Later in the evening the dynamic wardboy requested a letter of reference. He cautioned it was against hospital rules, so please to keep it a secret.
Nariman wrote on hospital stationery procured by the resourceful fellow that Mr. Yadav was a diligent worker who exuded genuine concern for patients, and was meticulous in his duties; it had been a pleasure to make his acquaintance; and he wished Mr. Yadav well in his future endeavours.
He examined the page when he finished, curious about his wobbly handwriting. The letters grew progressively smaller from beginning to end, he hadn’t been able to control their size. This was something new – another symptom of Parkinsonism, he assumed.
The wardboy was overwhelmed without having read a word. He took his benefactor’s trembling hand in both of his, reluctant to let go.
On the morning of Nariman’s departure, Mr. Rangarajan stopped by to wish him good luck. But the elderly wardboy from the night shift was nowhere around, and Nariman was disappointed not to learn his name. Never mind, he would remember him as an incarnation of Voltaire.
Then it was time to go home. Jal rode with him in the ambulance. Soon after emerging from the hospital gates, they came to a standstill near the main intersection where a political procession was making its way.
“What party is it?” asked Nariman.
“Who knows. It’s hard to read the banners from here. BJP, JD, CP, VHP, BSP, doesn’t matter, they’re all the same. Did you sleep well last night?”
Nariman responded with a vague gesture of his hand. They waited for the traffic to start moving again.
Nariman expected to find the door open and Coomy waiting by it with a tray of flowers, vermilion, and a husked coconut. Instead, Jal used his latchkey. The ambulancemen followed him inside with the stretcher. There was no ceremonial tray, no one to perform the aachhu-michhu.
“Coomy isn’t home?”
Jal shook his head. “At fire-temple. For Mamma’s prayers.”
Of course. It was the death anniversary. He had forgotten.
“And then she’s going to buy some things for you – bedpan, basin, all that stuff.”
The Parsi traditions around birthdays, navjotes, weddings, arrivals, departures normally earned Nariman’s indulgence. He had never set great store by rituals. But the absence of the silver tray hit him keenly.
“When will she be back?”
“Soon. You don’t have to go to the bathroom right away, do you? Have a nap, I’ll put some music on for you.”
Glad to be in his own bed, Nariman nodded off while the Schubert quintet played in the drawing-room, till voices trying to keep low disturbed him a short time later.
“A commode?” said Jal, as the taxi driver put it down with a thump in the hallway. At Coomy’s beseeching, the man had carried the box up in the lift for her, but the meagre tip disgusted him.
“If I wanted to work for a coolie’s salary, I wouldn’t drive a taxi,” he muttered as he left.
“Thank you, bhai, thank you very, very much,” said Coomy, pretending she hadn’t heard, and shut the door. “How is Pappa?”
“Sleeping. But you were supposed to buy a bedpan.”
She began unwrapping the smaller parcel, which was an enamel wash basin, and placed it beside the covered wooden box with four stumpy legs. “I felt this would be better than a bedpan.”
“What do you mean, better? Doctor said a month in bed. The foot must not touch the floor.”
“Listen. I was in the shop, looking at bedpans, and I began to imagine the … the … procedure. What it would be like to place it under Pappa, and when he was done, to remove it, and clean him, and wash it, and … Don’t make me say everything. You know what I mean. The whole thing is embarrassing.”
So she had decided a commode would be more decorous, Pappa could sit right beside the bed, relieve himself more easily. “All we do is empty out the pot.”
“But Doctor said the bones will take months to heal if we’re careless.”
“We are not making Pappa walk to the wc or anything. Let’s try it out, see how he feels.”
They carried the commode to their stepfather’s room, and he pretended to be awakened by their presence. “Oh, Coomy, you’re back. What’s that, a new night table for me?”
She laughed. “No, Pappa, it’s a lovely commode, look,” and she opened the lid.
