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Dad follows the pallbearers as they carry Babu's
body out and down a trail. I want to go with him but someone puts out
a restraining arm and whispers that only men are allowed to accompany
the body from this point. Several of the other men walk desultorily
behind the pallbearers, so that the large room now holds clusters of
white-clad women, many of them bent with osteoporosis, whispering and
murmuring in small, hunched groups. I walk aimlessly from one group
to another, introducing myself to those who don't know me as
Freny's younger daughter. They look startled until someone else
explains to them the closeness of my bond with Babu and Freny and the
peculiar geometry of my family alliances. But I am already walking
away. The rawness in my throat, the rage that I feel at the events of
the last few days is so strong that I feel that I will vaporize if I
stand still.

‘Bechari Freny,' I hear one of the
bent old women say to another, as I approach another cluster
of
tsk-tsking
mourners.

‘Poor Freny. Widowed at such a young age.
What will happen to her now, the poor thing? Who will care for her
and her daughter?'

And finally, my rage has found a path. ‘Bechari
Freny, nothing,' I say. ‘No need to feel sorry for her.
And what do you mean, who will take care of her? She has her whole
family with her. We will take care of her, who else? Just because
Babu has died, doesn't mean she's not part and parcel of
our family.

Please don't worry about her—and
please don't call her bechari any more.'

I have never spoken to an older person this rudely
and I'm unsure who is more shocked. In either case, the effect
is electric.

The poor woman looks aghast. ‘Hah, yes,
no…,' she stammers.

‘I was only saying…so glad to hear.
May God bless you, deekra.'

But I am already moving away, looking to find
Freny in this crowd. I finally spot her, sitting on a chair in the
front row, staring at the spot where Babu's body was a half
hour ago.

There are several people standing around her but
Freny seems completely alone. I stare at her for a moment, struck by
how young and beautiful and wistful she looks. Then, I make my way
through the crowd and go sit on the chair next to hers. I take her
hand in mind and make her look at my face. ‘Kaki,' I say,
using the honorific I use when I'm talking to her. ‘Listen
to me. You have always had two daughters—Roshan and me.

But from today, you will also have a son. From
today, I will be a son and a daughter to you. I will take care of
you, I promise. You don't worry about anything.'

I am so intent on looking Freny in the eye,
wanting her to see how sincere I am, that I am startled when I feel
the splash of tears on my hand. Freny is crying hard and she puts one
hand around my neck and grabs my head to her shoulder. We stay this
way for a minute, holding each other hard. ‘Thank you,'
she whispers when she can talk. ‘I will never forget these
words. Pesi and I have loved you as our own from the day you were
born.'

I want to cry then, want to cry as hard as Freny
is crying but this is not the time. I have to be strong for Freny's
sake, for Roshan's sake, for all of their sake. I have to keep
my composure, I have to fight with God, battle with the moon. I must
be strong, I must be strong. I have responsibilities now, I have a
family to support, whose burdens I must carry. I am a coolie, my job
is to lift their burdens. I am no longer the baby of the family.

There will be time for tears later.

We do not observe the customary period of
mourning. Two weeks after coming home from the funeral home, dad
insists that we turn on the stereo and television. There is enough
sorrow at home, he says, and he wants to do everything he can to
alleviate it. Nobody contradicts him though mummy makes noises about
how Babu deserves more of a mourning period and how heartless we all
are. Still, she watches TV with the rest of us.

Ever since we moved Babu to Jaslok, mummy has been
talking about what a mistake it was to take him to that cheap Masina
Hospital in the first place, what a tragedy it was to let that
hajaam, that barber, Dr Sethna operate on him. I know the words are
calculated to wound dad, to make him feel that he put money over
Babu's well-being. The words have their intended effect. Dad
goes around explaining that he wasn't thinking of cost, not
really, that they picked Masina Hospital because it was convenient
and close to home and also, he had no idea that a kidney stone
operation was such a big operation. He points out how casually Babu
had come home one day and announced that he'd put up with the
bastard kidney stones for long enough and had decided to get rid of
them once and for all. Dad mentions that it was Babu's choice
to go with Dr Sethna, after he'd done such a wonderful job with
my appendix surgery, a few months earlier.

