A Fine Balance

II. For Dreams to Grow

THE OFFICES OF AU REVOIR EXPORTS looked and smelled like a warehouse, the floors stacked high with bales of textiles swaddled in hessian. The chemical odour of new fabric was sharp in the air. Scraps of clear plastic, paper, twine, and packing material littered the dusty floor. Dina located the manager at a desk hidden behind metal shelving.

“Hello! Zenobia’s friend — Mrs. Dalai! How are you?” said Mrs. Gupta.

They shook hands. Dina reported that she had found two skilled tailors and was ready to start.

“Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!” said Mrs. Gupta, but it was evident that her excellent humour did not flow merely from Dina’s announcement. The real reason soon bubbled out: she had another appointment at the Venus Beauty Salon this afternoon. Unruly curls which had slipped the leash during the past week would be tamed and brought back into the fold.

This event alone would have been enough to ensure Mrs. Gupta’s happiness, but there were more glad tidings; minor irritants in her life were also being eradicated — the Prime Minister’s declaration yesterday of the Internal Emergency had incarcerated most of the parliamentary opposition, along with thousands of trade unionists, students, and social workers. “Isn’t that good news?” she sparkled with joy.

Dina nodded, doubtful. “I thought the court found her guilty of cheating in the election.”

“No, no, no!” said Mrs. Gupta. “That is all rubbish, it will be appealed. Now all those troublemakers who accused her falsely have been put in jail. No more strikes and morchas and silly disturbances.”

“Oh good,” said Dina nervously.

The manager opened her order book and selected a pattern for the first assignment. “Now these thirty-six dresses are a test for you. Test for neatness, accuracy, and consistency. If your two tailors prove themselves, I will keep giving you orders. Much bigger orders,” she promised. “As I told you before, I prefer to deal with private contractors. Union loafers want to work less and get more money. That’s the curse of this country — laziness. And some idiot leaders encouraging them, telling police and army to disobey unlawful orders. Now you tell me, how can the law be unlawful? Ridiculous nonsense. Serves them right, being thrown in jail.”

“Yes, serves them right,” echoed Dina, absorbed in the dress design. She wished the manager would stick to the work and not keep rambling into politics. “Look, Mrs. Gupta, the hem on the sample dress is three inches wide, but according to the paper pattern it’s only two inches.”

The discrepancy was too trivial for Mrs. Gupta’s consideration. She nodded and shrugged, which made the sari slip from her shoulder. A hand darted to halt the slide. “Thank God the Prime Minister has taken firm steps, as she said on the radio. We are lucky to have someone strong at a dangerous time like this.”

She waved aside further queries. “I have faith in you, Mrs. Dalai, just follow my sample. But did you see the new posters today? They are put up everywhere.”

Dina hadn’t; she keenly wanted to measure the fabrics allocated for the thirty-six dresses, in case there was a shortfall. On second thoughts, no, she decided, it would offend the manager.

“ ‘The Need of the Hour Is Discipline’ — that’s the Prime Minister’s message on the poster. And I think she is absolutely right.” Mrs. Gupta leaned closer and confided softly, “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stick a few posters on the Au Revoir entrance. Look at those two rascals in the corner. Chatting away instead of stacking my shelves.”

Dina clucked sympathetically and shook her head. “Shall I come back in one week?”

“Please do. And best of luck. Remember, be firm with your tailors or they will sit on your head.”

Dina started to pick up the bundles of cloth but was stopped. The managerial fingers snapped twice to summon a man to load the material in the lift.

“I’ll say hello from you to Zenobia this afternoon. Wish me some luck also,” Mrs. Gupta giggled. “My poor hair is going under the knife again.”

“Yes, of course, good luck.”

Dina brought home the bolts of cloth and made space for the two tailors in the back room. The paying guest wasn’t moving in till next month; that would give her time to get used to one thing. She studied the paper patterns and examined the packet of labels: Chantal Boutique, New York. Restless, she decided to start cutting the patterns, have them ready for Monday. She wondered about the Emergency. If there were riots, the tailors might not be able to come. She didn’t even know where they lived. It would make a terrible impression if the delivery date were not met for this trial consignment.

The Darjis arrived promptly on Monday at eight a.m., by taxi, with their sewing-machines. “On hire purchase,” said Ishvar, proudly patting the Singers. “In three years, when payments are complete, they will belong to us.”

Everything the tailors could spare must have gone towards the first instalment, for she had to pay the taxi driver. “Please deduct from what we earn this week,” said Ishvar.

The machines were carried into the back room. They fitted the drive belts, adjusted the various tensions, loaded the bobbins, and ran off seams on waste cloth to test the stitches. Fifteen minutes later they were ready to sew.

And sew they did. Like angels, thought Dina. The treadles of the Singers rocked and the flywheels hummed as the needles danced in neat, narrow rows upon fabric, while the unfurling bolts of cloth were transformed into sleeves, collars, fronts, backs, pleats, and skirts.

