Family Matters (13 page)

“Any suggestions?”

Jal was apologetic. “It wouldn’t be right for us to reorganize your home. You should decide.”

“You think so? Wait, there’s still the kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet to inspect. And don’t forget the passage by the wc – could be a place there, near the rice and wheat and sugar and kerosene.”

“Listen, Roxana, you can stop being silly now,” said Coomy.

“What about you two? You keep Pappa’s accident a secret for the whole week, then you come suddenly in the middle of the day when Yezad is at work —”

“Why do you need Yezad? This is your house, your father’s money paid for it. Besides, you already have Yezad’s permission.”

“What?”

“Remember Pappa’s birthday? The walking stick you gave him? That day I said to you and Yezad, if Pappa has an accident on one of his walks, I will bring him straight to Pleasant Villa. And with his big mouth Yezad said sure, welcome any time. Now how welcome is your attitude?”

“Aren’t you ashamed to say that? You know I would do anything for Pappa. But to twist a joke like that?”

“Everything is jokes for you and Yezad,” said Coomy. “You are experts at laughing and having fun.”

“That’s exactly why Pappa needs to be here,” pleaded Jal. “Yezad’s talent for laughter is the medicine for Pappa.”

“It won’t be a laughing matter if the depression finishes him,” said Coomy darkly. “Dr. Tarapore told us, with old people depression kills before illness or injury. And it will be on your heads. Your laughing heads.”

“Please, no fighting,” said Jal. “Let’s discuss calmly.”

“Well,” said Coomy, “there’s nothing left to discuss, thank you very much.” The time was right to play her trump card. “We’ll just have to turn the ambulance around.”

Roxana ran confusedly to the balcony, froze to the railing for a moment, and ran inside again. “That ambulance – you mean Pappa is in it? You left him alone in his condition?”

His mother’s sobs got Jehangir out of bed. A big loop of his pyjama string was showing. He tucked it away and went to the front room to stand beside her, slipping his hand in hers, fixing his uncle and aunt with what he hoped was a reproachful stare.

“Don’t overreact, Roxie, Pappa is very comfortable, we paid for a top-notch ambulance,” said Coomy. “Sit down for a minute.”

Tears blurring her eyes, Roxana shook her hand free of Jehangir’s and started down the stairs at full speed. Descending with more caution, Jal called frantically to please slow down.

“All we need is for you to break your ankle!” shouted Coomy.

Jehangir shut the door after them and went to the balcony. On the third floor directly opposite, the green parrot in its cage was shuffling and swaying dementedly from side to side. He whistled to it, inspecting the rooms he could see into. Other people’s homes always seemed happier, more fun than his own.

He looked down at the waiting ambulance. A few neighbours had gathered on the pavement, including Villie Cardmaster from next door, whom Daddy called the Matka Queen because everyone went to her for advice about which Matka numbers to play. Mummy said Matka was a bad thing; she thought it terrible that a woman should not only gamble openly, but encourage others. She didn’t like Villie Aunty very much.

He saw his mother emerge from the building and run past the little group. He saw Villie Aunty’s arm go out as though to reassure her. His mother ignored it, wrenched open the rear door of the ambulance, and disappeared inside.

Kneeling beside the stretcher, Roxana held her father’s hand and stroked his head.

“Don’t worry, my child. I’m all right.”

She bent her head to kiss him. His pungent odour repelled her, but she fought the impulse to move away. She wondered how well they had been looking after him.

“This idea was not mine,” he whispered. “They promised to talk to you and Yezad before bringing me.”

“I know, Pappa.” She stroked his lightly stubbled chin and gave it a gentle squeeze.

He smiled. “You too? What is it with my chin?”

She squeezed again. “Sometimes our children teach us nice things.”

Meanwhile, Jal and Coomy had arrived on the ground floor, where the gathering of neighbours was temporarily distracted by a stranger in the lobby whom they had surprised in the act of noting down names from the building directory. His furtive manner made them suspicious. Confronted, he said he was working for a company that conducted market surveys, then slipped away.

