A Son of the Circus Page 4

  Lord D. committed suicide on New Year’s Eve, precisely at the turn of the century. For many more years Lady Duckworth would reveal her breasts, but it was agreed that, as a widow, although she exposed herself more often, she did so halfheartedly. Cynics said that had she lived, and continued to show India her gifts, Lady D. might have thwarted Independence.

  In the photograph that so appealed to Dr. Daruwalla, Lady Duckworth’s chin was tilted down, her eyes mischievously gazing up, as if she’d just been caught peering into her own thrilling cleavage and had instantly looked away. Her bosom was a broad, strong shelf supporting her pretty face. Even fully clothed, there was something unrestrained about the woman; her arms hung straight down at her sides, but her fingers were spread wide apart—with her palms presented to the camera, as if for crucifixion—and a wild strand of her allegedly blond hair, which was otherwise held high off her graceful neck, was childishly twisted and coiled like a snake around one of the world’s perfect little ears.

  In future years, her hair turned from blond to gray without losing its thick body or its deep luster; her breasts, despite being so often and so long exposed, never sagged. Dr. Daruwalla was a happily married man; however, he would have admitted—even to his dear wife—that he was in love with Lady Duckworth, for he’d fallen in love with her photographs and with her story when he was a child.

  But it could have a lugubrious effect on the doctor—if he spent too much time in the dance hall, reviewing the photographs of Members Past. Most of the Members Past were deceased; as the circus people said of their dead, they had fallen without a net. (Of the living, the expression was reversed. Whenever Dr. Daruwalla inquired after Vinod’s health—the doctor never failed to ask about the dwarf’s wife, too—Vinod would always reply, “We are still falling in the net.”)

  Of Lady Duckworth—at least, from her photographs—Farrokh would say that her breasts were still falling in the net; possibly they were immortal.

  Mr. Lal Has Missed the Net

  And then, suddenly, a small and seemingly unimportant incident distracted Dr. Daruwalla from his entrancement with Lady Duckworth’s bosom. The doctor would need to be in touch with his subconscious to remember this, for it was only a slight disturbance from the dining room that drew his attention. A crow, with something shiny seized in its beak, had swept in from the open veranda and had landed rakishly on the broad, oar-shaped blade of one of the ceiling fans. The bird precariously tilted the fan, but it continued to ride the blade around and around, shitting in a consistently circular form—on the floor, on a portion of one tablecloth and on a salad plate, just missing a fork. A waiter flapped a napkin and the crow took flight again, raucously cawing as it escaped through the veranda and rose above the golf course that stood shimmering in the noon sun. Whatever had been in its beak was gone, perhaps swallowed. First the waiters and busboys rushed to change the befouled tablecloth and place setting, although it was still early for lunch; then a sweeper was summoned to mop the floor.

  Owing to his early-morning surgeries, Dr. Daruwalla lunched earlier than most Duckworthians. Farrokh’s appointment for lunch with Inspector Dhar was at half past noon. The doctor strolled into the Ladies’ Garden, where he located a break in the dense bower that afforded him a view of the expanse of sky above the golf course; there he seated himself in a rose-colored wicker chair. His little pot belly seemed to get his attention, especially when he sat down; Farrokh ordered a London Diet beer, although he wanted a Kingfisher lager.

  To Dr. Daruwalla’s surprise, he saw a vulture (possibly the same vulture) above the golf course again; the bird was lower in the sky, as if it was not en route to or from the Towers of Silence but as if it was descending. Knowing how ferociously the Parsis defended their burial rites, it amused Farrokh to imagine that they might be offended by any distraction caused to any vulture. Perhaps a horse had dropped dead on the Mahalaxmi race course; maybe a dog had been killed in Tardeo or a body had washed ashore at Haji Ali’s Tomb. Whatever the reason, here was one vulture that was not performing the sacred chore at the Towers of Silence.

  Dr. Daruwalla looked at his watch. He expected his luncheon companion at any moment; he sipped his London Diet beer, trying to pretend it was a Kingfisher lager—he was imagining that he was slim again. (Farrokh had never been slim.) While he watched the vulture carve its descending spirals, another vulture joined it, and then another; this gave him an unexpected chill. Farrokh quite forgot to prepare himself for the news he had to deliver to Inspector Dhar—not that there was any good way to do it. The doctor grew so entranced by the birds that he didn’t notice the typically smooth, eerily graceful arrival of his handsome younger friend.

