Such A Long Journey (21 page)

A long way now from those teenage shores, Gustad had almost forgotten Peerbhoy’s fantastic stories. But it was always a visit to Dr. Paymaster that brought him to the neighbourhood, and, over time, illness and the forbidden pleasures became entwined in his mind. It disgusted the core of Gustad’s being, the stream that led his thoughts from one thing to the other, as he led his sick child by the hand to the dispensary.

The dispensary, of course, was the fourth establishment in the neighbourhood that never altered its function. Barring the brief, impolitic substitution of a new sign for Dr. R.C. Lord’s old board, Dr. Paymaster had resisted all changes. Due to his peculiar location, his patients and their ailments fell into four distinct groups. First were the victims of workshop injuries. Mechanics came to him regularly with severed digits wrapped in newspaper, waiting stoically for treatment as though at the post office to mail a parcel. Radio repairers were carried in when they suffered a severe electrical shock. And periodically, a group of car painters arrived to get their lungs overhauled and cleansed of paint and turpentine.

The tyre retreader was also a regular patient. He had the misfortune of working directly opposite the House of Cages. Gripping a tyre between his knees while the sharp tool in his hands zigzagged the circumference, he sometimes let his eyes stray to the women lounging spread-leggedly across the road; sometimes, he gazed too long, and then the tool slipped.

Dr. Paymaster’s second group of patients were a by-product of the cinema industry. When tickets were in great demand, tempers rose rapidly, and once in a while an irate crowd would beat up an usher or ticket-clerk who was then delivered to the doctor for mending. The occasional scalper, if excessive greed clouded his finely-tuned instincts, also ended up at the dispensary via this route. But usually it was the ticket buyers who came for treatment after long queuing under the hot sun, collapsing from sunstroke and dehydration.

The House of Cages provided the clientele that constituted the third group. The women came for periodic check-ups as required by the municipal licensing authorities, and Dr. Paymaster was never able to get used to them. They came in their business outfits and jested with him: ‘Doctor, need to check if all machinery in good condition,’ or ‘We give you our business, you don’t give us yours,’ which embarrassed him terribly.

The patients Dr. Paymaster looked forward to most were in the fourth group, made up of families like the Nobles. He yearned to cure the childhood illnesses, the middle-class maladies, of which he saw fewer and fewer as the years went by and the neighbourhood changed. Measles, chicken-pox, bronchitis, influenza, pneumonia, gastro-enteritis, dysentery—these were the things he wanted to treat. He wanted to lance boils painlessly for children who ate too many mangoes, and then see their grateful smiles. He wanted to bandage the fingers of little boys who cut them on kite-strings, on razor-sharp
maanja
stiffened with powdered glass and glue which they employed in kite fights up in the clouds. He longed to comfort youngsters scratched by dogs and terrified by their parents’ tales of fourteen big injections in the stomach, though usually a penicillin shot was enough if the dog was an inoculated household pet.

He knew that the disorders he yearned to treat were there in the city, in vast numbers. Somehow, they just never found their way to the door of his dispensary. When one of them came along, it was like an answer to a physician’s prayer.

ii

The tiny, crowded waiting-room was separated from Dr. Paymaster’s inner sanctum by a partition with a door. Large panes of green ground glass in the partition showed vague outlines of what went on inside.

When the door opened for the next patient, Dr. Paymaster glimpsed Gustad and Roshan. He wished he could usher them in ahead of the rest. It had been a typical, lacklustre day: knocking, tapping, listening, peering, then signing his approval, so the painted ladies could continue in business. Sometimes he felt like a building inspector—all that was missing was a rubber stamp:
Safe for Human Habitation.
He handed Hemabai a clean bill of health as she emerged from the back, tall and bristling with daunting curves, called Hydraulic Hema by the neighbourhood mechanics because of a unique, ecstatically fluid movement she had perfected.

The doctor brought his hand down on the silver desk bell and waved at the Nobles. In the next half-hour, he dispensed with the half-dozen who were waiting, then rose to shake Gustad’s hand and pinch Roshan’s cheek. ‘Seeing you after a long time. Which is very good, medically speaking, but not so good, socially speaking. Something cold to drink?’ He went to the tiny Kelvinator whose inadequate innards refrigerated vials of serum and unstable compounds, plus some Goldspot and Raspberry for special patients. ‘Or shall I send the boy for tea?’

‘Nothing. Nothing, thanks,’ said Gustad. ‘I just had tea. And I don’t think Roshan should.’

‘Why, why? What’s wrong? Ate brinjals?’ Dr. Paymaster habitually euphemized sicknesses and things medical.

‘Stomach. Loose motions for a few days.’

