A Son of the Circus

  Dr. Daruwalla desired his wife--as suddenly, as disturbingly, as unashamedly as he'd ever desired her--and he marveled at the power of Mr. Salter's prose to do that: both to be aesthetically pleasing and to give him far more than a simple hard-on. The novel seemed like a heroic act of seduction; it had enlivened all of the doctor's senses.

  He felt how the beach sand was cooling; at midday it had so burned underfoot that he could cross it only with his sandals on, but now he comfortably walked barefoot in the sand--it seemed an ideal temperature. He vowed to get up very early one morning so that he could also experience the sand at its coldest, but he would forget his vow. Nevertheless, these were the stirrings within him of a second honeymoon, for sure. I shall write a letter to Mr. James Salter, he resolved. The rest of his life, Dr. Daruwalla would regret his neglecting to write that letter, but on this day in June--in 1969, on Baga Beach in Goa--the doctor briefly felt like a new man. Farrokh was only one day away from meeting the stranger whose voice on his answering machine 20 years later still commanded the authority to fill him with dread.

  "Is that him? Is that the doctor?" she would ask. When Farrokh had first heard those questions, he had no idea of the world he was about to enter.

  10

  CROSSED PATHS

  Testing for Syphilis

  At the Hotel Bardez, the front-desk staff told Dr. Daruwalla that the young woman had limped down the beach, all the way from a hippie enclave at Anjuna, she was checking the hotels for a doctor. "Any doctor?" she'd asked. They were proud of themselves for sending her away, but they warned the doctor that they were sure she'd be back; she wouldn't find anyone to care for her foot at Calangute Beach, and if she made it as far as Aguada, she'd be turned away. Because of how she looked, someone might call the police.

  Farrokh desired to uphold the Parsi reputation for fairness and social justice; certainly he sought to help the crippled and the maimed--a girl with a limp was at least in a category of patients the orthopedist felt familiar with. It wasn't as if his services were sought for the purpose of making Rahul Rai complete. Yet Farrokh couldn't be angry with the staff at the Hotel Bardez. It was out of respect for Dr. Daruwalla's privacy that they'd sent the limping woman away; they'd meant only to protect him, although doubtless they took a degree of pleasure in abusing an apparent freak. Among the Goans, especially as the 1960s were ending, there was a felt resentment of the European and American hippies who roamed the beaches; the hippies weren't big spenders--some of them even stole--and they were perceived as an undesirable element by the wealthier Western and Indian tourists whom the Goans wished to attract. And so, without condemning their behavior, Dr. Daruwalla politely informed the staff at the Hotel Bardez that he wished to examine the lame hippie should she return.

  The doctor's decision seemed especially disappointing to the aged tea-server who shuffled back and forth between the Hotel Bardez and the various encampments of thatch-roofed shelters; these four-poled structures, stuck in the sand and roofed with the dried fronds of coconut palms, dotted the beach. The tea-server had several times approached Dr. Daruwalla in his hammock under the palms, and it was largely out of diagnostic interest that Farrokh had observed the old man so closely. His name was Ali Ahmed; he said he was only 60 years old, although he looked 80, and he exhibited a few of the more easily recognizable and colorful physical signs of congenital syphilis. Upon his first tea service, the doctor had spotted Ali Ahmed's "Hutchinson's teeth"--the unmistakable peg-shaped incisors. The tea-server's deafness, in addition to the characteristic clouding of the cornea, had confirmed Dr. Daruwalla's diagnosis.

  Farrokh was chiefly interested in positioning Ali Ahmed in such a way that the tea-server faced the morning sun. Dr. Daruwalla was trying to spot a fourth symptom, a rarity in congenital syphilis--the Argyll Robertson pupil is much more common in syphilis acquired later in life--and the doctor had cleverly thought of a way to examine the old man without his knowledge.

  From his hammock, where he received his tea, Farrokh faced the Arabian Sea. Inland, at his back, the morning sun was a hazy glare above the village; from that direction, wafting over the beach, there emanated an aroma of fermented coconuts. Looking into the cloudy eyes of Ali Ahmed, Farrokh asked with feigned innocence, "What's that smell, Ali, and where's it coming from?" To be sure he'd be heard, Farrokh had to raise his voice.