I am the supervisor, she had to remind herself constantly, I must not join in the work. She hovered around, inspecting finished pieces, encouraging, advising. She scrutinized the tailors bent over the machines, their brows furrowed. The inch-long nails on their little fingers intrigued her; they used them for folding seams and making creases. Ishvar’s disfigured cheek was grotesque, she decided: what might have caused it? He did not look like the type to get into a knife fight. His smile and his funny, undecided moustache tended to soften the damage. She shifted her glance to the silent Omprakash. The skeletal figure, sharp and angular, seemed a mechanical extension of the sewing-machine. Delicate as cut-glass crystal, she thought with a pang of concern. And his oily hair — she hoped he wouldn’t smudge the cloth.

Lunchtime came and went, and they continued to work, stopping only to ask for a drink of water. “Thank you,” said Ishvar, gulping it down. “Very nice and cool.”

“Don’t you eat lunch at this time?”

He shook his head fervently as though the suggestion was preposterous. “One meal at night is sufficient. More than that is a waste of time and food.” After a pause, he asked, “Dinabai, what is this Emergency we hear about?”

“Government problems — games played by people in power. It doesn’t affect ordinary people like us.”

“That’s what I said,” murmured Omprakash. “My uncle was simply worrying.”

They returned to their Singers, and Dina felt piecework was a brilliant idea. She rinsed the glass and put it in a separate place. From now on it would be the tailors’ glass.

As the afternoon deepened, Ishvar seemed uncomfortable at his machine. She noticed him sitting hunched forward, legs tight together, as though he had stomach cramp. His feet began faltering on the treadle.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing, nothing,” he smiled embarrassedly.

His nephew came to the rescue, holding up his little finger. “He needs to go.”

“Why didn’t you say it earlier?”

“I was feeling bad to ask,” said Ishvar shyly.

She showed him the wc. The door shut, and she heard the stream hit the toilet. It rose and fell haltingly with the reluctance of an overfull bladder.

Omprakash took his turn when Ishvar returned. “The flush is out of order,” Dina called after him. “Throw some water from the bucket.”

The smell in the wc bothered her. Living alone for so long, I’ve grown too fastidious, she thought. Different diets, different habits — it was only natural their urine left a strange odour.

The pile of finished dresses grew without Dina having to do a thing except open the door every morning. Ishvar would have a greeting or a smile for her, but Omprakash’s skinny form darted past wordlessly. Perching on his stool like a grouchy little owl, she thought.

The three dozen dresses were completed before the due date. Mrs. Gupta was delighted with the results. She authorized a new assignment, for six dozen garments this time. And safely in Dina’s purse was the payment for the first batch. Almost like money for nothing, she felt, experiencing a hint of guilt. How much easier than those tangled days when her fingers and eyes were forever snarled in sewing and embroidery.

The tailors’ relief at being approved by the export company was enormous. “If the first lot is accepted, the rest will be no problem,” brimmed Ishvar with sudden confidence, as she counted out their payment.

“Yes,” cautioned Dina, “but they will always check the quality, so we cannot get careless. And we have to deliver on time.”

“Hahnji, don’t worry,” said Ishvar. “Always top quality production, on time.” And Dina dared to believe that her days of toil and trouble were ending.

The tailors began taking regular lunch breaks. Dina concluded that the onemeal-a-day formula Ishvar had proclaimed last week was dictated by their pocketbook rather than asceticism or a strict work ethic. But she was pleased because her enterprise was improving their nourishment.

Promptly at one, Omprakash announced, “I’m hungry, let’s go.” They put aside the dresses, returned their treasured pinking shears to the drawer, and departed.

They ate at the Vishram Vegetarian Hotel on the corner. There were no secrets at the Vishram — everything was out in the open: the man chopping vegetables, another frying them in the huge black-bottomed pan, a boy washing up. With only one table in the little shop, Ishvar and Omprakash did not wait for a seat but ate standing with the crowd outside. Then they hurried back to work, past the legless beggar who was rolling back and forth on his platform to the squeal of his rusty castors.

Soon, Dina began to notice that the sewing no longer proceeded at the former breakneck speed. Their recesses became more numerous, during which they stood outside the front door and puffed on beedis. Typical, she thought, they get a little money and they start to slack off.

She remembered the advice that Zenobia and Mrs. Gupta had given: to be a firm boss. She pointed out, in what she presumed was a stern voice, that work was falling behind.

“No no, don’t worry,” said Ishvar. “Everything will finish punctually. But if you like, to save time we can smoke while we sew.”

Dina hated the smell; besides, a stray spark could burn a hole in the cloth. “You shouldn’t smoke anywhere,” she said. “Inside or outside. Cancer will eat your lungs.”

“We don’t have to worry about cancer,” said Omprakash. “This expensive city will first eat us alive, for sure.”

“What’s that? At last I am hearing words from your mouth?”

Ishvar chuckled. “I told you he speaks only when he disagrees.”

“But why worry about money,” she said. “Work hard and you will earn lots of it.”

“Not the way you pay us,” muttered Omprakash under his breath.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said Ishvar hastily. “He was talking to me. He has a headache.”

