“A house isn’t sad or gloomy,” said his mother, “that depends on the people who live in it. Anyway, we haven’t decided about moving.” But he continued to sulk, and she asked Murad to go instead.
For an instant, Roxana cast a critical eye upon the housecoat Daisy had wrapped hastily around herself. Then she welcomed her, apologizing for the bother, explaining that Pappa was in such a state this evening.
“No bother. He’s my most devoted audience.”
“Hmm-shtopsh-hmm-hmm!” Yezad turned fiercely on all the profane chit-chat.
Roxana whispered to Daisy not to mind him, so she tuned the violin and began a soothing rendition of Schubert’s Serenade. Yezad disregarded the competition for the first few bars, then ratcheted up his volume.
“Ahunem vairim tanum paiti!”
Daisy allowed more pressure on the bow, and the soundboard responded with greater amplification.
“Yasnemcha vahmemcha aojascha zavarecha afrinami!” continued Yezad.
Nariman wept.
Daisy switched to the chaconne from Bach’s D Minor Partita; Yezad vigorously commenced Ahmai Raescha.
“Why is nothing helping Pappa?” wondered Roxana in anguish.
A glorious cascade of sound from the violin momentarily drowned the prayer. Louder yet came the response: “Hazanghrem baeshazanam, baevare baeshazanam!”
Jehangir tapped Daisy on the back. Face squished against the chin-rest, she looked down at him questioningly.
“Aunty, do you know ‘One Day When We Were Young’? It’s Grandpa’s favourite.”
The violin paused. “Hum it for me,” she commanded.
He attempted the tune; the hint of it sufficed to remind her of the song from The Great Waltz. She abandoned the chaconne.
While she played, the sash of her housecoat came undone but the music did not stop. Roxana frowned a little, glancing at her husband to check if he was looking at Daisy’s petticoat. But his eyes were closed as he reached the concluding section: “Kerfeh mozd gunah guzareshnra kunam!”
After several repetitions of the verse and refrain, Nariman’s sobs subsided. Roxana wiped away the tears, and he drifted towards sleep.
Winding up with a final Ashem Vohu, Yezad opened his eyes. He held out his hands towards the settee to indicate the calm that the vibrations of his praying had wrought. Daisy put the violin in its case and, turning away from him, retied the sash firmly around her housecoat.
Yezad lay on his back for a long time, staring at the ceiling in the dark. “Roxana? Are you awake?”
“Umm.”
He reached for her hand under the sheet and said he’d decided: they would go to live with Jal in Chateau Felicity.
She was wide awake now. “So you think Jal’s idea will work?”
The darkness hid her expression, but he could feel its delight in her fingers. “I prefer to think of it as God’s plan. If He wants us in Chateau Felicity, He will make it work.”
She snuggled closer, and her fingers tightened round his hand, clasping it more firmly, as though she were afraid of losing it. Then, sighing, she said that when she looked back over all the events that had led them to this evening, it was almost proof of divine power in the universe, with Pappa’s broken ankle the start of everything.
The diamond merchant from Surat, Mr. Hiralal, came with Jal the following Sunday to be introduced to Yezad and Roxana. He was soft-spoken, with simple clothes and simple habits despite his wealth. He expressed sympathy for Nariman, who was asleep. They liked him instantly.
While being shown around the flat, Mr. Hiralal gave the impression that the walls and ceilings, bricks and mortar, were all he noticed, and the shabbiness attesting to the tenants’ straitened circumstances was as good as invisible.
“So lovely is your flat,” he assured them. “Just like your respected brother described. For my son it will be perfect.”
Roxana asked if he would take some tea. His affirmative emerged eagerly. After sipping from his cup and praising the blend, he apologized for the clandestine manner in which they were forced to transact their business.
“So nice it would be, if I could write a cheque for you. But government regulations force us into different procedures. Black money is so much a part of our white economy, a tumour in the centre of the brain – try to remove it and you kill the patient.”
They turned to the matter of the first instalment of twenty lakhs. “Maybe it is better in four batches of five lakhs each.”
