A Son of the Circus

by John Irving

  “I said what are you?” the boy repeated. That was the first moment Farrokh felt threatened.

  “I’m a doctor,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

  The boys on either side of him looked decidedly hostile; it was the boy across the aisle who saved him. “My dad’s a doctor,” the boy stupidly remarked.

  “Are you going to be a doctor, too?” Farrokh asked him.

  The other two got up; they pulled the third boy along with them.

  “Fuck you,” the first boy said to Farrokh, but the doctor knew this was a harmless bomb—already defused.

  He never took the subway again. But after his worst episode, the subway incident seemed mild. After his worst episode, Farrokh was so upset, he couldn’t remember whether the taxi driver had pulled over before or after the intersection of University and Gerrard; either way, he’d just left the hospital and he was daydreaming. What was odd, he remembered, was that the driver already had a passenger, and that the passenger was riding in the front seat. The driver said, “Don’t mind him. He’s just a friend with nothing to do.”

  “I’m not a fare,” the driver’s friend said.

  Later, Farrokh remembered only that it wasn’t one of Metro’s taxis or one of Beck’s—the two companies he most often called. It was probably what they call a gypsy cab.

  “I said where are you going?” the driver asked Dr. Daruwalla.

  “Home,” Farrokh replied. (It struck him as pointless to add that he’d intended to walk for a while. Here was a taxi. Why not take it?)

  “Where’s ‘home’?” the friend in the front seat asked.

  “Russell Hill Road, north of St. Clair—just north of Lonsdale,” the doctor answered; he’d stopped walking—the taxi had stopped, too. “Actually, I was going to stop at the beer store—and then go home,” Farrokh added.

  “Get in, if you want,” the driver said.

  Dr. Daruwalla didn’t feel anxious until he was settled in the back seat and the taxi began to move. The friend in the front seat belched once, sharply, and the driver laughed. The windshield visor in front of the driver’s friend was pushed flat against the windshield, and the glove-compartment door was missing. Farrokh couldn’t remember if these were the places where the driver’s certification was posted—or was it usually on the Plexiglas divider between the front and back seats? (The Plexiglas divider itself was unusual; in Toronto, most taxis didn’t have these dividers.) Anyway, there was no visible driver’s certification inside the cab, and the taxi was already moving too fast for Dr. Daruwalla to get out—maybe at a red light, the doctor thought. But there were no red lights for a while and the taxi ran the first red light it came to; that was when the driver’s friend in the front seat turned around and faced Farrokh.

  “So where’s your real home?” the friend asked.

  “Russell Hill Road,” Dr. Daruwalla repeated.

  “Before that, asshole,” the driver said.

  “I was born in Bombay, but I left India when I was a teenager. I’m a Canadian citizen,” Farrokh said.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” the driver said to his friend.

  “Let’s take him home,” the friend said.

  The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and made a sudden U-turn. Farrokh was thrown against the door.

  “We’ll show you where your home is, babu,” the driver said.

  At no time could Dr. Daruwalla have escaped. When they crawled slowly ahead in the traffic, or when they were stopped at a red light, the doctor was too afraid to attempt it. They were moving fairly fast when the driver slammed on the brakes. The doctor’s head bounced off the Plexiglas shield. Dr. Daruwalla was pressed back into the seat when the driver accelerated. Farrokh felt the tightness of the instant swelling; by the time he gently touched his puffy eyebrow, blood was already running into his eye. Four stitches, maybe six, the doctor’s fingers told him.

  The area of Little India is not extensive; it stretches along Gerrard from Coxwell to Hiawatha—some would say as far as Woodfield. Everyone would agree that by the time you get to Greenwood, Little India is over; and even in Little India, the Chinese community is interspersed. The taxi stopped in front of the Ahmad Grocers on Gerrard, at Coxwell; it was probably no coincidence that the grocer was diagonally across the street from the offices of the Canadian Ethnic Immigration Services—this was where the driver’s friend dragged Farrokh out of the back seat. “You’re home now—better stay here,” the friend told Dr. Daruwalla.

  “Better yet, babu—go back to Bombay,” the driver added.

  As the taxi pulled away, the doctor could see it clearly out of only one eye; he was so relieved to be free of the thugs that he paid scant attention to the identifying marks of the car. It was red—maybe red and white. If Farrokh saw any printed names or numbers, he wouldn’t remember them.

