A Fine Balance (7 page)

During the course of the evening he produced four bottles of Scotch whisky to general applause. “Now we will put some life in the evening, and into this newly married pair!” said the men to one another, with much nodding and laughter, and the whispering of things not meant for women’s ears.

“Okay, brother-in-law,” said Nusswan, clinking two empty glasses before Rustom. “You’re the expert, better start mixing a dose of Johnnie Walker medicine for everyone.”

“Sure,” said Rustom good-naturedly, and took the glasses.

“Just joking, just joking,” said Nusswan, holding on to the bottle. “How can the bridegroom be allowed to work at his own wedding?” It was his only pharmaceutical dig during the evening.

An hour after the Scotch was taken, Ruby went to the kitchen; it was time to serve dinner. The dining table had been moved against the wall and set up for a buffet. The caterer’s men staggered in with hot, heavy dishes, calling “Side please! Side please!” to get through. Everyone reverently made way for the food.

The aromas that had been filling the house with appetizing hints all evening, teasing nostrils and taunting palates, suddenly overwhelmed the gathering. A hush fell across the room. Someone chuckled loudly that where Parsis were concerned, food was number one, conversation came second. Whereupon someone else corrected him: no, no, conversation came third, and the second thing couldn’t be mentioned with ladies and children present. Those within earshot rewarded the worn-out joke with hearty laughter.

Ruby clapped her hands: “Okay, everybody! Dinner is served! Please help yourselves and don’t be shy, there is lots of food!” She hovered around to play the host in the time-honoured fashion, repeating regretfully before each guest, “Please forgive us, we could manage nothing worthy of you.”

“What are you saying, Ruby, it all looks wonderful,” they replied. While helping themselves, they took the opportunity to inquire after her pregnancy and when she was expecting.

Nusswan examined the plates that passed before him, lightheartedly scolding the guests who took too little. “What’s this, Mina, you must be joking. Even my pet sparrow would go hungry with this quantity.” He spooned more biryani for Mina. “Wait, Hosa, wait, one more kabab, it’s delicious, believe me, one more, come on, be a sport,” and deftly plopped two onto the reluctant plate. “Come back for more, promise?”

When everyone had served themselves, Dina noticed Rustom’s Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle on the verandah, a little secluded from the rest, and went to them. “Please eat well. Have you taken enough?”

“More than enough, my child, more than enough. The food is delicious.” Shirin Aunty beckoned to bring her closer, and beckoned again, to make her bend till Dina’s ear was close to her mouth. “If you ever need anything – remember, anything at all, you can come to me and Darab.”

And Darab Uncle nodded; his hearing was very sharp. “Whatever the problem. We are like Rustom’s parents. And you are like our daughter.”

“Thank you,” said Dina, understanding that this was more than a customary welcoming speech from the other side. She sat with them while they ate. Near the dining table Nusswan, miming with plate and fork, signalled to her to get some food for herself. Yes, later, she mimed back, and stayed with Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle, who watched her with adoring eyes as they ate.

A few guests still remained when Nusswan gave the caterer’s men the go-ahead for the cleanup. The lingerers got the hint and said their thanks and goodbyes.

On the way out, someone clutched Rustom’s lapel and giggled, whispering with whisky breath that the bride and groom were fortunate not to have a mother-in-law on either side. “Not fair, not fair! No one to question you whether the equipment worked on the first night, you lucky rascal! No one to inspect the bedsheet, hahn!” He prodded Rustom in the stomach with one finger. “You’re getting off very lightly!”

“Good night, everybody,” said Nusswan and Ruby. “Good night, good night. Thank you very much for coming.”

When the last guest had departed, Rustom said, “That was a lovely evening. Thank you both for arranging it.”

“Yes, it really was, thank you very much,” added Dina.

“You’re welcome – most welcome,” said Nusswan, and Ruby nodded. “It was our duty.”

Originally, Dina and Rustom had agreed with Nusswan’s suggestion to spend the night there. Then they realized that the rooms would have to be put back in order after the party. So it was more convenient to go straight to Rustom’s flat.

“Now don’t worry about anything, these fellows will clear up, that’s what they are paid for,” said Nusswan. “You two carry on.” He gave them both a hug. It was the second time that day for Dina. The first time had been in the morning, after the dustoorji had finished reciting the wedding benediction; it had also been the first time in seven years.

A small lump came to her throat. She swallowed as Nusswan quickly passed his fingers over his eyes. “Wish you lots of happiness,” he said.

Dina fetched a valise that was packed and ready for the night. The rest of her things would be delivered later. Nusswan was going to let her have some furniture from their parents’ possessions. He accompanied them down the cobbled walkway to a taxi and waved goodbye. She noticed with surprise that his voice quavered as he said, “All the best! God bless you!”

They woke up late the next morning. Rustom had taken a week’s leave from work, though they couldn’t afford to go anywhere on a honeymoon.

Dina made tea in the gloomy kitchen while he watched anxiously. The kitchen was the dingiest room in the flat, its ceiling and plaster blackened by smoke. Rustom’s mother had cooked over coal fires all her life. Her brief acquaintance with kerosene had not been propitious – there had been a spill, and flames, and burns down her thighs; coal was more obedient, she had concluded.

Rustom had wanted to paint the kitchen before the wedding, along with the other rooms, but the money had refused to stretch that far. He began to apologize for the flat’s condition. “You are not used to living like this. Just look at these horrible walls.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s fine,” she said happily. “We’ll get it painted later.”

Perhaps it was due to her presence in the flat, unusual at breakfast time, but he began detecting new deficiencies around him. “After my parents died I got rid of things. Seemed like clutter to me. I was planning to live like a sadhu, you see, with only my violin for company. Instead of a bed of nails, the screeching of catgut to mortify myself.”

