Then, from the front room came the sound of her father talking in his sleep. He was not agitated tonight, it sounded like contented murmurings, and she was glad for him, but she still worried about Yezad being awakened. Oh Pappa, she wished silently, please not too loud, Pappa.
They had been to a matinée. The Magnificent Ambersons, which was showing at the Regal. Afterwards, he and Lucy went for a stroll along Cuffe Parade. This was the routine of their early years: cinema in the afternoon, a long walk, then dinner at a restaurant like Volga or Parisian. But the film had left them pensive, thinking about pride and arrogance, about downfall and disgrace. The sea was rough, the high wind making it difficult to talk as it whipped their voices and hair and clothes.
They found a bench in a sheltered spot. Now the smell of rain was in the early-evening air. The vendors of coconut water, sugar cane, peanuts had all disappeared. Only a little girl selling flowers was still there, scurrying up as soon as she spied them. “Chamayli, sahab? Chamayli for memsahab?” she pleaded in a high-pitched voice.
He bought a strand of jasmine and tried to fix it in Lucy’s hair. But she was not used to wearing flowers. She took them off, wrapping them round her wrist. He raised it to sniff the fragrance. “Jasmine wrist and rose-petal hand,” he said.
He kissed her palm, then began licking her fingers, one by one. A few minutes later he said, “Why are we wasting time here? My parents will have left by now.”
She was reluctant to go home with him, afraid of being surprised. But he assured her that his father and mother would be at Sammy and Jini Kotwal’s annual whist drive and dinner, which never ended before one in the morning; there was no chance of running into them. “And even if we do – well, you have to meet them at some time.”
It started to rain, and they took a taxi. The traffic became slower, the horns louder. The windshield wiper kept jamming, and the driver had to reach outside to get it going with a nudge. He had a towel on the front seat for his soaking arm.
When the taxi arrived at Chateau Felicity, the ground-floor neighbour, Mr. Arjani, was at his window, enjoying the downpour. “Hello, Nari!” he hailed him, adding pointedly, “Your parents are out, I saw them leave half an hour ago.”
Nariman nodded, and as they passed his door he could be heard sharing the news excitedly with Mrs. Arjani, that the Vakeel boy was bringing home a brand-new girlfriend. Nariman glanced at Lucy’s face while waiting for the lift. “Pathetic, aren’t they,” he whispered.
Upstairs, he put on the security chain so the door couldn’t be opened, just in case. She asked, Wouldn’t it better to lock the door to his room instead?
“My room doesn’t lock. And they would walk right in, even if it were shut.”
“Oh God,” she cringed at the thought. “Is this worth it?”
“Yes,” he whispered, nibbling her ear, lifting her hair to kiss her neck.
“You should cover up your ancestors’ portraits,” she said as they went down the long passageway to his bedroom. “They’re all scowling at me.”
“They were never loved by an angel.”
She sat on the bed to take off her shoes. He drew the curtains, and the dusk-laden room grew dark except for a scribble of light at the overlapping panels. He switched on the table lamp. They started to undress, and when she was down to her underclothes she pointed shyly to the light: “Turn it off.”
“I need to see you – all of you. Please.”
“Why?”
“To let all my senses worship you.”
She paused, and continued to unbutton, pleased by his answer but complaining she could never win an argument with him. Standing behind her, he undid her brassière, then sniffed the back of her neck. He raised her arm and sniffed under it. She laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Worshipping with my nose.” He stood before her, buried his face between her breasts, and inhaled. Kneeling, he hooked his fingers in the elastic waistband of her underpants and slid them to her ankles. She stepped out of them and waited. Still kneeling, he leaned forward and rubbed his nose in her hair. Her hands held his head to keep it there a moment longer.
In bed, with his ear upon her chest, he listened to her heartbeat. He kissed her, tasted her tongue, then her ears, and her nipples. Lower, he licked her navel, then meandered below …
The doorbell rang. The sound travelled savagely through the silent flat, pursued by a cluster of aggressive knocks. They sat up in bed, their pleasure already in tatters. Nariman decided to ignore the noise – whoever it was would go away concluding no one was home.