None of the adults know that I feel guilty about
the choice of Dr Sethna. At the time of the appendix surgery we were
all so happy that everything went off without a hitch.

Now, I wish there had been some complication,
anything that would've made us think twice before using Masina
Hospital and Dr Sethna's services again. I secretly believe
that I killed Babu so that the next time mummy brings up the issue
when the two of us are alone at home, I turn to her, eyes flashing
with anger, and tell her to please shut up about this. She is
startled into silence but then her lips get thin and she accuses me
of asking her to not speak the truth just to protect my dad.

‘Everybody knows that this could've
been prevented,' she hisses. ‘Everybody knows that if
they'd all listened to me Babu would've still been here.'
Her words are so wounding that I turn away from her and lock myself
in the bathroom until I trust my emotions enough to step back out.

But the fact is, none of us know what killed Babu.
His death is an unresolved mystery in our lives and it makes amateur
detectives out of us. Dad even makes appointments with other doctors
just to question them about what could've possibly gone wrong
but their instinct is to protect their colleague. There are rumours
and speculations and conjectures that come back to us. About how the
anaesthesiologist screwed up. About how the operating room was not
properly sterilized. About how Dr Sethna accidentally left a pair of
scissors in Babu's stomach before he sewed him back up. Mehroo
makes frequent trips to Masina Hospital, trying to chase down all the
rumours, arranging to meet with off-duty nurses to get them to spill
the beans but she invariably comes back empty-handed. The code of
bewildering silence holds.

I am with Mehroo the day we accidentally run into
Dr Sethna at the local drugstore. It is the first time we have seen
him since the funeral. Dr Sethna's appearance at the Tower of
Silence had created quite a stir. Half the mourners were awed and
touched by his presence; the other half said he had something to hide
and guilt had brought him to the funeral. Sethna himself had a
simpler explanation—Babu was his friend, he said. And although
he was an atheist and didn't believe in all the religious
mumbo-jumbo he was here simply to pay his last respects. (While I was
recovering from the removal of my appendix, he had visited me one
evening and engaged me in a discussion about religion to get my mind
off the pain. ‘Christ is not even a historically accurate
figure,' I remember him saying. ‘There's no public
record that he even existed.')

And now we were face-to-face with Sethna at the
pharmacy.

Here he was, the man Mehroo was no longer sure was
still a family friend or her brother's killer, leaning on the
glass counter and laughing and chatting with Behram, the store-owner.

Sethna was short and stockily built like Babu and
I remembered Babu in almost the same pose—leaning casually on
the counter and talking to Behram. All of these men were around the
same age and had grown up around each other and despite the different
paths their lives took—Behram joining his father's
business, Sethna serving as a surgeon in the army for years, Babu
joining my father at the factory after flunking the exam to join the
Merchant Navy—they talked to each other easily, with cuss words
and slang liberally sprinkled into their language, their friendship
forged during endless hours spent in their youth working out at the
Parsi Gymkhana.

As his eyes fall on us, Sethna stops in mid-laugh
and immediately makes his way toward us. He glances quickly at me and
then moves to hug Mehroo. When he lets go of her, both's eyes
are wet with tears. ‘Kem che, Mehroo?' he asks. ‘How
are you keeping?'

Mehroo shakes her head. ‘So-so. Still
missing Pesi a lot.'

Sethna nods. ‘I understand. He was a great
person.'

This is the encouragement Mehroo needs. ‘The
worst part is, not knowing what happened. I lie awake at night
wondering…when I'd last left the hospital, he'd
looked so good. Told me he'd see me tomorrow.' And now
Mehroo's tone is openly beseeching: ‘Doctor,' she
says, ‘just tell me the truth about what happened. You know our
family, we are not interested in revenge or lawsuits or anything. We
won't do anything, I promise. This is for our satisfaction,
only. I just need to know the truth about what happened to my
brother.'