  Little India appeared to be mostly closed on Friday. Apparently, no one had seen the doctor roughly pulled out of the taxi; no one approached him, although he was dazed and bleeding—clearly disoriented. A small, potbellied man in a dark suit—his white shirt was ruined from the blood that flowed from his split eyebrow—he clutched his doctor’s bag in one hand. He began to walk. On the sidewalk, dancing in the spring air, kaftans were hanging on a clothes rack. Later, Farrokh struggled to remember the names of the places. Pindi Embroidery? Nirma Fashions? There was another grocery with fresh fruits and vegetables—maybe the Singh Farm? At the United Church, there was a sign saying that the church also served as the Shri Ram Hindu Temple on Sunday evenings. At the corner of Craven and Gerrard, a restaurant claimed to be “Indian Cuisine Specialists.” There was also the familiar advertisement for Kingfisher lager—INSTILLED WITH INNER STRENGTH. A poster, promising an ASIA SUPERSTARS NITE, displayed the usual faces: Dimple Kapadia, Sunny Deol, Jaya Prada—with music by Bappi Lahiri.

  Dr. Daruwalla never came to Little India. In the storefront windows, the mannequins in their saris seemed to rebuke him. Farrokh saw few Indians in Toronto; he had no close Indian friends there. Parsi parents would bring him their sick children—on the evidence of his name in the telephone directory, Dr. Daruwalla supposed. Among the mannequins, a blonde in her sari struck Farrokh as sharing his own disorientation.

  At Raja Jewellers, someone was staring out the window at him, probably noticing that the doctor was bleeding. There was a South Indian “Pure Vegetarian Restaurant” near Ashdale and Gerrard. At the Chaat Hut, they advertised “all kinds of kulfi, faluda and paan.” At the Bombay Bhel, the sign said FOR TRUE AUTHENTIC GOL GUPPA … ALOO TIKKI … ETC. They served Thunderbolt beer, SUPER STRONG LAGER … THE SPIRIT OF EXCITEMENT. More saris were in a window at Hiawatha and Gerrard. And at the Shree Groceries, a pile of ginger root overflowed the store, extending onto the sidewalk. The doctor gazed at the India Theater … at the Silk Den.

  At J. S. Addison Plumbing, at the corner of Woodfield and Gerrard, Farrokh saw a fabulous copper bathtub with ornate faucets; the handles were tiger heads, the tigers roaring—it was like the tub he’d bathed in as a boy on old Ridge Road, Malabar Hill. Dr. Daruwalla began to cry. Staring at the display of copper sinks and drains and other bathroom Victoriana, he was suddenly aware of a man’s concerned face staring back at him. The man came out on the sidewalk.

  “You’ve been hurt—may I help you?” the man asked; he wasn’t an Indian.

  “I’m a doctor,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “Please just call me a taxi—I know where to go.” He had the taxi take him back to the Hospital for Sick Children.

  “You sure you want Sick Kids, mon?” the driver asked; he was a West Indian, a black man—very black. “You don’t look like a sick kid to me.”

  “I’m a doctor,” Farrokh said. “I work there.”

  “Who done that to you, mon?” the driver asked.

  “Two guys who don’t like people like me—or like you,” the doctor told him.

  “I know them—they everywhere, mon,” the driver said.

  Dr. Daruwalla was relieved that his secretary and his nurse ha
d gone home. He kept a change of clothes in his office; after he was stitched up, he would throw the shirt away … he’d ask his secretary to have the suit dry-cleaned.

  He examined the split wound on his eyebrow; using the mirror, he shaved around the gash. This was easy, but he was used to shaving in a mirror; then he contemplated the procaine injection and the sutures—to do these properly in the mirror was baffling to him, especially the sewing. Farrokh called Dr. Macfarlane’s office and asked the secretary to have Mac stop by when he was ready to go home.

  Farrokh first tried to tell Macfarlane that he’d hit his head in a taxi because of a reckless driver, the brakes throwing him forward into the Plexiglas divider. Although it was the truth, or only a lie of omission, his voice trailed off; his fear, the insult, his anger—these things were still reflected in his eyes.

  “Who did this to you, Farrokh?” Mac asked.

