Family Matters (14 page)

Anger and frustration would fill his face as he sipped the tea. Sometimes he drank from the cup; more often he poured a little in the saucer and stared into it, as though the answers he needed lay in its unfathomable depths. She was afraid to touch him with words, silence was all he could bear. And she understood, in some small way, what it was to be him who tried so hard for the family he loved. All she could do was wait for night to fall and restore him in the alembic of sleep.

So in the morning he was ready again, armed with optimism. She watched him return to the fray, knowing how it would end in the evening, and knowing that he knew it too, and yet he persevered. Then she felt her husband was as brave and strong as any Rustam or Sohrab, her hero, whose mundane exploits deserved to be recorded in his very own Shah-Nama, his Yezad-Nama, and she thanked fate, God, fortune, whoever was in charge.

She feared about how Pappa’s arrival would affect their morning. No matter what, she had to preserve its rhythm for Yezad. Yes, she was determined: not a hair of the routine that gave him so much joy would be allowed to change.

Halfway through Roxana’s second cup, Jehangir and Nariman awoke, roused by Murad’s doorbell. She opened the door and squeezed his arm as he rushed past, not risking a rebuff by detaining him for a hug. He flung his school bag under the desk and went to the front room.

“Hi, Grandpa,” he said, as though to find him lying on the settee was quite normal.

“Don’t you want to know why he’s here?”

He listened while she told about the accident, and thought a bit. “Since Grandpa is visiting, I’ll sleep on the balcony, Jehangir can have the cot.”

“No, I’ll sleep on the balcony,” said his brother.

“What?” said Nariman. “Both of you want to flee the room? Do I smell so bad?”

They protested it wasn’t that – sleeping on the balcony was an adventure for them, where they could see the stars and the clouds.

“We’ll decide after Daddy comes home,” said Roxana, unwrapping the bedpan and urinal. She examined them and took them to wash. People have different standards of cleanliness, she thought, fuming anew at Jal and Coomy.

“What are those?” asked Jehangir, as his mother returned and slipped the utensils under the settee.

“They are for Grandpa.”

“For what?”

“That’s his soo-soo bottle,” pointed Murad, “and that’s for number two.”

Jehangir made a sceptical face. “What’s it really for, Mummy?”

“What Murad said. Grandpa cannot walk to the toilet.”

Jehangir made another face and said chhee, but it was more a matter of form than actual revulsion.

At six-thirty, the boys heard their father at the door and raced to open it.

“Daddy! Can I make a tent and sleep on the balcony?” shouted Jehangir before Murad could turn the latch.

“No, Daddy, it was my idea, you can ask Mummy!”

The excited reception pleased Yezad. “At least let me put a foot inside. Say hi to your tired father before making demands.”

“Hi,” they said in unison. “Can I sleep on the balcony?”

He shut the door, sliding home the security bolt. “Roxie, what’s this crazy plan your sons have?”

He entered the front room and stopped. “Hello? Chief? Is that you?” He puzzled about it: came to visit, of course – but all by himself? And why lie on the settee? Feeling unwell, maybe.

The plaster cast that would have offered a hint was concealed by the sheet. Not to seem taken aback, he smiled and went to shake hands while Jehangir insisted that since Grandpa was in his bed, he should be the one to get the balcony. Murad argued that he was older, he would be safer there, Jehangir might get up in the night and fall over the railing.

“Quiet, or I’ll give you each a big dhamaylo,” said their mother. “Balcony, balcony, balcony! Is that all? Before I can even tell Daddy about Grandpa?”

Drying her hands upon her skirt, she approached the settee. “You won’t believe it, Yezad, when you hear how badly Jal and Coomy have behaved.”

“They tried their best, my dear,” said Nariman softly. “Don’t be angry with your brother and sister.”

“Half-brother and half-sister, Pappa, let’s be accurate.”

“You never thought this way when you were children,” he said sadly.

“And they never acted this way.”

“Will someone please tell me what happened?”

She related the events of the morning and the past week. Yezad’s head was shaking when she finished.

“I must say, chief, I have to agree those two have behaved badly. I’d use much stronger words. Turning up like thieves, leaving you in the ambulance, blackmailing Roxana.”

