Arzee the Dwarf

by Chandrahas Choudhury

  Arzee began to show her where all the reels were kept, and how the Babur worked, and after a while, taking his cue – perhaps he’d done something just like this thirty years ago, for he too had been young once – Phirozbhai said, ‘It’s time for me to go.’ And he said, ‘Come on, Tyson,’ and then they both were gone. ‘It’s time to begin work,’ said Arzee, and as he loaded the first reel of the afternoon show into the Babur, Monique sat by the window, where the pigeons fluttered and cooed, and took a photograph of him with her phone. Arzee beckoned and led her to the shutter in the wall, to show her how the beam went out into the Noorian night and gathered itself into a picture upon the screen. He explained to her how each second of the movies was actually twenty-four still pictures rushed through the Babur at high speed to make for the illusion of motion, and why the screen was rectangular and not square, because that was the shape of the human eye, and because she seemed interested, he got her a chair so that she could watch the movie from the shutter while he went about his work. To his great relief she didn’t say, as she could have, ‘The picture’s not as good as in a multiplex.’ At the interval he put on some devotional music on the speaker system and declared, ‘Interval! We now have a ten-minute break.’

  And there, in that romance-haunted room where dozens of leading men and ladies had gone through hundreds of repeats of amorous gazes and whispers and declarations, and fights with parents and villains, and finally walked through the gate of happy endings, he kissed her once on tiptoe and was just about to kiss her again when he heard behind him a boy embarrassedly clearing his throat and saying:

  ‘I – I was told to send up some coffee.’

  And after she drank her coffee in small sips Monique said it was time for her to go and no, as he was busy he needn’t take the trouble of seeing her out, and see you later in the day, and first he watched her go down the stairs and blow him a kiss before she turned out, and then thirty seconds later from the window he saw her walk out onto the street with her small, birdlike step, her bag at her shoulder, looking neither left not right, and disappear. And looking up he saw the afternoon sky was bright, and the sky was scored down the middle by the feathery white trail, still unspooling, of a tiny aeroplane ploughing through the heavens. Although he had never taken a flight in his life, old Phiroz always said that the cinema and the aeroplane were the two great inventions of the twentieth century.

  Once Monique said while cooking dinner, ‘The best way to make a good-looking egg curry is to brown the eggs first in a spoonful of sugar in oil before putting in the spices.’ ‘Really?’ he said, and as he leaned over to squeeze her two of the eggs exploded and left hot sparks of oil over their faces and arms, and Monique laughed and cried, as if she was on a TV show, ‘Cut! Cut!’

  And another time Monique held up a pile of old newspapers and said, ‘What’s going on in the world? All these bombings and murders! Why can’t people just live together in peace and happiness? Do you know, Arzee?’ And he said, ‘No, in fact I too am a violent person,’ and grabbed her by the waist, and they fell squealing and kicking on the sofa.

  And another day she said nothing at all, and was sombre and silent, and didn’t laugh at any of his jokes, and he found out it was the death anniversary of her brother, who was still-born twenty-three years ago. If he’d been alive today he’d have been a young man called Martin or Joachim, and had a job with a bank or a PR firm, and probably a girlfriend, as he’d have been handsome, with long rebonded hair and a gold stud in his ear. But at the very moment that he was supposed to enter the world, his life was inexplicably taken away from him.

  And one evening Arzee’s mind was rooting and rummaging pleasurably among these very things – bits and pieces of his hours with Monique – as he ran up the steps of her building two at a time, rapping on his thigh the beat of a great song he’d heard in the auto-rickshaw that had dropped him home. He rang the bell, and reached up and blocked the door’s eyehole with his finger, which was his way of letting Monique know it was him. The door flew open, but as Arzee stepped forward, making the funny face with one eye closed that always made Monique laugh, he saw that it was not Monique but a huge mass of man in front of him, his face contorted as if he too was a character in a comedy.

  ‘Sorry Uncle, wrong floor,’ said Arzee, and turned to go, but even as he spoke these words, he matched the gentleman’s face to the photograph staring goggle-eyed from Monique’s drawing-room wall, and realized that he was none other than her father. Her angry father.