But the knocking and the bell continued. Thinking he heard his father’s roar, he stepped into the hallway to listen. Yes, it was him. They rushed to put their clothes on. Lucy hurried to the drawing-room, straightening her hair as she went. After a cursory glance at his own person in the hall mirror, he unchained the door.
His mother’s face was colourless, as though she were going to faint. His father was supporting her on one side, Soli Bamboat on the other. He took over from Soli, and asked what was wrong.
“My usual,” said his mother, her voice coming in a gasp. She tried to smile. “Blood pressure dropped suddenly again.”
With his mother’s weight on his shoulder, they went down the passageway to his parents’ room. He helped to take her shoes off. After she was safely in bed he left the room with his father.
Now his father lost his temper. “And may I ask what is going on here? Your mother is ill, I bring her home and find we are locked out of our own house! While she staggers on the doorstep!”
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you so early.” He detected the evening’s liquor on his father’s breath, and Soli’s too.
“That’s no excuse!” his father thundered. “Why must you —”
Then through the drawing-room door he spotted Lucy. “So this is the reason!”
“Yes,” said Nariman quietly. “I had to put the chain on, you don’t respect my privacy.”
“Bay-sharam! What kind of unnatural son seeks privacy from his own parents? Unless he is planning filthy behaviour?” He gestured towards Lucy on the sofa, who was staring out the window, away from them.
“Shh, Marzi, poor Jeroo is slipping, you’ll wake her up,” said Soli, the vowels confounding him as usual. “Let’s have some piss and quiet. We can deescuss all this later when she is filling better.”
“Later? Already it’s too late! This son of mine has turned my house into a raanwada, bringing his whore over here! It’s the kind of immorality that’s destroying the Parsi community!”
Nariman crossed the room to take Lucy’s hand and lead her out of the flat They didn’t wait for the lift, in case his father opened the door to shout more abuse.
Not until they had put two flights between them could he feel safe. They stopped in the silence of the stairwell. “I’m sorry, Lucy. And I’m ashamed of my father’s behaviour.”
“It’s not your fault” she said, keeping her composure although her voice trembled. “Just bad luck.”
They smiled and shared a long kiss, sheltered by the bend in the stairs. After seeing her off in a taxi, he returned upstairs.
Retreating to his room would not help – his father would follow him there. So he waited, ignoring the flood of words, till a pause prompted him to speak.
“I have only one thing to say. When you call the woman I love a whore, and our home a raanwada because I invite her here, you disgrace the role of father. And I despair for you.”
“Oh Nari, Nari!” intervened Soli. “You must never spick to your father like that, no matter what the risen.”
“My son has never respected me like a father. Here is the proof, Soli, you just heard him.”
The accusations and bitter recriminations continued, with Soli trying to make peace between them. He cajoled and scolded alternately. “Come, Marzi. Forgive and forget. Enough, Nari, not another word.”
There was silence now, and Soli took the opportunity to philosophize: “Boys
weal be boys, Marzi. Better that he has all his fun and froleek now. Afterwards, find a nice Parsi gull and settle down. Right, Nari? No hanky-panky after marriage.”
He seemed determined to pursue his humorous approach to mending the rift: “So tell me, Nari. This gull-friend of yours – will she have to tell her padre in confession what you two deed today?”
He ignored his father’s friend, who guffawed and continued, “1 have it on good eenformation that these padres make the gulls tell all the juicy details – was he touching you, were you touching him, did he put it een?”
Soli laughed again, his belly heaving, and his father chuckled. They cautioned each other about disturbing Jeroo. Then Soli began teasing Nariman for his lack of humour, and Nariman snapped that he had found nothing remotely funny in his puerile remarks …
About to go to her father’s bedside, Roxana remembered Yezad’s tortured sleep and restrained herself. Her father’s mumbled fragments persisted in the darkness. Yezad’s arm slammed the headboard. Had he heard Pappa too? Or was it the demons in his own head?