  Dr. Daruwalla told Dr. Macfarlane the whole story—beginning with the three teenagers on the subway and including the shouts from the passing cars. By the time Mac had stitched him up—it required five sutures to close the wound—Farrokh had used the expression “an immigrant of color” more times than he’d ever uttered it aloud before, even to Julia. He would never tell Julia about Little India, either; that Mac knew was comfort enough.

  Dr. Macfarlane had his own stories. He’d never been beaten up, but he’d been threatened and intimidated. There were phone calls late at night; he’d changed his number three times. There were also phone calls to his office; two of his former secretaries had resigned, and one of his former nurses. Sometimes letters or notes were shoved under his office door; perhaps these were from the parents of former patients, or from his fellow doctors, or from other people who worked at Sick Kids.

  Mac helped Farrokh rehearse how he would describe his “accident” to Julia. It sounded more plausible if it wasn’t the taxi driver’s fault. They decided that an idiot woman had pulled out from the curb without looking; the driver had had no choice but to hit the brakes. (A blameless woman driver had been blamed again.) As soon as he realized he was cut and bleeding, Farrokh had asked the driver to take him back to the hospital; fortunately, Macfarlane was still there and had stitched him up. Just five sutures. His white shirt was a total loss, and he wouldn’t know about the suit until it came back from the cleaner’s.

  “Why not just tell Julia what happened?” Mac asked.

  “She’ll be disappointed in me—because I didn’t do anything,” Farrokh told him.

  “I doubt that,” Macfarlane said.

  “I’m disappointed that I didn’t do anything,” Dr. Daruwalla admitted.

  “That can’t be helped,” Mac said.

  On the way home to Russell Hill Road, Farrokh asked Mac about his work at the AIDS hospice—there was a good one in Toronto.

  “I’m just a volunteer,” Macfarlane explained.

  “But you’re a doctor,” Dr. Daruwalla said. “I mean, it must be interesting there. But exactly what can an orthopedist do?”

  “Nothing,” Mac said. “I’m not a doctor there.”

  “But of course you’re a doctor—you’re a doctor anywhere!” Farrokh cried. “There must be patients with bedsores. We know what to do with bedsores. And what about pain control?” Dr. Daruwalla was thinking of morphine, a wonderful drug; it disconnects the lungs from the brain. Wouldn’t many of the deaths in an AIDS hospice be respiratory deaths? Wouldn’t morphine be especially useful there? The respiratory distress is unchanged, but the patient is unaware of it. “And what about muscular wasting, from being bedridden?” Farrokh added. “Surely you could instruct families in passive range-of-motion exercises, or dispense tennis balls for the patients to squeeze …”

  Dr. Macfarlane laughed. “The hospice has its own doctors. They’re AIDS doctors,” Macfarlane said. “I’m absolutely not a doctor there. That’s something I like about it—I’m just a volunteer.”

  “What about the catheters?” Farrokh asked. “They must get blocked, the skin tunnels get inflamed …” His voice fell away; he was wondering if you could unplug them by flushing them with an anticoagulant, but Macfarlane wouldn’t let him finish the thought.

  “I don’t do anything medical there,” Mac told him.

  “Then what do you do?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.

  “One night I did all the laundry,” Macfarlane replied. “Another night I answered the phone.”

  “But anyone could do that!” Farrokh cried.

  “Yes—any volunteer,” Mac agreed.

  “Listen. There’s a seizure, a patient seizes from uncontrolled infection,” Dr. Daruwalla began. “What do you do? Do you give intravenous Valium?”

  “I call the doctor,” Dr. Macfarlane said.

  “You’re kidding me!” said Dr. Daruwalla. “And what about the feeding tubes? They slip out. Then what? Do you have your own X ray facilities or do you have to take them to a hospital?”

  “I call the doctor,” Macfarlane repeated. “It’s a hospice—they’re not there to get well. One night I read aloud to someone who couldn’t sleep. Lately, I’ve been writing letters for a man who wants to contact his family and his friends—he wants to say good-bye, but he never learned how to write.”

  “Incredible!” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “They come there to die, Farrokh. We try to help them control it. We can’t help them like we’re used to helping most of our patients,” Macfarlane explained.

  “So you just go there, you show up,” Farrokh began. “You check in … tell someone you’ve arrived. Then what?”

  “Usually a nurse tells me what to do,” Mac said.

  “A nurse tells the doctor what to do!” cried Dr. Daruwalla.

  “Now you’re getting it,” Dr. Macfarlane told him.

