A Son of the Circus

heavy-duty trucks. Dr. Daruwalla was grateful that Ganesh sat in the passenger seat; both the boy and Madhu had wanted that seat, but the doctor was afraid that Madhu would distract the driver—a high-speed seduction. So the girl sulked in the back with the doctor and the missionary while the elephant boy chatted nonstop with Ramu.

Ganesh had probably expected that the driver would speak only Gujarati; to discover that Ramu was a fellow Maharashtrian who spoke Marathi and Hindi inspired the beggar. Although Farrokh found their conversation difficult to follow, it seemed that Ganesh wanted to list all the possible circus-related activities that a cripple with one good foot might do. For his part, Ramu was discouraging; he preferred to talk about driving while demonstrating his violent technique of up-shifting and downshifting (instead of using the brakes), assuring Ganesh that it would be impossible to match his skill as a driver without a functioning right foot.

To Ramu’s credit, he didn’t look at Ganesh when he talked; thankfully, the driver was transfixed by the developing madness on the road. Soon it would be dark; perhaps then the doctor could relax, for it would be better not to see one’s own death approaching. After nightfall, there would be only the sudden nearness of a blaring horn and the blinding, onrushing headlights. Farrokh imagined the entanglement of bodies in the rolling Land Rover; a foot here, a hand there, the back of someone’s head, a flailing elbow—and not knowing who was who, or in which direction the ground was, or the black sky (for the headlights would surely be shattered, and in one’s hair there would be fragments of glass, as fine as sand). They would smell the gasoline; it would be soaking their clothes. At last, they would see the ball of flame.

“Distract me,” Dr. Daruwalla said to Martin Mills. “Start talking. Tell me anything at all.” The Jesuit, who’d spent his childhood on the Los Angeles freeways, seemed at ease in the careening Land Rover. The burned-out wrecks off the side of the road were of no interest to him—not even the occasional upside-down car that was still on fire—and the carnage of animals that dotted the highway interested him only when he couldn’t identify their remains.

“What was that? Did you see that?” the missionary asked, his head whipping around.

“A dead bullock,” answered Dr. Daruwalla. “Please talk to me, Martin.”

“I know it was dead,” said Martin Mills. “What’s a bullock?”

“A castrated bull—a steer,” Farrokh replied.

“There’s another one!” the scholastic cried, his head turning again.

“No, that was a cow,” the doctor said.

“I saw a camel earlier,” Martin remarked. “Did you see the camel?”

“Yes, I saw it,” Farrokh answered him. “Now tell me a story. It will be dark soon.”

“A pity—there’s so much to see!” said Martin Mills.

“Distract me, for God’s sake!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “I know you like to talk—tell me anything at all!”

“Well … what do you want me to tell you about?” the missionary asked. Farrokh wanted to kill him.

The girl had fallen asleep. They’d made her sit between them because they were afraid she’d lean against one of the rear doors; now she could lean only against them. Asleep, Madhu seemed as frail as a rag doll; they had to press against her and hold her shoulders to keep her from flopping around.

Her scented hair brushed against Dr. Daruwalla’s throat at the open collar of his shirt; her hair smelled like clove. Then the Land Rover would swerve and Madhu would slump against the Jesuit, who took no notice of her. But Farrokh felt her hip against his. As the Land Rover again pulled out to pass, Madhu’s shoulder ground against the doctor’s ribs; her hand, which was limp, dragged across his thigh. Sometimes, when Farrokh could feel Madhu breathe, he held his breath. The doctor wasn’t looking forward to the awkwardness of spending the night in the same room with her. It was not only from Ramu’s reckless driving that Farrokh sought some distraction.

“Tell me about your mother,” Dr. Daruwalla said to Martin Mills. “How is she?” In the failing but lingering light, the doctor could see the missionary’s neck tighten; his eyes narrowed. “And your father—how’s Danny doing?” the doctor added, but the damage had already been done. Farrokh could tell that Martin hadn’t heard him the second time; the Jesuit was searching the past. The landscape of hideously slain animals flew by, but the zealot no longer noticed.

“All right, if that’s what you want. I’m going to tell you a little story about my mother,” said Martin Mills. Somehow, Dr. Daruwalla knew that the story wouldn’t be “little.” The missionary wasn’t a minimalist; he favored description. In fact, Martin left out no detail; he told Farrokh absolutely everything he could remember. The exquisiteness of Arif Koma’s complexion, the different odors of masturbation—not only Arif’s, but also the smell that lingered on the U.C.L.A. babysitter’s fingers.

