Such a Long Journey

by Rohinton Mistry

  ‘Good,’ said Miss Kutpitia, opening the door for her to leave.

  In her kitchen, Dilnavaz took a lime from her hiding-place, sliced it and squeezed the juice into a glass. Then a spoonful of sugar. A pinch of salt. ‘A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, the medicine go down, the medicine go down …’ She filled it with water and stirred, watching for Tehmul through the front window. Hope he comes before Gustad.

  The compound was empty. ‘Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down …’ The pneumatic honking of the school bus sounded, and Roshan appeared in the compound. ‘In a most delightful way …’ Looking so unwell. Her cheeks pale and her brow dotted with perspiration. ‘What’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?’

  Roshan nodded. ‘I had to keep going for chhee-chhee.’

  ‘How many times?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Four. No, five times.’

  ‘Change your clothes and lie down. I’ll give you medicine.’ When will this chronic diarrhoea leave my poor child alone? She went to fetch the pills. Roshan followed, and saw the glass of lime juice.

  ‘What’s this, Mummy?’ She lowered her nose to smell.

  ‘Stop!’ Dilnavaz leapt to take it away.

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ She tried to sound calm. ‘Something for cooking. If you drink it your stomach will get worse.’ Shivers went up and down her spine. Dada Ormuzd! What would have happened if my child swallowed the spell-filled lime juice? Even the thought is scary.

  Roshan made a face at the pills. ‘Brown ones again? They taste so bitter at the back of the throat.’ She swallowed them expertly and went to bed.

  Dilnavaz did not have to wait long, for Tehmul soon hobbled by the neem to look up into its branches. She beckoned through the open door. ‘Come in.’ He approached shyly. A hand went to his groin for the circular scratching. ‘Don’t do that, Tehmul.’ Obedient, he removed the hand and stuck it in his armpit. ‘Look what I have for you.’

  He sniffed the glass of lime juice, watching a floating pip with great interest. ‘Drink, drink,’ she said. ‘Very tasty.’

  He took a tentative sip. His eyes lit up and he licked his lips. ‘Veryveryverytasty.’

  ‘Drink it all,’ she encouraged. ‘All for you.’

  Tehmul tilted the glass and drained it without pause, then smacked his lips and burped. ‘Verytastypleasemorepleaseplease.’

  ‘No more.’ It had been so easy. ‘I will call you again when there is more, OK?’

  He nodded eagerly. ‘Callpleasecall. Morepleaseverytasty.’

  ‘Now go.’ He swivelled on his good leg and flung the other around, kicking the door. ‘Shh,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘Quietly. Roshan is sleeping, she is not well.’

  Tehmul put his finger over his lips. ‘Quietquietquiet. Quiet-Roshansleepingquiet.’ He shuffled carefully through the doorway and returned to the compound.

  ii

  The sound of the door latch drew Dilnavaz from the kitchen. ‘What is all this ghumsaan? How much did Jimmy send?’ she asked, nettled by the two bulky packages Gustad placed on the desk.

  ‘Ghumsaan? Without even knowing what is inside? This is the Major’s parcel. And these are four beautiful books. Art and wisdom and entertainment.’

  She clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘Books! More books! You are crazy. Where will you put? And don’t repeat your nonsense about the bookcase you and Sohrab will build one day.’

  ‘Calm down and leave it to me. But first listen to who I met at Chor Bazaar.’

  She looked at him disbelievingly. ‘You are not going to say Major Bilimoria.’

  He laughed. ‘No. But someone who knows him. And me.’ He told her about his conversation with Ghulam in the tea stall.

  ‘A hundred times I’ve said not to eat or drink from the roadside. You behave like a child sometimes.’

  ‘I just had a few sips of tea, for the sake of courtesy.’

  ‘One sip is enough to cause sickness.’

  That reminded him. ‘What is wrong with Roshan?’

  ‘Stomach is a little bad,’ she said. ‘But who told you?’

  ‘Tehmul-Lungraa. How did he find out?’

  Oh no, she thought. What else did the idiot say? To her relief, Gustad did not wait for an answer. He had had evidence before of Tehmul’s ability to ferret out information ahead of others with whole minds and bodies. He went to Roshan, and returned promptly. ‘Asleep. Gave her medicine?’