She asked if he would like to take an Aspro for the pain. Omprakash refused, but from then on, his voice was heard increasingly.

“Do you have to go far to get the work?” he asked.

“Not far,” said Dina. “Takes about one hour.” She was pleased that he was settling in, making an effort to be agreeable.

“If you need help to carry the dresses there, let us know.”

How nice of him, she thought.

“And what is the name of the company you go to?”

Glad about his grumpy silences having ended, she almost blurted out the name, then pretended not to have heard. He repeated the question.

“Why bother with the name,” she said. “All that I am concerned with is the work.”

“Very true,” agreed Ishvar. “That’s what interests us also.”

His nephew scowled. After a while he tried again: Was there only one company or several different ones? Was she paid a commission, or a set price for the complete order?

Ishvar was embarrassed. “Less talk, Omprakash, and more sewing.”

Now Dina longed for the silent nephew. She saw what he was after, and from that day made sure the material from Au Revoir Exports bore no signs of its origin. Labels and tags were torn off the packages if the telltale name was featured. Invoices were kept locked away in the cupboard. Cracks began appearing in her optimism as it tried to keep up with the tailors. She knew the road had turned bumpy.

The Darjis lived far, at the mercy of the railways. Still, Dina worried now if they were late, certain she had been deserted for better-paying jobs. And since she could not afford to let them suspect her fears, she always masked her relief upon their arrival with a show of displeasure.

A day before the due date, they did not come till ten o’clock. “There was an accident, train was delayed,” explained Ishvar. “Some poor fellow dead on the tracks again.”

“It’s happening too often,” said Omprakash.

The empty-stomach smell floating out their mouths, like a cocoon containing words, was unpleasant. She was not interested in their excuses. The sooner they were at their sewing-machines the better.

But silence on her part could be misconstrued as weakness, so she said, drily, “Under the Emergency, government says railway runs on time. Strange that your train keeps coming late.”

“If government kept their promises, the gods would come down to garland them,” said Ishvar, laughing with a placating circular nod.

His peace-offering amused her. She smiled, and he was relieved. As far as he was concerned, jeopardizing the steady income would be foolish — Omprakash and he were very fortunate to be working for Dina Dalai.

They pulled out their wooden stools, loaded fresh bobbins, and started to sew while the sky prepared to rain. The gloom of grey clouds infiltrated the back room. Omprakash hinted that the forty-watt bulb was too dim.

“If I exceed the monthly quota, my meter will be disconnected,” she said. “Then we will be in total darkness.”

Ishvar suggested moving the Singers to the front room which was much brighter.

“Not possible. The machines will be seen from the street, and the landlord will make trouble. It is against the law to have a factory in the flat, even if it is only two sewing-machines. Already he harasses me for other reasons.”

This the tailors understood. They too knew about landlords and harassment. Through the morning they worked steadily, with rumbling bellies, anticipating the midday break. They had eaten nothing since waking.

“Double tea for me today,” said Omprakash. “And a butter-bun to dip.”

“Pay attention to your machine,” said Ishvar. “You will end up with double fingers instead of double tea.” They both kept checking the clock. At the hour of deliverance, their feet left the treadles and sought out their sandals.

“Don’t go now,” said Dina. “This job is urgent, and you were late this morning. The manager will be very angry if the dresses are delayed.” She was worried about the due date — what if they came late again tomorrow? Be firm, be strict, she reminded herself.

Ishvar hesitated; his nephew would not take the suggestion kindly. His inquiring glance confirmed it, colliding with an angry glare.

“Let’s go,” muttered Omprakash without looking at Dina. “I’m hungry.”

“Your nephew is always hungry,” she said to Ishvar. “Has he got worms?”

“No no, Om is all right.”

Dina was not convinced. The suspicion had crawled into her mind during the first week. Apart from Omprakash’s skinniness and his constant complaints about headaches and hunger, she frequently spied his fingers relieving an itch in his fundament; and that, she felt, was evidence as conclusive as any.

“You should take him to doctor for checkup. He is so thin — a walking advertisement for Wimco Matches.”

“No no, he is all right. And who has money for doctor?”

“Work hard and there will be plenty. Finish this job quickly,” she coaxed. “The sooner I deliver it, the sooner you have your money.”

“Five minutes for tea won’t make a difference,” snapped Omprakash.

“Your five always become thirty-five. Listen, I will make tea for you later. Special deluxe tea, not the overbrewed, bitter poison you get at the corner. But first finish the work. That way, everybody will be happy — you, me, the manager.”

“Okay,” Ishvar gave in, shaking off his sandals and resuming his place. The cast-iron treadle, warmed all morning by his feet, had not had time to cool.

With the two Singers racing again, Omprakash’s angry whispers darted their way through the hammering needles to his uncle’s ear. “You always let her bully us. I don’t know what the matter is with you. Let me do the talking from now on.”

Ishvar nodded mollifyingly. It embarrassed him to argue with Om or scold him within Dina’s earshot.