Thus they hurtled through the darkened countryside and the dimly lit towns, where the reek of cooking and excrement assailed them—together with the squabbling of chickens, the barking of dogs and the savage threats of the shouting, almostrunover pedestrians. Ramu apologized that his driver’s-side window was missing; not only did the rushing night air grow cooler, but the back-seat passengers were struck by flying insects. Once, something the size of a hummingbird smacked against Martin’s forehead; it must have stung, and for five minutes or more it lay buzzing and whirring on the floor before it died—whatever it was. But the missionary’s story was unstoppable; nothing could deter him.

It took him all the way to Junagadh to finish. As they entered the brightly lit town, the streets were teeming; two crowds were surging against each other. A loudspeaker on a parked truck played circus music. One crowd was coming from the early-evening show, the other hurrying to line up for the show that was to start later on.

I should tell the poor bastard everything, Dr. Daruwalla was thinking. That he has a twin, that his mother was always a slut, that Neville Eden was probably his real father. Danny was too dumb to be the father; both John D. and Martin Mills were smart. Neville, although Farrokh had never liked him, had been smart. But Martin’s story had struck Farrokh speechless. Moreover, the doctor believed that these revelations should be John D.’s decision. And although Dr. Daruwalla wanted to punish Vera in almost any way that he could, the one thing that Martin had said about Danny contributed further to the doctor’s silence: “I love my father—I just wish I didn’t pity him.”

The rest of the story was all about Vera; Martin hadn’t said another word about Danny. The doctor decided that it wasn’t a good time for the Jesuit to hear that his probable father was a two-timing, bisexual shit named Neville Eden. This news would not help Martin to pity Danny any less.

Besides, they were almost at the circus. The elephant-footed boy was so excited, he was kneeling on the front seat and waving out the window at the mob. The circus music, which was blaring at them over the loudspeaker, had managed to wake up Madhu.

“Here’s your new life,” Dr. Daruwalla told the child prostitute. “Wake up and see it.”

A Racist Chimpanzee

Although Ramu never stopped blowing the horn, the Land Rover barely crawled through the crowd. Several small boys clung to the door handles and the rear bumper, allowing themselves to be dragged along the road. Everyone stared into the back seat. Madhu was mistaken to be anxious; the crowd wasn’t staring at her. It was Martin Mills who drew their attention; they were unused to white men. Junagadh wasn’t a tourist town. The missionary’s skin was as pale as dough in the glare from the streetlights. Because they were forced to move ahead so slowly, it grew hot in the car, but when Martin rolled his rear window down, people reached inside the Land Rover just to touch him.

Far ahead of them, a dwarf clown on stilts was leading the throng. It was even more congested at the circus because it was too early to let the crowd in; the Land Rover had to inch its way through the well-guarded gate. Once inside the compound, Dr. Daruwalla appreciated a familiar sensation: the circus was a cloister, a protected place; it was as exempt from the mayhem of Junagadh as St. Ignatius stood, like a fort, within the chaos of Bombay. The children would be safe here, provided that they gave the place a chance—provided that the circus gave them a chance.

But the first omen was inhospitable: Deepa didn’t meet them; the dwarf’s wife and son were sick—confined to their tent. And, almost immediately, Dr. Daruwalla could sense how the Great Blue Nile compared unfavorably to the Great Royal. There was no owner of the charm and dignity of Pratap Walawalkar; in fact, the owner of the Great Blue Nile was away. No dinner was waiting for them in the owner’s tent, which they never saw. The ringmaster was a Bengali named Das; there was no food in Mr. Das’s tent, and the sleeping cots were all in a row, as in a spartan barracks; a minimum of ornamentation was draped on the walls. The dirt floor was completely covered with rugs; bolts of brightly colored fabric, for costumes, were hung high in the apex of the tent, out of everyone’s way, and the trappings of a temple were prominently displayed alongside the TV and VCR.

A cot like all the others was identified as Madhu’s; Mr. Das was putting her between two older girls, who (he said) would mind her. Mrs. Das, the ringmaster assured them, would “mind” Madhu, too. As for Mrs. Das, she didn’t get off her cot to greet them. She sat sewing sequins on a costume, and only as they were leaving the tent did she speak to Madhu.