A Son of the Circus

by John Irving

  Julia graciously accepted the Jesuit’s invitation to the high tea in honor of Jubilee Day; she promised that she’d bring Farrokh to St. Ignatius before the start of the festivities so that the doctor would have plenty of time to change Martin’s bandages. The scholastic thanked Julia, but when he hung up the phone, he felt overcome by the sheer foreignness of his situation. He’d been in India less than a week; suddenly, everything that was unfamiliar was exacting a toll.

  To begin with, the zealot had been taken aback by Father Julian’s response to his confession. The Father Rector had been impatient and argumentative; his absolution had been grudging and abrupt—and it had been hastily followed by Father Julian’s insistence that Martin do something about his soiled and bloody bandages. But the priest and the scholastic had encountered a fundamental misunderstanding. At that point in his confession when Martin Mills had admitted to loving the crippled boy more than he could ever love the child prostitute, Father Julian had interrupted him and told him to be less concerned with his own capacity for love, by which the Father Rector meant that Martin should be more concerned with God’s love and God’s will—and that he should be more humble about his own, merely human role. Martin was a member of the Society of Jesus, and he should behave accordingly; he wasn’t just another egocentric social worker—a do-gooder who was constantly evaluating, criticizing and congratulating himself.

  “The fate of these children isn’t in your hands,” Father Julian told the scholastic, “nor will one of them suffer, more or less, because of your love for them—or your lack of love for them. Try to stop thinking so much about yourself. You’re an instrument of God’s will—you’re not your own creation.”

  This not only struck the zealot as blunt; Martin Mills was confused. That the Father Rector saw the children as already consigned to their fate seemed remarkably Calvinistic for a Jesuit; Martin feared that Father Julian might also be suffering from the influence of Hinduism, for this notion of the children’s “fate” had a karmic ring. And what was wrong with being a social worker? Hadn’t St. Ignatius Loyola himself been a social worker of unflagging zeal? Or did the Father Rector mean only that Martin shouldn’t take the fate of the circus children too personally? That the scholastic had intervened on the children’s behalf did not mean he was responsible for every little thing that might happen to them.

  It was in such a spiritual fog that Martin Mills took a walk in Mazagaon; he hadn’t wandered far from the mission before he encountered that slum which Dr. Daruwalla had first shown to him—the former movie-set slum where his evil mother had fainted when she was stepped on and licked by a cow. Martin remembered that he’d vomited from the moving car.

  At midmorning, on this busy Monday, the slum was teeming, but the missionary found that it was better to focus on such abjectness in a microcosmic fashion; rather than look up the length of Sophia Zuber Road for as far as he could see, Martin kept his eyes cast down—at his slowly moving feet. He never allowed his gaze to wander above ground level. Most of the slum dwellers were thus cut off at their ankles; he saw only the children’s faces—naturally, the children were begging. He saw the paws and the inquiring noses of scavenging dogs. He saw a moped that had fallen or crashed in the gutter; a garland of marigolds was entwined on its handlebars, as if the moped were being prepared for cremation. He came upon a cow—a whole cow, not just the hooves, because the cow was lying down. It was hard to navigate around the cow. But when Martin Mills stopped walking, even though he’d been walking slowly, he found himself quickly surrounded; it should be stated clearly in every guidebook for tourists—never stand still in a slum.

  The cow’s long sad dignified face gazed up at him; its eyes were rimmed with flies. On the cow’s tawny flank, a patch of the smooth hide was abraded—the raw spot was no bigger than a human fist, but it was encrusted with flies. This apparent abrasion was actually the entrance to a deep hole that had been made in the cow by a vehicle transporting a ship’s mast; but Martin hadn’t witnessed the collision, nor did the milling crowd permit him a comprehensive view of the cow’s mortal wound.

  Suddenly, the crowd parted; a procession was passing—all Martin saw was a lunatic mob of flower throwers. When the worshipers had filed by, the cow lay sprinkled with rose petals; some of the flowers were stuck to the wound, alongside the flies. One of the cow’s long legs was extended, for the animal was lying on its side; the hoof almost reached the curb. There in the gutter, within inches of the hoof but entirely untouched, was (unmistakably) a human turd. Beyond the serenely undisturbed turd was a vendor’s stall. They were selling something that looked purposeless to Martin Mills; it was a vivid scarlet powder, but the missionary doubted that it was a spice or anything edible. Some of it spilled into the gutter, where its dazzling red particles coated both the cow’s hoof and the human turd.

