A Fine Balance

  “The old woman’s prophecy has almost come true, then,” said Om.

  “What prophecy?” asked Beggarmaster.

  The tailors described the night in the hutment colony, when Monkey-man had discovered his little monkeys slain by his dog, when the old woman uttered her cryptic words. “I remember exactly what she told us,” said Om. “ ‘The loss of two monkeys is not the worst loss he will suffer; the murder of the dog is not the worst murder he will commit.’ And later, he did kill Tikka to avenge Laila and Majnoo.”

  “What a horrible story,” said Dina.

  “Pure coincidence,” said Beggarmaster, “I don’t believe in prophecies or superstitions.”

  Ishvar nodded. “And are the two children happy without Monkey-man?”

  Beggarmaster flipped his unchained hand in a who-knows gesture. “They will have to get used to it. Life does not guarantee happiness.” He raised the same hand in farewell and began walking out the door, then stopped.

  “There is something you can do for me. I need two new beggars. If you see someone who qualifies, will you let me know?”

  “Sure,” said Ishvar. “We’ll keep our eyes open.”

  “But there has to be a unique feature about the candidates. Let me show you.” From the briefcase, he removed a large sketchbook containing his notes and diagrams relating to the dramaturgy of begging. The binding was well-worn, the corners of the pages curling.

  He opened the book to an old pencil drawing titled Spirit of Collaboration. “Here’s what I have been trying to create for a long time.”

  They crowded around to look at the sketch: two figures, one sitting aloft on the shoulders of the other. “For this, I need a lame beggar and a blind beggar. The blind man will carry the cripple on his shoulders. A living, breathing image of the ancient story about friendship and cooperation. And it will produce a fortune in coins, I am absolutely certain, because people will give not only from pity or piety but also from admiration.” The hitch was in finding a blind beggar who was strong enough or a lame beggar who was light enough.

  “Wouldn’t Shankar be suitable?” asked Maneck.

  “Without legs, and only quarter thighs, he could never balance upon someone’s shoulders – he would slide right down the back. I need a cripple whose legs are not amputated, but lifeless and mutilated, so they can dangle nicely over the carrier’s chest. In any case, Shankar is very successful with his rolling platform. We don’t want to spoil that.”

  They promised to watch out for Beggarmaster’s requirements. He said he would appreciate any suggestions. “By the way, you know the two goondas who came with your rent-collector?”

  “Yes?”

  “They have sent their apologies for not being here to clean up the mess they made.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. They had an unfortunate accident – broke all their fingers. Who knows, if they have a few more accidents they may even qualify to join my team of beggars.” He was pleased at his own wit, and they returned weak smiles.

  “Now you really must excuse me,” he said. “I have to go and look after my two murdered beggars.”

  “Will you cremate them today?”

  “No, that’s too expensive. When the morgue releases the corpses, I’ll sell them to my agent.” Seeing their shocked expressions, Beggarmaster felt obliged to justify his action. “With rising prices and inflation, I have no choice. Besides, it’s much better than leaving the bodies in the street for the municipal workers, like in the old days.”

  “Yes, of course,” agreed Dina, as though she bought and sold cadavers on a daily basis. “And what does your agent do with the – bodies?”

  “He sells some to colleges, to teach students who want to become doctors. Just imagine, my beggars might participate in the pursuit of knowledge.” His face took on a visionary aspect, gazing out the window to a limitless horizon. “Some bodies are also bought by practitioners of black magic. And a lot of bones are exported. For fertilizer, I think. I can find out more if you are interested.”

  Dina shook her head to decline the offer.

  Beggarmaster left a chill in the air as he departed. “We must be careful with that man,” she said. “What a peculiar fellow. And that briefcase chained to his wrist – a slave to money. He looks capable of selling our bones before we’re finished with them.”

  “He’s just a thoroughly modern businessman, with his eye on the bottom line,” said Maneck. “I saw many like him in the cola business, when they came to meet Daddy, pressuring him to sell off Kohlah’s Cola.”