‘How many?’ Gustad knew what he was about to say would not go down well. He cleared his throat and plunged into it. The doctor masked his exasperation but not wholly: ‘Tch-tch-tch. You waited so long before coming?’

Gustad looked sheepish. ‘Entero-Vioform and Sulpha-Guanidine usually works very well.’ Better not to mention
subjo.

‘Those are medicines—not to be gobbled like sweet
papee
or
chana-mumra.
Come on, Roshan, lie down. I have to tickle your tummy a little bit.’ While he listened with his stethoscope, he asked about school.

She mentioned the raffle. ‘I won a big doll, but she is sleeping naked in the cupboard just now.’

‘Why naked?’ She explained about the voluminous wedding dress and described the articles of clothing. ‘You know what I think?’ said the doctor. ‘Your doll is ready to be a bride, so we should find her a bridegroom. A nice young Parsi boy. Fair and handsome like me.’ He pretended to be injured when Roshan laughed. ‘What? Am I not young and handsome?’ He stroked the few wisps of white on his head. ‘See my fine black curly hair. And my face. So good-looking. Even handsomer than your daddy.’

Roshan laughed again, but after more persuasion it was agreed the doctor was the best match for her doll. Dr. Paymaster made her turn on her side to face the partition while he prepared an injection. He winked at Gustad to say nothing. ‘Now we must plan the wedding. I love accordion music. Does Dolly?’

‘Yes,’ giggled Roshan.

‘Very good. Then we will have Goody Seervai’s band. But if he is booked, we will call Nelly’s orchestra.’ He selected a needle from the sterilized tray and went to the Kelvinator. ‘The next thing is the caterer. I always enjoy Choksy’s food.’ Choksy Caterers was unanimously approved. He enumerated the items he wanted on the menu, starting with a carrot-and-mango pickle, wafers,
murumbo,
and Choksy’s special wedding stew, while directing a cold ether spray over the spot to be injected. Next, there was to be leaf-wrapped fish steamed in green chutney, succulent chicken legs fried Mughlai-style, and mutton pulao.

‘Ow!’ said Roshan. By the time he came to the dessert, which would be pistachio kulfi, the needle had been withdrawn. He rubbed the spot with cotton wool.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘All finished. Now you can sit on the sofa outside while I talk to Daddy.’

After the door was shut, Gustad asked, ‘It’s not diarrhoea? How serious?’

‘Not diarrhoea. But no need to worry.’ He began writing a prescription. ‘Sometimes, of course, even a case of diarrhoea can be worrying. Look at East Pakistan—a patient with a simple sickness, but very difficult to cure. A patient in critical condition, needing the intensive care unit. But no one in the world cares.’ Dr. Paymaster believed that politics, economics, religious problems, domestic strife, all could be dealt with methodically: observe the symptoms, make the diagnosis, prescribe medicine, offer the prognosis. But he also believed that just as some diseases of the human body were incurable, there were diseases of countries, of families, of theological dogma, that had fatal outcomes.

‘East Pakistan is suffering from a diarrhoea of death,’ he continued. ‘Death is flowing there unchecked, and the patient will soon be dehydrated.’ The smooth gliding of his fountain-pen was interrupted; the nib scratched and produced half-formed letters. He held it up to the light, peering through the reservoir’s transparent plastic. ‘Empty again.’ He unscrewed the cover, dipped it in the bottle of Parker Ink, and squeezed the bladder. ‘East Pakistan has been attacked by a strong virus from West Pakistan, too powerful for the Eastern immune system. And the world’s biggest physician is doing nothing. Worse, Dr. America is helping the virus. So what’s the prescription? The Mukti Bahini guerrillas?’ He shook his head. ‘Not strong enough medicine. Only the complete, intravenous injection of the Indian Army will defeat this virus.’

He finished the prescription and handed it to the compounder in the little cubicle at the rear. Gustad knew from experience that Dr. Paymaster had the wit and stamina to sustain medical metaphors endlessly. He interrupted. ‘Will she be all right?’

‘Absolutely. I am sitting here, no, if anything goes wrong. I think it’s an intestinal virus. Keep her home for a few days. Only boiled rice, soup, toast, a little boiled mutton. And bring her again next week.’

The compounder finished mixing the prescription. He presented the dark-green bottle along with the bill. Gustad looked at the amount and raised his eyebrows. ‘Refugee tax,’ the compounder explained apologetically.

iii

The doctor’s calm manner and reassuring talk kept at bay Gustad’s fear about the virus. He led Roshan to the bus stop past the rows of shops, past Cutpiece Cloth Centre, Bhelpuri House, Jack of All Stall, Naughty Boy Men’s Wear. Peerbhoy Paanwalla was busy outside the House of Cages. The women stood in the doorways or leaned against windows, displaying what they could between the bars. Loud music, a popular film song, blasted from within:
Mere sapno ki rani kab ayegi tu,
O Queen of my dreams, when will you arrive…It could be heard all the way to the bus stop.