Her father continued in a subdued way, not the angry blast from before. She heard Jehangir make soft kissing sounds to comfort him, and her heart filled with a strange, painful happiness. What a beautiful boy, God bless him, so dependable, so grown-up, who could tell from his behaviour he was just nine …
She lay with her eyes open, listening. Pappa’s suffering she could guess at. But she would have given anything to understand Yezad’s hell. If he wouldn’t confide in her during their waking hours, she wished he could at least talk in his sleep, give her some hint of what was eating him.
Their eyes, with dark circles under them, met over their teacups. She looked wretched, thought Yezad, with her haggard face and slumped shoulders, and it lacerated his heart.
But his doubts had been routed by the morning light. Soon he would be able to tell her the truth, explain his actions. With the stack of sixty-three thousand and whatever-it-was rupees in his hands, forgiveness would be easy to secure.
He left before nine, following the usual drill to get to Villie’s door. Would she have collected the winnings from the bookie? He resolved to take the money to Roxana straight away and end her misery. He’d be late for work, but it wouldn’t kill Mr. Kapur to unlock the shop himself.
He knocked. No answer. He knocked louder. Nothing. Where was the silly woman – she knew how anxious he was. Maybe this was her revenge for his rudeness last night. But he had apologized. Perhaps she was at the bunya even now, counting his money – such a large sum, taking more time.
He knocked again, and fished for his handkerchief to wipe his sweat. His thumb, moistened with a little spit, laboured to erase the calculations he had scribbled on Villie’s door. The pencilled numbers became a leaden smudge. He knocked once more, then gave up and started for work.
Time crawled. He remembered the snail Jehangir had brought home from the school garden, inspired by his grandfather’s stories of the animal-lover. It had crawled about on the balcony – whatever had happened to it? … This day was moving slower than the snail, it would never be closing time.
But the hour did come when the shop closed. He ran to the station and fought his way into the first train to arrive.
His feet flew along the pavement to Pleasant Villa. Too exhausted for circumspection, he took the lift to the third floor, ascending through the evening smells of dinners being cooked in Pleasant Villa. His mouth watered … mutton chops frying somewhere. He didn’t care who saw him at Villie’s, it was all going to turn out well, in a few moments he would put the money in Roxie’s hands.
While he imagined their happy reconciliation, the door opened. Instead of the jovial Matka Queen, before him stood a stricken woman, her demeanour pleading for consolation.
“Yezadji!” she wailed softly. “What a sad, sad day for me!”
His first thought was a death in the family – her ailing mother. “I’m so sorry, Villie. What happened?”
“You haven’t heard? Where were you all day?”
“At work.”
“So? All Bombay knows about it. Every lane and every gully is buzzing with no other talk – police have shut Matka down.”
“When?”
“Early this morning.” She said that at midnight, as usual, she had stood by her window for first-floor Sampat to stop under the lamppost and tell her the closing. “He held up eight fingers.”
Yes, he thought. Yes, my troubles are over.
Without reacting to his relieved intake of breath, she continued, “Police raids started a few hours later. Our own poor Lalubhai was arrested around four-thirty.”
“But this has happened before, no? A big shor-shaar closes Matka for a few days, then everything calms down and it starts again.”
“Not this time.” Those previous raids were pre-arranged among the Matka chiefs, police, and politicians, she said, only some small bookies ever went to jail. Last night was a surprise to everyone. “And this time they have smashed Matka completely. All day I have spent at Lalubhai’s shop, with his sons, who are trying to get bail for him.”
She said the police were arresting people from top to bottom – big bookies and small, kingpins and little safety pins. Rumour was that since those terrorist bombs had blown up the stock exchange and shattered Bombay, they had to do something about Matka. Even the crookedest politician didn’t want Bombay to be the next Beirut.
“No Matka, no Lalubhai, nothing left for me. What will I do with my dreams?”
