John Irving - A Son of the Circus

Regardless, Inspector Dhar was still hated; on occasion, he was even attacked. Local bullies wanted to see if he was as tough and practiced in the martial arts as the police inspector he portrayed; apparently, he was. He would respond to any and all verbal abuse with a queerly restrained version of his sneer. It made him appear mildly drunk. But if physically threatened, he wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate in kind; once, assaulted by a man with a chair, Dhar struck back with a table. He was reputed to be as dangerous as his screen persona. He’d occasionally broken other people’s bones; perhaps from his understanding of orthopedics, he’d caused serious injuries to the joints of his assailants. He was capable of real damage. But Dhar didn’t pick fights, he simply won them.

His trashy films were hastily made, his publicity appearances minimal; the rumor was, he spent next to no time in Bombay. His chauffeur was an unfriendly dwarf, a former circus clown whom the film-gossip press had confidently labeled a thug. (Vinod was proud of this allegation.) And except for the plentiful number of Indian women who’d dated him, Dhar wasn’t known to have any friends. His most public acquaintance—with an infrequent visitor to Bombay, an Honorary Consultant Surgeon at the Hospital for Crippled Children who was the hospital’s usual spokesman for its foreign fund-raising efforts—was accepted as a longstanding relationship that had withstood invasions from the media. Dr. Daruwalla—a distinguished Canadian physician and family man, and a son of the former chief of staff of Bombay’s Hospital for Crippled Children (the late Dr. Lowji Daruwalla)—was witheringly brief to the press. When asked about his relationship to and with Inspector Dhar, Dr. Daruwalla would say, “I’m a doctor, not a gossip.” Besides, the younger and the elder man were seen together only at the Duckworth Club. The media weren’t welcome there, and among the members of the club, eavesdropping (except by the old Parsi steward) was generally deplored.

There was, however, much speculation about how Inspector Dhar could conceivably have become a member of the Duckworth Club. Movie stars weren’t welcome there, either. And given the 22-year waiting list and the fact that the actor became a member when he was only 26, Dhar must have applied for membership when he was four! Or someone had applied for him. Furthermore, it had not been sufficiently demonstrated to many Duckworthians that Inspector Dhar had distinguished himself in “community leadership”; some members pointed to his efforts for the Hospital for Crippled Children, but others argued that Inspector Dhar’s movies were destructive to all of Bombay. Quite understandably, there was no suppressing the rumors or the complaints that circulated through the old club on this subject.

There was also no suppressing the exciting news about the dead golfer in the bougainvillea near the ninth green. True to his fictional character, Inspector Dhar himself had located the body. Doubtless the press would expect Dhar to solve the crime. It didn’t appear there had been a crime, although there was talk among the Duckworthians that Mr. Lal’s excesses on the golf course were of a criminal nature, and surely his exertions in the wrecked bougainvillea hadn’t served the old gentleman well. The vultures had spoiled a clear impression, but it seemed that Mr. Lal had been the victim of his own chip shot. His lifelong opponent, Mr. Bannerjee, told Dr. Daruwalla that he felt as if he’d murdered his friend.

“He always fell apart at the ninth hole!” Mr. Bannerjee exclaimed. “I never should have teased him about it!”

Dr. Daruwalla was thinking that he’d often teased Mr. Lal along similar lines; it had been irresistible to tease Mr. Lal in regard to the zeal with which he played a game for which he manifested minimal talent. But now that he appeared to have died at the game, Mr. Lal’s enthusiasm for golf seemed less funny than before.

Farrokh found himself sensing some faint analogy between his creation of Inspector Dhar and Mr. Lal’s golf game, and this unwanted connection came to him as the result of a sudden, unpleasant odor. It wasn’t as strong an impression as the stench of a man defecating at close quarters, but instead the smell was at once more familiar and more removed—sun-rotted garbage, perhaps, or clogged drains. Farrokh thought of potted flowers and human urine.

Far-fetched or not, the nature of the comparison between Mr. Lal’s lethal golf habit and Dr. Daruwalla’s screenwriting was simply this: the Inspector Dhar movies were judged to be of no artistic merit whatsoever, but the labors that the doctor performed to write these screenplays were intense; the nature of Inspector Dhar’s character was crude to most viewers, and outrageously offensive to many, but the doctor had created Dhar out of the purest love; and Farrokh’s fragile self-esteem rested as much on his sense of himself as a closet writer as it did on his established reputation as a surgeon, even if he was only a screenwriter and, worse, even though he was perceived to be such a shameless hack—such a whore for the money—that he wouldn’t even lend his name to his creations. Understandably, since the actor who played Inspector Dhar had himself become (in the public eye) the very character he portrayed, the authorship of the screenplays was ascribed to Dhar. What gave Farrokh so much pleasure was the actual writing of the screenplays themselves; yet, despite his own enjoyment of the craft, the results were ridiculed and hated.

Recently, in the light of certain death threats that Inspector Dhar had received, Dr. Daruwalla had even considered retiring; the doctor had meant to sound out the actor in regard to this notion. If I stop, Farrokh wondered, what will Dhar do? If I stop, what will I do? he’d also wondered, for he’d long suspected that Dhar wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of getting out of the business of being Dhar—especially now. To suffer the verbal abuse of The Times of India was one thing; death threats were something altogether different.

And now this unlikely association to Mr. Lal’s golf game, this unveiled reek of sun-rotted garbage, this ancient smell from a clogged drain—or had someone been peeing in the bougainvillea? These thoughts were most unwelcome. Dr. Daruwalla suddenly saw himself as the poor, doomed Mr. Lal; he thought he was as bad but as compulsive a writer as Mr. Lal had been a golfer. For example, he’d not only written another screenplay; they’d already finished the final cut of the picture. Coincidentally, the new movie would be released shortly before or after the arrival in Bombay of Dhar’s twin. Dhar himself was just hanging around—he was under contract for a very limited number of interviews and photo opportunities to publicize the new release. (This forced intimacy with the film press could never be limited enough to suit Dhar.) Also, there was every reason to believe that the new film might make as much trouble as the last. And so the time to stop is now , thought Dr. Daruwalla, before I begin another one!

But how could he stop? It was something he loved. And how could he hope to improve? Farrokh was doing the best that he could; like poor Mr. Lal, he was hopelessly returning to the ninth green. Each time, the flowers would fly but the golf ball would remain more or less unresponsive; each time, he would be knee-deep in the blighted bougainvillea, slashing wildly at the little white ball. Then, one day, the vultures would be overhead and descending.

There was just one choice: either hit the ball and not the flowers, or stop the game. Dr. Daruwalla understood this, yet he couldn’t decide—no more than he could bring himself to tell Inspector Dhar the upsetting news. After all, the doctor thought, how can I hope to be any better than my proven abilities? And how can I stop it, when “it” is merely what I do?