A Fine Balance

I. City by the Sea

DINA DALAI SELDOM INDULGED in looking back at her life with regret or bitterness, or questioning why things had turned out the way they had, cheating her of the bright future everyone had predicted for her when she was in school, when her name was still Dina Shroff. And if she did sink into one of these rare moods, she quickly swam out of it. What was the point of repeating the story over and over and over, she asked herself — it always ended the same way; whichever corridor she took, she wound up in the same room.

Dina’s father had been a doctor, a GP with a modest practice who followed the Hippocratic oath somewhat more passionately than others of his profession. During the early years of Dr. Shroff’s career, his devotion to his work was diagnosed, by peers, family members, and senior physicians, as typical of youthful zeal and vigour. “How refreshing, this enthusiasm of the young,” they smiled, nodding sagely, confident that time would douse the fires of idealism with a healthy dose of cynicism and family responsibilities.

But marriage, and the arrival of a son, followed eleven years later by a daughter, changed nothing for Dr. Shroff. Time only sharpened the imbalance between his fervour to ease suffering and his desire to earn a comfortable income.

“How disappointing,” said friends and relatives, shaking their heads. “Such high hopes we had for him. And he keeps slaving like a clerk, like a fanatic, refusing to enjoy life. Poor Mrs. Shroff. Never a vacation, never a party — no fun at all in her existence.”

At fifty-one, when most GPS would have begun considering options like working half-time, hiring an inexpensive junior, or even selling the practice in favour of early retirement, Dr. Shroff had neither the bank balance nor the temperament to permit such indulgences. Instead, he volunteered to lead a campaign of medical graduates bound for districts in the interior. There, where typhoid and cholera, unchallenged by science or technology, were still reaping their routine harvest of villagers, Dr. Shroff would try to seize the deadly sickles or, at the very least, to blunt them.

But Mrs. Shroff undertook a different sort of campaign: to dissuade her husband from going into what she felt were the jaws of certain death. She attempted to coach Dina with words to sway her father. After all, Dina, at twelve, was Daddy’s darling. Mrs. Shroff knew that her son, Nusswan, could be of no help in this enterprise. Enlisting him would have ruined any chance of changing her husband’s mind.

The turning point in the father-and-son relationship had come seven years ago, on Nusswan’s sixteenth birthday. Uncles and aunts had been invited to dinner, and someone said, “Well, Nusswan, you will soon be studying to become a doctor, just like your father.”

“I don’t want to be a doctor,” Nusswan answered. “I’ll be going into business — import and export.”

Some of the uncles and aunts nodded approvingly. Others recoiled in mock horror, turning to Dr. Shroff. “Is this true? No father-son partnership?”

“Of course it’s true,” he said. “My children are free to do whatever they please.”

But five-year-old Dina had seen the hurt on her father’s face before he could hide it. She ran to him and clambered onto his lap. “Daddy, I want to be a doctor, just like you, when I grow up.”

Everyone laughed and applauded, and said, Smart little girl, knows how to get what she wants. Later, they whispered that the son was obviously not made of the same solid stuff as the father — no ambition, wouldn’t amount to much.

Dina had repeated her wish in the years to come, continuing to regard her father as some kind of god who gave people good health, who struggled against illness, and who, sometimes, succeeded in temporarily thwarting death. And Dr. Shroff was delighted with his bright child. On parents’ night at the convent school, the principal and teachers always had the highest praise for her. She would succeed if she wanted to, Dr. Shroff knew it for certain.

Mrs. Shroff also knew, for certain, that her daughter was the one to recruit in the campaign against Dr. Shroff’s foolish philanthropic plan of working in remote, Godforsaken villages. But Dina refused to cooperate; she did not approve of devious means to keep her beloved father home.

Then Mrs. Shroff resorted to other methods, using not money or his personal safety or his family to persuade him, for she knew these would fail hopelessly. Instead, she invoked his patients, claiming he was abandoning them, old and frail and helpless. “What will they do if you go so far away? They trust you and rely on you. How can you be so cruel? You have no idea how much you mean to them.”

“No, that is not the point,” said Dr. Shroff. He was familiar with the anfractuous arguments that her love for him could prompt her to wield. Patiently he explained there were GPSgalore in the city who could take care of the assorted aches and pains — where he was going, the people had no one. He comforted her that it was only a temporary assignment, hugging and kissing her much more than was usual for him. “I promise to be back soon,” he said. “Before you even grow used to my absence.”

But Dr. Shroff could not keep his promise. Three weeks into the medical campaign he was dead, not from typhoid or cholera, but from a cobra’s bite, far from the lifesaving reach of antivenins.

Mrs. Shroff received the news calmly. People said it was because she was a doctor’s wife, more familiar with death than other mortals. They reasoned that Dr. Shroff must have often carried such tidings to her regarding his own patients, thus preparing her for the inevitable.

When she took brisk charge of the funeral arrangements, managing everything with superb efficiency, people wondered if there was not something a little abnormal about her behaviour. Between disbursing funds from her handbag for the various expenses, she accepted condolences, comforted grieving relatives, tended the oil lamp at the head of Dr. Shroff’s bed, washed and ironed her white sari, and made sure there was a supply of incense and sandalwood in the house. She personally instructed the cook about the special vegetarian meal for the next day.

After the full four days of death ceremonies, Dina was still crying. Mrs. Shroff, who was busy tallying the prayer-bungalow charges from the Towers of Silence, said briskly, “Come, my daughter, be sensible now. Daddy would not like this.” So Dina did her best to control herself.

Then Mrs. Shroff continued absentmindedly, writing out the cheque. “You could have stopped him if you wanted. He would have listened to you,” she said.

Dina’s sobs burst out with renewed intensity. In addition to the grief for her father, her tears now included anger towards her mother, even hatred. It would take her a few months to understand that there was no malice or accusation contained in what had been said, just a sad and simple statement of fact as seen by her mother.

Six months after Dr. Shroff’s death, after being the pillar that everyone could lean on, Mrs. Shroff gradually began to crumble. Retreating from daily life, she took very little interest in the running of her household or in her own person.

It made little difference to Nusswan, who was twenty-three and busy planning his own future. But Dina, at twelve, could have done with a parent for a few more years. She missed her father dreadfully. Her mother’s withdrawal made it much worse.

Nusswan Shroff had earned his own living as a businessman for two years prior to his father’s death. He was still single, living at home, saving his money while searching for a suitable flat and a suitable wife. With his father’s passing and his mother’s reclusion, he realized that the pursuit of a flat was unnecessary, and a wife, urgent.

He now assumed the role of head of the family, and legal guardian to Dina. All their relatives agreed this was as it should be. They praised his selfless decision, admitting they had been wrong about his capabilities. He also took over the family finances, promising that his mother and sister would want for nothing; he would look after them out of his own salary. But, even as he spoke, he knew there was no need for this. The money from the sale of Dr. Shroff’s dispensary was sufficient.

Nusswan’s first decision as head of the family was to cut back on the hired help. The cook, who came for half the day and prepared the two main meals, was kept on; Lily, the live-in servant, was let go. “We cannot continue in the same luxury as before,” he declared. “I just can’t afford the wages.”

Mrs. Shroff expressed some doubt about the change. “Who will do the cleaning? My hands and feet don’t work like before.”

“Don’t worry, Mamma, we will all share it. You can do easy things, like dusting the furniture. We can wash our own cups and saucers, surely. And Dina is a young girl, full of energy. It will be good for her, teach her how to look after a home.”

“Yes, maybe you are right,” said Mrs. Shroff, vaguely convinced of the need for money-saving measures.

But Dina knew there was more to it. The week before, while passing the kitchen on her way to the wc well past midnight, she had noticed her brother with the ayah: Lily sitting on one end of the kitchen table, her feet resting on the edge; Nusswan, his pyjamas around his ankles, stood between Lily’s thighs, clasping her hips to him. Dina watched his bare buttocks with sleepy curiosity, then crept back to bed without using the toilet, her cheeks flushed. But she must have lingered a moment too long, for Nusswan had seen her.

Not a word was spoken about it. Lily departed (with a modest bonus, unbeknownst to Mrs. Shroff), tearfully declaring that she would never find as nice a family to work for ever again. Dina felt sorry for her, and also despised her.

Then the new household arrangement got under way. Everyone made an honest effort. The experiment in self-reliance seemed like fun. “It’s a little like going camping,” said Mrs. Shroff.

“That’s the spirit,” said Nusswan.

With the passing of days, Dina’s chores began to increase. As a token of his participation, Nusswan continued to wash his cup, saucer, and breakfast plate before going to work. Beyond that, he did nothing.

One morning, after swallowing his last gulp of tea, he said, “I’m very late today, Dina. Please wash my things.”

“I’m not your servant! Wash your own dirty plates!” Weeks of pent-up resentment came gushing. “You said we would each do our own work! All your stinking things you leave for me!”

“Listen to the little tigress,” said Nusswan, amused.

“You mustn’t speak like that to your big brother,” chided Mrs. Shroff gently. “Remember, we must share and share alike.”

“He’s cheating! He doesn’t do any work! I do everything!”

Nusswan hugged his mother: “Bye-bye, Mamma,” and gave Dina a friendly pat on the shoulder to make up. She shrank from him. “The tigress is still angry,” he said and left for the office.

Mrs. Shroff tried to soothe Dina, promising to discuss it later with Nusswan, maybe convince him to hire a part-time ayah, but her resolve melted within hours. Matters continued as before. As weeks went by, instead of restoring fairness in the household, she began turning into one of the chores on her daughter’s ever-growing list.

Now Mrs. Shroff had to be told what to do. When food was placed before her, she ate it, though it did her little good, for she kept losing weight. She had to be reminded to bathe and change her clothes. If toothpaste was squeezed out and handed to her on the brush, she brushed her teeth. For Dina, the most unpleasant task was helping her mother wash her hair — it fell out in clumps on the bathroom floor, and more followed when she combed it for her.

Once every month, Mrs. Shroff attended her husband’s prayers at the fire-temple. She said it gave her great comfort to hear the elderly Dustoor Framji’s soothing tones supplicating for her husband’s soul. Dina missed school to accompany her mother, worried about her wandering off somewhere.

Before commencing the ceremony, Dustoor Framji unctuously shook Mrs. Shroff’s hand and gave Dina a prolonged hug of the sort he reserved for girls and young women. His reputation for squeezing and fondling had earned him the title of Dustoor Daab-Chaab, along with the hostility of his colleagues, who resented not so much his actions but his lack of subtlety, his refusal to disguise his. embraces with fatherly or spiritual concern. They feared that one day he would go too far, drool over his victim or something, and disgrace the fire-temple.

Dina squirmed in his grasp as he patted her head, rubbed her neck, stroked her back and pressed himself against her. He had a very short beard, stubble that resembled flakes of grated coconut, and it scraped her cheeks and forehead. He released her just when she had summoned enough courage to tear her trapped body from his arms.

After the fire-temple, for the rest of the day at home Dina tried to make her mother talk, asking her advice about housework or recipes, and when that failed, about Daddy, and the days of their newlywed lives. Faced with her mother’s dreamy silences, Dina felt helpless. Soon, her concern for her mother was tempered by the instinct of youth which held her back — she would surely receive her portion of grief and sorrow in due course, there was no need to take on the burden prematurely.

And Mrs. Shroff spoke in monosyllables or sighs, staring into Dina’s face for answers. As for dusting the furniture, she could never proceed beyond wiping the picture frame containing her husband’s graduation photograph. She spent most of her time gazing out the window.

Nusswan preferred to regard his mother’s disintegration as a widow’s appropriate renunciation, wherein she was sloughing off the dross of life to concentrate on spiritual matters. He focused his attention on the raising of Dina. The thought of the enormous responsibility resting on his shoulders worried him ceaselessly.

