A Son Of The Circus (65 page)

In his stepped-up efforts to save Madhu from Mr Garg, Dr Daruwalla placed a phone call to Tata Two. But the OB/GYN’s secretary told Farrokh that Dr Tata was already in surgery. The poor patient, whoever she was, Dr Daruwalla thought. Farrokh wouldn’t want a woman he knew to be subjected to the uncertain scalpel of Tata Two, for (fairly or unfairly) Farrokh assumed that the surgical procedures of the second Dr Tata were second-rate, too. It was quickly apparent to Dr Daruwalla that Tata Two’s medical secretary lived up to the family reputation for mediocrity, because the doctor’s simple request for the quickest possible results of Madhu’s
HIV
test were met with suspicion and condescension. Dr Tata’s secretary had already identified himself, rather arrogantly, as
Mister
Subhash.

‘You are wanting a rush job?’ Mr Subhash asked Dr Daruwalla. ‘Are you being aware that you are paying more for it?’

‘Of course!’ Farrokh said.

‘It is normally costing four hundred rupees,’ Mr Subhash informed Dr Daruwalla. ‘A rush job is costing you a thousand rupees. Or is the patient paying?’

‘No,
I’m
paying. I want the quickest possible results,’ Farrokh replied.

‘It is normally taking ten days or two weeks,’ Mr Subhash explained. ‘It is most conveniently being done in
batches
. We are normally waiting until we are having forty specimens.’

‘But I don’t want you to wait in this case, Dr Daruwalla replied. That’s why I called – I know how it’s normally done.’

‘If the
ELISA
is being positive, we are normally confirming the results by Western Blot. The
ELISA
is having a lot of false positives, you know,’ Mr Subhash explained.

‘I know,’ said Dr Daruwalla. ‘If you get a positive
ELISA
, please send it on for a Western Blot.’

This is prolonging the turnaround time for a positive test,’ Mr Subhash explained.

‘Yes, I
know
,’ Dr Daruwalla replied.

‘If the test is being negative, you are having the results in two days,’ Mr Subhash explained. ‘Naturally, if it is being positive …’

Then it would take longer — I
know,’
Dr Daruwalla cried. ‘Please just order the test immediately. That’s why I called.’

‘Only Dr Tata is ordering the testing,’ Mr Subhash said. ‘But of course I am telling him what you are wanting.’

Thank you,’ Dr Daruwalla replied.

‘Is there anything else you are wanting?’ Mr Subhash asked.

There
had
been something else, but Farrokh had forgotten what it was that he’d meant to ask Tata Two. Doubtless it would come back to him.

‘Please just ask Dr Tata to call me,’ Farrokh replied.

‘And what is being the subject you are wishing to discuss with Dr Tata?’ Mr Subhash asked.

‘It is a subject of discussion between
doctors
,’ Dr Daruwalla said.

‘I am telling him,’ Mr Subhash said testily.

Dr Daruwalla resolved that he would never again complain about the nincompoopish matrimonial activities of Ranjit. Ranjit was competent and he was polite. Moreover, Dr Daruwalla’s secretary had steadfastly maintained his enthusiasm for the doctor’s dwarf-blood project. No one else had ever encouraged the doctor’s genetic studies – least of all, the dwarfs. Dr Daruwalla had to admit that even his own enthusiasm for the project was slipping.

