Such a Long Journey

by Rohinton Mistry

  A lump came to her throat, and her eyes moistened. Suddenly she felt an intense loathing for herself. No. She would not go on with this. Regardless of what Miss Kutpitia said.

  She looked up again after finishing the other hand. Tehmul was digging his nose and transferring the pickings to his mouth. No, I must have been imagining. Not possible for anything to remain inside this skull – definitely an empty shell. He held out his hand for the lime juice.

  ‘Not yet. Must do toes also.’ He removed his shoes without untying the laces, and pulled off his socks. Two rupee notes, folded small, fell out of the right one. He carefully reinserted the money, then rubbed his toes urgently, kneading dirt, dead skin and sweat into little black bits which flaked off and fell to the floor. A smell like vomit now filled the kitchen.

  Battling back the nausea that threatened to overcome her, she tackled the brittle, greenish-yellow crescents. But the light, ticklish contact of her squeamish fingers made him squirm and giggle. She had no choice other than to grasp the reeking foot, hold her breath, and complete the task.

  He drained the juice eagerly. His old grin returned. ‘Thankyou-thankyouverytasty.’ He repeated his thanks as she shut the door. She thought she heard him say ‘thankyouthankyoumummy’. No, probably something else. Hard enough to understand him when he is in front of me, leave alone behind a closed door.

  After washing her hands thoroughly, she prepared coals on a small grate over the stove, the way Gustad did for the loban thurible after his evening prayers. Miss Kutpitia had insisted on that, it had to be a coal fire – neither the kerosene stove nor a candle flame would do. When the coals were glowing, she turned off the stove, packed the chunks together, and emptied the plastic dish over them. The nail clippings came alive with hisses and crackles, shrivelling and curling inwards, then turned quickly into shiny black, bubbly residues.

  A horrible stench stabbed at her nostrils, acrid and miasmic, making her recoil. Like the smell of the devil himself, from the depths of dojukh, she thought. With a hand over her nose, she went to the spice rack for turmeric and cayenne. They would open wide Tehmul’s channels, Miss Kutpitia had explained, through which his spirit would reach and yank the evil out of Sohrab’s brain. Dilnavaz sprinkled a pinch of the yellow and red powders on the black molten mass.

  Now the smell grew worse. A harsh pungency was added to the terrible fetor. Coughing and choking, she opened the window and stood by it, tears running down her face, till Tehmul’s nails vaporized completely and became one with the firmament.

  ELEVEN

  i

  Dr Paymaster’s dispensary was located in a neighbourhood that had changed in recent years from a place of dusty, unobtrusive poverty to a bustling, overcrowded, and still dusty, nub of commerce. Crumbling, leaky warehouses and rickety-staired, wobbly-balconied tenements had been refurbished and upgraded, from squalid and uninhabitable to squalid and temporarily habitable. The sewer system remained unchanged, broken and overflowing. Water supply continued to be a problem. So did rats, garbage and street lighting.

  But the neighbourhood decided to make the best of it. Gleaming new signboards, featuring names like Fit-Tight Nuts & Bolts, A-1 Music, and Stylo Hairdressers, started going up over dingy old shops and kholis. The new owners sold transistors, toasters, tyres, auto parts, plastic crockery – everything essential for the magic which swallows up a hundred years of history and propels a country stuck in the nineteenth century directly into the glories of the twentieth. Sometimes, swallowing a hundred years in one gulp caused acute indigestion. But the troubled populace was assured by its venerable leaders that it would pass; for the interim they offered free of charge wordy anodynes which mitigated no one’s suffering.

  Soon, there appeared in the neighbourhood enterprising individuals who serviced motorcars, retreaded tyres, restored refrigerators, and allowed the waste products of their enterprise to run where they would. The barefooted now had to skip and hop over grease slicks, oil puddles, razor-sharp fins of broken cooling coils, and long, twisting snakes of vulcanized rubber disgorged by tyre retreaders. The black rubber strips were particularly frightful during August, with the Naagpanchmi festival approaching, when every street corner featured snake-charmers collecting alms from devotees anxious to feed the cobras a little milk in exchange for reptilian blessings. In the dark, it was easy to mistake a six-foot strip of black rubber for an escapee from the snake-charmer’s basket.

