A Son of the Circus

by John Irving

  Her telegram to Dr. Daruwalla was also pure Vera.

  I FAIL TO IMAGINE HOW DANNY’S DEATH SHOULD ALTER YOUR DECISION TO KEEP MARTIN FROM ANY KNOWLEDGE OF HIS TWIN

  So suddenly it’s my decision, Dr. Daruwalla thought.

  PLEASE DON’T UPSET POOR MARTIN WITH MORE BAD NEWS

  So now it’s “poor Martin” who would be upset! Farrokh observed.

  SINCE MARTIN HAS CHOSEN POVERTY FOR A PROFESSION, AND DANNY HAS LEFT ME A WOMAN OF INSUFFICIENT MEANS, PERHAPS YOU’LL BE SO KIND AS TO AID MARTIN WITH THE AIRFARE / OF COURSE IT’S DANNY WHO WOULD HAVE WANTED HIM HERE / VERA

  The only good news, which Dr. Daruwalla didn’t know at the time, was that Danny Mills had left Vera a woman of even less means than she supposed. Danny had bequeathed what little he had to the Catholic Church—secure in the knowledge that if he’d given anything to Martin, that’s what Martin would have done with the money. In the end, not even Vera would consider the amount worth fighting for.

  In Bombay, the day after Jubilee Day was a big one for news. Danny’s death and Vera’s manipulations overlapped with Mr. Das’s announcement that Madhu had left the Great Blue Nile with her new husband; both Martin Mills and Dr. Daruwalla had little doubt that Madhu’s new husband was Mr. Garg. Farrokh was so sure of this that his brief telegram to the Bengali ringmaster was a statement, not a question.

  YOU SAID THAT THE MAN WHO MARRIED MADHU HAD A SCAR / ACID, I PRESUME

  Both the doctor and the missionary were outraged that Mr. and Mrs. Das had virtually sold Madhu to a man like Garg, but Martin urged Farrokh not to take the ringmaster to task. In the spirit of encouraging the Great Blue Nile to support the efforts of the elephant-footed cripple, Dr. Daruwalla concluded his telegram to Mr. Das in Junagadh on a tactful note.

  I TRUST THAT THE BOY GANESH WILL BE WELL LOOKED AFTER

  He didn’t “trust”; he hoped.

  In the light of Ranjit’s message from Mr. Subhash (that Tata Two had given Dr. Daruwalla the HIV test results for the wrong Madhu), the doctor had sizably less hope for Madhu than for Ganesh. Ranjit’s account of Mr. Subhash’s offhand manner—the ancient secretary’s virtual dismissal of the error—was infuriating, but even a proper apology from Dr. Tata wouldn’t have lessened the fact that Madhu was HIV-positive. She didn’t have AIDS yet; she was merely carrying the virus.

  “How can you even think ‘merely’?” cried Martin Mills, who seemed to be more devastated by Madhu’s medical destiny than by the news of Danny’s death; after all, Danny had been dying for years.

  It was only midmorning; Martin had to interrupt their phone conversation in order to teach a class. Farrokh agreed to keep the missionary informed of the day’s developments. The upper-school boys at St. Ignatius were about to receive a Catholic interpretation of Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter, while Dr. Daruwalla attempted to find Madhu. But the doctor discovered that Garg’s phone number was no longer in service; Mr. Garg was lying low. Vinod told Dr. Daruwalla that Deepa had already talked to Garg; according to the dwarf’s wife, the owner of the Wetness Cabaret had complained about the doctor.

  “Garg is thinking you are being too moral with him,” the dwarf explained.

  It was not morality that the doctor wanted to discuss with Madhu, or with Garg. The doctor’s disapproval of Garg notwithstanding, Dr. Daruwalla wanted the opportunity to tell Madhu what it meant to be HIV-positive. Vinod implied that any opportunity for direct communication with Madhu was unpromising.

  “It is working better another way,” the dwarf suggested. “You are telling me. I am telling Deepa. She is telling Garg. Garg is telling the girl.”

  It was hard for Dr. Daruwalla to accept this as a “better” way, but the doctor was beginning to understand the essence of the dwarf’s Good Samaritanism. Rescuing children from the brothels was simply what Vinod and Deepa did with their spare time; they would just keep doing it—needing to succeed at it might have diminished their efforts.