Rubbish, they declared after he’d gone, he didn’t look like a market surveyor. Villie Cardmaster said he was most likely from Shiv Sena, listing names and addresses – that’s how they had singled out Muslim homes during the Babri Mosque riots. Probably planning ahead for next time.

“Chalo,” said Coomy to the ambulancemen, loud enough to be heard inside the ambulance. “Take a U-turn, there is no space here for the patient.”

Roxana jumped out from the back. “Wait,” she said to the driver. “Please take him to the third floor.”

“Are you sure?” asked Coomy. “Have you decided where to put Pappa?”

Roxana snapped at the men who were looking at Coomy for confirmation, “Come on, hurry.”

Coomy nodded at them, pointing upstairs. Then one attendant climbed in, the other grasped the handles at the tail end, and the stretcher emerged from the vehicle. Nariman covered his eyes, squinting against the bright sky.

“Sorry for the delay, Pappa,” said Jal. “We gave Roxie a scare, because it was a total surprise.”

“She had every right to be scared,” said Coomy generously. “But there is not the slightest need to worry, Pappa is fine. See, Roxie?” She lifted the sheet to show her the cast. The hovering neighbours came closer with sympathetic murmurs.

“Upstairs, double-quick,” said Jal. “Before these ambulancevalas fall asleep. If they drop Pappa, it will be like Humpty Dumpty.”

He chuckled alone. Like a policeman directing traffic, he gestured to the men and they moved forward, noisy in their floppy chappals. Their steps were heavy on the stone stairs, the leather delivering a sharp slap with each footfall.

On the landing halfway to the first floor, they discovered it was not wide enough for the stretcher to turn. They tried squeezing through by tilting the stretcher, and Nariman clutched hard at the sides as he shifted sharply.

“Aray, watch it!” shouted Jal from behind. “You want to throw the patient down the stairs?”

An argument broke out, the ambulancemen saying that the only way to continue was to pass the stretcher over the banister with the help of Jal and the women. Roxana thought this was extremely dangerous, and pleaded with Coomy to return home with Pappa, promising to spend every other night there to look after him, relieve her of the duties.

But the stretcher was hoisted high, the pass made over the banister, and the manoeuvre completed. It was repeated twice more to reach the third floor. Jehangir was waiting at the door to receive them.

“Move, dikra,” said Coomy. “Make way for the men.”

“Is Grandpa okay?”

“Yes,” she assured him with a pat on the head. “Go on, ask Grandpa, he can talk perfectly. Only his ankle is broken. Now, Roxie, where do you want to put Pappa? You must choose before these fellows leave, we can’t shift him later.”

“Pappa will take Jehangir’s bed – the settee. Okay, Jehangir?”

“Sure.” He thought Grandpa looked very small on the stretcher, and was relieved to see him smile and whisper thanks. “You’re welcome, Grandpa.”

“My suitcase and bedpan are still downstairs,” said Nariman, addressing no one in particular.

“I’ll fetch them,” said Coomy, anxious to be out of the way.

The ambulancemen had difficulty getting Nariman onto the settee. It was narrower than a bed, and there was no room to position the stretcher for a smooth transfer. They had to leave it on the floor and lift him over.

“Aah!” he cried, and Roxana’s hand sprang to her mouth. She shouted to be more careful.

Jal paid the men and saw them to the door. He pulled up a chair next to the settee and took Nariman’s hand, stroking it comfortingly. “Hope it wasn’t too strenuous, Pappa. You know, Roxie, he is a brave soldier, not once has he groaned or moaned in all these days.”

“Not so brave. I groaned quite a lot with the commode.”

Roxana wanted to know what was this commode business, if Pappa was not to move from his bed?