He had always perceived his father to be a strict disciplinarian; he had stood in awe of him, had even been a little frightened of him. If he was to fill his father’s shoes, he would have to induce the same fear in others, he decided, and prayed regularly for courage and guidance in his task. He confided to the relatives — the uncles and aunts — that Dina’s defiance, her stubbornness, was driving him crazy, and only the Almighty’s help gave him the strength to go forward in his duty.

His sincerity touched them. They promised to pray for him too. “Don’t worry, Nusswan, everything will be all right. We will light a lamp at the fire-temple.”

Heartened by their support, Nusswan began taking Dina with him to the fire-temple once a week. There, he thrust a stick of sandalwood in her hand and whispered fiercely in her ear, “Now pray properly — ask Dadaji to make you a good girl, ask Him to make you obedient.”

While she bowed before the sanctum, he travelled along the outer wall hung with pictures of various dustoors and high priests. He glided from display to display, stroking the garlands, hugging the frames, kissing the glass, and ending with the very tall picture of Zarathustra to which he glued his lips for a full minute. Then, from the vessel of ashes placed in the sanctum’s doorway, he smeared a pinch on his forehead, another bit across the throat, and undid his top two shirt buttons to rub a fistful over his chest.

Like talcum powder, thought Dina, watching from the corner of her eye, from her bowed position, straining to keep from laughing. She did not raise her head till he had finished his antics.

“Did you pray properly?” he demanded when they were outside.

She nodded.

“Good. Now all the bad thoughts will leave your head, you will feel peace and quiet in your heart.”

Dina was no longer allowed to spend time at her friends’ houses during the holidays. “There is no need to,” said Nusswan. “You see them every day in school.” They could visit her after being granted his permission, but this was not much fun since he always hovered around.

Once, he overheard her in the next room with her friend Zenobia, making fun of his teeth. It only served to confirm his belief that the little devils needed monitoring. Zenobia was saying he looked like a horse.

“Yes, a horse with cheap dentures,” added Dina.

“An elephant would be proud of that much ivory,” continued Zenobia, raising the stakes.

They were helpless with laughter when he entered the room. He fixed each one with a black stare before turning away with menacing slowness, leaving behind silence and misery. Yes, it worked, he realized with surprise and triumph — fear worked.

Nusswan had always been sensitive about his bad teeth and, in his late teens, had tried to get them straightened. Dina, only six or seven then, had teased him mercilessly. But the orthodontic treatment was too painful, and he abandoned it, complaining that with a doctor for a father, it was surprising his condition had not been taken care of in childhood. As evidence of partiality, he would point to Dina’s perfect mouth.

Distressed by his hurt, their mother had tried to explain. “It’s all my fault, son, I didn’t know that children’s teeth should be massaged daily, gently pressed inward. The old nurse at Dina’s birth taught me the trick, but it was too late for you.”

Nusswan had never been convinced. And now, after Dina’s friend left, she paid the price. He asked her to repeat what was said. She did, boldly.

“You have always had the habit of blurting whatever comes into your loose mouth. But you are no longer a child. Someone has to teach you respect.” He sighed, “It is my duty, I suppose,” and without warning he began slapping her. He stopped when a cut opened her lower lip.

“You pig!” she wept. “You want to make me look ugly like you!” Whereupon, he got a ruler and whacked her wherever he could, as she ran around trying to escape the blows.

For once, Mrs. Shroff noticed that something was wrong. “Why are you crying, my daughter?”

“That stupid Dracula! He hit me and made me bleed!”

“Tch-tch, my poor child.” She hugged Dina and returned to her seat by the window.

Two days after this row, Nusswan tried to make peace by bringing Dina a collection of ribbons. “They will look lovely in your plaits,” he said.

She went to her school satchel, got out her arts-and-crafts scissors, and snipped the ribbons into small pieces.

“Look, Mamma!” he said, almost in tears. “Look at your vindictive daughter! My hard-earned money I spend on her, and this is the thanks.”

The ruler became Nusswan’s instrument of choice in his quest for discipline. His clothes were the most frequent cause of Dina’s punishment. After washing, ironing, and folding them, she had to stack four separate piles in his cupboard: white shirts, coloured shirts, white trousers, coloured trousers. Sometimes she would strategically place a pinstriped shirt with the whites, or liberate a pair of pants with a hound’s-tooth check among the white trousers. Despite the beatings, she never tired of provoking him.

“The way she behaves, I feel that Sataan himself has taken refuge in her heart,” he said wearily to the relatives who asked for updates. “Maybe I should just pack her off to a boarding school.”

“No, no, don’t take that drastic step,” they pleaded. “Boarding school has been the ruination of many Parsi girls. Rest assured, God will repay you for your patience and devotion. And Dina will also thank you when she is old enough to understand it’s for her own good.” They went away murmuring the man was a saint — every girl should be fortunate enough to have a brother like Nusswan.

His spirit restored by their encouragement, Nusswan persevered. He bought all of Dina’s clothes, deciding what was appropriate for a young girl. The purchases were usually ill-fitting, for she was not allowed to be present while he shopped. “I don’t want tiresome arguments in the shopkeeper’s presence,” he said. “You always embarrass me.” When she needed new uniforms, he went to school with her on the day the tailors were coming, to supervise the measurements. He quizzed the tailors about rates and fabrics, trying to work out the principal’s kickbacks. Dina dreaded this annual event, wondering what new mortification would be visited upon her before her classmates.

All her friends were now wearing their hair short, and she begged to be allowed the same privilege. “If you let me cut my hair, I’ll swab the dining room every day instead of alternate days,” she tried to bargain. “Or I can polish your shoes every night.”

“No,” said Nusswan. “Fourteen is too young for fancy hairstyles, plaits are good for you. Besides, I cannot afford to pay for the hairdresser.” But he promptly added shoe-polishing to her list of chores.

A week after her final appeal, with the help of Zenobia in the school bathroom, Dina lopped off the plaits. Zenobia’s ambition was to be a hairstylist, and she was overwhelmed by the good fortune that delivered her friend’s head into her hands. “Let’s cut off the whole jing-bang lot,” she said. “Let’s bob it really short.”

“Are you crazy?” said Dina. “Nusswan will jump over the moon.” So they settled for a pageboy, and Zenobia trimmed the hair to roughly an inch above the shoulders. It looked a bit ragged, but both girls were delighted with the results.

Dina hesitated about throwing the severed plaits in the dustbin. She put them in her satchel and raced home. Parading proudly about the house, she went repeatedly past the many mirrors to catch glimpses of her head from different angles. Then she visited her mother’s room and waited — for her surprise, or delight, or something. But Mrs. Shroff noticed nothing.

“Do you like my new hairstyle, Mummy?” she asked at last.

Mrs. Shroff stared blankly for a moment. “Very pretty, my daughter, very pretty.”

Nusswan got home late that evening. He greeted his mother, and said there had been so much work at the office. Then he saw Dina. He took a deep breath and put a hand to his forehead. Exhausted, he wished there was some way to deal with this without another fight. But her insolence, her defiance, could not go unpunished; or how would he look himself in the mirror?

“Please come here, Dina. Explain why you have disobeyed me.”

She scratched her neck where tiny hair clippings were making her skin itch. “How did I disobey you?”

He slapped her. “Don’t question me when I ask you something.”

“You said you couldn’t afford my haircut. This was free, I did it myself.”

He slapped her again. “No back talk, I’m warning you.” He got the ruler and struck her with it flat across the palms, then, because he deemed the offence extremely serious, with the edge over her knuckles. “This will teach you to look like a loose woman.”

“Have you seen your hair in the mirror? You look like a clown,” she said, refusing to be intimidated.

Nusswan’s haircut, in his own opinion, was a statement of dignified elegance. He wore a centre parting, imposing order on either side of it with judicious applications of heavy pomade. Dina’s taunt unleashed the fury of the disciplinarian. With lashes of the ruler across her calves and arms, he drove her to the bathroom, where he began tearing off her clothes.

“I don’t want another word from you! Not a word! Today you have crossed the limit! Take a bath first, you polluted creature! Wash off those hair clippings before you spread them around the house and bring misfortune upon us!”

“Don’t worry, your face will frighten away any misfortune.” She was standing naked on the tiles now, but he did not leave. “I need hot water,” she said.

He stepped back and flung a mugful of cold water at her from the bucket. Shivering, she stared defiantly at him, her nipples stiffening. He pinched one, hard, and she flinched. “Look at you with your little breasts starting to grow. You think you are a woman already. I should cut them right off, along with your wicked tongue.”

He was eyeing her strangely, and she grew afraid. She understood that her sharp answers were enraging him, that it was vaguely linked to the way he was staring at the newfledged bloom of hair where her legs met. It would be safer to seem submissive, to douse his anger. She turned away and started to cry, her hands over her face.

Satisfied, he left. Her school satchel, lying on her bed, drew his attention. He opened it for a random inspection and found the plaits sitting on top. Dangling one between thumb and forefinger, he gritted his teeth before a smile slowly eased his angry features.

When Dina had finished her bath, he fetched a roll of black electrical tape and fastened the plaits to her hair. “You will wear them like this,” he said. “Every day, even to school, till your hair has grown back.”

She wished she had thrown the wretched things away in the school toilet. It felt like dead rats were hanging from her head.

Next morning, she secretly took the roll of tape to school. The plaits were pulled off before going to class. It was painful, with the black tape clutching hard. When school was over, she fixed them back with Zenobia’s help. In this way she evaded Nusswan’s punishment on weekdays.

But a few days later riots started in the city, in the wake of Partition and the British departure, and Dina was stuck at home with Nusswan. There were day-and-night curfews in every neighbourhood. Offices, businesses, colleges, schools, all stayed closed, and there was no respite from the detested plaits. He allowed her to remove them only while bathing, and supervised their reattachment immediately after.

Cooped up inside the flat, Nusswan lamented the country’s calamity, grumbling endlessly. “Every day I sit at home, I lose money. These bloody uncultured savages don’t deserve independence. If they must hack one another to death, I wish they would go somewhere else and do it quietly. In their villages, maybe. Without disturbing our lovely city by the sea.”

When the curfew was lifted, Dina flew off to school, happy as an uncaged bird, eager for her eight hours of Nusswan-less existence. And he, too, was relieved to return to his office. On the first evening of normalcy in the city, he came home in a most cheerful mood. “The curfew is over, and your punishment is over. We can throw away your plaits now,” he said, adding generously, “You know, short hair does suit you.”

He opened his briefcase and took out a new hairband. “You can wear this now instead of electrical tape,” he joked.

“Wear it yourself,” she said, refusing to take it.

Three years after his father’s death, Nusswan married. A few weeks later, his mother’s withdrawal from life was complete. Where before she had responded obediently to instructions — get up, drink your tea, wash your hands, swallow your medicine — now there was only a wall of incomprehension.

The task of caring for her had outgrown Dina’s ability. When the smell from Mrs. Shroff’s room was past ignoring, Nusswan timidly broached the subject with his wife. He did not dare ask her directly to help, but hoped that her good nature might persuade her to volunteer. “Ruby, dear, Mamma is getting worse. She needs a lot of attention, all the time.”

“Put her in a nursing home,” said Ruby. “She’ll be better off there.”

He nodded placatingly, and did something less expensive and more human than shipping his mother to the old-age factory — as some unkind relatives would doubtless have put it — he hired a full-time nurse.

The nurse’s assignment was short-lived; Mrs. Shroff died later that year, and people finally understood that a doctor’s wife was no more immune to grief than other mortals. She died on the same day of the Shahenshahi calendar as her husband. Their prayers were performed consecutively at the same fire-temple by Dustoor Framji. By this time, Dina had learned how to evade the trap of his overfriendly hugs. When he approached, she held out a polite hand and took a step back, and another, and another. Short of pursuing her around the prayer-hall amid the large thuribles of flaming sandalwood, he could only smile foolishly and give up the chase.

