Family Matters

  From the landing below, he could hear them thanking each other for being such good neighbours, and Villie saying she would miss them dearly, it would be very quiet now on the third floor.

  “Hurry up, Roxana!” he called between the banisters. “The lorry is waiting there for us.”

  They took a taxi, and Murad insisted on sitting next to the driver. The latter leaned towards him to reach the meter outside, and Murad offered to do it.

  “Hanh, baba, you do it,” the driver said good-humouredly.

  Murad tilted the lever and pushed down the flag to start it ticking. “Very good, baba,” said the driver.

  They turned to look at the building. Roxana said, a little wistfully, that it was a nice flat even though it was tiny, and they had always been happy in it.

  “Except for this last year,” said Yezad.

  “Yes.” She thought for a moment. “Never mind, from now on life will be wonderful, in our big new house.”

  “Not new for you, Mummy,” said Murad. “You’re going back to your old house.”

  “But I have my whole family with me this time. That makes it new. And this time it will be a very happy place.”

  “Will I have to sleep in my own room tonight?” asked Jehangir.

  “No,” she reassured him, reading his thoughts. “You and Murad have to share, till all the repairs are finished.”

  He smiled and reached to the front seat to give his brother a poke.

  “Are you happy, Jehangoo?” she asked.

  He gave a tiny nod.

  While the taxi waited at the kerb for a break in the traffic, they heard violin music. Roxana gazed at Pleasant Villa, at the wrought-iron balconies, the entrance arch, the old stone steps she had climbed countless times. A bird, perched on the ground-floor window, was chirping diligently.

  Good omens, she thought.

  The taxi began to move, and Jehangir turned for one last look. Then a moth floated lazily out from the darkened interior of the stairwell. He watched it fly straight towards the bird’s open beak.

  EPILOGUE

  FIVE YEARS LATER

  DADDY AND MURAD had another fight today. They quarrel almost every day now. This one started when Murad returned from the barber shop in the afternoon, his hair styled en brosse.

  “Does it have to be so short?” said Daddy. “Makes you look like a skinhead thug.”

  Mummy tried to avert an argument, laughing nervously, that wasn’t it funny, a generation ago parents got upset because boys were keeping their hair too long. “How times change. Remember your college ID photo, Yezdaa? Hair to your shoulders!”

  “Don’t exaggerate, it was just a bit overgrown. Anyway, all the holy prophets had long hair – Zarathustra, Moses, Jesus. Why can’t your son learn to resemble a normal human being?”

  Murad kept smiling, pretending it was only a joke. At times, this tactic works; Daddy criticizes, then returns to the book he is reading or to his prayers. But it can also make him fly into a rage, that he is not a barking dog to be ignored, he will be heard and heeded.

  In the case of the haircut, though, the long and the short of it was forgotten, and the fight took a different turn. Murad ventured much too near the drawing-room corner that Daddy has lately claimed as his prayer area.

  Here, set up on a cabinet, are framed pictures of Zarathustra and the Udvada fire-temple, along with a silver model of the Asho Farohvar, photographs of the ancient remnants of the Persian Empire, the ruins at Persepolis, palaces, fire altars, and royal tombs of the Achaemenian and Sassanian dynasties. The arrangement of items is in a rough semicircle that keeps growing. His latest acquisition is a miniature afargaan, plastic, with a tiny electric fire. Its filament flickers day and night at the centre of the semicircle.

  This is the same glass-fronted cabinet that used to be filled with toys and knick-knacks. And the two clockwork monkeys, the drummer and the boozer, which were the cause of the fight when we had come for Grandpa’s birthday party, years ago – at least six or seven, I think.

  After Coomy Aunty died, Jal Uncle donated the toy collection to the Bandra orphanage. The cabinet stood empty for many months till Daddy took it over. Now his prayer books are inside, as well as his collection of additional holy items for which there is no room in the semicircle.

  “Stop!” he shouted, as Murad wandered absently towards the cabinet.

  There was real panic in his voice, and Murad froze. “What’s wrong?”