Breathless, Coomy entered with the suitcase and the newspaper-wrapped package of urinal and bedpan, cursing the broken lift. She was miffed by the question she overheard: “What do you think, we did it to torture Pappa? We were hoping commode would be more comfortable for him.”

“It was a mistake,” said Jal. “Mistakes happen when you don’t know.”

Before leaving, they explained the medicines for Parkinson’s disease, osteoporosis, and hypotension. Roxana decided to write down the dosage and frequency for the various pills and drops.

“It’s okay, I know it by heart,” said Nariman.

Coomy took her aside and whispered not to rely on him. “He forgets, and sometimes gets mixed up with his words.”

They said goodbye with good cheer, Jal joking that in three weeks they would organize a race between Pappa and Jehangir. “We’ll have to give Pappa a good handicap, or Jehangir will stand no chance.”

Coomy said it would be lonely in the big flat without him. “Come home soon, Pappa.” She kissed his cheek, then waved from the doorway.

The first thing was to air out the room, said Coomy upon returning to Chateau Felicity. She felt the smell had reached every part of the house, including the kitchen.

“How could it?” Jal tried to reason. “It’s not that strong.”

“Maybe you’re losing your smelling power, along with your hearing. You should ask Doctor to check.” She opened the windows and doors of all seven rooms, and turned on every fan, dusty or not. Dust would be dealt with later.

“How strange,” she said, after an hour or more had elapsed. “I still smell it – even in Mamma’s room, so far from Pappa’s.”

“Probably stuck in your head. More psychological than real.”

“If I can smell it and it bothers me, does it matter where it is?”

“Yes. If it’s in your head, nothing will get rid of it. Like the damned spot on Lady Macbeth’s hand, remember? All the perfumes of Arabia, all your swabbing and scrubbing and mopping and scouring will not remove it.”

She told him the smell was irritating enough without his silly comments. “You sound like Pappa, so gloomy and theatrical. Come on, help me with the work.”

They spent the afternoon giving Nariman’s room a thorough cleaning. His bed linen was left to soak in a bucket of suds, the waterproof rubber sheet in another. The window curtains were taken down. Everything in the room – the night table, chest of drawers, cupboard, window frame, door, ceiling light-shade and bulb – all of it was wiped down with Dettol solution and dried.

When evening came Jal said he had had enough. He sat in the twilit drawing-room while she worked on.

Around eight, she came in to ask if eggs-on-potatoes would be okay for dinner. The room was almost in full darkness.

“I’m not hungry, just make enough for yourself.”

But she didn’t want any either. “I know, let’s have my raspberry sarbut. We’re too tired to eat, a drink will be good for us.” She reached for the light switch on the way out. He requested her to leave it off.

Back with the drinks, she thought she heard her brother sighing in the dark. She put the tray down and turned on a table lamp. “Jal? What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

She sat across him and gave him a glass. “Come on, drink, it will refresh you. It’s the strain of these last few days, I feel the same way.”

He shook his head again.

“What have we done, Coomy?”

“Nothing, we haven’t done anything. Stop being a sissy-baby.”

But she was feeling equally wretched. By sheer force of will she swallowed a sip, then said, “It had to be done. We had no choice.”

She ran out of words and switched off the table lamp.

A
FTER HER FURY AGAINST
Jal and Coomy had abated, Roxana began to worry about Yezad. He enjoyed Pappa’s company and sense of humour, sure, but family get-togethers only occurred at modest intervals, lasted a few hours, nothing so demanding like three weeks of bed-bound convalescence.

“Hope Yezad won’t mind,” said Nariman.

“He won’t.” Could Pappa really read her thoughts, as he used to claim when she was a child? She moistened his face with a wet towel and dried it.

“Grandpa, you smell like Murad does after playing cricket,” said Jehangir, wrinkling his nose.

“Don’t be rude,” said his mother.

Nariman smiled. “I’ve been clean bowled. Or maybe it was leg before wicket.”