  Ishvar shook his head sadly. “Why are business people so heartless? With all their money, they still look unhappy.”

  “It’s a disease without a cure,” said Dina. “Like cancer. And they don’t even know they have it.”

  “Anyway,” said Maneck, his spirits rising again, “Om is the only one who needs to fear Beggarmaster. There could be a genuine mistake about a walking skeleton.”

  “You better be careful too,” retaliated Om. “Your healthy mountain-grown bones, watered by the pure melting Himalayan snows, will fetch more by the kilo than mine.”

  “Enough of this ghoulishness,” said Dina.

  But Maneck was unable to curb his silly talk, relieved that the household was preserved. “Just think, Aunty. Now that we have gleaming teeth cleaned with charcoal powder, they must be worth a lot. We could sell them individually or by the dozen. Maybe as a necklace.”

  “Enough, I said. Laughing aside, this fellow is someone to be careful of, remember.”

  “As long as he is paid on time, there is nothing to worry about,” said Ishvar.

  “I hope so. From now on I will pay half the instalment, since he is protecting me as well.”

  “Never,” said Ishvar indignantly. “That’s not why I mentioned it. You don’t take any rent, so this is our share.” He refused to be budged on the matter.

  They went to the sewing room to calculate how much restitution was due to Au Revoir Exports. He whispered that it was good to see Maneck and Om laughing and joking again.

  “Yes, these last two days have been miserable for all of us,” she agreed, then requested the boys to screw back the nameplate on the front door.

  “We will never see Rajaram again, for sure,” said Om that night while spreading out the bedding. “If he’s the killer.”

  “Of course he is,” said his uncle. He gazed at the streetlamp from the verandah window, thinking of their erstwhile friend. “It’s unbelievable. Someone who seemed such a nice person, murdering two beggars. We should have been more careful, that very first morning in the hutment colony – with all his dirty toilet talk on the train tracks. And what sane person makes a living by collecting hair?”

  “That’s not the point, yaar. People collect and sell all kinds of things. Rags, paper, plastic, glass. Even bones.”

  “But aren’t you glad now that I wouldn’t let you grow your hair long? That murderer would have slaughtered you for it while you slept next door to him.”

  Om shrugged. “I am worried about Dinabai. Suppose the police find the haircutting kit that she gave Rajaram? Her fingerprints and ours will be on it. We will all be arrested and hanged.”

  “You’ve been seeing too many crazy films with Maneck. That sort of thing only happens in the cinema. What worries me is him coming to us again for help. Then what to do? Call the police?”

  Ishvar lay awake for a long time, unable to get Rajaram out of his mind. They had lived beside this murderer in the hutment colony, eaten his food and shared theirs with him. The thought made him shudder.

  Om knew that his uncle was having trouble sleeping. He raised himself on one elbow and chuckled in the dark: “You know the cook and waiter at Vishram who enjoy our stories? Wouldn’t they just love to hear this one.”

  “Don’t even joke about it,” warned Ishvar, “or we’ll be trapped in unending police problems.”

  The pavement was crowded with the morning rush of domestics, schoolchildren,
officegoers, hawkers. The tailors waited for a lull when Shankar could paddle over to the Vishram’s back alley. He kept waving to them, which made Ishvar jittery – the less attention drawn the better, considering the gruesome cargo on his platform.

  After a few minutes, Shankar grew impatient and ventured across the pavement, steering his transport through the thick of the pedestrian throng. “O babu! Careful!” he called, dodging and being dodged by an endless flurry of legs and feet.

  The platform collided with someone’s shin. Curses rained down on Shankar, and he looked up timidly. The man threatened to kick his head off. “Saala bhikhari thinks he owns the pavement! Stay in one place!”

  Shankar begged forgiveness and sped away. In his haste the package fell from the platform. The tailors watched worriedly, not daring to go to his help. Shankar grappled and wheeled and spun, somehow managing to rescue the package and bring it over.