Later, as they neared the gate of Khodadad Building, the effects of Dr. Paymaster’s salutary presence were wearing off. At the black stone wall, the stink had been growing from strength to strength, with pools of urinous ordure multiplying as the evening darkened. When the stench hit Gustad, the last of the doctor’s reassurances drowned helplessly. The insidious stink in his nostrils left no room for optimism.

He began to blame himself for Roshan’s illness, wished he had never heard of Entero-Vioform or Sulpha-Guanidine. His limp slipped its usual containment, and by the time they reached the door, he was swaying wildly from side to side.

‘What did the doctor say?’ asked Dilnavaz.

Gustad shut and opened his eyes meaningfully, and she understood. ‘Everything is fine, Dr. Paymaster is going to marry Roshan’s dolly.’

‘Yes,’ said Roshan. ‘Choksy Caterers will cook the wedding dinner.’ He gave her one dose from the mixture. They sent her to bed, and he quietly told Dilnavaz what the doctor had said.

She sat silent a few moments while the lines on her face rearranged for a storm: ‘Now you are satisfied? Now will you admit it? I repeated it till I was exhausted, till my lungs were empty. But you treat my words as if a dog is barking.’

‘What idiotic-lunatic thing are you saying?’

‘Neither idiotic nor lunatic! I am talking about water, what else? I said it over and over. That we should boil the water, boil the water, boil the water. But it would not go into your brain only!’ she said, ferociously digging her fingers into her skull.

‘Yes! Blame me! That’s the easiest thing.’

‘If not you then who? Your dead uncle? No, no, you said, potassium permanganate is enough, no need to boil. You Nobles think you know everything.’

‘That’s right! Don’t blame me alone! Blame my father also, and grandfather and great-grandfather. You ungrateful woman! Why do you think I said not to boil? For your sake! As it is, you are so busy in the morning, running from bathroom to kitchen, with no time even to sit and drink your tea!’

Their voices rose steadily, though neither seemed to notice. She said, ‘There is a remedy for that, if I have no time in the morning. But you just sit and read your newspaper, while my insides are heaving and aching with lifting the tubs and buckets. And two big sons you have, like
lubbhai-laivraas,
who have never helped me once.’

‘Correction, you have two sons. I have only one. And what has happened to your mouth? Why must I say everything when—?’

‘Everything? What everything have you told them? Always I shout and scream, while nice Daddy watches quietly. To finish their food, to do homework, to pick up their plates. Without a father’s discipline what can you expect now but disobedience?’

‘Yes! Blame me for that also. It is my fault that Sohrab is not going to IIT! My fault that Darius is wasting his time with the dogwalla idiot’s fatty! My fault that Roshan is sick! Everything wrong in the world is my fault!’

‘Don’t deny it! From the beginning you have spoilt the boys! Not for one single thing have you ever said no! Not enough money for food or school uniforms, and
baap
goes and buys aeroplanes and fish tanks and bird cages!’

They did not notice Roshan standing in the door till she started to sob. ‘What is it, my darling?’ said Gustad, bringing her to sit beside him.

‘I don’t like it when you fight,’ she said through her tears.

‘No one is fighting. We were just talking,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘Sometimes grown-ups have to talk about these things.’

‘But you were shouting and angry,’ sobbed Roshan.

‘OK, my
bakulyoo,
’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘You are right, we were shouting. But we are not angry. Look,’ and he smiled: ‘Is this an angry face?’

Roshan was not convinced, especially since her mother sat rigidly at the dining-table, with her arms stiffly folded in front of her. ‘Go kiss Mummy.’

He looked at Dilnavaz’s wrathful countenance, still struggling to soften. ‘Later. But you I will kiss now, you are closer.’ He kissed her cheek.

She would not give up. ‘No, no, no. I cannot sleep till you kiss. Mummy will come here.’ When Dilnavaz did not move, she went and began tugging at her arm, leaning on it with all her meagre weight. Dilnavaz gave in. She looked coldly at Gustad and brushed his cheek cursorily.

‘Not like that!’ said Roshan, frustratedly pounding the arm of the chair. ‘That’s not a real Mummy-Daddy kiss. Do it like when Daddy goes to work in the morning.’ Dilnavaz rested her lips against Gustad’s. ‘Eyes closed, eyes closed!’ yelled Roshan. ‘Do it properly!’

They obeyed, then separated. Gustad was amused. ‘My little kissing umpire,’ he said.

Roshan somehow sensed that it took more than the joining of lips and closing of eyes to get rid of anger and bitterness. But she did not know what else to do, and went to bed.