  “Tell Garg he was misinformed,” Dr. Daruwalla told Vinod. “Tell him Madhu is HIV-positive.”

  Interestingly, if Garg was uninfected, his odds were good; he probably wouldn’t contract HIV from Madhu. (The nature of HIV transmission is such that it’s not that easy for a woman to give it to a man.) Depressingly, if Garg was infected, Madhu had probably contracted it from him.

  The dwarf must have sensed the doctor’s depression; Vinod knew that a functioning Good Samaritan can’t dwell on every little failure. “We are only showing them the net,” Vinod tried to explain. “We are not being their wings.”

  “Their wings? What wings?” Farrokh asked.

  “Not every girl is being able to fly,” the dwarf said. “They are not all falling in the net.”

  It occurred to Dr. Daruwalla that he should impart this lesson to Martin Mills, but the scholastic was still in the process of watering down Graham Greene for the upper-school boys. Instead, the doctor called the deputy commissioner.

  “Patel here,” said the cold voice. The clatter of typewriters resounded in the background; rising, and then falling out of hearing, was the mindless revving of a motorcycle. Like punctuation to their phone conversation, there came and went the sharp barking of the Dobermans, complaining in the courtyard kennel. Dr. Daruwalla imagined that just out of his hearing a prisoner was professing his innocence, or else declaring that he’d spoken the truth. The doctor wondered if Rahul was there. What would she be wearing?

  “I know this isn’t exactly a crime-branch matter,” Farrokh apologized in advance; then he told the deputy commissioner everything he knew about Madhu and Mr. Garg.

  “Lots of pimps marry their best girls,” Detective Patel informed the doctor. “Garg runs the Wetness Cabaret, but he’s a pimp on the side.”

  “I just want a chance to tell her what to expect,” said Dr. Daruwalla.

  “She’s another man’s wife,” Patel replied. “You want me to tell another man’s wife that she has to talk to you?”

  “Can’t you ask her?” Farrokh asked.

  “I can’t believe I’m speaking to the creator of Inspector Dhar,” the deputy commissioner said. “How does it go? It’s one of my all-time favorites: The police don’t ask—the police arrest, or the police harass.’ Isn’t that the line?”

  “Yes, that’s how it goes,” Dr. Daruwalla confessed.

  “So do you want me to harass her—and Garg, too?” the policeman asked. When the doctor didn’t answer him, the deputy commissioner continued. “When Garg throws her out on the street, or when she runs away, then I can bring her in for questioning. Then you can talk to her. The problem is, if he throws her out or she runs away, I won’t be able to find her. From what you say, she’s too pretty and smart to be a street prostitute. She’ll go to a brothel, and once she’s in the brothel, she won’t be out on the street. Someone will bring her food; the madam will buy her clothes.”

  “And when she gets sick?” the doctor asked.

  “There are doctors who go to the brothels,” Patel replied. “When she gets so sick that she can’t be a prostitute, most madams would put her out on the street. But by then she’ll be immune.”

  “What do you mean, ‘immune’?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.

  “When you’re on the street and very sick, everyone leaves you alone. When nobody comes near you, you’re immune,” the policeman said.

  “And then you could find her,” Farrokh remarked.

  “Then we might find her,” Patel corrected him. “But by then it would hardly be necessary for you to tell her what to expect.”

  “So you’re saying, ‘Forget her.’ Is that it?” the doctor asked.

  “In your profession, you treat crippled children—isn’t that right?” the deputy commissioner inquired.

  “That’s right,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

  “Well, I don’t know anything about your field,” said Detective Patel, “but I would guess that your odds of success are slightly higher than in the red-light district.”

&nb
sp; “I get your point,” Farrokh said. “And what are the odds that Rahul will hang?”

  For a while, the policeman was silent. Only the typewriters, responded to the question; they were the constant, occasionally interrupted by the revving motorcycle or the cacophony of Dobermans. “Do you hear the typewriters?” the deputy commissioner finally asked.

  “Of course,” Dr. Daruwalla answered.

  “The report on Rahul will be very lengthy,” Patel promised him. “But not even the sensational number of murders will impress the judge. I mean, just look at who most of the victims were—they weren’t important.”

  “You mean they were prostitutes,” said Dr. Daruwalla.

