Such A Long Journey (19 page)

iii

Early in August, a few hours after Gustad left for work with the twenty-seventh bundle of money, Dilnavaz was surprised by the doorbell. She had just finished cooking the day’s meals. The
dubbawalla,
on the run in the pouring rain, had picked up Gustad’s lunch-box, and she hoped the food would not be cold when it reached the office. Now she was not expecting anyone else.

The morning stream of vendors had ended with the arrival of the ashes-and-sawdust-man’s handcart, who had sold her a sack of each; her supply of the cleansers was running low. She was resisting the recent popular change to detergents and nylon scrubbers. Not that Dilnavaz had anything against modern technology—she always looked for the Sanforized label when shopping for fabric: it was a blessing not to lose three or four inches per yard to shrinkage. And those new Terylene and Tery-Cotton shirts were a miracle, never needed ironing. But she drew the line at fancy soaps and scrubbers; not only were they expensive, they did not do as good a job as
raakh-bhoosa
and a twist of coconut coir. Nothing worked better than the centuries-old method when it came to scouring pots and pans greasy with
vanaspati
and ghee. Some people claimed it was unhygienic, because you never could tell what ashes these fellows were selling—could be from cremation grounds, for all you knew. But Dilnavaz had faith in her man, trusted the quality of his
raakh
and
bhoosa.

After the sacks were emptied in the
chawl
outside the WC, Tehmul-Lungraa arrived to dutifully drink his glass of lime juice. He swallowed the mixture with a burp and a grin, as she watched anxiously to see if he was behaving more brainlessly than usual. She both dreaded and wished Tehmul’s deterioration: the erosion without which it would be impossible to redeem Sohrab. Tehmul returned the glass: ‘Thankyouthankyouverytasty,’ and left, scratching his groin with one hand, waving with the other.

And it was while she was washing out the glass that the doorbell surprised her. Through the peephole she saw Roshan with one of the school nuns. Dilnavaz’s hand trembled as she fumbled with the latch.

‘Good-day, Mrs. Noble,’ said the nun, shaking water off her umbrella. Then she started, and dropped the umbrella, for Tehmul suddenly materialized behind her. He examined her cagily from head to toe, from the folds of her wimple to the rain-muddied hem of her white habit, gazing long and hard at the crucifix shining upon her flattened bosom. He scratched his head and circled around her, never having seen such a strangely attired creature during all his cloistered life in Khodadad Building and its surrounds.

‘Yes, Sister,’ said Dilnavaz, taking Roshan’s hand. ‘What is wrong?’ But the question was unnecessary; the child’s wan countenance and clammy hand revealed all.

‘Roshan is not feeling well today, so we decided to bring her home.’ The nun squirmed under Tehmul’s gaze and eyed him suspiciously. ‘She has been to the bathroom several times already, and brought up her breakfast.’

‘Thank you for coming, Sister. Say thank you, Roshan.’

‘Thank you, Sister.’

‘You are welcome, child. Now get well soon, we want you back in class.’ She stroked Roshan’s head and said a short, silent prayer before leaving.

Dilnavaz took off Roshan’s raincoat, dried her hands and feet. ‘Sleep a little. I will phone Daddy and tell him.’

‘Ask Daddy to come early today. Please.’ Her pale, beseeching face made Dilnavaz want to hold her tight, but she did not let it show.

‘Now you know Daddy has work to do in the office,’ she said briskly, covering her with a sheet. ‘He cannot leave it just like that.’

‘Only once,’ she pleaded.

‘OK, I will ask him. Sleep now.’ She locked the door and went to telephone.

Miss Kutpitia took a while to reach the door. Dilnavaz could hear talking inside the flat. Visitors for Miss Kutpitia? Impossible. She put her ear to the door. ‘I made
bhakras
today for your tea. And if you finish all your lessons quickly, I will take you to Chaupatty, you can dig in the sand with your spade. Hurry, hurry now, be a good boy, don’t waste time.’ Then a door slammed inside. Dilnavaz stepped back as footsteps approached.

Miss Kutpitia opened the peephole, asking coldly, ‘Who?’

‘Dilnavaz.’

The cover fell into place and she unbolted the door. ‘Forgive me, day by day eyes are getting worse and worse.’

‘It’s all right, sometimes I also have trouble seeing. What to do, years pass and make us old.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Miss Kutpitia spiritedly. ‘Many years before you will have my kind of problems. Your three children will get married, make you a grandmother first.’

‘All in God’s hands. But can I use the phone?’

‘Of course.’ She unlocked the receiver and stepped aside. While waiting for the bank receptionist to locate Gustad, Dilnavaz looked around her. No sign of any visitors. Unless they were hidden behind the two locked doors. She finished and offered thirty paise.

