A Fine Balance Part 6

During the two years since s.h.i.+rin Aunty's death, the bachelor had progressed from friend to lover. Though the idea of marriage was still difficult for Dina to entertain, she enjoyed Fredoon's company because he was perfectly content to spend time in her presence without feeling compelled to make clever conversation or to partic.i.p.ate in the usual social activities of couples. The two were equally happy sitting in his flat or walking in a public garden.

But when they ventured into the private garden of intimacy, it was a troubled relations.h.i.+p. There were certain things she could not bring herself to do. The bed any bed was out of bounds, sacred and reserved for married couples only. So they used a chair. Then one day, as she swung a leg over to straddle Fredoon, her action suddenly resurrected the image of Rustom flinging his leg over his bicycle. Now the chair, like the bed, was no longer possible.

"Oh G.o.d!" said Fredoon, groaning softly. He put on his trousers and made tea.

A few days later he persuaded her into the standing position, and Dina had no objections. He began to refine the procedure as much as he could, finding a low platform for her to stand on; their heights became more compatible during their embraces. Next he bought a stool, took some personal measurements, and sawed off precisely two and a quarter inches, adjusting it to the proper size for her to rest one leg. Sometimes she raised the left, sometimes the right. He arranged these accessories against the wall and suspended pillows from the ceiling at appropriate heights for her head and back, and under the hips.

"Is it comfortable?" he asked tenderly, and she nodded.

But the ultimate satisfaction of the bed could only be approximated. What should have been the occasional spice to vary the regular menu had become the main course, leaving the appet.i.te often confused or unfulfilled.

The opposite wall of Fredoon's room had a small window in it. Outside the window was a streetlamp. Once, between dusk and nightfall, as they were locked in their vertical lovemaking, it started to rain. A moist garden smell came in through the window. Through her half-open eyes Dina saw the drizzle float like mist around the lamplight. Occasionally, a hand or elbow or shoulder strayed beyond the pillows, onto the bare wall, and the cement felt deliciously cool against their heated flesh.

"Mmm," she said, enjoying with all her senses, and he was pleased. The rain was heavier now. She could see it slanting in needles past the streetlamp.

She watched it for a while, then stiffened. "Please stop," she whispered, but he continued moving.

"Stop, I said! Please, Fredoon, stop it!"

"Why?" he begged. "Why? Now what's wrong?"

She s.h.i.+vered. "The rain..."

"The rain? I'll shut the window if you like."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, something made me think of Rustom."

He took her face between his hands, but she pushed them away. She swam out of his embrace and into the memory of that night from long ago: she was wearing Rustom's warm raincoat; her umbrella had broken in the storm. And after the concert, at the bus shelter, they had held hands for the first time ever, their palms moist with the finely falling drizzle.

Remembering the purity of that moment, Dina contrasted it with the present. What Fredoon and she did in this room seemed a sordid, contraption-riddled procedure, filling her with shame and remorse. She shuddered.

Silently, Fredoon handed Dina her bra.s.siere and underpants. She shrank towards the pillowed wall while she dressed, turning away from him. He put on his trousers and made tea.

Later, he tried to cheer her up. "In all the b.l.o.o.d.y Hindi movies, rain brings the hero and heroine closer together," he complained. "But it is, from this moment onwards, the bane of my life." She smiled, and he was encouraged. "Never mind, I'll dismantle this and design a new set for our performance."

And Fredoon kept trying. Despite his creative efforts and secret consultations of s.e.x manuals, however, the past could only be imperfectly distanced. It was a slippery thing, he discovered, slithering into the present at the least excuse, dodging the strongest defences.

But he remained uncomplaining, and Dina liked him for it. She was determined to keep him a secret from Nusswan as long as possible.

"No boyfriend as yet?" said Nusswan, counting out the money from his wallet. "Remember, you are thirty already. It will be too late for children, once you have dried up. I can still find you a decent husband. For what are you slaving and slogging?"

She put the sixty rupees in her purse and let him have his say. It was the interest he extracted on his loan, she thought philosophically a bit excessive, but the only currency that she could afford and he would accept.

The violin had sat untouched upon the cupboard for five years. During the biannual flat cleaning, when Dina wrapped a white cloth over her head and swept the walls and ceilings with the long-handled broom, she wiped the top of the cupboard without moving the black case.

For six more years, she continued to employ the same strategy against the violin, barely acknowledging its existence. Now it was the twelfth death anniversary. Time to sell the instrument, she decided. Better that someone use it, make music with it, instead of it gathering dust. She got up on a chair and took down the case. The rusted metal snaps squealed as her fingers flipped them open; then she raised the lid, and gasped.

