by Bapsi Sidhwa
The longer I look at him the more willing I am to be beguiled by those tearing, forlorn eyes. How long have they been like that? When I think of Ayah I think she must get away from the monster who has killed her spirit and mutilated her “angel’s” voice. And when I look at Ice-candy-man’s naked humility and grief I see him as undeserving of his beloved’s heartless disdain.
He is a deflated poet, a collapsed peddler—and while Ayah is haunted by her past, Ice-candy-man is haunted by his future: and his macabre future already appears to be stamped on his face.
I am feverish to see Cousin. I haven’t told anyone about our visit with Ayah. Not even Adi. I sit on Electric-aunt’s veranda waiting for the school bus to deliver my cousin. Hamida is in the kitchen talking to the cook. Electric-aunt is inside, whirling herself into her sari, issuing a battery of instructions to her sweepress and at the same time listening to the four o’clock news.
The minute I see the bus I run to the gate to receive my cousin. The school bus, windows crammed with boys’ faces, lurches away spewing exhaust smoke and Cousin scowls at me. He doesn’t like me seeing all those boys—or all those boys looking at me. Besides, he’s embarrassed to be seen associating with such a skinny girl.
Cousin is flushed and sweaty and weighed down by his schoolbag. I relieve him of the precariously bulging geometry box in his hand and say, “I went to see Ayah and Ice-candy-man yesterday!”
Cousin comes to a dead stop just inside the gate.
“Where?”
“At their house.”
Cousin looks amazed. Then pale, and very serious, he leads me into the shade of the gardenia hedge in front of the garden wall. We sit on the warm and dusty grass and Cousin enquires, grimly: “Who took you there?”
“Godmother.”
“Godmother?” Cousin is incredulous. He is also disconcerted.
“She didn’t want to take me. But I cried ... and she took me along.”
“She shouldn’t have,” says Cousin, in a tone of voice that suggests he is Godmother’s age, and Godmother a naughty little girl.
“Okay,” he continues, in the same censorious tone. “Tell me what you saw in the Hira Mandi. Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”
I tell him everything. I tell him the details of Ayah’s despair and the spurned courtier-poet’s anguish.
“Is that all?” Cousin appears disappointed, and at the same time mollified. “You would have seen a lot more if you’d gone there after dark.”
“Like what?” I say, feeling that either he is deliberately aggravating me, or we are at cross-purposes.
“Girls dancing and singing—and amorous poets. And you would have been raped.”
“What’s that?”
(I never learn, do I?)
“I’ll show you someday,” says Cousin giving me a queer look.
I don’t press the point. “What do you think will happen now?” I enquire instead.
“If Godmother says she’ll help Ayah get away, she’ll get her away.”
You see? Everyone has confidence in Godmother.
“What did you say Ayah’s new name was?” Cousin asks.
“Mumtaz.”
“That’s a nice name for a dancing-girl,” says Cousin, rolling the words and rolling his eyes and leering horribly.
“Can’t you talk straight?” I say, ready to hit him.
“You’ve been to the Kotha! You visit the dancing-girls! and you want me to talk straight?”
“I think the heat has scrambled your brains,” I declare, standing up in disgust.
Cousin yanks the hem of my skirt and I thud back on the scratchy grass.
“If you want me to stay,” I say, “you’d better mind how you talk!”
“Okay,” says Cousin changing his tone and composing his features. “You want me to tell you what goes on there?”
He knows he has me hooked.
“As long as you tell me and don’t start demonstrating,” I say, warning him with my voice and also a wagging finger.
I wait for my message to sink in, and then I ask, “What’s Kotha?” Godmother had used the word when talking to Ice-candy-man: and now Cousin.
“The Hira Mandi,” explains Cousin, “is also known as the Kotha. Roof. Because the dancing-girls carry on their main business upstairs.”
As Cousin talks a fascinating picture emerges.
The Kotha is the cultural pulse of the city. It is where poets are inspired, where their songs are sung and made famous by the girls, and singing-boys. It is also a stepping-stone to film stardom for the nautch-girls. The girls are taught to sing and dance and talk elegantly and look pretty and be attractive to men. It sounds very much like a cross between a Swiss finishing school a female cousin of mine in Bombay was sent to and a School for the Fine and Performing Arts.
