Roshan stood still, her eyes wide with fear. Dilnavaz motioned to her to stay where she was. When the boys were little, she was often afraid that Gustad, with his immense strength, might do them grave injury while meting out the punishment that a father was supposed to, though afterwards it only made him feel wretchedly remorseful. She hoped Sohrab would remain quiet so that the threat could fade away.
But he would not back down. ‘Go, bring the belt. I’m not scared of him or anything.’
Seeing that Roshan would not move, Gustad went himself. He returned with his instrument of retribution hanging over his shoulder, whose mention alone used to fill the boys with fear when they were little. He was panting with rage. ‘Say, now, whatever you want to say! Let us hear your chenchi if you still have the courage!’
‘I’ve already said everything. If you didn’t hear, I can repeat it.’
Gustad swung, and the leather whistled as it cut through the air. Dilnavaz ran between the two, the way she used to when the boys were little. The cowhide lashed her calves and she screamed. Two red weals started to emerge.
‘Move aside!’ shouted Gustad. ‘I am warning you! Tonight I don’t care what happens! I will cut your son to pieces, I will –’
Roshan started sobbing and screaming. ‘Mummy! Daddy! Stop it!’ Gustad tried over and over to reach his target, but Dilnavaz’s manoeuvres foiled him.
Through her sobs Roshan screamed once more. ‘Please! For the sake of my birthday, stop it!’
The belt continued to swing, though nowhere as effectively as that first perfect stroke. The misplaced blow had taken away much of the vigour and keenness from Gustad’s arm. ‘You coward! Stop hiding behind your mother!’
Before either Sohrab or Dilnavaz could respond, a shrill cry rang out. ‘Enough is enough! This is sleeping-time, not fighting-time! Save the rest for morning!’
The voice was Miss Kutpitia’s. It had the same pitch and cadences that were evident on mornings when she decided to shriek at the milk bhaiya. Gustad was furious. He rushed to the window. ‘Come to my door and speak if you have something to say! I am not living free here, I also pay rent!’ He turned to Dilnavaz, livid. ‘See? That’s how your friend behaves. Saali witch!’
‘But she is right,’ said Dilnavaz resolutely. ‘All this shouting and yelling in the middle of the night.’
‘Very nice! Take her side against your husband. Always against me only.’ Bitter to the marrow, he fell quiet. Outside, all was silent again. But he waited defiantly by the window in case a retort from Miss Kutpitia was forthcoming.
Dilnavaz took the opportunity to hustle Sohrab, Darius and Roshan out of the room and into bed. Left alone, Gustad’s anger started to ebb. He saw the belt clenched tightly in his hand, and threw it in a corner, then blew out the candles on the dining-table. The room was still too bright for him. He adjusted the wick of the kerosene lamp and returned to stand by the window. The black stone wall could barely be discerned; it had melted into the inky night.
Dilnavaz returned. ‘They are all in bed. Waiting for you to say goodnight-Godblessyou.’ He did not answer. She tried again. ‘I went to Sohrab. See.’ She held out her sleeve where it was damp. ‘His tears. Go to him.’
Gustad shook his head. ‘He will have to come to me. When he learns respect. Till then, he is not my son. My son is dead.’
‘Don’t say such things!’
‘I am saying what must be said. Now he is nothing to me.’ ‘No! Stop it!’ She caressed the welts on her calves, and he saw her do it.
‘Seventeen times I have told you not to come in the middle when I am dealing with the children.’
‘Nineteen years old now, he is no longer a child.’
‘Nineteen or twenty-nine, he cannot speak to me like that. And for what reason? What did I do except be proud of him?’
The bewilderment behind his anger was touching, and she wanted to comfort him, help him understand. But she did not understand herself. She touched his shoulder gently. ‘We must be patient.’
‘What have we been all these years if not patient? Is this how it will end? Sorrow, nothing but sorrow. Throwing away his future without reason. What have I not done for him, tell me? I even threw myself in front of a car. Kicked him aside, saved his life, and got this to suffer all my life.’ He slapped his hip. ‘But that’s what a father is for. And if he cannot show respect at least, I can kick him again. Out of my house, out of my life!’