‘I cannot take money for phoning about Roshan’s sickness,’ said Miss Kutpitia. Insisting was useless, it was impossible to get past the adamant years between their ages. ‘Put it away in your pocket. Put it away or you will make me angry.’ She looked for the key. ‘Poor Roshan. What a sweet and gentle child she is.’ The lock clicked back on the receiver. ‘Can I tell you something? You will not mind taking an old woman’s advice?’

‘Not at all,’ said Dilnavaz.

‘Listen. I heard you talking about the doctor. What I am saying is: go, get the medicine. But don’t forget there are causes of sickness for which doctor can do nothing.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Miss Kutpitia raised a hand with the index finger extended. ‘When a laughing-playing child like Roshan suddenly becomes sick, there can be other reasons. Such as evil eye. And doctor’s medicine is no prevention or cure for that. There are special ways.’

Dilnavaz nodded.

‘Oh, you know about them?’ She shook her head, and Miss Kutpitia was irritated. ‘Then why are you nodding? Listen. Take your needle and thread, a nice strong thread with a big knot at the end. Select a yellow lime, and seven chillies. Chillies must be green, not turning red. Never red. String them all together with the needle. Lime goes at the bottom. Then hang the whole thing over your door, inside the house.’

‘What will it do?’

‘It is like a
taveej,
a protection. Each time Roshan walks under it, the evil eye becomes less and less powerful. Actually, once you hang it, everyone in your family will benefit.’

Dilnavaz agreed to prepare the talisman immediately. ‘But you know, Sohrab is still refusing to come back home.’

‘Naturally. You want a miracle or what? You want Seem-Salamay Foofoo and Abracadabra? Then go to a magician.’ But her annoyance passed easily, and she reassured Dilnavaz. ‘Patience. These things take time. Tehmul comes for the juice?’ She thought for a moment. ‘There is one more thing you can do, if you like, to make it a little faster. You will need Tehmul’s nails.’ She explained the full procedure. ‘But after this, there is only one remedy left. And it’s too dangerous, Tehmul could completely lose his mind, become a madhouse case. It is so terrible, I am not even going to tell you about it. Just do what I have said.’

‘Thank you. So much of your time I’ve taken.’

‘What have I to do anyway? Sit and wait till the One Up There calls me.’

‘Don’t say that, you have many years left with us.’

‘Such a curse you are putting on me? What will I do with many years? I wish them for you and your children instead.’ It was difficult to get the last word on the subject of death and dying with Miss Kutpitia, as on any other subject. Dilnavaz tried again, unsuccessfully, to give her thirty paise, then returned home.

A smile like a sunburst shone briefly on Roshan’s drawn face when she heard that Daddy would be home early to take her to Dr. Paymaster. ‘Early? Then I’ll sleep now,’ she said, and closed her eyes. Dilnavaz stroked her hair, remembering that when the boys were little, they waited just as anxiously for their Daddy to return from the office. How Sohrab and Darius used to race to the door to open it for him. Now they are grown, and things are so different.

iv

Gustad’s early arrival coincided with Dimple’s walk, and he came face to face with Mr. Rabadi. The Pomeranian yapped and darted at his ankles, fetching up short thanks to the leash, but Gustad burst out, ‘If you must keep an animal, at least train your bloody bitch!’

It provided Mr. Rabadi with the opening he had been waiting for. Recently, Dustoorji Baria had given him two new sets of prayers: one for Dimple’s health; the other to weave protective vibrations around his sweet child Jasmine, safeguarding her from the savage lusts of wild boys like that son of Noble. The prayers made Mr. Rabadi feel invincible. ‘You are talking of training an animal? First teach manners and discipline to your own son! Walking away with somebody else’s newspapers!’

‘Go, go! Ask your daughter about it! And take your bitch with you, before I lose my temper!’ Gustad went inside, leaving him to mutter among the bushes.

‘Is Roshan ready?’ asked Gustad, his rage straining his determination to keep his voice down.

‘Almost.’ Dilnavaz wondered what the matter was.

‘Good. I will be back in two minutes.’ He went to the WC
chawl
and picked up
The Times of India
and
Jam-E-Jamshed
stacks, one under each arm. He asked Dilnavaz to open the door. ‘That dogwalla idiot is saying my son stole his papers, so I’ll give him papers!’

She blocked his way. ‘Calm down a little. That man is a crackpot, why are you being like him?’

‘I am telling you, open the door and move aside!’

‘But how will we pay next month’s bill without these?’

‘That’s OK, we will stop the papers! Every morning brings nothing but bad news, anyway.’

