A Son of the Circus

  At 39, John D. had simply grown accustomed to not knowing his mother and father. But who wouldn't want to know, or at least meet, his own twin? Why not simply introduce the fool missionary to his twin? the doctor asked himself. "Martin, this is your brother--you'd better get used to the idea." (Dr. Daruwalla presumed that all missionaries were, in one way or another, fools.) Telling the truth to Dhar's twin would serve Vera right, Farrokh thought. It might even prevent Martin Mills from doing anything as confining as becoming a priest. It was most definitely the Anglican in Dr. Daruwalla that stopped short of the very idea of chastity, which seemed utterly confining to him.

  Farrokh remembered what his contentious father had had to say about chastity. Lowji had considered the subject in the light of Gandhi's experience. The Mahatma had been married at 13; he was 37 when he took a vow of sexual abstinence. "By my calculations," Lowji had said, "this amounts to twenty-four years of sex. Many people don't have that many years of sex in their entire lifetime. So the Mahatma chose sexual abstinence after twenty-four years of sexual activity. He was a bloody womanizer flanked by a bunch of Mary Magdalenes!"

  As with all his father's pronouncements, that voice of steadfast authority rang down through the years, for old Lowji proclaimed everything in the same strident, inflammatory tones; he mocked, he defamed, he provoked, he advised. Whether he was giving good advice (usually of a medical nature) or speaking out of the most dire prejudice--or expressing the most eccentric, simplistic opinion--Lowji had the tone of voice of a self-declared expert. To everyone, and in consideration of all subjects, he used the same famous tone of voice with which he'd made a name for himself in the days of Independence and during the Partition, when he'd so authoritatively addressed the issue of Disaster Medicine. ("In order of importance, look for dramatic amputations and severe extremity injuries before treating fractures or lacerations. Best to leave all head injuries to the experts, if there are any.") It was a pity that such sensible advice was wasted on a movement that didn't last, although the present volunteers in the field still spoke of Disaster Medicine as a worthy cause.

  Upon that memory, Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla attempted to extricate himself from the past. He forced himself to view the melodrama of Dhar's twin as the particular crisis at hand. With refreshing and unusual clarity, the doctor decided that it should be Dhar's decision whether or not poor Martin Mills should know that he had a twin brother. Martin Mills wasn't the twin the doctor knew and loved. It should be a matter of what the doctor's beloved John D. wanted: to know his brother or not to know him. And to hell with Danny and Vera, and whatever mess they might have made of their lives--especially to hell with Vera. She would be 65, Farrokh realized, and Danny was almost 10 years older; they were both old enough to face the music like grownups.

  But Dr. Daruwalla's reasoning was entirely swept away by the next phone message, alongside which everything to do with Dhar and his twin assumed the lesser stature of gossip, of mere trivia.

  "Patel here," said the voice, which instantly impressed Farrokh with a moral detachment he'd never known. Anesthesiology Patel? Radiology Patel? It was a Gujarati name--there weren't all that many Patels in Bombay. And then, with a sensation of sudden coldness--almost as cold as the voice on his answering machine--Farrokh knew who it was. It was Deputy Commissioner Patel, the real policeman. He must be the only Gujarati on the Bombay police force, Farrokh thought, for surely the local police were mostly Maharashtrians.

  "Doctor," the detective said, "there is quite a different subject we must discuss--not in Dhar's presence, please. I want to speak with you alone." The hanging up of the phone was as abrupt as the message.

  Had he not been so agitated by the call, Dr. Daruwalla might have prided himself for his insight as a screenwriter, for he'd always given Inspector Dhar a similar succinctness when speaking on the telephone--especially to answering machines. But the screenwriter took no pride in the accuracy of his characterization; instead, Farrokh was overcome with curiosity regarding what the "different subject" that Detective Patel wished to discuss was, not to mention why this subject couldn't be discussed in front of Dhar. At the same time, Dr. Daruwalla absolutely dreaded the deputy commissioner's presumed knowledge of crime.

  Was there another clue to Mr. Lal's murder, or another threat to Dhar? Or was this "different subject" the cage-girl killings--the real-life murders of those prostitutes, not the movie version?

  But the doctor had no time to contemplate the mystery. With the next phone message, Dr. Daruwalla was once more ensnared by the past.