After the first month’s prayer ceremonies for Mrs. Shroff were completed, Nusswan decided there was no point in Dina’s matriculating. Her last report card was quite wretched. She would have been kept back were it not for the principal who, loyal to the memory of Dr. Shroff, preferred to see the marks as a temporary aberration.

“Very decent of Miss Lamb to promote you,” said Nusswan. “But the fact remains that your results are hopeless. I’m not going to waste money on school fees for another year.”

“You make me clean and scrub all the time, I cannot study for even one hour a day! What do you expect?”

“Don’t make excuses. A strong young girl, doing a little housework — what’s that got to do with studying? Do you know how fortunate you are? There are thousands of poor children in the city, doing boot-polishing at railway stations, or collecting papers, bottles, plastic — plus going to school at night. And you are complaining? What’s lacking in you is the desire for education. This is it, enough schooling for you.”

Dina was not willing to concede without a struggle. She also hoped that Nusswan’s wife would intervene on her behalf. But Ruby preferred to stay out of the quarrel, so next morning when she was sent to market with a shopping list, Dina ran to her grandfather’s flat.

Grandfather lived with one of her uncles, in a room that smelled of stale balm. She held her breath and hugged him, then poured out her troubles in a torrent of words. “Please, Grandpa! Please tell him to stop treating me like this!”

Already started on the road to senility, he took a while to realize who Dina was exactly, and longer to understand what she wanted. His dentures were not in, making it difficult to decipher his speech. “Shall I get your teeth, Grandpa?” she offered.

“No, no, no!” He raised his hands and shook them vehemently. “No teeth. All crooked, and paining in the mouth. Bastard stupid dentist, useless fellow. My carpenter could make better teeth.”

She repeated everything slowly, and at last he grasped the issue. “Matric? Who, you? Of course you must do your matric. Of course. Of course. You must matriculate. And then college. Yes, of course I will tell that shameless rascal to send you, I will order that Nauzer. No, Nevil — that Nusswan, yes, I will force him.”

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, bedsheets, 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 lingered 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 concertgoers. 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 will 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.

Dina was happier meeting him without the bicycle. She felt he should give it up altogether, it was too dangerous in the city traffic.

“I’m going to get married,” announced Dina at the dinner table.

“Ah,” beamed her brother. “Good, good. Which one is it, Solly or Porus?” — these two being the gents he had most recently introduced.

Dina shook her head.

“Then it must be either Dara or Firdosh,” said Ruby, smiling meaningfully. “They are both crazy about you.”

“His name is Rustom Dalai.”

Nusswan was surprised; the name did not belong among the numerous candidates he had brought before Dina over the past three years. Perhaps it was someone she had met at one of the family gatherings he so detested. “And where did we come across him?”

“We didn’t. I did.”

Nusswan did not like the answer. He was offended that all his efforts, all his choices, were being spurned by her for a total stranger. “Just like that you want to marry this fellow? What do you know about him and his family? What does he know about you, your family?”

“Everything,” said Dina in a tone that made him anxious. “I’ve been seeing Rustom for a year and a half now.”

“I see. A well-kept secret,” he said, affecting sarcasm. “And what does he do, this Dalai fellow, your Rustom-in-hiding?”

“He’s a pharmaceutical chemist.”

“Hah! Pharmaceutical chemist! A bloody compounder! Why don’t you use the proper word? That’s what he is, mixing prescription powders all day long behind a counter.”

He reminded himself there was no sense in losing his temper just yet. “So, when are we going to meet this Father Forty-Lakhs of yours?”

“Why? So you can insult him in person?”

“I have no reason to insult him. But it is my duty to meet him, and then advise you properly. In the end it’s up to you.”

On the appointed day, Rustom arrived with a box of sweetmeats for Nusswan and Ruby, which he placed in the hands of little Xerxes, who was almost three now. For Dina, he brought a new umbrella. The significance was not lost on her, and she smiled. He winked at her when the others were not looking.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said, opening it up. “What a lovely pagoda shape.” The fabric was sea green, and the shaft was stainless steel, with a formidable spike at the end.

“That’s a dangerous weapon,” joked Nusswan. “Be careful who you point it at.”

They had tea, with cheese sandwiches and butter biscuits prepared by Ruby and Dina, and the time passed without unpleasantness. But that night, after the visitor left, Nusswan said he could not understand for one moment what was in his sister’s head — brains or sawdust.

“Selecting someone without looks, without money, without prospects. Some fiancés give diamond rings. Others a gold watch, or at least a little brooch. What does your fellow bring? A bloody umbrella! To think I wasted so much time and energy introducing you to solicitors, chartered accountants, police superintendents, civil engineers. All from respectable families. How will I hold my head up when people hear that my sister married an unambitious medicine-mixing fool? Don’t expect me to rejoice or come to the wedding. For me it will be a day of deep, dark mourning.”

It was sad, he lamented, that in order to hurt him she was ruining her own life. “Mark my words, your spite will come back to haunt you. I am powerless to stop you, you are twenty-one, no longer a little girl I can look after. And if you are determined to throw your life away in the gutter, I can only watch helplessly while you do it.”

Dina had expected all this. The words washed over her and gurgled into oblivion, leaving her untouched. The way the rain had rolled off Rustom’s lovely raincoat, she remembered, on that beautiful night. But she wondered again, as she had so many times, where her brother had learned to rave so proficiently. Neither their mother nor father had had much talent for it.

In a few days Nusswan grew calmer. If Dina was getting married and leaving for good, better that it should happen amicably, without too much fuss. Secretly he was also pleased that Rustom Dalai was no great catch. It would have been unbearable if his friends had been rejected in favour of someone superior.

He participated in the wedding plans with more enthusiasm and generosity than Dina expected. He wanted to book a hall for the reception and pay for everything out of the money he had been collecting for her. “We’ll have the wedding after sunset, and then dinner. We’ll show them how it’s done — everyone will envy you. A four-piece band, floral decorations, lights. I can afford about three hundred guests. But no liquor — too expensive and too risky. Prohibition police are everywhere, you bribe one and ten more show up for their share.”

That night in bed, Ruby, who was pregnant with their second child, expressed dismay at Nusswan’s extravagance. “It’s up to Rustom Dalai to spend, if they want to get married. Not your responsibility — especially when she wouldn’t even let you select the husband. She never appreciates anything you do for her.”

Rustom and Dina, however, had simpler preferences. The wedding took place in the morning. At Dina’s request, it was a quiet ceremony in the same fire-temple where her parents’ prayers were performed on each death anniversary. Dustoor Framji, old and stoop-shouldered, watched from the shadows, upset that he had not been asked to conduct the marriage rites. Time was slowing him down, and the flesh of young women was rarely caught now in his once-dexterous embraces. But the name of Dustoor Daab-Chaab clung to his autumnal years even as all else was withering. “It’s disgraceful,” he grumbled to a colleague. “Especially after my long association with the Shroff family. For death, they come to me — for saros-nu-paatru, for afargan, baaj, faroksy. But for a happy occasion, for wedding ashirvaad, I am not wanted. It’s a matter of shamefulness.”

In the evening there was a party at the Shroff residence. Nusswan insisted on at least this much celebration, and arranged for a caterer. There were forty-eight guests, of which six were Rustom’s friends, plus his Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle. The rest were from Nusswan’s circle, including extended family members who could not be left out without risking criticism from relatives — the insinuating, whispered kind of criticism to which he was so sensitive.

The dining room, drawing room, Nusswan’s study, and the four bedrooms were rearranged to allow mingling and movement, with tables set up for food and drink. Little Xerxes and his friends ran from room to room in a frenzy of adventure and discovery, screaming and laughing. They were thrilled by the sudden freedom they enjoyed in a house where their previous visits had felt like time spent in prison, grimly supervised by the very strict daddy of Xerxes. Nusswan himself groaned inwardly each time one of them collided with him, but smiled and patted the child on its way.

During the course of the evening he produced four bottles of Scotch whisky to general applause. “Now we will put some life in the evening, and into this newly married pair!” said the men to one another, with much nodding and laughter, and the whispering of things not meant for women’s ears.

“Okay, brother-in-law,” said Nusswan, clinking two empty glasses before Rustom. “You’re the expert, better start mixing a dose of Johnnie Walker medicine for everyone.”

“Sure,” said Rustom good-naturedly, and took the glasses.

“Just joking, just joking,” said Nusswan, holding on to the bottle. “How can the bridegroom be allowed to work at his own wedding?” It was his only pharmaceutical dig during the evening.

An hour after the Scotch was taken, Ruby went to the kitchen; it was time to serve dinner. The dining table had been moved against the wall and set up for a buffet. The caterer’s men staggered in with hot, heavy dishes, calling “Side please! Side please!” to get through. Everyone reverently made way for the food.

The aromas that had been filling the house with appetizing hints all evening, teasing nostrils and taunting palates, suddenly overwhelmed the gathering. A hush fell across the room. Someone chuckled loudly that where Parsis were concerned, food was number one, conversation came second. Whereupon someone else corrected him: no, no, conversation came third, and the second thing couldn’t be mentioned with ladies and children present. Those within earshot rewarded the worn-out joke with hearty laughter.

Ruby clapped her hands: “Okay, everybody! Dinner is served! Please help yourselves and don’t be shy, there is lots of food!” She hovered around to play the host in the time-honoured fashion, repeating regretfully before each guest, “Please forgive us, we could manage nothing worthy of you.”

“What are you saying, Ruby, it all looks wonderful,” they replied. While helping themselves, they took the opportunity to inquire after her pregnancy and when she was expecting.

Nusswan examined the plates that passed before him, lightheartedly scolding the guests who took too little. “What’s this, Mina, you must be joking. Even my pet sparrow would go hungry with this quantity.” He spooned more biryani for Mina. “Wait, Hosa, wait, one more kabab, it’s delicious, believe me, one more, come on, be a sport,” and deftly plopped two onto the reluctant plate. “Come back for more, promise?”

When everyone had served themselves, Dina noticed Rustom’s Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle on the verandah, a little secluded from the rest, and went to them. “Please eat well. Have you taken enough?”

“More than enough, my child, more than enough. The food is delicious.” Shirin Aunty beckoned to bring her closer, and beckoned again, to make her bend till Dina’s ear was close to her mouth. “If you ever need anything — remember, anything at all, you can come to me and Darab.”

And Darab Uncle nodded; his hearing was very sharp. “Whatever the problem. We are like Rustom’s parents. And you are like our daughter.”

“Thank you,” said Dina, understanding that this was more than a customary welcoming speech from the other side. She sat with them while they ate. Near the dining table Nusswan, miming with plate and fork, signalled to her to get some food for herself. Yes, later, she mimed back, and stayed with Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle, who watched her with adoring eyes as they ate.

A few guests still remained when Nusswan gave the caterer’s men the go-ahead for the cleanup. The lingerers got the hint and said their thanks and goodbyes.

On the way out, someone clutched Rustom’s lapel and giggled, whispering with whisky breath that the bride and groom were fortunate not to have a mother-in-law on either side. “Not fair, not fair! No one to question you whether the equipment worked on the first night, you lucky rascal! No one to inspect the bedsheet, hahn!” He prodded Rustom in the stomach with one finger. “You’re getting off very lightly!”

“Good night, everybody,” said Nusswan and Ruby. “Good night, good night. Thank you very much for coming.”

When the last guest had departed, Rustom said, “That was a lovely evening. Thank you both for arranging it.”

“Yes, it really was, thank you very much,” added Dina.