  ‘Two Entero-Vioform.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gustad. ‘Will soon settle. And if motions are still loose after tomorrow, then Sulpha-Guanidine.’ He always kept a ready supply of these pills at home. Before Roshan, it had been Darius who, till he was thirteen, constantly fell victim to bouts of diarrhoea. At first, Dilnavaz used to object to Gustad’s dispensing the pills, insisting that their doctor must be consulted. She had faith in Dr Paymaster despite his shabby office with the board outside which read: Dr R. C. Lord, MBBS, MD Estd 1892. Dr Lord was the predecessor from whom Dr Paymaster had purchased the closed-down dispensary almost fifty years ago, but the latter didn’t bother to change the board when he first started in practice because money was scarce. If his timid, new patients referred to him as Dr Lord, he did not pay much attention to it.

  In a very short while, word spread of the young doctor who was wise and kind, humorous and considerate, who could cure half the sickness just by making the patient laugh it away. Dr Paymaster’s practice began to grow. Soon there was a little money to spruce up the dispensary, buy a decent couch and chairs for the waiting area, and subscribe to the foreign medical journals he so badly wanted in order to keep up with new medicines and research. He was even able to afford a board with his own name.

  But this last purchase was an enormous blunder.

  The very next day, the dispensary was in turmoil. Patients were marching in and marching out, demanding to know who this Dr Paymaster was. What had happened to the funny, jovial Dr Lord? When would he return? They refused to listen to explanations or be examined by the young upstart. The few who risked treatment were unanimous in their verdict: the medicine did not cure as well as before; and the news spread.

  In desperation, Dr Paymaster went to the sign-painter to bring back the old board. Fortunately, the sign-painter still had it, lying under a heap of discarded shingles and nameplates he was saving for firewood. It was rehung over the entrance, and the confusion vanished overnight.

  And overnight, Dr Paymaster sorrowfully realized something they never taught in medical college: like any consumer product, a doctor’s name was infinitely more important than his skills. In time, however, he grew reconciled to the fact and did not hold it against his patients, nor did he resent his predecessor’s signboard. Besides, he felt, the year 1892 on it had a touch of dignity, and everything else that longevity and endurance suggested, especially in the doctoring business. And so, only a small inner circle of patients such as the Nobles knew his real name and addressed him correctly.

  With the passing of years, Dr Paymaster became a grandfatherly individual, bald and round-faced, with the countenance of a sad clown. He still conducted the doctoring at his dispensary in his jesterly way: clowning with hypodermics or enemas, sniffing at jars of vile-smelling chemical compounds and making funny faces, or just keeping up an endless patter of amusing nonsense – things which would seem silly to a healthy person, but not to the sick and desperate and frightened, who were grateful for everything.

  For all his buffoonery, however, Dr Paymaster was not a spontaneous individual. His act was carefully controlled, and outside the clinic he was solemn, even grim, when encountered in a nonprofessional capacity at the market or fire-temple. Once Gustad teased him, asking if his real name was not Dr Jekyll. Dr Paymaster replied, unamused, that it was the sick and the worried who needed gladdening, and since his supply of cheerfulness was not endless, it was wise to conserve it.

  The Nobles never abandoned Dr Paymaster, nor did they lose faith in him. But o
ver the years they began to accept his limitations. First they gave up on miracles, then on his ability to effect permanent cures, and finally, on the hope that he would recommend newer, more effective remedies he might come across during his perusal of medical journals from famous research centres abroad.

  But Dr Paymaster’s subscriptions to the foreign journals had run out a long time ago. Like everything else about the government, foreign exchange regulations involved convoluted rules and tortuous procedures, and Dr Paymaster decided to spare himself the agony. After Lal Bahadur Shastri became Prime Minister upon Nehru’s death, it seemed for a while that the stagnant waters of government would at last be freshened and vitalized, despite the sceptics who said that such a short man would not be able to command respect on the world stage. Then along came the twenty-one-day war with Pakistan in which he fared much better than Nehru had in the war with China, and silenced the unbelievers. ‘Short in height but tall in brains is our Lal Bahadur,’ Dr Paymaster told all his patients, bending his knees and walking like a dwarf with an enema syringe in the bayonet-charge position. ‘A pukka purgative he gave the Pakistanis.’

  While the crowds cheered, Shastri boarded a plane for Tashkent where Kosygin had offered to negotiate a peace between India and Pakistan. The night the Tashkent Declaration was signed, Shastri died on Soviet soil, less than eighteen months after he became Prime Minister. Some said he had been killed by the Pakistanis, and others suspected a Russian plot. Some even claimed it was the new Prime Minister’s supporters who poisoned Shastri, so that her father’s dynastic-democratic dream could finally come true.