Sethna's face is kind and his eyes red.
‘Mehroo, try to forget it,' he says gently. ‘I
myself don't know what went wrong. As far as I'm
concerned, the surgery was a success. Now don't ask me this
question again. Just get on with your life. I'm very, very
sorry about your loss. It's my loss, too. Pesi was my friend.

This is one of the biggest blows of my career.'

We leave the drugstore that day with different
interpretations of what Dr Sethna has said. I think that he has
admitted to not knowing what went wrong. But Mehroo insists that he
made it clear he didn't want us to know what had really
happened, that we wouldn't be able to handle the truth. Sethna
as good as admitted that there was a cover-up, she says, and said
that we should let sleeping dogs lie. I also leave the store
convinced that we will never know what happened that day.

Mehroo leaves convinced that the truth is out
there and it is only a matter of digging for it. Dad looks from one
of us to the other, torn between wanting to arrive at the truth but
not sharing Mehroo's obsessive need to know. ‘Well,'
he says finally, ‘whether we ever find out or not, it won't
bring Pesi back.'

In some ways I am glad we have the mystery of
Babu's death to distract us from the dark grief that is
stalking us. At home, we listen automatically for Babu's dry
cough that would announce his return home at the end of the day and
when it hits us that we will never hear it again, the realization
feels like a fresh wound. Freny has resumed going to work and she
still returns from work on payday loaded with the usual treats—bars
of Cadbury's chocolates, Kelvator's raspberry syrup,
packs of Tiny Size Chiclets, Kraft cheddar cheese in a blue tin,
copies of
Stardust
and
Filmfare
—but it is not the
same without Babu there to make some joke or comment about what she
brings home.

‘Do you remember how he used to tease me?'
Freny asks me one evening and I know immediately what she is talking
about. At the start of every school year, Freny, my mom, Roshan and
me would go shopping to Colaba Causeway.

Roshan and I would feel like queens on that day.
Freny would buy us everything new, top to bottom, from the ribbons in
our hair to the patent leather shoes on our feet. Salesmen lit up
when they saw us approach, stocks of goods came tumbling down from
the shelves because Freny was legendary for her generosity. Later in
the day, loaded down with our new shoes and socks and dress materials
and school uniforms and schoolbags, even new soap dishes, we would
take a cab to Paradise for a lavish dinner. Then, another cab to take
us home, where all the adults would gather to admire our spoils. Amid
the oohs and aahs, Babu would stay silent. Winking at me, he would
turn to Freny and in a deceptively soft voice ask, ‘This is all
fine and good, all the things you've bought for Roshan.

But have you bought the same things for my
Thritu?' No matter how often Babu repeated this line, the
effect on Freny was electric. ‘How can you even ask me that?
You know I love both girls equally. Each one owns half my heart. I
have never treated Thritu as anything but my own daughter. I may not
have given her birth but…' And then Freny would stop,
knowing that she'd been had, while Babu and I would erupt in
peels of laughter.

Now there is nobody who calls me his first darling
of the morning. And anyway, that time of youth and innocence has long
past. We are all drifting now, dark patches of grief walking around
each other. Now it is up to me to step into Babu's shoes, to
make sure Freny still has someone to take her to the movies, to make
my dad lose that hurt look that has muscled its way onto his face, to
distract Mehroo from trying to solve the riddle of Babu's
death. Even months later, the grief is so strong at times that I
revisit the idea of drugging all of us until this time has passed. I
want to cry in dark, private corners like the rest of them, want to
sit huddled in the living room talking about Babu like the rest of
them do. But there is no time. Grief is not a luxury I can afford
because I have a drowning family to rescue.

There will be time for tears later, I assure
myself.

My chance finally comes six months after Babu's
death. Roshan is out with her friends; the adults are attending a
late afternoon funeral service for an elderly acquaintance. I am
blissfully, unexpectedly, alone at home. As soon as I realize that I
will have about two hours to myself, I resolve that this is the day
to shed those tears that I've held back so many times, to mourn
Babu in a way I've never allowed myself. No more fighting with
the moon—this will be a day of surrender.