The
ELISA
test for
HIV
was simple in comparison to Farrokh’s genetic studies, for the latter had to be performed on cells (rather than on serum). Whole blood needed to be sent for the studies, and the unclotted blood had to be transported at room temperature. Blood specimens could cross international boundaries, although the paperwork was formidable; the specimens were usually shipped on dry ice, to preserve the proteins. But in the case of a genetic study, shipping dwarf blood from Bombay to Toronto was risky; it was likely that the cells would be killed before reaching Canada. I Dr Daruwalla had solved this problem with the help of an Indian medical school in Bombay; the doctor let their research lab perform the studies and prepare the slides. The lab gave Farrokh finished sets of photographs of the chromosomes; it was easy to carry the photographs back to Toronto. But there the dwarf-blood project had stalled. Through a close friend and colleague – a fellow orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto — Farrokh had been introduced to a geneticist at the university. Even this contact proved fruitless, for the geneticist maintained that there was no identifiable genetic marker for this type of dwarfism. The geneticist at the University of Toronto was quite emphatic to Farrokh: it was far-fetched to imagine that he would find a genetic marker for this autosomal dominant trait — achondroplasia is transmitted by a single autosomal dominant gene. This was a type of dwarfism that resulted from a spontaneous mutation. In the case of a spontaneous mutation, unaffected parents of dwarf childen have essentially no further risk of producing another dwarf child; the unaffected brothers and sisters of an achondroplastic dwarf are similarly not at risk – they won’t necessarily produce dwarfs, either. The dwarfs themselves, on the other hand, are quite likely to pass the trait on to their children – half their children will be dwarfs. As for a genetic marker for this dominant characteristic, none could be found. Dr Daruwalla doubted that he knew enough about genetics to argue with a geneticist; the doctor simply continued to draw samples of the dwarfs’ blood, and he kept bringing the photographs of the chromosomes back to Toronto. The U. of T. geneticist was discouraging but fairly friendly, if not sympathetic. He was also the boyfriend of Farrokh’s friend and colleague at the Hospital for Sick Children – Sick Kids, they called the hospital in Toronto. Farrokh’s friend and the geneticist were gay. Dr Gordon Macfarlane, who was the same age as Dr Daruwalla, had joined the orthopedic group at the Hospital for Sick Children in the same year as Farrokh; their hospital offices were next door to each other. Since Farrokh hated to drive, he often rode back and forth to work with Macfarlane; they both lived in Forest Hill. Early on in their relationship, there’d been those comic occasions when Julia and Farrokh had tried to interest Mac in various single or divorced women. Eventually, the matter of Macfarlane’s sexual orientation grew clear; in no time, Mac was bringing his boyfriend to dinner. Dr Duncan Frasier, the gay geneticist, was renowned for his research on the so-called (and elusive) gay chromosomes; Frasier was used to being teased about it. Biological studies of homosexuality generally irritate everyone. The debate as to whether homosexuality is present at birth or is a learned behavior is always inflamed with politics. Conservatives reject scientific suggestions that sexual orientation is biological; liberals anguish over the possible medical misuse of an identifiable genetic marker for homosexuality – should one be found. But Dr Frasier’s research had led him to a fairly cautious and reasonable conclusion. There were only two ‘natural’ sexual orientations among humans — one in the majority, one in the minority. Nothing he’d studied about homosexuality, nor anything he’d personally experienced or had ever felt, could persuade Dr Frasier that either homosexuality or heterosexuality was a matter of choice. Sexual orientation wasn’t a ‘life-style.’ ‘We are born with what we desire – whatever it is,’ Frasier liked to say. Farrokh found it an interesting subject. But if the search for gay genes was so fascinating to Dr Frasier, it discouraged Dr Daruwalla that the gay geneticist would entertain no hope of finding a genetic marker for Vinod’s dwarfism. Sometimes Dr Daruwalla was guilty of thinking that Frasier had no personal interest in dwarfs, whereas gays got the geneticist’s full attention. Nevertheless, Farrokh’s friendship with Macfarlane was unshakable; soon Farrokh was admitting to his gay friend how he’d always disliked the word ‘gay’ in its current, commonplace homosexual sense. To Farrokh’s surprise, Mac had agreed; he said he wished that something as important to him as his homosexuality had a word of its own – a word that had no other meaning. ‘“Gay” is such a frivolous word,’ Macfarlane had said. Dr Daruwalla’s dislike of the contemporary usage of the word was more a generational matter than a matter of prejudice – or so the doctor believed. It was a word his mother, Meher, had loved but overused. ‘We had a gay time,’ she would say. ‘What a gay evening we had – even your father was in a gay mood.’ It disheartened Dr Daruwalla to see this old-fashioned adjective – a synonym for ‘jolly’ or ‘merry’ or ‘frolicsome’ or ‘blithe’ – take on a much more serious meaning. ‘Come to think of it, “straight” isn’t an original word, either,’ Farrokh had said. Macfarlane laughed, but his longtime companion, Frasier, responded with a touch of bitterness. ‘What you’re telling us, Farrokh, is that you accept gays when we’re so quiet about it that we might as well still be in the closet –
and
provided that we don’t dare call ourselves gay, which offends you. Isn’t that what you’re saying?’ But this wasn’t what Farrokh meant. ‘I’m not criticizing your orientation,’ Dr Daruwalla replied. ‘I just don’t like the word for it.’ There lingered an air of dismissiveness about Dr Frasier; the rebuke reminded Dr Daruwalla of the geneticist’s dismissal of the notion that the doctor might find a genetic marker for the most common type of dwarfism.

The last time Dr Daruwalla had brought Dr Frasier the photographs of the dwarf’s chromosomes, the gay geneticist had been more dismissive than usual. ‘Those dwarfs must be bleeding to death, Farrokh,’ Frasier told him. ‘Why don’t you leave the little buggers alone?’

