A Son of the Circus

“You are not needing a saint—you are needing a doctor!” the dwarf told him.

“Actually, I know a doctor in Bombay. He’s a friend of my mother and father—a certain Dr. Daruwalla,” Martin Mills said.

Vinod was truly alarmed. The lashes from the whip and even the bleeding from the leg iron around the poor man’s neck seemed superficial; but this incomprehensible muttering about Dr. Daruwalla was an indication to Vinod that the movie star was suffering from some sort of amnesia. A serious head injury, perhaps!

“Of course you are knowing Dr. Daruwalla!” Vinod shouted. “We are going to see Dr. Daruwalla!”

“Ah, so you know him, too?” said the astonished scholastic.

“Try to not be moving your head,” the worried dwarf replied.

In a reference to the echoing dogs, which Vinod completely failed to grasp, Martin Mills said, “It sounds like a veterinarian’s—I thought he was an orthopedist.”

“Of course he is being an orthopedist!” Vinod cried. Standing on tiptoe, the dwarf tried to peer into Martin’s ears, as if he were expecting to see some stray brain matter there. But Vinod wasn’t tall enough.

Dr. Daruwalla woke to the distant orchestra of the dogs. From the sixth floor, their barks and howls were muted but nonetheless identifiable; the doctor had no doubt as to the cause of their cacophony.

“That damn dwarf !” he said aloud, to which Julia didn’t respond; she was familiar with the many things her husband said in his sleep. But when Farrokh got out of bed and put on his robe, Julia was instantly awake.

“Is it Vinod again?” she asked him.

“I assume so,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

It was a little before 5:00 in the morning when the doctor crept past the closed sliding-glass doors that led to the balcony, which was completely enveloped in a mournful-looking mist. The smog had mingled with a dense sea fog. The doctor couldn’t see Dhar’s cot or the Tortoise mosquito coils with which the actor surrounded himself whenever he slept on the balcony. In the foyer, Farrokh seized a dusty umbrella; he was hoping to give Vinod a good scare. Then the doctor opened his apartment door. The dwarf and the missionary had just exited from the lift; when Dr. Daruwalla first saw Martin Mills, the doctor feared that Dhar had violently shaved off his mustache in the smog—thus inflicting on himself a multitude of razor cuts—and then, doubtless depressed, the much-reviled actor had jumped off the sixth-floor balcony.

As for the missionary, he was taken aback to see a man in a black kimono holding a black umbrella—an ominous image. But the umbrella was undaunting to Vinod, who slipped close to Dr. Daruwalla and whispered, “I am finding him preaching to transvestite prostitutes—the hijras are almost killing him!”

Farrokh knew who Martin Mills was as soon as the missionary spoke: “I believe you’ve met my mother and father—my name is Martin, Martin Mills.”

“Please come in—I’ve been expecting you,” Dr. Daruwalla said, taking the beaten man’s arm.

“You have?” said Martin Mills.

“There is being brain damage!” Vinod whispered to the doctor, who supported the wobbly missionary into the bathroom, where he told Martin to strip. Then the doctor prepared an Epsom-salts bath. While the bath was filling, Farrokh got Julia out of bed and told her to get rid of Vinod.

“Who’s taking a bath at this hour?” she asked her husband.

“It’s John D.’s twin,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

Free Will

Julia had managed to coax Vinod no farther than the foyer when the phone rang. She answered quickly. Vinod could hear the entire conversation because the man on the other end of the phone was screaming. It was Mr. Munim, the first-floor member of the Residents’ Society.

“I saw him getting on the lift! He woke all the dogs! I saw him—your dwarf!” Mr. Munim shouted.

Julia said, “I beg your pardon—we don’t own a dwarf.”

“You don’t fool me!” Mr. Munim hollered. “That movie star’s dwarf—that’s who I mean!”

“We don’t own a movie star, either,” Julia told him.

“You are violating a stated rule!” Mr. Munim screamed.

“I don’t know what you mean—you must be out of your mind,” Julia replied.

“The taxi-walla used the lift—that midget thug!” Mr. Munim cried.

“Don’t make me call the police,” Julia said; then she hung up.