  That was Martin’s microcosm of India: the mortally wounded animal, the religious ritual, the incessant flies, the unbelievably bright colors, the evidence of casual human shit—and of course the confusion of smells. The missionary had been forewarned: if he couldn’t see beyond such abjectness, he would be of scant use to St. Ignatius—or to any mission in such a world. Shaken, the scholastic wondered if he had the stomach to be a priest. So vulnerable was his state of mind, Martin Mills was fortunate that the news about Madhu was still a day away.

  Take Me Home

  In the Ladies’ Garden at the Duckworth Club, the noon sun shimmered above the bower. So dense was the bougainvillea, the sun shot through the flowers in pinholes; these beads of bright light dappled the tablecloths like sprinkled diamonds. Nancy passed her hands under the needle-thin rays. She was playing with the sun, trying to reflect its light in her wedding ring, when Detective Patel spoke to her. “You don’t have to be here, sweetie,” her husband said. “You can go home, you know.”

  “I want to be here,” Nancy told him.

  “I just want to warn you—don’t expect this to be satisfying,” the deputy commissioner said. “Somehow, even when you catch them, it’s never quite satisfying.”

  Dr. Daruwalla, who kept looking at his watch, then remarked, “She’s late.”

  “They’re both late,” Nancy said.

  “Dhar is supposed to be late,” the policeman reminded her.

  Dhar was waiting in the kitchen. When the second Mrs. Dogar arrived, Mr. Sethna would observe the increasing degrees of her irritation; when the steward saw that she was clearly agitated, he would send Dhar to her table. Dr. Daruwalla was operating on the theory that agitation inspired Rahul to act rashly.

  But when she arrived, they almost didn’t recognize her. She was wearing what Western women familiarly call a little black dress; the skirt was short, with a slight flare, the waist very long and slimming. Mrs. Dogar’s small, high breasts were displayed to good effect. If she’d worn a black-linen jacket, she would have looked almost businesslike, Dr. Daruwalla believed; without a jacket, the dress was more suitable for a cocktail party in Toronto. As if intended to offend Duckworthians, the dress was sleeveless, with spaghetti straps; the brawniness of Rahul’s bare shoulders and upper arms, not to mention the breadth of her chest, hulked ostentatiously. She was too muscular for a dress like that, Farrokh decided; then it occurred to him that this was what she thought Dhar liked.

  Yet Mrs. Dogar didn’t move as if she were at all conscious that she was a woman of great strength or noticeable size. Her entry into the Duckworth Club dining room wasn’t in the least aggressive. Her attitude was shy and girlish; rather than stride to her table, she allowed old Mr. Sethna to escort her on his arm—Dr. Daruwalla had never seen her this way. This wasn’t a woman who would ever pick up a spoon or a fork and ring it against her water glass; this was an extremely feminine woman—she would rather starve at her table than cause herself any unflattering attention. She would sit smiling and waiting for Dhar until the club closed and someone sent her home. Apparently, Detective Patel was prepared for this change in her, because the deputy commissioner sp
oke quickly to the screenwriter; Mrs. Dogar had barely been seated at her table.

  “Don’t bother to keep her waiting,” the policeman said. “She’s a different woman today.”

  Farrokh summoned Mr. Sethna—to have John D. “arrive”—but all the while the deputy commissioner was watching what Mrs. Dogar did with her purse. It was a table for four, as the screenwriter had suggested; this had been Julia’s idea. When there were only two people at a table for four, Julia said, a woman usually put her purse on one of the empty chairs—not on the floor—and Farrokh had wanted the purse on a chair.

  “She put it on the floor, anyway,” Detective Patel observed.

  Dr. Daruwalla had been unable to prevent Julia from attending this lunch; now Julia said, “That’s because she’s not a real woman.”

  “Dhar will take care of it,” the deputy commissioner said.

