John Irving - A Son of the Circus

Now, short of telling him that he wore a mint leaf on his front teeth, there seemed no way to compel Martin Mills to visit the men’s room. The scholastic took the children to the card room; there he tried in vain to teach them crazy eights. Soon the cards were speckled with blood; the zealot’s index finger was still bleeding. Rather than unearth his medical supplies from his suitcase, which was in the Ambassador—besides, the doctor had packed nothing as simple as a Band-Aid—Farrokh asked Mr. Sethna for a small bandage. The old steward delivered the Band-Aid to the card room with characteristic scorn and inappropriate ceremony; he presented the bandage to Martin Mills on the silver serving tray, which the steward extended at arm’s length. Dr. Daruwalla took this occasion to tell the Jesuit, “You should probably wash that wound in the men’s room— before you bandage it.”

But Martin Mills washed and bandaged his finger without once looking in the mirror above the sink, or in the full-length mirror—except at some distance, and only to appraise his lost-and-found Hawaiian shirt. The missionary never spotted the mint leaf on his teeth. He did, however, notice a tissue dispenser near the flush handle for the urinal, and he noted further that every flush handle had a tissue dispenser in close proximity to it. These tissues, when used, were not carelessly deposited in the urinals; rather, there was a silver bucket at the end of the lineup of urinals, something like an ice bucket without ice, and the used tissues were deposited in it.

This system seemed exceedingly fastidious and ultra-hygienic to Martin Mills, who reflected that he’d never wiped his penis with a tissue before. The process of urinating was made to seem more important, certainly more solemn, by the expectation of wiping one’s penis after the act. At least, this is what Martin Mills assumed the tissues were for. It troubled him that no other Duckworthians were urinating at any of the other urinals; therefore, he couldn’t be sure of the purpose of the tissue dispensers. He was about to finish peeing as usual—that is, without wiping himself—when the unfriendly old steward who had presented the Jesuit with his Band-Aid entered the men’s room. The silver serving tray was stuck in one armpit and rested against the forearm of the same arm, as if Mr. Sethna were carrying a rifle.

Because someone was watching him, Martin Mills thought he should use a tissue. He tried to wipe himself as if he always completed a responsible act of urination in this fashion; but he was so unfamiliar with the process, the tissue briefly caught on the end of his penis and then fell into the urinal. What was the protocol in the case of such a mishap? Martin wondered. The steward’s beady eyes were fastened on the. Jesuit. As if inspired, Martin Mills seized several fresh tissues, and with these held between his bandaged index finger and his thumb, he plucked the lost tissue from the urinal. With a flourish, he deposited the bunch of tissues in the silver bucket, which tilted suddenly, and almost toppled; the missionary had to steady it with both hands. Martin tried to smile reassuringly to Mr. Sethna, but he realized that because he’d grabbed the silver bucket with both hands, he’d neglected to return his penis to his pants. Maybe this was why the old steward looked away.

When Martin Mills had left the men’s room, Mr. Sethna gave the missionary’s urinal a wide berth; the steward peed as far away as possible from where the diseased actor had peed. It was definitely a sexually transmitted disease, Mr. Sethna thought. The steward had never witnessed such a grotesque example of urination. He couldn’t imagine the medical necessity of dabbing one’s penis every time one peed. The old steward didn’t know for certain if there were other Duckworthians who made the same use of the tissue dispensers as Martin Mills had made. For years, Mr. Sethna had assumed that the tissues were for wiping one’s fingers . And now, after he’d wiped his fingers, Mr. Sethna accurately deposited his tissue in the silver bucket, ruefully reflecting on the fate of Inspector Dhar. Once a demigod, now a terminal patient. For the first time since he’d poured hot tea on the head of that fop wearing the wig, the world struck Mr. Sethna as fair and just.

In the card room, while Martin Mills had been experimenting at the urinal, Dr. Daruwalla realized why the children had such difficulty in grasping crazy eights, or any other card game. No one had ever taught them their numbers; not only could they not read, they couldn’t count. The doctor was holding up his fingers with the corresponding playing card—three fingers with the three of hearts—when Martin Mills returned from the men’s room, still sporting the mint leaf on his front teeth.

Their plane to Rajkot took off at 5:10 in the afternoon, not quite eight hours after its scheduled departure. It was a tired-looking 737. The inscription on the fuselage was legible but faded.

Dr. Daruwalla quickly calculated that the plane had first been put in service in India in 1987. Where it had flown before then was anybody’s guess.

Their departure was further delayed by the need of the petty officials to confiscate Martin Mills’s Swiss Army knife—a potential terrorist’s tool. The pilot would carry the “weapon” in his pocket and hand it over to Martin in Rajkot.

“Well, I suppose I’ll never see it again,” the missionary said; he didn’t say this stoically, but more like a martyr.

Farrokh wasted no time in teasing him. “It can’t matter to you,” the doctor told him. “You’ve taken a vow of poverty, haven’t you?”

“I know what you think about my vows,” Martin replied. “You think that, because I’ve accepted poverty, I must have no fondness for material things. This shirt, for example—my knife, my books. And you think that, because I’ve accepted chastity, I must be free of sexual desire. Well, I’ll tell you: I resisted the commitment to become a priest not only because of how much I did like my few things, but also because I imagined I was in love. For ten years, I was smitten. I not only suffered from sexual desire; I’d embraced a sexual obsession. There was absolutely no getting this person out of my mind. Does this surprise you?”

“Yes, it does,” Dr. Daruwalla admitted humbly. He was also afraid of what the lunatic might confess in front of the children, but Ganesh and Madhu were too enthralled with the airplane’s preparations for takeoff to pay the slightest attention to the Jesuit’s confession.

“I continued to teach at this wretched school—the students were delinquents, not scholars—and all because I had to test myself,” Martin Mills told Dr. Daruwalla. “The object of my desire was there. Were I to leave, to run away, I would never have known if I had the strength to resist such a temptation. And so I stayed. I forced myself into the closest possible proximity to this person, only to see if I had the courage to withstand such an attraction. But I know what you think of priestly denial. You think that priests are people who simply don’t feel these ordinary desires, or who feel them less strongly than you do.”

“I’m not judging you!” said Dr. Daruwalla.

“Yes you are,” Martin replied. “You think you know all about me.”

“This person that you were in love with …” the doctor began.

“It was another teacher at the school,” the missionary answered. “I was crippled by desire. But I kept the object of my desire this close to me!” And here the zealot held his hand in front of his face. “Eventually, the attraction lessened.”