“You’re welcome — most welcome,” said Nusswan, and Ruby nodded. “It was our duty.”

Originally, Dina and Rustom had agreed with Nusswan’s suggestion to spend the night there. Then they realized that the rooms would have to be put back in order after the party. So it was more convenient to go straight to Rustom’s flat.

“Now don’t worry about anything, these fellows will clear up, that’s what they are paid for,” said Nusswan. “You two carry on.” He gave them both a hug. It was the second time that day for Dina. The first time had been in the morning, after the dustoorji had finished reciting the wedding benediction; it had also been the first time in seven years.

A small lump came to her throat. She swallowed as Nusswan quickly passed his fingers over his eyes. “Wish you lots of happiness,” he said.

Dina fetched a valise that was packed and ready for the night. The rest of her things would be delivered later. Nusswan was going to let her have some furniture from their parents’ possessions. He accompanied them down the cobbled walkway to a taxi and waved goodbye. She noticed with surprise that his voice quavered as he said, “All the best! God bless you!”

They woke up late the next morning. Rustom had taken a week’s leave from work, though they couldn’t afford to go anywhere on a honeymoon.

Dina made tea in the gloomy kitchen while he watched anxiously. The kitchen was the dingiest room in the flat, its ceiling and plaster blackened by smoke. Rustom’s mother had cooked over coal fires all her life. Her brief acquaintance with kerosene had not been propitious — there had been a spill, and flames, and burns down her thighs; coal was more obedient, she had concluded.

Rustom had wanted to paint the kitchen before the wedding, along with the other rooms, but the money had refused to stretch that far. He began to apologize for the flat’s condition. “You are not used to living like this. Just look at these horrible walls.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s fine,” she said happily. “We’ll get it painted later.”

Perhaps it was due to her presence in the flat, unusual at breakfast time, but he began detecting new deficiencies around him. “After my parents died I got rid of things. Seemed like clutter to me. I was planning to live like a sadhu, you see, with only my violin for company. Instead of a bed of nails, the screeching of catgut to mortify myself.”

“Are the strings really made of cat intestines?”

“Used to be, in the olden days. And in the very olden days, violinists had to go out and hunt down their own strings. There were no music shops then, like L. M. Furtado or Godin amp; Company. At all the great conservatories of Europe, they taught music as well as animal evisceration.”

“Now don’t be silly so early in the morning,” she scolded, but his bizarre humour was what she liked most about him.

“Anyway, I have found my beautiful angel, and the sadhu days are over. The catgut can take a rest.”

“I enjoy your playing. You should practise more.”

“Are you joking? I sound worse than the fellow last week at Patkar Hall. And he played as though his f-holes were blocked.”

“Chhee, how filthy!”

He laughed at the face she made. “I can’t help it — that’s what they are called. Come, let me show you my f-holes.” He took the violin case down from the top of the cupboard. “See the shape of the two openings in the soundboard?”

“Oh, it looks just like a running-hand f.” She traced the curves with a finger, and touched the strings gently. “Play something while you have it open.”

He shut the case and, rising slightly on his toes, slipped it on top of the cupboard. “Play, play, play — that’s what my parents used to say.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “I wish I had at least kept their double bed.” Then he asked shyly, “Were you comfortable last night?”

“Oh yes.” She blushed at the fresh memory of the narrow single bed in which they had clung together.

After a breakfast of an omelette and buttered toast, he opened the front door and said there was a surprise for her. “It was too dark to show you last night.”

“What is it?”

“You have to step outside.”

She saw the new brass nameplate gleaming in sunlight, engraved Mr. amp; Mrs. Rustom K. Dalai. He basked in the pleasure it gave her. “Day before yesterday is when I screwed it on.”

“It looks lovely.”

“Changing the nameplate was easy,” he chuckled. “It’s much more difficult to change the name on the rent receipt.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rent is collected in my father’s name though he’s been dead for nine years. The landlord hopes I will get impatient, offer money to transfer the flat to my name. He keeps hinting.”

“Are you going to?”

“Of course not. There’s nothing he can do, the Rent Act protects us. It doesn’t matter in whose name the rent receipt is issued. And you are entitled to live here too, as my wife. Even if I were to die tomorrow.”

“Rustom! Don’t say such things!”

He laughed. “When the rent-collector comes with the receipt in my father’s name, sometimes I feel like telling him to go up, to heaven, to the renter’s new address.”

Dina rested her head against his shoulder. “For me, heaven is in this flat.”

Rustom drew her close and hugged her. “For me too.” Then he gave the nameplate another shine with his sleeve. While they were admiring it, two handcarts rolled up and stopped by their door, laden with things from the Shroff residence.

At first, Rustom had arranged for a small lorry because Dina had requested Nusswan to let her have Daddy’s huge wardrobe, the one with the carved rosewood canopy of a sunburst and flowers. She would forgo everything else, she said, for this one item. Nusswan promised to consider it but refused in the end. He said that squeezing the wardrobe through the narrow door of Rustom’s flat would damage it, the scratches would be unfair to their father’s memory, and, besides, its proportions wouldn’t suit the tiny rooms.

So he let her have another cupboard, smaller and plainer, a little desk, and twin beds. There was also a large box of kitchen utensils that Ruby had put together after discreetly inquiring whether Rustom’s kitchen was properly equipped. To get them started, she included pots and pans, a stove, some cutlery, a board and a rolling pin.

The two handcarts were unloaded and the twin beds assembled. One of the carters offered to buy the old single. Rustom let him have it for thirty rupees, and got ten for the mattress from the other man.

As Dina watched them carry it away, he said, “I know what you’re thinking. But this flat has no space for an extra bed.” She wondered how close they would sleep that night, now that there were twin beds.

But one of the two was as good as unslept in when they woke on their second morning. Reassured, she spent the day getting her new home organized the way she wanted it. First, she gave notice to Seva Sadan, terminating delivery of Rustom’s evening meals. And for lunch, she would pack something for him when he returned to work the following week.

“No more nonsense of eating out or not eating at all,” she said, and climbed up on a chair to examine the high shelf in the kitchen. She discovered a series of brass and copper vessels, a kettle, and a set of kitchen knives.

“Those are all gone bad,” said Rustom. “I’ve been meaning to sell them for scrap. Tomorrow, I promise.”

“Don’t be silly, these are solid old things. They can be repaired and tinned. Nowadays you can’t buy such quality.”

The next time a tinker yelled outside their window, she called him to fix the leaking vessels and rivet the broken handle of the kettle. She watched to make sure he did the work properly. As he finished each pot, she took it to the bathroom and tested it with water.

The knife-grinder went by with his wheel slung over his shoulder. The tinker stopped hammering while she clapped twice to get his attention.

The dull blades soon began glinting with sharp edges. She relished the energy, the attention, the pounding and banging that went into getting her household shipshape for decades of wedded bliss with Rustom. A lifetime had to be crafted, just like anything else, she thought, it had to be moulded and beaten and burnished in order to get the most out of it.

The knife-grinder averted his face as sparks flew from the spinning grindstone. Like Divali fireworks, she thought, while the tinker’s hammer blows rang gaily in her ears.

Dina and Rustom celebrated their first wedding anniversary by going to the cinema and dining out. They saw Submarine Command, starring William Holden, who played an American naval commander in Korea. They held hands during the film and, afterwards, ate chicken biryani at the Wayside Inn.

The following year Dina wanted to see something less grim. So they picked Bing Crosby’s High Society, a brand-new release. She had bought a new frock for the occasion, blue, with a vivacious peplum that came alive with walking.

“I don’t know if you should wear that,” said Rustom, coming up behind her and stroking her hips.

“Why?” she smiled, wiggling to tease him.

“You’ll drive the men wild in the streets. Better carry your pointy pagoda parasol to protect yourself.”

“Won’t you protect me, and fight them off?”

“Okay. In that case, I’ll carry your spear. Better still, I’ll bring my violin — the screeching will scare them more.”

They enjoyed the film immensely. The blue frock was their private joke all evening as they imagined envious women and lustful men thirsting to get their hands on it. For dinner they went to Mongini’s; the desserts there had a wonderful reputation.

On their third anniversary, they decided to invite Nusswan, Ruby, and the children (there were two now) to dinner. Relations between them had been cordial since the wedding. Dina and Rustom were always asked to the children’s birthdays, and also on Navroze and Khordad Sal. Dina, sometimes alone, sometimes with Rustom, had taken to dropping in with sweets for her nephews, or just to say hello. The ill feelings had disappeared so completely that it was hard to remember them with any clarity. One was tempted to conclude that it had all been exaggerated by the imagination.

The little anniversary party proceeded most amicably. Dina could not afford a new outfit, and wore last year’s blue frock. Ruby admired it, and praised Dina’s cooking. She said that the pulao-dal was really tasty. Dina replied graciously that she had learned a lot from her sister-in-law. “But I still have a long way to go before reaching your standards.”

For the two boys, who were only six and three, Dina had cooked separately, without spices. But Xerxes and Zarir insisted on having what the adults were eating. Ruby allowed them a taste of it, and they wanted more despite their tongues hanging out.

“Never mind,” said Dina, laughing, “the ice cream will put out the fire.”

“Can I have it now?” chorused the children.

“Rustom Uncle has yet to go and get it,” said Dina. “We don’t have an icebox like yours to store it. Here, have this for the time being,” and she popped sugar crystals in their mouths from the ceremonial tray of garlands and coconuts.

Later, while she cleared the table with Ruby helping, Rustom decided it was time to go for the Kwality Family Pack. “In case they don’t have strawberry, which one — chocolate or vanilla?”

“Chocolate,” said Xerxes.

“Lanilla,” said Zarir, and everyone laughed.

“Lanilla!” teased Rustom. “You always have to be different, don’t you?”

“I wonder from where he got the trait,” said Nusswan. “Certainly not his father,” and they all laughed again. He seized the opportunity to add, “But what about you two, Rustom? Time to start a family, I think. Three years is long enough for a holiday.”

Rustom only smiled, not wanting to encourage a discussion. He opened the door to leave, and Nusswan jumped up. “Shall I give you company?”

“Oh no, just relax, you’re the guest. Besides, if we walk, it will take too long. Alone, I can go on my cycle, return in ten minutes.”

Dina set out clean plates and spoons for the ice cream, and put the kettle on. “The tea should be nice and ready by the time he is back.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were still waiting. “Where can he be? The tea is getting so strong. Maybe you two should drink yours now.”

“No, we’ll wait for Rustom,” said Ruby.

“There must be a big rush or something at the ice-cream shop,” said Nusswan.

Dina boiled a second kettleful to dilute the infusion. She returned the pot under the tea-cosy. “Forty-five minutes since he left.”

“Maybe it was sold out at the first place,” said Nusswan. “Strawberry is very popular, always out of stock. Maybe he went somewhere else, further away.”

“He wouldn’t, he knows I would worry.”

“Maybe he got a puncture,” said Ruby.

“Even walking back with a puncture would take only twenty minutes.”

She went to the verandah to see if she could spot him pedalling in the distance. It reminded her of the nights when they would part after the concert recitals, and she would be on the upper deck of the bus, trying to keep his disappearing bicycle in sight.

The memory made her smile, but it quickly faded under the present anxiety. “I think I’ll go and see what’s the matter.”

“No, I’ll go,” offered Nusswan.

“But you don’t know where the shop is, or the road Rustom would take. You might miss each other.”

In the end they both went. Seeing how tense Dina was, he kept repeating, “Has to be a perfectly simple explanation.” She nodded, walking faster. He had to make an effort to keep up.

It was after nine, and the streets were quiet. In the lane at the end of which stood the ice-cream shop, a knot of people had gathered by the footpath. As they got closer, Nusswan and Dina noticed that the police were also present.