  These sordid footpaths provided one reason why Gustad hated coming to Dr Paymaster. But with the failure of subjo, Entero-Vioform, and Sulpha-Guanidine, he had no choice.

  Over the years, as the neighbourhood underwent its peculiar transmogrification, only four establishments were able to resist change and endure. The nature of their businesses satisfied needs too deep to be displaced by builders, speculators, or government planners.

  The first two were cinema houses, located at the crossroads not far from the beach. Despite their proximity, the proprietors enjoyed peaceful coexistence because the supply could never satiate the voracious demand. When a new film arrived, it roused the neighbourhood and awakened an industry that was seldom fast asleep. Black-marketeers and scalpers began buzzing around the theatres, bombinating ceaselessly, very like the mosquito clouds that rose from Khodadad Building’s urine-soaked wall, droning tunefully: ‘Ten-for-five, ten-for-five, ten-for-five …’ Price ratios could keep soaring, depending on the stars and number of songs on the soundtrack. The black-market usually slowed after the first mad rush, then lay dormant like larvae waiting to hatch with the next celluloid release.

  By and by, one of the cinemas decided to renovate, in keeping with the neighbourhood’s and the country’s aspirations, and the other had no choice but to follow suit. After the work was completed, both cinemas announced on the same day, with full-page newspaper advertisements, the first movie theatre in the country with 70mm capability, Todd-AO and Six-Track Sound. Soon, people were thrilling in their plusher, softer seats to the wide-screen spectacle, where the hero and heroine loomed like giants, where the massive trees round which they danced and sang grew ever taller, and where the black-hearted villain’s evil dagger was bigger and sharper, and glinted more wickedly than was ever thought possible for a dagger to glint. Audiences emerged in awe, their confidence renewed that nothing could now stand in the way of the country’s progress and modernization.

  The first film to be shown after the renovations was an epic of kings and warriors, and Gustad had taken his family to see it. This was before Roshan was born, when Darius was three and Sohrab seven. For close to four hours, the kings and warriors spoke in thunderous voices, while gallant steeds and shining armour clashed with deafening clangour. Cudgels bashed, swords slashed, cymbals crashed. Maces bristling with ferocious spikes landed and shields were dented. At suitable intervals, hordes of women descended upon the battlefield, and the warriors and kings ceased their military pursuits: in bloodstained, battered armour, they sang and danced with their womenfolk. But the musical encounters seemed as terrifying as the battle scenes, and soon, Sohrab was shrieking in terror while Darius sobbed, though neither would turn away his eyes. Dilnavaz had to force them to put their faces in her lap, where they eventually fell asleep.

  While the years went by to the rolling thunder of film reels, there was a third establishment nearby that did not alter its basic business. It was the oldest house in the locality. A skeleton staff was ready all day to provide service, but after six o’clock the cages filled up with painted women in saris wrapped impossibly low over their bellies, in blouses skimpier than brassières, or in little-girl frocks, fingers holding the cigarette of the wanton. Strands of fragrant jasmine and chamayli hung in their hair, bangles tinkled on their wrists, and the soft chhum-chhum of anklets could be heard when they moved. Scented oils and perfumes from Bhindi Bazaar – extracts and attars that enveloped them in dense, erotic clouds – filled the evening air and cloyed the senses of passers-by.

  The House of Cages offered a ful
l range of services, from the brisk, no-nonsense handjob even the poorest of day labourers could afford, to the most intricate contortions from a standard Kama-Sutra or The Perfumed Garden: something to suit the tumescence of every customer and wallet. The locals dreamed about soft scented sheets, air-conditioned rooms, hot and cold drinks, dancing-girls, various exotic liquors, food fit for a king from the brothel’s delectable kitchen, and aphrodisiacs like the notorious palung-tode – bed-breaker – paan. The House of Cages catered for every one of these luxuries, with the exception of the last. Paan had to be purchased from the stall outside.