  ‘Wrong floor? Right floor!’ roared the man. ‘What are you standing out there for? Come in!’

  ‘Okay, sir. Hel-hello. Shall I take my shoes off?’ said Arzee, but as soon as he stepped over the threshold he knew that something was wrong, for the house he knew so well no longer had a Monique-feel to it. Monique had indeed mentioned her fearsome father, his contempt for most of the human race, his love of the bottle, and his thunderous temper, but never the possibility that he could turn up like this out of the blue, all the way from Goa. Monique’s father followed Arzee through the little corridor, and when they turned into the room Arzee saw that many things had been flung to the floor, and that Monique was sitting on a chair in the corner, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.

  ‘What’s all this?’ he said, turning uneasily to the big man. ‘These are all broken. This isn’t the way to be, sir.’

  ‘This isn’t the way to be?’ repeated Monique’s father unpleasantly, and made a gesture towards Arzee as if taking his measure from head to toe. ‘Then is this the way to be?’

  ‘I’m just a little small, sir, but it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything to your daughter, sir. Your daughter loves me just as I am. Once you get used to it, you’ll see that–’

  But as soon as he said ‘loves me’ Arzee knew that he’d made a mistake, because he saw the beast come rushing towards him, and before he knew it his head was turned ninety degrees by a booming slap. No one had slapped Arzee since he was a child, and when, after the cry of pain left his lips, the blood came rushing to his head, he forgot who he loved, and who loved him, and why he was here, and what was the course of prudence. As he saw the big hand rise again to strike him, he jumped forward and butted the stomach in front of him. Monique’s father winced and bent over, and as he came so temptingly within reach, Arzee’s own hand shot out towards that big, quivering cheek, and repaid his body’s debts with a sound that rang like a pistol-shot. As his hand recoiled and dropped down to his side again his mouth fell open in stupefaction, and so did Monique’s. The unthinkable had been done. He’d slapped his own future father-in-law!

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, and his face turned pale. ‘I hope it… it didn’t hurt! You shouldn’t have…we should sit and talk… Monique!’

  And now it seemed as if the ground was quivering and that the walls would come down, and after Monique’s father got hold of his collar Arzee knew nothing but a spinning and shaking of his own self. He recalled later that Monique was screaming and trying to separate them, but to no avail. His body was only returned to him when he was thrown out on the landing.

  ‘Go back to the circus you’ve come from!’ shouted Monique’s father. ‘And don’t dare come near my daughter again, because you won’t even live to regret it!’

  ‘I’m not from the circus, sir! I’m a man!’ cried Arzee, springing to his feet. ‘Come tomorrow and see, I work at the Noor –’

  But the door slammed shut in his face. Arzee banged on it, shouted ‘Monique! Monique!’ But soon he came to his senses and realized the futility of it all. The day was lost, so it was better to cede the day. He should go. He realized he had just one shoe on. Perhaps Monique was at her window with a signal for him? He went limping down, clutching at the side on which he had landed. There was no sign of Monique, but his shoe was lying in the middle of the street, already run over several times by cars.

  Insults. A beating. Thrown out of the house. But nothing came easy in life. He was a grown man now �
�� he knew what difficulties awaited him, and how they were to be overcome. Time – time was what healed quarrels, brought the angry back to peace. Every crisis always seemed worst at the very beginning. By the morning the old man’s temper would have cooled, and he would begin to see reason. Monique would speak to him – no one messed with Monique. It wasn’t he, Arzee, who would apologize to the old man. The old man would apologize to him!

  Arzee went home.

  The next morning Arzee, his cheek still a bright red, put his phone to the ear on the other side of his face and called Monique. He was annoyed to find that her phone was switched off. This was too much. He had his pride too. It was she who should have been calling him! He decided to seek her out at work, where if they talked it was only Tony who would be upset.

  But Monique wasn’t at work either. For the first time in six years, she’d taken a holiday. So the old man was still stewing! Perhaps he’d fallen ill. Arzee thought he would give it another day before he approached them. The next morning he got up early, took a bus to Grant Road station, and then a train to Khar. As he approached Monique’s building, he saw that the windows of her flat were shut. When he reached her door he found it locked.