  The tea-server was at the time focused on handing the doctor a glass of tea; his pupils were constricted to accommodate the object nearby--namely, the tea glass. But when the doctor asked him from whence the powerful odor came, Ali Ahmed looked in the direction of the village; his pupils dilated (to accommodate the distant tops of the coconut and areca palms), but even as his face was lifted to the harsh sunlight his pupils did not constrict in reaction to the glare. It was the classic Argyll Robertson pupil, Dr. Daruwalla decided.

  Farrokh recalled his favorite professor of infectious diseases, Herr Doktor Fritz Meitner; Dr. Meitner was fond of telling his medical students that the best way to remember the behavior of the Argyll Robertson pupil was to think of a prostitute: she accommodates, but doesn't react. It was an all-male class; they all had laughed, but Farrokh had felt uncertain of his laughter. He'd never been with a prostitute, although they were popular in both Vienna and Bombay.

  "Feni," the tea-server said, to explain the smell. But Dr. Daruwalla already knew the answer, just as he knew that the pupils of some syphilitics don't respond to light.

  A Literary Seduction Scene

  In the village--or perhaps the source of the smell was as far away as Panjim--they were distilling coconuts for the local brew called feni; the heavy, sickly-sweet fumes of the liquor drifted over the few tourists and families on holiday at Baga Beach.

  Dr. Daruwalla and his family were already favorites with the staff of the small hotel, and they were passionately welcomed in the little lean-to restaurant and taverna that the Daruwallas frequented on the beachfront. The doctor was a big tipper, his wife was a classical beauty of a European tradition (as opposed to the seedy, hippie trash), his daughters were vibrantly bright and pretty--they were still of the innocent school--and the striking John D. was mesmerizing to Indians and foreigners alike. It was only to those rare families as likable as the Daruwallas that the staff of the Hotel Bardez apologized for the smell of the feni.

  In those days, in the premonsoon months of May and June, both knowledgeable foreigners and Indians avoided the Goa beaches; it was too hot. It was, however, when the Goans who lived away from Goa came home to visit their families and friends. The children were through with school. The shrimp and lobster and fish were plentiful, and the mangoes were at their peak. (Dr. Daruwalla was enamored of mangoes.) In keeping with the holiday spirit and in order to placate all the Christians, the Catholic Church provided an abundance of feast days; although he wasn't yet religious, the doctor had nothing against a banquet or two.

  The Catholics were no longer the majority in Goa--the migrant iron miners who'd arrived early in this century were Hindus--but Farrokh, like his father, persisted in the belief that "the Romans" still overran the place. The Portuguese influence endured in the monumental architecture that Dr. Daruwalla adored; it could distinctly be tasted in the cuisine that the doctor relished. And among the names of the boats of the Christian fisherman, "Christ the King" was quite common. Bumper stickers, of both the comic and proselytizing variety, were a new if not widespread fad in Bombay; the doctor joked that the names of the boats of the Christian fishermen were Goan bumper stickers. Julia was no more amused by this than by Farrokh's constant ridicule of St. Francis's violated remains.

  "I don't know how anyone can justify canonization," Dr. Daruwalla reflected to John D., largely because Julia wouldn't listen to her husband but also because the young man had studied some theology in university. In Zurich, it would have been Protestant theology, Farrokh assumed. "Just imagine it!" Farrokh lectured to the young man. "A violent woman swallows Xavier's toe, and they cut off his arm and send it to Rome!
"

  John D. smiled silently over his breakfast. The Daruwalla daughters smiled helplessly at John D. When he looked at his wife, Farrokh was surprised that she was looking straight back at him--she was smiling, too. Clearly, she'd not been listening to a word he was saying. The doctor blushed. Julia's smile wasn't in the least cynical; on the contrary, his wife's expression was so sincerely amorous, Farrokh felt certain that she was determined to remind him of their pleasure the night before--even in front of John D. and the children! And judging from their night together, and the visible randiness of his wife's thoughts on the morning after, their holiday had become a second honeymoon after all.

