A Fine Balance Page 4

  He dispatched a servant with a message for Nusswan to visit him as soon as possible. Nusswan could not refuse. He cared deeply about the family’s opinion of him. After delaying for several days, citing too much work at the office, he went, taking Ruby along to have an ally by his side. She was instructed to ingratiate herself with the old man in any way possible.

  Grandfather had misplaced more of his memory since Dina’s visit. He remembered nothing of their conversation. He was wearing his teeth this time but had very little to say. With much prompting and reminiscing he appeared to recognize them. Then, ignoring Ruby altogether, he abruptly decided that Nusswan and Dina were man and wife. He refused to relinquish this belief, however much Dina coaxed and cajoled.

  Ruby sat on the sofa holding the old man’s hand. She asked if he would like her to massage his feet. Without waiting for an answer she grabbed the left one and began kneading it. The toenails were yellow, long overdue for a clipping.

  Enraged, he tore his foot from her grasp. “Kya karta hai? Chalo, jao!”

  Too startled at being addressed in Hindi, Ruby sat there gaping. Grandfather turned to Nusswan, “Doesn’t she understand? What language does your ayah speak? Tell her to get off my sofa, wait in the kitchen.”

  Ruby rose in a huff and stood by the door. “Rude old man!” she hissed. “Just because my skin is a little dark!”

  Nusswan said a gruff goodbye and followed his wife, stopping to turn and look triumphantly at Dina, who was trying to sort out the confusion. She stayed behind, hoping Grandpa would summon some hidden resource and come to her rescue. An hour later she too gave up, kissed his forehead, and left.

  It was the last time she saw him alive. He died in his sleep the following month. At the funeral, Dina wondered how much longer Grandpa’s toenails had grown under the white sheet that hid everything from view but his face.

  For four years, Nusswan had been faithfully putting money aside for Dina’s wedding expenses. A considerable sum had collected, and he planned to get her married in the near future. He was certain he would have no trouble finding a good husband – as he proudly said to himself, Dina had grown into a beautiful young woman, she deserved nothing less than the best. It would be a lavish celebration, befitting the sister of a successful businessman, and people would talk about it for a long time to come.

  When she turned eighteen, he started inviting eligible bachelors to their home. She invariably found them repugnant; they were her brother’s friends, and reminded her of Nusswan in all they said and did.

  Nusswan was convinced that sooner or later there would be one she liked. He could no longer place restrictions on her comings and goings – she had outgrown those adolescent controls. So long as she did the housework and daily shopping according to Ruby’s lists, relative calm prevailed in the house. Nowadays the quarrelling, if there was any, was between Ruby and Dina, as though Nusswan had delegated this function to his wife.

  At the market Dina sometimes used her initiative and substituted cauliflower for cabbage; or she felt a sudden yearning for chickoos and bought them instead of oranges. Then Ruby promptly accused her of sabotaging the carefully planned meals: “Wicked, malicious woman, ruining my husband’s dinner.” She delivered the charge and the verdict in a matter-of-fact, mechanical manner, all part of her role as the dutiful wife.

  But it was not always squabbles and bickering between them. More and more, the two women worked together amicably. Among the items that Ruby had brought to the house following her marriage was a small sewing-machine with a hand crank. She showed Dina how to use it, teaching her to make simple items like pillowcases, bed-sheets, curtains.

  When Ruby’s first child was born, a son who was named Xerxes, Dina helped to look after him. She sewed baby clothes and knitted little caps and pullovers. For her nephew’s first birthday she produced a pair of bootees. On that happy morning they garlanded Xerxes with roses and lilies, and made a large red teelo on his forehead.

  “What a sweetie pie he is,” said Dina, laughing with delight.

  “And those bootees you made – just too cute!” said Ruby, giving her a huge hug.