  Putting his hand on Dr. Daruwalla’s shoulder, Dhar said, “Someone’s dead out there, Farrokh—who is it?” This caused a new waiter—the same waiter who’d driven the crow off the ceiling fan—to mishandle a soup tureen and a ladle. The waiter had recognized Inspector Dhar; what shocked him was to hear the movie star speak English without a trace of a Hindi accent. The resounding clatter seemed to herald Mr. Bannerjee’s sudden arrival in the Ladies’ Garden, where he seized both Dr. Daruwalla and Inspector Dhar by an arm.

  “The vultures are landing on the ninth green!” he cried. “I think it’s poor Mr. Lal! He must have died in the bougainvillea!”

  Dr. Daruwalla whispered in Inspector Dhar’s ear. The younger man’s expression never changed as Farrokh said, “This is your line of work, Inspector.” Typical of the doctor, this was a joke; yet without hesitation Inspector Dhar led them across the fairways. They could see a dozen of the leathery birds flapping and hopping in their ungainly fashion, dirtying the ninth green; their long necks rose above and then probed into the bougainvillea, their hooked beaks brightly spattered with gore.

  Mr. Bannerjee wouldn’t step on the green, and the smell of putrefaction that clung to the vultures took Dr. Daruwalla by surprise; he stopped, overcome, near the flag at the ninth hole. But Inspector Dhar parted the stinking birds as he kicked his way, straight ahead, into the bougainvillea. The vultures rose all around him. My God, thought Farrokh, he looks like he’s a real police inspector—he’s just an actor, but he doesn’t know it!

  The waiter who’d saved the ceiling fan from the crow, and had wrestled with the soup tureen and ladle with less success, also followed the excited Duckworthians a short distance onto the golf course, but he turned back to the dining room when he saw Inspector Dhar scatter the vultures. The waiter was among that multitude of fans who had seen every Inspector Dhar movie (he’d seen two or three of them a half-dozen times); therefore, he could safely be characterized as a young man who was enthralled by cheap violence and criminal bloodshed, not to mention enamored of Bombay’s most lurid element—the city’s sleaziest underscum, which was so lavishly depicted in all the Inspector Dhar movies. But when the waiter saw the flock of vultures that the famous actor had put to flight, the reality of an actual corpse in the vicinity of the ninth green greatly upset him. He retreated to the club, where his presence had been missed by the elderly disapproving steward, Mr. Sethna, who owed his job to Farrokh’s late father.

  “Inspector Dhar has found a real body this time!” the waiter said to the old steward.

  Mr. Sethna said, “Your station today is in the Ladies’ Garden. Kindly remain at your station!”

  Old Mr. Sethna disapproved of Inspector Dhar movies. He was exceptionally disapproving in general, a quality regarded as enhancing to his position as steward at the Duckworth Club, where he routinely behaved as if he were empowered with the authority of the club secretary. Mr. Sethna had ruled the dining room and the Ladies’ Garden with his disapproving frowns longer than Inspector Dhar had been a member—although Mr. Sethna hadn’t always been steward for the Duckworthians. He’d previously been steward at the Ripon Club, a club that only Parsis join, and a club unsullied by sports of any kind; the Ripon Club existed for the purpose of good food and good conversation, period. Dr. Daruwalla was also a member there. The
Ripon and the Duckworth suited Farrokh’s diverse nature: as a Parsi and a Christian, a Bombayite and a Torontonian, an orthopedic surgeon and a dwarf-blood collector, Dr. Daruwalla could never have been satisfied by just one club.

  As for Mr. Sethna, who was descended from a not-so-old-money family of Parsis, the Ripon Club had suited him better than the Duckworth; however, circumstances that had brought out his highly disapproving nature had led to his dismissal there. His “highly disapproving nature” had already led Mr. Sethna to lose his not-so-old money, and the steward’s money had been exceedingly difficult to lose. It was money from the Raj, British money, but Mr. Sethna had so disapproved of it that he’d most cunningly and deliberately pissed it all away. He’d endured more than a normal lifetime at the Mahalaxmi race course; and all he’d retained from his betting years was a memory of the tattoo of the horses’ hooves, which he expertly drummed on his silver serving tray with his long fingers.