She touched his shoulder once more, and went to the table. ‘I’ll put away everything in the kitchen. Then we can go to sleep.’ She began piling up the dirty plates and glasses.
ii
Long after Dilnavaz had cleared the table, wiped off the crumbs with a moist rag and gone to bed, Gustad sat beside the soft glow of the kerosene lamp. He was grateful for the lamp. He knew that if the electric light was on, he would still be angry.
Feeling reckless, he mixed together whatever remained in the bottles: Bilimoria’s XXX rum, lemon, Golden Eagle, soda water. He tasted it and made a wry face. Nevertheless, he drank half the glass, then went to his grandfather’s black desk. It had two side-by-side drawers. The one on the right was smaller, and under it, a cabinet formed the supporting pedestal. He tried to open the cabinet door quietly; it had always been tight. His hands were a little unsteady. It swung open with a soft moan of wood against wood.
The smell of old books and bindings, learning and wisdom floated out. On the top shelf, at the rear, were E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and the two volumes of Barrère and Leland’s Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, the 1897 edition. Like the furniture, Gustad had rescued these from his father’s bankrupt bookstore. Reaching in, he pulled out Brewer’s Dictionary and opened it at random. He held it up to his nose and closed his eyes. The rich, timeless fragrance rose from the precious pages, soothing his uneasy, confused spirit. He shut the book, tenderly stroking its spine with the back of his fingers, and replaced it on the shelf.
Some works by Bertrand Russell, a book titled Mathematics for the Millions, and Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations also stood on this shelf. They belonged to his college days, the only books he had managed to keep. He used to joke with Malcolm the musician that he was going through college on the Buy-This-Year, Sell-Next-Year textbook plan. How nicely all these would have stood in the bookcase Sohrab and he were planning to make. Not now. The boy is nothing to me now.
Occupying the front of the shelf, flat on their covers, lay an abridged Webster and a pocket edition of Roget blanketed by a higgledy-piggledy miscellanea: dog-eared envelopes, plastic boxes containing paper clips and rubber bands, two rolls (half- and three-quarters-used respectively) of sellotape, a bottle of Camel Royal Blue Ink, an unlabelled bottle of red ink (used exclusively for inscribing greeting cards or white wedding-gift envelopes: salutations, blessings for a long, happy life and, in the bottom left-hand corner, the amount enclosed). Other odds and ends on the shelf were not readily identifiable. Parts of dismembered pens, a glue bottle’s rubber cap-cum-nipple, a bladeless penknife, a metal clamp assembly divorced from its file, lay tangled in string and rubber bands.
The bottom shelf was devoted entirely to files, folders and old magazines. He carefully lifted a stack overflowing with variegated rectangles of yellowed newsprint, and groped for the letter. His fingers closed on it. He let the stack settle back. A box of ancient rusting nibs, from the days before ballpoint pens, lost its perch. The nibs inside collided, metal to metal, and metal to cardboard. The sound came and went, like a maraca played and silenced instantaneously.
He took the letter to the lamplight. He had read it several times, secretly, since its arrival. The envelope was typewritten. The return address was a post office box in New Delhi, and the sender’s name was absent. It had elicited a mixture of nervousness and curiosity the first time: he did not know anyone in New Delhi. Inside was a single sheet of paper, of excellent quality, thick and fibred. He read it again.
r /> My dear Gustad,
This letter must come as a big surprise to you. After all this time, you must have given up on me, especially because of the way I left Khodadad Building.
You are very angry with me for that, I know. I am not good at letter-writing, but please accept my sincere apologies, and believe me when I say I had no choice. If I make up some excuse, I would be lying, and I do not want to do that. I am still not at liberty to tell you details, except it is a matter of national security. You know I was doing work for the government after leaving the army.
Something relating to my assignment needs to be done in Bombay. I immediately thought of you, since there is no one I trust more. Your friendship means a lot to me, and your dear wife Dilnavaz, and your two wonderful sons and sweet little Roshan. I don’t have to tell you that all of you were, and still are, like my own family.
What I need is quite simple. It just involves a parcel which I would like you to receive on my behalf. If you cannot do this favour, I understand. But I will have to turn to less reliable people. Please let me know. And please do not be offended by the post office box number, my address remains confidential because of regulations.
Once again, I beg your forgiveness. Some day, I will tell you the whole story, when our family (if you do not mind my calling us that) is together again.
