A Son of the Circus

by John Irving

  “I have a lot of reading to do,” John D. told Farrokh.

  “But you can’t read all day,” the doctor said. “What reading?”

  “I told you—two plays,” said Inspector Dhar.

  “Oh, you mean homework,” Farrokh said. He assumed that John D. was studying his lines for his upcoming parts at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. The actor was thinking of Switzerland, of his day job, the doctor supposed. John D. was thinking of going home. After all, what was keeping him here? If, under the present threat, he gave up his membership at the Duckworth Club, what would he do with himself? Stay in his suite at the Taj, or at the Oberoi? Like Farrokh, John D. lived at the Duckworth Club when he was in Bombay.

  “But now that the murderer is known, it’s absurd to resign from the club!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “Any day now, they’re going to catch him!”

  “Catch her,” Inspector Dhar corrected the doctor.

  “Well, him or her,” Farrokh said impatiently. “The point is, the police know who they’re looking for. There won’t be any more killings.”

  “I suppose seventy is enough,” John D. said. He was in a simply infuriating mood, Dr. Daruwalla thought.

  “So, what are these plays?” Farrokh asked, in exasperation.

  “I have only two leading roles this year,” John D. replied. “In the spring, it’s Osborne’s Der Entertainer—I’m Billy Rice—and in the fall I’m Friedrich Hofreiter in Schnitzler’s Das weite Land.”

  “I see,” Farrokh said, but this was all foreign to him. He knew only that John Daruwalla was a respected professional as an actor, and that the Schauspielhaus Zürich was a sophisticated city theater with a reputation for performing both classical and modern plays. In Farrokh’s opinion, they gave short shrift to slapstick; he wondered if there were more slapstick comedies performed at the Bernhard or at the Theater am Hechtplatz—he didn’t really know Zürich.

  The doctor knew only what his brother, Jamshed, had told him, and Jamshed was no veteran theatergoer—he went to see John D. In addition to Jamshed’s possibly philistine opinions, there was what little information Farrokh could force out of the guarded Dhar. The doctor didn’t know if two leading roles a year were enough, or if John D. had chosen only two such roles. The actor went on to say that he had smaller parts in something by Dürrenmatt and something by Brecht. A year ago, he’d made his directing debut—it was something by Max Frisch—and he’d played the eponymous Volpone in the Ben Jonson play. Next year, John D. had said, he hoped to direct Gorki’s Wassa Schelesnowa.

  It was a pity that everything had to be in German, Dr. Daruwalla thought.

  Except for his outstanding success as Inspector Dhar, John D. had never acted in films; he never auditioned. Was he lacking in ambition? Dr. Daruwalla wondered, for it seemed a mistake for Dhar not to take advantage of his perfect English. Yet John D. said he detested England, and he refused to set foot in the United States; he ventured to Toronto only to visit Farrokh and Julia. The actor wouldn’t even stray to Germany to audition for a film!

  Many of the guest performers at the Schauspielhaus Zürich were German actors and actresses—Katharina Thalbach, for example. Jamshed had once told Farrokh that John D. had been romantically linked with the German actress, but John D. denied this. Dhar never appeared in a German theater, and (to Farrokh’s knowledge) there was no one at the Schauspielhaus Zürich to whom the actor had ever been “romantically linked.” Dhar was a friend of the famous Maria Becker, but not romantically a friend. Besides, Dr. Daruwalla guessed, Maria Becker would be a little too old for John D. And Jamshed had reported seeing John D. out to dinner at the Kronenhalle with Christiane Hörbiger, who was also famous—and closer to John D.’s age, the doctor speculated. But Dr. Daruwalla suspected that this sighting was no more significant than spotting John D. with any other of the regular performers at the Schauspielhaus. John D. was also friends with Fritz Schediwy and Peter Ehrlich and Peter Arens. Dhar was seen dining, on more than one occasion, with the pretty Eva Rieck. Jamshed also reported that he frequently saw John D. with the director Gerd Heinz—and as often with a local terror of the avant-garde, Matthias Frei.