After mulling over the complexities of the discourse on the cultured Kotha—which I know is also the cradle of royalty, I enquire, “But what are pimps?” Another word that arouses peculiar reactions in people.
“They look after the dancing-girls,” says Cousin.
“A kind of male ayah?”
“No,” says Cousin, sounding condescending and painfully adenoidal. “They protect the girls from drunks and look after money the girls get. They bring men and introduce them to the dancing-girls.”
I’m beginning to understand. The pimps are a kind of adult and mercantile cupid.
I also have an insight into the potent creative force generated within the Kotha that has metamorphosed Ice-candy-man not only into a Mogul courtier, but into a Mandi poet. No wonder he founts poetry as if he popped out of his mother’s womb spouting rhyming sentences.
But all this still doesn’t explain the twittering flap and the hush-hush any mention of the Hira Mandi evokes. Or the contempt in which everybody appears to hold this Institute of Culture.
... Or the girls who looked too at ease loitering in the Mandi gullies and lacked the docile modesty of properly brought up Muslim women.
I have many questions, but Cousin appears to have had his fill of enlightening me. He is hungry and thirsty and we go inside.
Chapter 31
“Dr. Selzer! Come here. Come here,” Mother yells cheerfully from the veranda: summoning him also with a snappy wave of her hand. She is pouring tea for Mr. Phailbus, his daughter Maggie, and his son Theo. Since they are Indian Christians they are among the few remaining neighbors we still know.
The Shankars’ rooms at the back have been let to Dr. Selzer. The German doctor does not inhabit the rooms as much as possess them. He lives alone and he padlocks the rooms when he goes out. He has only one servant.
The doctor’s steps, deflected from their course by my mother’s voice, falter. And turning round politely he approaches us from the drive.
“I was just this minute talking about you!” warbles Mother enthusiastically, flashing all her beautiful teeth in a magical smile.
Dr. Selzer is taller than Colonel Bharucha. Taller even than the murdered Inspector General of Police, Mr. Rogers. But he is much less intimidating. He lacks Colonel Bharucha’s charge of thunder and the departed policeman’s I’m-in-charge-here air of haughtiness. He is polite and assured in a subdued, understated way. And though he doesn’t talk much I can tell from the expression on his face that he is a gentle gentleman. He keeps so much to himself I think because he’s shy.
Dr. Selzer practices his calling in two rooms he has rented on Birdwood Road, behind Warris Road. One room is occupied by a self-trained and indigenous chemist who deciphers and dispenses the prescriptions.
The doctor walks to and from his office. He says he needs the exercise. He says he will buy a car when his wife comes from Germany. Even Father likes him. Mother is so impressed by his doctoring that she has transferred my diminishing limp—and sundry colds, coughs and attacks of diarrhea—to his care and taken it upon herself to promote his practice. Between his permanent presidency of the Parsee Anjuman and his thronging patients Colonel Bharucha h
as become too busy in any case.
Mr. Phailbus, who is a retired magistrate—and a budding homeopath besides—stands up to shake hands. Mr. Phailbus’s kindness and congeniality twinkle in his dark eyes. His sere shock of cropped white hair barely clears the German doctor’s shoulders. Theo, lean, reserved and dark as a thundercloud, also shakes Dr. Selzer’s hand.
“Mrs. Sethi was just telling us all about you,” says Maggie affably. She is comfortably ensconced in the chair, one slipperless foot resting jauntily on her red-satin-shalwared thigh. She wiggles her dusty toes invitingly and Dr. Selzer, with quiet resignation, settles down beside her.
“Look at Lenny!” Mother exclaims, yanking me closer to the Phailbuses for better observation. “Isn’t she looking better already?”
“Much better. Much better,” murmur the three Phailbuses, nodding their heads.
“Eat and run! Eat and run! That’s all she’s done all year!” says Mother, lovingly and graphically squeezing both my bottoms. “It’s a wonder she has any bottom left.”
“Tch, tch, tch,” says Maggie Phailbus sympathetically.