“Are the strings really made of cat intestines?”

“Used to be, in the olden days. And in the very olden days, violinists had to go out and hunt down their own strings. There were no music shops then, like L. M. Furtado or Godin & Company. At all the great conservatories of Europe, they taught music as well as animal evisceration.”

“Now don’t be silly so early in the morning,” she scolded, but his bizarre humour was what she liked most about him.

“Anyway, I have found my beautiful angel, and the sadhu days are over. The catgut can take a rest.”

“I enjoy your playing. You should practise more.”

“Are you joking? I sound worse than the fellow last week at Patkar Hall. And he played as though his f-holes were blocked.”

“Chhee, how filthy!”

He laughed at the face she made. “I can’t help it – that’s what they are called. Come, let me show you my f-holes.” He took the violin case down from the top of the cupboard. “See the shape of the two openings in the soundboard?”

“Oh, it looks just like a running-hand f.” She traced the curves with a finger, and touched the strings gently. “Play something while you have it open.”

He shut the case and, rising slightly on his toes, slipped it on top of the cupboard. “Play, play, play – that’s what my parents used to say.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I wish I had at least kept their double bed.” Then he asked shyly, “Were you comfortable last night?”

“Oh yes.” She blushed at the fresh memory of the narrow single bed in which they had clung together.

After a breakfast of an omelette and buttered toast, he opened the front door and said there was a surprise for her. “It was too dark to show you last night.”

“What is it?”

“You have to step outside.”

She saw the new brass nameplate gleaming in sunlight, engraved Mr. & Mrs. Rustom K. Dalai. He basked in the pleasure it gave her. “Day before yesterday is when I screwed it on.”

“It looks lovely.”

“Changing the nameplate was easy,” he chuckled. “It’s much more difficult to change the name on the rent receipt.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rent is collected in my father’s name though he’s been dead for nine years. The landlord hopes I will get impatient, offer money to transfer the flat to my name. He keeps hinting.”

“Are you going to?”

“Of course not. There’s nothing he can do, the Rent Act protects us. It doesn’t matter in whose name the rent receipt is issued. And you are entitled to live here too, as my wife. Even if I were to die tomorrow.”

“Rustom! Don’t say such things!”

He laughed. “When the rent-collector comes with the receipt in my father’s name, sometimes I feel like telling him to go up, to heaven, to the renter’s new address.”

Dina rested her head against his shoulder. “For me, heaven is in this flat.”

Rustom drew her close and hugged her. “For me too.” Then he gave the nameplate another shine with his sleeve. While they were admiring it, two handcarts rolled up and stopped by their door, laden with things from the Shroff residence.

At first, Rustom had arranged for a small lorry because Dina had requested Nusswan to let her have Daddy’s huge wardrobe, the one with the carved rosewood canopy of a sunburst and flowers. She would forgo everything else, she said, for this one item. Nusswan promised to consider it but refused in the end. He said that squeezing the wardrobe through the narrow door of Rustom’s flat would damage it, the scratches would be unfair to their father’s memory, and, besides, its proportions wouldn’t suit the tiny rooms.

So he let her have another cupboard, smaller and plainer, a little desk, and twin beds. There was also a large box of kitchen utensils that Ruby had put together after discreetly inquiring whether Rustom’s kitchen was properly equipped. To get them started, she included pots and pans, a stove, some cutlery, a board and a rolling pin.

The two handcarts were unloaded and the twin beds assembled. One of the carters offered to buy the old single. Rustom let him have it for thirty rupees, and got ten for the mattress from the other man.

As Dina watched them carry it away, he said, “I know what you’re thinking. But this flat has no space for an extra bed.” She wondered how close they would sleep that night, now that there were twin beds.

But one of the two was as good as unslept in when they woke on their second morning. Reassured, she spent the day getting her new home organized the way she wanted it. First, she gave notice to Seva Sadan, terminating delivery of Rustom’s evening meals. And for lunch, she would pack something for him when he returned to work the following week.

“No more nonsense of eating out or not eating at all,” she said, and climbed up on a chair to examine the high shelf in the kitchen. She discovered a series of brass and copper vessels, a kettle, and a set of kitchen knives.

“Those are all gone bad,” said Rustom. “I’ve been meaning to sell them for scrap. Tomorrow, I promise.”

“Don’t be silly, these are solid old things. They can be repaired and tinned. Nowadays you can’t buy such quality.”

The next time a tinker yelled outside their window, she called him to fix the leaking vessels and rivet the broken handle of the kettle. She watched to make sure he did the work properly. As he finished each pot, she took it to the bathroom and tested it with water.

The knife-grinder went by with his wheel slung over his shoulder. The tinker stopped hammering while she clapped twice to get his attention.

The dull blades soon began glinting with sharp edges. She relished the energy, the attention, the pounding and banging that went into getting her household shipshape for decades of wedded bliss with Rustom. A lifetime had to be crafted, just like anything else, she thought, it had to be moulded and beaten and burnished in order to get the most out of it.

The knife-grinder averted his face as sparks flew from the spinning grindstone. Like Divali fireworks, she thought, while the tinker’s hammer blows rang gaily in her ears.

D
ina and Rustom celebrated their first wedding anniversary by going to the cinema and dining out. They saw
Submarine Command
, starring William Holden, who played an American naval commander in Korea. They held hands during the film and, afterwards, ate chicken biryani at the Wayside Inn.

The following year Dina wanted to see something less grim. So they picked Bing Crosby’s
High Society
, a brand-new release. She had bought a new frock for the occasion, blue, with a vivacious peplum that came alive with walking.

“I don’t know if you should wear that,” said Rustom, coming up behind her and stroking her hips.