  The Same Old Scare; a Brand-New Threat

  It was an old message, one he'd been hearing for 20 years. He'd received these calls in Toronto and in Bombay, both at his home and at his office. He'd tried having the calls traced, but without success; they were made from public phones--from post offices, hotel lobbies, airports, hospitals. And regardless of how familiar Farrokh was with the content of these calls, the hatred that inspired them never failed to engage his complete attention.

  The voice, full of cruel mockery, began by quoting old Lowji's advice to the Disaster Medicine volunteers--" '... look for dramatic amputations and severe extremity injuries,' " the voice began. And then, interrupting itself, the voice said, "When it comes to 'dramatic amputations'--your father's head was off, completely off! I saw it sitting on the passenger seat before the flames engulfed the car. And when it comes to 'severe extremity injuries'--his hands couldn't let go of the steering wheel, even though his fingers were on fire! I saw the burned hairs on the backs of his hands, before the crowd formed and I had to slip away. And your father said it was 'best to leave all head injuries to the experts'--when it comes to 'head injuries,' I'm the expert! I did it. I blew his head off. I watched him burn. And I'm telling you, he deserved it. Your whole family deserves it."

  It was the same old scare--he'd been hearing it for 20 years--but it never affected Dr. Daruwalla any less. He sat shivering in his bedroom as he'd sat shivering about a hundred times before. His sister, in London, Had never received these calls. Farrokh assumed that she was spared only because the caller didn't know her married name. His brother, Jamshed, had received these calls in Zurich. The calls to both brothers had been recorded on various answering machines and on several tapes made by the police. Once, in Zurich, the Daruwalla brothers and their wives had listened to one of these recordings over and over again. No one recognized the voice of the caller, but to Farrokh's and Jamshed's surprise, their wives were convinced that the caller was a woman. The brothers had always thought the voice was unmistakably a man's. As sisters, Julia and Josefine were adamant in regard to the mystical correctness of anything they agreed about. The caller was a woman--they were sure.

  The dispute was still raging when John D. arrived at Jamshed and Josefine's apartment for dinner. Everyone insisted that Inspector Dhar should settle the argument. After all, an actor has a trained voice and acute powers for studying and imitating the voices of others. John D. listened to the recording only once.

  "It's a man trying to sound like a woman," he said.

  Dr. Daruwalla was outraged--not so much by the opinion, which the doctor found simply outlandish, but by the infuriating authority with which John D. had spoken. It was the actor speaking, the doctor was certain--the actor in his role as detective. That was where the arrogant, self-assured manner came from--from fiction!.

  Everyone had objected to Dhar's conclusion, and so the actor had rewound the tape; he'd listened to it again--actually, two more times. Then suddenly the mannerisms that Dr. Daruwalla associated with Inspector Dhar vanished; it was a serious, apologetic John D. who spoke to them.

  "I'm sorry--I was wrong," John D. said. "It's a woman trying to sound like a man."

  Because this assessment was spoken with a different kind of confidence and not at all as Inspector Dhar would have delivered the line, Dr. Daruwalla said, "Rewind it. Play it again." This time they'd all agreed with John D. It was a woman, and she was trying to sound like a man. It
was no one whose voice they'd ever heard before--they'd all agreed to that, too. Her English was almost perfect--very British. She had only a trace of a Hindi accent.

  "I did it. I blew his head off. I watched him burn. And I'm telling you, he deserved it. Your whole family deserves it," the woman had said for 20 years, probably more than 100 times. But who was she? Where did her hatred come from? And had she really done it?

  Her hatred might be even stronger if she'd not done it. But then why take credit for doing it? the doctor wondered. How could anyone have hated Lowji that much? Farrokh knew that his father had said much to offend everybody, but, to Farrokh's knowledge, his father hadn't personally wronged anyone. It was easy, in India, to assume that the source of any violence was either political outrage or religious offense. When someone as prominent and outspoken as Lowji was blown up by a car bomb, it was automatic to label the killing an assassination. But Farrokh had to wonder if his father might have inspired a more personal anger, and if his killing hadn't been just a plain old murder.

