Arzee the Dwarf

by Chandrahas Choudhury

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Thank you – thank you so much.’

  Deepak wasn’t home! Another hour of brooding and stewing in silence! As Arzee went down the stairs, he felt intensely disappointed with Deepak. Deepak had asked him to come at seven – made him promise to come at seven – threatened him with dire consequences if he didn’t come at seven. And then Deepak himself wasn’t there at seven! Deepak could have easily called or messaged asking him to come later, but he hadn’t. Deepak had no consideration for him – while he had been looking forward all day to the meeting, even though it was going to cost him, for Deepak he was just a vessel bearing money. It didn’t matter whether they met or not, as long as the money was passed across. He’d been thinking since yesterday that Deepak might become his friend, but Deepak didn’t really care.

  ‘Or maybe he thought I wouldn’t come, so he went his own way,’ he thought. ‘After all, in six months of knowing me he hasn’t got a rupee out of me yet. Yes…that must be it! But I’ve come! That means that Deepak will be pleasantly surprised when he comes back. He’ll see that I kept my word. So I must be there when he returns, else my thousand rupees will have gone waste. What? Still fighting!’

  He said to the boys: ‘Let me through, you rascals. Hello! I’m speaking to you! What’re you looking at? Never seen a man before?’

  The boys stopped scuffling and made way for him to pass.

  ‘Whose bat is this?’

  ‘Mine. Give it back.’

  ‘Ok, but tell me first – who’s your favourite cricketer?’

  ‘Sachin.’

  ‘Sachin! He’s good, but he gets out too often when he’s close to a hundred. Dhoni’s the man – mark my words, one day he’s going to be captain! Can you tell me where Phiroz K. Pir lives in this chawl? An old Parsi? Mumbles to himself when he walks – brrm brrm brrm?’

  Phiroz lived on the first floor of Building Number 1 of the Old Wadia Chawl. His home was no more than a fifteen-minute walk from the Noor, yet Arzee had never visited the old projectionist. Phiroz didn’t encourage home visits – didn’t go to people’s homes either. Phiroz wasn’t very social.

  ‘I hope he’s home,’ thought Arzee, as he went up the stairs. ‘I’m curious to see what his home looks like. And his daughter. Will she be good-looking? It’s not likely. There’s always been something wrong about Phiroz. He lives half the time among birds and animals, or with his gods, or with the Babur – he’s at his best when he’s not with humans! With us he’s so secretive. But Phiroz is Phiroz. I’m not so angry with him any more. But I haven’t forgiven him either. I’ve only come because I have an hour to pass.’

  Phiroz’s building’s was smaller – it must have been built earlier – and its condition was much worse than that of Deepak’s. Fetid water had pooled at different places, and when Arzee reached the unlit first-floor landing, he saw that a chunk of the wall not far from Phiroz’s door had disappeared altogether, leaving a gaping hole large enough that a child, or he himself, could fall through.

  He peered down through the hole, hands on knees, and found himself looking straight down into the yawning black mouth of a disused well, surrounded by weeds. In the spooky twilight the circle seemed to be going round and round, sucking the air in. There was something hypnotic about it – it seemed to be calling to him to come, to come, to erase the gap between them. ‘Shall I?’ thought Arzee, and the world began to spin, and he had to hold on to the crumbling brick as his heart leapt with excitement and panic. ‘It’ll be all over in an instant. I’ll be done with this tanta life! No – I’ll regret it the moment I let go, just as I’ve regretted every other decision in my life! And it just looks empty from the top – it might not be. I can’t trust this body of mine – I’ll step back before it flies me through. I’m sweating! Ah – that’s the sound of Phiroz’s voice.’

  He wiped his face and arms on his sleeve, and reached up and pressed Phiroz’s doorbell. There was no response. He rang again, paced about back and forth, put his ear to the door. He’d just heard Phiroz speaking!

  ‘Phirozbhai!’ he shouted, rapping on the wood. ‘It’s me, Phirozbhai! Open up!’

  Eventually he heard the sound of Phiroz’s shuffling step on the other side. ‘Who is it?’ said Phiroz from behind the door.

  ‘It’s me, Phirozbhai! Doesn’t your bell work?’

  He could hear a woman’s voice too, asking some sort of question. He put his ear to the door again.

  ‘It’s Arzee,’ Phiroz was saying. ‘Arzee the dwarf. But why is he here?’