  All Farrokh could think was that the change in Mrs. Dogar was terrifying.

  “It was the murder, wasn’t it?” the doctor asked the policeman. “I mean, the murder has totally calmed her—it’s had a completely soothing effect on her, hasn’t it?”

  “It appears to have made her feel like a young girl,” Patel replied.

  “She must have a hard time feeling like a young girl,” Nancy remarked. “What a lot to do—just to feel like a young girl.”

  Then Dhar was there, at Mrs. Dogar’s table; he didn’t kiss her. He approached her unseen, from behind, and he put both his hands on her bare shoulders; perhaps he leaned on her, because she appeared to stiffen, but he was only trying to kick her purse over. When he managed to do this, she picked her purse up and put it on an empty chair.

  “We’re forgetting to talk among ourselves,” the deputy commissioner said. “We can’t simply be staring at them and saying nothing.”

  “Please kill her, Vijay,” Nancy said.

  “I’m not carrying a gun, sweetie,” the deputy commissioner lied.

  “What will the law do to her?” Julia asked the policeman.

  “Capital punishment exists in India,” the detective said, “but the death penalty is rarely enacted.”

  “Death is by hanging,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “Yes, but there’s no jury system in India,” Patel said. “A single judge decides the prisoner’s fate. Life imprisonment and hard labor are much more common than the death penalty. They won’t hang her.”

  “You should kill her now,” Nancy repeated.

  They could see Mr. Sethna hovering around Mrs. Dogar’s table like a nervous ghost. They couldn’t see Dhar’s left hand—it was under the table. Speculation was rife that his hand was on Rahul’s thigh, or in her lap.

  “Let’s just keep talking,” Patel told them cheerfully.

  “Fuck you, fuck Rahul, fuck Dhar,” Nancy told Patel. “Fuck you, too,” she said to Farrokh. “Not you—I like you,” she told Julia.

  “Thank you, dear,” Julia replied.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Nancy said.

  “Your poor lip,” Mrs. Dogar was saying to John D. This much Mr. Sethna understood; they would understand this much from the Ladies’ Garden, too, because they saw Rahul touch Dhar’s lower lip with her long index finger—it was just a brief, feather-light touch. Dhar’s lower lip was a luminous navy blue.

  “I hope you’re not in a biting mood today,” John D. told her.

  “I’m in a very good mood today,” Mrs. Dogar replied. “I want to know where you’re going to take me, and what you’re going to do to me,” she said coquettishly. It was embarrassing how young and cute she seemed to think she was. Her lips were pursed, which exaggerated the deep wrinkles at the corners of her savage mouth; her smile was small and coy, as if she were blotting lipstick in a mirror. Although her makeup mostly concealed the mark, there was a tiny inflamed cut across the green-tinted eyelid of one of her eyes; it caused her to blink, as if the eye itself were sore. But it was only a small irritation, the tiniest scratch; it was all that the prostitute named Asha had been able to do to her—to flick back one hand, to poke at Rahul’s eye—maybe a second or two before Rahul broke her neck.

  “You’ve scratched your eye, haven’t you?” Inspector Dhar observed, but he felt no stiffening in Mrs. Dogar’s thighs; under the table, she gently pressed her thighs together on his hand.

  “I must have been thinking of you in my sleep,” she said dreamily. When she closed her eyes, her eyelids had the silver-green iridescence of a lizard; when she parted her lips, her long teeth were wet and shiny—her warm gums were the color of strong tea.

  It made John D.’s lip throb to look at her, but he continued to press his palm against the inside of her thigh. He hated this part of the script. Dhar suddenly said, “Did you draw me a picture of what you want?” He felt the muscles in both her thighs grip his hand tightly—her mouth was also tightly closed—and her eyes opened wide and fixed on his lip.

  “You can’t expect me to show you here,” Mrs. Dogar said.

  “Just a peek,” John D. begged her. “Otherwise, I’ll be in too much of a hurry to eat.”

  Had he not been so easily offended by vulgarity, Mr. Sethna would have been in eavesdropper heaven; yet the steward was trembling with disapproval and responsibility. It struck the old Parsi as an awkward moment to bring them the menus, but he knew he needed to be near her purse.

