A Son of the Circus

by John Winslow Irving

  “It’s impressive that you have an understudy for such a little part,” the doctor said cautiously.

  “My ‘understudy’ is Martin,” the twin confessed. “We thought we’d try it—just to see if anyone noticed.”

  Once again Farrokh sounded like an overcritical father. “You should be more protective of your career than that,” Dr. Daruwalla chided John D. “Martin can be a clod! What if he can’t act at all? He could completely embarrass you!”

  “We’ve been practicing,” said the old Inspector Dhar.

  “And I suppose you’ve been posing as him,” Farrokh remarked. “Lectures on Graham Greene, no doubt—Martin’s favorite ‘Catholic interpretation.’ And a few inspirational speeches at those Jesuit centers—a Jesus in every parking lot, more than enough Christs to go around… that kind of thing.”

  “Yes,” John D. admitted. “It’s been fun.”

  “You should be ashamed—both of you!” Dr. Daruwalla cried.

  “You put us together,” John D. replied.

  Nowadays, Farrokh knew, the twins were much more alike in their appearance. John D. had lost a little weight; Martin had put the pounds on—incredibly, the former Jesuit was going to a gym. They also cut their hair the same way. Having been separated for 39 years, the twins took being identical somewhat seriously.

  Then there was that particularly transatlantic silence, with a rhythmic bleeping—a sound that seemed to count the time. And John D. remarked, “So… it’s probably sunset there.” When John D. said “there,” he meant Bombay. Counting 10½ hours, Dr. Daruwalla figured that it would be more or less sunset. “I’ll bet she’s on the balcony, just watching,” John D. went on. “What do you bet?” Dr. Daruwalla knew that the ex-Inspector Dhar was thinking of Nancy and her view to the west.

  “I guess it’s about that time,” the doctor answered carefully.

  “It’s probably too early for the good policeman to be home,” John D. continued. “She’s all alone, but I’ll bet she’s on the balcony—just watching.”

  “Yes—probably,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “Want to bet?” John D. asked. “Why don’t you call her and see if she’s there? You can tell by how long it takes her to get to the phone.”

  “Why don’t you call her?” Farrokh asked.

  “I never call Nancy,” John D. told him.

  “She’d probably enjoy hearing from you,” Farrokh lied.

  “No, she wouldn’t,” John D. said. “But I’ll bet you anything she’s on the balcony. Go on and call her.”

  “I don’t want to call her!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “But I agree with you—she’s probably on the balcony. So… you win the bet, or there’s no bet. She’s on the balcony. Just leave it at that.” Where else would Nancy be? the doctor wondered; he was quite sure John D. was drunk.

  “Please call her. Please do it for me, Farrokh,” John D. said to him.

  There wasn’t much to it. Dr. Daruwalla called his former Marine Drive apartment. The phone rang and rang; it rang so long, the doctor almost hung up. Then Nancy picked up the phone. There was her defeated voice, expecting nothing. The doctor chatted aimlessly for a while; he pretended that the call was of no importance—just a whim. Vijay wasn’t yet back from Crime Branch Headquarters, Nancy informed him. They would have dinner at the Duckworth Club, but a bit later than usual. She knew there’d been another bombing, but she didn’t know the details.

  “Is there a nice sunset?” Farrokh asked.

  “Oh, yes… sort of fading now,” Nancy told him.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to it!” he told her a little too heartily. Then he called John D. and told him that she’d definitely been on the balcony; Farrokh repeated Nancy’s remark about the sunset—“sort of fading now.” The retired Inspector Dhar kept saying the line; he wouldn’t stop practicing the phrase until Dr. Daruwalla assured him that he had it right—that he was saying it precisely as Nancy had said it. He really is a good actor, the former screenwriter thought; it was impressive how closely John D. could imitate the exact degree of deadness in Nancy’s voice.

  “Sort of fading now,” John D. kept saying. “How’s that?”

  “That’s it—you’ve got it,” Farrokh told him.

  “Sort of fading now,” John D. repeated. “Is that better?”

  “Yes, that’s perfect,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “Sort of fading now,” said the actor.

  “Stop it,” the ex-screenwriter said.