She gave up and let him pass. His teeth were clenched tight. The weight under his arms hampered him, making him limp more than usual. Tehmul hurried over to help. ‘GustadGustad. Pleasepleaseplease. Iwillcarrythankyoupleaseverymuch.’

‘Shut up and get lost!’ he said without looking at him.

Tehmul froze. Not till Gustad entered the building at the other end did he dare move. Blubbering and sniffing, he went to stand at a safe distance from the neem tree.

Gustad climbed the two floors to Mr. Rabadi’s flat and dumped the papers outside. Inside, Dimple yipped and yapped a few times, but no one came to the door.

v

The needle refused to pass through the lime. Dilnavaz pushed, and it snapped in two. From the china hen where her sewing things were kept, she selected a longer, fatter needle. It entered smoothly; the lime slid along the thread and stopped at the knot. Threading the chillies was much easier; the needle met no resistance.

She climbed on a chair to examine the ventilator over the front door. The blackout paper had come undone at one corner. She lifted it and tied the thread to one of the horizontal bars behind. The paper fell back over it.

No need to rush, Gustad and Roshan would be gone for an hour or more. Now for the lime juice. The last time Sohrab came to visit, she had circled his head with several limes at once, to have a ready supply. But only three remained. Please God, make Sohrab come soon. His visits were becoming less and less frequent. And he promised me, once a week, he said. A wonder he even lets me do the lime, the way he says no to everything else.

She went to the window for Tehmul. He was still standing near the tree. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘juice is ready.’ In the kitchen he held out his hand for the glass. ‘What big nails. Don’t you cut them every week?’ He shook his head bashfully.

‘Come, I will do it for you.’ She picked up the nail scissors. He shook his head again and put his hands behind his back. ‘Come on, come on,’ she coaxed, ‘not nice to have such big nails. All dirty collects inside.’ He would not budge. ‘Then, no juice today. First nails, if you want the juice.’

Gazing longingly at the glass, he put out his fingers. She grasped them before he could change his mind. His hand was sticky. The edges of the nails were rough, jagged where he had bitten them, and underneath was greenish black stuff. Overcoming her revulsion, she began, collecting the clippings in a little plastic dish.

Once, she glanced at his face and saw him smile. Not his usual grin, but more innocent, a child’s smile. What was he thinking? Perhaps a memory of his long-dead mother, kindled by the nail scissors? Something left over inside his damaged head, from his happy childhood years before the fall?

A lump came to her throat, and her eyes moistened. Suddenly she felt an intense loathing for herself. No. She would not go on with this. Regardless of what Miss Kutpitia said.

She looked up again after finishing the other hand. Tehmul was digging his nose and transferring the pickings to his mouth. No, I must have been imagining. Not possible for anything to remain inside this skull—definitely an empty shell. He held out his hand for the lime juice.

‘Not yet. Must do toes also.’ He removed his shoes without untying the laces, and pulled off his socks. Two rupee notes, folded small, fell out of the right one. He carefully reinserted the money, then rubbed his toes urgently, kneading dirt, dead skin and sweat into little black bits which flaked off and fell to the floor. A smell like vomit now filled the kitchen.

Battling back the nausea that threatened to overcome her, she tackled the brittle, greenish-yellow crescents. But the light, ticklish contact of her squeamish fingers made him squirm and giggle. She had no choice other than to grasp the reeking foot, hold her breath, and complete the task.

He drained the juice eagerly. His old grin returned. ‘Thankyouthankyouverytasty.’ He repeated his thanks as she shut the door. She thought she heard him say ‘thankyouthankyoumummy.’ No, probably something else. Hard enough to understand him when he is in front of me, leave alone behind a closed door.

After washing her hands thoroughly, she prepared coals on a small grate over the stove, the way Gustad did for the
loban
thurible after his evening prayers. Miss Kutpitia had insisted on that, it had to be a coal fire—neither the kerosene stove nor a candle flame would do. When the coals were glowing, she turned off the stove, packed the chunks together, and emptied the plastic dish over them. The nail clippings came alive with hisses and crackles, shrivelling and curling inwards, then turned quickly into shiny black, bubbly residues.

A horrible stench stabbed at her nostrils, acrid and miasmic, making her recoil. Like the smell of the devil himself, from the depths of
dojukh,
she thought. With a hand over her nose, she went to the spice rack for turmeric and cayenne. They would open wide Tehmul’s channels, Miss Kutpitia had explained, through which his spirit would reach and yank the evil out of Sohrab’s brain. Dilnavaz sprinkled a pinch of the yellow and red powders on the black molten mass.

Now the smell grew worse. A harsh pungency was added to the terrible fetor. Coughing and choking, she opened the window and stood by it, tears running down her face, till Tehmul’s nails vaporized completely and became one with the firmament.