“Why?” asked Yezad, at once suspicious, and giving Jal a questioning glance. But Jal’s expression was unaltered.
“One batch only is your preference? You know what twenty lakhs of cash in hundred-rupee notes will be like?”
“A whole heap of money,” said Yezad with a worldly smile, gesturing to indicate a pile of a vague size.
Mr. Hiralal smiled back. “You’re right. It is a lot. It fills up a thirty-two-inch VIP suitcase.”
Yezad laughed nervously, remembering Mr. Kapur. “Maybe a suitcase should replace the Ashoka pillar as the national emblem. It should be embossed on all our coins.”
Mr. Hiralal nodded at the joke: “This is a great country, I love it very much. Now, I can bring the cash for you in a suitcase, but how will you look after it?”
“I’ll put it under my bed.”
The diamond merchant smiled again and turned to Jal. “You Parsis with your sense of humour. So wonderful. When I was in Baroda college, Parsis were my best friends. So much fun we had.”
He advised Yezad to rent lockers in bank vaults: “In different areas, and different banks. In your name, in your respected wife’s name, your children’s names. And whenever you are ready I will give you a batch, in a small bag – carry-on luggage size. Less suspicious and easier to handle.”
“Sounds like a spy movie,” said Yezad.
“Oh, we have to do better than that. Income tax department has seen all those movies.”
They laughed, then arranged to meet in a different location for each transfer of money. “Any trouble for you will be trouble for me,” said Mr. Hiralal. “Let’s do the first one at Willingdon Club. Very safe, I’m a member there. Second time we go to your respected brother-in-law’s house. Is that all right, Mr. Contractor?”
“I will be honoured,” said Jal.
For the third batch Yezad would visit the diamond merchant’s office. The last one would be delivered here, to Pleasant Villa.
“Not a word to anyone,” Yezad warned Roxana and the boys. “Not in the building, or to friends in school.”
“Why?” asked Murad. “Are we committing a crime?”
“Our government makes such crazy laws, people are forced to break them,” he explained half-heartedly.
“Mahatma Gandhi said it’s our duty to break bad laws,” said Murad. “He said they should be broken openly.”
“We just want to go to Chateau Felicity, okay? Not to jail with Mr. Hiralal. So keep your mouth shut.”
Over the next four days, the money was stashed away in the rented bank lockers, and Hafiz Lakdavala & Sons were ready to commence work at Chateau Felicity. They were happy to proceed on a cash basis. The tasks needed to be arranged in order of priority; in thirty days, enough would have to be readied to allow the Chenoy family to vacate Pleasant Villa for Mr. Hiralal.
In her imagination, Roxana could already see the flat renovated and refurbished. She began allocating rooms: her parents’ room with attached bathroom for herself and Yezad, her former room for Jehangoo, Coomy’s for Murad – the two could share the bathroom in the passageway. And Jal was happy where he was.
“Yes, that sounds fine,” said Yezad, preoccupied with his list of repairs.
Nariman tried to speak, appearing quite agitated by what was going on around him. Please, he murmured, please, and Roxana comforted him, “Yes, Pappa, don’t worry, of course you will get your old room back.”
She continued to muse, imagining fresh paint for the walls and rearranging the furniture. The fu
rniture, she said, especially the beds, needed to be refinished. And she remembered that in the drawing-room one of the four matching lightshades had a crack. Also, some crystals were missing from the dining-room chandeliers. “Maybe we can find them at an antique shop in Chor Bazaar.”
“First things first, Roxie! There’s only one month to complete the repairs, and you’re worried about a cracked light shade?”
“Yes, you’re right, Yezdaa. I’m just so excited.”
Once the work got underway, they went to select fixtures for the bathrooms and pick out the tiles. At the Cera dealer they examined basins, toilets, and a variety of faucets and shower heads. “It’s like a dream,” she kept repeating. “Most families in Bombay spend their whole lives in a one-room-and-kitchen. We’re actually going to a big renovated flat. I worry I’ll wake up, the dream will end.”