  But it was the rare day that passed entirely without argument. Once the chores were done, Dina preferred to spend as much time out of the house as possible. Her resources for her outings were limited to what she could squeeze from the shopping money. Her conscience was clear; she regarded it as part-payment for her drudgery, barely a fraction of what was owed her.

  Ruby demanded an account down to the last paisa. “I want to see the bills and receipts. For every single item,” she pounded her fist on the kitchen table, rattling the saucepan’s lid.

  “Since when do fishmongers and vegetable-women on the footpath give receipts?” fired back Dina, throwing at her the bills for shop purchases, along with the change kept ready after juggling undocumented prices. She left the kitchen while her sister-in-law searched the floor to retrieve and count the coins.

  The savings were sufficient to pay for bus fares. Dina went to parks, wandered in museums and markets, visited cinemas (just from the outside, to look at posters), and ventured timidly into public libraries. The heads bent over books made her feel out of place; everyone in there seemed so learned, and she hadn’t even matriculated.

  This impression was dispelled when she realized that the reading material in the hands of these grave individuals could range from something unpronounceable like Areopagitica by John Milton to The Illustrated Weekly of India. Eventually, the enormous old reading rooms, with their high ceilings, creaky floorboards and dark panelling, became her favourite sanctuary. The stately ceiling fans that hung from long poles swept the air with a comforting whoosh, and the deep leather chairs, musty smells, and rustle of turning pages were soothing. Best of all, people spoke in whispers. The only time Dina heard a shout was when the doorman scolded a beggar trying to sneak inside. Hours passed as she flipped through encyclopaedias, gazed into art books, and curiously opened dusty medical tomes, rounding off the visit by sitting for a few minutes with eyes closed in a dark corner of the old building, where time could stand still if one wanted it to.

  The more modern libraries were equipped with music rooms. They also had fluorescent lights, Formica tables, air-conditioning, and brightly painted walls, and were always crowded. She found them cold and inhospitable, going there only if she wanted to listen to records. She knew very little about music – a few names like Brahms, Mozart, Schumann, and Bach, which her ears had picked up in childhood when her father would turn on the radio or put something on the gramophone, take her in his lap and say, “It makes you forget the troubles of this world, doesn’t it?” and Dina would nod her head seriously.

  In the library she selected records at random, trying to memorize the names of the ones she enjoyed so she could play them again another day. It was tricky, because the symphonies and concertos and sonatas were distinguished only by numbers that were preceded by letters like Op. and K. and BWV, and she did not know what any of it meant. If she was lucky she found something with a name that resonated richly in her memory; and when the familiar music filled her head, the past was conquered for a brief while, and she felt herself ache with the ecstasy of completion, as though a missing limb had been recovered.

  She both desired and dreaded these intense musical experiences. The perfect felicity of the music room was always replaced by an unfocused anger when she returned to life with Nusswan and Ruby. The bitterest fights took place on days when she had visited the record collection.

  Magazines and newspapers were far less complicated. Through reading the dailies, she discovered there were several cultural groups that sponsored concerts and recitals in the city. Many of these performances – usually the ones by local amateurs or obscure foreigners – were free. She started using her bus fares to go to these concerts, and found them a welcome variation on the library. The performers, too, were no doubt grateful for her presence at these meagrely attended evenings.

  She lin
gered at the periphery of the crowd in the foyer, feeling like an imposten Everyone else seemed to know so much about music, about the evening’s performers, judging from the sophisticated way they held their programmes and pointed to items inside. She longed for the doors to open, for the dim lights within to disguise her shortcomings.

  In the recital hall the music did not have the power to touch her the way it did during her solitary hours in the library. Here, the human comedy shared equal time with the music. And after a few recitals she began to recognize the regulars in the audience.

  There was an old man who, at every concert, fell asleep at precisely four minutes into the first piece; latecomers skirted his row out of consideration, to avoid bumping his knees. At seven minutes, his spectacles began sliding down his nose. And at eleven minutes (if the piece was that long and he hadn’t yet been wakened by applause), his dentures were protruding. He reminded Dina of Grandpa.