The soundboard had collapsed completely around the f-holes. The four strings flopped limply between the tailpiece and tuning pegs, while the felt-lining of the case was in shreds, chewed to tatters by marauding insects. Bits of burgundy wool clung to her hands. Her stomach felt queasy. With a trembling hand she drew out the bow from its compartment within the lid. The horsehair hung from one end of it like a thin long ponytail; barely a dozen unbroken strands remained in place. She put everything back and decided to take it to L.M. Furtado & Co.

On the way, she had to duck inside a library while demonstrators rampaged briefly through the street, breaking store windows and shouting slogans against the influx of South Indians into the city who were stealing their jobs. Police jeeps arrived as the demonstrators finished their work and departed. Dina waited a few minutes longer before relinquis.h.i.+ng the library.

At L. M. Furtado & Co., Mr. Mascarenhas was supervising the cleanup of the large plate-gla.s.s window, its shattered pieces glittering among two guitars, a banjo, bongos, and some sheet music for the latest Cliff Richard songs. Mr. Mascarenhas returned behind the counter as Dina entered the shop with the violin.

"What a shame," she said, pointing at the window.

"It's just the cost of doing business these days," he said, and opened the case she put before him. The contents made him pause grimly. "And how did this happen?" He didn't recognize Dina, for it had been a long time since Rustom had introduced her, when they had dropped in once to buy an E string. "Doesn't anyone play it?"

"Not for a few years."

Mr. Mascarenhas scratched his right ear and frowned fiercely around the thick black frames of his spectacles. "When a violin is in storage, the strings should be loosened, the bow should be slack," he said severely. "We human beings loosen our belts when we go home and relax, don't we?"

Dina nodded, feeling ashamed. "Can it be repaired?"

"Anything can be repaired. The question is, how will it sound after it is repaired?"

"How will it sound?"

"Horrible. Like fighting cats. But we can reline the case with new felt. It's a good hard case."

She sold the case to Mr. Mascarenhas for fifty rupees, leaving behind the remains of the violin. He said a beginner might buy the repaired instrument at a discount. "Learners squawk and screech anyway, the tone will make no difference. If it sells, I'll pay you fifty more."

She was comforted by the thought that an enthusiastic youngster might acquire it. Rustom would have liked that the idea of his violin continuing to torment the human race.

From time to time, Dina's guilt about the violin returned to anguish her. How stupid, she thought, to ignore it on top of the cupboard for twelve years, leaving it to destruct. She could at least have given it to Xerxes and Zarir, encouraged them to take lessons.

Then, one morning, someone came to the flat and announced that there was a delivery for Mrs. Dalai.

"That's me," she said.

The youth, wearing fas.h.i.+onably tight pants and a bright yellow s.h.i.+rt with the top three b.u.t.tons left undone, returned to the van to fetch the item. Dina wondered if it might be the violin. Six months had pa.s.sed since she had taken it to L. M. Furtado & Co. Perhaps Mr. Mascarenhas was sending it back because it was beyond redemption.

The young fellow appeared at the door again, dragging Rustom's mangled bicycle. "From the police station," he said.

Before he could get her to sign and acknowledge receipt of the goods, her hand slid along the door jamb, lowering her gracefully to the floor. She fainted.

"Ma-ji!" the delivery boy panicked. "Shall I call ambulance? Are you sick?" He fanned her frantically with the delivery roster, waving it at various angles to her face, hoping that one of these airflows might work, might put the breath back into her nostrils.

She stirred, and he fanned harder. Encouraged by the improvement, he took her wrist as though checking for a pulse. He didn't know what exactly to do with the wrist, but had seen the gesture being performed several times in a film where the hero was a doctor and his faithful and bosomy nurse was the heroine.

Dina stirred again, and the delivery boy released the wrist, pleased with his very first medical success. "Ma-ji! What happened? Shall I get someone?"

She shook her head. "The heat...it's okay now." The twisted frame and handlebars swam into view again. For a moment she wondered why the police would have painted the bicycle a reddish brown; it used to be black.

Then the haziness pa.s.sed, and her focus returned to normal. "It's completely rusted," she said.

"Completely," he nodded, then checked the tag inscribed with the file number and date. "No wonder. Twelve years it has sat in the evidence room, where the windows are broken and the ceiling leaks. Twelve monsoon rains will make human bones rust also."

Dina's inner turmoil made her rage at the youth. "Is that any way to treat important evidence? If they caught the criminal, how would they prove it in court with the evidence damaged?"

"I agree with you. But the whole building leaks. The employees get wet just like the evidence. Important files also, making the ink run. Only the big boss has a dry office."

His explanation gave her little comfort, and he tried again. "You know, ma-ji, once we had a bag of wheat in the storage room. Someone had murdered the owner to steal it. There were bloodstains on the jute sacking. By the time the case came to court, rats had chewed through it and eaten up most of the wheat. Judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence." He laughed carefully as he finished the story, hoping she would see the funny side of it.