“They couldn’t cope,” said Nariman. “This was a way out. For successful dumping, advance notice is unadvisable. Remember that, both of you, when you want to return me to Chateau Felicity.”

“That’s not funny, Pappa. Where is their sense of decency?”

“I wonder what would happen if you demanded to go back,” said Yezad. “It’s your home, after all. You should put your foot down, chief, just to see what they do.”

“If I could put my foot down, everything would be fine,” said Nariman with a wry smile. “How can you force people? Can caring and concern be made compulsory? Either it resides in the heart, or nowhere.”

“Still, it’s infuriating – they’ve pushed you out of your comfortable flat into this cramped little space.”

Nariman shook his head. “That huge flat is empty as a Himalayan cave for me, this feels like a palace. But it will be difficult for you.”

“You’re welcome to stay, chief – your house, after all.”

Nariman turned his face away. “Never say that, please. Notwithstanding my barging in today, this flat is yours and Roxana’s. Your wedding gift. It ill behooves anyone to suggest, after fifteen years, that I am attempting to commandeer these premises.”

The stiff and formal turn of Nariman’s diction told Yezad he had offended him. “Sorry, chief, didn’t mean that.”

“We’ll manage fine, Pappa,” said Roxana. “Three weeks will fly before we know it.”

“Exactly,” said Yezad. “And Murad and Jehangir will help their mother with the extra work. You promise, boys? We’ll soon have the chief good as new.”

Jehangir pulled the urinal and bedpan out from under the cot. “That’s Grandpa’s soo-soo bottle,” he explained to his father, “and that’s for kakka.”

“Don’t touch those things,” said Yezad, suddenly angry. “Wash your hands at once.”

With Roxana’s and Nariman’s worried eyes following him, he stalked out to the balcony where he stood till she announced dinner was ready.

Jehangir claimed he was expert now at feeding Grandpa, and helped him with the French beans. Yezad remarked that the chief not only had his private nursing home but also his own butler – what more could he want?

Nariman wondered if resentment was concealed behind the words. “I’m truly blessed to have such a family. Makes up for all other deficiencies.”

“We should decide about the bedding,” said Roxana. The kitchen was not an option, she felt, mice and cockroaches persisted despite the poison she spread regularly. The passage between kitchen and wc would be unhygienic. And the floor near the front door had a perpetual damp patch whose origins had yet to be traced. Which left the balcony.

“Yippee!” said Jehangir. “Simply smashing! I’ll make a tent and have a midnight feast in it.”

“Sorry,” said Murad, “Squadron Leader Bigglesworth needs it for a base to conduct secret operations.”

“Only one way to settle this,” said Yezad. “You’ll have to share. Grandpa is here for three weeks – let’s say twenty days. So ten days each.”

Their father tossed a coin to see who would be first. Murad called tails and won. The two thin mattresses on the cot parted company: one remained behind for Jehangir, the other went outside, upon a plastic sheet.

“Hope it rains heavily,” said Murad. “It will be just like the Biggies adventure when his Hurricane crash-landed in Sumatra in the middle of a storm.”

“Silly boy!” scolded his mother. “Pray to God it remains dry! What will we do if your mattress is soaked? Once again your medicine bottles that we can’t afford will rule my life.”

Yezad tried to placate her fears: there was very little chance of rain tonight, tomorrow he would rig something up on the balcony for protection. But she was not willing to take the risk.

“It’s only the beginning of September. If Murad falls sick it will be impossible for me, now that I have Pappa to look after.” She threatened to sleep on the balcony herself if it wasn’t one hundred per cent rainproof.

Now Murad worried his adventure was about to slip out of his grasp. “It’s okay, Mummy,” he reassured her. “Daddy and I will dress the balcony in a raincoat and gumboots and cap.”

Rummaging among the shelves outside the kitchen, they found two small plastic sheets, enough to cover the spaces in the wrought-iron railings but nothing large enough to make a roof.

“Ask Villie,” suggested Yezad to Roxana. “She might lend us a tarpaulin or something.”

“You go. I can’t stand her, with her dear and darling, and her gambling.”

Villie Cardmaster, or the Matka Queen, as Yezad called her, was about his age, and lived with her mother in the next flat. She had taken to professing preference for her single state, declaring she had no use for a groaning-moaning fellow keeping her up all night with his demands. Sometimes, though, she looked wistfully at men, as though sizing them up for herself.

