A Fine Balance Part 31

"The landlord. But he thinks it's just an excuse. He says you make them feel like criminals."

"His guilty conscience makes him feel that way. The landlord's threat is real, you remember it too. Don't let the rent-collector's sweet smile fool you into admitting anything. Always pretend you are my nephew." She began tidying the room, picking up the sc.r.a.ps, stuffing the fragments in the bottom shelf. "That Ibrahim's eyeb.a.l.l.s can see the whole flat right from the front door, the way they wander, round and round. Faster than Buster Keaton's. But you are too young to know Buster Keaton."

"I've heard Mummy mention the name. She said he was funnier than Laurel and Hardy."

"Never mind that there is also a second reason. The tailors will put me out of business if I don't lock them in. Do you know Om tried to follow me to the export company? Did he tell you that? No, of course not. My tiny commission sticks in their throats. As it is, I can barely manage."

"Shall I tell Mummy to send more money? For my rent and food?"

"Absolutely not! I am charging a fair price and she is paying it. You think I am telling you all this because I want charity?"

"No, I just thought "

"My problems are not a beggar's wounds! Only a beggar removes his cloth to shock you with his mutilation. No, Mr. Mac Kohlah, I'm telling you all this so you understand your beloved Omprakash Darji a little better."

The next time she went to Au Revoir Exports, Dina decided to take Maneck further into her confidence. "Listen, I'm not padlocking the door today. Since you are home, I'll leave you in charge." The responsibility would draw him over to her side, she was sure; besides, Om wouldn't attempt the bicycle caper twice.

After Dina had departed, Ishvar continued sewing, uncomfortable about taking his customary rest on her sofa with Maneck present. But Om stopped immediately, and escaped to the front room. "Two hours of freedom," he announced, stretching and letting himself drop on the sofa next to Maneck.

While he smoked, they browsed through Dina's old knitting books. Models wearing various styles of sweaters adorned the inside pages. Luscious red lips, creamy skin, and luxuriant hairdos dazzled them from the dog-eared glossy paper. "Look at those two," said Om, indicating a blonde and a redhead. "You think the hair between their legs is the same colour?"

"Why don't you write a letter to the magazine and ask? 'Dear Sir, We wish to make an inquiry regarding the colour of your models' choot hair specifically, if it matches the hair on their heads. The models in question appear on page forty-seven of your issue dated'" he flipped to the cover "'July 1961.' Forget it, yaar, that's fourteen years ago. Whatever colour it was then, it must be grey or white by now."

"I should ask Rajaram the hair-collector," said Om. "He's an expert on hair."

The boys restored the knitting books to their corner and went into Maneck's room. The paG.o.da parasol amused them for a while, then they explored the kitchen, calling to the cats, who refused to approach the window since it was not dinnertime. Om wanted to throw water at them, make them yowl, but Maneck wouldn't let him.

In the back room they examined the collection of cloth pieces, the beginnings of the quilt. "You boys don't meddle with Dinabai's things," warned Ishvar, glancing up from the machine.

"Just look at all this cloth," said Om. "She steals from us, not paying us properly, and also from the company."

"You are talking nonsense, Omprakash," his uncle said. "Those are little garbage pieces that she puts to good use. Come on, get back to your machine, stop wasting time."

Om replaced the makings of the quilt and pointed to the trunk on the trestle in the corner. Maneck raised his eyebrows at the daring suggestion. They opened it, and discovered her supply of homemade sanitary pads.

"You know what those are for?" whispered Om.

"Little pillows," said Maneck, grinning, picking up a couple of the lumpy pads. "Little pillows for little people."

"My little man can rest his head on it." Om slung one between his legs.

"Stop fooling with the trunk there," said Ishvar.

"Okay, okay." They took a handful of pads into the front room and continued clowning.

"What's this?" said Maneck, holding two above his head.

"Horns?"

"No," he waggled them. "Donkey's ears."

Om held one behind him. "Rabbit's tail."

They held them at their crotches like phalluses and pranced around the room, making large masturbatory gestures. The knot at the end of Maneck's pad came undone. The stuffing fell out, leaving the casing flopping in his hand.

"Look at that!" laughed Om. "Your lund has already gone to sleep, yaar!"

Maneck took a firm new pad and struck Om's with it. A duel ensued but the weapons collapsed quickly, scattering fabric snippets around the room. They picked up two more and began rushing at each other in a gallop, like jousters on horseback, their sanitary lances sticking out at their flies.

"Tan-tanna tan-tanna tan-tanna!" they trumpeted and attacked. Backing up to their corners, they adjusted the pads at their crotches while Om reared and neighed like a charger champing at the bit.