“Wonder what’s going on,” said Nusswan, trying to conceal his alarm.

Dina was the first to spot the bicycle. “It’s Rustom’s,” she said. Her voice had turned into a stranger’s, sounding unfamiliar to her own ears.

“Are you sure?” He knew she was. The bicycle was mangled but the saddle was whole. He pushed his way through the crowd towards the policemen. A roaring storm filled her ears, and their words reached her feebly, as though from a great distance.

“A bastard lorry driver,” said the sub-inspector. “Hit and run. No chance for the poor man, I think. Head completely crushed. But ambulance has taken him to hospital anyway.”

A stray dog lapped at the thick pink puddle near the bicycle. Strawberry ice cream was in stock, thought Dina numbly. A policeman kicked the sand-coloured mongrel. It yelped and retreated, then returned for more. When he kicked it again, she screamed.

“Stop that! What harm is it doing to you? Let it eat!”

Startled, the policeman said “Yes madam” and stepped back. The dog slurped hungrily, whimpering with pleasure while keeping a wary eye on the man’s foot.

Nusswan obtained the name of the hospital. The sub-inspector took his address, and asked Dina, who was staring at the twisted bicycle, for hers. The bicycle would be retained as evidence for the time being — in case the lorry driver was found, he explained gently. He offered to give them a lift to the hospital.

“Thank you,” said Nusswan. “But they will be wondering at home what happened.”

“It’s okay, I’ll send a constable to say not to worry, there’s been an accident and you are at the hospital,” said the sub-inspector. “Then you can explain everything later.”

Thanks to the sub-inspector’s help, procedures were expedited at the hospital, and Nusswan and Dina were able to leave quickly. “Let’s take a taxi,” said Nusswan.

“No, I want to walk.”

By the time they reached home, the tears were silently streaming down her cheeks. Nusswan held her and stroked her head. “My poor sister,” he whispered. “My poor little sister. I wish I could bring him back for you. Cry now, it’s all right, cry all you need to.” He wept a little himself as he told Ruby about the accident, in whispers.

“Oh God!” sobbed Ruby. “What is the meaning of such misfortune! In a few minutes, Dina’s whole world destroyed! How can it be? Why does He allow such things?” She composed herself before waking the children, while Dina went to change out of her blue frock.

“Can we eat the strawberry ice cream now?” asked Xerxes and Zarir sleepily.

“Rustom Uncle is not well, we have to go home,” said Ruby, deciding it was better to explain gradually.

Dina soon emerged from her room, and Nusswan went to her side. “You must also come home with us, you cannot stay here alone.”

“Of course, absolutely,” said Ruby, taking her hand and squeezing it.

Nodding, Dina went to the kitchen and began making a package of the leftover pulao-dal. Ruby watched curiously, half-fearfully, before asking, “Can I help?”

Dina shook her head. “No sense wasting this food. On our way home, we can give it to a beggar at the corner.”

Later, Nusswan would say to whomever he was recounting the events that he was really impressed with the dignified way his sister had behaved on that cruel night. “No wailing, no beating the chest or tearing the hair like you might expect from a woman who had suffered such a shock, such a loss.” But he also remembered their mother’s dignity on a similar occasion, and the disintegration that had followed in its wake. He hoped Dina would not follow the same pattern.

Dina packed her valise with a white sari and other things she would need for the next few days. It was the same one she had brought with her three years ago on her wedding night.

After the funeral and four days of prayers, Dina prepared to return to her flat. “What’s the rush?” said Nusswan. “Stay here a little longer.”

“Of course,” said Ruby. “Here you are with family. What will you do there all alone?”

Dina wavered easily, for she did not feel ready to go back. The most difficult hours were the ones before dawn. She slept with one arm over a pillow. Sometimes she nudged the pillow lightly with her elbow, her signal to Rustom that she wanted his arm around her. When the human weight did not materialize, she awakened to emptiness, relearning the loss in the darkness before sunrise. Occasionally, she called out his name, and Ruby or Nusswan, if they heard her, came into the room and held her tight, stroking her hair.

“It’s not as though you are going to be a burden on us by staying,” said Nusswan. “In fact, you will be company for Ruby.”

So Dina stayed. Word got about that she was temporarily at her brother’s place, and a stream of relatives arrived on condolence visits. After the formal purpose of the call was dealt with, the conversation took on the hue of a genial get-together, and Nusswan and Ruby enjoyed the socializing. “It’s the best thing possible for Dina,” they agreed.

Rustom’s Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle had attended all four days of prayer at the Towers of Silence, but came again after a week. They sat for a while, had a glass of lemon cordial and said, “For us, it is like losing a son. But remember, you are still our daughter. If you ever need anything, you can come to us. Remember, anything at all.”

Ruby overheard this and prickled. “That’s very kind of you. But we are here, Nusswan and I, to look after her.”

“Yes, of course, thanks be to God,” said the elderly couple, taken aback by the sharpness in her voice. “May He give you both a long, healthy life. Dina is very fortunate to have you two.” They left shortly, hoping they had managed to salve Ruby’s feelings.

A month passed, and Dina settled into her old routine, assuming her former place in the household. The servant was let go. Dina did not mind, it gave her something to do with her long, empty days. Xerxes and Zarir, of course, were thrilled to have Dina Aunty living with them. Xerxes was in the second standard and Zarir had just started kindergarten. She volunteered to take them to school; it would be easy, on her way to the bazaar in the mornings.

On Sunday evenings Nusswan organized card games. The three adults played rummy for a couple of hours while the children watched. Sometimes Dina allowed Xerxes and Zarir to hold her cards. At seven, the women started dinner, and Nusswan amused himself by building a house of cards with the children or glancing over the Sunday newspaper a second time.

Once a week Dina went to her empty flat to dust and clean. There she followed the exact habit of housework that she had developed when Rustom was alive. At the end of the cleaning she made tea. There in the privacy of the dingy kitchen she sat with her cup, remembering, sometimes crying softly, and the tea usually went cold. She often poured it away after drinking half a cup.

After following this secret pattern of mourning for some weeks, she began allowing a part of herself to pretend everything was normal, the flat was occupied, the separation temporary. There didn’t seem to her any harm in it, and the make-believe was so comforting.

Then one evening, as dusk was falling and the headlights of cars had started to come on, she caught herself gazing out from the verandah to see if Rustom’s bicycle was approaching. A shiver ran down her spine. She decided enough was enough. Flirting with madness was one thing; when madness started flirting back, it was time to call the whole thing off.

She renounced the weekly cleaning ritual. If a visit to the flat was necessary, she preferred not to go alone, and took her little nephews with her. Xerxes and Zarir enjoyed exploring the unlived-in space. The familiar rooms suddenly seemed remote and mysterious, filled with furniture yet inexplicably empty. The museum-like stillness baffled them. They shouted and ran and skipped through the flat to see if they could banish the void.

One afternoon, when Dina stopped by to pick up a few of her things, she found an envelope from the landlord. The children began organizing a cross-country race, for which Xerxes mapped out the route. “We will start from the verandah, and run all the way to the kitchen, then all the way to the wc, and then all the way back, going through all the rooms. Understood, Zarir?”

“Okay,” said Zarir. Dina announced ready, get set, go. She opened the windows in the front room and read the letter. It stated that since the premises were no longer occupied, notice was hereby given for the flat to be emptied of its effects and the keys returned within thirty days.

That night, when she showed the letter to Nusswan, he was livid. “Look at the shameless rascal of a landlord. Not even three months since poor Rustom passed away, and the snake is ready to strike. Nothing doing. You must keep the flat.”

“Yes, I think I’ll go back there from next week,” she agreed.

“That’s not what I meant. Stay here for a year, two years — as long as you like. But don’t give up your right. Mark my words, the time is not far-off when accommodation will be impossible to find in the city. An old flat like yours will be a gold mine.”

“It’s true,” said Ruby. “I heard that Putli Maasi’s son had to pay a pugree of twenty thousand rupees just to get his foot in the door. And the rent is five hundred a month. His flat is even smaller than yours.”

“Yes,” said Dina, “but my rent — ”

“Don’t worry, I’ll pay it,” said Nusswan. “And my lawyer will reply to this letter.”

He was thinking ahead: sooner or later Dina would remarry. At that juncture, it would be very unfortunate if the lack of a flat were to pose an impediment. He definitely would not want the couple living with him. That would be a blueprint for friction and strife.

On Rustom’s first death anniversary, Nusswan took the morning off from work. The previous day, he had written notes to Xerxes’ school and Zarir’s kindergarten that they would be “absent in order to attend their late uncle’s prayers at the fire-temple.” Dina was grateful for the entire family’s presence.

“Hard to imagine,” said Nusswan when they got back home, “a whole year has gone by. How time flies.”

A few days later he formally signalled an end to the mourning period by inviting some friends to tea.

Among them were Porus and Solly, two of the many eligible bachelors whom he had strenuously recommended to Dina a few years ago. The two were still single, and still quite eligible, according to Nusswan, if one were willing to forgive minor flaws like incipient potbellies and greying hair.

Priding himself on his subtlety, he said to Dina in private, “You know, either Porus or Solly would jump at the chance to become your husband. Porus’s law practice is flourishing beyond belief. And Solly is now a full partner in the accounting firm. They would have no problem that you are a widow.”

“How kind of them.”

He did not like the sarcasm. It was a reminder of the old Dina — the stubborn, insolent, defiant sister, who he assumed had been transformed into a better person. But he swallowed and continued calmly.

“You know, Dina, I am very impressed with you. No one can accuse you of being frivolous in mourning. You have acted so correctly, so perfectly, this whole year.”

“I was not acting. And it was not difficult.”

“I know, I know,” he said hastily, regretting his choice of words. “What I meant was, I admire your dignity. But the point is, you are still so young. It has been over a year, and you must think of your future.”

“Don’t worry, I understand your concern.”

“Good, that’s all I wanted to say. Come on, time for cards. Ruby!” he called to the kitchen. “Time for rummy!” Now there would be progress, Nusswan was certain.

Over the next few weeks he continued to invite the old assortment of bachelors. “Come, Dina,” he would say, “let me introduce you.” Then, pretending a memory lapse, he would exclaim, “Wait, wait, what am I saying, where is my head? You already know Temton. So let it be a reintroduction.”

All this was enacted in a manner suggesting that a relationship of deep significance was being resumed, a passion rekindled. It irritated Dina intensely, but she tried to keep from frowning while pouring the tea and passing the sandwiches. When the visitors departed, Nusswan resumed with his sledgehammer hints, praising one’s looks, commending the merits of another’s career, pointing out the inheritance awaiting a third.

After four months of bachelor-entertaining and no sign of cooperation from Dina, Nusswan lost his patience. “I have been tactful, I have been kind, I have been reasonable. But which raja’s son are you waiting for? Every chap I introduce, you turn your face away from him and go to the other side of the room. What is it that you want?”

“Nothing.”

“How can you want nothing? Your whole life will be nothing. Be sensible.”

“I know you are doing it for my own good, but I am just not interested.”

The answer reminded Nusswan once again of the old Dina, the ungrateful little sister. He suspected that she looked down upon his friends. And they were such good fellows, all of them. Never mind, he would not let her anger him.

“Fine. As I said, I am a reasonable person. If you don’t like these men, no one is forcing you. Find one yourself. Or we can hire a matchmaker. I hear that Mrs. Ginwalla has the best track record for successful kaaj. Let me know what you prefer.”

“I don’t want to get married so soon.”

“Soon? You call this soon? You are twenty-six years old. What are you hoping for? For Rustom to return miraculously? Be careful, or you’ll go crazy like Bapsy Aunty — she at least had an excuse, her husband’s body was never found after the dock explosion.”