  Mr. Sethna was distantly related to the Guzdars, an old-money family of Parsis who’d kept their money; they’d been shipbuilders for the British Navy. Alas, it happened that a young Ripon Club member had offended Mr. Sethna’s extended-family sensibilities; the stern steward had overheard compromising mention of the virtue of a Guzdar young lady—a cousin, many times removed. Because of the vulgar wit that amused these younger, nonreligious Parsis, there’d also been compromising mention of the cosmic intertwinement between Spenta Mainyu (the Zoroastrian spirit of good) and Angra Mainyu (the spirit of evil). In the case of Mr. Sethna’s Guzdar cousin, the spirit of sex was said to be winning her favors.

  The young dandy who was doing this verbal damage wore a wig, a vanity of which Mr. Sethna also disapproved. Therefore, Mr. Sethna poured hot tea on top of the gentleman’s head, causing him to leap to his feet and literally snatch himself bald in the presence of his surprised luncheon companions.

  Mr. Sethna’s actions, although considered most honorable among many old-money and new-money Parsis, were judged as unsuitable behavior for a steward; “violent aggression with hot tea” were the stated grounds for Mr. Sethna’s dismissal. But the steward received the highest recommendation imaginable from Dr. Daruwalla’s father; it was on the strength of the elder Daruwalla’s praise that Mr. Sethna was instantly hired at the Duckworth Club. Farrokh’s father viewed the tea episode as an act of heroism: the impugned Guzdar young lady was above reproach; Mr. Sethna had been correct in defending the mistreated girl’s virtue. The steward was such a fanatical Zoroastrian that Farrokh’s fiercely opinionated father had described Mr. Sethna as a Parsi who carried all of Persia on his shoulders.

  To everyone who’d suffered his disapproving frowns in the Duckworth Club dining room or in the Ladies’ Garden, old Mr. Sethna looked like a steward who would gladly pour hot tea on anyone’s head. He was tall and exceedingly lean, as if he generally disapproved of eating, and he had a hooked, disdainful nose, as if he also disapproved of how everything smelled. And the old steward was so fair-skinned—most Parsis are fairer-skinned than most Indians—that Mr. Sethna was presumed to be racially disapproving, too.

  At present, Mr. Sethna looked disapprovingly at the commotion that engulfed the golf course. His lips were thin and tightly closed, and he had the narrow, jutting, tufted chin of a goat. He disapproved of sports, and most avowedly disliked the mixing of sporting activities with the more dignified pursuits of dining and sharp debate.

  The golf course was in riot: half-dressed men came running from the locker room—as if their sporting attire (when they were fully clothed) weren’t distasteful enough. As a Parsi, Mr. Sethna had a high regard for justice; he thought there was something immoral about a death, which was so enduringly serious, occurring on a golf course, which was so disturbingly trivial. As a true believer whose naked body would one day lie in the Towers of Silence, the old steward found the presence of so many vultures profoundly moving; he preferred, therefore, to ignore them and to concentrate his attention and his scorn on the human turmoil. The moronic head mali had been summoned; he stupidly drove his rattling truck across the golf course, gouging up the grass that the assistant malis had recently groomed with the roller.

  Mr. Sethna couldn’t see Inspector Dhar, who was deep in the bougainvillea, but he had no doubt that the crude movie star was in the thick of this crisis; the steward sighed in disapproval at the very idea of Inspector Dhar.

  Then there came a high-pitched ringing of a fork against a water glass—a vulgar means by which to summon a waiter. Mr. Sethna turned to the offending table and realized that he, not the waiter, was being summoned by the second Mrs. Dogar. She was called the beautiful Mrs. Dogar to her face and the second Mrs. Dogar behind her back. Mr. Sethna didn’t find her especially beautiful, and he most adamantly disapproved of second marriages.

  Furthermore, it was generally admitted among the members of the club that Mrs. Dogar’s beauty was coarse in nature and had faded over time. No amount of Mr. Dogar’s money could improve his new wife’s garish tastes. No degree of physical fitness, which the second Mrs. Dogar was reputed to worship to excess, could conceal from even the most casual observer that she was at least 42. To Mr. Sethna’s critical eye, she was already pushing (if not past) 50; he also thought she was much too tall. And there was many a golf-loving Duckworthian who took offense at her outspoken, insensitive opinion that golf was insufficient exercise for anyone in pursuit of good health.