  Arzee could hear – see, almost – Phiroz’s knobby fingers fumbling with the bolt. Then the door opened and there stood Phiroz in his vest and pajamas, holding a candle up to his face.

  ‘Why can’t you say your name?’ he said tetchily. ‘There’s a reason your parents gave you a name.’

  ‘It’s only me, Phirozbhai. Why is there no current in your house?’

  ‘I forgot to pay the bill, so they cut it,’ said Phiroz. ‘There won’t be any electricity till the morning now. What’re you doing here?’

  ‘I had some work here, so I thought I’d drop by. Shall I come in, Phirozbhai?’

  ‘Come.’

  ‘This is a historic day in our relationship, Phirozbhai. I’ve never come to your house before.’

  Phiroz grunted. ‘We meet everyday, so what’s the reason to visit?’ He put the candle on a table. ‘Find yourself a place to sit. The house is a mess.’

  Arzee looked around. The room was in a mess – he could tell that even by candlelight. Newspapers lay scattered on the floor. A vest and a pair of trousers were draped on the arm of a chair. A red bucket stood in the centre of the room, and every two seconds a drop of water detached itself from the mouldy ceiling and fell into the bucket with a plop. Phiroz’s daughter was clearly not the best housekeeper. Or perhaps they never had any visitors here, so they naturally never bothered to keep things in order. Arzee caught sight of a sheaf of cards and envelopes peeking out from under a cushion. Beside a half-full cup of tea on a low table, an address book was lying pressed open by a paperweight. The electricity was gone, but Phiroz was working, chipping away at his fatherly duties.

  ‘If you – if you need any help with arrangements for the wedding, Phirozbhai, just let me know,’ he said, feeling guilty.

  Phiroz grunted again, and sat down. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Is your daughter not at home, Phirozbhai? I thought I heard someone’s voice.’

  ‘I’m home!’ came a high clear voice from inside. ‘How do you do, Mister Arzee? I am Shireen.’

  Arzee was so surprised at being hailed like this that he jumped. Then he found himself calling back, ‘Hello! Hello, Miss Shireen!’ just as loudly, so that his voice would carry. ‘So we meet after all these years,’ he continued. ‘But please don’t call me “Mister”.’

  ‘Okay. But then why are you calling me “Miss”?’

  ‘Because – because it’s not yet time to call you “Mrs”.’

  The girl laughed and said, ‘Father has told me a lot about you.’

  ‘Really? What has he said?’ Arzee loved to hear what people said about him.

  ‘Lots of things. Even though I’ve never met you, I feel I know you very well.’

  She had only said two or three sentences, but Arzee saw that the girl was a beautiful talker. There was something about her bantering tone that drew you in right away and set your thoughts running, just like it was with Dashrath. And she didn’t speak to him, like so many people did, in a special dwarf tone – she spoke to him as his friends did. He felt they were only pretending they didn’t know each other – actually they’d known each other for years. Had they? ‘Is it – is it her?’ he suddenly thought to himself, and his heart jumped a beat. ‘No, of course it can’t be – what a fool I am!’ But he wanted to see what she looked like, and he said: ‘But I hardly know you, Miss Shireen. Your father’s never said a word about you to me – he’s kept yo
u well-hidden. Won’t you come and join us in here?’

  ‘I’d have liked to, but I’m soaking my feet in hot water, and if I let it grow cold I’ll have to heat the water all over again. But if you wait for ten minutes, I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘You are really working very hard for your marriage, Miss Shireen! If I was getting married I don’t think I’d go in for anything more than a new shirt and a shave.’

  ‘I hope you are coming to the wedding! You are one of the special invitees.’

  ‘I’ll come, Miss Shireen. You’ve left me with no choice, as you’re refusing to join us now, and we have to meet somewhere. But congratulations! I’m sure your husband is a really lucky man.’

  ‘The important thing is that he should think that. I’m not so sure he does.’

  ‘You’re being too modest, Miss Shireen. If people like you start being modest, then where will people like me be left? People like me have to exaggerate their talents tenfold just to stay afloat.’

  ‘That’s just your way of being modest, Mister Arzee. You’re playing the same game that you accuse me of playing.’

  ‘I – I –’

  ‘She’s a smart girl,’ said Phiroz, looking up from his envelopes. He chuckled proudly. ‘You can never win with her.’

