A Fine Balance (51 page)

They kept muttering while the customers waited for their medicine. “Why do all these people have to fall sick at night only?” grumbled Ishvar. “Why are they harassing us?”

“What a headache I have,” moaned Om.

The nightwatchman gently rubbed his brow. “Not long now. Only two minutes more, okay? Then you can sleep very, very peacefully. I promise, I won’t let any more customers disturb you.” But he had to break his promise over and over.

Later they learned about an outbreak of dysentery – bad milk had been sold in the neighbourhood. If the tailors had stayed around during the day, they would have discovered that illness was an impartial thief who struck in sunshine and darkness. Fifty-five adults and eighty-three children dead, the nightwatchman told them, having heard the official figure from the compounder, who explained that fortunately it was bacillary dysentery, and not the more serious amoebic variety.

Lugging the trunk and bedding, the tailors arrived at work ready to collapse, dark circles around their red-streaked eyes. Work fell further behind. Ishvar’s impeccable seams strayed often. Om with his stiff arm had trouble doing anything right. The Singers’ rhythms turned sour; the stitches were no longer articulated gracefully in long, elegant sentences but spat out fitfully, like phlegm from congested lungs.

Dina read the deterioration in their haggard faces. She feared for their health and the approaching delivery date – the two were joined like Siamese twins. The trunk’s weight hung heavy on her conscience.

That evening, the sight of Om straining to lift his load yanked her to the verge of saying the trunk could stay. Maneck watched her from the doorway, anxious to hear it. But the other fears made her leave the words unspoken.

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” said Maneck, hastening to the verandah. Om protested feebly, then surrendered the trunk to him.

Dina was relieved – and angry and hurt. Nice of him to help, she thought. But the way he did it. Walking out without a word, making her seem like a heartless person.

“Here it is, our new sleeping place,” said Om, and introduced the nightwatchman: “Our new landlord.”

The latter laughed, beckoning them into the entrance. They huddled together on the steps to smoke and watch the road. “Ah, what kind of landlord am I? I cannot even guarantee a good night’s sleep.”

“Not your fault,” said Om. “It’s all this sickness. And on top of that, I keep having bad dreams.”

“So do I,” said Ishvar. “The nights are full of noises and shapes and shadows. Too scary.”

“I am sitting here with my stick,” said the nightwatchman. “What’s there to be scared of?”

“It’s hard to give it a name,” said Ishvar, coughing and extinguishing his beedi.

“We should just go back to our village,” said Om. “I’m fed up of living like this, crawling from one trouble to another.”

“You prefer to run towards it?” Ishvar squeezed the tip of the beedi to make sure it was out, then reinserted it in the packet. “Patience, my nephew. When the time comes, we will go back.”

“If time were a bolt of cloth,” said Om, “I would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.”

“I’d also like a coat like that,” said Maneck. “But which parts would you cut out?”

“The government destroying our house, for sure,” said Om. “And working for Dinabai.”

“Hoi-hoi,” cautioned Ishvar. “Without her, where would the money come from?”

“Okay, let’s keep the paydays and throw out the rest.”

“What else?” asked Maneck.

“Depends how far back you want to go.”

“All the way. Back to when you were born.”

“That’s too much, yaar. So many things to cut, the scissors would go blunt. And there would be very little cloth left.”

“How much nonsense you boys are talking,” said Ishvar. “Been smoking ganja or what?”

The evening sky darkened, summoning the streetlights. A torn black kite swooped down from the roof like an aggressive crow, startling them. Om grabbed it, saw that it was badly damaged, and let it go.

“Some things are very complicated to separate with scissors,” said Maneck. “Good and bad are joined like that.” He laced his fingers tight together.

“Such as?”

“My mountains. They are beautiful but they also produce avalanches.”

“That’s true. Like our teatime at Vishram, which is good. But the Prime Minister sitting in the window gives me a stomach-ache.”

“Living in the colony was also good,” suggested Ishvar. “Rajaram next door was fun.”

“Yes,” said Om. “But jumping up in the middle of a shit because of a fast train – that was horrible.”