At two o’clock, when the noise of the machines was making her temples throb, Dina decided to deliver what had been completed. She was annoyed with herself. Pleading and bribing with tea was not a good example of a strict boss. It would take more practice, she concluded, to get used to bullying them.

From under the worktable she retrieved the transparent plastic sheet and brown paper in which the bolts of cloth had arrived from Au Revoir. Remembering Shirin Aunty’s advice, she wasted nothing. The little snippets of fabric continued to accumulate in great quantities. Enough, she thought, to make sanitary pads for a conventful of nuns. The larger scraps were collecting in a separate pile. She was not yet sure how to use these — for a quilt, perhaps.

She packaged the finished dresses and got her purse ready. To put in an appearance a day ahead of the deadline would impress Mrs. Gupta.

Then, keeping in mind Omprakash’s inquisitiveness, she padlocked the door from outside, just in case he decided to follow her.

Sore-bottomed and bleary-eyed, the tailors adjourned to the front room. After the morning-long hardness of wooden stools, the old sofa was sweet luxury despite its broken springs, and the pleasure keener because it was stolen. The stiff posture of their profession melted from their bones as they sank into the cushions. Raising their bare feet to the teapoy, they pulled out a packet of Ganesh Beedis and lit up, sucking greedily at the smoke. A torn-off segment of the beedi wrapper served as ashtray.

Omprakash scratched his head and examined the dandruff harvested by his fingertips. With the inch-long nails of his pinkies he cleaned under the others, flicking the oily accretions to the floor. He would not have admitted he was bored — by wasting time he was outsmarting Dina Dalai. If she thought she could drive them like a pair of dumb oxen harnessed to her plough, she was mistaken. He still had his manhood, he thought bitterly, though his uncle sometimes behaved otherwise.

Ishvar let his nephew idle away the hour. The rock of hunger lay heavy in both their hollow bellies. He watched amusedly as Omprakash squirmed and snuggled in the cushions, determined to pilfer maximum pleasure from Dina Dalai’s sofa. He meditatively fingered the cheek that kept half his smile imprisoned in frozen flesh.

Laughing, yawning, stretching, they smoked away the time, temporary kings of the broken sofa, masters of the tiny flat, when their illicit leisure was invaded by a battering at the front door.

“I know you are in there!” shouted the visitor. “This padlock on the door does not fool me!”

The tailors froze. The pounding continued. “Paying the rent means nothing! We know what goes on behind the padlock! You and your illegal business will be thrown out on the street!”

The tailors understood — it had to do with the landlord. But what was this about a padlock? The banging at the door ceased. “Quick, on the floor!” whispered Ishvar, in case the door-banger decided to look through the window.

Something fell through the mail slot, then there was silence. They waited a few moments before venturing to the door. A large envelope addressed to Mrs. Rustom Dalai lay on the floor. Ishvar turned the latch. The door moved half an inch and hit the outside hasp, confirming the padlock’s presence.

“She locked us in,” fumed Omprakash. “That woman. What does she think?”

“Must be a reason for it. Don’t get upset.”

“Let’s open her letter.”

Ishvar snatched it from his hand and put it aside. They tried to get comfortable again on the cushions, lighting up new beedis, but the intrusion had soured the pleasure. The sofa’s sagging comforts hardened into lumps of discontent. Stray threads clinging to their clothes reminded them of the work waiting in the back room. The clock displayed its baleful warning: she would soon be home. Soon, all of this prohibited behaviour would have to cease.

“She cheats us,” grumbled Omprakash. “We should sew directly for the export company. Why does she have to be in the middle?” His lips made small, careful movements that became words, his smouldering beedi hanging in uneasy equilibrium at one corner of his mouth.

Ishvar smiled indulgently. The insolence of the dangling beedi was aimed, lethal as a toy gun, at Dina Dalai. “Soon as it’s time for her to come, your face looks like you ate a sour lime.”

He continued, his tone more serious, “She is in the middle because we have no shop. She lets us sew here, she brings the clothes, she gets the orders from the company. And besides, with piecework we have more independence — ”

“Leave it, yaar. She treats us like slaves, and you talk of independence. Making money from our sweat without a single stitch from her fingers. Look at her house. With electricity, water, everything. And what do we have? A stinking shack in the slum. We’ll never collect enough to go back to our village.”

“Giving up already? That’s no way to win in life. Fight and struggle, Om, even if life knocks you around.” He held his beedi between ring and little finger and made a loose fist, raising it to his lips.

“I’ll find out where she goes, you watch,” said Omprakash with a defiant toss of his head.

“Your puff moves beautifully when you do that.”

“Just wait, I’ll get the address of the company.”

“How? You think she will tell you?”

Omprakash went to the back room and returned with a pair of large pointed scissors. He clutched it with both hands and thrust theatrically into thin air. “Hold this at her throat and she will tell us whatever we want to know.”

His uncle whacked him on the head. “What would your father say if he heard you? Stupid words pour from your mouth like stitches from your machine. And just as carelessly.”

Omprakash sheepishly put back the scissors. “One of these days I’m going to cut her out of the middle — I’ll follow her to the company.”

