“You want a picture? I’ll show you a picture,” Rahul said quietly. “I could have bitten your lip off.”
“I have a suite at both the Oberoi and the Taj,” the actor told her.
“No—I’ll tell you where,” Mrs. Dogar said. “I’ll tell you at lunch.”
“At lunch here?” Dhar asked her.
“Tomorrow,” Rahul said. “I could have bitten your nose off, if I’d wanted to.”
“Thank you for the dance,” John D. said. As he turned to leave her, he was uncomfortably aware of his erection and the throbbing in his lower lip.
“Careful you don’t knock over any chairs or tables,” Mrs. Dogar said. “You’re as big as an elephant.” It was the word “elephant”—coming from Rahul—that most affected John D.’s walk. He crossed the dining room, still seeing the cloudy drop of her quickly disappearing sweat—still feeling her cool, dry hands. And the way she’d breathed into his open mouth when his lip was trapped… John D. suspected he would never forget that. He was thinking that the thin blue vein in her throat was so very still; it was as if she didn’t have a pulse, or that she knew some way to suspend the normal beating of her heart.
When Dhar sat down at the table, Nancy couldn’t look at him. Deputy Commissioner Patel didn’t look at him, either, but that was because the policeman was more interested in watching Mr. and Mrs. Dogar. They were arguing—Mrs. Dogar wouldn’t sit down, Mr. Dogar wouldn’t stand up—and the detective noticed something extremely simple but peculiar about the two of them; they had almost exactly the same haircut. Mr. Dogar wore his wonderfully thick hair in a vain pompadour; it was cut short at the back of his neck, and it was tightly trimmed over his ears, but a surprisingly full and cocky wave of his hair was brushed high off his forehead—his hair was silver, with streaks of white. Mrs. Dogar’s hair was black with streaks of silver (probably dyed), but her hairdo was the same as her husband’s, albeit more stylish. It gave her a slightly Spanish appearance. A pompadour! Imagine that, thought Detective Patel. He saw that Mrs. Dogar had persuaded her husband to stand.
Mr. Sethna would later inform the deputy commissioner of what words passed between the Dogars, but the policeman could have guessed. Mrs. Dogar was complaining that her husband had already slurped too much champagne; she wouldn’t tolerate a minute more of his drunkenness—she would have the servants fix them a midnight supper at home, where at least she would not be publicly embarrassed by Mr. Dogar’s ill-considered behavior.
“They’re leaving!” Dr. Daruwalla observed. “What happened? Did you agitate her?” the screenwriter asked the actor.
Dhar had a drink of champagne, which made his lip sting. The sweat was rolling down his face—after all, he’d been dancing all night—and his hands were noticeably shaky; they watched him exchange the champagne glass for his water glass. Even a sip of water caused him to wince. Nancy had had to force herself to look at him; now she couldn’t look away.
The deputy commissioner was still thinking about the haircuts. The pompadour had a feminizing effect on old Mr. Dogar, but the same hairdo conveyed a mannishness to his wife. The detective concluded that Mrs. Dogar resembled a bullfighter; Detective Patel had never seen a bullfighter, of course.
Farrokh was dying to know which dialogue John D. had used. The sweating movie star was still fussing with his lip. The doctor observed that Dhar’s lower lip was swollen; it had the increasingly purplish hue of a contusion. The doctor waved his arms for a waiter and asked for a tall glass of ice—just ice.
“So she kissed you,” Nancy said.
“It was more like a bite,” John D. replied.
“But what did you say?” Dr. Daruwalla cried.
“Did you arrange a meeting?” Detective Patel asked Dhar.
“Lunch here, tomorrow,” the actor replied.
“Lunch!” the screenwriter said with disappointment.
“So you’ve made a start,” the policeman said.
“Yes, I think so. It’s something, anyway—I’m not sure what,” Dhar remarked.
“So she responded?” Farrokh asked. He felt frustrated, for he wanted to hear the dialogue between them—word for word.
“Look at his lip!” Nancy told the doctor. “Of course she responded!”
“Did you ask her to draw you a picture?” Farrokh wanted to know.
“That part was scary—at least it got a little strange,” Dhar said evasively. “But I think she’s going to show me something.”
“At lunch?” Dr. Daruwalla asked. John D. shrugged; he was clearly exasperated with all the questions.
“Let him talk, Farrokh. Stop putting words in his mouth,” Julia told him.
“But he’s not talking!” the doctor cried.
“She said she wanted me to submit to her,” Dhar told the deputy commissioner.
“She wants to tie him up!” Farrokh shouted.
“She said she meant more than that,” Dhar replied.
“What’s ‘more than that’?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.
The waiter brought the ice and John D. held a piece to his lip.
“Put the ice in your mouth and suck on it,” the doctor told him, but John D. kept applying the ice in his own way.
“She bit me inside and out,” was all he said.
“Did you get to the part about her sex-change operation?” the screenwriter asked.
“She thought that part was funny,” John D. told them. “She laughed.”
By now the indentations on the outside of Dhar’s lower lip were easier to see, even in the candlelight in the Ladies’ Garden; the teeth marks had left such deep bruises, the discolored lip was turning from a pale purple to a dark magenta, as if Mrs. Dogar’s teeth had left a stain.
To her husband’s surprise, Nancy helped herself to a second glass of champagne; Detective Patel had been mildly shocked that his wife had accepted the first glass. Now Nancy raised her glass, as if she were toasting everyone in the Ladies’ Garden.
“Happy New Year,” she said, but to no one in particular.
“Auld Lang Syne”
Finally, they served the midnight supper. Nancy picked at her food, which her husband eventually ate. John D. couldn’t eat anything spicy because of his lip; he didn’t tell them about the erection Mrs. Dogar had given him, or how—or about how she’d said he was as big as an elephant. Dhar decided he’d tell Detective Patel later, when they were alone. When the policeman excused himself from the table, John D. followed him to the men’s room and told him there.
“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 ba
nd 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 Lal; 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. “I 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 Rah
ul 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 Lal—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.
25. JUBILEE DAY
No Monkey
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.
A Son of the Circus Page 70