They laughed, Ishvar too, though he insisted that that had happened just once. “It was a new train, even Rajaram didn’t know about it.” He cleared his throat and spat. “Wonder what happened to Rajaram?”

Pavement-dwellers began emerging through the gathering dusk. Cardboard, plastic, newspaper, blankets materialized across the footpaths. Within minutes, huddled bodies had laid claim to all the concrete. Pedestrians now adapted to the new topography, picking their way carefully through the field of arms and legs and faces.

“My father complains at home that it’s become very crowded and dirty,” said Maneck. “He should come and see this.”

“He would get used to it,” said the nightwatchman. “Just like I did. You watch it day after day, then you stop noticing. Especially if you have no choice.”

“Not my father, he would keep grumbling.”

Ishvar’s cough came back, and the nightwatchman suggested asking the compounder for medicine.

“Can’t afford it.”

“Just go and ask. He has a special system for poor people.” He unlocked the door to let him in.

For those who could not pay the price of a full bottle, the compounder sold medicine by the spoonful or by the tablet. The poor were grateful for this special dispensation, and the compounder made up to six times the original price, pocketing the difference. “Open your mouth,” he instructed Ishvar, and deftly poured in a spoonful of Glycodin Terp Vasaka.

“Tastes nice,” said Ishvar, licking his lips.

“Come tomorrow night for another spoonful.”

The nightwatchman inquired how much he had been charged for the dose. “Fifty paise,” said Ishvar, and the nightwatchman made a mental note to demand his cut.

For three more days the trunk hung from Om’s arm during the march between the nightwatchman and Dina Dalai. The distance was short but the weight made it long. He was sore from shoulder to wrist, the hand useless for guiding the fabric through the machine. To feed the cloth accurately to the voracious needle took two hands: the right in front of the presser foot, and the left behind.

“The trunk has paralysed me,” he said, giving up.

Dina watched him, her compassion muted but not dead. My spirited little sparrow is really not well today, dragging his injured wing, she thought. No more hopping and chirping, no more arrogance and argument.

In the midst of a morning filled with tangled threads and twisted seams, the doorbell rang. She went to the verandah to look, and returned very annoyed. “It’s someone asking for you. Disturbing our work in the middle of the day.”

Surprised and apologetic, Ishvar hurried to the front door. “You!” he said. “What happened? We went to the colony that evening. Where were you?”

“Namaskaar,” said Rajaram, joining his hands. “I feel very bad about it, what to do. I got a new job, they needed me right away, I had to go. But look, my employer has more jobs to fill, you should apply.”

Ishvar could sense Dina trying to listen in the background. “We’ll have to meet later,” he said, and gave him the address of the chemist’s.

“Okay, I’ll come there tonight. And look, can you lend me ten rupees? Just till I get paid?”

“Only have five.” Ishvar handed it over, wondering if Rajaram’s habit of borrowing money was going to become a nuisance. The earlier loan was still unpaid. Should never have let him know where we. work, he thought. He returned to his Singer and told Om about their visitor.

“Who cares about Rajaram, I’m dying here.” He extended his sore left arm, the limb delicate as porcelain.

The gesture finally melted Dina. She brought out her bottle of Amrutanjan Balm. “Come, this will make it better,” she said.

He shook his head.

“Dinabai is right,” said Ishvar. “I’ll rub it for you.”

“You keep sewing, I’ll do it,” said Dina. “Or the balm smell from your fingers will fill the dress.” Besides, she thought, if
he
starts wasting time, I might as well start begging for next month’s rent.

“I’ll apply it myself,” said Om.

She uncapped the bottle. “Come on, take off your shirt. What are you shy about? I’m old enough to be your mother.”

He unbuttoned reluctantly, revealing a vest with many holes. Like Swiss cheese, she thought. A salty-sour odour tarried about him. She dug a dark-green blob out of the bottle and started at the shoulder, spreading the cold unguent down towards the elbow in frigid one-finger lines. He shuddered. The chill of it made his skin horripilate. Then she began to massage, and the salve released its heat, causing his arm, her hand, to tingle. The goose flesh dwindled and vanished.

“How is it?” she asked, kneading the muscles.

“Cold one minute, hot the next.”

