A Son of the Circus

“Didn’t you used to be an artist? Weren’t you going to art school?” the actor asked. (What the hell is Mr. Sethna doing? Dhar was thinking. John D. was afraid that Rahul smelled a rat.)

“I didn’t learn anything in art school,” Mrs. Dogar told him.

In the utility closet, off the foyer, Mr. Sethna had discovered that he couldn’t read the writing in the fuse box without his glasses, which he kept in a drawer in the kitchen. It took the steward a moment to decide whether or not to kill all the fuses.

“The old fool has probably electrocuted himself!” Dr. Daruwalla was saying to Detective Patel.

“Let’s try to keep calm,” the policeman said.

“If the lights don’t go out, let Dhar improvise—if he’s such a great improviser,” Nancy said.

“I want you not as a curiosity,” Dhar said suddenly to Mrs. Dogar. “I know you’re strong, I think you’re aggressive—I believe you can assert yourself.” (It was the worst of Dr. Daruwalla’s dialogue, the actor thought—it was sheer groping.) “I want you to tell me what you like. I want you to tell me what to do.”

“I want you to submit to me,” Rahul said.

“You can tie me up, if you want to,” Dhar said agreeably.

“I mean more than that,” Mrs. Dogar said. Then the ballroom and the entire first floor of the Duckworth Club were pitched into darkness. There was a communal gasp and a fumbling in the band; the number they were playing persisted through a few more toots and thumps. From the dining room came an artless clapping. Noises of chaos could be heard from the kitchen. Then the knives and forks and spoons began their impromptu music against the water glasses.

“Don’t spill the champagne!” Mr. Bannerjee called out.

The girlish laughter probably came from Amy Sorabjee.

When John D. tried to kiss her in the darkness, Mrs. Dogar was too fast; his mouth was just touching hers when he felt her seize his lower lip in her teeth. While she held him thus, by the lip, her exaggerated breathing was heavy in his face; her cool, dry hands unzipped him and fondled him until he was hard. Dhar put his hands on her buttocks, which she instantly tightened. Still she clamped his lower lip between her teeth; her bite was hard enough to hurt him but not quite deep enough to make him bleed. As Mr. Sethna had been instructed, the lights flashed briefly on and then went out again; Mrs. Dogar let go of John D.—both with her teeth and with her hands. When he took his hands off her to zip up his fly, he lost her. When the lights came on, Dhar was no longer in contact with Mrs. Dogar.

“You want a picture? I’ll show you a picture,” Rahul said quietly. “I could have bitten your lip off.”

“I have a suite at both the Oberoi and the Taj,” the actor told her.

“No—I’ll tell you where,” Mrs. Dogar said. “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

“At lunch here?” Dhar asked her.

“Tomorrow,” Rahul said. “I could have bitten your nose off, if I’d wanted to.”

“Thank you for the dance,” John D. said. As he turned to leave her, he was uncomfortably aware of his erection and the throbbing in his lower lip.

“Careful you don’t knock over any chairs or tables,” Mrs. Dogar said. “You’re as big as an elephant.” It was the word “elephant”—coming from Rahul—that most affected John D.’s walk. He crossed the dining room, still seeing the cloudy drop of her quickly disappearing sweat—still feeling her cool, dry hands. And the way she’d breathed into his open mouth when his lip was trapped … John D. suspected he would never forget that. He was thinking that the thin blue vein in her throat was so very still; it was as if she didn’t have a pulse, or that she knew some way to suspend the normal beating of her heart.

When Dhar sat down at the table, Nancy couldn’t look at him. Deputy Commissioner Patel didn’t look at him, either, but that was because the policeman was more interested in watching Mr. and Mrs. Dogar. They were arguing—Mrs. Dogar wouldn’t sit down, Mr. Dogar wouldn’t stand up—and the detective noticed something extremely simple but peculiar about the two of them; they had almost exactly the same haircut. Mr. Dogar wore his wonderfully thick hair in a vain pompadour; it was cut short at the back of his neck, and it was tightly trimmed over his ears, but a surprisingly full and cocky wave of his hair was brushed high off his forehead—his hair was silver, with streaks of white. Mrs. Dogar’s hair was black with streaks of silver (probably dyed), but her hairdo was the same as her husband’s, albeit more stylish. It gave her a slightly Spanish appearance. A pompadour! Imagine that, thought Detective Patel. He saw that Mrs. Dogar had persuaded her husband to stand.

Mr. Sethna would later inform the deputy commissioner of what words passed between the Dogars, but the policeman could have guessed. Mrs. Dogar was complaining that her husband had already slurped too much champagne; she wouldn’t tolerate a minute more of his drunkenness—she would have the servants fix them a midnight supper at home, where at least she would not be publicly embarrassed by Mr. Dogar’s ill-considered behavior.

“They’re leaving!” Dr. Daruwalla observed. “What happened? Did you agitate her?” the screenwriter asked the actor.

Dhar had a drink of champagne, which made his lip sting. The sweat was rolling down his face—after all, he’d been dancing all night—and his hands were noticeably shaky; they watched him exchange the champagne glass for his water glass. Even a sip of water caused him to wince. Nancy had had to force herself to look at him; now she couldn’t look away.

The deputy commissioner was still thinking about the haircuts. The pompadour had a feminizing effect on old Mr. Dogar, but the same hairdo conveyed a mannishness to his wife. The detective concluded that Mrs. Dogar resembled a bullfighter; Detective Patel had never seen a bullfighter, of course.

Farrokh was dying to know which dialogue John D. had used. The sweating movie star was still fussing with his lip. The doctor observed that Dhar’s lower lip was swollen; it had the increasingly purplish hue of a contusion. The doctor waved his arms for a waiter and asked for a tall glass of ice—just ice.

“So she kissed you,” Nancy said.

“It was more like a bite,” John D. replied.

“But what did you say?” Dr. Daruwalla cried.

“Did you arrange a meeting?” Detective Patel asked Dhar.