“I didn’t know you could walk through padlocked doors like the Great Goghia Pasha. Or is it Omprakash Pasha?” He paused to draw, then whiffed smoke through his nostrils and smiled at the scowling face. “Listen, my nephew, this is the way the world works. Some people are in the middle, some are on the border. Patience is needed for dreams to grow and give fruit.”

“Patience is good when you want to grow a beard. For what she pays, we couldn’t afford the ghee and wood for our funeral pyre.” He gave his hair a ferocious scratching. “And why do you always talk to her in that silly tone, as though you were an ignorant fellow from the countryside?”

“Isn’t that what I am?” said Ishvar. “People like to feel superior. If my tone helps Dinabai to feel good, what’s wrong in that?” Savouring the final delights of his shrinking beedi, he repeated, “Patience, Om. Some things cannot be changed, you just have to accept them.”

“You want it both ways? First you said struggle, don’t give up. Now you are saying just accept it. Swaying from side to side, like a pot without an arse.”

“Your grandmother Roopa used to say that,” laughed Ishvar.

“Make up your mind, yaar, choose one thing.”

“How can I? I’m just a human being,” he replied, laughing again. Halfway, it changed to coughing, shaking him harshly in its racking embrace. He went to the window, moved the curtain aside and spat. Were he close enough to examine it, he would have seen the usual spot of blood.

A taxi approached as he was withdrawing his head from the window. “Quick, she’s back!” he whispered hoarsely.

They began eliminating the traces of their bad behaviour: plumping the cushions, repositioning the teapoy, pocketing the matchsticks and ashes. A spark flew from the beedi in Omprakash’s mouth, as though to mock his earlier fire-breathing rage. He fanned it away from the upholstery. Drawing one last time at the beedis while running to the back room, they extinguished the stubs and chucked them out the rear window.

Dina paid the taxi and felt inside her handbag for the key ring. The brass padlock, tarnished, hung grim and ponderous. She turned the key with a twinge of guilt, no jailer at heart.

Omprakash stretched out his arms and relieved her of the package. “I heard you arrive.”

“There are lots more,” she said, indicating the bundles of fabric piled outside the door. He looked them over, trying to spot the company name or address.

When everything had been brought inside, Ishvar gave her the envelope. “Someone came banging on the door, saying the padlock did not fool him. He left this for you.”

“Must be the rent-collector.” She put the letter aside without opening it. “Did he see you?”

“No, we stayed hidden.”

“Good.” She went to put away her purse and exchange her shoes for slippers.

“Did you lock us in when you left?” asked Ishvar.

“Didn’t you know? Yes, I had to.”

“Why?” pounced Omprakash. “You think we are thieves or something? We are going to take your possessions and run away?”

“Don’t be silly. What big possessions do I have to worry about? The landlord is the reason. He could barge in while I am gone and throw you out on the street. But if there is a lock, he won’t dare. To break a padlock is to break the law.”

“Very true,” said Ishvar. He was eager to see the design for the new dresses. While his nephew glowered, the tablecloth was whipped off the dining table to make way for the paper patterns.

“How much per dress this time?” interrupted Omprakash, fingering the new poplin.

She ignored him while Ishvar moved the sections around. Like a child with a jigsaw puzzle, he was soon absorbed in its complexities. Omprakash tried again, “Very difficult pattern. Look at all the godets to be inserted for flaring the skirt. We will have to charge more this time, for sure.”

“Stop doing your kutt-kutt,” she scolded. “Let your elders work. Respect your uncle at least if you cannot respect me.”

Ishvar matched the sections against the sample dress, talking to himself. “The sleeve, yes. And the back, with a seam in the middle — yes, it’s easy.” His nephew frowned at him for that admission.

“Yes, extremely easy,” said Dina. “Simpler than the ones you just finished. And the good news is, they are still paying five rupees each.”

“Not possible for five rupees,” said Omprakash. “You said you would bring expensive dresses. This is not worth our time.”

“I have to bring what the company gives. Or they will cancel us from their list.”

“We will do it,” said Ishvar. “To kick at wages is sinful.”

“You do it, then — I cannot do it for five rupees,” said Omprakash, but Ishvar nodded reassuringly at Dina.

She went to the kitchen to make the tea she had promised. The dissension in their midst was good; the uncle would curb the nephew’s rebellion. She squinted at the cups and saucers, at their rose borders. Pink or red? Pink ones for the tailors, she decided, to be set aside with the segregated water glass. Red for myself.

While waiting for the kettle, she checked the chicken wire over the broken windowpanes and found a breach. Those nuisance cats again, she fumed. Sneaking in, prowling for food, or to get out of the rain. And who knew what germs they brought with them from the gutters.

She reinforced the piece, twisting the corners around a nail. The kettle blurted its readiness with a healthy spout of steam. She held back for a vigorous boil, enjoying the thickening haze and the water’s steady babble: the illusions of chatter, friendship, bustling life.

Reluctantly she turned down the flame, and the white cloud dissipated in desultory wisps. She filled three cups and carried in the two with pink roses.