“We thought it would be more comfortable than a bedpan,” said Jal. “Don’t you think?”
“Whatever is most convenient for you is fine with me. I’m such a burden already.”
“Don’t worry, Pappa, we’ll manage. It’s only for four weeks.” Jal dragged the box closer, positioning it by the bed. “Feel like going?”
Nariman nodded. They raised him by his arms to a sitting position. Next came the trickier part: to help him stand and make a quarter-turn for the commode. They reminded him to take the strain on his right foot, leave the left aloft, then hoisted him.
To lift an almost dead weight vertically was more difficult than they had expected. And as soon as Nariman was upright, his broken ankle sank to the floor.
“Don’t put it down!” yelled Jal in panic.
“I can’t help it, the plaster is too heavy.” He stifled a moan as they half-carried and half-pulled him till he was in position. They knew his pain from the sharp intake of breath and stiffening of the body. They began to lower him.
“Wait!” cried Coomy. “The pyjama isn’t untied.”
Summoning his last vestige of strength, Jal held on with one hand and yanked the drawstring. The fabric clung, refusing to slide down. He wiggled his hips against his stepfather’s till the pyjama bottom dropped around the ankles.
After seating him they stood back, breathing hard. Sweat had broken on Nariman’s forehead, his eyes were closed. His bladder was taking a while to function.
“Are you okay, Pappa?”
He nodded. Then a muffled ringing from the aluminium pot made them exchange looks of triumph and relief.
“Take your time,” said Jal. “No rush, do it all – number one, number two, everything.”
His bowels did feel heavy, but the pain had left him no energy to effect an evacuation. “I’ve finished.”
Coomy knelt at his feet and slipped off the pyjamas. To get him back in bed they struggled and panted through the earlier motions in reverse, crying out at one point, for they were losing their balance, almost tumbling in a heap with him.
“There,” said Jal, “it’s done,” and straightened his back. “What we need is a system, a method to make it smooth.”
“Yes,” whispered Nariman, “we do.”
Averting her eyes, Coomy eased out the crumpled sheet that was trapped beneath his buttocks and pulled it over him. “Our biggest error was not taking off the pyjama first. For four weeks you will be a nudist, okay, Pappa?”
He hardly heard her through the pain. She and Jal forced hearty laughter to cheer him up, as she shut the commode lid and they left the room.
“What about the pot?” asked Jal.
“Later, it’s only a quarter-full.” Out of earshot she said that despite her joke, it was very disconcerting for her to look on Pappa’s nakedness.
“Why? He’s an old man, Coomy.”
“That’s not the point. I was already eleven years old when he became our stepfather. It was not like a baby growing up with her real father. I feel I’m looking at a naked stranger.”
“But there’s no difference,” argued Jal, suspicious that she was trying to foist the toilet duties on him. “It’s exactly what you would have seen on our father.”
Further discussion was useless, she declared – Jal was a male, and would never be able to understand how she felt.
With the help of a painkiller the throbbing in Nariman’s ankle subsided. He tried to sleep again but something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the cast, something else, more subtle, that he couldn’t quite identify.
He shifted his shoulders, adjusted the pillow, pulled his colla
r straight. He gripped the top edge of the sheet covering him and shook it, making it billow to fall back evenly upon him. And its breath upon his naked thighs, as it settled, revealed the source of his discomfort: his missing pyjama bottom.
He remembered now, Coomy had removed it while he was on the commode. Felt odd, lying in bed without it. Not something he was used to. As though he had lost the top layer of his skin.
He considered calling out, asking for it. But Coomy would be annoyed. And it did make things easier to leave it off.
Like mother, like daughter, he thought, reminded of the time when Yasmin had deprived him of his pyjamas. His pyjamas, and a lot more.
From room to room, cupboard to cupboard he wandered, looking for something to wear. But there wasn’t a scrap Yasmin had overlooked while he was having his bath; he had only his towel, and she refused all his appeals.