  The stall outside was the domain of Peerbhoy Paanwalla, the grizzled old man whose lips were perpetually reddened, doubtless from sampling his own wares. Rain or shine, he wore nothing more than a loongi. His wrinkled, old-woman dugs hung over a loose-skinned belly equipped with a splendid, ageless navel that watched the street tirelessly, an unblinking, all-seeing third eye. Sitting cross-legged on his wooden box, he seemed more swami or guru than paanwalla, his high forehead furrowed with creases bespeaking ancient wisdom, his large authoritative nose flaring brahminically as he dispensed slices of sagacity in direct discourse or wrapped between betel leaves.

  Like an artisan of antiquity, Peerbhoy took great pride in his products. Besides the notorious bed-breaker paan, he sold various others: to ward off sleep, to promote rest, to create appetites, to rein in an excess of lust, to help digestion, to assist bowel movements, to purify the kidneys, to nullify flatulence, to cure bad breath, to create seductive breath, to fight failing eyesight, to make well the deaf ear, to encourage lucidity of thought, to improve speech, to alleviate the stiffness of joints, to induce longevity, to reduce life expectancy, to mitigate the labour of birthing, to ease the pain of dying – in short, he had a paan for all seasons. But among neophytes, tense because it was their first time, or first in a brothel, the one most in demand was the bed-breaker.

  When they gathered, drawn by the large brass tray Peerbhoy rang like a gong, he soothed their anxieties with aphrodisiacal anecdotes. Palung-tode paan, he would say, as he chose a betel leaf, snipped off its stem, and began mixing chopped betel nuts, chunam, and tobacco – the palung-tode, he would say, had a long and honourable history, popular with Hindu rajas and Mogul emperors alike. In the old days, when it was time for the annual procession in which the raja had to walk naked before the public with erect phallus, to convince his subjects that the right to be ruler still belonged to him, it was the palung-tode he relied on. The secret was told to a few courtiers only, who, each year after the ceremony, were executed to guard the deception.

  Mogul emperors also used palung-tode, said Peerbhoy, but in a less pedestrian way: when they wanted to service their harems. Though even here, reasons of state intruded, because the emperor’s sexual prowess was invariably linked to his popularity, and, for his enemies, was a reliable indicator of how deeply he had penetrated the hearts and minds of his subjects. Coups and palace plots were inevitably on the rise when word came from the zanaan-khana that the emperor was flagging.

  All this, no matter how true or false, said Peerbhoy Paanwalla (as he extricated herbs from unmarked jars and added mysterious powders from dented metal cans) – all this was a long time ago, and now has become history or fable. But not so long ago, a man calling himself Shri Lokhundi Lund, Mister Iron Cock, had arrived and, flashing his money, ordered the most expensive, undiluted palungtode, determined to take unfair advantage of the House policy: satisfaction guaranteed. He paid (in the old days, it was cash in advance) and made his choice.

  For a full hour the selected one toiled over him, rode him mercilessly, till, exhausted and ashamed, she dismounted and excused herself. And he? He lay upon his arrogant back, erect as at the moment of mounting. There was a brief consultation in the manager’s office, and Lokhundi Lund was asked to choose again, compliments of the House.

  The second one was younger, and in the firm roundness of her succulent thighs and buttocks she showed promise and the capability of bringing to fruition the sweat and labour of her colleague. She bestrode the customer and galloped for two hours, two hours non-stop, while he lay laughing at her efforts. Two hours, and she collapsed, her frothy juices running copiously down her defeated thighs. What kind of monster was this, the others wondered, what kind of monster who could be ridden endlessly, unyieldingly?

  Now it was a question of the House’s reputation. A third woman took over, grim and sinewy as a battle-hardened Rani of Jhansi, saying a quick prayer before she rode into combat. But her wiliest tricks astride that battering ram, that pillar of stone, that annihilator of maidenheads – her wiliest tricks were doomed to failure. And so it went through the night, till all the women in the House impaled themselves to no avail, one by one, upon the indomitable lance. The clock struck four a.m. and the manager began preparing a refund voucher for Lokhundi Lund.

  But wait, said the first woman, who had just returned rested and strengthened, having made her invocation to Yellamma, Protector of Prostitutes, Goddess of Lust and Passion. Stand aside, she told her colleagues, casting off her garments. Then she who had first trustingly allowed the monster into her leafy haven, into her sheltered nook, into her friendly pleasure-gap: she once again took the place that was rightfully hers. And who says there is no poetry or justice in brothels? For just as the first cock crowed in the shacks of the destitute, she who had started it, now ended it. Lokhundi Lund shrieked once, then lay moaning, wilted at last.