  Jal Uncle came out of his room, looking worried. He has a new high-tech hearing aid. You can hardly see it in his ear. Sometimes, he tries to make peace between Daddy and Murad, but he’s been accused by Daddy of interfering in private family matters, and rarely opens his mouth these days.

  Mummy complains to Daddy that it’s not fair, first it was Coomy who used to shut poor Jal up, now he is doing the same. He replies that Jal is free to talk about anything except this one topic.

  So Jal Uncle stood outside the drawing-room, quite miserable. The old habit of fiddling with his antique hearing aid made him touch his ear even though the new one needs no adjustment. Then he returned to his room while the argument continued.

  “How many times must I explain to you?” said Daddy through gritted teeth.

  “Explain what?” Murad was genuinely mystified.

  “You are in the prayer space in your impure state. After a haircut, you are unclean till you shower and wash your head.”

  “That’s idiotic. I’m not even touching your holy cabinet.”

  “Fifteen feet away, I told you! The minimum distance!”

  “Calm down, Yezdaa,” pleaded Mummy. “He’ll remember next time.”

  “This is the twenty-first century,” said Murad, “and you still believe such nonsense. It’s sad.”

  “Fine, be sad,” said Daddy.

  “No, please don’t say that, Yezad,” implored Mummy. “I don’t want anyone to be sad.”

  When Daddy reaches a certain stage of excitement, Murad enjoys baiting him. He no longer fears Daddy’s temper, the way we used to as children.

  “How did you get the exact figure? Did Zoroaster whisper it in your ear?”

  “Your son is a wit-and-a-half, isn’t he? Don’t use Zoroaster, that’s a Greek perversion of our prophet’s name, say Zarathustra. And before you mock me, read the scriptures: Vendidaad, fargard XVII, explains the distance.”

  “Sorry, Daddy, I don’t have the leisure to read all this interesting stuff. It’s hard enough to finish my college work.”

  For the last few years, ever since we left Pleasant Villa, Daddy has been reading nothing but religious books, as though making up for lost time. In addition to the holy cabinet, my parents’ bedroom has filled up with volumes about Parsi history and Zoroastrianism, various translations of the Zend-Avesta, interpretations of the Gathas, commentaries, books by Zaehner, Spiegel, Darukhanawala, Dabu, Boyce, Dhalla, Hinnells, Karaka, and many, many more. Some of them used to be in a bookcase that belonged to Grandpa’s father. His name is inscribed in them on bookplates: Marazban Vakeel. But Daddy has been purchasing as well, in great quantities. Mummy suggested once there was no need to buy every single book, there were libraries to borrow from. She gave in because he kept complaining his spirit was being denied basic bread and water.

  But the jibe, about leisure to read, hurt Daddy. He has not worked since Bombay Sporting shut down. It did reopen later with a new name: Shivaji Sports Equipment, and the owner’s wife never asked him to come back. The investments from the sale of Pleasant Villa used to provide just enough money to run the household and to meet Grandpas expenses. Mummy had made up a new budget, with new envelopes. But after Grandpa died, she got rid of all the envelopes, she said we could be more relaxed now about spending. She doesn’t mind that Daddy isn’t working.

  By and large, his fervent embrace of religion makes her happy. She agrees with him that the entire chain of events, starting with Grandpa’s accident and ending with Mr. Kapur’s murder, was God’s way of bringing
him to prayer.

  Wounded by Murad’s taunt, however, Daddy turned to her, his expression a child’s who has been slapped without warning. And when Mummy sees him like this she behaves like a protective mother. She tried to shoo Murad away to the shower.

  But he was not yet ready to end the argument. “I’m confused – I don’t know how far exactly the fifteen feet extend.”

  “I’ve told you, this sofa is the boundary.”

  “That’s a rough estimate, Daddy. You’ll only achieve approximate purity. I think we should take a measurement and draw a line on the floor, so we all know how far to go.”

  Daddy appealed again to Mummy: “Our faith is a subject of ridicule for your son.”

  “What if an impure fly or mosquito or cockroach violates the sofa boundary? Do you check if they’ve showered? Maybe you should enclose your cabinet in a bubble.”

  “Enough!” Daddy dragged him by the arm to the other end of the room. “You approach that side again in your unclean condition and I’ll break your legs!”

