A Son of the Circus

Later, Farrokh remembered only that it wasn’t one of Metro’s taxis or one of Beck’s—the two companies he most often called. It was probably what they call a gypsy cab.

“I said where are you going?” the driver asked Dr. Daruwalla.

“Home,” Farrokh replied. (It struck him as pointless to add that he’d intended to walk for a while. Here was a taxi. Why not take it?)

“Where’s ‘home’?” the friend in the front seat asked.

“Russell Hill Road, north of St. Clair—just north of Lonsdale,” the doctor answered; he’d stopped walking—the taxi had stopped, too. “Actually, I was going to stop at the beer store—and then go home,” Farrokh added.

“Get in, if you want,” the driver said.

Dr. Daruwalla didn’t feel anxious until he was settled in the back seat and the taxi began to move. The friend in the front seat belched once, sharply, and the driver laughed. The windshield visor in front of the driver’s friend was pushed flat against the windshield, and the glove-compartment door was missing. Farrokh couldn’t remember if these were the places where the driver’s certification was posted—or was it usually on the Plexiglas divider between the front and back seats? (The Plexiglas divider itself was unusual; in Toronto, most taxis didn’t have these dividers.) Anyway, there was no visible driver’s certification inside the cab, and the taxi was already moving too fast for Dr. Daruwalla to get out—maybe at a red light, the doctor thought. But there were no red lights for a while and the taxi ran the first red light it came to; that was when the driver’s friend in the front seat turned around and faced Farrokh.

“So where’s your real home?” the friend asked.

“Russell Hill Road,” Dr. Daruwalla repeated.

“Before that, asshole,” the driver said.

“I was born in Bombay, but I left India when I was a teenager. I’m a Canadian citizen,” Farrokh said.

“Didn’t I tell you?” the driver said to his friend.

“Let’s take him home,” the friend said.

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and made a sudden U-turn. Farrokh was thrown against the door.

“We’ll show you where your home is, babu,” the driver said.

At no time could Dr. Daruwalla have escaped. When they crawled slowly ahead in the traffic, or when they were stopped at a red light, the doctor was too afraid to attempt it. They were moving fairly fast when the driver slammed on the brakes. The doctor’s head bounced off the Plexiglas shield. Dr. Daruwalla was pressed back into the seat when the driver accelerated. Farrokh felt the tightness of the instant swelling; by the time he gently touched his puffy eyebrow, blood was already running into his eye. Four stitches, maybe six, the doctor’s fingers told him.

The area of Little India is not extensive; it stretches along Gerrard from Coxwell to Hiawatha—some would say as far as Woodfield. Everyone would agree that by the time you get to Greenwood, Little India is over; and even in Little India, the Chinese community is interspersed. The taxi stopped in front of the Ahmad Grocers on Gerrard, at Coxwell; it was probably no coincidence that the grocer was diagonally across the street from the offices of the Canadian Ethnic Immigration Services—this was where the driver’s friend dragged Farrokh out of the back seat. “You’re home now—better stay here,” the friend told Dr. Daruwalla.

“Better yet, babu—go back to Bombay,” the driver added.

As the taxi pulled away, the doctor could see it clearly out of only one eye; he was so relieved to be free of the thugs that he paid scant attention to the identifying marks of the car. It was red—maybe red and white. If Farrokh saw any printed names or numbers, he wouldn’t remember them.

Little India appeared to be mostly closed on Friday. Apparently, no one had seen the doctor roughly pulled out of the taxi; no one approached him, although he was dazed and bleeding—clearly disoriented. A small, potbellied man in a dark suit—his white shirt was ruined from the blood that flowed from his split eyebrow—he clutched his doctor’s bag in one hand. He began to walk. On the sidewalk, dancing in the spring air, kaftans were hanging on a clothes rack. Later, Farrokh struggled to remember the names of the places. Pindi Embroidery? Nirma Fashions? There was another grocery with fresh fruits and vegetables—maybe the Singh Farm? At the United Church, there was a sign saying that the church also served as the Shri Ram Hindu Temple on Sunday evenings. At the corner of Craven and Gerrard, a restaurant claimed to be “Indian Cuisine Specialists.” There was also the familiar advertisement for Kingfisher lager—INSTILLED WITH INNER STRENGTH. A poster, promising an ASIA SUPERSTARS NITE, displayed the usual faces: Dimple Kapadia, Sunny Deol, Jaya Prada—with music by Bappi Lahiri.

Dr. Daruwalla never came to Little India. In the storefront windows, the mannequins in their saris seemed to rebuke him. Farrokh saw few Indians in Toronto; he had no close Indian friends there. Parsi parents would bring him their sick children—on the evidence of his name in the telephone directory, Dr. Daruwalla supposed. Among the mannequins, a blonde in her sari struck Farrokh as sharing his own disorientation.

At Raja Jewellers, someone was staring out the window at him, probably noticing that the doctor was bleeding. There was a South Indian “Pure Vegetarian Restaurant” near Ashdale and Gerrard. At the Chaat Hut, they advertised “all kinds of kulfi, faluda and paan.” At the Bombay Bhel, the sign said FOR TRUE AUTHENTIC GOL GUPPA … ALOO TIKKI … ETC. They served Thunderbolt beer, SUPER STRONG LAGER … THE SPIRIT OF EXCITEMENT. More saris were in a window at Hiawatha and Gerrard. And at the Shree Groceries, a pile of ginger root overflowed the store, extending onto the sidewalk. The doctor gazed at the India Theater … at the Silk Den.

At J. S. Addison Plumbing, at the corner of Woodfield and Gerrard, Farrokh saw a fabulous copper bathtub with ornate faucets; the handles were tiger heads, the tigers roaring—it was like the tub he’d bathed in as a boy on old Ridge Road, Malabar Hill. Dr. Daruwalla began to cry. Staring at the display of copper sinks and drains and other bathroom Victoriana, he was suddenly aware of a man’s concerned face staring back at him. The man came out on the sidewalk.

“You’ve been hurt—may I help you?” the man asked; he wasn’t an Indian.

“I’m a doctor,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “Please just call me a taxi—I know where to go.” He had the taxi take him back to the Hospital for Sick Children.

“You sure you want Sick Kids, mon?” the driver asked; he was a West Indian, a black man—very black. “You don’t look like a sick kid to me.”

“I’m a doctor,” Farrokh said. “I work there.”

“Who done that to you, mon?” the driver asked.

“Two guys who don’t like people like me—or like you,” the doctor told him.

“I know them—they everywhere, mon,” the driver said.