  ‘So you really are not going to come out and see us, Miss Shireen? What’s this? It’s a cat!’

  ‘I’ve sent out my representative to meet you, Mister Arzee. I’m like a queen – I deal with the world through my emissaries.’

  ‘So you’re saying I’m just a common fellow, Miss Shireen? You’re probably right. I’m a common man, Miss Shireen, a very small man.’

  ‘Oh, don’t take offence, Mister Arzee. My cat and I are as one person anyway. If you’ve seen my cat you’ve seen me.’

  ‘I see your cat, Miss Shireen. It’s right by my feet and it’s staring straight at me.’

  ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘Actually, all cats look the same to me. I only know that there are black cats, white cats, and mixed cats, and that they mew and like milk and fish.’

  ‘Then we can never be friends, Mister Arzee. All the people who don’t say good things about my cat look the same to me.’

  ‘Now you’re throwing a tantrum, Miss Shireen. All this won’t do when you’re married. All right, it’s a very beautiful cat. I knew someone who had a cat once.’

  ‘Don’t lean forward. You’re blocking the light,’ said Phiroz.

  ‘Sorry, Phirozbhai.’

  ‘When are you getting married, Mister Arzee?’ came the voice again from the balcony.

  ‘Married? Um…as soon as I find the right girl, Miss Shireen. Finding the right girl is the hardest thing. And…we’re living in a time where looks are everything, Miss Shireen. As you know, I’m a little – a little on the short side, and it’s not easy being so in this world.’

  ‘Why? Father says you’re really popular with the girls. He’s even met your girlfriend.’

  ‘That was a long time ago, Miss Shireen, a long time ago. She’s gone, and I’ve put that behind me now. There are some things I’ve told myself I won’t think about any more, and that’s one of them. You can’t live in resentment and self-pity, Miss Shireen – it’s no consolation that you were really in the right!’ There was no response from the girl, so he went on, ‘And now the Noor is going too. They’re all leaving one by one.’

  ‘I know. That’s so sad. What have you thought?’

  ‘It’s too soon to have thought anything, Miss Shireen. It’s all happened too suddenly – I wasn’t prepared for it. You know, your house reminds me of the cinema, because in the evenings I light a candle and work just like this. Don’t you think shadows are so interesting?’

  ‘Yes, shadows are everywhere.’

  ‘Miss Shireen,’ said Arzee, and his words were also meant for Phiroz, ‘I can’t help feeling that my life is slowly drawing to a close, and something else awaits me on the other side. I won’t be the Arzee that I am then, and I don’t know who I’m going to be. While standing at your door a little while ago, I looked down and saw the well below –’

  ‘Don’t sound so dejected, Mister Arzee. Why, you’re in the absolute prime of your youth! Remember, it is always darkest just before dawn.’

  ‘I thank you for your kind words, Miss Shireen. They don’t change the reality of this small man visiting your house for the first time, but that doesn’t make them any less kind and good.’

  ‘Kindness and goodness are just –’

  ‘Now you keep quiet for a bit!’ said Phiroz. ‘Learn to control that tongue, else your husband will send you right back.’

  ‘Won’t you take me in then, Father? Else I’ll sit outside your door and talk all day long.’

  ‘Please come and join us, Miss Shireen, I beg of you.’ Arzee really did want to see the person behind this voice, the source of these beguiling words. But perhaps they wouldn’t be able to speak so freely once he had done so. The sight of faces and bodies could stop up mouths.

  ‘I want to buy a watch for my son-in-law,’ said Phiroz. He looked at Arzee’s wrist. ‘Where can I get a watch like yours?’

  ‘Like mine? That won’t be so easy, Phirozbhai,’ said Arzee. ‘It used to belong to my father. I don’t think you can get one like this any more.’

  Phiroz was silent. His mouth worked under the shadow of his moustache. He kept staring at Arzee. His face looked odd in the candlelight.

  ‘But we can try,’ said Arzee. ‘We can go to the market and take a look.’

  ‘I want a watch like that for my son-in-law,’ said Phiroz. A drop of water fell from the ceiling and burst on his dome-like head. He looked up, aggrieved, and pointed. ‘Every day this ceiling leaks in a new place. The living room is leaking. The bedroom is leaking. The balcony is leaking. The bathroom is leaking. But half the time there’s no water in the taps.’

