A Son of the Circus

“Ah,” the old man said. “And your husband …” What Mr. Dogar meant was, What does he do? He wondered: Which sort of civil-service employee is he?

“My husband is Mr. Patel,” Nancy told him; when she left him, she walked as carefully as possible to the Daruwallas’ table.

“I don’t think she recognized me,” Nancy told them, “but I couldn’t look at her. She looks the same, but ancient.”

“Are they dancing?” Dr. Daruwalla asked. “Are they talking, too?”

“They’re dancing and they’re talking—that’s all I know,” Nancy told the screenwriter. “I couldn’t look at her,” she repeated.

“It’s all right, sweetie,” the deputy commissioner said. “You don’t have to do anything more.”

“I want to be there when you catch her, Vijay,” Nancy told her husband.

“Well, we may not catch her in a place where you want to be,” the detective replied.

“Please let me be there,” Nancy said. “Am I zipped up?” she asked suddenly; she rotated her shoulders so that Julia could see her back.

“You’re zipped up perfectly, dear,” Julia told her.

Mr. Dogar, alone at his table, was gulping champagne and catching his breath, while Mr. Sethna plied him with hors d’oeuvres. Mrs. Dogar and Dhar were dancing in that part of the ballroom where Mr. Dogar couldn’t see them.

“There was a time when I wanted you,” Rahul was telling John D. “You were a beautiful boy.”

“I still want you,” Dhar told her.

“It seems you want everybody,” Mrs. Dogar said. “Who’s the stripper?” she asked him. He had no dialogue for this.

“Just a stripper,” Dhar answered.

“And who’s the fat blonde?” Rahul asked him. This much Dr. Daruwalla had prepared him for.

“She’s an old story,” the actor replied. “Some people can’t let go.”

“You can have your choice of women—younger women, too,” Mrs. Dogar told him. “What do you want with me?” This introduced a moment in the dialogue that the actor was afraid of; this required a quantum leap of faith in Farrokh’s script. The actor had little confidence in his upcoming line.

“I need to know something,” Dhar told Rahul. “Is your vagina really made from what used to be your penis?”

“Don’t be crude,” Mrs. Dogar said; then she started laughing.

“I wish there was another way to ask the question,” John D. admitted. When she laughed more uncontrollably, her hands gripped him harder; he could feel the strength of her hands for the first time. “I suppose I could have been more indirect,” Dhar continued, for her laughter encouraged him. “I could have said, ‘What sort of sensitivity do you have in that vagina of yours, anyway? I mean, does it feel sort of like a penis?’ ” The actor stopped; he couldn’t make himself continue. The screenwriter’s dialogue wasn’t working—Farrokh was frequently hit-or-miss with dialogue.

Besides, Mrs. Dogar had stopped laughing. “So you’re just curious—is that it?” she asked him. “You’re attracted to the oddity of it.”

Along the thin blue vein at Rahul’s throat, there appeared a cloudy drop of sweat; it ran quickly between her taut breasts. John D. thought that they hadn’t been dancing that hard. He hoped it was the right time. He took her around her waist with some force, and she followed his lead; when they crossed that part of the dance floor which made them visible to Mrs. Dogar’s husband—and to Mr. Sethna—Dhar saw that the old steward had understood his signal. Mr. Sethna turned quickly from the dining room toward the foyer, and the actor again wheeled Mrs. Dog

ar into the more private part of the ballroom.

“I’m an actor,” John D. told Rahul. “I can be anyone you want me to be—I can do absolutely anything you like. You just have to draw me a picture.” (The actor winced; he had Farrokh to thank for that clunker, too.)

“What an eccentric presumption!” Mrs. Dogar said. “Draw you a picture of what?”

“Just give me an idea of what appeals to you. Then I can do it,” Dhar told her.

“You said, ‘Draw me a picture’—I heard you say it,” Mrs. Dogar said.

“I meant, just tell me what you like—I mean sexually,” the actor said.

“I know what you mean, but you said ‘draw,’ ” Rahul replied coldly.