“Ah,” sighed Ishvar, taking the tea gratefully. Omprakash continued to sew without looking up, still sulking. She put it down beside him.

“I don’t want any,” he muttered. Dina returned wordlessly to the kitchen for her own cup.

“Delicious,” said Ishvar when she was back. He slurped noisily, making sounds to tempt his nephew. “Much better than Vishram Vegetarian Hotel.”

“They must be letting it boil-all day,” said Dina. “That spoils it. Nothing like fresh tea when you are tired.”

“Very true.” He took another sip and sighed invitingly again. Omprakash reached for his cup. The other two pretended not to notice. He gulped down the tea thirstily without displacing his angry pout.

Two hours of sewing were left in the day, and he filled them with crooked seams and grumbling. Ishvar was grateful to the clock when it indicated six. Keeping the peace between his nephew and Dinabai was becoming difficult.

Morning was striding towards noon as Ibrahim, the rent-collector, plodding slowly down the pavement, prepared to visit Dina Dalai and demand a reply to the letter he had delivered yesterday. Dignified in his maroon fez and black sherwani, he smiled at tenants he met along the way, saying “Salaam” and “How are you?” He was blessed with an automatic smile; it formed whenever he opened his mouth to speak. This felicitous buccal trick was a liability, though, if the occasion of his message warranted something more in the line of a solemn visage — a touch of frowning, perhaps, for overdue rents.

Ibrahim was an elderly man but looked old beyond his years. In his left hand, still sore from pounding the door yesterday, he carried a plastic folder secured by two large rubber bands. It contained rent receipts, bills, orders for repairs, records of disputes and court cases pertaining to the six buildings he looked after. Some of those disputes dated back to when he was a young man of nineteen, just starting in service with the father of the present landlord. Other cases were more ancient, inherited from Ibrahim’s predecessor.

So thoroughly was everything documented, Ibrahim sometimes felt he was lugging the very buildings around with him. The folder handed down almost half a century ago by the retiring rent-collector had not been of plastic, but rudely fashioned out of two wooden boards bound by a strip of morocco. It had carried with it the previous owner’s smell. A fraying cotton tape, sewn to the leather, went around to secure the contents. The dark, cracked boards had warped badly; when opened, they creaked and released a sweaty tobacco odour.

Young and ambitious as Ibrahim then was, he was ashamed of being seen with this relic. Though it contained nothing but respectable rent receipts, he knew that people would judge it by its cover, which resembled the filthy binders carried by disreputable marketplace jyotshis and fortune-tellers to shelter their quack charts and fake diagrams. That he might be mistaken for one of those odious mountebanks mortified him. He began to harbour grave doubts about this job which forced him to carry around a questionable folder — he felt shortchanged, as though a bazaar vendor had fiddled the weights and tipped the scales unfairly.

Then, on one lucky day, the morocco spine broke. He displayed the wreck at the landlord’s office. The clerk examined it, confirmed its demise from natural causes, and filled out the appropriate requisition form. Ibrahim was given a length of string to make do while the paperwork was processed.

After a fortnight’s delay, the new folder arrived. It was built of buckramed cardboard, very smart and modern-looking, in colour a dignified umber. Ibrahim was delighted. He began to feel optimistic about his prospects in this job.

With the new folder under his arm, he could hold his head high and strut as importantly as a solicitor while making his rounds. It was far more sophisticated than the old one, with generous pouches and compartments. Briefs, complaints, correspondences could now be organized methodically. Which was just as well, because around this time Ibrahim’s duties increased, both at work and domestically.

Ibrahim, the son of ageing parents, became a husband, then a father. And the role of rent-collector began to sprout branches too. He was appointed the landlord’s spy, blackmailer, deliverer of threats, and all-round harasser of tenants. His job now included the uncovering of hidden dirt in his six buildings, secrets like extramarital affairs, and he was taught by his employer how to convert adultery into rent increases — the guilty parties would never protest or dare to mention the Rent Act. When the situation demanded, Ibrahim could also play the pleader and cajoler, if the landlord went too far and there was legalistic retaliation. The rent-collector’s tears would convince the tenant to back down, to have mercy on the poor beleaguered landlord, a martyr to modern-day housing, who had never meant any harm in the first place.

To sort out the multiple roles in Ibrahim’s repertoire, the folder’s pouches and compartments were indispensable. At this stage in his career, however, he began to feel the increasing hindrance of his sweet automatic smile. Delivering threats and dire warnings while smiling pleasantly, he discovered, was not a good strategy. If he could have modified it to a menacing smile, that would have been perfect. But the muscles in question were beyond his control. The occasions when he had to express regrets over repairs delayed, or convey condolences for a death in a tenant’s family, were equally difficult. Before long, the burdensome dental display earned him an undeserved reputation for being callous, crude, incompetent, retarded, even demonic.