  Monique was…

  Could it be that…?

  Monique was gone!

  Her father had gone back to Goa and taken her with him!

  Monique’s neighbour couldn’t say anything about what had happened. Arzee walked back to the station in a daze. Could something end so abruptly? Could someone vanish like this, like a spirit? But it was all right – she’d be back. Her work was here. Her life was here. He was here. She must have gone to drop her father at home. On Friday evening they’d be taking the train home together again.

  But Friday came, and still there was no sign of Monique. Arzee began to worry again. Was she upset with him? She might be. But it wasn’t his fault – it wasn’t he who’d raised his hand first, and he’d said he was sorry right away! He could explain, if they’d just listen. He’d turn everything around, make sure that everybody was happy. He’d sit and drink with her father; they’d tell dirty jokes to each other.

  Was there something he was missing? Had Monique left a message for him? He went back to Tony with this question, but Tony only said that Monique’s father had called two days ago to say she was leaving work with immediate effect. He had refused to leave a number. Tony spoke in such a way as if to imply that Arzee was to blame for all this. People were always finding a scapegoat for their troubles, while the powerful did as they pleased.

  Every day for a month Arzee woke up feeling restless, eager, as if this was to be the day, and every night he went to sleep shrunken and dejected. Every time his phone rang or beeped he scrambled to see who it was, but even when the call was from an unknown number, the voice on the other side was never Monique. Wherever she was in the world, his woman of few words had fallen completely silent. She seemed not to want to speak to him, to anybody from her old life, even though he missed her, the city missed her. Even Tony couldn’t quite believe that Monique was gone. When Arzee went to the salon a week later to see if he had any news, he saw that Monique’s chair still stood empty, and no one had been assigned to take it over.

  He could have made an attempt to find her, but as the weeks went by Arzee grew colder and colder, and all his love turned to ashes. All the dreams they’d seen – they’d only been games! All their talk – it had ended in this silence. It was clear that Monique, wherever she was, was all right without him, and that life was going on for her and had not stopped as it had for him. She knew, and she didn’t care. But he’d hold out – he wouldn’t go running after her like a fool. Yes, he was a dwarf. So? He could be taken for granted? Not so easily. Her father had already slapped him once – Arzee wasn’t going to abase himself further. In fact, there was only one good reason now to search Monique out, and that was so that he could slap her. She was the only one of the three who had got away without knowing what it was like to be slapped. With a dark, gloomy satisfaction Arzee reasoned that it was a good thing that he was free of fickle, inconstant Monique. For in the end she would have disappointed him anyway.

  How beautiful was the Noor! He seemed to have forgotten for all these months how beautiful it was. What fun he could have with his friends! He’d almost lost touch with all of them. How comforting was the simplest remark from his mother! He couldn’t understand why he had felt so impatient with her all these months. There were plenty of fine things in life – yes, so many fine things. Arzee felt so fragile it was as if he’d become even smaller, as if he was sinking into the ground and would soon be gone. The smallest thing made him wildly happy, and after that the abyss was deeper and darker than ever. He began to talk to himself aloud, and to speak a harsher tongue, and to seek out the comfort of drink, and to enjoy being nasty to people if he felt they crossed him. And he was happy about this, too, because it seemed to him that the only way he could pay Monique back was by crushing the old, simple, gullible Arzee, by not remaining faithful to the man she had abandoned. Only when he became a new man would he stop paying the old price.

  Small is man, and poor and mean, running the course of life unsupported, his only ties those of blood or of business. But that was how life was, when stripped of all illusions, and every day he could see the truth of it more clearly. Each person was alone in this world, and a man like him especially so. But he still had the Noor – he had further to go at the Noor. And in time he would marry, and with her care, his wife would close the door for ever on his ill-fated hours with Monique. That was what he thought. But he was only Arzee the dwarf, who undid all prospects by thinking and dreaming about them.

  Of all these things he spoke to Renu, laughing wildly in wonder for the first hour and then in agony for the next.

