Such a Long Journey Read online

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Mrs Pastakia.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard you won a big lottery. How nice!’

  Gustad handed her the subjo, told her she was sadly mistaken, and bade her goodnight. He broke off some flower spikes and took them inside. Dilnavaz silently watched him separate the seeds to soak in water. She knew he had been prejudiced against the subjo because it was Miss Kutpitia who had identified and broadcast the plant’s hidden powers. Now he gave the drink to Roshan, and she was grateful.

  The next day was even windier. When Gustad returned from work, the compound’s solitary tree was swaying wildly. ‘Roshan is better, touch wood,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘Subjo was a good idea.’

  He nodded, pleased. And Ghulam Mohammed will be back this week, I can send him a message then. Ask him when and where I can return the parcel.

  He prepared the note and sealed the envelope. Tomorrow he would deliver it to Peerbhoy Paanwalla.

  ii

  Seven days later he went again to the House of Cages to see if there was a reply. Peerbhoy, sitting cross-legged on a wooden box before his large brass tray, said Ghulambhai had collected his messages, and that was all.

  Three weeks passed. No word came from Ghulam Mohammed, but the monsoon arrived in full force on a Friday night, preceded by a severe lightning storm. Gustad stepped outside to examine the sky. He looked to the west, at the clouds over the Arabian Sea, and sniffed the air: yes, it was getting closer. He sat awhile after the others had gone to bed, reading the newspaper. The refugees were still coming. The official count put the figure at four and a half million, but the reporter who had returned from the refugee camps said it was closer to seven. The prediction was for ten million by next month. Four and a half or seven or ten, thought Gustad, what difference. Too many to feed, in a country that cannot feed its own. Maybe the guerrillas will soon win. If only I could have helped Jimmy.

  He checked the cricket scores, then abandoned the paper. He went to his desk and picked up the Plato. The new books had sat on one corner of the desk since they were brought home four Fridays ago. And my plans for the bookcase – turned to dust. Like everything else.

  Around midnight the rain commenced. He heard the first drops chime against the panes. By the time he got to the window the rain became a downpour. The wind was sweeping it inside. He took a deep breath to savour the fresh moist earth fragrance, feeling great satisfaction, as though he had had a hand in the arrival of the monsoon. It will be good for my vinca bush. And I remembered to push the rose to the edge of the steps – it will get the rain slanting into the entrance.

  He shut the window and sat again to read but could not concentrate. The advent of the monsoon was exciting – and it was always like this with the first big storm, even in his earliest memories, back to a time when the torrential rain coincided with the new school year, new classroom, new books, new friends. Sloshing in new raincoat and gumboots through flooded streets of floating bottle caps, empty cigarette packets, ice-cream sticks, torn shoes and slippers. Watching the normally vicious traffic paralysed and drowned, which had a marvellous sense of poetic justice about it. And the ever-present hope that it would rain so hard, school would be cancelled. Somehow, that childhood excitement blossoming with the first rain had never faded.

  The thunder was sporadic now, but the crashing torrents made up for the noise. He could distinguish, within the large sound of water, the individual ones: on the asphalt strip in the centre of the compound, a flat, slapping noise; on the galvanized awnings, loud and reverberating, like a huge tin drum; against the windows, the soft tap-tap-tap of a shy visitor; and the biggest sound of all from the five rainspouts on the roof, which delivered their accumulations like cataracts plunging mightily to the ground. It was an orchestra in which he could separate the violins and violas, oboes and clarinets, timpani and bass drum.

  He felt a twinge in his left hip. Yes, a sure sign the monsoon had arrived. It came again, the pain. Sharp enough to bring back the agonizing weeks I spent in bed. Jimmy, God bless him, had been such a help.

  Like a baby Jimmy carried me inside the hall, in his arms. What a busy place it was, where Madhiwalla Bonesetter was holding his clinic – volunteers helping with patients, carrying them in on stretchers or pushing their wheelchairs, others preparing bandages. Two men were sorting various types of fragrant herbs and bark into little packages. The glue for their labels was homemade – a mucilage of flour and some foul ingredients, but the herbs and bark covered up the smell.