  ‘That reminds me. Could I please use your bathroom, Phirozbhai?’

  ‘It’s that way,’ said Phiroz. ‘Take the candle with you.’

  ‘In two minutes your ten minutes will be up, Miss Shireen,’ said Arzee, getting up, ‘and then you’ll have to come out of hiding and make us some tea. Otherwise I will be very upset, and I’ll…and I’ll kidnap your cat!’ Shireen laughed. ‘You’re laughing now, but I will! I’ll be right back.’

  He took the candle and proceeded in the direction Phiroz had indicated, leaving the old man in the dark. As he passed the inner room he could only see the legs of Phiroz’s daughter in the balcony, dipped into a tub of water like toothbrushes in a stand.

  ‘What a relief it is to talk!’ he thought. ‘I felt it last night with Dashrath, and I feel it again now. I’ve been bouncing thoughts off the walls of my brain all day long, and it’s killing me. If only I had someone like this girl in my life, then I wouldn’t be so unhappy.’

  He closed the bathroom door, set the candle down carefully on the washbasin, unzipped his trousers, and looked down into the small black hole. He couldn’t remember having ever taken a leak by candlelight before.

  No – his organ definitely wasn’t as small as his friends kept alleging! But he couldn’t well take it out and show them either. Its shadow on the wall was enormous. Often it twitched, and he was maddened and had to surrender to its demands, but in those moments it also surged with such power that he felt humble before it, by how it knew exactly what it wanted. He could feel it growing bigger in his hand as he thought about it. It seemed to be looking around lewdly with its one eye as it whispered and passed water.

  Suddenly his phone began to ring. Arzee groped for it with his free hand. The flapping of his arm stirred the air, and the flame of the candle guttered out. He saw that it was Deepak calling – Deepak must have seen the missed call on his phone. Arzee hastily took the call before Deepak cut it. In the bathroom mirror he could see nothing but his nose and his lips, pale in the light of his phone display.

  ‘What are you up to, little man?’ Deepak’s mock
ing laugh rang in Arzee’s ears. In the darkness he seemed so close, as if he was watching him from somewhere above, chortling at this private moment.

  ‘Where – where are you, Deepakbhai?’ said Arzee, looking around.

  ‘At home, where else? My wife says you wanted to speak to me about something important. First you spend six months running away from me, and then you come chasing me. What is it that’s making your ass itch now?’

  ‘No it’s not that, Deepakbhai. It’s just that –’

  ‘Don’t eat up my phone time – I’m paying for every word you speak. Drop whatever it is you’re doing and come on over. If you’re not here in ten minutes then I won’t open the door for you.’

  ‘I’ll be right there, Deepakbhai. You open your door and I’ll be there. See you in a minute, Deepakbhai.’

  Arzee put his phone back in his pocket and fumbled with his trousers, grumbling. Why couldn’t Deepak have come home a bit later? He found his matchbox and relit the candle, then washed his hands, looking at all the tubes on the bathroom shelf. The Pir family used Colgate toothpaste, Lux soap, Pears facewash, and Old Spice shaving cream. He took the candle out with him.

  ‘I have to leave on some urgent work, Phirozbhai,’ he said. ‘So the two of you still owe me that cup of tea. Shall I…shall I come tomorrow evening? I’ve never come home all these years, so…’

  ‘Come,’ said Phiroz, and grunted. ‘Who’s going to take care of the show?’

  ‘Sule! We can let Sule do some work.’

  ‘Do come!’ said Shireen.

  ‘All right. So goodbye, Miss Shireen. I arrived suddenly, and am leaving even more suddenly, but that’s how I am! But your husband is a lucky man, that’s what I think. See you at the cinema tomorrow, Phirozbhai.’

  ‘Think about the watch,’ said Phiroz. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  ‘A fine girl,’ thought Arzee, as he left Phiroz’s. ‘If you know how to talk, then your time is never boring, that’s clear. There’s always something to do. Housekeeping isn’t her strong point, but then every person has faults. Perhaps she can cook. And the way she didn’t come out of the balcony…it was like speaking to a girl in purdah! Perhaps she’s ugly – that’s why Phiroz wasn’t able to marry her off for all these years. Now, Phirozbhai’s flat is on this side, and the balcony faces out. So maybe if I shout her name out suddenly, she’ll peep out.’