Diamond Dust (7 page)

Never. Never would Mr Das do such a thing to his Diamond. If his family and friends only knew what names he thought up for the puppy, for the dog, in secret, in private—he did not exactly blush but he did laugh to himself, a little sheepishly. And yet his eyes shone when he saw how Diamond's coat gleamed as he streaked across the park after a chipmunk, or when he greeted the dog on his return from work before greeting Mrs Das, his grandchildren, or anyone at all, with the joyful cry, 'Diamond, my friend!'

Mrs Das had had a premonition—had she not known Mr Das since she had been a fourteen-year-old bride, he a nineteen-year-old bridegroom?—when she saw him bring that puppy home, cuddling it in his old brown jumper, lowering his voice to a whisper and his step to a tiptoe, as if afraid of alarming the sleeping creature. 'Get some warm milk—don't heat it too much—just warm it a little—and get some cotton wool.' She had stared at him. 'Not even about our own children, not even your first-born son, or your grandchildren, have you made so, much of as of that dog,' she had told him then.

She repeated it, not once, or twice, or thrice, but at regular intervals throughout that shining stretch of Mr Das's life when Diamond evolved from a round, glossy cocoon into a trembling, faltering fat puppy that bent its weak legs and left puddles all over Mrs Das's clean, fresh floors, and then into an awkwardly—so lovably awkwardly—lumbering young dog that Mr Das led around on a leash across the dusty maidan of Bharti Nagar, delighting in the children who came up to admire the creature but politely fearful of those who begged, 'Uncle, let me hold him! Let me take him for a walk, Uncle!' Only in the Lodi Gardens did he dare slip Diamond off his leash for the joy of seeing him race across that lawn after chipmunks that scurried up trees, furiously chattering and whisking their tails in indignation while Diamond sat at the foot of the tree, whining, his eyes lustrous with desire. 'Diamond, Diamond,' Mr Das would call, and lumbering up to him, would fondle his head, his ears and murmur words of love to entice him away from the scolding creatures in the leaves.

But there were times when Mr Das went beyond that, times that his friends and colleagues whom he met daily on their morning walks were astounded, if not scandalised, to witness, so much so that they could hardly speak of it to each other. Mr Das had so clearly taken leave of his senses, and it made them worry: how could a reputable government servant, a colleague, fall so low? They had caught him, as portly and stiff as any of them, romping ridiculously in a rose garden enclosed by crumbling, half-ruined walls that he had imagined hid him from view, chasing or letting himself be chased around the rose beds by a wild-with-excitement dog whose barks rent the peace of the morning park. They hardly knew how to tell him he was making a fool of himself. Instead, settling down on a bench in the shade of a neem tree and with a view of the Lodi tombs, watching parrots emerge from the alcoves and shoot up into the brilliant summer air, they discussed it between themselves gravely, and with distaste, as became their age and station—the decent, elderly civil servants with a life of service and sobriety behind them.

'There was that time Raman Kutty's grandchild was visiting him from Madras, and he would bring her to the park. He would even push the pram, like an ayah. During that visit, he couldn't speak of anything, or say anything but "Look, she has a new tooth," or "See her sucking her toe, so sweet." And that child, with its crossed eyes—'

'Tch, tch,' another reproved him for his ill-mannered outburst.

But the outburst was really occasioned by Mr Das, and the sight they had all had of him kicking up his heels like a frolicking goat in the rose garden, oblivious of the gardeners who sat on their haunches in the shade, smoking and keeping a vigilant eye on their rose beds.

'Look, here he comes with that wretched beast,' C. P. Biswas cried out. He was never in very good humour in the mornings; they all knew it had to do with his digestive system and its discomforts: they had often come upon him seated in the waiting room of the homeopath's clinic which was open to the marketplace and in full view of those who shopped there for their eggs and vegetables. 'I think he should be told. What do you say, should we tell him?'

'Tell him what, C. P.?' asked the mild-mannered A. P. Bose.

'That such behaviour is not at all becoming!' exclaimed C. P. Biswas. 'After all, a civil servant—serving in the Department of Mines and Minerals—what will people say?'

'Who?'

'Who? Look, there is the Under Secretary walking over there with his wife. What if he sees? Or the retired Joint Secretary who is doing his yoga exercises over there by the tank. You think they don't know him? He has to be told—we are here to remind him.'

Unfortunately Mr Das chose not to join them that morning. He walked smartly past them, hanging onto Diamond's leash and allowing Diamond to drag him forward at a pace more suited to a youth of twenty, and an athletic one at that. He merely waved at his friends, seeing them arranged in a row on the bench, and, clearly not intending to join their sedate company, disappeared behind a magnificent grove of bamboos that twittered madly with mynah birds.