She apologized that there was not enough water for a full sponge bath, and promised to save a bucket for tomorrow.

“I told you this morning, don’t force me to take a bath,” said Jehangir.

“Oh, so you knew Grandpa was coming? Boy is getting too smart, Pappa. Good thing you’re here to straighten him out. Come on, you, stop laughing, get the talcum for Grandpa.”

He was back in an instant with the tin of Cinthol powder, watching as his mother eased off the stale shirt and sudra. Grandpa’s skin hung loose on his arms and abdomen. On his chest it formed two pouches, shrivelled breasts. Two little balloons from which all air had escaped. The hair on them like wisps of white thread.

Roxana crumpled the sudra to wipe the sweat from her father’s back and armpits. She shook powder from the tin and rubbed briskly, again lamenting the lack of water. Then she fished a clean sudra and shirt from the jumble in the suitcase and helped him into them.

“Thank you. I feel fresh as a daisy.”

“You won’t say that if you meet our ground-floor Daisy, Pappa, the way she sweats when practising violin.” She took the smelly clothes from the room, setting them aside in a pail for tomorrow’s laundry. “Chalo, lunchtime. I’ve made some light soup-chaaval for Jehangoo’s upset tummy, you can share that.”

She filled a plate for her son and called him to the table; her father’s helping was in a bowl. “Easier for you, Pappa. I’ll hold it if you like.”

He put his hands out to receive the food, and rested its weight on his stomach. The cornflower-patterned bowl rose and fell with his breathing.

“It moves like a boat, Grandpa,” observed Jehangir. “Your stomach is making waves for it.”

“So long as no one gets seasick,” said Nariman, barely avoiding a spill as he raised a spoonful to his lips.

“Did Coomy forget your medicine this morning?” asked Roxana.

“I took my pill,” he murmured, surrendering the bowl and spoon. “It’s been a lot of exertion for one day, that’s all. Tomorrow will be fine.”

Jehangir came and stood by the settee. After watching for a moment, he said he wanted to feed Grandpa.

“It’s not a game. Eat your lunch before it gets cold.”

He polished off the rice and soup in his plate and was back at the bedside. “Now can I?”

Nariman made a small gesture with his head for Roxana to let him.

She handed over the food. “But I’m warning you, be careful, Grandpa’s just put on a clean shirt.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“And don’t try to stuff his mouth, the way you do yours.”

“Yes, Mummy,” he sighed with weary exasperation. “I know Grandpa chews slowly, I’ve seen his teeth.”

The unhung washing was waiting on the balcony. She shook out the clothes, fretting about the wrinkles already settled in the fabric, and kept glancing inside the room to make sure Jehangoo was behaving himself. The balcony door framed the scene: nine-year-old happily feeding seventy-nine.

And then it struck her like a revelation – of what, she could not say. Hidden by the screen of damp clothes, she watched, clutching Yezad’s shirt in her hands. She felt she was witnessing something almost sacred, and her eyes refused to relinquish the precious moment, for she knew instinctively that it would become a memory to cherish, to recall in difficult times when she needed strength.

Jehangir filled the spoon again and raised it to his grandfather’s lips. A grain of rice strayed, lingering at the corner of his mouth. Jehangir took the napkin to gently retrieve it before it fell.

And for a brief instant, Roxana felt she understood the meaning of it all, of birth and life and death. My son, she thought, my father, and the food I cooked … A lump came to her throat; she swallowed.

Then all that was left of the moment were the tears in her eyes. She wiped them away, surprised, smiling, for she did not know when they had sprung, or why. There was contentment on Pappa’s face, and a look of importance on Jehangoo’s, relishing the responsibility of his task. And both had a sparkle of mischief in their eyes.

“Just a little bit left, Grandpa. Let’s do an aeroplane.”

“Okay, but careful.”