  Allowed to Use the Lift at Last

  As a former guest chairman of the Membership Committee, Dr. Daruwalla knew the rules of the Duckworth Club; the 22-year waiting list for applicants was inviolable. The death of a Duckworthian—for example, Mr. Dogar’s fatal stroke, which followed fast upon the news that the second Mrs. Dogar had been beaten to death by her guards—did not necessarily speed up the process of membership. The Membership Committee never crassly viewed a fellow Duckworthian’s death as a matter of making room. Not even the death of Mr. Dua would “make room” for a new member. And Mr. Dua was sorely missed; his deafness in one ear was legendary—the never-to-be-forgotten tennis injury, the senseless blow from the flung racket of his doubles partner (who’d double-faulted). Dead at last, poor Mr. Dua was deaf in both ears now; yet not one new membership came of it.

  However, Farrokh knew that not even the rules of the Duckworth Club were safe from a single most interesting loophole. It was stated that upon the formal resignation of a Duckworthian, as distinct from a Duckworthian’s demise, a new member could be spontaneously appointed to take the resigning member’s place; such an appointment circumvented the normal process of nomination and election and the 22-year waiting list. Had this exception to the rules been overused, it doubtless would have been criticized and eliminated, but Duckworthians didn’t resign. Even when they moved away from Bombay, they paid their dues and retained their membership; Duckworthians were Duckworthians forever.

  Three years after he left India—“for good,” or so he’d said—Dr. Daruwalla still faithfully paid his dues to the Duckworth Club; even in Toronto, the doctor read the club’s monthly newsletter. But John D. did the unexpected, unheard-of, un-Duckworthian thing: he resigned his membership. Deputy Commissioner Patel was “spontaneously appointed” in the retired Inspector Dhar’s stead. The former movie star was replaced by the real policeman, who (all agreed) had distinguished himself in “community leadership.” If there were objections to the big blond wife who went everywhere with the esteemed detective, these objections were never too openly expressed, although Mr. Sethna was committed to remembering Nancy’s furry navel and the day she’d stood on a chair and reached into the mechanism of the ceiling fan—not to mention the night she’d danced with Dhar and left the club in tears, or the day after, when she’d left the club in anger (with Dhar’s dwarf).

  Dr. Daruwalla would learn that Detective Patel and Nancy were controversial additions to the Duckworth Club. But the old club, the doctor knew, was just one more oasis—a place where Nancy might hope to contain herself, and where the deputy commissioner could indulge in a brief respite from the labors of his profession. This was how Farrokh preferred to think of the Patels—relaxing in the Ladies’ Garden, watching a slower life go by than the life they’d lived. They deserved a break, didn’t they? And although it had taken three years, the swimming pool was finally finished; in the hottest months, before the monsoon, the pool would be nice for Nancy.

  It was never acknowledged that John D. had played the role of the Patels’ benefactor or the part of Nancy’s guardian angel. But not only had John D.’s resignation from the Duckworth Club provided a membership for the Patels; it had been John D.’s idea that the view from the Daruwallas’ balcony would do Nancy some good. Without questioning the doctor’s motives, the Patels had moved into the Marine Drive apartment—ostensibly to look after the aged servants.

  In one of several flawlessly typed letters, Deputy Commissioner Patel wrote to Dr. Daruwalla that although t
he offensive elevator sign had not been replaced—that is, after it was stolen a second time—the Daruwallas’ ancient servants nevertheless continued to struggle up and down the stairs. The old rules had penetrated Nalin and Roopa; the rules were permanently in place—they would outlive any sign. The servants themselves refused to ride in the lift; their tragic preconditioning couldn’t be helped. The policeman expressed a deeper sympathy for the thief. The Residents’ Society had assigned the task of catching the culprit to Detective Patel. The deputy commissioner confided to Dr. Daruwalla that he wasn’t making much progress in solving the case, but that he suspected the second thief was Nancy—not Vinod.

  As for the continued disruption to the building that was caused by the first-floor dogs, this always happened at an ungodly hour of the early morning. The first-floor residents claimed that the dogs were deliberately incited to bark by a familiar, violent-looking dwarf taxi driver—formerly a “chauffeur” for Dr. Daruwalla and the retired Inspector Dhar—but Detective Patel was inclined to lay the blame on various stray beggars off Chowpatty Beach. Even after a lock was fashioned for the lobby door, the dogs were occasionally driven insane, and the first-floor residents insisted that the dwarf had managed to gain unlawful entrance to the lobby; several of them said they’d seen an off-white Ambassador driving away. But these allegations were discounted by the deputy commissioner, for the first-floor dogs were barking in May of 1993—more than a month after those Bombay bombings that killed more than 200 people, Vinod among them.

