A Son of the Circus

by John Irving

  Mother Mary

  In the new missionary’s cubicle, the last mosquito coil had burned out just before dawn. The mosquitoes had come with the early gray light and had departed with the first heat of the day—all but the mosquito that Martin Mills had mashed against the white wall above his cot. He’d killed it with the rolled-up issue of The Times of India after the mosquito was full of blood; the bloodstain on the wall was conspicuous and only a few inches below the crucifix that hung there, which gave Martin the gruesome impression that a sizable drop of Christ’s blood had spotted the wall.

  In his inexperience, Martin had lit the last mosquito coil too close to his cot. When his hand trailed on the floor, his fingers must have groped through the dead ashes. Then, in his brief and troubled sleep, he’d touched his face. This was the only explanation for the surprising view of himself that he saw in the pitted mirror above the sink; his face was dotted with fingerprints of ash, as if he’d meant to mock Ash Wednesday—or as if a ghost had passed through his cubicle and fingered him. The marks struck him as a sarcastic blessing, or else they made him look like an insincere penitent.

  When he’d filled the sink and wet his face to shave, he held the razor in his right hand and reached for the small sliver of soap with his left. It was a jagged-shaped piece of such an iridescent blue-green color that it was reflected in the silver soap dish; it turned out to be a lizard, which leaped into his hair before he could touch it. The missionary was frightened to feel the reptile race across his scalp. The lizard launched itself from the top of Martin’s head to the crucifix on the wall above the cot; then it jumped from Christ’s face to the partially open slats of the window blind, through which the light from the low sun slanted across the floor of the cubicle.

  Martin Mills had been startled; in an effort to brush the lizard out of his hair, he’d slashed his nose with the razor. An imperceptible breeze stirred the ashes from the mosquito coils, and the missionary watched himself bleed into the water in the sink. He’d long ago given up shaving lather; plain soap was good enough. In the absence of soap, he shaved himself in the cold, bloody water.

  It was only 6:00 in the morning. Martin Mills had to survive another hour before Mass. He thought it would be a good idea to go to St. Ignatius Church early; if the church wasn’t locked, he could sit quietly in one of the pews—that usually helped. But his stupid nose kept bleeding; he didn’t want to bleed all over the church. He’d neglected to pack any handkerchiefs—he’d have to buy some—and so for now he chose a pair of black socks; although they were of a thin material, not very absorbent, at least they wouldn’t show the bloodstains. He soaked the socks in fresh cold water in the sink; he wrung them out until they were merely damp. He balled up a sock in each hand and, first with one hand and then the other, he restlessly dabbed at the wound on his nose.

  Someone watching Martin Mills dress himself might have suspected the missionary of being in a deep trance; a less kind observer might have concluded that the zealot was semiretarded, for he wouldn’t put down the socks. The awkward pulling on of his trousers—when he tied his shoes, he held the socks in his teeth—and the buttoning of his short-sleeved shirt … these normally simple tasks were turned arduous, almost athletic; these clumsy feats were punctuated by the ceaseless dabbing at his nose. In the second buttonhole of his shirt, Martin Mills affixed a silver cross like a lapel pin, and together with this adornment he left a thumbprint of blood on his shirt, for the socks had already stained his hands.

  St. Ignatius Church was unlocked. The Father Rector unlocked the church at 6:00 every morning, and so Martin Mills had a safe place to sit and wait for Mass. For a while, he watched the altar boys setting up the candles. He sat in a center-aisle pew, alternately praying and dabbing at his bleeding nose. He saw that the kneeling pad was hinged. Martin didn’t like hinged kneelers because they reminded him of the Protestant school where Danny and Vera had sent him after Fessenden.