  Reading in bed would never seem innocent again, the doctor thought, although everything had begun quite innocently. His wife had been reading the Trollope, and Farrokh hadn't been reading at all; he'd been trying to get up the nerve to read A Sport and a Pastime in front of Julia. Instead, he lay on his back with his fingers intertwined upon his rumbling belly--an excess of pork, or else the dinner conversation had upset him. Over dinner, he'd tried to explain to his family his need to be more creative, his desire to write something, but his daughters had paid no attention to him and Julia had misunderstood him; she'd suggested a medical-advice column--if not for The Times of India, then for The Globe and Mail. John D. had advised Farrokh to keep a diary; the young man said he'd kept one once, and he'd enjoyed it--then a girlfriend had stolen it and he'd gotten out of the habit. At that point, the conversation entirely deteriorated because the Daruwalla daughters had pestered John D. about the number of girlfriends the young man had had.

  After all, it was the tail end of the '60s; even innocent young girls talked as if they were sexually knowledgeable. It disturbed Farrokh that his daughters were clearly asking John D. to tell them the number of young women he'd slept with. Typical of John D., and to Dr. Daruwalla's great relief, the young man had skillfully and charmingly ducked the question. But the matter of the doctor's unfulfilled creativity had been dismissed or ignored.

  The subject, however, hadn't eluded Julia. In bed after dinner, propped up with a stack of pillows--while Farrokh lay flat upon his back--his wife had assaulted him with the Trollope.

  "Listen to this, Liebchen," Julia said. " 'Early in life, at the age of fifteen, I commenced the dangerous habit of keeping a journal, and this I maintained for ten years. The volumes remained in my possession, unregarded--never looked at--till 1870, when I examined them, and, with many blushes, destroyed them. They convicted me of folly, ignorance, indiscretion, idleness, extravagance, and conceit. But they had habituated me to the rapid use of pen and ink, and taught me how to express myself with facility.' "

  "I don't want or need to keep a journal," Farrokh said abruptly. "And. I already know how to express myself with facility."

  "There's no need to be defensive," Julia told him. "I just thought you'd be interested in the subject."

  "I want to create something," Dr. Daruwalla announced. "I'm not interested in recording the mundane details of my life."

  "I wasn't aware that our life was altogether mundane," Julia said.

  The doctor, realizing his error, said, "Certainly it's not. I meant only that I prefer to try my hand at something imaginative--I want to imagine something."

  "Do you mean fiction?" his wife asked.

  "Yes," Farrokh said. "Ideally, I should like to write a novel, but I don't suppose I could write a very good one."

  "Well, there are all kinds of novels," Julia said helpfully.

  Thus emboldened, Dr. Daruwalla withdrew James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime from its hiding place, which was under the newspaper on the floor beside the bed. He brought forth the novel carefully, as if it were a potentially dangerous weapon, which it was.

  "For example," Farrokh said, "I don't suppose I could ever write a novel as good as this one."

  Julia glanced at the Salter quickly before returning her eyes to the Trollope. "No, I wouldn't think so," she said.

  Aha! the doctor thought. So she has read it! But he asked with forced indifference, "Have you read the Salter?"

  "Oh, yes," his wife said, not taking her eyes off the Trollope. "I brought it along to reread it, actually."

  It was hard for Farrokh to remain casual, but he tried. "So you liked it, I presume?" he inquired.

  "Oh, yes--very much," Julia answered. After a weighty pause, she asked him, "And you?"

  "I find it rather good," the doctor confessed. "I suppose," he added, "some readers might be shocked, or offended, by certain parts."

  "Oh, yes," Julia agreed. Then she closed the Trollope and looked at him. "Which parts are you thinking of?"

  It hadn't happened quite as he'd imagined it, but this was what he wanted. Since Julia had most of the pillows, he rolled over on his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. He began with a somewhat cautious passage. " 'He pauses at last,' " Farrokh read aloud. " 'He leans over to admire her, she does not see him. Hair covers her cheek. Her skin seems very white. He kisses her side and then, without force, as one stirs a favorite mare, begins again. She comes to life with a soft, exhausted sound, like someone saved from drowning.' "

  Julia also rolled over on her stomach, gathering the pillows to her breasts. "It's hard to imagine anyone being shocked or offended by that part," she said.