  The dogs were still barking, Detective Patel wrote to Dr. Daruwalla. It was Vinod’s ghost who was disturbing them, Farrokh felt certain.

  On the door of the downstairs bathroom in the Daruwallas’ house on Russell Hill Road, there hung the sign that the dwarf had stolen for them. It was a big hit with their friends in Toronto.

  SERVANTS ARE NOT ALLOWED

  TO USE THE LIFT

  UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY CHILDREN

  In retrospect, it seemed cruel that the ex-clown had survived the terrible teeterboard accident at the Great Blue Nile. It appeared that the gods had toyed with Vinod’s fate—that he’d been launched by an elephant into the bleachers and had risen to a kind of local stardom in the private-taxi business seemed trivial. And that the dwarf had come to the rescue of Martin Mills, who’d fallen among those unusually violent prostitutes, seemed merely mock-heroic now. It struck Dr. Daruwalla as completely unfair that Vinod had been blown up in the bombing of the Air India building.

  On the afternoon of March 12, 1993, a car bomb exploded on the exit ramp of the driveway, not far from the offices of the Bank of Oman. People were killed on the street; others were killed in the bank, which occupied that part of the Air India building nearest the site of the explosion. The Bank of Oman was demolished. Probably Vinod was waiting for a passenger who was doing business in the bank. The dwarf had been sitting at the wheel of his taxi, which was unfortunately parked next to the vehicle containing the car bomb. Only Deputy Commissioner Patel was capable of explaining why so many squash-racquet handles and old tennis balls were scattered all over the street.

  There was a clock on the Air India hoarding, the billboard above the building; for two or three days after the bombing, the time was stuck at 2:48—strangely, Dr. Daruwalla would wonder if Vinod had noticed the time. The deputy commissioner implied that the dwarf had died instantly.

  Patel reported that the pitiful assets of Vinod’s Blue Nile, Ltd., would scarcely provide for the dwarf’s wife and son; but Shivaji’s success at the Great Royal Circus would take care of the young dwarf and his mother, and Deepa had earlier been left a sizable inheritance. To her surprise, she’d been more than mentioned in Mr. Garg’s will. (Acid Man had died of AIDS within a year of the Daruwallas’ departure from Bombay.) The holdings of the Wetness Cabaret had been huge in comparison to those of Vinod’s Blue Nile, Ltd. The size of Deepa’s share of the strip joint had been sufficient to close the cabaret down.

  Exotic dancing had never meant actual stripping—real strip joints weren’t allowed in Bombay. What passed for exotic dancing at the Wetness Cabaret had never amounted to more than stripteasing. The clientele, as Muriel had once observed, was truly vile, but the reason someone had thrown an orange at her was that the exotic dancer wouldn’t take off her clothes. Muriel was a stripper who wouldn’t strip, just as Garg had been a Good Samaritan who wasn’t a Good Samaritan—or so Dr. Daruwalla supposed.

  There was a photograph of Vinod that John D. had framed; the actor kept it on his desk in his Zürich apartment. It wasn’t a picture of the dwarf in his car-driving days, when the former Inspector Dhar had known Vinod best; it was an old circus photo. It had always been John D.’s favorite photograph of Vinod. In the picture, the dwarf is wearing his clown costume; the baggy polka-dotted pants are so short, Vinod appears to be standing on his knees. He’s wearing a tank top, a muscle shirt—with spiraling stripes, like the stripes on a barber’s pole—and he’s grinning at the camera, his smile enhanced by the larger smile that’s painted on his face; the edges of his painted smile extend to the corners of the dwarf’s bright eyes.

  Standing directly beside Vinod, in profile to the camera, is an open-mouthed hippopotamus. What’s shocking about the photograph is that the whole dwarf, standing up straight, would easily fit in the hippo’s yawning mouth. The oddly opposed lower teeth are within Vinod’s reach; the hippo’s teeth are as long as the dwarf’s arms. At the time, the little clown must have felt the heat from the hippo’s mouth—the breath of rotting vegetables, the result of the lettuce that Vinod recalled feeding to the hippo, who swallowed the heads whole. “Like grapes,” the dwarf had said.