  Two sisters, in their fifties, tall and lean with pointed chins, always sat in the first row and often clapped at the wrong moment, unnecessarily disturbing the old man’s nap. Dina herself did not understand about sonatas and movements, but realized that a performance was not over just because there was a pause in the music. She took the lead from a goateed individual in round wire-rimmed glasses who wore a beret, looked like an expert, and always knew when to clap.

  Then there was an amusing middle-aged fellow who wore the same brown suit at every concert, and was everyone’s friend. He dashed around madly in the foyer, greeting people, his head bobbing wildly, assuring them what a splendid evening it was going to be. His ties were the subject of constant speculation. On some evenings they hung long, dominating his front, flapping over his crotch. At other times they barely reached his diaphragm. The knots ranged in size from microscopic to a bulky samosa. And he did not walk from one person to the next so much as prance, keeping his comments brief because, as he liked to explain, there were just a few minutes before the curtain went up, and still so many he had to greet.

  Dina noticed in the lobby a young man who, like her, was engaged in observing from the edges the merry mingling of their fellow con-certgoers. Since she usually arrived early, anxious to get away from home, she was there to see him sail up to the entrance on his bicycle, dismount cleanly, and wheel it in through the gates. The gateman allowed him this liberty in exchange for a tip. At the side of the building, he padlocked the bicycle, making sure to remove the briefcase from the rear carrier. He snapped the clips off his trousers and slipped them into the briefcase. Then he retired to his favourite corner of the lobby to study the programme and the public.

  Sometimes their eyes met, and there was a recognition of their tacit conspiracy. The funny man in the brown suit left Dina alone but included him in his round of greetings. “Hello, Rustom! How are you?” he bellowed, and thus Dina learned the young man’s name.

  “Very well, thank you,” said Rustom, looking over the shoulder of the brown suit at Dina watching amusedly.

  “Tell me, what do you think of the pianist today? Is he capable of the depth required in the slow movement? Do you think that the largo – oh, excuse me, excuse me, I’ll be back in a moment, soon as I say hello to Mr. Medhora over there,” and he was off. Rustom smiled at Dina and shook his head in mock despair.

  The bell rang and the auditorium doors opened. The two tall sisters hastened to the first row with synchronized hopping steps, unfolded the maroon-upholstered seats, and flopped down triumphantly, beaming at each other for once again winning their secret game of musical chairs. Dina took her usual centre aisle seat, roughly midway down the hall.

  As the place began to fill, Rustom came up beside her. “Is this one free?”

  She nodded.

  He sat down. “That Mr. Toddywalla is a real character, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, is that his name? Yes, he is very funny.”

  “Even if the recital is so-so, you can always rely on him for entertainment.”

  The lights dimmed, and the two performers appeared on stage to scattered applause. “By the way, I’m Rustom Dalai,” he said, leaning closer and holding out his hand while the flute received the piano’s silver A and offered its own golden one in return.

  She whispered “Dina Shroff” without taking his hand, for in the dark she did not immediately notice it being held out. When she did, it was too late; he had begun to withdraw it.

  During the interval Rustom asked if she would like coffee or a cold drink.

  “No, thank you.”

  They watched the audience in the aisles, bound for the bathrooms and refreshments. He crossed his legs and said, “You know, I see you regularly at these concerts.”

  “Yes, I enjoy them very much.”

  “Do you play yourself? The piano, or —?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Oh. You have such lovely fingers, I was sure you played the piano.”

  “No, I don’t,” she repeated. Her cheeks felt a little hot, and she looked down at her fingers. “I don’t know anything about music, I just enjoy listening to it.”

  “That’s the best way, I think.”

  She wasn’t sure what he meant, but nodded. “And what about you? Do you?”

  “Like all good Parsi parents, mine made me take violin lessons when I was little,” he laughed.

  “You don’t play it anymore?”