  This day, Mrs. Dogar was lunching alone—a habit of which Mr. Sethna also disapproved. At a proper club, the steward believed, women wouldn’t be allowed to eat alone.

  The marriage was still new enough that Mr. Dogar often joined his wife for lunch; the marriage was also old enough that Mr. Dogar felt free to cancel these luncheon dates, should some matter of more important business intervene. And lately he’d taken to canceling at the last minute, which left his wife no time to make plans of her own. Mr. Sethna had observed that being left alone made the new Mrs. Dogar restless and cross.

  On the other hand, the steward had also observed a certain tension between the newlyweds when they dined together; Mrs. Dogar was inclined to speak sharply to her husband, who was considerably older than she was. Mr. Sethna supposed this was a penalty to be expected, for he especially disapproved of men who married younger women. But the steward thought it best to put himself at the aggressive wife’s disposal lest she shatter her water glass with another blow from her fork; the fork itself looked surprisingly small in her large, sinewy hand.

  “My dear Mr. Sethna,” said the second Mrs. Dogar.

  Mr. Sethna answered: “How may I be of service to the beautiful Mrs. Dogar?”

  “You may tell me what all the fuss is about,” Mrs. Dogar replied.

  Mr. Sethna spoke as deliberately as he would pour hot tea. “It is most assuredly nothing to upset yourself about,” the old Parsi said. “It is merely a dead golfer.”

  2

  THE UPSETTING NEWS

  Still Tingling

  Thirty years ago, there were more than 50 circuses of some merit in India; today there aren’t more than 15 that are any good. Many of them are named the Great This or the Great That. Among Dr. Daruwalla’s favorites were the Great Bombay, the Jumbo, the Great Golden, the Gemini, the Great Rayman, the Famous, the Great Oriental and the Raj Kamal; of them all, Farrokh felt most fond of the Great Royal Circus. Before Independence, it was called simply the Royal; in 1947 it became the “Great.” It began as a two-pole tent; in ’47 the Great Royal added two more poles. But it was the owner who’d made such a positive impression on Farrokh. Because Pratap Walawalkar was such a well-traveled man, he seemed the most sophisticated of the circus owners to Dr. Daruwalla; or else Farrokh’s fondness for Pratap Walawalkar was simply because the Great Royal’s owner never teased the doctor about his interest in dwarf blood.

  In the 1960s, the Great Royal traveled everywhere. Business was bad in Egypt, best in Iran; business was good in Beirut and Singapore, Pratap Walawalkar said—and of all the countries where the
circus traveled, Bali was the most beautiful. Travel was too expensive now. With a half-dozen elephants and two dozen big cats, not to mention a dozen horses and almost a dozen chimpanzees, the Great Royal rarely traveled outside the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat. With uncounted cockatoos and parrots, and dozens of dogs (not to mention 150 people, including almost a dozen dwarfs), the Great Royal never left India.

  This was the real history of a real circus, but Dr. Daruwalla had committed these details to that quality of memory which most of us reserve for our childhoods. Farrokh’s childhood had failed to make much of an impression on him; he vastly preferred the history and the memorabilia he’d absorbed as a behind-the-scenes observer of the circus. He remembered Pratap Walawalkar saying in an offhand manner: “Ethiopian lions have brown manes, but they’re just like other lions—they won’t listen to you if you don’t call them by their right names.” Farrokh had retained this morsel of information as if it were part of a beloved bedtime story.

  In the early mornings, en route to his surgeries (even in Canada), the doctor often recalled the big basins steaming over the gas rings in the cook’s tent. In one pot was the water for tea, but in two of the basins the cook was heating milk; the first milk that came to a boil wasn’t for tea—it was to make oatmeal for the chimpanzees. As for tea, the chimps didn’t like it hot; they liked their tea tepid. Farrokh also remembered the extra flatbread; it was for the elephants—they enjoyed roti. And the tigers took vitamins, which turned their milk pink. As an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Daruwalla could make no medical use of these cherished details; nevertheless, he’d breathed them in as if they were his own background.