  There was his home on Russell Hill Road. It was a long way from Bombay; it was a long way from Little India, too.

  “Honestly, if you want to know what I think,” said Martin Mills, who’d interrupted Farrokh’s story only a half-dozen times, “I think you must drive your poor friend Macfarlane crazy. Obviously, you like him, but on whose terms? On your terms—on your heterosexual doctor terms.”

  “But that’s what I am!” Dr. Daruwalla shouted. “I’m a heterosexual doctor!” Several people in the Rajkot airport looked mildly surprised.

  “Three thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four,” the voice on the loudspeaker said.

  “The point is, could you empathize with a raving gay man?” the missionary asked. “Not a doctor, and someone not even in the least sympathetic to your problems—someone who couldn’t care less about racism, or what happens to immigrants of color, as you say? You think you’re not homophobic, but how much could you care about someone like that?”

  “Why should I care about someone like that?” Farrokh screamed.

  “That’s my point about you. Do you see what I mean?” the missionary asked. “You’re a typical homophobe.”

  “Three thousand, nine hundred and forty-nine,” the voice on the loudspeaker droned.

  “You can’t even listen to a story,” Dr. Daruwalla told the Jesuit.

  “Mercy!” said Martin Mills.

  They were delayed in boarding the plane because the authorities again confiscated the scholastic’s dangerous Swiss Army knife.

  “Couldn’t you have remembered to pack the damn knife in your bag?” Dr. Daruwalla asked the scholastic.

  “Given the mood you’re in, I’d be foolish to answer questions of that kind,” Martin replied. When they were finally on board the aircraft, Martin said, “Look. We’re both worried about the children—I know that. But we’ve done the best we can for them.”

  “Short of adopting them,” Dr. Daruwalla remarked.

  “Well, we weren’t in a position to do that, were we?” the Jesuit asked. “My point is, we’ve put them in a position where at least they can help themselves.”

  “Don’t make me throw up,” Farrokh said.

  “They’re safer in the circus tha
n where they were,” the zealot insisted. “In how many weeks or months would the boy have been blind? How long would it have taken the girl to contract some horrible disease—even the worst? Not to mention what she would have endured before that. Of course you’re worried. So am I. But there’s nothing more we can do.”

  “Is this fatalism I hear?” Farrokh asked.

  “Mercy, no!” the missionary replied. “Those children are in God’s hands—that’s what I mean.”

  “I guess that’s why I’m worried,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

  “You weren’t bitten by a monkey!” Martin Mills shouted.

  “I told you I wasn’t,” Farrokh said.

  “You must have been bitten by a snake—a poisonous snake,” the missionary said. “Or else the Devil himself bit you.”

  After almost two hours of silence—their plane had landed and Vinod’s taxi was navigating the Sunday traffic from Santa Cruz to Bombay—Martin Mills thought of something to add. “Furthermore,” the Jesuit said, “I get the feeling you’re keeping something from me. It’s as if you’re always stopping yourself—you’re always biting your tongue.”

  I’m not telling you half! the doctor almost hollered. But Farrokh bit his tongue again. In the slanting light of the late afternoon, the lurid movie posters displayed the confident image of Martin Mills’s twin. Many of the posters for Inspector Dhar and the Towers of Silence were already defaced; yet through the tatters and the muck flung from the street, Dhar’s sneer seemed to be assessing them.

  In reality, John D. had been rehearsing a different role, for the seduction of the second Mrs. Dogar was out of Inspector Dhar’s genre. Rahul wasn’t the usual cinema bimbo. If Dr. Daruwalla had known who’d bitten him in his hammock at the Hotel Bardez, the doctor would have agreed with Martin Mills, for Farrokh truly had been bitten by the Devil himself … by the Devil herself, the second Mrs. Dogar would prefer.

  As the dwarf’s taxi came into Bombay, it was momentarily stalled near an Iranian restaurant—of a kind not quite in a class with Lucky New Moon or Light of Asia, Dr. Daruwalla was thinking. The doctor was hungry. Towering over the restaurant was a nearly destroyed Inspector Dhar poster; the movie star was ripped open from his cheek to his waist, but his sneer was undamaged. Beside the mutilated Dhar was a poster of Lord Ganesha; the elephant-headed deity might have been advertising an upcoming religious festival, but the traffic began to move before Farrokh could translate the announcement.