  John D., as an actor, eschewed the avant-garde; yet, apparently, he was on friendly terms with one of Zürich’s elder statesmen of such theater. Matthias Frei was a director and occasional playwright, a kind of deliberately underground and incomprehensible fellow—or so Dr. Daruwalla believed. Frei was about the doctor’s age, but he looked older, more rumpled; he was certainly wilder. Jamshed had told Farrokh that John D. even split the expense of renting a flat or a chalet in the mountains with Matthias Frei; one year they would rent something in the Grisons, another year they’d try the Bernese Oberland. Supposedly, it was agreeable for them to share a place because John D. preferred the mountains in the ski season and Matthias Frei liked the hiking in the summer; also, Dr. Daruwalla presumed, Frei’s friends would be people of a different generation from John D.’s friends.

  But, once again, Farrokh’s view of the culture John D. inhabited was marginal. As for the actor’s love life, there was no understanding his aloofness. He’d appeared to have a long relationship with someone in a publishing house—a publicist, or so Farrokh remembered her. She was an attractive, intelligent younger woman. They’d occasionally traveled together, but not to India; for Dhar, India was strictly business. They’d never lived together. And now, Farrokh was told, this publicist and John D. were “just good friends.”

  Julia surmised that John D. didn’t want to have children, and that this would eventually turn most younger women away. But now, at 39, John D. might meet a woman his own age, or a little older—someone who would accept childlessness. Or, Julia had said, perhaps he’d meet a nice divorced woman who’d already had her children—someone whose children would be grownups. That would be ideal for John D., Julia had decided.

  But Dr. Daruwalla didn’t think so. Inspector Dhar had never exhibited a nesting instinct. The rentals in the mountains, a different one each year, utterly suited John D. Even in Zürich, he made a point of owning very little. His flat—which was within walking distance of the theater, the lake, the Limmat, the Kronenhalle—was also rented. He didn’t want a car. He seemed proud of his framed playbills, and even an Inspector Dhar poster or two; in Zürich, Dr. Daruwalla supposed, these Hindi cinema advertisements were probably amusing to John D.’s friends. They could never have imagined that such craziness translated into a raving audience beyond the wildest dreams of the Schauspielhaus.

  In Zürich, Jamshed had observed, John D. was infrequently recognized; he was hardly the best-known of the Schauspielhaus troupe. Not exactly a character actor, he was also no star. In restaurants around town, theatergoers might recognize him, but they wouldn’t necessarily know his name. Only schoolchildren, after a comedy, would ask for his autograph; the children simply held out their playbills to anyone in the cast.

  Jamshed said that Zürich had no money to give to the arts. There’d recently been a scandal because the city wanted to close down the Schauspielhaus Keller; this was the more avant-garde theater, for younger theatergoers. John D.’s friend Matthias Frei had made a big fuss. As far as Jamshed knew, the theater was always in need of money. Technical personnel hadn’t been given an annual raise; if they quit, they weren’t replaced. Farrokh and Jamshed speculated that John D.’s salary couldn’t be very significant. But of course he didn’t need the money; Inspector Dhar was rich. What did it matter to Dhar that the Schauspielhaus Zürich was inadequately subsidized by the city, by the banks, by private donations?

  Julia also implied that the theater somewhat complacently rested on its illustrious history in the 1930s and ’40s, when it was a refuge for people fleeing from Germany, not only Jews but Social Democrats and Communists—or anyone who’d spoken out against the Nazis and as a result either wasn’t permitted to work or was in danger. There’d been a time when a production of Wilhelm Tell was defiant, even revolutionary—a symbolic blow against the Nazis. Many Swiss had be
en afraid to get involved in the war, yet the Schauspielhaus Zürich had been courageous at a time when any performance of Goethe’s Faust might have been the last. They’d also performed Sartre, and von Hofmannsthal, and a young Max Frisch. The Jewish refugee Kurt Hirschfeld had found a home there. But nowadays, Julia thought, there were many younger intellectuals who might find the Schauspielhaus rather staid. Dr. Daruwalla suspected that “staid” suited John D. What mattered to him was that in Zürich he was not Inspector Dhar.

  When the Hindi movie star was asked where he lived, because it was obvious that he spent very little time in Bombay, Dhar always replied (with characteristic vagueness) that he lived in the Himalayas—“the abode of snow.” But John D.’s abode of snow was in the Alps, and in the city on the lake. The doctor thought that Dhar was probably a Kashmiri name, but neither Dr. Daruwalla nor Inspector Dhar had ever been to the Himalayas.