“What a horrible thing to say!” Dina turned away in disgust and left the room.

She had been very young when it happened, but remembered the day clearly, during wartime, when two British ammunition ships had blown up after docking, killing thousands within a large radius of the harbour. Rumours about Nazi spies had begun to spread while the detonations were still in progress. The authorities said that many of those unaccounted for were vaporized during the deadly blasts, but Bapsy Aunty refused to accept this theory. She felt her husband was alive, wandering amnesiac somewhere, and it was only a matter of time before he was located. Alternately, Bapsy Aunty allowed that he might have been hypnotized or fed something by an unscrupulous sadhu and led away into slavery. In either case, she believed her husband would be found. That seventeen years had passed since the calamity did not diminish her faith. She spent her time chatting busily with his photograph, which sat in a heavy silver frame at her bedside, narrating for his benefit each day’s news and gossip in detail.

“It’s your depressing behaviour which reminds me of Bapsy Aunty,” said Nusswan, following Dina into the next room. “What excuse do you have? You were at the funeral, you saw Rustom’s body, you heard the prayers. He has been dead and digested for more than a year now.” As soon as he said it, he rolled his eyes heavenward to ask forgiveness for this bit of irreverence.

“Do you know how fortunate you are in our community? Among the unenlightened, widows are thrown away like garbage. If you were a Hindu, in the old days you would have had to be a good little sati and leap onto your husband’s funeral pyre, be roasted with him.”

“I can always go to the Towers of Silence and let the vultures eat me up, if that will make you happy.”

“Shameless woman! What a loose mouth! Such blasphemy! All I am saying is, appreciate your position. For you it is possible to live a full life, get married again, have children. Or do you prefer to live forever on my charity?”

Dina did not answer. But the next day, while Nusswan was at work, she began moving her belongings back to Rustom’s flat.

Ruby tried to stop her, following her from room to room, pleading with her. “You know how hotheaded your brother is. He does not mean everything he says.”

“Neither does he say everything he means,” she replied, and continued packing.

In the evening Ruby told Nusswan about it. “Hah!” he scoffed, loud enough for Dina to hear. “Let her go if she wants. I would just love to see how she supports herself.”

After dinner, while still at the table, he cleared his throat. “As the head of the family, it’s my duty to tell you I don’t approve of what you are doing You are making a big mistake, which you will regret. It’s a hard world out there, but I’m not going to beg you to stay. You are welcome here if you will be reasonable.”

“Thank you for the speech,” said Dina.

“Yes, make fun of me. You have done it all your life, why stop now. Remember, this is your decision, no one is kicking you out. None of our relatives will blame me, I have done all I can to help you. And will continue to do so.”

It was not long before the children understood that Dina Aunty was leaving. First they were bewildered, and then angry. Xerxes hid her handbag, screaming, “No, Aunty! You cannot go!” When she threatened to leave without it, Zarir brought it tearfully from the hiding place.

“You can always visit me,” she tried to pacify the two, hugging them and drying their eyes. “On Saturday and Sunday. And maybe during the vacation. It will be such fun.” They were excited at the prospect but would have much preferred that she stay with them forever.

The morning after she was back in her flat, Dina went to visit Rustom’s Darab Uncle and Shirin Aunty. “Darab! Look who’s here!” Shirin Aunty shouted excitedly. “Our dearDina! Come in, my child, come in!”

Darab Uncle emerged, still in his pyjamas, and hugged Dina, saying they had waited a long time for this. “Excuse my appearance,” he said, sitting down opposite her and smiling broadly.

As always, Dina was touched by their happiness at seeing her. She felt their love pour over her like something palpable. It reminded her of the milk bath she was given as a child on her birthday, by her mother, when half a cup of warm milk, with rose petals afloat, came trickling down her face and neck and chest in tiny white runnels over her light-brown skin.

“The hardest part,” she said, “is leaving the two little boys. I have become so attached to them.”

“Yes, that’s how it is with children,” said Shirin Aunty. “But you know, Rustom had told us how shabbily your brother treated you in the years before you were married.”

“He is not a bad person,” Dina objected feebly. “He just has his own ideas about things.”

“Yes, of course,” said Shirin Aunty, sensing the weight of family loyalty. “Anyway, you can stay with us. We are so happy you came.”

“Oh,” said Dina, anxious to keep the misunderstanding from going further. “Actually, I have decided to live in Rustom’s flat from now on. I came only to ask if you could find me some work.”

Her words made Darab Uncle’s mouth begin to move. He laboured to swallow the disappointment suddenly filling it, his soft slurping sounds teasing the quiet while Shirin Aunty played desperately with the hem of her dustercoat. “Work,” she said, blank, unable to think. “My dear child … yes, work, you must work. What work, Darab? What work for her, do you think?”

Dina waited in guilty silence for his answer. But he was still struggling with his mouthful. “Go change your clothes,” Shirin Aunty scolded him. “Almost afternoon, and still loitering in your sleeping suit.”

He rose obediently and went inside. Shirin Aunty relinquished her hem, rubbed her hands over her face and sat up. By the time Darab Uncle returned, having exchanged his blue-striped pyjamas for khaki pants and bush shirt, she had the beginnings of a solution for Dina.

“Tell me, my child, can you sew?”

“Yes, a little. Ruby taught me how to use a sewing-machine.”

“Good. Then there will be work for you. I have an extra Singer you can take. It is quite old, but runs well.”

For years, Shirin Aunty had supplemented her husband’s salary from the State Transport Corporation by sewing for a few families. She made simple things like pyjamas, nightgowns, baby blouses, bedsheets, pillowcases, tablecloths. “You can be my partner,” she said. “There is lots of work, more than I can manage now with my weak old eyes. We will start tomorrow.”

Dina picked up her handbag and hugged Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle. They accompanied her to the front door. Then a commotion in the street drew them to the balcony. A huge protest march was surging down the road.

“It’s another silly morcha about language,” said Darab Uncle, spotting the banners. “The fools want to divide the state on linguistic lines.”

“Everyone wants to change things,” said Shirin Aunty. “Why can’t people learn to be happy with things as they are? Anyway, let’s go back inside. Dina cannot leave now. All the traffic is stopped.” She sounded quite pleased about it, and enjoyed Dina’s company for two more hours, till the streets had returned to normal.

Over the next few days, Dina was taken around and introduced to the customers. At each stop she waited nervously by Shirin Aunty’s side, smiling timidly, trying to grasp the barrage of names and the tailoring instructions. Shirin Aunty kept handing over most of the new jobs to her.

At the end of the week, Dina finally protested: “I cannot accept so much, I cannot deprive you of your income.”

“My dear child, you are not depriving me of anything. Darab’s pension is enough for us. I was going to give up the sewing anyway, it was becoming too hard for me. Here, don’t forget this new pattern.”

Along with the assignments, Shirin Aunty passed along background material on the customers, information that would help Dina in her dealings with them. “The Munshi family is the best — always pays promptly. The Parekhs too, except that they like to haggle. You just be firm, tell them I have set the rates. Who else? Oh yes, Mr. Savukshaw. He has a big problem with the bottle. By the end of the month his poor missis has hardly any money left. Make sure you take advance payment.”

With the Surtees, the situation was rather unique. Whenever Mr. and Mrs. Surtee fought, she did not cook any dinner. Instead, she pulled out all his pyjamas from the cupboard and set fire to them, saving the ashes and charred wisps in a dinner plate to set before him when he came home from work.

“The result,” said Shirin Aunty, “is more business for you. Every two or three months, after they make up, Mrs. Surtee will give you a large order for pyjamas. But you must pretend it’s normal, or she will get rid of you.”

Dina’s collection of domestic portraits continued to grow as Shirin Aunty rendered descriptions of the Davars and Kotwals, the Mehtas and Pavris, the Vatchas and Seervais, and added them to the portfolio. “You must be getting fed up with all these details,” she said. “Just one last thing, and the most important: never measure the misters for their inseam. Ask for a sample to sew from. And if that is not possible, make sure there is someone present when you measure, a wife or mother or sister. Otherwise, before you know it, they move thisway-thatway and thrust something in your hand which you don’t want. Believe me, I had a nasty experience when I was young and innocent.”

This last bit of advice was uppermost in Dina’s mind when she was taken to meet Fredoon, a bachelor who lived alone. Shirin Aunty warned her not to go alone to his flat. “Although he is a perfect gentleman, people’s tongues are mischievous. They will talk that some funny business is going on. Your name will be spoilt.”

Dina did not care about people’s tongues and felt no danger from Fredoon, though she was prepared to bolt if he ever asked her to take his inseam. To reassure Shirin Aunty, she said a friend was always with her. What she did not say was that the friend was Fredoon. For that was what he soon became. His commissions consisted mainly of little frocks and short pants and pinafores; to help Dina, he presented clothing on birthdays to the children of friends and relatives instead of envelopes stuffed with rupees.

Their friendship grew. Dina often accompanied him to textile stores to help him select material for the gifts. After the shopping, they would stop for tea and cakes at Bastani’s. Sometimes Fredoon invited her back to his flat for dinner, picking up fried mutton chops or vindaloo on the way. He was always encouraging her to try new frock patterns, assert herself forcefully before her clients, demand higher rates.

Over the next several months, Dina became more confident about her abilities. The sewing was easy, thanks to her sister-in-law’s training. And when there was something tricky, she consulted Shirin Aunty. Her visits brought the two old people such pleasure, she went regularly, pretending to be confused by something or other: ruched collars, raglan sleeves, accordion pleats.

The sewing produced snippets of fabric every day, and Shirin Aunty suggested collecting them. “Waste nothing — remember, there is a purpose for everything. These scraps can be very useful.” She quickly demonstrated by making a lumpy sanitary pad.

“What a good idea,” said Dina. Her budget needed all the help it could get. The textile stuffing was not as absorbent as the pads she used to buy, but the homemade ones could be changed more frequently since they cost nothing. As an added precaution, though, she wore a very dark skirt for the duration.

Work made the hours pass quickly in the little flat. While her eyes and fingers were immersed in the sewing, she acquired a heightened awareness of noises from the flats around her. She collected the sounds, sorted them, replayed them, and created a picture of the lives being lived by her neighbours, the way she transformed measurements into clothes.

Rustom’s policy regarding neighbours had been to avoid them as much as possible. A little sahibji-salaam was enough, he said, or it led to gossiping and kaana-sori that got out of hand. But the washing of pots and pans, ringing of doorbells, bargaining with vendors, laundry noises, the flop and slap of clothes thrashed in soapy water, family quarrels, arguments with servants — all this seemed like gossip too. And she realized that the noises from her own flat would narrate her life for the neighbours’ ears, if they bothered to listen. There was no such thing as perfect privacy, life was a perpetual concert-hall recital with a captive audience.

Sometimes, the old pastime of attending free concerts tempted her, but she was reluctant to resume it. Anything which seemed like a clutching at bygone days made her wary. The road towards self-reliance could not lie through the past.

By and by, when the tailoring had settled into a comfortable routine for Dina, Shirin Aunty taught her to knit pullovers. “There is not much demand for woollen things,” she said, “but some people order them for style, or if they are going to hill-stations for a holiday.” As they progressed towards complicated patterns, Shirin Aunty presented her with her entire collection of design books and knitting needles.

Lastly, she instructed Dina in embroidery, with a warning: “Needlework on table napkins and tea-cloths is very popular, and pays well. But it’s a great strain on the eyes. Don’t do too much, or it will catch up with you after forty.”

And so, three years later, when Shirin Aunty passed away, followed by Darab Uncle a few months later, Dina felt confident of managing on her own. She also felt very alone, as though she had lost a second set of parents.