  Dr. Daruwalla cleared his throat. The ceiling fan was stirring the down on the back of Julia's neck; her thick hair had fallen forward, hiding her eyes from his view. When he held his breath, he could hear her breathing. " 'She cannot be satisfied,' " he read on, while Julia buried her face in her arms. " 'She will not let him alone. She removes her clothes and calls to him. Once that night and twice the next morning he complies and in the darkness between lies awake, the lights of Dijon faint on the ceiling, the boulevards still. It's a bitter night. Flats of rain are passing. Heavy drops ring in the gutter outside their window, but they are in a dovecote, they are pigeons beneath the eaves. The rain is falling all around them. Deep in feathers, breathing softly, they lie. His sperm swims slowly inside her, oozing out between her legs.' "

  "Yes, that's better," Julia said. When he looked at her, he saw she'd turned her face to look at him; the yellow, unsteady light from the kerosene lamps wasn't as ghostly pale as the moonlight he'd seen on her face on their first honeymoon, but even this tarnished light conveyed her willingness to trust him. Their wedding night, in the Austrian winter, was in one of those snowy Alpine towns, and their train from Vienna had arrived almost too late for-them to be admitted to the Gasthof, despite their reservation. It must have been 2:00 in the morning by the time they'd undressed and bathed and got into the feather bed, which was as white as the mountains of snow that reflected the moonlight--it was a timeless glowing--in their window.

  But on their second honeymoon, Dr. Daruwalla came dangerously close to ruining the mood when he offered a faint criticism of the Salter. "I'm not sure how accurate it is to suggest that sperm swim 'slowly,' " he said, "and technically, I suppose, it's semen, not sperm, that would be oozing out between her legs."

  "For God's sake, Farrokh," his wife said. "Give me the book."

  She had no difficulty locating the passage she was looking for, although the book was unmarked. Farrokh lay on his side and watched her while she read aloud to him. " 'She is so wet by the time he has the pillows under her gleaming stomach that he goes right into her in one long, delicious move. They begin slowly. When he is close to coming he pulls his prick out and lets it cool. Then he starts again, guiding it with one hand, feeding it in like a line. She begins to roll her hips, to cry out. It's like ministering to a lunatic. Finally he takes it out again. As he waits, tranquil, deliberate, his eye keeps falling on lubricants--her face cream, bottles in the armoire. They distract him. Their presence seems frightening, like evidence. They begin once more and this time do not stop until she cries out and he feels himself come in long, trembling runs, the head of his prick touching bone, it seems.' "

  Julia handed the book back t
o him. "Your turn," she said then. She also lay on her side, watching him, but as he began to read to her, she shut her eyes; he saw her face on the pillow almost exactly as he'd seen it that morning in the Alps. St. Anton--that was the place--and he'd awakened to the sound of the skiers' boots tramping on the hard-packed snow; it seemed that an army of skiers was marching through the town to the ski lift. Only Julia and he were not there to ski. They were there to fuck, Farrokh thought, watching his wife's sleeping face. And that was how they'd spent the week, making brief forays into the snowy paths of the town and then hurrying back to their feather bed. In the evenings, they'd had no less appetite for the hearty food than the skiers had. Watching Julia as he read to her, Farrokh remembered every day and night in St. Anton.

  " 'He is thinking of the waiters in the casino, the audience at the cinema, the dark hotels as she lies on her stomach and with the ease of sitting down at a well-laid table, but no more than that, he introduces himself. They he on their sides. He tries not to move. There are only the little, invisible twitches, like a nibbling of fish.' "

  Julia opened her eyes as Farrokh searched for another passage.

  "Don't stop," she told him.

  Then Dr. Daruwalla found what he was looking for--a rather short and simple part. " 'Her breasts are hard,' " he read to his wife. " 'Her cunt is sopping.' " The doctor paused. "I suppose there'd be some readers who'd be shocked or offended by that," he added.

  "Not me," his wife told him. He closed the book and returned it to the newspaper on the floor. When he rolled back to Julia, she'd arranged the pillows under her hips and lay waiting for him. He touched her breasts first.

  "Your breasts are hard," he said to her.

  "They are not," she told him. "My breasts are old and soft."

  "I like soft better," he said.

  After she kissed him, she said, "My cunt is sopping."

  "It isn't!" he said instinctively, but when she took his hand and made him touch her, he realized she wasn't lying.