  Whatever the truth, once again the government was in chaos. Streamlining foreign exchange regulations ranked very low on the country’s list of priorities, and Dr Paymaster’s subscriptions remained unrenewed. Thus, when it came to diarrhoea, the same two names, Entero-Vioform and Sulpha-Guanidine, kept appearing on his prescriptions.

  These repetitive prescriptions made Dilnavaz finally agree with Gustad that it was a waste of time and money to go to the dispensary. Medicinal names now began to roll as trippingly off her tongue as they did his. The left-hand section of the sideboard filled up with the pills and syrups most in demand. There was Glycodin Terp Vasaka for sore throats, Zephrol and Benadryl for coughs, Aspro and Codopyrine for colds and fevers, Elkosin and Erith-romycin for septic tonsils and inflamed throats, Sat-Isabgol for indigestion, Coramine for nausea, Veritol for hypotension, Iodex for bruises, Burnol for minor cuts and burns, Privine for stuffed noses, a Yunani cure-all for external use (which looked like plain water but was meant to eradicate every ache and pain) and, of course, Entero-Vioform and Sulpha-Guanidine for diarrhoea. All these were on the first shelf. On the second, the collection was somewhat more eclectic.

  As Dilnavaz’s confidence grew, she began recommendations outside the family. When diarrhoea struck some of the more populous families in Khodadad Building, like the Pastakias, who had one toilet in their flat and five children ranging from four years to nine, the situation was critical. They would have to resort to the water-closets of accommodating neighbours, running up and down the stairs to find the nearest vacant ones. With so much movement and urgency, accidents were inevitable; then the air in the building changed, and Dilnavaz’s nose told her that her medicinal advice would soon be indispensable.

  She felt sorry for Mrs Pastakia – five children to look after, and on top of that, a father-in-law with high blood-pressure who shouted regularly at the sky. She would ask Mrs Pastakia for an accurate description of the symptoms if she had not already glimpsed them on the stairs or in the hallway, and advise, in her most confidence-inspiring, doctorly voice, ‘Two Entero-Vioform, three times a day.’ Or ‘One Sulpha-Guanidine, powdered in a spoonful of sugared water,’ because it was a pill with bulk and the taste of profoundly bitter chalk. Experience with Sohrab, Darius and Roshan had taught her what it took to dispatch various pills.

  Gustad did not approve of these neighbourly prescriptions. Sooner or later, he said, free advice was seen as interference, and impoverished everyone involved. But Dilnavaz replied that if someone could save on doctor’s bills, it was her duty to help.

  She waited impatiently as Gustad unwrapped the parcel of books and wound the string evenly around the ball in his desk, tossing it from hand to hand. ‘Don’t you want to first see what Jimmy has sent?’ she asked.

  He smiled in a superior manner. ‘All in good time.’ He held up the Plato: ‘What a beautiful book,’ and passed it to her, doing likewise with the others. She looked at them perfunctorily and placed them on the desk. The Major’s parcel was undone in the same meticulous manner. Under the brown paper was another wrapper, of black plastic, sealed firmly with tape. He tried to tear it, underestimating the strength of the tape, then rummaged in the desk for his penknife and noticed Tehmul outside the window, waving frantically. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Gustadpetitionpleasepetition. Signsignpetitionplease.’

  He remembered. He had left it for a week on the sideboard. ‘But did you go to all the neighbours?’

  ‘GustadGustadyousignfirst. Gustadfirsttheneveryone. Seeseesee-Icansay. SeeseeseeGustadNoblesigned.’ Tehmul was right, he knew, people were always afraid to be the first to get involved.

  Tehmul received the signed petition as though it was a magnificent trophy, beaming all over his trusting face. ‘GustadGustad. ThankyouGustad.’ He shushed with his finger at his lips. ‘Quiet-quietquiet. Nonoisenonoise.’

  Gustad answered with a finger to his own lips, imitating the shushing sound. Tehmul was overjoyed at their conspiracy of silence. He burst out in a fit of giggling and left.

  ‘Veryquietverytastyverytastyjuice.’

  Smiling, Gustad resumed attacking the tape. ‘Poor fellow. What will become of him if something happens to his brother, I don’t know. Why was he saying very tasty juice?’