Contrary to Nusswan’s conviction that no one would blame him for Dina’s leaving, the relatives quickly grouped into two camps. While a few, professing neutrality, felt comfortable on both sides of the line, at least half were staunchly in support of Dina. To show their approval of her independent spirit, they came out with numerous ideas for money-making ventures.

“Butter biscuits. That’s where all the cash is.”

“Why don’t you start a crèche? Any mother would prefer you to look after her children, instead of an ayah.”

“Make a good rose sherbet and you won’t have to look back. People will buy it by the gallon.”

Dina listened with gratitude to everything, inclining her head interestedly as they formulated their schemes. She became an expert at non-committal nodding. When the tailoring was slow, she filled their orders for cakes, bhakras, vasanu, and coomas.

Then her friend Zenobia had a brainwave about in-home haircuts for children. Zenobia had fulfilled her schoolgirl ambition: she was now chief hairstylist at the Venus Beauty Salon. After the shop closed at night, she instructed Dina on a wig glued to a plaster-of-Paris cranium. The comb kept getting caught in the cheap mop’s knotted strands.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured Dina. “It’s much easier with real hair.” From the surplus in the shop she put together a kit of scissors, hair clippers, brush, comb, talcum powder and powder puff. Then they made a list of friends and relatives with children who could be used as guinea pigs. Xerxes and Zarir’s names were left out; though Nusswan would have welcomed the opportunity to save on haircuts, Dina felt uncomfortable now in his house.

“Just go after the brats, one by one, till you have cropped the whole jing-bang lot,” said Zenobia. “It’s only a question of practice.” She monitored the results, and soon declared Dina trained and ready. Now Dina began going door to door.

After a few days, however, the enterprise folded without a single haircut. Neither she nor Zenobia had remembered that most people regarded hair clippings within their dwellings as extreme bad luck. Dina related the misadventures to her friend, how the thought of hair hitting the floor made the prospective clients hit the ceiling. “Madam, you have no consideration? What have we done to you that you want to bring misfortune within our four walls?”

Some people did offer her their children’s heads. “But only if you do it outside,” they said. Dina refused. There were limits to what she would do. She was an in-home children’s stylist, not an open-air pavement barber.

Afterwards, she did not hang up her clippers for good. Her friends’ children continued to benefit from her skills. Some of the little boys and girls, remembering the practice haircuts, hid when Dina Aunty arrived. As she got better, they were less afraid.

Through all this, there were lean times when it was difficult to meet the rent or pay the electricity bill. Shirin Aunty and Darab Uncle, while they were still alive, had often tided her over with a loan of forty or fifty rupees. Now the only alternative was Nusswan.

“Of course, it’s my duty,” he said piously. “Are you sure sixty will be enough?”

“Yes, thank you. I will pay it back next month.”

“No rush. So tell me, have you found a sweetheart?”

“No,” she replied, wondering if he suspected something about Fredoon. Could someone have seen them together and reported back to Nusswan?

During the two years since Shirin Aunty’s death, the bachelor had progressed from friend to lover. Though the idea of marriage was still difficult for Dina to entertain, she enjoyed Fredoon’s company because he was perfectly content to spend time in her presence without feeling compelled to make clever conversation or to participate in the usual social activities of couples. The two were equally happy sitting in his flat or walking in a public garden.

But when they ventured into the private garden of intimacy, it was a troubled relationship. There were certain things she could not bring herself to do. The bed — any bed — was out of bounds, sacred and reserved for married couples only. So they used a chair. Then one day, as she swung a leg over to straddle Fredoon, her action suddenly resurrected the image of Rustom flinging his leg over his bicycle. Now the chair, like the bed, was no longer possible.

“Oh God!” said Fredoon, groaning softly. He put on his trousers and made tea.

A few days later he persuaded her into the standing position, and Dina had no objections. He began to refine the procedure as much as he could, finding a low platform for her to stand on; their heights became more compatible during their embraces. Next he bought a stool, took some personal measurements, and sawed off precisely two and a quarter inches, adjusting it to the proper size for her to rest one leg. Sometimes she raised the left, sometimes the right. He arranged these accessories against the wall and suspended pillows from the ceiling at appropriate heights for her head and back, and under the hips.

“Is it comfortable?” he asked tenderly, and she nodded.

But the ultimate satisfaction of the bed could only be approximated. What should have been the occasional spice to vary the regular menu had become the main course, leaving the appetite often confused or unfulfilled.

The opposite wall of Fredoon’s room had a small window in it. Outside the window was a streetlamp. Once, between dusk and nightfall, as they were locked in their vertical lovemaking, it started to rain. A moist garden smell came in through the window. Through her half-open eyes Dina saw the drizzle float like mist around the lamplight. Occasionally, a hand or elbow or shoulder strayed beyond the pillows, onto the bare wall, and the cement felt deliciously cool against their heated flesh.

“Mmm,” she said, enjoying with all her senses, and he was pleased. The rain was heavier now. She could see it slanting in needles past the streetlamp.

She watched it for a while, then stiffened. “Please stop,” she whispered, but he continued moving.

“Stop, I said! Please, Fredoon, stop it!”

“Why?” he begged. “Why? Now what’s wrong?”

She shivered. “The rain…”

“The rain? I’ll shut the window if you like.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, something made me think of Rustom.”

He took her face between his hands, but she pushed them away. She swam out of his embrace and into the memory of that night from long ago: she was wearing Rustom’s warm raincoat; her umbrella had broken in the storm. And after the concert, at the bus shelter, they had held hands for the first time ever, their palms moist with the finely falling drizzle.

Remembering the purity of that moment, Dina contrasted it with the present. What Fredoon and she did in this room seemed a sordid, contraption-riddled procedure, filling her with shame and remorse. She shuddered.

Silently, Fredoon handed Dina her brassière and underpants. She shrank towards the pillowed wall while she dressed, turning away from him. He put on his trousers and made tea.

Later, he tried to cheer her up. “In all the bloody Hindi movies, rain brings the hero and heroine closer together,” he complained. “But it is, from this moment onwards, the bane of my life.” She smiled, and he was encouraged. “Never mind, I’ll dismantle this and design a new set for our performance.”

And Fredoon kept trying. Despite his creative efforts and secret consultations of sex manuals, however, the past could only be imperfectly distanced. It was a slippery thing, he discovered, slithering into the present at the least excuse, dodging the strongest defences.

But he remained uncomplaining, and Dina liked him for it. She was determined to keep him a secret from Nusswan as long as possible.

“No boyfriend as yet?” said Nusswan, counting out the money from his wallet. “Remember, you are thirty already. It will be too late for children, once you have dried up. I can still find you a decent husband. For what are you slaving and slogging?”

She put the sixty rupees in her purse and let him have his say. It was the interest he extracted on his loan, she thought philosophically — a bit excessive, but the only currency that she could afford and he would accept.

The violin had sat untouched upon the cupboard for five years. During the biannual flat cleaning, when Dina wrapped a white cloth over her head and swept the walls and ceilings with the long-handled broom, she wiped the top of the cupboard without moving the black case.

For six more years, she continued to employ the same strategy against the violin, barely acknowledging its existence. Now it was the twelfth death anniversary. Time to sell the instrument, she decided. Better that someone use it, make music with it, instead of it gathering dust. She got up on a chair and took down the case. The rusted metal snaps squealed as her fingers flipped them open; then she raised the lid, and gasped.

The soundboard had collapsed completely around the f-holes. The four strings flopped limply between the tailpiece and tuning pegs, while the felt-lining of the case was in shreds, chewed to tatters by marauding insects. Bits of burgundy wool clung to her hands. Her stomach felt queasy. With a trembling hand she drew out the bow from its compartment within the lid. The horsehair hung from one end of it like a thin long ponytail; barely a dozen unbroken strands remained in place. She put everything back and decided to take it to L.M. Furtado amp; Co.

On the way, she had to duck inside a library while demonstrators rampaged briefly through the street, breaking store windows and shouting slogans against the influx of South Indians into the city who were stealing their jobs. Police jeeps arrived as the demonstrators finished their work and departed. Dina waited a few minutes longer before relinquishing the library.

At L. M. Furtado amp; Co., Mr. Mascarenhas was supervising the cleanup of the large plate-glass window, its shattered pieces glittering among two guitars, a banjo, bongos, and some sheet music for the latest Cliff Richard songs. Mr. Mascarenhas returned behind the counter as Dina entered the shop with the violin.

“What a shame,” she said, pointing at the window.

“It’s just the cost of doing business these days,” he said, and opened the case she put before him. The contents made him pause grimly. “And how did this happen?” He didn’t recognize Dina, for it had been a long time since Rustom had introduced her, when they had dropped in once to buy an E string. “Doesn’t anyone play it?”

“Not for a few years.”

Mr. Mascarenhas scratched his right ear and frowned fiercely around the thick black frames of his spectacles. “When a violin is in storage, the strings should be loosened, the bow should be slack,” he said severely. “We human beings loosen our belts when we go home and relax, don’t we?”

Dina nodded, feeling ashamed. “Can it be repaired?”

“Anything can be repaired. The question is, how will it sound after it is repaired?”

“How will it sound?”

“Horrible. Like fighting cats. But we can reline the case with new felt. It’s a good hard case.”

She sold the case to Mr. Mascarenhas for fifty rupees, leaving behind the remains of the violin. He said a beginner might buy the repaired instrument at a discount. “Learners squawk and screech anyway, the tone will make no difference. If it sells, I’ll pay you fifty more.”

She was comforted by the thought that an enthusiastic youngster might acquire it. Rustom would have liked that — the idea of his violin continuing to torment the human race.

From time to time, Dina’s guilt about the violin returned to anguish her. How stupid, she thought, to ignore it on top of the cupboard for twelve years, leaving it to destruct. She could at least have given it to Xerxes and Zarir, encouraged them to take lessons.

Then, one morning, someone came to the flat and announced that there was a delivery for Mrs. Dalai.

“That’s me,” she said.

The youth, wearing fashionably tight pants and a bright yellow shirt with the top three buttons left undone, returned to the van to fetch the item. Dina wondered if it might be the violin. Six months had passed since she had taken it to L. M. Furtado amp; Co. Perhaps Mr. Mascarenhas was sending it back because it was beyond redemption.

The young fellow appeared at the door again, dragging Rustom’s mangled bicycle. “From the police station,” he said.

Before he could get her to sign and acknowledge receipt of the goods, her hand slid along the door jamb, lowering her gracefully to the floor. She fainted.

“Ma-ji!” the delivery boy panicked. “Shall I call ambulance? Are you sick?” He fanned her frantically with the delivery roster, waving it at various angles to her face, hoping that one of these airflows might work, might put the breath back into her nostrils.

She stirred, and he fanned harder. Encouraged by the improvement, he took her wrist as though checking for a pulse. He didn’t know what exactly to do with the wrist, but had seen the gesture being performed several times in a film where the hero was a doctor and his faithful and bosomy nurse was the heroine.

Dina stirred again, and the delivery boy released the wrist, pleased with his very first medical success. “Ma-ji! What happened? Shall I get someone?”

She shook her head. “The heat… it’s okay now.” The twisted frame and handlebars swam into view again. For a moment she wondered why the police would have painted the bicycle a reddish brown; it used to be black.

Then the haziness passed, and her focus returned to normal. “It’s completely rusted,” she said.

“Completely,” he nodded, then checked the tag inscribed with the file number and date. “No wonder. Twelve years it has sat in the evidence room, where the windows are broken and the ceiling leaks. Twelve monsoon rains will make human bones rust also.”

Dina’s inner turmoil made her rage at the youth. “Is that any way to treat important evidence? If they caught the criminal, how would they prove it in court — with the evidence damaged?”

“I agree with you. But the whole building leaks. The employees get wet just like the evidence. Important files also, making the ink run. Only the big boss has a dry office.”