C. P. Biswas was beginning to rumble and threaten to explode but A. P. Bose drew out the morning newspaper from his briefcase, unclasped the pen from his pocket, and tactfully asked for help in completing the day's crossword puzzle.

Of course their disapproval was as nothing compared to that of Mrs Das who did not merely observe Mr Das's passion from a distance but was obliged to live with it. It was she who had to mop up the puddles from her gleaming floors when Diamond was a puppy, she who had to put up with the reek of dog in a home that had so far been aired and cleaned and sunned and swept and dusted till one could actually see the walls and floors thinning from the treatment to which they had been subjected. Her groans and exclamations as she swept up (or, rather, had the little servant girl sweep up) tufts of dog's hair from her rugs—and sometimes even her sofas and armchairs—were loud and rang with lament. Of course she refused to go to the butcher's shop for buffalo meat for the dog—she would not go near that stinking hellhole on the outskirts of the marketplace, and Mr Das had to brave its bloody, reeking, fly-coated territory himself, clutching a striped plastic bag close to him with one hand and pressing a thickly folded handkerchief to his nose with the other—but, still, she had to sacrifice one of her cooking pots to it, and tolerate the bubbling and frothing of the meat stew on the back burner of her stove. During the hour that it took, she would retreat to the veranda and sit there in a wicker chair, fanning herself with melodramatic flair.

'But do you want the dog to starve? Do you think a dog such as Diamond can be brought up on bread and milk?' Mr Das pleaded. 'How would he grow? How would he live?'

'Why not? I have heard even of tigers being fed on milk. It is true. Absolutely. Don't give me those looks, D. P. There was a yogi in Jubbulpore when I was a girl, he lived in a cave outside the city, with a pet tiger, and it was said he fed it only on milk. He brought it to town on festival days, I saw it with my own eyes. It was healthy, that milk-fed tiger, and as harmless as a kitten.'

'But I am not a yogi and Diamond is not a yogi's pet. What about that cat you had? Did it not kill sparrows and eat fish?'

'My
cat was the cleanest creature this earth has ever known!' Mrs Das cried, holding the fan to her breast for a moment, in tribute to the deceased pet. 'Yes, she enjoyed a little fish from my plate—but she ate so neatly, so cleanly—' 'But fish, wasn't it? And sparrows? You see, an animal's nature cannot be changed simply because it is domesticated, Sheila. That tiger you speak of, it is quite possible that one day it turned upon the yogi and made a meal of him—'

'What are you saying?' Mrs Das cried, and began to flutter her fan again. 'That yogi lived to be a hundred years old!' And Mr Das went off, muttering disbelievingly, to dish out the meat stew for Diamond in an earthenware bowl in the courtyard and then carefully shut the kitchen door behind him so Diamond could not drag one of the bones into the house to chew on a rug as he very much liked to do and would do if not prevented.

The children of the neighbourhood were more appreciative, and properly admiring, than his wife, Mr Das felt as he walked Diamond past the small stucco villas set in their gardens of mango trees and oleander hedges, attracting flocks of them as he went. But he was not so besotted or blinded as to ignore the need always to have Diamond firmly secured on his leash when children were around. He was not unaware that once he had turned his back, or if they had come upon Diamond when he was not around, they were quite capable of arousing the dog to a frenzy by teasing him. 'We were only playing, Uncle!' they would cry reproachfully after Diamond had broken loose and chased them until they fell sprawling in the dust, or even nipped at their heels as they ran. 'That is
not
how to play with a dog,' he reproved them severely. 'You must
not
wave a stick at him. You must
not
pick up a stone. You must
not
run—'

'If we don't run, he'll bite, Uncle! See, he bit Ranu on her heel—'

'Nonsense,' he retorted, 'that's only a scratch,' and Mr Das walked quickly away, Diamond held closely, protectively, at his side.

That was in the days of Diamond's innocent youth. Diamond was only in training then for what was to come—his career as a full-fledged badmash, the terror of the neighbourhood. There followed a period when Diamond became the subject of scandal: the postman made a complaint. We had only to appear and Diamond would rear up on his hind legs, bellowing for blood. Nor was it just an empty threat, that bellowing: he had chased the poor man right across the maidan, making him drop his bag filled with mail as he raced for shelter from Diamond's slavering jaws and snapping teeth. The dog had actually torn a strip off his trouser leg, the trousers the postal service had given him for a uniform. How was he to explain it? Who was going to replace it? he demanded furiously, standing on the Das's veranda and displaying the tattered garment as proof.