  Dilnavaz shrugged. ‘You people say poor fellow, but you keep encouraging his crazy ways. No one even helps to find him some simple job.’ The wrapping litter reminded her of the earlier vexation. ‘So much rubbish in this house. And you bring more books.’

  He worked the penknife through the last piece of tape and unwound the black plastic which went around and across four times. She began clearing up: ‘With so much junk I cannot clean or dust properly, and all that paper still on the windows and ventilators. God know when …’

  The plastic slipped off and silenced her in mid-sentence. Stacks of currency notes, of hundred-rupee denomination, in neat bundles, now sat before their eyes. Crisp new bundles, with shiny staples, and a little encircling band of brown paper.

  She found her voice first: ‘What is it? I mean, what is the meaning of it? Can it be a mistake?’

  He gaped at the pile of money. Gradually, his gaze took in the background, the window, the compound. Outside, in the dusky light, was a mouth as open as his own, but the face around that mouth was Tehmul’s, looking in at the little hill of money.

  That broke the spell for Gustad. With a roar, he slammed shut the window, cutting off from Tehmul’s vision the sight that made his eyes shine as they had on the day he saw the naked doll.

  iii

  Gustad realized that shutting the window was not enough. He rushed to the door. Tehmul, still agape, had not moved from the spot. ‘Come here!’ Anger did not work; he tried again, soft and coaxing. ‘Come, Tehmul, come. Let us talk.’ But Tehmul began backing away fearfully. ‘OK, OK,’ said Gustad, and shut the penknife, making sure that Tehmul observed it sliding into his trouser pocket. ‘See? No knife. Now you will come?’

  ‘OK, OK Gustad. Comingcomingcoming.’ He swayed and stumbled. ‘GustadGustadchickenneck.’ With one finger he traced a line across his throat from ear to ear, then shuddered. ‘PleaseGustadpleasenot-myneck.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tehmul. Knife is for opening the package.’ He smiled, and Tehmul smiled back. ‘You remember what you saw through the window just now?’

  Tehmul’s frantic hands delineated hills and moun
ds in the air. ‘Moneymoneymoneymoney. Somuchsomuchsomuchmoney.’

  ‘Shh!’ He regretted the question, and looked around to see if anyone was approaching. He brought his face close to Tehmul’s, towering over him. ‘Talk softly.’

  Tehmul cringed, then remembered they were partners in silence and his face broke into a grin. He raised his finger to his lips. ‘QuietquietGustad. Roshansleepingnonoise.’

  ‘Yes. Good. Now listen.’ Tehmul nodded vigorously. ‘What you saw is our secret. Your secret and my secret. OK?’

  ‘SecretsecretGustadsecret.’

  ‘Yes. Secret means you must not tell anybody. Tell no one what you saw.’

  ‘NoonenooneGustadnoone. Secretsecretsecret.’

  ‘Yes.’ He checked again – the compound was clear. ‘And I will give you one rupee for keeping the secret.’

  Tehmul’s eyes lit up. ‘YesyesGustadoneoneonerupeesecret.’ He held out his hand while Gustad opened his wallet.

  ‘Remember. Tell no one.’ He handed over the note.

  Tehmul examined the rupee, turned it over, held it up to the light, sniffed it. He grinned and began to scratch himself. ‘Gustad-Gustadtwotwotworupees. Secretpleasetworupeessecret. Pleaseplease-please.’

  Gustad brought the wallet out again. ‘OK. Two rupees.’ Then he put a hand on Tehmul’s shoulder and said, in what he hoped was a menacing whisper, ‘Two rupees for not telling. But you know what will happen if you forget? If you tell someone?’

  Tehmul’s grin vanished. He tried to squirm away, but the steel vice on his shoulder kept him from moving. He shook his head from side to side with all his might, as though the more forcefully he did it, the better he could appease Gustad.

  ‘If you forget, I will catch you like this.’ Gustad moved his hand from the shoulder to Tehmul’s nape. ‘Then I will take my knife.’ With his free hand he fished for the penknife in his pocket, as Tehmul trembled in his grasp. ‘I will open it.’ He sprang the blade with his teeth. ‘Like this.’ The effect of gleaming white incisors on the shiny blade was sinister. ‘And when it is open, I will cut your throat, like the goaswalla cut the chicken’s. Like this.’ He moved the knife across Tehmul’s throat from ear to ear, keeping the blade safely covered with his index finger. Tehmul started to whimper, and his eyes filled with tears.