s as strong as a man, and she has a history of killing women – you see my point?’

‘So you’re saying that she might receive the death penalty only because of how awkward it will be to imprison her with other women?’ Farrokh asked.

‘Precisely,’ Patel said. ‘That’s our best argument. But I still don’t believe she’ll be hanged.’