  That day, the House of Cages was closed for rest and recuperation from the havoc wrought within its walls. But its honour was inviolate for it had fulfilled its guarantee, concluded Peerbhoy Paanwalla, handing over the green triangles of paan and collecting his money. The nervous novices knew what they were chewing was not the original palung-tode, but they were not on a record-breaking quest like Lokhundi Lund. Besides, Peerbhoy’s stories worked wonders, the same stories for which Gustad used to bunk school with his classmates and come to gape at the women in the House of Cages.

  Gustad’s first memories of this locale were linked to Dr Paymaster’s dispensary, the periodic visits with his father for inoculations against smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, typhoid and tetanus. His father was especially concerned about the last, since Gustad spent so much time in the furniture workshop playing with Grandpa: one rusty nail, Pappa used to say, could produce that peculiar sardonic grin of lockjaw which would bring grief to the family. To reach the dispensary they had to pass by the brothel, and Gustad was intrigued by the lolling women. Once, he asked Pappa why they were half-dressed. Pappa said that these were not women, they were just men playing a game, like the ones they saw on the streets on Fridays, clapping their hands and dancing and begging. But Gustad knew these were not hijdaas in the House of Cages; he knew Pappa was lying.

  Then the current of passing years brought Gustad to teenage shores, where anything was more challenging than being in class. His friends and he would stand outside the girls’ school, watch cricket practice in the maidaan, or go for long aimless walks. Their favourite pastime was to loiter near the House of Cages, listening to Peerbhoy’s tales of the power and glory of palung-tode. One day they decided to join the queue for this concoction. Waiting like students with the jitters before the big examination, their fifteen-year-old heads spinning with unmanageable emotions, they did their best to look poised and experienced. When their turn came, Peerbhoy laughed away their demands, preparing instead a paan which would cleanse their heads of boyish impurities and help them concentrate on their studies.

  A long way now from those teenage shores, Gustad had almost forgotten Peerbhoy’s fantastic stories. But it was always a visit to Dr Paymaster that brought him to the neighbourhood, and, over time, illness and the forbidden pleasures became entwined in his mind. It disgusted the core of Gustad’s being, the stream that led his thoughts from one thing to the other, as he led his sick child by the hand to the dispensary.

  The dispensary, of course, was the fourth establishment in
the neighbourhood that never altered its function. Barring the brief, impolitic substitution of a new sign for Dr R.C. Lord’s old board, Dr Paymaster had resisted all changes. Due to his peculiar location, his patients and their ailments fell into four distinct groups. First were the victims of workshop injuries. Mechanics came to him regularly with severed digits wrapped in newspaper, waiting stoically for treatment as though at the post office to mail a parcel. Radio repairers were carried in when they suffered a severe electrical shock. And periodically, a group of car painters arrived to get their lungs overhauled and cleansed of paint and turpentine.

  The tyre retreader was also a regular patient. He had the misfortune of working directly opposite the House of Cages. Gripping a tyre between his knees while the sharp tool in his hands zigzagged the circumference, he sometimes let his eyes stray to the women lounging spread-leggedly across the road; sometimes, he gazed too long, and then the tool slipped.

  Dr Paymaster’s second group of patients were a by-product of the cinema industry. When tickets were in great demand, tempers rose rapidly, and once in a while an irate crowd would beat up an usher or ticket-clerk who was then delivered to the doctor for mending. The occasional scalper, if excessive greed clouded his finely-tuned instincts, also ended up at the dispensary via this route. But usually it was the ticket buyers who came for treatment after long queuing under the hot sun, collapsing from sunstroke and dehydration.

  The House of Cages provided the clientele that constituted the third group. The women came for periodic check-ups as required by the municipal licensing authorities, and Dr Paymaster was never able to get used to them. They came in their business outfits and jested with him: ‘Doctor, need to check if all machinery in good condition,’ or ‘We give you our business, you don’t give us yours,’ which embarrassed him terribly.