“Never mind, Villie.” He made a feeble attempt at consoling her, nudging playfully with his elbow. “Your powerful dream came true. You finished with a bang. Like a cricketer’s century in his final innings before retirement.”
“You know, Yezadji, when I heard about the raids, you were first in my thoughts. I wish you had let me cancel your bet.”
His hands went cold. “The result was eighteen! That’s what we played – eighteen pieces of Cadbury chocolate!” His voice had risen, he realized, and he lowered it. “The raid was not till after midnight, the number was already declared.”
“So? Everything is confiscated. Lalubhai’s sons don’t have one paisa left.”
“Surely …” he tried, and was dumb. Then he clutched at words weak as straws: “Surely a receipt, a record … something to show? To prove …?”
“Think before speaking. Matka is illegal – how can there be receipts and account books? And if there was, where would you take it? Police station? You want to join Lalubhai in his jail cell?”
Without another word, he dragged his feet out of her flat and into his own.
In the back room, Yezad sat on the bed to remove his shoes. He called to Roxana, and Jehangir came as well.
Yezad told him to go: “I’ve to talk to Mummy in private.”
His son looked at her, and she nodded. Yezad shut the door after him and got the envelopes out of the cupboard.
“Sit,” he said, and put the envelopes in her lap. She began checking inside them, and fear flooded her face.
“Yes, they’re empty,” he said dully. “All of them. I took the money.”
Starting with his first secret Matka wager weeks ago, he told her everything. She began to seethe, but her anger was soon subdued by worry, by the sound of his voice that was drained lifeless. She almost wished he was raging again.
She set the empty envelopes aside and moved closer till their shoulders touched. At once he leaned towards her, and she put her arm around him.
He promised to replace the money with an advance from Mr. Kapur against future commissions – schools and colleges would soon be ordering new equipment, the loss would be easily made up. As for Villie, he never wanted to talk to her again, she and her powerful dreams could go to hell …
As he unburdened himself, Roxana blessed their good fortune that they were past the middle of November – the major expenses, school fees, electricity had already been paid.
On his way to work Yezad noticed that Christ
mas decorations had appeared in many shop windows. Till last week their Divali displays were up. Now it was cotton wool and plastic holly and tinsel.
This would be the morning to ask Mr. Kapur for the advance, he resolved. And an increment – he needed it now, more than ever. Mr. Kapur was bound to be in a great mood, his new Christmas display was arriving. For days, he’d been as excited as a child.
But it was curious, thought Yezad, that Shiv Sena hadn’t yet made Santa Claus a political issue, considering the tantrums thrown by their mobs over Valentine’s Day. Since coming to power they’d been in a constant fit of censorship and persecution. Top of the list were Muslims, their favourite scapegoat as usual, he felt. Then the Sena had destroyed the work of famous Indian artists, deeming it disrespectful towards Hindu gods and goddesses. Men’s magazines, endangering Indian morals with nudity and sex and vulgarity, had their offices set on fire. And women weren’t allowed to work in bars and discos after eight o’clock because it was against Indian family values.
What a joke of a government. Clowns and crooks. Or clownish crooks. Santa Claus with mask and machine gun would be a fitting Christmas decoration for the Shiv Sena. Or any other party, for that matter.
He acknowledged Husain’s greeting and unlocked the shop door, wondering what Christmas trappings Mr. Kapur had planned. Usually, the window was left to Husain: a basic string of lights, a silver star, a Season’s Greetings sign in letters of red and green, their serifs and descenders sporting snowflakes and icicles. When done, a beaming Husain would invite Mr. Kapur and Yezad to admire his perennial masterpiece.
But this year Mr. Kapur had been hinting at something grand: “Wait and see, our new display will be the talk of the town. It’s coming soon, Yezad. Are you in the Christmas spirit?”
If he only knew what was happening at home, thought Yezad, and how precarious his financial position. He hoped they weren’t in for anything too garish or religious – there were enough mangers, Jesuses, Marys, Josephs, Santa Clauses, and flashing lights all over the city already.