He too was awed by their sudden change of fortune but had less difficulty accepting it because he knew God was firmly in control. Her exhilaration amused him. But at Restile Ceramics he had to stop her from looking so eager about the vitrified floor tiles. The salesman was lurking like a vulture, he whispered, and the price would shoot up.
Next, they began comparing brands and features for kitchen appliances. Roxana liked the Maharaja line of Turbo Mixie, Juicer, and Toaster. Yezad was adamant that the refrigerator be a Godrej, a venerable Parsi product. As for air-conditioning, they would have two Voltas window units, one each for the dining room and drawing-room. More could be added later, for the bedrooms.
During the renovation Yezad developed a new routine. After Wadiaji fire-temple in the morning, he went to Chateau Felicity. To keep an eye on things, he said. He came home for lunch, had a nap, and returned to the site, staying till the workmen left for the day. Then it was Aslaji agiary, where he spent at least an hour before the fire. He prayed with the Avesta open in his hands, though many sections had now been committed to memory.
At Chateau Felicity, whenever they saw Yezad, the workmen nudged one another and joked that the inspector had arrived. Each day there was at least one minor crisis with the labourers or tradesmen: internal quarrels, injuries, material delivered late, wrong items sent. Yezad tried, often without success, not to lose his temper with them.
Fortunately, Jal was usually present, and seemed to know how to sort things out, or at least smooth them over. Much of the time he managed to divert Yezad on an errand.
Sometimes, Yezad carried his irritation home with him, grumbling and fretting before Roxana. “These idiots don’t know what they are doing. And Jal is a softie, being a gentleman with people who only understand tough talk.”
“Calm down, Yezdaa. If something is wrong, tell Mr. Lakdavala – don’t argue with the workers. You’re getting upset about too many little things.”
“If you ignore little things, they become big problems.”
Once a week she went with him to see how the repairs were proceeding, when a representative of Hafiz Lakdavala & Sons was available to discuss any changes to the original specifications. She relished this weekly witnessing of progress in the sprucing up of their new home.
“Looks lovely, doesn’t it?” she said to Yezad.
He nodded, keeping an eye on kitchen cabinets being unloaded, ready to yell if he saw any carelessness.
“Are you happy, Yezdaa?”
He nodded again.
At the appropriate time, she took the boys to see their rooms and select the colours for the walls. Yezad stayed home that day, to look after Nariman.
The bustle and noise of the workmen in Chateau Felicity fascinated Murad. He wandered about the flat, exploring the pile of materials and picking up tools to examine.
Jehangir was subdued. He watched his brother without tagging behind as he normally would have.
“What’s wrong, Jehangoo?” said his mother when they returned home. “Why so sad?”
“I’m not sad.” But after the prompt denial he added that all this hard work seemed like such a lot of trouble, just to go and live there. “Why do we have to? Our Pleasant Villa is so nice.”
His parents laughed as though he had intended a joke.
He persisted with more objections, and Yezad understood his son’s uneasiness. “Think of it, Jehangla, such a beautiful big flat. Lots of space for us.”
“There’s enough space here, we all fit inside here.”
“But see how crammed it is,” said his mother. “No proper bed for you or Murad, and poor Grandpa stuck on the settee.”
“He likes it, and I like sleeping beside him. And Murad likes his tent.”
His mother tried again, “Remember the room I showed you? All yours. You’ll have your own cupboard, your own desk, bookshelf. You can put up your drawings and pictures, whatever you like. You’ll live like the Famous Five.”
“Enid Blyton is rubbish,” said Jehangir quietly.
There was silence. His father looked at him with delight. “That is correct, Jehangla. But having your own room is still a nice thing. And now, young man, decide what colour you want.”
He liked being called young man. His father had never said that before, he thought, as he pretended to examine the paint chips they had brought back with them.
Murad was quite definite about his choice: he wanted pale green walls. But Jehangir seemed overwhelmed by the responsibility. He struggled to make a selection from the limitless palette spread out on the teapoy, then gave up. “You choose for me, Mummy.”
She picked a cheerful yellow and asked if he liked it.
“It’s beautiful,” he said without emotion.