So he smiled his hapless way through three buckram folders, all umber like the first, and added twenty-four years to his own frame. Twenty-four years of drudgery and deprivation during which his youth disappeared, and the bright ambition of his golden season became tainted by bitterness. Desperate, and scarred by the certain knowledge that he no longer had any prospects, he watched his wife, two sons, and two daughters still believing in him and thereby increasing his anguish. He asked himself what it was he had done to deserve a life so stale, so empty of hope. Or was this the way all humans were meant to feel? Did the Master of the Universe take no interest in levelling the scales — was there no such thing as. a fair measure?

There no longer seemed any point in going to the masjid as often as he did. His attendance at Friday prayers became irregular. And he began seeking guidance in ways he had once despised as the preserve of the ignorant.

He found the jyotshis and fortune-tellers in the marketplace most comforting. They offered solutions to his money problems, and advice on improving his future, which was becoming his past at an alarming velocity. He discovered their confident pronouncements to be a soothing drug.

Nor did he restrict himself to palmists and astrologers. Seeking stronger drugs, he turned to less orthodox messengers: card-picking doves, chart-reading parrots, communicating cows, diagram-divining snakes. Always worried that an acquaintance would spot him during one of his questionable excursions, he decided, with great reluctance, to leave behind his distinctive fez. It was like abandoning a dear friend. The only other time he had forsaken this fixture of daily wear was during Partition, back in 1947, when communal slaughter at the brand-new border had ignited riots everywhere, and sporting a fez in a Hindu neighbourhood was as fatal as possessing a foreskin in a Muslim one. In certain areas it was wisest to go bareheaded, for choosing incorrectly from among fez, white cap, and turban could mean losing one’s head.

Fortunately, his sittings at the avian auguries were relatively private. He could crouch unnoticed on a pavement corner with the creature’s keeper, ask the question, and the dove or parrot would hop out of its cage to enlighten him.

The cow session, on the other hand, was a major performance that collected large crowds. The cow, caparisoned in colourful brocaded fabrics, a string of tiny silver bells round her neck, was led into the ring of spectators by a man with a drum. Though the fellow’s shirt and turban were bright-hued, he seemed quite drab compared to the richly bedizened cow. The two walked the circle: once, twice, thrice — however long it took him to recite the cow’s curriculum vitae, with special emphasis on prophecies and forecasts accurately completed to date. His voice was deafeningly raucous, his eyes bloodshot, his gestures manic, and all this frenzy was calculated as a masterly counterpoint to the cow’s calm demeanour. After the brief biography was narrated, the drum that had silently hung from his shoulder came to life. It was a drum meant not for beating but for rubbing. He continued to walk the cow in a circle, rubbing the drumskin with a stick, producing a horrible bleating, a groaning, a wailing. It was a sound to wake the dead and stun the living, it was eldritch, it was a summons to spirits and forces not of this world, a summons to descend, witness, and assist bovine divination.

When the drum ceased, the man shouted the paying customer’s question into the cow’s ear, loud enough for the entire ring of humans to hear. And she answered with a nod or shake of her intricately made-up head, tinkling the tiny silver bells round her neck. The crowd applauded in wonder and admiration. Then the drum-rubbing resumed while donations were collected.

One day, after Ibrahim’s question was bellowed into the soft, brown, unprotected ear, there was no response. The man repeated it, louder. This time the cow reacted. Whether it was the annoying drum that she had put up with for years, or the boorish bellowing in her ear day after day, she gored her keeper with her vermilioned horns.

For a moment, the spectators thought the cow was just responding a bit more energetically than usual to the question. Then she tossed him to the ground, trampling him thoroughly. Now they realized it was not part of the prophecy procedure, especially when the man’s blood started to flow.

With cries of mad cow! mad cow! the crowd scattered. But once her tormentor had been dealt with, she stood placidly, blinking her gentle, long-lashed eyes, swishing away the udder-seeking flies with her tail.

The man’s bizarre death convinced Ibrahim that this was no longer a reliable method of obtaining divine advice. Some days later a new team of cow and drum-rubber took over the corner, but Ibrahim avoided the performances. There were other, safer systems for procuring preternatural help.

While the mad-cow incident was still fresh in his mind, however, he witnessed another death. This time it was the handler of a sortilegious serpent whose venom ducts had become overdue for milking. Ever after, Ibrahim shivered when picturing the scene: it could have been into him that the cobra sank its fangs, for he had been crouching close to observe its oracular movements.

Shocked by the two fatalities, the rent-collector abandoned all fortune-telling fauna. As though waking from a nightmare, he re-donned his forsaken fez and set out to recover his lost self. How much money had been diverted from his family’s needs with his blasphemous addiction, he realized, as he sat beside the sea while the setting sun’s ocean light bathed the masjid, floating at the end of the long causeway. He gazed out upon the receding tide that lay bare the secrets beneath the waves, and he shuddered. His own dark secrets swam up again from their murky depths of confusion and despair. He tried to push them back, to hold them under, to drown them. But they kept slipping away like eels, resurfacing to haunt him. There was only one way to vanquish them — he returned penitent to the masjid, ready to accept whatever fate had in store for him.