His explanation gave her little comfort, and he tried again. “You know, ma-ji, once we had a bag of wheat in the storage room. Someone had murdered the owner to steal it. There were bloodstains on the jute sacking. By the time the case came to court, rats had chewed through it and eaten up most of the wheat. Judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence.” He laughed carefully as he finished the story, hoping she would see the funny side of it.

“You find that a joking matter?” said Dina angrily. “The criminal walks free. What happens to justice?”

“It’s terrible, just terrible,” he agreed, giving her the roster to sign, then thanked her and departed.

She examined her copy of the receipt. It stated that the file was closed and the property returned to the next-of-kin.

Dina was not a superstitious person. But the bicycle’s reappearance, after the fate of the violin, was more than she could bear. She decided there was a message in it for her. She completed Fredoon’s last order, a party frock for a niece, delivered it, shook his hand, and said it wouldn’t be possible to see him anymore, for she was giving up the sewing business and getting married.

From then on, Dina did not meet Fredoon again. To avoid running into him, she even gave up other clients in that building. There was enough work from her remaining sources to support her.

A full five years passed in this manner. Then, right on schedule, Shirin Aunty’s prophecy came to pass. At forty-two, Dina’s eyes began to trouble her. In twelve months she had to change her spectacles twice. The lenses had grown quite formidable.

“Stop the eye strain or accept blindness,” said the doctor. He was a wiry little man with a funny manner of wiggling his fingers all over the room when checking for peripheral vision. It reminded Dina of children playing at butterflies.

But his suddenly blunt manner made her indignant, and also a little frightened. She did not know what she would do if sewing became impossible.

Fortune, sticking to its own schedule, brought along a solution. Her friend Zenobia told her about the export manager of a large textile company. “Mrs. Gupta is one of my regular clients. I’ve done her lots of favours, she can surely find some easy work for you.”

One afternoon that week, at the Venus Beauty Salon, amid the disagreeable odours of hydrogen peroxide and other beautifying chemicals, Dina waited to meet Mrs. Gupta, who was nestled under a hairdryer. “Just a few more minutes,” whispered Zenobia. “I’m doing such a wonderful bouffant for her, she’ll be in a superb mood.”

Dina watched from a chair in the reception area as Zenobia performed architecturally, even sculpturally, with the export manager’s hair, and created a monument. As construction proceeded, Dina glanced sidelong in a mirror, imagining the lofty edifice upon her own head.

Soon, the scaffolding of clips and curlers was carefully dismantled, and the hairdo was complete. The two women came over to the waiting area. Mrs. Gupta was beaming.

“It looks beautiful,” Dina felt compelled to say after introductions were completed.

“Oh, thank you,” said the export manager. “But all the credit goes to Zenobia, the talent is hers. I only supply raw material.”

They laughed, and Zenobia insisted she had nothing to do with it. “Mrs. Gupta’s facial structure — look at those cheekbones, and also her elegant carriage — they are responsible for the total effect.”

“Stop, stop! You are making me blush!” squeaked Mrs. Gupta.

Discussing the magic of imported shampoos and hairsprays, Zenobia steered the conversation towards the garment industry, as skilfully as she had twirled the whorls and spirals. Mrs. Gupta was quite happy to talk about her achievements at Au Revoir Exports.

“In just one year I have doubled the turnover,” she said. “Highly prestigious labels from all over the world are asking for my creations.” Her company — she used the possessive throughout — had begun supplying women’s clothing to boutiques in America and Europe. The sewing was done locally to foreign specifications, and contracted out in small lots.

“It’s more economical for me. Better than having one big factory which could be crippled by a strike. Who wants to deal with union goondas if it can be avoided? Especially these days, with so much trouble in the country. And leaders like that Jay Prakash Narayan encouraging civil disobedience. Simply at all creating problems. Thinks he is Mahatma Gandhi the Second.”

At Zenobia’s prompting, Mrs. Gupta agreed Dina would be ideal for the work. “Yes, you can easily hire tailors and supervise them. You don’t have to strain yourself.”

“But I have never handled complicated things or latest fashions,” confessed Dina, and Zenobia frowned at her. “Only simple clothes. Children’s frocks, school uniforms, pyjamas.”

“This is also simple,” assured Mrs. Gupta. “All you have to do is follow the paper patterns as you follow your nose.”

“Exactly,” said Zenobia, annoyed with Dina’s hesitation. “And no investment is needed, two tailors can easily fit in your back room.”

“What about the landlord?” asked Dina. “He could make big trouble for me if I start a workshop in the flat.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” said Zenobia. “Just keep it quiet, don’t tell your neighbours or anyone.”

The tailors would have to bring their own sewing-machines, for that was the norm, according to Mrs. Gupta. And piecework was better, it created some incentive, whereas a daily wage would be a recipe for wasting time. “Always remember one thing,” she stressed. “You are the boss, you must make the rules. Never lose control. Tailors are very strange people — they work with tiny needles but strut about as if they were carrying big swords.”

So Dina was convinced, and set out to look for two tailors, scouring the warren of laneways in the sordid belly of the city. Day after day, she entered dilapidated buildings and shops, each one standing precariously like a house of battered cards. Tailors she saw in plenty-perched in constricted lofts, crouched inside kholis that looked like subterranean burrows, bent over in smelly cubicles, or cross-legged on street corners — all engaged in a variety of tasks ranging from mattress covers to wedding outfits.

The ones who were eager to join her did not seem capable of handling the export work. She saw samples of their sewing: crooked collars, uneven hems, mismatched sleeves. And those who were skilled enough wanted the work delivered to them. But this was Mrs. Gupta’s one strict condition: the sewing had to be done under the supervision of the contractor. No exceptions, not even for Zenobia’s friend, because Au Revoir’s patterns were top secret.

The best Dina could do was to write her address on little squares of paper and leave it at shops where the quality was reasonable. “If you know someone who does good work like you and needs a job, send them to me,” she said. Many of the owners threw away the paper as soon as she left. Some rolled it into a tight cone to scratch inside their ears before discarding it.

Meanwhile, Zenobia had another suggestion for Dina: to take in a boarder. It would involve no more than providing a few basics like bed, cupboard, bath; and for meals, cooking a bit extra of what she ate.

“You mean, like a paying guest?” said Dina. “Never. Paying guests are trouble with a capital t. I remember that case in Firozsha Baag. What a horrible time the poor people had.”

“Don’t be so paranoid. We are not going to allow crooks or crackpots into the flat. Think of the rent every month — guaranteed income.”

“No baba, I don’t want to take the risk. I’ve heard of lots of old people and single women being harassed.”

But as her meagre savings dwindled, she relented. Zenobia assured her they would only accept someone reliable, preferably a temporary visitor to the city, who had a home to return to. “You look for tailors,” she said. “I’ll find the boarder.”

So Dina continued to distribute her name and address at tailors’ shops, going further afield, taking the train to the northern suburbs, to parts of the city she had never seen in all her forty-two years. Her progress was frequently held up when traffic was blocked by processions and demonstrations against the government. Sometimes, from the upper deck of the bus, she had a good view of the tumultuous crowds. The banners and slogans accused the Prime Minister of misrule and corruption, calling on her to resign in keeping with the court judgment finding her guilty of election malpractice.

And even if the Prime Minister stepped down — would it do any good? wondered Dina.

One evening, while the slow local waited for a signal change, she gazed beyond the railway fence where a stream of black sewer sludge spilled from an underground drain. Men were hauling on a rope that disappeared into the ground. Their arms were dark to the elbows, the black slime dripping from hands and rope. In the slum behind them, cooking fires smouldered, with smoke smudging the air. The workers were trying to unblock the overflowing drain.

Then a boy emerged out of the earth, clinging to the end of the rope. He was covered in the slippery sewer sludge, and when he stood up, he shone and shimmered in the sun with a terrible beauty. His hair, stiffened by the muck, flared from his head like a crown of black flames. Behind him, the slum smoke curled towards the sky, and the hellishness of the place was complete.

Dina stared, shuddering, transfixed by his appearance, covering her nose against the stench till the train had cleared the area. But the underworld vision haunted her for the rest of the day, and for days to come.

The long, depressing trips, the squalid sights, wore her down. Her spirits were lower than ever. Zenobia could see it in her eyes. “What’s this gloomy face for,” she said, pinching Dina’s cheek lightly.

“I am fed up with this struggle. I can’t do it anymore.”

“You mustn’t give up now. Look, more people have contacted me for paying guests. And one of them is Maneck Kohlah — Aban’s son. Remember her? She was at school with us. She wrote to me that Maneck hates his college hostel, he is desperate to move. I just want to be sure we pick a good character.”

“All these train fares are a waste of money,” said Dina, not listening. She wanted her friend’s approval to abandon the soul-draining journeys.

“But just think — once you find two tailors, how easy your life will be. You want to give up your independence and live with Nusswan or what?”

“Don’t even joke about it.” The prospect persuaded her to continue to leave her address at more and more shops. She felt like the lost children in that fairy tale whose title had slipped her mind, leaving a trail of bread, hoping to be rescued. But birds had devoured the bread. Would she ever be saved, she wondered, or would her trail of paper be devoured, by the wind, by the black sewer sludge, by the hungry army of paper-collectors roaming the streets with their sacks?

Tired and discouraged, she entered a lane where a rivulet of waste water flowed down the middle. Vegetable peelings, cigarette butts, eggshells bobbed along the surface. A little further, the lane narrowed and turned almost entirely into a gutter. Children were floating paper boats in the effluent, chasing them down the lethargic current. Planks had been thrown across to form walkways into shops and houses. When a boat sailed under a plank, emerging safely on the other side, the children clapped with glee.

Dina heard the familiar rattle and hum of a sewing-machine from someone’s doorway. This would be the last tailor for today, she decided, gingerly crossing the plank, and then she would go straight home.

Halfway across, her foot went through a rotten spot. A brief cry escaped her; she kept her balance but lost a shoe. The children waded in, yelling, groping beneath the dark surface, competing to retrieve it.

She reached the shop entrance and took back her dripping shoe, giving the excited little boy who found it a twenty-five-paisa coin. The sound of the sewing-machine had ceased; its operator stood in the doorway, summoned by the commotion.

“What are you rascals up to again?” he shouted at the children.

“They were helping me,” said Dina. “I was coming to your shop and my shoe fell in.”

“Oh,” he grunted, a little deflated. “The thing is, they are always playing bad mischief.” Recognizing a potential customer, he changed his tone. “Please come in, please.”

Her inquiry about tailors disappointed him. He dismissed it with an indifferent “Okay, I’ll try,” playing with his tape measure while she wrote down her name and address.

Then he brightened suddenly. “The thing is, you have come to the right place. I have two wonderful tailors for you. I will send them tomorrow.”

“Really?” she asked, sceptical about the change of heart.

“Oh yes, two beautiful tailors, or my name is not Nawaz. The thing is, they don’t have their own shop, they go out and work. But they are very skilled. You will be so happy with them.”

“Okay, I’ll see them tomorrow.” She departed, nurturing no expectations. There had been several false promises in the past few weeks.

On reaching home, she washed her feet and cleaned her shoes, sickened again at the thought of that lane where the children played with their paper boats. Her hopes would not be raised — neither by the tailor’s pledge nor by Zenobia’s assurance that a boarder was just round the corner, that their schoolfriend’s son, Maneck Kohlah, would drop in any day now to inspect the room.

And so, next morning, when the doorbell rang, Dina welcomed her change of fortune with open arms. The paying guest stood at her door, along with the fruit of yesterday’s square of paper: two tailors named Ishvar and Omprakash Darji.

As Zenobia would have put it, the whole jing-bang trio arrived at her flat together.