Just as they were ready to tilt again, Dina opened the front door and entered through the verandah. The fanfare died in mid-flourish. She got as far as the sofa, then froze. The scene left her speechless: the floor littered with the sc.r.a.ps of her carefully prepared sanitary pads, the two boys standing guiltily, clutching their embarra.s.sing toys.

They dropped their hands and started to hide the pads behind their backs, then realized the gesture was as futile as it was silly. They lowered their heads.

"You shameless boys!" she managed to utter. "You shameless boys!"

She ran to the back room where Ishvar was still ploughing away at his machine, blissfully unaware of the goings-on in the front room. "Stop!" she said, her voice trembling. "Come and see what those two have been doing!"

Om and Maneck had put aside the pads, but Dina thrust one each into their hands. "Go on!" she said. "Do it for him, let him see your shameless behaviour!"

Ishvar did not need to see. He gathered that something filthy had been going on, especially if she was so upset. He went to Om and slapped him across the face. "You I cannot slap," he said to Maneck. "But someone should. For your own good."

He led Om into the back room and flung him upon his stool. "I don't want another word from you, now or ever. Just do your work quietly till it's time to leave."

Dinner was a silent meal; only the knives and forks spoke. Dina cleared up quickly, then went into the sewing room and bolted her door.

As if I was a s.e.x maniac or something, thought Maneck, feeling miserable. He waited for a while in the front room, hoping she would come out, give him a chance to apologize. His ears picked up the opening and closing of a drawer. The creaking of her bed. A clatter that could be her hairbrush. The thud of the tailors' stools being pushed aside. He heard the sound of the trunk lid, and his face burned with shame. Then the bright line under her door went dark, and his wretchedness engulfed him.

Would she write to his parents and complain? Surely he deserved it. For almost two months now, she had treated him so well in her flat, and he had behaved disgustingly. For the first time since leaving home, he had felt at peace, unthreatened, thanks to Dina Aunty. Rescued from the hostel that had made him ill, with that tightness in the chest, that nauseated feeling every morning.

Now he had brought it all back, through his own doing. He switched off the light beside the sofa and dragged himself to his room.

Morning could not alleviate Maneck's shame from last night. To help keep it burning, Dina slammed the plate of two fried eggs before him at breakfast. When it was time to leave for college and he called out "Bye, Aunty," she would not come to wave. Woefully, he shut the door upon the empty, accusing verandah.

The first hint of forgiveness quivered in the air after dinner. Like the night before, she retreated to the back room instead of bringing the quilt to the sofa; however, she kept her door ajar.

Waiting hopefully in the front room, he pa.s.sed the time listening to the neighbours. Someone screamed retributive warnings at a daughter, he presumed. "Mui b.i.t.c.h!" came a man's voice. "Behaving like a s.l.u.t, staying out so late at night! You think eighteen years is too old to get a thrashing? I'll show you! When we say back by ten o'clock, we mean ten o'clock!"

Maneck glanced at his watch: ten-twenty. Still Dina Aunty did not emerge. Neither did the light go off. At their usual bedtime of ten-thirty, he decided to peek in and say good night.

She was in her nightgown, her back to the door. He changed his mind and tried to retreat, but she saw him through the crack. Oh G.o.d, he thought, panicking now she would a.s.sume he was spying.

"Yes?" she said sharply.

"Excuse me, Aunty, I was just coming to say good night."

"Yes. Good night." Her stiffness persisted.

He re-echoed the words and began edging away, then stopped. He cleared his throat. "Also..."

"Also what?"

"Also, I wanted to say sorry...for yesterday..."

"Don't mumble from outside the room. Come in and say what you have to say."

He entered shyly. Her bare arms in the nightgown looked so lovely, and through the light cotton, the shape of...but he dared not let his eyes linger. Mummy's friend was the unsummoned thought that terrified him as he finished his apology.

"I want you to understand," she said. "I was not angry with your shameful act because of any harm to me. I was ashamed for you, to see you behaving like a loafer. Like a roadside mavali. From Omprakash I cannot expect better. But you, from a good Parsi family. And I left you to watch after them, I trusted you."

"I'm sorry," he hung his head. She raised her hands to her hair, reinserting a clip that had become ineffective. He found the fuzz in her armpits extremely erotic.

"Go to bed now," she said. "Next time, use better judgement."

As he fell asleep, thinking of Dina Aunty in the nightgown, she began to merge with the woman on the train, in the upper berth.

VII.