  St. Luke’s was an Episcopalian place; as such, in Martin’s view, it was barely a religious school at all. The morning service was only a hymn and a prayer and a virtuous thought for the day, which was followed by a curiously secular benediction—hardly a blessing, but some sage advice about studying relentlessly and never plagiarizing. Sunday church attendance was required, but in St. Luke’s Chapel the service was of such a low Episcopalian nature that no one knelt for prayers. Instead, the students slumped in their pews; probably they weren’t sincere Episcopalians. And whenever Martin Mills would attempt to lower the hinged kneeling pad—so that he could properly kneel to pray—his fellow students in the pew would firmly hold the hinged kneeler in the upright, nonpraying position. They insisted on using the kneeling pad as a footrest. When Martin complained to the school’s headmaster, the Reverend Rick Utley informed the underclassman that only senior Catholics and senior Jews were permitted to attend worship services in their churches and synagogues of choice; until Martin was a senior, St. Luke’s would have to do—in other words, no kneeling.

  In St. Ignatius Church, Martin Mills lowered the kneeling pad and knelt in prayer. In the pew was a rack that held the hymnals and prayer books; whenever Martin bled on the binding of the nearest hymnal, he dabbed at his nose with one sock and wiped the hymnal with the other. He prayed for the strength to love his father, for merely pitying him seemed insufficient. Although Martin knew that the task of loving his mother was an insurmountable one, he prayed for the charity to forgive her. And he prayed for the soul of Arif Koma, Martin had long ago forgiven Arif, but every morning he prayed that the Holy Virgin would forgive Arif, too. The missionary always began this prayer in the same way.

  “O Mother Mary, it was my fault!” Martin prayed. In a way, the new missionary’s story had also been set in motion by the Virgin Mary—in the sense that Martin held her in higher esteem than he held his own mother. Had Vera been killed by a falling statue of the Blessed Virgin—especially if such good riddance had occurred when the zealot was of a tender, unformed age—Martin might never have become a Jesuit at all.

  His nose was still bleeding. A drop of his blood dripped on the hymnal; once more the missionary dabbed at his wound. Arbitrarily, he decided not to wipe the song book; perhaps he thought that bloodstains would give the hymnal character. After all, it was a religion steeped in blood—Christ’s blood, and the blood of saints and martyrs. It would be glorious to be a martyr, Martin thought. He looked at his watch. In just half an hour, if he could make it, the missionary knew he would be saved by the Mass.

  Is There a Gene for It, Whatever It Is?

  In his stepped-up efforts to save Madhu from Mr. Garg, Dr. Daruwalla placed a phone call to Tata Two. But the OB/GYN’s secretary told Farrokh that Dr. Tata was already in surgery. The poor patient, whoever she was, Dr. Daruwalla thought. Farrokh wouldn’t want a woman he knew to be subjected to the uncertain scalpel of Tata Two, for (fairly or unfairly) Farrokh assumed that the surgical procedures of the second Dr. Tata were second-rate, too. It was quickly apparent to Dr. Daruwalla that Tata Two’s medical secretary lived up to the family reputation for mediocrity, because the doctor’s simple request for the quickest possible results of Madhu’s HIV test were met with suspicion and condescension. Dr. Tata’s secretary had already identified himself, rather arrogantly, as Mister Subhash.

  “You are wanting a rush job?” Mr. Subhash asked Dr. Daruwalla. “Are you being aware that you are paying more for it?”

  “Of course!” Farrokh said.

  “It is normally costing four hundred rupees,” Mr. Subhash informed Dr. Daruwalla. “A rush job is costing you a thousand rupees. Or is the patient paying?”

  “No, I’m paying. I want the quickest possible results,” Farrokh replied.

  “It is normally taking ten days or two weeks,” Mr. Subhash explained. “It is most conveniently being done in batches. We are normally waiting until we are having forty specimens.”

  “But I don’t want you to wait in this case,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. “That’s why
I called—I know how it’s normally done.”

  “If the ELISA is being positive, we are normally confirming the results by Western Blot. The ELISA is having a lot of false positives, you know,” Mr. Subhash explained.

  “I know,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “If you get a positive ELISA, please send it on for a Western Blot.”

  “This is prolonging the turnaround time for a positive test,” Mr. Subhash explained.

  “Yes, I know,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

  “If the test is being negative, you are having the results in two days,” Mr. Subhash explained “Naturally, if it is being positive …”

  “Then it would take longer—I know!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “Please just order the test immediately. That’s why I called.”

  “Only Dr. Tata is ordering the testing,” Mr. Subhash said. “But of course I am telling him what you are wanting.”