“Look,” says Mother. Jacking up the skirt of my starched pink frock and the rim of my knickers she points out a small incision and bump in my groin. “He inserted the pill here: right under the skin: and overnight her dysentery was finished! Have you ever heard of amoebic dysentery being cured just like that?” She snaps her fingers.
Heads nod again and eyes widen in wonder as the spell of my mother’s voice conjures the Jewish doctor into a savage wizard and my cure into a feat of unparalleled sorcery.
“He’s excellent! I tell you, he’s excellent!” asserts Mother exuberantly. “Lenny, walk!” commands Mother, and like a performing poodle I parade up and down before the Phailbuses, taking care to place my awkward heel on the floor.
“See?” says Mother triumphantly. “He’s cured her limp!”
Dr. Selzer stretches his lips in a mild smile and his eyes, assured yet shy, search her face for a clue to his release.
But Mother has no mind to let him go yet. In her zeal as promoter and town crier of Dr. Selzer’s genius she has neglected Mr. Phailbus’s accomplishments: and being scrupulously fair she informs Dr. Selzer—in an awed whisper that portends revelations—that Mr. Phailbus is a homeopath: another miracle worker! Holding her shapely lips and chiseled chin in the refined and mannered way she assumes when talking to Englishmen and others of the white species, she says: “God bless our Mr. Phailbus. Do you know I had a cyst that big inside here?” She gathers her fingers into a fist and waves the fist discreetly and vaguely in the direction of her lower abdomen. “Even the date for the operation was fixed. It was just by chance that I told Mr. Phailbus about it. He said: ‘Let me have a try. If my powders work you may spare yourself an operation.’ I know homeopathy is harmless. So I had one of those sweet powders of his before going to bed. The next morning the cyst had melted! I couldn’t feel it: just a little bit of discharge. Colonel Bharucha was amazed! He said he had never seen a cyst vanish like that!”
Mr. Phailbus’s gentle eyes beam and twinkle above his half-moon glasses and Dr. Selzer looks mildly and suitably impressed.
At this point I become aware of a sudden commotion in Rosy-Peter’s compound. Mingled with the thud of hooves and the creaking of wooden wheels are the raised voices of men squabbling and cursing and the sounds of running feet and of combat. We cock our ears and exchange alert glances. And taking advantage of our momentary inattention Dr. Selzer, discreetly murmuring his good-byes, slips away.
Mother and I, followed by the Phailbuses, run down the veranda steps. Imam Din is already standing on the handy kitchen stool looking over the wall and Hari and Yousaf are scrambling on to it for a ringside view.
“What happened?” Mother shouts.
Hamida, her head covered, is hovering excitedly near the men. She directs a squeaky stream of sentences at us that we cannot make anything out of.
“Oye, Sardarjee, stop it! You’ll kill him!” shouts Imam Din.
Moti-alias-David-Masih is running up from the back, followed by his wife and progeny and parents and sisters and the other inhabitants of the servants’ quarters. The sounds of combat increase. A man bellows in pain and then belts out a breathless string of vintage Punjabi curses in a hoarse, wailing voice. Hari-alias-Himat-Ali and Yousaf jump the wall and disappear on the other side.
“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Mother shouts in an imperious frenzy.
I climb aboard the kitchen stool and clamor to be picked up by Imam Din and he lifts me up and sits me on the wall.
Three horse-drawn carts are crowded any-old-how to the far side of our neighbors’ compound and in front of them, quite close to the wall, is the scene of battle: an entwined jumble of arms and legs and torn clothing tumbling through a mesh of snarled hair. Yousaf, Himat Ali and the other men in the forefront are trying to restrain and lift the hefty Sikh guard. The Sikh is entwined with someone on the floor and is viciously attacking and bellowing: “Dog! Motherfucker! Son of an owl!”
Just then the men succeed in pulling the fighters apart and slowly, assisted by several pairs of hands and dusting his clothes, a man arises from the dust. His face and arms are grimed with blood and dirt and his hand is twisted at an unnatural angle. Someone wipes his face with a wet rag and as the man, in obvious pain, pushes the rag away, I see frantic amber eyes.