Among other things, it was the plastic folder. Twenty-four years of buckram had passed, and now it was the age of plastic in the landlord’s office. Ibrahim no longer cared. He had learned that dignity could not be acquired from accoutrements and accessories; it came unasked, it grew from one’s ability to endure. If the office had handed him a coolie’s basket to carry the documents around on his head, he would have complied now without complaint.

But the plastic folder did have an advantage — it kept the monsoon at bay. Now he seldom had to recopy documents on which the ink had decided to frolic with the rain in lunatic swirls. At a time when his hands had started to shake, this was a blessing. Also, one pass with a wet rag, and all sneezes and snuff stains, pea green or brown, were wiped clean, no longer embarrassing him during audiences with the landlord.

And at home, too, there were changes he accepted with submission. After all, what other options were there? His older daughter died of tuberculosis, followed by his wife. Then his sons disappeared into the underworld, returning periodically to abuse him. The remaining daughter, just when he was beginning to think she would redeem everything, left to become a prostitute. His life, he thought, had become the plot of a bad Hindi movie minus the happy ending.

Why, he wondered, did he keep working now, making his rounds of the six buildings and collecting rent? Why did he not jump off the top of one of them? Why did he not make a bonfire of the receipts and the cash, and throw himself onto it drenched in kerosene? How was it that his heart kept beating instead of bursting, his sanity intact instead of shattering like a dropped mirror? Was it all made of tough synthetic material, like the indestructible plastic folder? And why was time, the great vandal, now being neglectful?

But plastic, too, had its allotted span of days and years. It could rip and tear and crack like buckram, he discovered. Like skin and bone, he realized with relief. It was simply a matter of patience. Thus the present folder was the third of its kind in twenty-one years.

He examined it from time to time, and saw reflected in its tired covers the furrows inflicted in his brow. The plastic divisions inside were starting to tear, and the neat compartments seemed ready to rebel; within his bodily compartments the rebellion had already begun. Which one would win this ridiculous race between plastic and flesh, he wondered, as he arrived at the flat, wiped the snuff off his nostrils and fingers, and rang the doorbell.

Spotting his maroon fez through the peephole, Dina silenced the tailors. “Not a sound while he is here,” she whispered.

“How are you?” smiled the rent-collector, baring heavily stained teeth and two gaps: the sweet, innocent smile of an aged angel.

Without acknowledging his greeting, she said, “Yes? The rent is not yet due.”

He shifted the folder to the other hand. “No, sister, it isn’t. I have come for your reply to the landlord’s letter.”

“I see. Wait one minute.” She shut the door and went to look for the unopened envelope. “Where did I put it?” she whispered to the tailors.

The three searched through the jumble of things on the table. She found herself watching Omprakash, the way his fingers clutched and his hands moved. His bony angularity no longer disturbed her. She was discovering a rare birdlike beauty in him.

Ishvar came upon the envelope under a stack of cloth. She tore it open and read — quickly, the first time, then slowly, to penetrate the legal jargon. The gist of it soon became clear: the running of a business was prohibited on residential premises, she must cease her commercial activities immediately or face eviction.

Cheeks flushing, she raced to the door. “What kind of nonsense is this? Tell your landlord his harassment won’t work!”

Ibrahim sighed, lifted his shoulders and raised his voice. “You have been warned, Mrs. Dalai! Breaking the rules will not be tolerated! Next time there will be no nice letter but a notice to vacate! Don’t think that-”

She slammed the door. He stopped shouting immediately, relieved to be spared the full speech. Panting, he wiped his brow and left.

Dina read the letter again, dismayed. Barely three weeks with the tailors and trouble already with the landlord. She wondered if she should show it to Nusswan, ask his advice. No, she decided, he would make too much of it. Better to ignore it and continue discreetly.

She had no choice now but to take the tailors further into her confidence, impress on them how essential it was to keep the sewing a secret. She discussed the matter with Ishvar.

They agreed on the fiction to be used if the rent-collector ever confronted the two coming to or going from the flat. They would tell him that they came to do her cooking and cleaning.

Omprakash was insulted. “I am a tailor, not her maaderchod servant who sweeps and mops,” he said after they left work that evening.

“Don’t be childish, Om. It’s just a story to prevent trouble with the landlord.”

“Trouble for whom? For her. Why should I worry? We don’t even get a fair rate from her. If we are dead tomorrow, she will get two new tailors.”

“Will you forever speak without thinking? If she is kicked out of her flat, we have no place to work. What’s the matter with you? This is our first decent job since we came to the city.”

“And I should rejoice for that? Is this job going to make everything all right for us?”

“But it’s only been three weeks. Patience, Om. There is lots of opportunity in the city, you can make your dreams come true.”

“I am sick of the city. Nothing but misery ever since we came. I wish I had died in our village. I wish I had also burned to death like the rest of my family.”

Ishvar’s face clouded, his disfigured cheek quivering with his nephew’s pain. He put his arm around his shoulder. “It will get better, Om,” he pleaded. “Believe me, it will get better. And we’ll soon go back to our village.”