  And at the centre of it all stood the great Bonesetter himself, surrounded by his loyal helpers. In appearance he was so ordinary, no one could have guessed what extraordinary powers he possessed. He wore a long white duglo and a prayer cap, resembling one of those men in charge of serving dinner at a Parsi wedding: the chief of the buberchees, who supervised everything from making the dinner announcements to dispatching busboys with washbowls, soap and hot water ewers down the rows of sated guests after the feasting ended.

  But Madhiwalla was revered like a saint for his miraculous cures. He had saved shattered limbs, broken backs, cracked skulls – cases which even specialists and foreign-trained doctors (with degrees from famous universities in England and America) who worked in well-equipped hospitals had looked into, seen nothing worth saving, and shaken their heads despairingly. And Madhiwalla Bonesetter redeemed them all, all those hopeless cases, with no more than his two bare hands, his collection of herbs and bark, and, in the case of slipped discs, his right foot, with which he delivered a carefully controlled kick to the lumbar region that promptly restored the wayward disc.

  No one knew exactly how he did what he did – magical was his footwork, magical the passes with his hands: feeling here, kneading there, bending, twisting, turning, and setting. Quickly, quietly, painlessly. Some said he first mesmerized the patient into not feeling pain. But those who had watched him closely knew this could not be, because he never bothered to look into the patient’s eyes, which were often closed to begin with. The Bonesetter’s eyes followed his hands: they could see deeply, piercingly, through skin, through fat, through muscle, bearing down to the very bone, down to where the damage was. It was no wonder that X-ray laboratories rued the day of his arrival.

  Setting Gustad’s fractured hip would be child’s play for Madhiwalla, the onlookers had said. (Always, there were onlookers when the Bonesetter was in attendance: well-wishers, admirers, patients’ relatives, the merely curious, all were welcome to watch – his skills and accomplishments were open to public scrutiny.) But it was a hideous and pitiful sight to behold, certainly not for the faint of heart. Broken bodies were everywhere – laid out on stretchers, bundled on the floor, collapsed in chairs, huddled in corners, their moans and shrieks filling the air. Splintered fibulae and tibiae that had ruptured the skin; a cracked humurus grotesquely twisting an elbow; the grisly consequences of a shattered femur – all these awaited their turn with the Bonesetter, awaited deliverance.

  And Gustad, seeing and hearing such horrors as he had never witnessed before, soon forgot about the pain coursing through his own body. He wondered what could have inflicted such injuries on these people. In his grandfather’s furniture workshop he had seen the occasional severed finger or pulped thumb, but nothing like this. It seemed to him that somewhere, in a factory, someone was churning out these extravagant mutilations with great deliberation.

  But along with the agony suffusing their screams and groans, he also detected a strain of hope, hope such as had never been expressed in the words of the most eloquent. Hope pure and primal, that sprang unattended and uncluttered from the very blood of the patients, telling Gustad that redemption was now at hand.

  Later, he tried to remember what Madhiwalla had done to set the fractured hip. But all he could recall was his foot being grasped and the leg swung in a peculiar way. From that moment, the pain decreased. The setting was complete, and the bone would be healed by repeated application of a paste made from the bark of a sp
ecial tree. The Bonesetter wrote down a number for Jimmy. The two who were labelling packets with smelly glue matched the coded number and gave him what was prescribed. Madhiwalla never charged a paisa for his treatment, nor did he reveal the names of the trees and herbs, in order to keep the unscrupulous from commercially exploiting his knowledge at the expense of the ailing poor. The rich were welcome to make donations. His secrecy was applauded by all, but it was also a source of concern: Madhiwalla was an old man, what would happen when he was no more, if his knowledge died with him? It was believed, however, that he was secretly training a successor who would emerge and heal when the need became evident.

