Rohinton Mistry - Such A Long Journey

‘Yes,’ said Roshan. ‘Choksy Caterers will cook the wedding dinner.’ He gave her one dose from the mixture. They sent her to bed, and he quietly told Dilnavaz what the doctor had said.

She sat silent a few moments while the lines on her face rearranged for a storm: ‘Now you are satisfied? Now will you admit it? I repeated it till I was exhausted, till my lungs were empty. But you treat my words as if a dog is barking.’

‘What idiotic-lunatic thing are you saying?’

‘Neither idiotic nor lunatic! I am talking about water, what else? I said it over and over. That we should boil the water, boil the water, boil the water. But it would not go into your brain only!’ she said, ferociously digging her fingers into her skull.

‘Yes! Blame me! That’s the easiest thing.’

‘If not you then who? Your dead uncle? No, no, you said, potassium permanganate is enough, no need to boil. You Nobles think you know everything.’

‘That’s right! Don’t blame me alone! Blame my father also, and grandfather and great-grandfather. You ungrateful woman! Why do you think I said not to boil? For your sake! As it is, you are so busy in the morning, running from bathroom to kitchen, with no time even to sit and drink your tea!’

Their voices rose steadily, though neither seemed to notice. She said, ‘There is a remedy for that, if I have no time in the morning. But you just sit and read your newspaper, while my insides are heaving and aching with lifting the tubs and buckets. And two big sons you have, like lubbhai-laivraas, who have never helped me once.’

‘Correction, you have two sons. I have only one. And what has happened to your mouth? Why must I say everything when—?’

‘Everything? What everything have you told them? Always I shout and scream, while nice Daddy watches quietly. To finish their food, to do homework, to pick up their plates. Without a father’s discipline what can you expect now but disobedience?’

‘Yes! Blame me for that also. It is my fault that Sohrab is not going to IIT! My fault that Darius is wasting his time with the dogwalla idiot’s fatty! My fault that Roshan is sick! Everything wrong in the world is my fault!’

‘Don’t deny it! From the beginning you have spoilt the boys! Not for one single thing have you ever said no! Not enough money for food or school uniforms, and baap goes and buys aeroplanes and fish tanks and bird cages!’

They did not notice Roshan standing in the door till she started to sob. ‘What is it, my darling?’ said Gustad, bringing her to sit beside him.

‘I don’t like it when you fight,’ she said through her tears.

‘No one is fighting. We were just talking,’ said Dilnavaz. ‘Sometimes grown-ups have to talk about these things.’

‘But you were shouting and angry,’ sobbed Roshan.

‘OK, my bakulyoo, ’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘You are right, we were shouting. But we are not angry. Look,’ and he smiled: ‘Is this an angry face?’

Roshan was not convinced, especially since her mother sat rigidly at the dining-table, with her arms stiffly folded in front of her. ‘Go kiss Mummy.’

He looked at Dilnavaz’s wrathful countenance, still struggling to soften. ‘Later. But you I will kiss now, you are closer.’ He kissed her cheek.

She would not give up. ‘No, no, no. I cannot sleep till you kiss. Mummy will come here.’ When Dilnavaz did not move, she went and began tugging at her arm, leaning on it with all her meagre weight. Dilnavaz gave in. She looked coldly at Gustad and brushed his cheek cursorily.

‘Not like that!’ said Roshan, frustratedly pounding the arm of the chair. ‘That’s not a real Mummy-Daddy kiss. Do it like when Daddy goes to work in the morning.’ Dilnavaz rested her lips against Gustad’s. ‘Eyes closed, eyes closed!’ yelled Roshan. ‘Do it properly!’

They obeyed, then separated. Gustad was amused. ‘My little kissing umpire,’ he said.

Roshan somehow sensed that it took more than the joining of lips and closing of eyes to get rid of anger and bitterness. But she did not know what else to do, and went to bed.

Mr. Rabadi gathered up the newspapers outside his front door. He was unable to lift the lot in his arms, and insisted that Mrs. Rabadi help him. She was all for selling them to the jaripuranawalla but he would not listen. ‘I will show that rascal! You just do as I say!’

‘Yipyip! Yipyipyipyip!’ Dimple ran excitedly round the papers, tumbling the piles Mr. Rabadi had made. He dragged her inside, bade Mrs. Rabadi come out, then shut the door. ‘Carry,’ he ordered, pointing to one stack, and took the other himself.

In the compound, they ran into Inspector Bamji. ‘Hallo, hallo!’ he said. ‘Selling old papers? But shop will be closed now.’ He looked at his watch in confirmation.

‘I’ll show him!’ muttered Mr. Rabadi. ‘I came out to take Dimple for a walk, and tripped on them! Almost fell down the stairs and broke my neck! Outside my door he threw them!’

‘Who?’ asked Bamji.

‘That — that rascal!’ he sputtered. ‘Noble in name only!’

‘Gustad?’

‘Trying to kill me, laying a trap like that outside my door! What does he think in his own mind of himself?’ He dropped the papers close to the bushes. Mrs. Rabadi looked at him questioningly, clutching tight her stack, whereupon he grabbed her hands and pulled them apart. From his pocket he withdrew a matchbox.

‘Are you sure?’ said Inspector Bamji.

Mr. Rabadi struck and dropped a match. ‘First his son steals my papers!’ The newspapers caught. ‘If he thinks he can throw this outside my door and I will forget everything, he is mistaken!’ Within seconds the stacks were burning fiercely, which added fuel to Mr. Rabadi’s inflammation. His face turned a bright orange. ‘It is not the newspapers I care about! There are manners, apologies, respectfulness at stake! There are principles involved! Let him learn once and for all who he is tangling with!’

Inspector Bamji had nothing to say. Tehmul came to watch the flames. ‘Hothothothot.’ He edged closer, and Inspector Bamji pulled him back. ‘Careful, you Scrambled Egg. Or your face will get fried.’

Suddenly, there were yells of fire! fire! ‘ Aag laagi! Aag laagi ! Help! Call the boombawalla !’ Cavasji, leaning out the window upstairs with the subjo garland around his neck, gave the alarm. Mr. and Mrs. Rabadi melted away to their flat. Cavasji turned his attention to the sky. ‘Once again You have done it! Inflicting suffering on the poor only! The stink, the noise, the flood — now the fire! Have You ever burnt the homes of rich sethiyas ? Have You ever, tell me!’

Gustad heard the shouts and simultaneously saw the orange glow through the window. When he got outside, only Tehmul was there. ‘GustadGustad. Hothothothot.’

The blaze was dying. Charred bits of newspaper lay by the bushes. Soon the breeze carried the scraps through the compound, and Tehmul began chasing after them. Gustad went inside, amused that the dogwalla idiot had been provoked to such lengths.

But something more had been provoked, Gustad soon realized. Mosquitoes, stirred up as never before, and maddened by the smoke. They descended in clouds of blind fury, bent on vengeance — stunning themselves against walls, pinging into the hot glass of the light bulb, ricochetting, alighting in his hair, stinging his face.

He ran to switch on the lights in the house, shouting to Dilnavaz to fetch all the large flat dishes she could find. But when he went to the drum and turned on the tap — nothing. He got up on a stool and looked inside. The drum was empty, it had sprung a leak where the spout was soldered to the side. And there was barely enough water left in one of the buckets to last till morning. There would be no mosquito traps tonight.