  “Well done,” said Ishvar. He imagined the traffic policeman regarding them with suspicion from the busy intersection – what if he came over and demanded to open the bag? “So,” he said, keeping his voice as steady as he could. “When did our long-haired friend deliver this?”

  “Two days ago,” he answered, and Ishvar almost flung the parcel away. “No, I am wrong,” Shankar changed his mind, rubbing his forehead with a bandaged palm. “Not two days. It was the day after I last saw you – four days ago.”

  Ishvar nodded with relief at Om. The parcel did not contain that hair. “Our friend won’t be coming to see you from now on.”

  “No?” Shankar was disappointed. “I used to enjoy playing with his packages. Such lovely hair.”

  “You mean you looked inside?”

  “Did I do wrong?” he asked anxiously. “Aray babu, I didn’t damage anything, I just touched it to my cheek because it made me feel good. It was so soft and nice.”

  “That it was, for sure,” said Om. “Our friend only collects the best quality hair.”

  The gibe was lost on Shankar. “I wish I had one bunch for myself,” he sighed. “I could put it on my platform at night and sleep with my face resting against it. How it would soothe me, after the meanness of people all day. Even the ones who throw coins, they look at me as though I was robbing them. What a comfort the hair would be.”

  “Why not?” said Om, on an impulse. “Here, keep this packet – our friend doesn’t need it.”

  Ishvar was about to protest, then let it go. Om was right, what did it matter now?

  With Shankar’s gratitude thawing the chill of Rajaram’s deed, they walked back to the flat. “I want to throw away all his rubbish from our trunk,” said Ishvar. “God knows where it’s from, how many others he killed.”

  That night, when Dina and Maneck were asleep, Ishvar removed the plaits from the trunk and placed them in a small cardboard carton for ultimate disposal. He felt better afterwards, for their clothes were no longer polluted by the madman’s collection.

  Noises from the kitchen woke Dina early, well before water time, when the sky was still dark as night. Two months had passed in peace since Beggarmaster had proven his worth, and the flat was back to normal. But drifting half-awake, she was convinced the rattle of pots and pans meant only one thing: the landlord’s goondas were back. Heart pounding, hands heavy with sleep, her fingers pecked at the sheet in a bid to uncover herself.

  Then again, maybe it was just a nightmare that would play itself out – if she lay still… kept her eyes closed…

  The noises subsided. Good, the strategy was working, no goondas, only a dream, yes, and Beggarmaster was protecting the flat. Nothing to worry about, she felt, floating back and forth over the threshold of slumber.

  Eventually, a persistent miaowing pushed her into full wakefulness, and she sat up with a start. Nuisance of a cat! Disentangling herself from the sheet, she got out of bed and blundered into the wooden stools. One fell over with a thud, waking Maneck in the next room, succeeding where the pots and pans had failed.

  “Are you all right, Aunty?”

  “Yes, it’s a rascal cat in the kitchen. I’m going to break its head. You go back to sleep.”

  He found his slippers and followed Dina, as much to make sure she would not really hurt the cat as out of curiosity. She switched on the light, and they saw it dart out the window: his favourite, Vijayanthimala, the brown and white tabby.

  “The wicked animal,” she fumed. “God knows what it has been licking with its filthy mouth.”

  Maneck examined the chicken wire ripped off the broken windowpane. “It must have been really desperate to do this. Hope it didn’t injure itself.”

  “You’re more worried about the dirty beast than the trouble it creates for me.” She began picking up the utensils that had been tumbled from their place and would have to be thoroughly scrubbed.

  “Wait,” she stopped. “What’s that sound?”

  Hearing nothing, they continued to tidy the kitchen. Moments later she froze again, and this time a feeble whimper threaded its way through the silence. There was no mistaking it, it was in the kitchen.

  In the corner, in the hollow where coal fires used to burn for cooking in the old days, lay three brown and white kittens. A chorus of tiny miaows greeted Dina and Maneck as they bent over to look.

  “Oh my!” she gasped. “How sweet!”

  “No wonder Vijayanthimala was looking fat lately,” he grinned.