  Now, on the spur of the moment, the doctor decided to tell John D. his decision.

  “I’m not writing another Inspector Dhar movie,” Farrokh informed the actor. “I’m going to have a press conference and identify myself as the man responsible for Inspector Dhar’s creation. I want to call an end to it, and let you off the hook—so to speak. If you don’t mind,” the doctor added uncertainly.

  “Of course I don’t mind,” John D. said. “But you should let the real policeman find the real murderer—you don’t want to interfere with that.”

  “Well, I won’t!” Dr. Daruwalla said defensively. “But if you’d only come to lunch … I just thought you might remember something. You have an eye for detail, you know.”

  “What sort of detail have you got in mind?” John D. asked.

  “Well, anything you might remember about Rahul, or about that time in Goa. I don’t know, really—just anything!” Farrokh said.

  “I remember the hippie,” said Inspector Dhar. He began with his memory of her weight; after all, he’d carried her down the stairs of the Hotel Bardez and into the lobby. She was very solid. She’d looked into his eyes the whole time, and there was her fragrance—he knew she’d just had a bath.

  Then, in the lobby, she’d said, “If it’s not too much trouble, you could do me a big favor.” She’d showed him the dildo without removing it from her rucksack; Dhar remembered its appalling size, and the head of the thing pointing at him. “The tip unscrews,” Nancy had told him; she was still watching his eyes. “But I’m just not strong enough.” It was screwed together so tightly, he needed to grip the big cock in both hands. And then she stopped him, as soon as he’d loosened the tip. “That’s enough,” she told him. “I’m going to spare you,” she said too softly. “You don’t want to know what’s inside the thing.”

  It had been quite a challenge—to meet her eyes, to stare her down. John D. had focused on the idea of the big dildo inside her; he believed that she would see in his eyes what he was thinking. What he thought he’d seen in Nancy’s eyes was that she’d courted danger before—maybe it had even thrilled her—but that she wasn’t so sure about danger anymore. Then she’d looked away.

  “I can’t imagine what’s become of the hippie!” Dr. Daruwalla blurted out suddenly. “It’s inconceivable—a woman like that, with Deputy Commissioner Patel!”

  “Lunch is tempting, if only to see what she looks like … after twenty years,” said Inspector Dhar.

  He’s just acting, thought Dr. Daruwalla. Dhar didn’t care what Nancy looked like; something else was on the actor’s mind.

  “So … you’ll come to lunch?” the doctor asked.

  “Sure. Why not?” the actor said. But Dr. Daruwalla knew that John D. wasn’t as indifferent as he seemed.

  As for Inspector Dhar, he’d never intended to miss the lunch at the Duckworth Club, and he thought he would rather be murdered by Rahul than resign his membership under a threat so coarse that it had to be left in a dead man’s mouth. It was not how Nancy looked that mattered to him; rather, he was an actor—a professional—and even 20 years ago he’d known that Nancy had been acting. She wasn’t the young woman she’d pretended to be. Twenty years ago, even the young John D. could tell that Nancy had been terrified, that she’d been bluffing.

  Now the actor wanted to see if Nancy was still bluffing, if she was still pretending. Maybe now, Dhar thought, Nancy had stopped acting; maybe now, after 20 years, she simply let her terror show.

  Something Rather Odd

  It was 6:45 in the morning when Nancy awoke in her husband’s arms. Vijay was holding her the way she loved to be held; it was the best way for her to wake up, and she was astonished at what a good night’s sleep she’d had. She felt Vijay’s chest against her back; his delicate hands held her breasts, his breath slightly stirred her hair. Detective Patel’s penis was quite stiff, and Nancy could feel its light but insistent pulse against the base of her spine. Nancy knew she was fortunate to have such a good husband, and such a kind one. She regretted how difficult she was to live with; Vijay took such pains to protect her. She began to move her hips against him; it was one of the ways he liked to make love to her—to enter her from behind while she was on her side. But the deputy commissioner didn’t respond to the rolling motion of his wife’s hips, although he truly worshiped her nakedness—her whiteness, her blondness, her voluptuousness. The policeman let go of Nancy’s breasts, and simultaneously (with his retreating from her) she noticed that the bathroom door was open; they always went to sleep with the door closed. The bedroom smelled fresh, like soap; her husband had already had his morning shower. Nancy turned to face Vijay—she touched his wet hair. He couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “It’s almost seven o’clock,” the detective told her.