Mr Das paid up. But even so, their mail was no longer inserted in the mailbox nailed to the door but flung into their hedge from afar. 'The dog is locked up, what harm can he do you through the door?' Mr Das pleaded after Mrs Das complained that she had found a letter from her daughter lying in the road outside, and only by luck had her eye caught Chini's handwriting. It was the letter that informed them of their son-in-law's recent promotion and transfer, too; what if it had been lost? 'That dog of yours,' said the postman, 'his voice heard through the door alone is enough to finish off a man,' and continued to use the hedge as a mailbox. Who knew how many more of Chini's delightful and comforting letters to her mother were lost and abandoned because of this? 'Is he a man or a mouse?' Mr Das fumed.

It was not only the postman Diamond detested and chased off his territory: it was anyone at all in uniform—officials of the board of electricity come to check the meter, telephone lines repairmen come to restore the line after a dust storm had disrupted it; even the garbage could not be collected from the Das's compound because it drove Diamond absolutely insane with rage to see the men in their khaki uniforms leap down from the truck and reach through the back gate for the garbage can to carry its contents off to their truck; he behaved as if the men were bandits, as if the family treasure was being looted. Charging at the gate, he would hurl himself against it, then rear up on his hind legs so he could look over it and bark at them with such hysteria that the noise rang through the entire neighbourhood. It was small comfort that 'No thief dare approach our house,' as Mr Das said proudly when anyone remarked on his dog's temper; they looked at him as if to say, 'Why talk of thieves, why not of innocent people doing their jobs who are being threatened by that beast?' Of course Mrs Das did say it.

Later, disgracefully, Diamond's phobia went so far as to cause him to chase children in their neat grey shorts and white shirts, their white frocks and red ties and white gym shoes as they made their way to school. That was the worst of all for Mr Das—the parents who climbed the steps to the Das's veranda, quivering with indignation, to report Diamond's attacks upon their young and tender offspring, so traumatised now by the dog that they feared to cross the maidan to the school bus stop without adult protection, and even had to be fetched from there in the afternoon when they returned.

'One day, Das, you will find the police following up on our complaints if you fail to pay attention to them. And then who can tell what they will do to your pet?' That was the large and intemperate Mr Singh, who could not tolerate even a mosquito to approach his curly-headed and darling baba.

Mr Das mopped his brow and sweated copiously in fear and shame. 'That will not happen,' he insisted. 'I can promise you Diamond will do nothing you can report to the police—'

'If he tears my child limb from limb, you think the police will not act, Das?' flared up the parent in a voice of doom.

The neighbours stopped short of actually making a report. It was—had been—a friendly, peaceful neighbourhood, after all, built for government officials of a certain cadre: all the men had their work in common, many were colleagues in the same ministries, and it would not do to have any enmity or public airing of personal quarrels. It was quite bad enough when their wives quarrelled or children or servants carried gossip from one household to another, but such things could not be allowed to get out of control. Propriety, decorum, standards of behaviour: these had to be maintained. If they failed, what would become of Bharti Nagar, of society?

Also, some of them were moved to a kind of pity. It was clear to them—as to Mr Das's friends in the Lodi Gardens—that he had taken leave of his senses where Diamond was concerned. When Diamond, in chase of a bitch in heat in the neighbouring locality, disappeared for five days one dreadful summer, and Mr Das was observed walking the dusty streets in the livid heat of June, hatless, abject, crying, 'Diamond! Diamond! Diamond!' over garden walls and down empty alleys, in the filthy outskirts of the marketplace, and even along the reeking canal where disease lurked and no sensible person strayed, they could only feel sorry for him. Even the children who had earlier taken up against Diamond—for very good reason, it should be added—came up to Mr Das as he stumbled along on his search mission, and offered, 'We'll help you, Uncle. We'll search for Diamond too, Uncle.' Unfortunately, when this band of juvenile detectives caught up with Diamond in the alley behind the Ambassador Hotel, they caught him
in flagrante delicto
and witnessed Mr Das's strenuous exertions to separate his pet from its partner, a poor, pale, pathetic creature who bore all the sorry marks of a rape victim. The children went home and reported it all to their families, in graphic detail. The parents' disapproval was so thick, and so stormy, it was weeks before the air cleared over Bharti Nagar. But it was nothing compared to the drama of Mrs Das's reaction: sari corner held over her nose, hand over her mouth, she stood up holding a rolled newspaper in her hand as weapon and refused to let the beast into the house till Mr Das had taken him around to the tap in the courtyard at the back, and washed, soaped, shampooed, rinsed, powdered, groomed and combed the creature into a semblance of a domestic pet.