  The kittens struggled to get to their feet, and she felt she had never seen anything so helpless. “I wonder if she gave birth to them right here.”

  He shook his head. “They seem a few days old to me. She must have brought them in during the night.”

  “I wonder why. Oh, they are so sweet.”

  “Would you still like to make violin strings out of them, Aunty?”

  She gave him a reproachful look. But when he stroked them gently she pulled him back. “Don’t touch. How do you know what germs they have?”

  “They are only babies.”

  “So? They can still carry disease.” She spread open a page from an old newspaper and grasped it in the middle.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in alarm.

  “Protecting my hands. I’ll place all three right outside the window, where the cat can see them.”

  “You can’t do that!” He argued that if the mother had abandoned the kittens they would starve to death. That is, if crows and rats didn’t attack them first, peck out their tiny eyes, tear open the little bodies, rip out their entrails, and gnaw at the delicate bones.

  “There’s no need for so many details,” she said. The kittens kept up a pitiful wailing in concurrence with his gruesome scenario. “What do you want to do?”

  “Feed them.”

  “Out of the question,” she declared – once they were fed, they would never leave. And the mother, even if she were contemplating a return, would shirk her duties. “I cannot be responsible for all the homeless creatures in the world.”

  He finally managed to win a reprieve for the kittens. She agreed not to move them for the time being, to give Vijayanthimala a chance to hear her litter calling. Perhaps their cries would persuade her to come back.

  “Look,” he pointed outside. “It’s dawn.”

  “What a beautiful sky,” she paused, staring dreamily through the window.

  The taps began to flow, interrupting her reverie. She hurried to the bathroom while he examined the yard for sleeping cats. He gazed beyond, where the warren of alleys began. In that optimistic first light, the promise of transformation shone down upon the sleeping city. He knew the feeling wouldn’t stay more than a few minutes – he had experienced it before, it always faded under stronger light.

  Still, he was grateful while it lasted. When the tailors awoke he told them the news and took them to the kitchen. Their approach caused the steady whimpers to increase in volume.

  Dina hustled them out. “With such a big crowd watching, that cat will never return.” Then she went in herself, ostensibly to mak
e tea, and stood in the corner smiling, sighing, watching the kittens wobbling around inside the coal fireplace, clambering over one another, collapsing in a heap. Their mother had chosen the spot well, she thought, the hollow deep enough to keep them from climbing out and wandering.

  Not much work was done that morning. Maneck claimed he had no classes till noon. “How convenient,” said Dina, as he kept up his vigil at the kitchen door and reported back with fresh bulletins. The tailors silenced their machines frequently to listen for the kittens.

  Time passed, and their wails grew loud enough to be heard over the Singers. “How much they are crying,” said Om. “Must be hungry.”

  “Just like human babies,” said Maneck. “They need to be fed regularly.” He watched Dina from the corner of his eye. He knew the whimpering was starting to bother her. She inquired casually if such tiny creatures could tolerate cow’s milk.

  “Yes,” he answered promptly. “But diluted with water, or it’s too heavy for them. After a few days they can also eat pieces of bread soaked in it. That’s what my father feeds the puppies and kittens at home.”

  For another hour she refused to give in, fending off the pleas from the kitchen. Then, “Oh, it’s hopeless,” she said. “Come on, Mr. Mac, you’re the expert.”

  They warmed the mixture of milk and water before pouring it in an aluminium saucer. The squirming kittens were lifted out of the coal fireplace onto newspaper spread upon the floor. “Let me also carry them,” demanded Om, and Maneck let him take the last one.

  The three cowered on the paper, unable to stop shivering. Gradually, the smell of milk drew them closer, and they gave a few tentative licks along the rim. Soon they crowded the saucer, lapping furiously. When it was empty they stood with their paws in it and looked up. Maneck refilled it, let them drink again, then removed it.

  “Why so stingy?” said Dina. “Give them more.”

  “After two hours. They’ll be sick if they overeat.” From his room he fetched an empty cardboard box and lined the bottom with fresh newspaper.