“It’s the Ice-candy-man,” I scream to Mother. “They’ve beaten him up!”
A group of men hastily bundle him into a cart and three scruffy-looking goondas in singlets and lungis jump in after him. One of them, standing up in the carriage, whips the horse savagely and the cart, followed by the other carts, groans and creaks down the rutted drive.
The remaining men group around the outraged Sikh who is hollering: “I’ll break the bastard’s neck next time! I’ve never had trouble before! Let anyone touch the women ... See what I’ll do to their cocks and balls! They are my sisters and mothers!” He thumps his massive chest. His knee-length hair, mauled by Ice-candy-man, is in dramatic, spiky disarray. The men stare at him in wonderment and nod their heads.
Imam Din plucks me off the wall and deposits me near Hamida. Mother is yelling at the gate. Trailed by Hamida I run to her as Mother screams after the departing cart, “Duffa ho! Show your blackened faces at someone else’s door! That scoundrel! He can’t deceive me again! If he dares show his face I’ll call the police and have him hung upside down!”
She is flushed and fuming and panting in a fierce way.
Her penetrating voice I am sure can be heard by the men in the disappearing carts.
Maggie and Mr. Phailbus try to soothe Mother. Mr. Phailbus, who has the power to heal and calm in his hands, strokes Mother’s head and shoulders and Mother’s rage subsides somewhat. The Phailbuses say goodbye at the gate and saunter away, talking in subdued voices, and Mother marches up our drive with a preoccupied expression that betrays the battle she is still engaged in with the object of her recriminations.
Hamida and I run to the back and rush up the stairs to the servants’ roof. The women and children from the quarters are already looking over the short parapet wall into the courtyard. Since it would be improper for Moti and Hari to look at the women, they are squatting at a polite distance, anxious for whatever news of Ayah they can acquire secondhand. The women in the courtyard appear agitated. They flutter in and out of the rooms and answer our insistent queries with more animation than they have ever displayed before. Their voices rise up to us from upturned faces: Ayah is exhausted. She’s all right. She doesn’t wish to see you ... best leave her alone. She’s being registered.
“Let her be. It’ll take hours if she’s being registered,” says Hamida, slapping her forehead in a gesture of sympathy, and talking from experience. “They’ll be asking her a hundred-and-one questions, and filling out a hundred-and-one forms.” She is referring to the clerks from the Ministry for the Rehabilitation of Recovered Women. “Yes,
sister, let her do as she wishes ... ,” say the women on the roof.
And I chant: “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” until my heart pounds with the chant and the children on the roof picking it up shout with all their heart: “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” and our chant flows into the pulse of the women below, and the women on the roof, and they beat their breasts and cry: “Hai! Hai! Hai! Hai!” reflecting the history of their cumulative sorrows and the sorrows of their Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Rajput great-grandmothers who burnt themselves alive rather than surrender their honor to the invading hordes besieging their ancestral fortresses.
The Sikh guard, noisily splashing himself at the tap outside the gate, stands up to look at us—and when he beholds only the women and children on the roof, he holds his peace—and once again settles to wash the blood and mud from his clothes and hair.
“Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” we chant and “Hai! Hai! Hai!” the weeping women: and supported by two old women Ayah appears in the courtyard. She looks up at us out of glazed and unfeeling eyes for a moment, as if we are strangers, and goes in again.
I institute a vehement and importunate enquiry. After a great deal of painstaking probing and prying, I ferret out a fairly accurate account of the events that led to Ayah’s extradition from the Hira Mandi.
The long and diverse reach of Godmother’s tentacular arm is clearly evident. She set an entire conglomerate in motion immediately after our visit with Ayah and singlehandedly engendered the social and moral climate of retribution and justice required to rehabilitate our fallen Ayah.
Everything came to a head within a fortnight. Which in the normal course of events, unstructured by Godmother’s stratagems, could have been consigned to the ingenious bureaucratic eternity of a toddler nation greenly fluttering its flag—with a white strip to represent its minorities—and a crescent and star—from the National Assembly building behind the unqueened garden and its eviscerated marble marquee.