  Dilnavaz made the paste according to the Bonesetter’s prescription: by soaking the bark in water and grating it against the rough stone slab they used for grinding masala. It was hard work, making enough paste to coat the entire hip. And no sooner had she finished than it seemed to be time for the next application. Gustad felt guilty to see her sweat and pant over the stone, disregarding her back and shoulders that were screaming for rest, and with little Roshan also to take care of, just three months old. But for twelve weeks she gritted her teeth and carried on, refusing the help of outsiders, determined that her efforts alone would get her husband back on his feet.

  A car door slammed in the rain. The Landmaster. What bad luck for Bamji, to have night duty on a night like this. But the car seemed to be idling outside. There was a burst of thunder, and then a splash. Was he having trouble with the engine? Gustad went to the window.

  The car drove off before he could undo the clasp. The clock showed almost one. He opened the glass and stopped the pendulum with a finger, groping for the key. The shining stainless steel felt cool in his palm. He wound the clock and went to bed.

  He slept fitfully, dreaming that he was walking to the bank from the Flora Fountain bus stop. Something struck him from behind. He turned and saw a hundred-rupee bundle at his feet. As he bent to pick it up, several more hit him, painfully hard. He asked his tormentors why. They refused to answer and continued their barrage. His spectacles were knocked off. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll complain to the police! I don’t want your rubbish!’ He flung back the money, but it returned as fast as he threw it. A police van drove up and Inspector Bamji stepped out. Gustad was overwhelmed by his good fortune. Bamji, however, without showing any sign of recognition, went to the crowd of money-throwers. ‘Soli, listen to me, let me tell you what happened!’ begged Gustad. Inspector Bamji, speaking in Marathi, to Gustad’s astonishment, told him to shut up: ‘Umcha section nai.’ ‘He’s a bank worker and he won’t take our money,’ the others complained, while Gustad watched, bewildered. ‘Where are we to go if the bank refuses it?’ ‘No!’ yelled Gustad, ‘I cannot take it, I have no place to put it! What will –’ Out of nowhere appeared Mr Madon, his gold snuffbox in one hand and his Rolex chronometer in the other: ‘What is going on, Noble? Opening a branch operation on the pavement, hmm?’ He crunched Gustad’s fallen spectacles, brushed aside his explanations, and said it was past ten o’clock. ‘I give you thirty seconds to be at your desk.’ He held up the chronometer and said, ‘On your mark. Get set. Go.’ Gustad ran, elbowing his way through the crowds who were all headed in the other direction. How can that be, he wondered, it is not evening. As he reached the bank entrance, limping wildly, a sardonically smiling Mr Madon materialized in the doorway and showed him the chronometer: ‘Thirty-four seconds. Sorry,’ and handed him a termination notice. ‘Please, Mr Madon, please. Give me one more chance, please, it was not my fault, I …’

  Dilnavaz shook him by the shoulder: ‘Gustad, you are dreaming. Gustad.’ He grunted once, turned over, and slept soundly the rest of the night.

  iii

  A grey drizzle filled the melancholy dawn. Gustad could not go outside for prayers. He opened the window a little. Swollen with water, it resisted, moaning ominously. A flock of startled wet crows half scuttled and half flapped their way to a safe distance. Some flew into the branches of the neem. He looked at the sky and concluded there was at least another day’s worth of rain in those clouds.

  The bedraggled crows watched balefully, then began hopping back towards the window. By the time Gustad finished two cups of tea, the sky was lighter and the crows much louder. The shrieking and cawing finally got to Dilnavaz: ‘What is going on in the compound?’ He buttoned up his pyjama top, put on his rubber slippers and went out with an umbrella.

  Crows had gathered from miles around. Besides the multitude teeming in the compound, there were clusters on the entrance steps, shaking out water from their feathers. Another disciplined black line perched along the awning. ‘Psssss!’ said Gustad, flapping his hands and stamping. He stepped around a large puddle outside the entrance, hissing and waving the open black umbrella like a giant crow. Then he saw the vinca bush, and his stomach turned. Bile-bittered tea rose to his mouth. The crows waited, wondering if they were about to lose their banquet. ‘Dilnavaz!’ he roared through the open window. ‘Come quickly!’