"You find that a joking matter?" said Dina angrily. "The criminal walks free. What happens to justice?"

"It's terrible, just terrible," he agreed, giving her the roster to sign, then thanked her and departed.

She examined her copy of the receipt. It stated that the file was closed and the property returned to the next-of-kin.

Dina was not a superst.i.tious person. But the bicycle's reappearance, after the fate of the violin, was more than she could bear. She decided there was a message in it for her. She completed Fredoon's last order, a party frock for a niece, delivered it, shook his hand, and said it wouldn't be possible to see him anymore, for she was giving up the sewing business and getting married.

From then on, Dina did not meet Fredoon again. To avoid running into him, she even gave up other clients in that building. There was enough work from her remaining sources to support her.

A full five years pa.s.sed in this manner. Then, right on schedule, s.h.i.+rin Aunty's prophecy came to pa.s.s. At forty-two, Dina's eyes began to trouble her. In twelve months she had to change her spectacles twice. The lenses had grown quite formidable.

"Stop the eye strain or accept blindness," said the doctor. He was a wiry little man with a funny manner of wiggling his fingers all over the room when checking for peripheral vision. It reminded Dina of children playing at b.u.t.terflies.

But his suddenly blunt manner made her indignant, and also a little frightened. She did not know what she would do if sewing became impossible.

Fortune, sticking to its own schedule, brought along a solution. Her friend Zen.o.bia told her about the export manager of a large textile company. "Mrs. Gupta is one of my regular clients. I've done her lots of favours, she can surely find some easy work for you."

One afternoon that week, at the Venus Beauty Salon, amid the disagreeable odours of hydrogen peroxide and other beautifying chemicals, Dina waited to meet Mrs. Gupta, who was nestled under a hairdryer. "Just a few more minutes," whispered Zen.o.bia. "I'm doing such a wonderful bouffant for her, she'll be in a superb mood."

Dina watched from a chair in the reception area as Zen.o.bia performed architecturally, even sculpturally, with the export manager's hair, and created a monument. As construction proceeded, Dina glanced sidelong in a mirror, imagining the lofty edifice upon her own head.

Soon, the scaffolding of clips and curlers was carefully dismantled, and the hairdo was complete. The two women came over to the waiting area. Mrs. Gupta was beaming.

"It looks beautiful," Dina felt compelled to say after introductions were completed.

"Oh, thank you," said the export manager. "But all the credit goes to Zen.o.bia, the talent is hers. I only supply raw material."

They laughed, and Zen.o.bia insisted she had nothing to do with it. "Mrs. Gupta's facial structure look at those cheekbones, and also her elegant carriage they are responsible for the total effect."

"Stop, stop! You are making me blus.h.!.+" squeaked Mrs. Gupta.

Discussing the magic of imported shampoos and hairsprays, Zen.o.bia steered the conversation towards the garment industry, as skilfully as she had twirled the whorls and spirals. Mrs. Gupta was quite happy to talk about her achievements at Au Revoir Exports.

"In just one year I have doubled the turnover," she said. "Highly prestigious labels from all over the world are asking for my creations." Her company she used the possessive throughout had begun supplying women's clothing to boutiques in America and Europe. The sewing was done locally to foreign specifications, and contracted out in small lots.

"It's more economical for me. Better than having one big factory which could be crippled by a strike. Who wants to deal with union goondas if it can be avoided? Especially these days, with so much trouble in the country. And leaders like that Jay Prakash Narayan encouraging civil disobedience. Simply at all creating problems. Thinks he is Mahatma Gandhi the Second."

At Zen.o.bia's prompting, Mrs. Gupta agreed Dina would be ideal for the work. "Yes, you can easily hire tailors and supervise them. You don't have to strain yourself."

"But I have never handled complicated things or latest fas.h.i.+ons," confessed Dina, and Zen.o.bia frowned at her. "Only simple clothes. Children's frocks, school uniforms, pyjamas."

"This is also simple," a.s.sured Mrs. Gupta. "All you have to do is follow the paper patterns as you follow your nose."

"Exactly," said Zen.o.bia, annoyed with Dina's hesitation. "And no investment is needed, two tailors can easily fit in your back room."

"What about the landlord?" asked Dina. "He could make big trouble for me if I start a workshop in the flat."

"He doesn't have to know," said Zen.o.bia. "Just keep it quiet, don't tell your neighbours or anyone."

The tailors would have to bring their own sewing-machines, for that was the norm, according to Mrs. Gupta. And piecework was better, it created some incentive, whereas a daily wage would be a recipe for wasting time. "Always remember one thing," she stressed. "You are the boss, you must make the rules. Never lose control. Tailors are very strange people they work with tiny needles but strut about as if they were carrying big swords."

