He walked his fingers along the row of large yellow buttons, up and down the front, gently pushing each one – playing the clarinet, he said. She laughed, teasing, that he wasn’t depressing the proper keys. He thought the remark a challenge. They kissed, his fingers undid the buttons and stroked her cleavage, slid inside the brassière to her nipples. She sighed with pleasure, and he murmured in her ear that he had found the right keys. But fingers were not enough, a clarinet needed a mouth to play it, he said, let me demonstrate my embouchure, and tried to undo the brassière by reaching behind. No, not here, she said. So his mouth nuzzled what it could reach, they would leave the full clarinet concerto for another time …
An ambulance howled past the building, its flashing beacon throwing a chaotic brilliance across the window. For an instant, the bars seemed bathed in daylight. Then the window glass regained the soft street lamp radiance that he was used to staring at.
There was a breeze outside, he could hear it rustle in the branches of the tree. Shadows played on the pane. Leaves, moving like the claws of a nocturnal beast.
Suddenly he was shivering. He wished the fan were off, but dared not call for help. He pulled the sheet tight about him. Once again he was gripped in the knowledge of his helplessness. What would happen to him now? Weeks left to go, and he was at their mercy for everything. Already they were fed up with the work, with him, with his being alive.
No, that was uncharitable, they were doing their best. He checked the clock: hours to sunrise. On the window the patterns had changed, the leaf silhouettes formed a gaping maw. He closed his eyes, feeling a sob rising in his chest. It wouldn’t do to let them hear.
“The strain is killing me, my back is shattered,” said Coomy, as she sat on the balcony with Jal. “We don’t go to bed tonight without deciding about Pappa.”
“I agree,” said Jal. “Let’s hire an ayah.”
“Impossible. There’s no money.”
“You always say that.”
“See for yourself. Check the bank book. The hospital bill has eaten up the dividends we had saved.”
There was a commotion in the street, and they stopped talking as some men ran past on the pavement below, followed by a crowd shouting after them. It was hard to tell what was going on. Coomy said it looked like people chasing thieves, maybe pickpockets. Jal thought it was just some boisterous tomfoolery. The street soon resumed its normal state of busyness.
“There is so little in my life,” said Coomy. “Home and market, market and home. I can’t even go to fire-temple.”
“You’re not the only one. My work is also interrupted.”
“You call that work? Visiting the share bazaar every morning and gossiping.”
“If I didn’t look after Mamma’s investments carefully, there wouldn’t be a paisa in this house.”
“And if you got a real job, there would be money to pay for an ayah or wardboy.”
They were back where they started, hurt and angry, their reasoning clouded by fatigue and frustration as they gazed over the balcony railing at the never-ending streams of traffic. Then, pausing in their argument, they agreed tacitly to a truce.
“I don’t want to be disgusted with Pappa while he lies helpless in bed,” said Coomy. “But I can’t help hating him.”
“You don’t hate him,” said Jal, scared by the word’s power. “You hate the work. We just have to try our best to do our duty. Even as a stepfather, he was always kind to us, we mustn’t forget that.”
After talking late into the night they rose to go to bed, still without a solution. Passing their stepfather’s room, they heard a peculiar sound from within.
“Did you hear that?”
“I’m not sure.” Jal stopped to adjust his earpiece. Now he, too, heard the whimper. They stood outside the door, and there was no mistaking it: he was crying.
“What shall we do?” asked Coomy, tears of empathy rising in her own eyes.
“Go to him, of course.”
Without switching on the light, they entered the room and tiptoed to the bedside. “Pappa,” she stroked his shoulder gently. “We thought we heard you … are you okay?”
Nariman was grateful the room had been left dark. He stirred to acknowledge their presence. “Yes, fine.”
“Is it the pain?” asked Jal. “Would you like another pill?”
“I’m all right. You two need rest, go to bed now.” And he made a kissing sound.
“Good night, Pappa.”
They kissed the darkness too and retreated, worried about this new development.
Over the next few days they found him weeping again, sometimes in the afternoon during his nap, though most often at night. They decided to inform his physician.
Nariman questioned Dr. Tarapore’s presence and the necessity of the thorough examination.
“I thought I’d mentioned it in hospital,” bluffed the doctor. “A check-up, a week after you went home. To make sure everything’s going the way it should.”
“Is it?”
“Absolutely. And the pain is under control?”
“The first two days were bad,” said Nariman, and Coomy held her breath – would there be a complaint about the commode?
“But that’s only natural,” he continued. “I took four painkillers a day. Now just one, at night, does the job.”
“Excellent,” said the doctor. “Excellent.”
But the change a week had wrought in the professor’s appearance worried him. His condition was unexplainable by a broken ankle. Taking Jal and Coomy outside the room, Dr. Tarapore told them they needed to raise his spirits.
“Depression is not uncommon during illness, but in old people it can be severe. Don’t let him see you worrying, be bright and optimistic around him, talk of cheerful things, happy memories. Laughter and joviality are as important as his medications.”