“Come, Coomy – you too, Jal” he cajoled the children when their mother was sterilizing Roxana’s feeding bottle in the kitchen. “Tell me now, where did Mamma hide my clothes?”
“I don’t know,” said Jal, in response to his stepfather’s pestering. Coomy signalled her refusal by putting a finger on her lips, warning her brother to keep his big mouth shut too.
Clever move on Yasmin’s part, he thought, feeling no resentment for her – what right did he have to resent? He was the one behaving unreasonably; she had been the model of patience and understanding on so many evenings, tolerating the farce. For farce was what it would have seemed to her and to their neighbours in Chateau Felicity: the sight of Lucy on the pavement, staring up at the window where he stood. And then, when his remorse would drag him downstairs, to have to observe the two of them together, no doubt looking like a lovesick couple.
Poor Yasmin, he thought as he scoured the house, searching for a shirt, underwear, anything. And poor Lucy, holding her twilight vigils for him … to what purpose?
His mind wandered back over the time since their parting at Breach Candy. Those four months before his marriage to Yasmin, before Lucy had started to seek him out. The wedding preparations had kept him busy, and the new family looming on his horizon had occupied his mind. The hustle and bustle of his parents’ Sunday group, their constant visits with advice and tips for the wedding day – it had all helped to suppress thoughts of Lucy. But he realized later that Lucy would have had no such distraction – she would have been quite lost. And after the festivities, he had learned from a mutual acquaintance that she was not doing well – she had abandoned her M.A., she did not have a job, and was still living at the YWCA. The news had concerned him, for he had hoped she would make up with her parents and return home.
Roughly three months after his marriage, as he was leaving work one afternoon, there she was outside the college. Just a coincidence, he had thought.
There was awkwardness in their exchanges – How are you, fine thank you. Then she asked, “Did you have a good wedding?”
He mumbled yes, thanks, and she asked another question: “So how’s married life? Have you found fulfilment yet?”
Now he felt a slight sense of alarm, also an urge to reassure her, to say that things would turn out well for her too. But he uttered a few pleasantries and made his escape, trying to keep his confusion at bay.
From this time, her pursuit had begun in earnest And there was no reasoning with her. She telephoned him at work, at home, wrote letters, even waited at the college gate for him on some days. He told her what she was doing made no sense, when they had decided months ago that it was best to end it.
“You decided,” she said. “I thought it was a mistake. I still do. I still believe you love me. Admit it. I know that something is still possible between us.”
“Come now, Lucy, let’s not be naive again. We were naive once before. Thinking we could change our parents, change the ways of the world. What you’re saying is completely —”
“Oh, Nari, you’re still not being honest with yourself.” Her voice was pleading.
“Please. I have no energy to go through all that again. And please, Lucy, for your sake and mine, stop following me.” He tried to convince her that he wished her the best in life. But he had responsibilities now, a wife, two children, things could never again be as they were.
She stared at him, unmoving. And, for a moment, he saw the woman he had known, her eyes alive. He put out his hand, touched her arm, then turned homeward.
But her words remained with him. His emotions were in turmoil. Doubts about the decision at Breach Candy, buried deep beneath layers of rational argument, were surfacing again. Could it be she was right? … The only solution was to stay away from her.
From then on, if he saw her standing by the college gate he would circle around the building and take the back entrance. But the relief at having managed to evade her was invariably mingled with the heaviness of loss.
And how supportive Yasmin had been after the wedding, through those two years of pursuit, advising him to be firm without being harsh, reminding him the unfortunate woman had endured a profound disappointment. She even helped him rehearse little speeches to make to Lucy, a judicious mixture of reason and sternness. But he never delivered them – when the moment arrived, he invariably felt that he had hurt Lucy enough.
Then the evening visits began. To Yasmin, they did not pose a threat at first, or even an inconvenience – the answer was simple. “Just ignore her,” she said. “There are dozens of people on the footpath – she is one more. When she gets tired, shell go home.”