  “It’s disgusting how much people eat—I loathe eating,” Mrs. Dogar said. Dhar felt her thighs go slack; it was as if her concentration span were shorter than a child’s—as if she were losing her sexual interest, and for no better reason than the merest mention of food.

  “We don’t have to eat at all—we haven’t ordered,” Dhar reminded her. “We could just go—now,” he suggested, but even as he spoke he was prepared to hold her in her chair (if need be) with his left hand. The thought of being alone with her, in a suite at either the Oberoi or the Taj, would have frightened John D., except that he knew Detective Patel would never allow Rahul to leave the Duckworth Club. But Mrs. Dogar was almost strong enough to stand up, despite the downward pressure of Dhar’s hand. “Just one picture,” the actor pleaded with her. “Just show me something.”

  Rahul exhaled thinly through her nose. “I’m in too good a mood to be exasperated with you,” she told him. “But you’re a very naughty boy.”

  “Show me,” Dhar said. In her thighs, he thought he felt those seemingly involuntary shivers that are visible on the flanks of a horse. When she turned to her purse, John D. raised his eyes to Mr. Sethna, but the old Parsi appeared to be suffering from stage fright; the steward clutched the menus in one hand, his silver serving tray in the other. How could the old fool upend Mrs. Dogar’s purse if he didn’t have a free hand? John D. wondered.

  Rahul took the purse into her lap; Dhar could feel the bottom of it, for it briefly rested on his wrist. There was more than one drawing, and Mrs. Dogar appeared to hesitate before she withdrew all three; but she still didn’t show him any of them. She held the drawings protectively in her right hand; with her left hand, she returned her purse to the empty chair—that was when Mr. Sethna sprang into erratic action. He dropped the serving tray; there was a resounding silvery clatter upon the dining room’s stone floor. Then the steward stepped on the tray—he actually appeared to trip over it—and the menus flew from his hand into Mrs. Dogar’s lap. Instinctively, she caught them, while the old Parsi staggered past her and collided with the all-important chair. There went her purse, upside down on the floor, but nothing spilled out of it until Mr. Sethna clumsily attempted to pick the purse up; then everything was everywhere. Of the three drawings, which Rahul had left unattended on the table, John D. could see only the one on top. It was enough.

  The woman in the picture bore a striking resemblance to what Mrs. Dogar might have looked like as a young girl. Rahul had never exactly been a young girl, but this portrait reminded John D. of how she had looked in Goa 20 years ago. An elephant was mounting her, but this elephant had two trunks. The first trunk—it was in the usual
place for an elephant’s trunk—was deeply inside the young woman’s mouth; in fact, it had emerged through the back of her head. The second trunk, which was the elephant’s preposterous penis, had penetrated the woman’s vagina; it was this trunk that had burst between the woman’s shoulder blades. Approximately at the back of the woman’s neck, John D. could see that the elephant’s two trunks were touching each other; the actor could also see that the elephant was winking. Dhar would never see the other two drawings; he wouldn’t want to. The movie star stepped quickly behind Mrs. Dogar’s chair and pushed the fumbling Mr. Sethna out of the way.

  “Allow me,” Dhar said, bending to the spilled contents of her purse. Mrs. Dogar’s mood had been so improved by her recent killing, she was remarkably unprovoked by the apparent accident.

  “Oh, purses! They’re such a nuisance!” Rahul said. Flirtatiously, she allowed her hand to touch the back of Inspector Dhar’s neck. He was kneeling between her chair and the empty chair; he was gathering the contents of her purse, which he then put on the table. Quite casually, the actor pointed to the top half of the silver ballpoint pen, which he’d placed between a mirror and a jar of moisturizer.

  “I don’t see the bottom half of this,” the actor said. “Maybe it’s still in your purse.” Then he handed her the purse, which was easily half full, and he pretended to look under the table for the bottom half of the silver ballpoint pen—that part which Nancy had kept so well polished these 20 years.

  When John D. lifted his face to her, he was still kneeling; as such, his face was level with her small, well-shaped breasts. Mrs. Dogar was holding the top half of the pen. “A rupee for your thoughts,” said Inspector Dhar; it was something he said in all his movies.