“That’s the beauty of balm. Nice zhumzhum feeling. Just wait, the pain will soon be gone.”

The odour from his flesh had disappeared, drowned in the balm’s pungency. How smooth the skin, she thought. Like a child’s. And almost no hair, even on his shoulder.

“How does it feel now?”

“Good.” He had enjoyed the rub.

“Anything else hurting?”

He pointed from elbow to wrist. “All this.”

Dina hooked out another blob and rubbed his forearm. “Take some of it with you tonight, apply it when you go to bed. Tomorrow your arm will be good as new.”

Before washing her hands she went to the kitchen, to the dusty shelf by the window. Standing on tiptoe and still unable to see, she felt around. The blind hand dislodged a pivotal box. Things came sliding down: board and rolling pin, the coconut grater with its circular serrated blade, mortar and pestle.

She dodged the avalanche, letting the kitchen implements crash to the floor. The tailors came running. “Dinabai! Are you okay?” She nodded, a bit shaken but pleased to glimpse the look of concern on Om’s face before he erased it.

“Maybe we could fix the shelf a little lower,” said Ishvar, helping her replace the fallen items. “So you can reach it.”

“No, just leave it. I haven’t used these things in fifteen years.” She found what her fingers had been groping for: the roll of wax paper in which she used to wrap Rustom’s lunch. She blew off the dust and tore out a hanky-sized square, transferring green daubs of Amrutanjan onto it.

“Here,” she said, folding the piece into a little triangular packet. “Don’t forget to take it with you – your balm samosa.”

“Thank you,” laughed Ishvar, trying to prompt Om into showing his appreciation. And against Om’s wishes, a sliver of gratitude pushed a weak smile across his face.

In the evening, as they were leaving, she mentioned the trunk. “Why don’t you leave it where you sleep?”

“There’s no room for it there.”

“Then you might as well keep it here. No sense carrying this burden morning and night.”

Ishvar was overcome by the offer. “Such kindness, Dinabai! We are so grateful!” He thanked her half a dozen times between the back room and verandah, joining his hands, beaming and nodding. Om, once again, was more careful in spending his gratitude. He slipped out a softly murmured “thank you” while the door was shutting.

“See? She is not as bad as you think.”

“She did it because she wants money from my sweat.”

“Don’t forget, she applied the balm for you.”

“Let her pay us properly, then we can buy our own balm.”

“It’s not the buying, Omprakash – it’s the applying I want you to remember.”

Rajaram came to the chemist’s on a bicycle, which impressed Om. “It’s not exactly mine,” said the hair-collector. “The employers have provided it for the job.”

“What is this job?”

“I must thank my stars for it. That night, after the colony was destroyed, I met a man from my village. He works for the Controller of Slums, driving one of the machines for breaking down houses. He told me about the new job, and took me next morning to the government office. They hired me straight away.”

“And your work is also to destroy homes?”

“No, never. My title is Motivator, for Family Planning. The office gives me leaflets to distribute.”

“That’s all? And the pay is good?”

“It depends. They give me one meal, a place to sleep, and the cycle. As Motivator, I have to go around explaining the birth-control procedures. For each man or woman I can persuade to get the operation, I am paid a commission.”

He said he was happy with the arrangement. Gathering just two vasectomies or one tubectomy each day would equal his takings as a hair-collector. His responsibility ended once the candidates signed the forms and were shepherded to the clinic. There were no restrictions, anyone qualified for the operation, young or old, married or unmarried. The doctors were not fussy.

“In the end, everybody is satisfied,” said Rajaram. “Patients get gifts, I get paid, doctors fill their quotas. And it’s also a service to the nation – small families are happy families, population control is most important.”

“How many operations have you collected so far?” asked Ishvar.

“So far, none. But it’s only been four days. My talking style is still developing force and conviction. I’m not worried, I’m sure I’ll succeed.”

“You know,” said Om, “with this new job, you could continue the old one side by side.”

“How? There isn’t enough time for hair-collecting.”

“When you take patients to the clinic, does the doctor shave the beards between their legs?”

“I don’t know.”

“He must,” said Om. “They always shave before the operation. So you can collect all that hair and sell it.”