  ELEVEN

  It’s Only Me

  The sun was past its noonpeak, the lobby of the Noor was echoing with the ricochets of the movie playing within, and Tawde the gateman had a smirk on his face as Arzee gave him a nod and went past him. Arzee was back at work – for the short time that it was going to be full-time.

  ‘Why was Tawde looking at me like that?’ thought Arzee, checking his fly.

  To his left, Kaputkar the ticket clerk was glumly stacking packets of popcorn on the snack counter, blowing his nose into a large and very dirty handkerchief. Further on, Abjani’s presence in his office was confirmed by the two battered boots sticking out from beneath his desk. Tyson was nowhere to be seen, but a lizard lying dead on the floor could only have been his work. Arzee made his way up the stairs, stopped to look at his reflection in the mirror on the landing, and stopped again on the first floor to look at the gallery of photographs.

  ‘Women!’ he thought. ‘I’m a fool, and I proved it yesterday. Renu! Who was she? What was she? And me? What was I doing? What was I saying? Looks and gestures can be inches. Monique used to make omelettes with mushroom. Orgasms are bright pink. They must still be leaning against the walls of that place right now, screaming with laughter. But it’s easy to laugh, hard to be sincere – so laugh! Laugh away!’

  But he knew they hadn’t only laughed, because his last memories of the afternoon were that Renu had suddenly become Monique, he was clinging to her hand and asking her to come back home with him, and the waiter was pulling at his shoulder and telling him he wasn’t allowed to touch. And then the tears had come rushing in. All the girls had gathered around Arzee as he sat cross-legged on the sofa with his head in his hands. One had offered her dupatta to wipe his face with, a second patted his knee, a third held his cup of tea for him, and a fourth checked the expiry date on the aspirin. While one waiter turned down the lights because Arzee’s head was aching, the other was on his knees, mopping up the drink that Arzee had knocked over.

  And then they had taken him into a tiny, windowless room, with a low rickety bed covered by coarse grey sheets and a mouldy pillow. As Arzee lay down it seemed to him the most comfortable bed he had ever fallen into, and with this on
e thought he was out. He was woken several hours later by the hiss and thump of booming beats. A party was on, and no one seemed to notice as he threaded his way through the mass of shaking bodies and left the establishment.

  ‘I’m never going to Jogeshwari again, that’s for sure,’ thought Arzee. He swiped away a few cobwebs on the stairs to the projection room. ‘The smell of incense! Phiroz is back from Udwada.’

  Phiroz was on his knees below the pictures of his gods, praying beneath the twinkling blue lights. Spires of smoke were rising around his broad back, and his bald pate caught the light from the window. Sule was listlessly attending to the Babur, like a drooping farmer in the sun with his bullocks. Despite the incense there was a strange smell in the projection room, and Arzee was sure that it was Sule.

  ‘Get out,’ Arzee told him. ‘I’ve come now.’

  Sule silently put down a reel and left.

  ‘Sorry for the disturbance, Phirozbhai,’ said Arzee, picking up the reel and checking the number. ‘I’ll take care of the show. You go on.’

  ‘Shall I go on?’ said Phiroz without turning or moving, and it seemed to Arzee as if the rebuke was coming straight from the gods. ‘How shall I go on? I go away for five days, and when I come back I find out that you’ve hardly shown your face in here all this time. Is this how you take care of the show? Shall I send you an invitation every morning?’

  ‘Now, Phirozbhai –’

  ‘This is the Noor cinema. Do you know that or not?’

  ‘It was, Phirozbhai. It used to be the Noor Cinema,’ protested Arzee. ‘Now it’s just the – it’s just the No cinema! I never said anything to you all this time, Phirozbhai, but now it’s time. If you can take time off, Phirozbhai, then why not me? The cinema’s closing down anyway, so what’s in it for me? You’re pointing a finger at me, Phirozbhai, but remember, your other four fingers are pointing back at you.’

  ‘I’ve got a wedding to take care of, that’s why I don’t come,’ rumbled Phiroz, and his old body rippled with agitation. ‘After it’s done I’ll be back, every day, same time, till my last day of work. Who said the theatre is closing? Who? And if it is, are you trying to close it down before the day? Eh? It’s going on as it always was. The show’s on before your very eyes.’