The doctor also reminded them to pay attention to his back, to prevent bedsores. He recommended daily washing with sponge or towel, use of a good talcum powder, and frequent changes of position by propping him up with pillows. Once the skin was broken or the tissue ulcerated, he warned, it would be torture for the professor, and quite unpleasant for them to deal with.
Coomy said it was easy for Dr. Tarapore to go on about being cheerful, he didn’t have a lifetime of misery to deal with. “Happy memories, he says. But how can you manufacture them at this stage in life?”
“We could talk about Roxie, when she was a baby,” suggested Jal. “Pappa was very happy then. We were all happy, Mamma too.”
“How long can we use one topic?”
He shrugged. “What worries me most is the harm we could do because we don’t know proper nursing. You heard what Doctor said about hygiene. It’s a huge responsibility.”
“Which Roxana and Yezad don’t have to share. And that’s not right, I’ve been saying it all along.”
“But you’re the one who doesn’t want to inform them.”
“What good is informing? As long as Pappa is here, they are escaping the burden.”
He shook his head, not knowing which way to turn. “You know, I shouted at Pappa last night and felt so ashamed afterwards. Sometimes, from frustration, I think up horrible solutions. Sleeping pills to keep him quiet. Anti-diarrhoea medicine, to block him up for a few days.”
He worried the mole under his right ear. “Isn’t there a saying that when God sends us difficulties, He also sends strength and wisdom to deal with them?”
She said strength and wisdom were reserved for those who behaved courageously, stood up for their rights. “And we’ve never done that, have we?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think – why is there no money for an ayah? Because we let Pappa spend all his savings on Roxana. Our problems started from that. Thank God for the money Mamma was able to leave us.” Once again her anger was revived. “If Mamma was alive, such injustice would never have happened. How I hate them all!”
“Don’t say that, she’s our sister.
And Pappa did give us this flat. Now we must do our share.”
“I don’t owe Pappa anything. He didn’t change my diaper or wash my bum, and I don’t have to clean his shit either.”
“How could he? You were eleven years old when he married Mamma.” Despite the grim moment, he could not help laughing.
Coomy smiled weakly. “I just don’t think I should be the one having to do all this for him.”
“Anyway, that’s not the main problem,” said Jal. “Even if we become a pair of Florence Nightingales and take first-class care of Pappa’s body, how do we provide laughter and joviality? They don’t come out of a medicine bottle. What if he really dies of depression?”
Coomy put her finger across her lips; an idea was gathering shape inside her head. “Whenever Pappa meets Roxie’s family, he’s in a good mood. He and Yezad are always laughing and enjoying.”
“So?”
“He should be with them, for the bright and cheerful atmosphere Doctor prescribed.”
“That’s absurd,” said Jal. “Yes, Pappa and Yezad get along well. Doesn’t mean he wants his father-in-law for several weeks in those two tiny rooms.”
“And how about what Roxie wants? If Doctor says it’s a question of life or death, surely Yezad has no business to say no.”
They argued one side, then the other, till they managed to convince themselves Roxana would take him in without a murmur, grateful to them for giving her the opportunity. “In fact,” said Coomy, “I’m sure she’ll be annoyed that for one week we didn’t let her know.”
Helping his stepfather with tea and toast for breakfast, Jal said there was an idea to consider: “A short visit to Pleasant Villa, to help you recuperate.”
Nariman nodded, and said the tea needed sugar in it.
“I put a whole spoon,” said Coomy.
“It doesn’t taste sweet.”
She added more, reminding him sugar was no longer available on the ration card. “At market prices, we need to cut down.”
“What do you think of the idea, Pappa?” asked Jal.
“I think Roxie’s flat will be fun for you,” said Coomy, “with Yezad and the boys for company. Your recovery will be faster – happy mind means healthy body. The weeks will fly.”
They waited anxiously for him to speak.
“It’s good to see the smiles returning to your gloomy faces,” he said at last. “They were beginning to look like those portraits in the passageway.”
“Well, Pappa,” said Jal, “worrying about you doesn’t leave us much time for smiling. Watching you in pain, unable to entertain you in any way, we feel terrible.”
There was a longer silence. Suppose I say no, thought Nariman, and give them good reasons – they could still have their way. Suppose I say, This flat is my home, and I put it in your names because I did not differentiate between you and Roxana. Would you now throw me out in my helplessness? They would probably laugh that I was getting dramatic.
“Lying in bed, here or there, is all the same to me. But it will be difficult for them, in such a small flat.”
“Small?” said Coomy. “By Bombay standards it’s huge! You know very well that in chawls and colonies, families of eight, nine, ten live in one room.”
He studied their anxious faces again. “If Roxana and Yezad agree, I have no objection. Speak to them first.”
“What a thing to say, Pappa,” said Coomy. “Of course they will agree. Why do you think we haven’t told Roxie so far about your fracture? Because she would have insisted on looking after you – she would have fought with us to take you to Pleasant Villa. And we wanted to spare her the trouble.”
So it was decided. Lame humour and close attention to inconsequential matters kept the façade from crumbling as preparations were made for the transfer. A suitcase was taken down from top of the cupboard and dusted. Coomy gathered clothes in her arms and brought them to the bedside for approval.
