A Fine Balance (11 page)

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 relinquishing the library.

At L. M. Furtado & Co., Mr. Mascarenhas was supervising the cleanup of the large plate-glass 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 fashionably tight pants and a bright yellow shirt with the top three buttons left undone, returned to the van to fetch the item. Dina wondered if it might be the violin. Six months had passed 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 passed, 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 superstitious 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 passed in this manner. Then, right on schedule, Shirin Aunty’s prophecy came to pass. 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 butterflies.

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 Zenobia 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 Zenobia. “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 Zenobia 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 Zenobia, the talent is hers. I only supply raw material.”

They laughed, and Zenobia 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 blush!” squeaked Mrs. Gupta.

Discussing the magic of imported shampoos and hairsprays, Zenobia 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 Zenobia’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 fashions,” confessed Dina, and Zenobia frowned at her. “Only simple clothes. Children’s frocks, school uniforms, pyjamas.”

“This is also simple,” assured Mrs. Gupta. “All you have to do is follow the paper patterns as you follow your nose.”

“Exactly,” said Zenobia, 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 Zenobia. “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 Zenobia’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, Zenobia 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 harassed.”

But as her meagre savings dwindled, she relented. Zenobia assured 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.