“First of all, Biggies is climbing into the plane,” said Jehangir, filling up the spoon. “Now the cockpit is closed.” He started revving and announced the chocks were off, they were ready for take-off. The spoon taxied several times round the bowl and was airborne. After a straight ascent it began to swoop and swerve, banking sharply and looping the loop.

“Prepare for landing, Grandpa.”

Nariman opened his mouth wide. The spoon entered, he clamped down on it, and the food was safely unloaded.

“Last one now,” said Jehangir, scraping the bowl clean. “Ready?” This time the aerial acrobatics were more ambitious. “Bombs away!”

Rice spilled down Nariman’s chin and throat and collar. Roxana rushed in from the balcony, still clutching Yezad’s crumpled shirt. “I warned you! Not for five minutes can you behave yourself!”

“My fault,” chuckled Nariman. “I didn’t open properly.”

“Don’t encourage the boy, Pappa, he’ll go from bad to worse. You should be strict with him.” She asked if he wanted the basin for a gargle – he was meticulous about his dentures after every meal. From the way he declined, she knew that he was trying to save her the extra work.

“What’s next on the agenda?” he asked Jehangir. “You fed me lunch, I could help with your homework.”

“My lessons are not on the agenda,” he laughed, delighting in the new word. “Mummy’s big bed is on the agenda, I’ll lie in it and read my book.”

“You could read here, aloud, so I can enjoy as well.”

Jehangir hesitated; reading aloud was something he did twice a year only, for the Reading and Recitation exam. “I’ve already finished three chapters. And you won’t like it, it’s just a children’s story, Enid Blyton.”

“No matter, you can continue with chapter four. If I’m bored, I’ll tell you, I promise.”

So Jehangir and Nariman learned in chapter four that George, for some defiance in the earlier pages, was now sulking in her room where she had been sent by her father, who, to make things more difficult, insisted on calling her Georgina (“She hates her name,” he interrupted to tell his grandfather, “she’s a tomboy”). Julian, Dick, and Anne, who were visiting for the hols (“They’re George’s cousins,” he explained quickly), felt that Uncle Quentin was being rather beastly to poor old George. And how rotten for her not to be out with them, walking along the shore, especially since the weather was simply topping, and the sea was such a smashing shade of blue that morning (“Cerulean,” said Grandpa, “like the sky,” and Jehangir repeated, “Cerulean”) while Timmy, whose gorgeous tail just wouldn’t stop wagging, ran beside them, having a jolly old time examining every rock and shell, barking in fright at a frightened crab and making them all laugh, only it wasn’t much fun laughing without good old George and …

His mother touched him lightly on the shoulder. He looked up. She put a finger to her lips and pointed to the settee: Grandpa was asleep.

Her father and her son were still sleeping when she lit the stove and made tea at three-thirty, dropping the leaves directly into the kettle of boiling water. Afternoon tea did not merit the teapot and cosy she used in the morning. And when she thought about her routine, crystallized into domestic perfection over the years, she found it odd because morning was the hectic time – the leisurely ritual would have better suited the afternoon.

But it was worth the trouble for Yezad’s sake; he loved mornings. He loved the breakfast hour, the radio playing, and the bustle in the flat and building, and in the street below where the vendors sang out their wares, alert to summoning customers who gained their attention by clapping or producing that special staccato hiss. Sometimes Yezad imitated the vendors’ songs and chants, and then the boys competed to see who could do better.

She listened for the vendors too, waiting to run downstairs with her purse. Some in the building kept a basket and rope ready by their window, to lower with money and haul back up with their change and their potatoes, onions, mutton, bread, whatever they needed. Roxana did not use the system, too public for her liking. As Yezad joked, this now was real window-shopping: by keeping an eye on the basket-on-a-rope commerce, you could tell who was eating what on any given day.

Yezad was always laughing and joking in the morning, chatting with the boys, telling them little stories. Just yesterday he’d told them the one about old Mr. Engineer, who had lived all his life in Pleasant Villa, and had died recently. “Remember his special rope-trick, Roxie?”