Nariman said yes without looking. She seems cheerful, he thought, as though preparing for a holiday.
Jal asked if he wanted to take any books. He replied he wasn’t sure.
“Tell us later, we can bring you whatever you like.” He put Nariman’s safety razor, shaving soap, and brush in a plastic bag and handed it to Coomy for the suitcase.
She tucked it under the shirts. “You should grow a beard, Pappa, forget the razor. A philosopher like you needs a beard.”
“Yes,” said Jal. “A Socratic beard.”
Nariman smiled. They were trying so hard.
“Anything else to pack?”
He shook his head. If he had a photograph of Lucy, he would have asked them to include it. But they had all been burnt, every single one, by Yasmin. Over red hot coals, in the same silver thurible that she used for loban during her evening prayers.
Perhaps that hadn’t been such a bad thing. It had made him rely on memory. Lucy’s image was beyond burning.
To help with the journey, Coomy gave him an extra painkiller next morning while she went through a mental checklist, wondering if she had missed anything. “Jal, did you pack the glass in which Pappa keeps his dentures?”
“It does not matter,” said Nariman. “Roxana won’t grudge me a tumbler to soak my thirty-two.”
“If something is missing we can take it later,” said Jal to curb her excitement, which was embarrassing him.
“I better make sure or Roxana will say I don’t look after you.” She hurried to the bathroom. The glass she detested was on the shelf. She shook out the drops of water and put it in a brown paper bag. “Okay, Pappa, all set now.”
“The ambulance is here,” announced Jal at the window.
Poor children, thought Nariman, it was difficult for them to disguise their eagerness. And he couldn’t blame them. The blame lay with the ones thirty-six years ago, the marriage arrangers, the wilful manufacturers of misery. He could still hear his parents’ voices after the wedding benediction, Now you are settled in life, and we can die in peace. Which they had, a year later. They had survived long enough to perform their duty but not to witness the misfortune it would foster.
Two men in ill-fitting white uniforms and floppy leather chappals entered with a stretcher. The driver made Jal sign an invoice with the job starting time, and the destination address was confirmed.
The ambulancemen moved Nariman to one side of the bed to make room for the stretcher. They slid him expertly onto it and tucked in the sheet, advising him it was best to keep his eyes closed. They emerged from the bedroom, carefully negotiating the turn through the door, with Jal and Coomy following behind.
As they marched down the passageway, Nariman opened his eyes. From his supine position he saw the glum portraits of his forefathers on the walls. Strange, how their eyes looked at him – as though they were the living and he the dead.
The slight up-and-down motion of the stretcher, like a boat bobbing on the sea, made his ancestors seem to nod. Nodding to concur with his fate, with his departure from this flat.
He wondered if he was seeing the familiar faces for the last time. He wanted to tell the ambulancemen to make a tour of each room so he could examine everything, fix it in his mind before the door closed behind him.
A DIATONIC SCALE EXECUTED in perfect legato drifted upwards from the ground floor of Pleasant Villa. How sweet a simple do re mi can sound, thought Roxana on the third floor, humming along with the violin.
The octave was completed, and she called out from the kitchen, “Get ready, Jehangir, the water’s hot!”
The violin pursued the major scale into the next key. He ignored his mother, absorbed by the jigsaw piece in his hand. To locate its place in the world of his puzzle was all he wanted at the moment.
“Almost boiling now, Jehangir. And so am I, I’m warning you.”
“It’s not my turn today.”
“Don’t try your tricks – Murad had his bath yesterday. Hurry, the water is turning to useless steam!”
A shadow fell upon the incomplete Lake C
omo. He looked up and saw his father standing over him. “You can’t hear Mummy? Go at once, don’t make her shout.”
Roxana felt tender towards her husband. She could never predict if he was going to side with the children or support her.
Jehangir relinquished the jigsaw, and Yezad took over. “Your son is completely addicted. The way he concentrates, you’d think he was looking for his own place in the world.”
He picked up the blue piece that had defied Jehangir and tried it in various parts of Lake Como before giving up. “Not yet time to fit this piece. You have to build some more.”
“I know,” said Jehangir, pulling his towel off the line that stretched across the front room between his bed and Murad’s. On rainy days, when washing couldn’t be hung on the balcony, the line became a fragrant curtain of wet clothes, and he preferred the room like that, in two compartments. Then he pretended to be one of the Famous Five, or the Five Find-Outers, who all had their own rooms and lived in England where everything was beautiful. His imagination transported the clothes-curtained room to the English countryside, into a house with a lovely garden where robins sang and roses bloomed, and to which he could return after having an adventure or solving a mystery. How perfectly he would fit in that world, he thought.
His school uniform was in the pile of clothes stacked on the clothes horse. The towel was damp with the monsoon’s humid breath. As far as he was concerned, the bath time would be better spent piecing together more of Lake Como, its tranquil shores, its blue skies …
Murad demanded a bath as well, and Roxana said she had enough on her hands in the morning without his new nonsense. “First, even alternate days was too much for you. Now you want it daily.”
“Your boy is growing up,” said Yezad, “and growing sensible. For that we should celebrate, Roxie.”