An elegant new brass plate, large enough to accommodate everyone, was ordered for the front door. Jal suggested the names should be engraved in alphabetical order:
Mr. & Mrs. Yezad Chenoy
Mr. Jal Contractor
Mr. Nariman Vakeel
On moving day, four weeks after the renovations had begun, Jal came with an ambulance to take his stepfather home. A hospital ayah had been hired; she was waiting at Chateau Felicity to receive the patient. Roxana said it was such a load off her mind on this hectic day, knowing that Pappa was safe.
“But how will the ayah know what Grandpa means?” asked Jehangir. “Will she understand the sound of his words?”
“She will learn. And in the beginning, we can explain it to her.”
While the ambulancemen were getting ready with the stretcher, Daisy came upstairs to say goodbye to Nariman. “It’s been a pleasure, Professor. Thank you for tolerating my practice, all my mistakes.”
Nariman smiled and murmured something. She leaned closer to hear, laughed, and shook his hand.
“What did Pappa say?” asked Roxana.
“He wants a farewell concert.”
They laughed again, then Roxana and Yezad walked her to the landing. “I don’t know what we’ll do without you, Daisy,” she said. “We won’t be able to get you every time Pappa needs you.”
Daisy nodded sympathetically.
“There’s an excellent radiogram there,” Yezad reminded them, “with lots of records. We’ll play those for him.”
“And if the records don’t help,” said Daisy slyly, “you can always recite your prayers.” She waited on the landing and waved to Nariman as the attendants went past with the stretcher.
Soon after the ambulance left, the movers arrived. The boxes containing the good dishes, the rose bowl, the porcelain were identified for them, and they began carrying the furniture out. Yezad stationed himself on the footpath to watch over the lorry; he had been warned by the helpful Mr. Hiralal that it was common for things to disappear during loading.
Murad stayed upstairs to help his mother with the bathroom and kitchen last-minute packing. Jehangir went downstairs. Listless, he stood beside his father and watched as their belongings were swallowed up in the dark bowels of the lorry.
Late in the afternoon the movers were ready to leave. Yezad gave them instructions not to unload till he arrived, then returned upstairs with Jehan
gir.
He found Roxana and Murad standing in the middle of the empty front room. “I’ve checked everything,” she said in a small voice. “Shall we go now?”
“I’ll take a look as well. Coming?” Yezad asked Jehangir.
He shook his head and went to the balcony. Yezad watched him lean on the railing, crying.
“What is it, Jehangla?”
“I’m feeling very sad.”
Yezad put his arm around him. “It’s always sad when something ends. I felt the same when I had to leave Jehangir Mansion. But without ending the old, you cannot begin the new.”
“I don’t want the new, I like the old.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Jehangla. It’s like saying you don’t want to end the fifth standard. How would you get to the sixth? You want to spend your whole life with Miss Alvarez?”
Jehangir smiled through his tears – it seemed a very pleasant prospect, but he couldn’t say this aloud to his father. He kept staring at the road.
Yezad waited, feeling dishonest, not believing any of the sensible words he’d uttered. The same dilemma tormented him. He wanted his sons to become men, but he loved the little boys he could carry on his shoulders; he, too, wanted to conquer time.
He took Jehangir’s hand. “Come on, let’s look together, one last time.”
They went to the back room, their footsteps echoing sharply in the vacant space. Jehangir was wide-eyed, as though trying to imprint permanent images. In the kitchen he caressed the brass taps. He visited the bathroom and the toilet.
“If I want to see it again, will Mr. Hiralal let me?”
“He seems like a nice man,” said Yezad. “I’m sure he will.”
They returned to the balcony, and Jehangir whistled to the parrot across the road. “Bye bye, parrot sweetie.”
The bird, locked in its frenzy of side-to-side hopping, did not answer. Jehangir tried again, and Yezad added his whistle to entice a response. The parrot ignored them both.
Villie Cardmaster was waiting at her door when they emerged from the empty flat. She hugged the boys, then offered her hand to Yezad. He gave it a quick reluctant shake and started down the stairs as she put her arms around Roxana.