She nodded, while Jehangir and Murad pleaded to hear it. The bath water had not reached a boil, so Yezad narrated Mr. Engineer’s escapade from many years ago, when he had fallen on hard times: every morning, when it was time for the eggman to arrive, Mr. Engineer would wait by his second-storey window. From the balcony above him, the third-floor basket would hurtle towards the pavement, then ascend slowly with its fragile cargo. As it was rising past Mr. Engineer’s window, an unseen hand would emerge, snatch an egg, and carry it off to the kitchen for breakfast. When the basket reached its destination, they would shout from the third floor at the eggman below: Hai, mua eedavala! Dozen means twelve, not eleven! The eggman would stand firm for a while, argue, then capitulate and send up one more egg.

One morning, the culprit was finally observed with his hand in the basket. Caught egg-handed, said Yezad, and the upstairs neighbours confronted Mr. Engineer with reluctance, embarrassed by the whole business. Unabashed, Mr. Engineer said, Who am I to reject what God sends floating to my window?

Jehangir and Murad laughed loudest at this point in the story, laughter filled with admiration and fellow-feeling, while their father concluded, “Ever since, the entire building has called it Mr. Engineer’s Famous Rope-Trick.”

Murad said it reminded him of another story that Daddy had told them, about the king named Sisyphus who was punished in Hades. “I think Mr. Engineer is like Sisyphus.”

“How?” challenged his brother. “Mr. Engineer didn’t have to push a big rock up the hill, over and over.”

“It feels like that,” insisted Murad, but uncertain how to explain his feeling. “The basket going down every day, then going up, and poor Mr. Engineer with no money, standing there to steal his egg – it’s just like a punishment, day after day. It’s sad.”

“I know what you mean,” said his father. “If you think about it, in a way we are all like Sisyphus.”

There was silence while they thought about it. Then Jehangir, nodding gravely, said he understood. “It’s like homework. Every day I finish my lessons, and next day there is more homework. It never ends.”

They laughed. “But Mr. Engineer’s story has a happy ending,” said Yezad. “A few days after he was caught, his doorbell rang in the morning, and when he opened, no one was there. Only a brown paper bag upon the floor. Inside it, one egg. This kindness happened twice a week, and continued till the day he died.”

“Why only twice a week?” asked Murad. “Why not one egg every ’day?”

“Who knows,” said Yezad.

Roxana, with a meaningful look in his direction, said whoever it was probably didn’t want to give the old man high cholesterol. Yezad pretended not to hear.

Meanwhile, the boys started a list of food they wished would float past their window: muffins, porridge, kippers, scones, steak and kidney pie, potted meat, dumplings. Their father said if they ever tasted this insipid foreign stuff instead of merely reading about it in those blighted Blyton books, they would realize how amazing was their mother’s curry-rice and khichri-saas and pumpkin buryani and dhansak. What they needed was an Indian Blyton, to fascinate them with their own reality.

Then the announcer on the radio said it was time for one of yester-year’s golden hits, and Engelbert Humperdinck came on. Yezad and the boys sang along with the refrain, “ ‘Just three little words: I love you!’ ”

Roxana smiled, waiting till the song ended before sending Murad and Jehangir off to get ready for school.

But that was yesterday morning. And how things had changed this afternoon, she thought, pouring a cup for herself, leaving the kettle on the stove. Later, around six, she would boil fresh water for Yezad’s tea. His evening cup was not at all like the morning. In the evening she saw the bruises inflicted by the working day. The love she felt for him then was like a hurt, as he told her about the clients he had had to deal with, obnoxious because they controlled large budgets and knew they could be rude with impunity, invariably angling for kickbacks from the money they spent to purchase sports equipment for the schools or colleges or corporations they represented. And he had to swallow his disgust, let them know tactfully that the proprietor, Mr. Kapur, did not allow it …