John Irving - A Son of the Circus

The doctor was so ashamed that he briefly turned his attention to Mr. Lal’s grief-stricken golfing partner, Mr. Bannerjee, who’d approached no closer than a spot within reach of the number-nine flag, which hung limply from the slender pole stuck in the cup.

Then Dhar spoke quite suddenly, and with more curiosity than surprise. “There’s quite a lot of blood by one ear,” he said.

“I suppose the vultures were pecking at him for some time,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. He wouldn’t venture any nearer himself—after all, he was an orthopedist, not a medical examiner.

“But it doesn’t look like that,” said Inspector Dhar.

“Oh, stop playing the part of a policeman!” Farrokh said impatiently.

Dhar gave him a stern, reproachful look, which the doctor believed he absolutely deserved. He sheepishly scuffed his feet in the flowers, but several bright petals of the bougainvillea were caught between his toes. He was embarrassed by the visible cruelty on the head mali’s eager face; he felt ashamed of himself for not attending to the living, for quite clearly Mr. Bannerjee was suffering all alone—there was nothing the doctor could do for Mr. Lal. To poor Mr. Bannerjee, Dr. Daruwalla must have seemed indifferent to the body! And of the upsetting news that he couldn’t yet bring himself to impart to his dear younger friend, Farrokh felt afraid.

Oh, the injustice that such unwelcome news should be my burden! Dr. Daruwalla thought—momentarily forgetting the greater unfairness to Dhar. For hadn’t the poor actor already contended with quite enough? Dhar had not only kept his sanity, which nothing less than the fierce maintenance of his privacy could ensure; he’d honored Dr. Daruwalla’s privacy, too, for Dhar knew that the doctor had written the screenplays for all the Inspector Dhar movies—Dhar knew that Farrokh had created the very character whom Dhar was now condemned to be.

It was supposed to be a gift, Dr. Daruwalla remembered; he’d so loved the younger man, as he would his own son—he’d expressly written the part just for him . Now, to avoid the reproachful look that Dhar gave him, Farrokh knelt down and picked the petals of bougainvillea from between his toes.

Oh, dear boy, what have I gotten you into? Dr. Daruwalla thought. Although Dhar was almost 40, he was still a boy to Dr. Daruwalla. The doctor had not only invented the character of the controversial police inspector, he’d not only created the movies that inspired madness throughout Maharashtra; he’d also fabricated the absurd autobiography that the famous actor attempted to pass off to the public as the story of his life. Quite understandably, the public didn’t buy it. Farrokh knew that the public wouldn’t have bought Dhar’s true story, either.

Inspector Dhar’s fictional autobiography manifested a fondness for shock value and sentiment that was remindful of his films. He claimed to have been born out of wedlock; he said his mother was an American—currently a has-been Hollywood movie star—and his father was an actual Bombay police inspector, long since retired. Forty years ago (Inspector Dhar was 39), the Hollywood mother had been shooting a film in Bombay. The police inspector responsible for the star’s security had fallen in love with her; their trysting place had been the Taj Mahal Hotel. When the movie star knew she was pregnant, she struck a deal with the inspector.

At the time Dhar was born, the lifetime support of an Indian police inspector seemed no more prohibitive an expense to the Hollywood star than her habit of adding coconut oil to her bath, or so the story went. A baby, especially out of wedlock, and with an Indian father, would have compromised her career. According to Dhar, his mother had paid the police inspector to take full responsibility for the child. Enough money was involved so that the inspector could retire; he clearly passed on his intimate knowledge of police business, including the bribes, to his son. In his movies, Inspector Dhar was always above being bribed. All the real police inspectors in Bombay said that, if they knew who Dhar’s father was, they would kill him. All the real policemen made it clear that they would enjoy killing Inspector Dhar, too.

To Dr. Daruwalla’s shame, it was a story full of holes, beginning with the unknown movie. More movies are made in Bombay than in Hollywood. But in 1949, no American films were made in Maharashtra—at least none that were ever released. And, suspiciously, there were no records of the policemen assigned to foreign film sets for security, although copious records exist in other years, suggesting that the accounts for 1949 were liberated from the files, doubtless by means of a bribe. But why? As for the so-called has-been Hollywood star, if she was an American in Bombay making a movie, she would have been considered a Hollywood star—even if she was an unknown actress, and a terrible actress, and even if the movie had never been released.

Inspector Dhar had claimed, at best, indifference regarding her identity. It was said that Dhar had never been to the United States. Although his English was reported to be perfect, even accentless, he said that he preferred to speak Hindi and that he dated only Indian women.

Dhar had confessed, at worst, a mild contempt for his mother, whoever she was. And he professed a fierce and abiding loyalty to his father, which was marked by Dhar’s resolute vow to keep his father’s identity secret. It was rumored that they met only in Europe!

It must be said, in Dr. Daruwalla’s defense, that the improbable nature of his fiction was at least based on reality. The fault rested with the unexplained gaps in the story. Inspector Dhar made his first movie in his early twenties, but where was he as a child? In Bombay, such a handsome man wouldn’t have gone unnoticed as a boy, especially as a teenager; furthermore, his skin was simply too fair—only in Europe or in North America would he have been called dark-skinned. He had such dark-brown hair that it was almost black, and such charcoalgray eyes that they were almost black, too; but if he actually had an Indian father, there wasn’t a discernible trace of even a fair-skinned Indian in the son.

Everyone said that possibly the mother was a blue-eyed blonde, and all that the police inspector could contribute to the child was a racially neutralizing effect and a fervor for homicide cases. Nevertheless, all of Bombay complained that the box-office star of its Hindi movie madness looked to all the world like a 100 percent North American or European. There was no credible explanation for his all-white appearance, which fueled the rumor that Dhar was the child of Farrokh’s brother, who’d married an Austrian; and since it was well known that Farrokh was married to this European’s sister, it was also rumored that Dhar was the doctor’s child.

The doctor expressed boredom for the notion, in spite of the fact that there were many living Duckworthians who could remember Dr. Daruwalla’s father in the company of an ephemeral, fair-skinned boy who was only an occasional summer visitor. And this suspiciously all-white boy was reputed to be the senior Daruwalla’s grandson! But the best way to answer these charges, Farrokh knew, was not to answer them beyond the bluntest denial.

It’s well known that many Indians think fair skin is beautiful; in addition, Dhar was ruggedly handsome. However, it was considered perverse of Inspector Dhar that he refused to speak English in public, or spoke it with an obviously exaggerated Hindi accent. It was rumored that he spoke accentless English in private, but how would anyone know? Inspector Dhar granted only a limited number of interviews, which were restricted to questions regarding his “art”; he insisted that his personal life was a forbidden topic. (Dhar’s “personal life” was the only topic of possible interest to anyone.) When cornered by the film press at a nightclub, at a restaurant, at a photo session in connection with the release of a new Inspector Dhar movie, the actor would apply his famous sneer. It didn’t matter what question he was asked; either he answered facetiously or, regardless of the question, he would say in Hindi, or in English with his phony accent, “I have never been to the United States. I have no interest in my mother. If I have babies, they will be Indian babies. They are the most clever.”