Her days were occupied with housework and caring for her ailing mother, who had shrunk to the size of a six-year-old. Villie was able to lift her without much effort as she took her from the bed to the bathroom, and to her easy chair on the balcony, or to the dining table, carrying her around like a wrinkled doll.

Any spare time that Villie squeezed out of her day was devoted to analyzing dreams. She assigned numeric values to objects and events from a dream, which were then used to play Matka. The illegal numbers game was the thread upon which the beads of her hours were strung. She interrogated friends, neighbours, neighbours’ servants, and those who shared their dreams were rewarded with the fruits of her analysis. She had a little Matka flutter almost every day, placing the bets when she went for her daily shopping to the bunya, who was also a bookie.

“Hallo, Yezadji!” she exclaimed, delighted to have a visitor. She used the honorific suffix with every male, regardless of age or station.

“Sorry to bother you, Villie.”

“What use are neighbours if you can’t bother them? Come in, my dear, bother me all you want.”

He followed her smelly housecoated figure inside. The full-length garment, loose and buttoned along the front, disguised her form efficiently. She wore it from one bath to the next, which meant three or four days. She slept in it, cooked in it, and conducted her daily shopping in it, the last with a significant modification: she wrapped a sari over the housecoat, draping it rather uniquely – half-a-dozen safety pins held it in place, for there was no petticoat waistband into which it could be tucked. She called the housecoat her all-purpose gown.

He realized why the flirting depressed him: it was the gulf between her coquettish words and slovenly appearance. Without too many details he explained why he had come, but Villie had seen the ambulance in the morning and heard the row.

“I understand, Yezadji,” she said with a wink. “In-law troubles make the strongest into helpless kittens. Come, let’s see what we can find.”

She led the way, expressing regret for Nariman’s predicament. His tragic life, she called it, and recounted some of the sordid details. Her familiarity with the facts did not surprise Yezad – there were many in the Parsi community who could recall the scandal with Villie’s mix of sympathy and satisfaction.

She stopped before an old dresser crammed with odds and ends. “Make yourself at home, my darling, look freely through these drawers.”

Noticing his reluctance, she knelt to help him get started. “By the way, I have a strong Matka number for tonight. A dream so powerful, so numerically forceful I haven’t had in months.”

“Good luck, Villie, hope you crack it.”

Despite his lack of curiosity, she dramatically lowered her voice to preserve the dream’s numinous power and continued, with reverent cadence, “A cat is what I saw. A cat beside a large saucer of milk.”

“And it discussed numbers with you?”

With a pitying smile she pulled things out of the drawers for his inspection. “The message of cat and saucer was so strong, Yezadji, there was no need for discussion.”

“So the two of you communicated by telepathy?”

Villie shook her head. “The cat was sitting up straight, looking at me. Her head and body formed a perfect eight. And on her left side, the saucer of milk, round, like a zero. So tomorrow’s number is eighty.”

He was not through with teasing. “But, Villie, did you dream in English or Gujarati?”

“I’m not sure. What’s the difference?”

“Huge difference. Gujarati number eight” – he drew it in the air with his finger – “does not look like a cat sitting up straight.”

“Big joker you are, Yezadji.” She laughed, but the seed of doubt was planted.

They found some squares of oilskin and a four-by-six section of canvas, not sufficient to roof the balcony. Then, from the last drawer, he pulled out a large leathery sheet that was packed inside a shopping bag. “What’s this?”

“Oh, the old tablecloth. For our family dining table.”

“Must be huge.”

“It is. It was. So huge, sixteen could sit comfortably.”

They each took hold of an end; the layers, stuck together, separated with a sound like fabric rending. As the dark green rexine unfolded, Villie let her memories unfold with it.

“Such happy times, Yezadji, we had around this tablecloth. Every Sunday afternoon, the whole family together, for dhansak lunch. Bavaji was fanatic about it – curry-rice okay for Saturday, but try to cook anything except dhansak on Sunday and heaven help you. So Maiji never argued. And at one o’clock uncles, aunties, cousins would arrive and start chattering as though we hadn’t met for months.”

Yezad thought about the balcony waiting to be fixed, but he did not have the heart to interrupt. Villie’s face was aglow with happiness.