  Not even Deepa could remember how long ago the Great Blue Nile had had a hippo; by the time the dwarf’s wife joined the circus, the hippopotamus had died. After the dwarf’s death, John D. typed an epitaph for Vinod on the bottom of the hippo picture. Clearly, the epitaph was composed in memory of the forbidden elevator—that elite lift which the dwarf had never officially been allowed to use. Presently accompanied by children, the commemoration read.

  It wasn’t a bad epitaph, the retired screenwriter thought. Farrokh had acquired quite a collection of photographs of Vinod, most of which the dwarf had given him over the years. When Dr. Daruwalla wrote his condolences to Deepa, the doctor wanted to include a photo that he hoped the dwarf’s wife and son would like. It was hard to select only one; the doctor had so many pictures of Vinod—many more were in his mind, of course.

  While Farrokh was trying to find the perfect picture of Vinod to send to Deepa, the dwarf’s wife wrote to him. It was just a postcard from Ahmedabad, where the Great Royal was performing, but the thought was what mattered to Dr. Daruwalla. Deepa had wanted the doctor to know that she and Shivaji were all right. “Still falling in the net,” the dwarf’s wife wrote.

  That helped Farrokh find the photo he was looking for; it was a picture of Vinod in the dwarf’s ward at the Hospital for Crippled Children. The dwarf is recovering from surgery, following the results of the Elephant on a Teeterboard item. This time, there’s no clownish smile painted over Vinod’s grin; the dwarf’s natural smile is sufficient. In his stubby-fingered, trident hand, Vinod is clutching that list of his talents which featured car driving; the dwarf is holding his future in one hand. Dr. Daruwalla only vaguely remembered taking the picture.

  Under the circumstances, Farrokh felt it was necessary for him to inscribe some endearment on the back of the photograph; Deepa wouldn’t need to be reminded of the occasion of the photo—at the time, she’d been occupying a bed in the women’s ward of the same hospital, recovering from the doctor’s surgery on her hip. Inspired by John D.’s epitaph for Vinod, the doctor continued with the forbidden-elevator theme. Allowed to use the lift at last, the former screenwriter wrote, for although Vinod had missed the net, the dwarf had finally escaped the rules of the Residents’ Society.

  Not the Dwarfs

  One day, how would Dr. Daruwalla be remembered? As a
good doctor, of course; as a good husband, a good father—a good man, by all counts, though not a great writer. But whether he was walking on Bloor Street or stepping into a taxi on Avenue Road, almost no one seeing him would have thought twice about him; he was so seemingly assimilated. A well-dressed immigrant, perhaps; a nice, naturalized Canadian—maybe a well-to-do tourist. Although he was small, one could quibble about his weight; for a man in the late afternoon of his life, he would be wise to be thinner. Nevertheless, he was distinguished-looking.

  Sometimes he seemed a little tired—chiefly in the area of his eyes—or else there was something faraway about his thoughts, which, for the most part, he kept to himself. No one could have fathomed what a life he’d led, for it was chiefly a life lived in his mind. Possibly what passed for his tiredness was nothing more than the cost of his considerable imagination, which had never found the outlet that it sought.

  At the AIDS hospice, Farrokh would forever be remembered as Dr. Balls, but this was largely out of fondness. The one patient who’d bounced his tennis ball instead of squeezing it hadn’t irritated the nurses or the other staff for very long. When a patient died, that patient’s tennis ball would be returned to Dr. Daruwalla. The doctor had been only briefly bitten by religion; he wasn’t religious anymore. Yet these tennis balls of former patients were almost holy objects to Farrokh.

  At first, he would be at a loss with what to do with the old balls; he could never bring himself to throw them away, nor did he approve of giving them to new patients. Eventually, he disposed of them—but in an oddly ritualistic fashion. He buried them in Julia’s herb garden, where dogs would occasionally dig them up. Dr. Daruwalla didn’t mind that the dogs got to play with the tennis balls; the doctor found this a suitable conclusion to the life of these old balls—a pleasing cycle.