Your loving friend,
Jimmy
Gustad felt the paper between thumb and finger. How rich, he thought, comparing it to the thin sheets in his own desk. Jimmy was always well-off, but so generous. Constantly buying gifts for the children. The badminton racquets, cricket bat and stumps, table-tennis set, dumb-bells. And he would never give them to the children himself. Always gave them to me, said they were my children, so I had first right to their gratitude and joy. But whenever Jimmy arrived, Roshan, Darius and Sohrab would at once leave what they were doing to sit with him. He was their hero, even Sohrab’s, who was always so selective. Look at him now, turning up his nose at Dinshawji.
Gustad lowered the wick of the kerosene lamp and leaned back in the armchair. The light, very soft now, made the room dreamlike in its glow. O Dada Ormuzd, what kind of joke is this? In me, when I was young, You put the desire to study, get ahead, be a success. Then You took away my father’s money, left me rotting in the bank. And for my son? You let me arrange everything, put it within reach, but You take away his appetite for IIT. What are You telling me? Have I become too deaf to hear You?
He took up his glass again. The rum-beer was tasting better now, he decided, and swallowed more. How many years have I watched over Sohrab and waited. And now I wish I was back at the beginning, without knowledge of the end. At the beginning, at least there was hope. Now there is nothing. Nothing but sorrow.
What kind of life was Sohrab going to look forward to? No future for minorities, with all these fascist Shiv Sena politics and Marathi language nonsense. It was going to be like the black people in America – twice as good as the white man to get half as much. How could he make Sohrab understand this? How to make him realize what he was doing to his father, who had made the success of his son’s life the purpose of his own? Sohrab had snatched away that purpose, like a crutch from a cripple.
The rum-beer was delicious. He drained the glass. The tension was slowly going out of him. Kicked him nine years ago to save his life … I can kick him again. Out of my house, out of my life. To learn respect … how much he means to me … meant to me … that day …
That day, it had been a morning of rain. No, a whole day of rain: rain mingled with the smell of diesel fumes. And he had got on the wrong bus with ten-year-old Sohrab while heading for lunch. Gustad had taken a special half-day’s leave from Mr Madon the bank manager, to celebrate Sohrab’s first day at St Xavier’s High School. Gaining admission was not easy. The school’s motto was Duc In Altum, adhered to with especial rigour when selecting new students. There was a tough entrance examination, followed by an interview, and Sohrab had done so well in both. Ten years old, and already his English was fluent. Not like that other interview for kindergarten when he was three, where the headmistress had asked, ‘What soap do you use?’ and Sohrab had answered, ‘Sojjo soap,’ using the Gujarati word for good.
Gustad wanted to give him a real treat. The Parisian served the best fish curry and rice in the city. Each order came with crisp paapud, the fish was always fresh pomfret, and the waiter would, upon request, serve any portion of the fish’s anatomy. This last was important, because Sohrab adored the tail triangle of the pomfret.
But somehow, what with the rain and the crowds and the confusion, Gustad misread the bus number. They found out only after it had pulled away from the stop and was in the midst of traffic. The conductor approached with a swagger down the aisle, his leather money pouch and ticket case slung in a devil-may-care style over his shoulder.
Gustad held out his change and said, ‘One full, one half, Churchgate.’ After lunch at the Parisian, he was going to surprise Sohrab by walking him to K. Rustom & Co for a slab of their famous pistachio ice-cream, served between two biscuits that remained crisp till the end. The ice-cream was Dilnavaz’s idea. It was expensive, Sohrab had had it just once before: to celebrate his navjote, after the ceremony at the fire-temple.
The conductor ignored the outstretched hand, and muttered disinterestedly, ‘Not going to Churchgate.’ He snapped vigorously with his empty ticket punch: tidick-tick, tidick-tick. The sharp noise made his speech seem hostile. He glared out into the rain and traffic, past Gustad’s face.
Rain had started in the early morning: great sheets of water pouring out of dark skies. Gustad remembered Dilnavaz saying, as he left with Sohrab for the new school, ‘It’s good luck if it rains when something new is beginning.’ Sohrab was also pleased: it meant he could wear his new Duckback raincoat and gumboots. He hoped there would be floods to wade through.