  She was outside within moments, her feet flopping in Darius’s rain shoes which she had donned in her haste. ‘O God!’ she said, and covered her eyes. ‘Why ask me to look at it? What good is it to make me sick in the morning?’

  A headless bandicoot lay in a dark, red-brown puddle that had collected at the base of the vinca. The cleanly severed head was beside the body. Despite the progress made by the crows’ beaks, it was immediately apparent that the cause of decapitation had been a sharp instrument of human design.

  ‘This is the absolute limit!’ said Gustad. Simultaneously, the two thought of Tehmul, of his fascination with rats. But Gustad said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Even if he did it, he would never throw it in the vinca. He would go to the municipality for his twenty-five paise.’

  Dilnavaz was more anxious to be rid of the half-eaten carcass than to find the culprit. ‘I’ll call the kuchrawalli right now to sweep it away.’

  ‘Who is it that hates my vinca so much?’ wondered Gustad. ‘And where was that bloody Gurkha, what kind of watchman is he?’ Meanwhile, wakened by the noise, Darius came to the window. He was ordered to summon the Gurkha from the office building.

  ‘But I am in my pyjamas,’ said Darius.

  ‘And what am I wearing, a wedding dress? Go right now!’ Grumbling and frowning, Darius hurried through the compound, keeping well towards the inside so no one in the building saw him. Particularly the soft brown eyes of Jasmine Rabadi. If those melting, soft brown fourteen-year-old eyes were to spy him in his silly pyjamas, it would destroy his chances for ever, he was certain of that.

  ‘You know where the Gurkha sleeps in the daytime?’ Gustad called after him. ‘In the little room, next to the lift.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ he said, scowling and jerking his head angrily. He returned shortly with the Gurkha, and conducted a cautious but dignified retreat.

  The Gurkha was a small, bow-legged man whose calf muscles bulged powerfully, as did the sinews of his forearms. When he did his rounds at night for the office building next door, he included the compound of Khodadad Building in his circuit, and for his pains, each tenant paid him two rupees a month. He had not yet changed out of his uniform: khaki shirt and khaki short pants, with a khaki cap. Round his waist was the leather belt carrying the ceremonial Gurkha kukri: a short broad-bladed sword, and nestling near the hilt, two tiny daggers in their separate sheaths.

  He saluted smartly, his almond-shaped Nepali eyes twinkling. ‘Salaam, seth,’ he said, and then to Dilnavaz, ‘Salaam, bai. How is baby?’ He was very fond of Roshan. Sometimes, when she was dropped off by the school bus across the road, he would, if he was awake, race over and escort her safely into the compound. Roshan called his family of daggers mummy-knife and the twins.

  ‘Baby is all right,’ said Dilnavaz.

  ‘And what is the meaning of this?’ said Gustad, pointing at the torn, crow-eaten bandicoot.

  ‘Arré baap! What a very big rat!’

  ‘That I know,
thank you,’ said Gustad. ‘But who cut its head, who threw it in my flowers, that I don’t know. And that is what you should know, because you are night-watching in the compound.’ He paused. ‘Or are you taking money from us for sleeping all night?’

  ‘Arré no, seth. Not like that, never. Every night I walk here, banging my stick on the black wall. One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock. All night. But I heard nothing, saw nothing.’

  Gustad looked at him disbelievingly. Dilnavaz said, from the corner of her mouth, using the Gujarati asmai-kasmai code so the Gurkha would not understand, ‘Masmaybisme hisme wasmas sleasmepisming beasmecausmause ismit wasmas raismainisming.’

  So Gustad tried a different approach to the cross-examination. ‘How do you make rounds when it rains?’

  The Gurkha smiled, revealing perfect neem-nurtured white teeth. ‘Office people have given me very good long raincoat. I wear that when rain is falling. And plastic cap, with flaps to cover the ears, which go like this, over the cheeks, then there is a button under the chin which –’

  ‘OK, OK. So last night you walked in your long raincoat and cap. But I heard no banging of stick.’

  ‘O seth, so much noise of rain and thunder, how can you hear my stick?’