A Son of the Circus

“I’m sorry, Vijay, but I don’t think I can dance. I just can’t,” Nancy said.

“That’s all right, sweetie,” her husband said. “I don’t dance—remember?”

“He didn’t have to unzip me—it was unnecessary,” Nancy said.

“It was part of the overall effect,” Patel replied.

“It was unnecessary,” Nancy repeated. “And I didn’t like the way he did it.”

“The idea was, you weren’t supposed to like it,” the policeman told her.

“She must have tried to bite his whole lip off!” Nancy cried.

“I believe she barely managed to stop herself,” the deputy commissioner said. This had the effect of releasing Nancy from her emptiness; at last, she was able to cry on her husband’s shoulder. It seemed that the band would never stop playing the tiresome old song.

“ ‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet …’ ” Mr. Bannerjee was shouting.

Mr. Sethna observed that Julia and Dr. Daruwalla were the most stately dancers on the floor. Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee danced nervously; they didn’t dare take their eyes off their daughter. Poor Amy had been brought home from England, where she hadn’t been doing very well. Too much partying, her parents suspected—and, more disturbing, a reputed attraction to older men. At university, she was notoriously opposed to romances with her fellow students; rather, she’d thrown herself at one of her professors—a married chap. He’d not taken advantage of her, thank goodness. And now Dr. and Mrs. Sorabjee were tortured to see the young girl dancing with Dhar. From the frying pan to the fire! Mrs. Sorabjee thought. It was awkward for Mrs. Sorabjee, being a close friend of the Daruwallas’ and therefore unable to express her opinion of Inspector Dhar.

“Do you know you’re available in England—on videocassette?” Amy was telling the actor.

“Am I?” he said.

“Once we had a wine tasting and we rented you,” Amy told him. “People who aren’t from Bombay don’t know what to make of you. The movies seem terribly odd to them.”

“Yes,” said Inspector Dhar. “To me, too,” he added.

This made her laugh; she was an easy girl, he could tell—he felt a little sorry for her parents.

“All that music, mixed in with all the murders,” Amy Sorabjee said.

“Don’t forget the divine intervention,” the actor remarked.

“Yes! And all the women—you do gather up a lot of women,” Amy observed.

“Yes, I do,” Dhar said.

“ ‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet for the days of auld lang syne!’ ” the old dancers brayed; they sounded like donkeys.

“I like Inspector Dhar and the Cage-Girl Killer the best—it’s the sexiest,” said little Amy Sorabjee.

“I don’t have a favorite,” the actor confided to her; he guessed she was 22 or 23. He found her a pleasant distraction, but it irritated him that she kept staring at his lip.

“What happened to your lip?” she finally asked him in a whisper—her expression still girlish but sly, even conspiratorial.

“When the lights went out, I danced into a wall,” Dhar told her.

“I think that horrid woman did it to you,” Amy Sorabjee dared to say. “It looks like she bit you!”

John D. just kept da

ncing; the way his lip had swollen, it hurt to sneer.

“Everyone thinks she’s a horrid woman, you know,” Amy said; Dhar’s silence had made her less sure of herself. “And who was that first woman you were with?” Amy asked him. “The one who left?”

“She’s a stripper,” said Inspector Dhar.

“Go on—not really!” Amy cried.