On the Move

AFTER THE INCIDENT WITH THE SANITARY pads, Dina was certain that neither Ishvar nor Om would dare follow through with a dinner for Maneck at their house. And even if they did, he would refuse, for fear of offending her. pads, Dina was certain that neither Ishvar nor Om would dare follow through with a dinner for Maneck at their house. And even if they did, he would refuse, for fear of offending her.

In a few days, however, the invitation was indeed renewed, and acceptance seemed to linger close at hand. "I don't believe it," she whispered angrily to Maneck. "After what you did that day, isn't it enough? Haven't you upset me enough?"

"But I apologized for that, Aunty. And Om was also very sorry. What's the connection between the two things?"

"You think sorry makes it all right. You don't understand the problem. I have nothing against them, but they are tailors my employees. A distance has to be maintained. You are the son of Farokh and Aban Kohlah. There is a difference, and you cannot pretend there isn't their community, their background."

"But Mummy and Daddy wouldn't mind," he said, trying to explain he hadn't been brought up to think this way, that his parents encouraged him to mix with everyone.

"So you are saying I am narrow-minded, and your parents are broad-minded, modern people?"

He grew tired of arguing. Sometimes she seemed to him on the verge of being reasonable, only to make another absurd statement: "If you are so fond of them, why don't you pack your things and move in with them? I can easily write to your mummy, tell her where to send the rent next month."

"I just want to visit once. It feels rude to keep refusing. They think I'm too big to go to their house."

"And have you thought of the consequences of one visit? Good manners is all very well, but what about health and hygiene? How do they prepare their food? Can they afford proper cooking oil? Or do they buy cheap adulterated vanaspati, like most poor people?"

"I don't know. They haven't fallen sick and died as yet."

"Because their stomachs are accustomed to it, you foolish boy, and yours is not."

Maneck pictured the hideous canteen food his own stomach had endured, and the roadside snacks devoured for weeks on end. He wondered if mentioning that would make her modify her culinary theories.

"And what about water?" she continued "Is there a clean supply in their neighbourhood, or is it contaminated?"

"I'll be careful, I won't drink any water." His mind was made up, he was going. She was getting too bossy. Even Mummy never controlled his life the way Dina Aunty was trying to.

"Fine, do as you please. But if you catch something, don't think I'll be your nurse for one moment. You'll be sent back by express delivery to your parents."

"That's all right with me."

The next time Ishvar and Om asked him, he said yes. She flushed, and ground her teeth. Maneck smiled innocently.

"Tomorrow then, okay?" said Ishvar with delight. "We'll leave together at six o'clock." He inquired what he would like to eat. "Rice or chapati? And which is your favourite vegetable, hahn?"

"Anything," answered Maneck to all questions. The tailors spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the menu, planning their humble feast.

Ishvar was first to notice that the smoke from cooking fires did not linger over the hutment colony. He tripped on the crumbling pavement, his eyes searching the horizon. At this hour the haze should have been clouding thick. "Everyone fasting or what?"

"Forget worrying about everyone I'm starving."

"You're always starving. Do you have worms?"

Om did not laugh; the joke was growing stale. The absence of smoke bothered Ishvar. In its place a dull roar, as of heavy machinery, hung in the distance. "Repairing the roads at night?" he wondered, as the noise rose with their approach. Then, thinking about Maneck's dinner, he said, "Tomorrow we will shop in the morning, keep everything ready. We shouldn't waste time after work. Now if you were married, your wife would have the food cooked and waiting for our guest."

"Why don't you you get married?" get married?"

"I'm too old." But, he thought, teasing aside, it really was high time for Om not wise to delay these things.

"But I've even selected a wife for you," said Om.

"Who?"

"Dinabai. I know you like her, you're always taking her side. You should give her a poke."

"Shameless boy," said Ishvar, thumping him lightly as they turned the corner into the slum lane.

The rumbling ball of sound that had been rolling towards them, slow and placid in the dusk, grew larger, louder. Then it detonated. The air was suddenly filled with noises of pain and terror and anger.

"Hai Ram! What's going on?" They ran the final distance and came upon a battle in progress.

The hutment dwellers were ma.s.sed on the road, fighting to return to their shacks, their cries mingling with the sirens of ambulances that couldn't get through. The police had lost control for the moment. The residents surged forward, gaining the advantage. Then the police rallied and beat them back. People fell, were trampled, and the ambulances supplemented their siren skirls with blaring horns while children screamed, terrified at being separated from their parents.

The hutment dwellers straggled back from the pulse of the a.s.sault, spent, venting their anguish in helpless outrage. "Heartless animals! For the poor there is no justice, ever! We had next to nothing, now it's less than nothing! What is our crime, where are we to go?"