  It was hard for Farrokh to imagine anyone, especially a woman, with a private grievance against his father. Then he thought of the deeply personal loathing that Mr. Lal's murderer must feel for Inspector Dhar. (MORE MEMBERS DIE IF DHAR REMAINS A MEMBER.) And it occurred to Dr. Daruwalla that perhaps they were all being hasty to assume it was Dhar's movie persona that had inspired such a venomous anger. Had Dr. Daruwalla's dear boy--his beloved John D.--got himself into some private trouble? Was this a case of a personal relationship that had soured into a murderous hatred? Dr. Daruwalla felt ashamed of himself that he'd inquired so little about Dhar's personal life. He feared he'd given John D. the impression that he was indifferent to the younger man's private affairs.

  Certainly, John D. was chaste when he was in Bombay; at least he said he was. There were the public appearances with starlets--the ever-available cinema bimbos--but such couplings were choreographed to create the desired scandal, which both parties would later deny. These weren't "relationships"--they were "publicity."

  The Inspector Dhar movies thrived on giving offense--in India, a risky enterprise. Yet the senselessness of murdering Mr. Lal indicated a hatred more vicious than anything Dr. Daruwalla could detect in the usual reactions to Dhar. As if on cue, as if prompted by the mere thought of giving or taking offense, the next phone message was from the director of all the Inspector Dhar movies. Balraj Gupta had been pestering Dr. Daruwalla about the extremely touchy subject of when to release the new Inspector Dhar movie. Because of the prostitute killings and the general disfavor incurred by Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer, Gupta had delayed its opening and he was increasingly impatient.

  Dr. Daruwalla had privately decided that he never wanted the new Inspector Dhar film to be seen, but he knew that the movie would be released; he couldn't stop it. Nor could he appeal to Balraj Gupta's deficient instincts for social responsibility much longer; such maladroit feelings as Gupta might have had for the real-life murdered prostitutes were short-lived.

  "Gupta here!" the director said. "Look at it this way. The new one will cause new offense. Whoever is killing the cage girls might give it up and kill someone else! We give the public something new to make them wild and crazy--we'll be doing the prostitutes a favor!" Balraj Gupta possessed the logic of a politician; the doctor had no doubt that the new Inspector Dhar movie would make a different group of moviegoers "wild and crazy."

  It was called Inspector Dhar and the Towers of Silence; the title alone would be offensive to the entire Parsi community, because the Towers of Silence were the burial wells for the Parsi dead. There were always naked corpses of Parsis in the Towers of Silence, which was why Dr. Daruwalla had first supposed that they were the attraction to the first vulture he'd seen above the golf course at the Duckworth Club. The Parsis were understandably protective of their Towers of Silence; as a Parsi, Dr. Daruwalla knew this very well. Yet in the new Inspector Dhar movie, someone is murdering Western hippies and depositing their bodies in the Towers of Silence. Many Indians readily took offense at European and American hippies when they were alive. Doongarwadi is an accepted part of Bombay culture. At the very least, the Parsis would be disgusted. And all Bombayites would reject the premise of the film as absurd. No one can get near the Towers of Silence--not even other Parsis! (Not unless they're dead.) But of course, Dr. Daruwalla thought proudly, that was what was neat and tricky about the film--how the bodies are deposited there, and how the intrepid Inspector Dhar figures this out.

  With resignation, Dr. Daruwalla knew that he couldn't stall the release of Inspector Dhar and the Towers of Silence much longer; he could, however, fast-forward through Balraj Gupta's remaining arguments for releasing the film immediately. Besides, the doctor enjoyed the high-speed distortion of Balraj Gupta's voice far more than he appreciated the real thing.

  While the doctor was being playful, he came to the last message on his answering machine. The caller was a woman. At first Farrokh supposed it was no one he knew. "Is that the doctor?" she asked. It was a voice long past exhaustion, of someone who was terminally depressed. She spoke as if her mouth were too wide open, as if her lower jaw were permanently dropped. There was a deadpan, don't-give-a-damn quality to her voice, and her accent was plain and flat--North American, surely, but Dr. Daruwalla (who was good at accents) guessed more specifically that she was from the American Midwest or the Canadian prairies. Omaha or Sioux City, Regina or Saskatoon.