  “Precisely,” Patel replied. “We will need to develop another argument—namely, that Rahul must be confined with other women. Anatomically, she is a woman …”

  “So the operation was complete,” the doctor interrupted.

  “So I’m told. Naturally, I didn’t examine her myself,” the deputy commissioner added.

  “No, of course not …” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “What I mean is, Rahul cannot be imprisoned with men—Rahul is a woman,” the detective said. “And solitary confinement is too expensive—impossible in cases of life imprisonment. And yet, if Rahul is confined with women prisoners, there’s a problem. She’s as strong as a man, and she has a history of killing women—you see my point?”

  “So you’re saying that she might receive the death penalty only because of how awkward it will be to imprison her with other women?” Farrokh asked.

  “Precisely,” Patel said. “That’s our best argument. But I still don’t believe she’ll be hanged.”

  “Why not?” the doctor asked.

  “Almost no one is hanged,” the deputy commissioner replied. “With Rahul, they’ll probably try hard labor and life imprisonment; then something will happen. Maybe she’ll kill another prisoner.”

  “Or bite her,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

  “They won’t hang her for biting,” the policeman said. “But something will happen. Then they’ll have to hang her.”

  “Naturally, this will take a long time,” Farrokh guessed.

  “Precisely,” Patel said. “And it won’t be very satisfying,” the detective added.

  That was a theme with the deputy commissioner, Dr. Daruwalla knew. It led the doctor to ask a different sort of question. “And what will you do—you and your wife?” Farrokh inquired.

  “What do you mean?” said Detective Patel; for the first time, he sounded surprised.

  “I mean, will you stay here—in Bombay, in India?” the doctor asked.

  “Are you offering me a job?” the policeman replied.

  Farrokh laughed. “Well, no,” he admitted. “I was just curious if you were staying.”

  “But this is my country,” the deputy commissioner told him. “You’re the one who’s not at home here.”

  This was awkward; first from Vinod and now from Detective Patel, the doctor had learned something. In both cases, the subject of the lesson was the acceptance of something unsatisfying.

  “If you ever come to Canada,” Farrokh blurted out, “I would be happy to be your host—to show you around.”

  It was the deputy commissioner’s turn to laugh. “It’s much more likely that I’ll see you when you’re back in Bombay,” Patel said.

  “I’m not coming back to Bombay,” Dr. Daruwalla insisted. It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken his thoughts so unequivocally on this subject.

  Although Detective Patel politely accepted the statement, Dr. Daruwalla could tell that the deputy commissioner didn’t believe him. “Well, then,” Patel said. It was all there was to say. Not “Good-bye”; just “Well, then.”

  Not a Word

  Martin Mills again confessed to Father Cecil, who this time managed to stay awake. The scholastic was guilty of jumping to conclusions; Martin interpreted Danny’s death and his mother’s request that he come to her assistance in New York as a sign. After all, Jesuits are relentless in seeking God’s will, and Martin was an especially zealous example; the scholastic not only sought God’s will, but he too often believed that he’d spontaneously intuited what it was. In this case, Martin confessed, his mother was still capable of making him feel guilty, for he was inclined to go to New York at her bidding; Martin also confessed that he didn’t want to go. The conclusion Martin then jumped to was that this weakness—his inability to stand up to Vera—was an indication that he lacked the faith to become ordained. Worse, the child prostitute had not only forsaken the circus and returned to her life of sin, but she would almost certainly die of AIDS; what had befallen Madhu was an even darker sign, which Martin interpreted as a warning that he would be ineffectual as a priest.

  “This is clearly meant to show me that I shall be unable to renew the grace received from God in ordination,” Martin confessed to old Father Cecil, who wished that the Father Rector were hearing this; Father Julian would have put the presumptuous fool in his place. How impertinent—how utterly immodest—to be analyzing every moment of self-doubt as a sign from God! Whatever God’s will was, Father Cecil was sure that Martin Mills had not been singled out to receive as much of it as he’d imagined.

  Since he’d always been Martin’s defender, Father Cecil surprised himself by saying, “If you doubt yourself so much, Martin, maybe you shouldn’t be a priest.”

  “Oh, thank you, Father!” Martin said. It astonished Father Cecil to hear the now-former scholastic sound so relieved.

  At the news of Martin’s shocking decision—to leave the “Life,” as it is called; not to be “One of Ours,” as the Jesuits call themselves—the Father Rector was nonplussed but philosophic.

