Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

Gustad feigned laughter. ‘How I wish.’

‘I said to him, Scrambled Egg, don’t tell lies. Then I gave him one solid chamaat across his face.’

‘Poor fellow.’

‘If his nonsense reaches the wrong ears, it would simply cause trouble. Temptation for bad elements. You don’t want thieves to come looking for imaginary money.’ He drove off.

That Tehmul. How to seal his drooling, babbling lips? Thankfully, Soli did not believe him, and others would also assume that Tehmul was gibbering as usual. Tonight I will warn him again. When he is loitering in the compound.

But when Gustad returned from work in the evening, the compound was deserted. He came out thrice before dinner, and was thwarted each time by Tehmul’s absence. He tried once more, after changing into his pyjamas. It was almost ten o’clock and still windy. Bits of newspaper and ice-cream wrappers had been blown into the bushes. Should I go up to his flat? But the older brother might be there.

A window opened noisily, and Gustad looked up. It was Cavasji, his white hair shining. He inspected the sky, cocking his head from side to side like an exotically plumaged bird. ‘Monsoon is coming, so You be careful! Year after year, Your floods are washing away poor people’s huts! Enough now! Where is Your fairness? Have You got any brains or not? Flood the Tatas this year! Flood the Birlas, flood the Mafatlals!’

When Cavasji was a young man once, he used to be called Cavas Calingar because he was round as a watermelon. But as he grew older he lost weight drastically, which made his height seem to increase, week by week, month by month. Tall he grew, and thin as an ancient prophet, as severe as a soothsayer, while his hair turned into a gleaming white halo. And the nickname was shed for ever, forgotten like a dry, shrivelled scab.

His daughter-in-law ran down the stairs to Gustad. ‘Sorry to disturb you at night,’ said Mrs. Pastakia, ‘but the subjo in Motta-Pappa’s garland is very dry. Please can I get some more?’

Gustad fetched his pruning shears. He disliked Mrs. Pastakia intensely, but tolerated her for the sake of Mr. Pastakia and his old father. She was as inquisitive, short-tempered and manipulative as her husband was high-minded, upright and patient. One wondered how the two had managed to stay together so long and raise five children. Of course, Mrs. Pastakia blamed all her shortcomings, including her occasional ill-treatment of old Cavasji, on her migraine. This invisible assailant struck at convenient intervals, sending her to bed for the day, where she suffered in silent agony and caught up on her back issues of Eve’s Weekly, Femina, or Filmfare, and Mr. Pastakia did the housework after coming home from office. He must have the soul of a saint, thought Gustad, to have endured her these many years.

‘Congratulations,’ said Mrs. Pastakia.

‘What?’

‘I heard you won a big lottery. How nice!’

Gustad handed her the subjo, told her she was sadly mistaken, and bade her goodnight. He broke off some flower spikes and took them inside. Dilnavaz silently watched him separate the seeds to soak in water. She knew he had been prejudiced against the subjo because it was Miss Kutpitia who had identified and broadcast the plant’s hidden powers. Now he gave the drink to Roshan, and she was grateful.

The next day was even windier. When Gustad returned from work, the compound’s solitary tree was swaying wildly. ‘Roshan is better, touch wood,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘ Subjo was a good idea.’

He nodded, pleased. And Ghulam Mohammed will be back this week, I can send him a message then. Ask him when and where I can return the parcel.

He prepared the note and sealed the envelope. Tomorrow he would deliver it to Peerbhoy Paanwalla.

Seven days later he went again to the House of Cages to see if there was a reply. Peerbhoy, sitting cross-legged on a wooden box before his large brass tray, said Ghulambhai had collected his messages, and that was all.

Three weeks passed. No word came from Ghulam Mohammed, but the monsoon arrived in full force on a Friday night, preceded by a severe lightning storm. Gustad stepped outside to examine the sky. He looked to the west, at the clouds over the Arabian Sea, and sniffed the air: yes, it was getting closer. He sat awhile after the others had gone to bed, reading the newspaper. The refugees were still coming. The official count put the figure at four and a half million, but the reporter who had returned from the refugee camps said it was closer to seven. The prediction was for ten million by next month. Four and a half or seven or ten, thought Gustad, what difference. Too many to feed, in a country that cannot feed its own. Maybe the guerrillas will soon win. If only I could have helped Jimmy.

He checked the cricket scores, then abandoned the paper. He went to his desk and picked up the Plato. The new books had sat on one corner of the desk since they were brought home four Fridays ago. And my plans for the bookcase — turned to dust. Like everything else.

Around midnight the rain commenced. He heard the first drops chime against the panes. By the time he got to the window the rain became a downpour. The wind was sweeping it inside. He took a deep breath to savour the fresh moist earth fragrance, feeling great satisfaction, as though he had had a hand in the arrival of the monsoon. It will be good for my vinca bush. And I remembered to push the rose to the edge of the steps — it will get the rain slanting into the entrance.

He shut the window and sat again to read but could not concentrate. The advent of the monsoon was exciting — and it was always like this with the first big storm, even in his earliest memories, back to a time when the torrential rain coincided with the new school year, new classroom, new books, new friends. Sloshing in new raincoat and gumboots through flooded streets of floating bottle caps, empty cigarette packets, ice-cream sticks, torn shoes and slippers. Watching the normally vicious traffic paralysed and drowned, which had a marvellous sense of poetic justice about it. And the ever-present hope that it would rain so hard, school would be cancelled. Somehow, that childhood excitement blossoming with the first rain had never faded.

The thunder was sporadic now, but the crashing torrents made up for the noise. He could distinguish, within the large sound of water, the individual ones: on the asphalt strip in the centre of the compound, a flat, slapping noise; on the galvanized awnings, loud and reverberating, like a huge tin drum; against the windows, the soft tap-tap-tap of a shy visitor; and the biggest sound of all from the five rainspouts on the roof, which delivered their accumulations like cataracts plunging mightily to the ground. It was an orchestra in which he could separate the violins and violas, oboes and clarinets, timpani and bass drum.

He felt a twinge in his left hip. Yes, a sure sign the monsoon had arrived. It came again, the pain. Sharp enough to bring back the agonizing weeks I spent in bed. Jimmy, God bless him, had been such a help.

Like a baby Jimmy carried me inside the hall, in his arms. What a busy place it was, where Madhiwalla Bonesetter was holding his clinic — volunteers helping with patients, carrying them in on stretchers or pushing their wheelchairs, others preparing bandages. Two men were sorting various types of fragrant herbs and bark into little packages. The glue for their labels was homemade — a mucilage of flour and some foul ingredients, but the herbs and bark covered up the smell.

And at the centre of it all stood the great Bonesetter himself, surrounded by his loyal helpers. In appearance he was so ordinary, no one could have guessed what extraordinary powers he possessed. He wore a long white duglo and a prayer cap, resembling one of those men in charge of serving dinner at a Parsi wedding: the chief of the buberchees, who supervised everything from making the dinner announcements to dispatching busboys with washbowls, soap and hot water ewers down the rows of sated guests after the feasting ended.