  Detective Patel was normally out of bed before 6:00; he usually left for Crime Branch Headquarters before 7:00. But this morning he’d let her sleep; he’d showered and then he’d got back into bed beside her. He’d merely been waiting for her to wake up, Nancy thought; yet he hadn’t been waiting to have sex.

  “What are you going to tell me?” Nancy asked him. “What have you not told me, Vijay?”

  “It’s really nothing—just a little lunch,” Patel replied.

  “We are—at the Duckworth Club,” the policeman told her.

  “With the doctor, you mean,” Nancy said.

  “With the actor, too, I imagine,” the detective said.

  “Oh, Vijay. No … not Dhar!” she cried.

  “I think Dhar will be there,” Vijay told her. “They both know Rahul,” he explained. It sounded crude to him, to put it the way he’d said it yesterday, to the doctor (“to compare notes”), and so he said, “It could be valuable, just to hear what all of you remember. There might be some detail that would help me …” His voice trailed off. He hated to see his wife so withdrawn. Then she was suddenly wracked with sobs.

  “We’re not members of the Duckworth Club!” Nancy cried.

  “We’ve been invited—we’re guests,” Patel told her.

  “But they’ll see me, they’ll think I’m horrible,” Nancy moaned.

  “They know you’re my wife. They just want to help,” the deputy commissioner replied.

  “What if Rahul sees me?” Nancy asked him. She was always raising this question.

  “Would you recognize Rahul?” Patel asked. The detective thought it was unlikely that any of them would recognize Rahul, but the question was spurious; Nancy wasn’t in disguise.

  “I don’t think so, but maybe,” Nancy said.

  Deputy Commissioner Patel dressed himself and left her while she was still naked in the bedroom; Nancy was aimlessly searching through her clothes. The dilemma of what she should wear to the Duckworth Club was gradually overwhelming her. Vijay had told her that he would come home from the police station to drive her to the Duckworth Club; Nancy wouldn’t have to get herself there. But the detective doubted that she’d heard him. He’d have to come home early, because he suspected she would still be naked in the bedroom; possibly she’d have progressed to trying on her cloth
es.

  Sometimes (on her “good days”) she wandered into the kitchen, which was the only room where the sun penetrated the apartment, and she would lie on the countertop in a long patch of sunlight; the sun came through the open window for only two hours of the morning, but it was enough to give her a sunburn if she didn’t apply some protection to her skin. Once, she’d stretched herself out on the countertop, completely naked, and a woman from a neighboring flat had called the police. The caller had described Nancy as “obscene.” After that, she’d always worn something, even if it was only one of Vijay’s shirts. Sometimes she wore sunglasses, too, although she liked to have a nice tan and the sunglasses gave her “raccoon eyes,” she said.

  She never shopped for food, because she said the beggars assailed her. Nancy was a decent cook but Vijay did the shopping. They didn’t believe in grocery lists; he brought home something that appealed to him and she would think of a way to prepare it. Once or twice a month, she went out to buy books. She preferred shopping curbside, along Churchgate and at the intersection of Mahatma Gandhi and Hornby roads. She liked secondhand books best, especially memoirs; her favorite was A Combat Widow of the Raj—a memoir that ended with a suicide note. She also bought a lot of remaindered American novels; for one of these novels, she rarely paid more than 15 rupees—sometimes as little as 5. She said that beggars didn’t bother people who bought books.

  Once or twice a week, Vijay took her out to dinner. Although they’d still not spent all of the dildo money, they thought they couldn’t afford the hotel restaurants, which were the only places where Nancy could feel she was anonymous—among foreigners. Only once had they argued about it; Vijay had told her that he suspected she preferred the hotel restaurants because she could imagine that she was only a tourist, just passing through. He’d accused her of wishing that she didn’t live in India—of wanting to be back in the States. She’d showed him. The next time they went to their regular restaurant—a Chinese place called Kamling, at Churchgate—Nancy had summoned the owner to their table. She’d asked the owner if he knew that her husband was a deputy commissioner; indeed, the Chinese gentleman knew this—Crime Branch Headquarters was nearby, just opposite Crawford Market.