‘If I used the word “bugger,” you would be offended,’ Farrokh said. But what did Dr Daruwalla expect? Dwarf genes or gay genes, genetics was a touchy subject.

All this left Farrokh feeling full of contempt for his own lack of follow-through on his dwarf-blood project. Dr Daruwalla didn’t realize that his notion of ‘follow-through’ (or lack thereof) had originated with the radio interview he’d briefly overheard the previous evening – that silliness with the complaining writer. But, at last, the doctor stopped brooding on the dwarf-blood subject.

Farrokh now made the morning’s second phone call.

It was early to call John D., but Dr Daruwalla hadn’t told him about Rahul; the doctor also wanted to stress the importance of John D.’s attending the lunch at the Duckworth Club with Detective Patel and Nancy. To Farrokh’s surprise, it was an alert Inspector Dhar who answered the phone in his suite at the Taj.

‘You sound awake!’ Dr Daruwalla said. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m reading a play – actually, two plays,’ John D. replied. ‘What are
you
doing? Isn’t it time you were cutting open someone’s knee?’

This was the famous distant Dhar; the doctor felt he’d created this character, cold and sarcastic. Farrokh immediately launched into the news about Rahul –that he had a female identity these days; that, in all likelihood, the complete sex change had been accomplished. But John D. seemed barely interested. As for participating in the lunch at the Duckworth Club, not even the prospect of taking part in the capture of a serial murderer (or murderess) could engage the actor’s enthusiasm.

‘I have a lot of reading to do,’ John D. told Farrokh.

‘But you can’t read all day,’ the doctor said. ‘
What
reading?’

‘I told you – two plays,’ said Inspector Dhar.

‘Oh, you mean homework,’ Farrokh said. He assumed that John D. was studying his lines for his upcoming parts at the Schauspielhaus Zurich. The actor was thinking of Switzerland, of his day job, the doctor supposed. John D. was thinking of going home. After all, what was keeping him here? If, under the present threat, he gave up his membership at the Duckworth Club, what would he do with himself? Stay in his suite at the Taj, or at the Oberoi? Like Farrokh, John D.
lived
at the Duckworth Club when he was in Bombay.

‘But now that the murderer is
known
, it’s absurd to resign from the club!’ Dr Daruwalla cried. ‘Any day now, they’re going to catch him!’

‘Catch
her
,’ Inspector Dhar corrected the doctor.

‘Well, him or her,’ Farrokh said impatiently. ‘The point is, the police know who they’re looking for. There won’t be any more killings.’

‘I suppose seventy is enough,’ John D. said. He was in a simply infuriating mood, Dr Daruwalla thought.

‘So, what are these plays?’ Farrokh asked, in exasperation.

‘I have only two leading roles this year,’ John D. replied. ‘In the spring, it’s Osborne’s
Der Entertainer—
I’m Billy Rice – and in the fall I’m Friedrich Hofreiter in Schnitzler’s Das
weite Land
.’

‘I see,’ Farrokh said, but this was all foreign to him. He knew only that John Daruwalla was a respected professional as an actor, and that the Schauspielhaus Zurich was a sophisticated city theater with a reputation for performing both classical and modern plays. In Farrokh’s opinion, they gave short shrift to slapstick; he wondered if there were more slapstick comedies performed at the Bernhard or at the Theater am Hechtplatz – he didn’t really know Zurich.

The doctor knew only what his brother, Jamshed, had told him, and Jamshed was no veteran Iheatergoer – he went to see John D. In addition to Jamshed’s possibly philistine opinions, there was what little information Farrokh could force out of the guarded Dhar. The doctor didn’t know if two leading roles a year were enough, or if John D. had chosen only two such roles. The actor went on to say that he had smaller parts in something by Diirrenmatt and something by Brecht. A year ago, he’d made his directing debut – it was something by Max Frisch – and he’d played the eponymous Volpone in the Ben Jonson play. Next year, John D. had said, he hoped to direct Gorki’s Wassa
Schelesnowa
.

It was a pity that everything had to be in German, Dr Daruwalla thought.

Except for his outstanding success as Inspector Dhar, John D. had never acted in films; he never auditioned. Was he lacking in ambition? Dr Daruwalla wondered, for it seemed a mistake for Dhar not to take advantage of his perfect English. Yet John D. said he detested England, and he refused to set foot in the United States; he ventured to Toronto only to visit Farrokh and Julia. The actor wouldn’t even stray to Germany to audition for a film!