Before leaving, he had been adorned with a vermilion dot on the forehead, and a garland of roses and lilies. Dilnavaz did the overnaa and sprinkled rice, presenting him with a coconut, betel leaves, a dry date, one areca nut, and seven rupees, all for good luck. She popped a lump of sugar in his mouth, then they hugged him and murmured blessings in his ear. They said more or less the same things as on a birthday, but the emphasis was on school and studies.
Waiting first in line, Gustad had wished it would let up for a while. The rain crashed deafeningly on the bus shelter’s corrugated metal roof. The air was heavy and disagreeable. Traffic lay like a soporous monster on the shiny wet surface of the road, throbbing and spewing out its effluvium, rousing itself now and again to move a little, sluggishly. The petrol and diesel fumes were strong and noisome; they seemed to have dissolved in the very moisture; and the moisture blanketed everything.
‘Not going to Churchgate,’ repeated the conductor, clicking away absently with his ticket punch: tidick-tick, tidick-tick, tidick-tick. His left hand played with the sea of coins in his leather pouch, running his fingers through them or lifting a handful and letting them cascade like a metallic waterfall back into the pouch, where they landed with tinny splashes. Part of the leather had been polished to a satiny smoothness by the conductor’s constant caresses. It glowed warm and lustrous. And this picture of the conductor was what Gustad saw most clearly as he lay on the road in the pouring rain, in the path of oncoming traffic, unable to rise. Something had broken; the first great bolts of pain were thundering through his body.
But first, there was the argument with the surly conductor. ‘Not going to Churchgate,’ he said. Rain and slow traffic had affected everyone’s temper. ‘Buying a ticket or what?’
‘If this bus is not going to Churchgate we will get off.’
‘Then get off.’ Tidick-tick, tidick-tick, tidick-tick. ‘Or buy. No free ride.’
‘But pull the bell at least.’ Gustad’s speech was yanked undignifiedly from him, as the bus lurched in the middle of the sentence and his words tumbled wildly.
‘The bell will be pulled for the next
stop only. If you stay, buy a ticket. Or –’ he pointed to the exit.
Gustad eyed the bell rope: what if he made a grab for it? The conductor would try to stop him, and a physical confrontation would result. He knew he would acquit himself admirably in a fair fight, but it would be unsuitable in front of Sohrab. And there had been instances when conductors had smashed their metal ticket boxes over a passenger’s head if things were not going their way in a brawl. He tried one more time to reason. ‘You want us to get down in the middle of the road and kill ourselves or what?’
‘Nobody is going to die,’ said the conductor scornfully. ‘Everything is completely stopped, look.’
The bus was at a standstill in the middle lane, and cars everywhere had come to a halt. ‘Come on, Daddy,’ said Sohrab. He had been embarrassed by the exchange. ‘It’s easy to go now.’ The other passengers, bored in the frozen traffic, had been following the exchange interestedly. They watched with disappointment as the two made their way down the aisle.
The bus jerked forward at the very moment that Sohrab stepped off. He lost his balance on the asphalt, slick and treacherous with rain, and fell. Gustad yelled, ‘Stop!’ and leapt from the moving bus.
In that split second between witnessing and leaping, he realized he could either land on his feet or save his son. He aimed for Sohrab with his feet and kicked him out of the path of an oncoming taxi. His left hip took the brunt of the fall. He heard the sickening crunch. The smell of diesel fumes was strong in his nostrils as he blacked out.
The taxi-driver slammed on his brakes inches from Gustad. People from the footpath ran to where he lay. A small crowd gathered.
‘Lay him out comfortably,’ said one.
‘Needs water, he has fainted,’ said another. Gustad could hear their voices, and felt as if someone was pushing him back, keeping him from rising.
The taxi-driver asked his passengers to leave. They protested, then departed hurriedly when they realized they would not have to pay what was on the meter. Someone called for the water-seller across the road. The peculiar street sound carried well over other noises, a mixture of hissing, aspirating and susurrating. ‘Hss-sst-sst-sst! Paaniwalla!’ The man crossed the road at a trot with his bucket and glasses. Gustad’s forehead was bathed, although his entire face was already wet with rain. Perhaps they felt that water colder than rain was required to revive the fallen man.