  “Thank you,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

  “Is there anything else you are wanting?” Mr. Subhash asked.

  There had been something else, but Farrokh had forgotten what it was that he’d meant to ask Tata Two. Doubtless it would come back to him.

  “Please just ask Dr. Tata to call me,” Farrokh replied.

  “And what is being the subject you are wishing to discuss with Dr. Tata?” Mr. Subhash asked.

  “It is a subject of discussion between doctors,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “I am telling him,” Mr. Subhash said testily.

  Dr. Daruwalla resolved that he would never again complain about the nincompoopish matrimonial activities of Ranjit. Ranjit was competent and he was polite. Moreover, Dr. Daruwalla’s secretary had steadfastly maintained his enthusiasm for the doctor’s dwarf-blood project. No one else had ever encouraged the doctor’s genetic studies—least of all, the dwarfs. Dr. Daruwalla had to admit that even his own enthusiasm for the project was slipping.

  The ELISA test for HIV was simple in comparison to Farrokh’s genetic studies, for the latter had to be performed on cells (rather than on serum). Whole blood needed to be sent for the studies, and the unclotted blood had to be transported at room temperature. Blood specimens could cross international boundaries, although the paperwork was formidable; the specimens were usually shipped on dry ice, to preserve the proteins. But in the case of a genetic study, shipping dwarf blood from Bombay to Toronto was risky; it was likely that the cells would be killed before reaching Canada.

  Dr. Daruwalla had solved this problem with the help of an Indian medical school in Bombay; the doctor let their research lab perform the studies and prepare the slides. The lab gave Farrokh finished sets of photographs of the chromosomes; it was easy to carry the photographs back to Toronto. But there the dwarf-blood project had stalled. Through a close friend and colleague—a fellow orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto—Farrokh had been introduced to a geneticist at the university. Even this contact proved fruitless, for the geneticist maintained that there was no identifiable genetic marker for this type of dwarfism.

  The geneticist at the University of Toronto was quite emphatic to Farrokh: it was far-fetched to imagine that he would find a genetic marker for this autosomal dominant trait—achondroplasia is transmitted by a single autosomal dominant gene. This was a type of dwarfism that resulted from a spontaneous mutation. In the case of a spontaneous mutation, unaffected parents of dwarf children have essentially no further risk of producing another dwarf child; the unaffected brothers and sisters of an achondroplastic dwarf are similarly not at risk—they won’t necessarily produce dwarfs, either. The dwarfs themselves, on the other hand, are quite likely to pass the trait on to their children—half their children will be dwarfs. As for a genetic marker for this dominant characteristic, none could be found.

  Dr. Daruwalla doubted that he knew enough about genetics to argue with a geneticist; the doctor simply continued to draw samples of the dwarfs’ blood, and he kept bringing the photographs of the chromosomes back to Toronto. The U. of T. geneticist was discouraging but fairly friendly, if not sympathetic. He was also the boyfriend of Farrokh’s friend and colleague at the Hospital for Sick Children—Sick Kids, they called the hospital in Toronto. Farrokh’s friend and the geneticist were gay.

  Dr. Gordon Macfarlane, who was the same age as Dr. Daruwalla, had joined the orthopedic group at the Hospital for Sick Children in the same year as Farrokh; their hospital offices were next door to each other. Since Farrokh hated to drive, he often rode back and forth to work with Macfarlane; they both lived in Forest Hill. Early on in their relationship, there’d been those comic occasions when Julia and Farrokh had tried to interest Mac in various single or divorced women. Eventually, the matter of Macfarlane’s sexual orientation grew clear; in no time, Mac was bringing his boyfriend to dinner.

  Dr. Duncan Frasier, the gay geneticist, was renowned for his research on the so-called (and elusive) gay chromosomes; Frasier was used to being teased about it. Biological studies of homosexuality generally irritate everybody. The debate as to whether homosexuality is present at birth or is a learned behavior is always inflamed with politics. Conservatives reject scientific suggestions that sexual orientation is biological; liberals anguish over the possible medical misuse of an identifiable genetic marker for homosexuality—should one be found. But Dr. Frasier’s research had led him to a fairly cautious and reasonable conclusion. There were only two “natural” sexual orientations among humans—one in the majority, one in the minority. Nothing he’d studied about homosexuality, nor anything he’d personally experienced or had ever felt, could persuade Dr. Frasier that either homosexuality or heterosexuality was a matter of choice. Sexual orientation wasn’t a “lifestyle.”