  Murad laughed, “You’re getting hysterical now,” and I wished he would stop.

  “Go for your shower,” said Mummy quietly, and he left the room. He still listens to her when she uses the tone that would warn us, when we were small, if we were about to cross the limit of what was acceptable.

  Meanwhile, Daddy said his chest pains were back, and asked for the angina medicine. He bewailed the fact that in his anger he had grabbed that saitaan’s arm, the contact had made him unclean in the bargain. Now he too would need a full shower.

  My father has emerged from the bathroom, and is doing his kusti by the cabinet. His expression is always very intense when he prays. He finishes tying the knots and sits with his prayer book before the electric afargaan, in the wooden chair no one else is allowed to use. He sits as though he is carrying a secret burden, whose weight is crushing him. He frowns a lot, his face contorting in pain. He doesn’t just close his eyes, he clenches the eyelids shut, the cheeks rising, the brows pressing downwards to squeeze out whatever it is that haunts him. His Avesta recitations – the various Yashts, Gehs, Nyaishes, depending on the hour – are like a rebuttal, a protest. He is locked in a struggle.

  Seeing my father like this, I think of him as he used to be, so jovial. Nowadays he hardly smiles, let alone laughs. And he never whistles, never joins in with songs on the radio. The last time I heard him sing was for Grandpa, the night before he died. And the radio is seldom played – only while Daddy is out of the house. When he is home, he’s either praying or reading, and says the music disturbs him.

  Mummy watches from the passageway, smiling contentedly, for things are back to normal after the haircut argument. She is pleased to see him at prayer, happy to arrange her routine around his requirements. The housework, the servant’s comings and goings all revolve around Daddy’s prayer schedule.

  But there are times I’ve noticed her wringing her hands, looking worried when he prays on and on. Those must be her moments of doubt. I’m sure she wishes he wouldn’t go to such extremes, and occasionally she voices her anguish in my presence: “If only Dada Ormuzd could help me understand! Why must prayer and religion lead to so many fights between father and son? Is that His will?”

  When my father sits by himself, gazing out the window or pretending to read, I have seen her go to his side and put her hand on his shoulder. I have heard her ask him tenderly, “What is it, Yezdaa, is something worrying you?”

  His answer is always the same: “Nothing, Roxie, I’m fine.” Then he pats the hand on his shoulder, kisses it.

  She strokes his hair. “Are you happy, Yezdaa?”

  He smiles a sad, melancholy smile. “As happy as a soldier of Dada Ormuzd can be, fighting against Ahriman.”

  This type of vague answer with a spiritual flavour is his way of avoiding serious conversation. But she’ll never be able to bring herself to say he should pray less. That, to her, would be blasphemous. So she blames his extremes, his new beliefs and practices on his new friends in the societies he has joined.

  The League of Orthodox Parsis and the Association for Zarathustrian Education meet once a week. He returns from their sessions to tell us in detail about the agenda considered and the action taken, the petitions circulated and injunctions filed, the campaigns to be waged against films or publications that have given offence. All this provides more fodder for Murad.

  Yesterday, Daddy told us over dinner that the League had discussed the 1818 case of a Parsi bigamist – married a non-Parsi woman in Calcutta, then moved to Bombay and married a Parsi. “For his crime he was excommunicated by the Panchayat,” said Daddy, raising his hand to signify the gravity of the punishment. “And his father was told to disown him or he, too, would be.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” said Mummy. “Why excommunicate the father?”

  “Why not? I wouldn’t want to be known as the father of such a scoundrel. But the bigamist reacted by insulting the high priests and the Panchayat, who went to court against him. Then things became so serious, he got scared, and asked to make a formal apology to end the matter. An Anjuman was called, where he had to confess his crime and humiliate himself by taking a pair of shoes, one in each hand, and striking his head five times with them. Right before the assembly.”

  “Were they brand-new shoes or old dirty shoes?” asked Murad.

  “That wasn’t noted in the Panchayat records. The point is, our committee members have agreed unanimously to challenge the Reformist propaganda – we will campaign to reintroduce a strict policy of excommunication. Parsi men and women who have relations with non-Parsis, in or out of marriage, will suffer the consequences. Excommunication will be reversed if they repent publicly with the shoe punishment.”