But Lucy on the footpath brought back the past with a force that left him shaken. Holding the window bars, he waited, while Yasmin asked him was he feeling unwell, was something wrong?
“Nothing,” he mumbled, unable to explain that the sight of Lucy, standing motionless, her face turned towards his window, had accomplished what he had dreaded – filled him with a torrent of memories from their early days together. First, her family forbidding her to go out with him. Then her brothers warning her that they would beat up her boyfriend if they caught them together. That was when Lucy had threatened to kill herself, should they harm him.
Would she have, he wondered? Her parents had taken it seriously enough. Soon after, they as good as imprisoned her at home.
And he had found himself standing outside, gazing up at her window, while her brothers emerged and stared at him, trying to intimidate him, softly uttering menacing words. He remembered how comforting it was to be able to see Lucy’s face. All through that monsoon, even when rain was pelting in, she never shut her window. And he never sought shelter, holding his open umbrella at a suitable tilt, getting wet but making sure that their faces were not hidden from each other.
Now Lucy, every time she appeared, reminded him of his need during those long-ago days. And each time, despite his feeling of uneasiness, he could resist her eyes for no more than a few minutes before going downstairs.
His reaction puzzled Yasmin. She insisted that he was causing harm to the distraught woman by indulging her in this manner. Her patience was also wearing thin, and an unpleasantness had entered their arguments. Strange, she said, that a professor of English should be incapable of delivering a simple, straightforward message – perhaps he enjoyed ogling the poor woman every evening.
The morning that his clothes disappeared, his indignation gradually made way for a sense of relief. His wife’s action had awakened him to the ludicrousness of his predicament; it had given him time to think.
By and by, he telephoned the college to say he was indisposed, and cancelled his lectures. He waited till noon and appealed to Yasmin once more.
“No,” she said, “you’ll get your clothes at dinnertime.”
“Do you want me to sit naked at the table for lunch?”
“I don’t mind.”
He sat with his damp towel around him and they ate an omelette in silence. He did not ask her again, spending the rest of the day in bed with a book.
At six-thirty, when Lucy appeared, he stood at the
window and they were joined by their eyes. Then he moved away, and picked up his book again. Minutes later, unable to concentrate, he slammed it down and went to Yasmin.
“I’ve got the message,” he assured her. “I promise you, today is the last time. I’ll tell her that even if she stands on the footpath for twenty-four hours, she won’t get me downstairs again.”
Yasmin said she had heard his promises before, which was why she had taken charge of matters. What she was doing, she said, was for everyone’s benefit.
At seven, he went to the door in his state of undress. He opened it, and took a step outside. The children watched him in amused horror. He saw Coomy giggle and whisper something in Jal’s ear.
“Go if you have the guts,” said Yasmin with a little smile. “You’re not getting your clothes back.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” He began descending the stairs, and she ran after him.
“Have you gone stark-raving mad? I know you don’t care for me, but what about the world? What about the children? And our baby?”
He continued calmly on his way, crossed the road, and joined Lucy on the footpath. Without any greeting, he told her this was their final meeting. He would not abet her in wasting her life. He would stay away from now on. But as he reminded her of her sense of dignity and self-respect, he felt he was uttering platitudes that were persuading neither one.
She waited till he stopped talking. “I love your outfit, Nari.”
He smiled in spite of himself.
Then, with mischief in her eyes, she made as if to pull the towel off, and he jumped backwards.
She laughed at his panic and offered him her hand. He took it. She covered it with her left, grasping tight so he couldn’t withdraw it.
Her behaviour was disgraceful, he continued, she must not loiter here any longer. Yes, she’d made her point about staring at the window, but to keep it up for so long was absurd. He repeated that this was the last time he had come downstairs to see her. This time, he meant it.
She listened in silence, caressing the back of his hand.