  “Oh, once in a while. When I feel like torturing myself, I take it out of its case to make it screech and wail.”

  She smiled. “At least it must make your parents happy, to hear you play.”

  “No, they are dead. I live alone.”

  Her smile collapsed as she prepared to say she was sorry, but he quickly added, “Only the neighbours suffer when I play,” and they laughed again.

  They always sat together after that, and the following week she accepted a Mangola during the interval. While they were in the lobby, sipping from the chilled bottles, watching moisture beads embellish the glass, Mr. Toddywalla came up to them.

  “So, Rustom, what did you think of the first half? In my opinion, a borderline performance. That flautist should do some breathing exercises before he ever thinks of a recital again.” He lingered long enough to be introduced to Dina, which was why he had come in the first place. Then he was off, gambolling towards his next victims.

  After the concert Rustom walked her to the bus stop, wheeling his bicycle. The departing audience had their eyes on them. To break the silence she asked, “Are you ever nervous about cycling in this traffic?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve been doing it for years. It’s second nature to me.” He waited for her bus to arrive, then rode behind the red double-decker till their ways parted. He could not see her watching him from the upper deck. She followed his diminishing figure, her eyes sometimes losing him, then finding him under a streetlamp, travelling with him till he became a speck that only her imagination could claim was Rustom.

  In a few weeks the concert regulars came to regard them as a couple. Their every move was viewed with concern and curiosity. Rustom and Dina were amused by the attention but preferred to dismiss it in the same category as Mr. Toddywalla’s antics.

  Once, on arriving, Rustom looked around to find Dina in the crowd. One of the first-row sisters immediately came up to his elbow and whispered coyly, “She is here, do not fear. She has just gone to the ladies’ room.”

  It had been raining heavily, and Dina, soaked, was trying to tidy herself up in the ladies’ but her tiny hanky was not equal to the task. The towel on the rod looked uninviting. She did the best she could, then went out, her hair still dripping.

  “What happened?” asked Rustom.

  “My umbrella was blown inside out. I couldn’t get it straight quickly enough.”

  He offered her his large handkerchief. The significance of this proposal was not lost on the observers around them: would she or wouldn’t she?

  “No, thanks,” she said, running her fingers through the wet hair. “It wi
ll soon be dry.” The concertgoers held their breath.

  “My hanky is clean, don’t worry,” he smiled. “Look, go in and dry yourself, I’ll buy two hot coffees for us.” When she still hesitated, he threatened to take off his shirt and towel her head with it in the lobby. Laughing, she accepted the handkerchief and returned to the ladies’ room. The regulars sighed happily.

  Inside, Dina rubbed her hair with the handkerchief. It had a nice smell to it, she thought. Not perfume, but a clean human smell. His smell. The same one she perceived sometimes while sitting next to him. She put it against her nose and breathed deeply, then folded it away, embarrassed.

  It was still raining lightly when the concert ended. They walked to the bus stop. The drizzle hissed in the trees, as though the leaves were sizzling. Dina shivered.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Just a little.”

  “Hope you’re not getting a fever. All that soaking. Listen, why don’t you put on my raincoat, and I’ll take your umbrella.”

  “Don’t be silly, it’s broken. Anyway, how can you ride your cycle with an umbrella?”

  “Of course I can. I can ride it standing on my head if necessary.” He insisted, and in the bus shelter they undertook the exchange. He helped her into the Duckback raincoat and his hand grazed her shoulder. His fingers felt warm to her cold skin. The sleeves were a bit long, otherwise it fit quite well. And nicely heated up by his body, she realized, as it slowly got the chill out of her.

  They stood close together, watching the fine needles of rain slanting in the light of the streetlamp. Then they held hands for the first time, and it seemed the most natural thing to do. It was hard to let go when the bus came.

  From now on, Rustom used his bicycle only to get to and from work. In the evenings he came by bus, so they could travel together and he could see her home.