  "Is that the doctor?" she asked. "I know who you really are, I know what you really do," the woman went on. "Tell the deputy commissioner--the real policeman. Tell him who you are. Tell him what you do." The hang-up was a little out of control, as if she'd meant to slam the phone into its cradle but, in her restrained anger, had missed the mark.

  Farrokh sat trembling in his bedroom. From the dining room of his apartment, he could now hear Roopa laying out their supper on the glass-topped table. She would any minute announce to Dhar and Julia that the doctor was home and that their extraordinarily late meal was finally served. Julia would wonder why he'd snuck into the bedroom like a thief. In truth, Farrokh felt like a thief--but one unsure of what he'd stolen, and from whom.

  Dr. Daruwalla rewound the tape and replayed the last message. This was a brand-new threat; and because he was concentrating so hard upon the meaning of the call, the doctor almost missed the most important clue, which was the caller. Farrokh had always known that someone would discover him as Inspector Dhar's creator; that part of the message was not unexpected. But why was this any business of the real policeman? Why did someone think that Deputy Commissioner Patel should know?

  "I know who you really are, I know what you really do." But so what? the screenwriter thought. "Tell him who you are. Tell him what you do." But why? Farrokh wondered. Then, by accident, the doctor found himself listening repeatedly to the woman's opening line, the part he'd almost missed. "Is that the doctor?" He played it again and again, until his hands were shaking so badly that he rewound the tape all the way into Balraj Gupta's list of reasons for releasing the new Inspector Dhar film now.

  "Is that the doctor?"

  Dr. Daruwalla's heart had never seemed to stand so still before. It can't be her! he thought. But it was her--Farrokh was sure of it. After all these years--it couldn't be! But of course, he realized, if it was her, she would know; with an intelligent guess, she could have figured it out.

  That was when his wife burst into the bedroom. "Farrokh!" Julia said. "I never knew you were home!"

  But I'm not "home," the doctor thought; I'm in a very, very foreign country.

  "Liebchen," he said softly to his wife. Whenever he used the German endearment, Julia knew he was feeling tender--or else he was in trouble.

  "What is it, Liebchen?" she asked him. He held out his hand and she went to him; she sat close enough beside him to feel that he was shivering. She put her arms around him.

  "Please listen to this," Farrokh said to her. "Bitte."

  The first tim
e Julia listened, Farrokh could see by her face that she was making his mistake; she was concentrating too hard on the content of the message.

  "Never mind what she says," said Dr. Daruwalla. "Think about who she is."

  It was the third time before Farrokh saw Julia's expression change.

  "It's her, isn't it?" he asked his wife.

  "But this is a much older woman," Julia said quickly.

  "It's been twenty years, Julia!" Dr. Daruwalla said. "She would be a much older woman now! She is a much older woman!"

  They listened together a few more times. At last Julia said, "Yes, I think it is her, but what's her connection with what's happening now?"

  In the cold bedroom--in his funereal navy-blue suit, which was comically offset by the bright-green parrot on his necktie--Dr. Daruwalla was afraid that he knew what the connection was.

  The Skywalk

  The past surrounded him like faces in a crowd. Among them, there was one he knew, but whose face was it? As always, something from the Great Royal Circus offered itself as a beacon. The ringmaster, Pratap Singh, was married to a lovely woman named Sumitra--everyone called her Sumi. She was in her thirties, possibly her forties; and she not only played the role of mother to many of the child performers, she was also a gifted acrobat. Sumi performed in the item called Double-Wheel Cycle, a bicycle act, with her sister-in-law Suman. Suman was Pratap's unmarried, adopted sister; she must have been in her late twenties, possibly her thirties, when Dr. Daruwalla last saw her--a petite and muscular beauty, and the best acrobat in Pratap's troupe. Her name meant "rose flower"--or was it "scent of the rose flower," or merely the scent of flowers in general? Farrokh had never actually known, no more than he knew the story concerning when Suman had been adopted, or by whom.

  It didn't matter. Suman and Sumi's bicycle duet was much loved. They could ride their bicycles backward, or lie down on them and pedal them with their hands; they could ride them on one wheel, like unicycles, or pedal them while sitting on the handlebars. Perhaps it was a special softness in Farrokh that he took such pleasure from seeing two pretty women do something so graceful together. But Suman was the star, and her Skywalk item was the best act in the Great Royal Circus.