  There was silence around the dining table for almost a minute. Jal Uncle fiddled with his hearing aid, looking as though he wanted to speak but dared not. Most of his day he spends in his room, only joining us for meals. He no longer goes to the share bazaar. Sometimes, when Daddy is out, he will sit in the drawing-room to read the newspaper. He tries to keep to himself as much as possible.

  He and I began to laugh now because Murad ducked under the dining table, emerged with his slippers, and started hitting the top of his head with them. Mummy pressed her lips tightly together, doing her best to smother her amusement. But her face could remain straight for no more than a few seconds.

  For Daddy, hers was the ultimate betrayal. “Purity and pollution is not a laughing matter. Your son behaves like a jackass and you encourage him.”

  “I’m not laughing at you, Yezdaa,” she soothed him. “I’m laughing at this clown.”

  “Just practising, Daddy, in case I have to take the punishment someday.”

  Murad’s jokes are like the ones Daddy himself used to crack when we were small. I remember once, long ago, we’d all gone to fire-temple on Khordad Sal, and after we came home Daddy had imitated a man we’d seen sliding along the walls of the main hall, kissing every photo-frame and portrait his lips could reach. And I also remember conversations Daddy and Grandpa would have, about the silliness of slavishly following conventions and traditions.

  Grandpa died a year after we moved to Chateau Felicity. I think it was very lonely for him to have his own room again. In Pleasant Villa, in the front room, there was always someone near his settee.

  At first we made an effort to keep him company, sitting by his side, talking to him and to one another. Sometimes I took my homework to his room. But it was not the same. Especially with a hospital ayah who did everything for him. The day he overheard Jal Uncle and my parents having a discussion about hiring her full-time, he became very upset. He began to cry, No ayah! Please, no ayah! I don’t think they understood.

  Her name was Rekha. Mummy explained her duties and demonstrated exactly how she wanted things done, in the hygienic manner to which she and Grandpa were accustomed. Rekha followed the instructions when she was being watched. But Mummy often caught her skipping steps i
f she came upon her without warning. Usually, it was the urinal – she would not rinse it clean each time Grandpa used it. I remember, once, Mummy found her proceeding to fetch Grandpa’s soup from the kitchen after emptying the bedpan, not bothering to wash twice with soap and water.

  “Your toilet hands you use to carry food?” shouted Mummy. “Not even once did you apply sabun!”

  “Aray, bai, I forgot this time.”

  “I’ve seen you lots of times, taking shortcuts!”

  Rekha’s way with Grandpa bordered on roughness in things like turning him, changing the sheets, plumping the pillows. Her brisk manner of wielding the cloth during sponge baths made Mummy wince. She often took it away from Rekha and finished the sponging herself.

  When Grandpa’s mouth was scalded with hot tea from the feeding cup, it was the last straw. His scream made Mummy run to his room. I went too. Rekha pretended he had yelled in his sleep, there was nothing wrong. But Mummy noticed the unusual way Grandpa’s mouth was hanging open. She went closer and examined it, saw the red beginning of blisters, smelled tea on his breath, and discovered the hot feeding cup hidden behind bottles on the dressing table.

  Rekha was sent packing. She had lasted two months. It took a few days to find someone new, during which Mummy and I looked after Grandpa again. He seemed more at peace then.

  The replacement was a wardboy in his thirties, a gentle fellow called Mahesh. Mummy especially liked the delicate way he applied ointment to the two bedsores on Grandpa’s lower back, one on either side of the spine where the big bone, which Dr. Tarapore called the ilium, protruded. The sores had formed during Rekha’s employment, and Mummy blamed herself for trusting that careless woman to do the work.

  By the time Grandpa died, his back was covered with sores. Some were horrible, big and deep. Every time I looked at them, I felt a sharp pain in my back. The smell of pus and the sulpha ointment was always in the room. Grandpa didn’t make a sound despite the agony he was going through. I wished he would scream. To see him lie quietly was more sad. Could he feel nothing?