So Dina was convinced, and set out to look for two tailors, scouring the warren of laneways in the sordid belly of the city. Day after day, she entered dilapidated buildings and shops, each one standing precariously like a house of battered cards. Tailors she saw in plenty-perched in constricted lofts, crouched inside kholis that looked like subterranean burrows, bent over in smelly cubicles, or cross-legged on street corners all engaged in a variety of tasks ranging from mattress covers to wedding outfits.

The ones who were eager to join her did not seem capable of handling the export work. She saw samples of their sewing: crooked collars, uneven hems, mismatched sleeves. And those who were skilled enough wanted the work delivered to them. But this was Mrs. Gupta's one strict condition: the sewing had to be done under the supervision of the contractor. No exceptions, not even for Zen.o.bia's friend, because Au Revoir's patterns were top secret.

The best Dina could do was to write her address on little squares of paper and leave it at shops where the quality was reasonable. "If you know someone who does good work like you and needs a job, send them to me," she said. Many of the owners threw away the paper as soon as she left. Some rolled it into a tight cone to scratch inside their ears before discarding it.

Meanwhile, Zen.o.bia had another suggestion for Dina: to take in a boarder. It would involve no more than providing a few basics like bed, cupboard, bath; and for meals, cooking a bit extra of what she ate.

"You mean, like a paying guest?" said Dina. "Never. Paying guests are trouble with a capital t. I remember that case in Firozsha Baag. What a horrible time the poor people had."

"Don't be so paranoid. We are not going to allow crooks or crackpots into the flat. Think of the rent every month guaranteed income."

"No baba, I don't want to take the risk. I've heard of lots of old people and single women being hara.s.sed."

But as her meagre savings dwindled, she relented. Zen.o.bia a.s.sured her they would only accept someone reliable, preferably a temporary visitor to the city, who had a home to return to. "You look for tailors," she said. "I'll find the boarder."

So Dina continued to distribute her name and address at tailors' shops, going further afield, taking the train to the northern suburbs, to parts of the city she had never seen in all her forty-two years. Her progress was frequently held up when traffic was blocked by processions and demonstrations against the government. Sometimes, from the upper deck of the bus, she had a good view of the tumultuous crowds. The banners and slogans accused the Prime Minister of misrule and corruption, calling on her to resign in keeping with the court judgment finding her guilty of election malpractice.

And even if the Prime Minister stepped down would it do any good? wondered Dina.

One evening, while the slow local waited for a signal change, she gazed beyond the railway fence where a stream of black sewer sludge spilled from an underground drain. Men were hauling on a rope that disappeared into the ground. Their arms were dark to the elbows, the black slime dripping from hands and rope. In the slum behind them, cooking fires smouldered, with smoke smudging the air. The workers were trying to unblock the overflowing drain.

Then a boy emerged out of the earth, clinging to the end of the rope. He was covered in the slippery sewer sludge, and when he stood up, he shone and s.h.i.+mmered in the sun with a terrible beauty. His hair, stiffened by the muck, flared from his head like a crown of black flames. Behind him, the slum smoke curled towards the sky, and the h.e.l.lishness of the place was complete.

Dina stared, shuddering, transfixed by his appearance, covering her nose against the stench till the train had cleared the area. But the underworld vision haunted her for the rest of the day, and for days to come.

The long, depressing trips, the squalid sights, wore her down. Her spirits were lower than ever. Zen.o.bia could see it in her eyes. "What's this gloomy face for," she said, pinching Dina's cheek lightly.

"I am fed up with this struggle. I can't do it anymore."

"You mustn't give up now. Look, more people have contacted me for paying guests. And one of them is Maneck Kohlah Aban's son. Remember her? She was at school with us. She wrote to me that Maneck hates his college hostel, he is desperate to move. I just want to be sure we pick a good character."

"All these train fares are a waste of money," said Dina, not listening. She wanted her friend's approval to abandon the soul-draining journeys.

"But just think once you find two tailors, how easy your life will be. You want to give up your independence and live with Nusswan or what?"

"Don't even joke about it." The prospect persuaded her to continue to leave her address at more and more shops. She felt like the lost children in that fairy tale whose t.i.tle had slipped her mind, leaving a trail of bread, hoping to be rescued. But birds had devoured the bread. Would she ever be saved, she wondered, or would her trail of paper be devoured, by the wind, by the black sewer sludge, by the hungry army of paper-collectors roaming the streets with their sacks?

Tired and discouraged, she entered a lane where a rivulet of waste water flowed down the middle. Vegetable peelings, cigarette b.u.t.ts, eggsh.e.l.ls bobbed along the surface. A little further, the lane narrowed and turned almost entirely into a gutter. Children were floating paper boats in the effluent, chasing them down the lethargic current. Planks had been thrown across to form walkways into shops and houses. When a boat sailed under a plank, emerging safely on the other side, the children clapped with glee.