  “India isn’t for everybody,” Father Julian remarked, preferring to give Martin’s abrupt choice a secular interpretation. Blame it on Bombay, so to speak. Father Julian, after all, was English, and he credited himself with doubting the fitness of American missionaries; even on the slim evidence of Martin Mills’s dossier, the Father Rector had expressed his reservations. Father Cecil, who was Indian, said he’d be sorry to see young Martin leave; the scholastic’s energy as a teacher had been a welcome addition to St. Ignatius School.

  Brother Gabriel, who quite liked and admired Martin, nevertheless remembered the bloody socks that the scholastic had been wringing in his hands—not to mention the “I’ll take the turkey” prayer. The elderly Spaniard retreated, as he often did, to his icon-collection room; these countless images of suffering, which the Russian and Byzantine icons afforded Brother Gabriel, were at least traditional—thus reassuring. The Decapitation of John the Baptist, the Last Supper, the Deposition, which was the taking of Christ’s body from the cross—even these terrible moments were preferable to that image of Martin Mills which poor old Brother Gabriel was doomed to remember: the crazed Californian with his bloody bandages awry, looking like the composite image of many murdered missionaries past. Perhaps it was God’s will that Martin Mills should be summoned to New York.

  “You’re going to do what?” Dr. Daruwalla cried, for in the time it had taken the doctor to talk to Vinod and Detective Patel, Martin had not only given the St. Ignatius upper-school boys a Catholic interpretation of The Heart of the Matter; he had also “interpreted” God’s will. According to Martin, God didn’t want him to be a priest—God wanted him to go to New York!

  “Let me see if I follow you,” Farrokh said. “You’ve decided that Madhu’s tragedy is your own personal failure. I know the feeling—we’re both fools. And, in addition, you doubt the strength of your conviction to be ordained because you can still be manipulated by your mother, who’s made a career out of manipulating everybody. So you’re going to New York—just to prove her power over you—and also for Danny’s sake, although Danny won’t know if you go to New York or not. Or do you believe Danny will know?”

  “That’s a simplistic way to put it,” Martin said. “I may lack the necessary will to be a priest, but I haven’t entirel
y lost my faith.”

  “Your mother’s a bitch,” Dr. Daruwalla told him.

  “That’s a simplistic way to put it,” Martin repeated. “Besides, I already know what she is.”

  How the doctor was tempted. Tell him—tell him now! Dr. Daruwalla thought.

  “Naturally, I’ll pay you back—I won’t take the plane ticket as a gift,” Martin Mills explained. “After all, my vow of poverty no longer applies. I do have the academic credentials to teach. I won’t make a lot of money teaching, but certainly enough to pay you back—if you’ll just give me a little time.”

  “It’s not the money! I can afford to buy you a plane ticket—I can afford to buy you twenty plane tickets!” Farrokh cried. “But you’re giving up your goal—that’s what’s so crazy about you. You’re giving up, and for such stupid reasons!”

  “It’s not the reasons—it’s my doubt,” Martin said. “Just look at me. I’m thirty-nine. If I were going to be a priest, I should have already become one. No one who’s still trying to ‘find himself’ at thirty-nine is very reliable.”

  You took the words right out of my mouth! Dr. Daruwalla thought, but all the doctor said was, “Don’t worry about the ticket—I’ll get you a ticket.” He hated to see the fool look so defeated; Martin was a fool, but he was an idealistic fool. The idiot’s idealism had grown on Dr. Daruwalla. And Martin was candid—unlike his twin! Ironically, the doctor felt he’d learned more about John D. from Martin Mills—in less than a week—than he’d learned from John D. in 39 years.

  Dr. Daruwalla wondered if John D.’s remoteness, his not-thereness—his iconlike and opaque character—wasn’t that part of him which was created not upon his birth but upon his becoming Inspector Dhar. Then the doctor reminded himself that John D. had been an actor before he became Inspector Dhar. If the identical twin of a gay male had a 52 percent chance of being gay, in what other ways did John D. and Martin Mills have a 52 percent chance of being alike? It occurred to Dr. Daruwalla that the twins had a 48 percent chance of being unalike, too; nevertheless, the doctor doubted that Danny Mills could be the twins’ father. Moreover, Farrokh had grown too fond of Martin to continue to deceive him.