  “We are born with what we desire—whatever it is,” Frasier liked to say.

  Farrokh found it an interesting subject. But if the search for gay genes was so fascinating to Dr. Frasier, it discouraged Dr. Daruwalla that the gay geneticist would entertain no hope of finding a genetic marker for Vinod’s dwarfism. Sometimes Dr. Daruwalla was guilty of thinking that Frasier had no personal interest in dwarfs, whereas gays got the geneticist’s full attention. Nevertheless, Farrokh’s friendship with Macfarlane was unshakable; soon Farrokh was admitting to his gay friend how he’d always disliked the word “gay” in its current, commonplace homosexual sense. To Farrokh’s surprise, Mac had agreed; he said he wished that something as important to him as his homosexuality had a word of its own—a word that had no other meaning.

  “ ‘Gay’ is such a frivolous word,” Macfarlane had said.

  Dr. Daruwalla’s dislike of the contemporary usage of the word was more a generational matter than a matter of prejudice—or so the doctor believed. It was a word his mother, Meher, had loved but overused. “We had a gay time,” she would say. “What a gay evening we had—even your father was in a gay mood.”

  It disheartened Dr. Daruwalla to see this old-fashioned adjective—a synonym for “jolly” or “merry” or “frolicsome” or “blithe”—take on a much more serious meaning.

  “Come to think of it, ‘straight’ isn’t an original word, either,” Farrokh had said.

  Macfarlane laughed, but his longtime companion, Frasier, responded with a touch of bitterness. “What you’re telling us, Farrokh, is that you accept gays when we’re so quiet about it that we might as well still be in the closet—and provided that we don’t dare call ourselves gay, which offends you. Isn’t that what you’re saying?” But this wasn’t what Farrokh meant.

  “I’m not criticizing your orientation,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. “I just don’t like the word for it.”

  There lingered an air of dismissiveness about Dr. Frasier; the rebuke reminded Dr. Daruwalla of the geneticist’s dismissal of the notion that the doctor might find a genetic marker for the most common type of dwarfism.

  The last time Dr. Daruwalla had brought Dr. Frasier the photographs of the dwarfs’ chromosomes, the gay geneticist had been more dismissive than usual. “Those dwarfs must be bleeding to
death, Farrokh,” Frasier told him. “Why don’t you leave the little buggers alone?”

  “If I used the word ‘bugger,’ you would be offended,” Farrokh said. But what did Dr. Daruwalla expect? Dwarf genes or gay genes, genetics was a touchy subject.

  All this left Farrokh feeling full of contempt for his own lack of follow-through on his dwarf-blood project. Dr. Daruwalla didn’t realize that his notion of “follow-through” (or lack thereof) had originated with the radio interview he’d briefly overheard the previous evening—that silliness with the complaining writer. But, at last, the doctor stopped brooding on the dwarf-blood subject.

  Farrokh now made the morning’s second phone call.

  The Enigmatic Actor

  It was early to call John D., but Dr. Daruwalla hadn’t told him about Rahul; the doctor also wanted to stress the importance of John D.’s attending the lunch at the Duckworth Club with Detective Patel and Nancy. To Farrokh’s surprise, it was an alert Inspector Dhar who answered the phone in his suite at the Taj.

  “You sound awake!” Dr. Daruwalla said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m reading a play—actually, two plays,” John D. replied. “What are you doing? Isn’t it time you were cutting open someone’s knee?”

  This was the famous distant Dhar; the doctor felt he’d created this character, cold and sarcastic. Farrokh immediately launched into the news about Rahul—that he had a female identity these days; that, in all likelihood, the complete sex change had been accomplished. But John D. seemed barely interested. As for participating in the lunch at the Duckworth Club, not even the prospect of taking part in the capture of a serial murderer (or murderess) could engage the actor’s enthusiasm.