John Irving - A Son of the Circus

“Liebchen,” she whispered, “either wake up or go to sleep.” But her husband was once again smiling serenely. Dr. Daruwalla was where he wanted to be. It was early Thursday morning—1:45 A.M., to be exact—and Swissair 197 was taking off from Sanar. Across the aisle, the twins were staring at each other; neither of them could talk. It would take a little time for one of them to break the ice, but the doctor felt confident that they couldn’t maintain their silence for the full nine hours. Although the actor had more interesting information, Farrokh bet that the ex-missionary would be the one to start blabbing. Martin Mills would blab all night, if John D. didn’t start talking in self-defense.

Julia watched her sleeping husband touch his belly with his hands. Dr. Daruwalla was checking to be sure that his seat belt was correctly fastened; then he settled back, ready to enjoy the long flight.

The next day was Wednesday. Dr. Daruwalla was watching the sunset from his balcony, this time with Dhar’s twin. Martin was full of questions about his plane tickets. The screenwriter evaded these questions with the skill of someone who’d already imagined the possible dialogue.

“I fly to Zürich? That’s strange—that’s not the way I came,” the ex-missionary remarked.

“I have connections with Swissair,” Farrokh told him. “I’m a frequent flyer, so I get a special deal.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I’m very grateful. I hear it’s a marvelous airline,” the former scholastic said. “These are first-class tickets!” Martin suddenly cried. “I can’t repay you for first class!”

“I won’t allow you to repay me,” the doctor said. “I said I have connections—I get a special deal for first class. I won’t let you repay me because the plane tickets cost me practically nothing.”

“Oh, I see. I’ve never flown first class,” the recent zealot said. Farrokh could tell that Martin was puzzling over the ticket for the connecting flight, from Zürich to New York. He would arrive in Zürich at 6:00 in the morning; his plane to New York didn’t leave Zürich until 1:00 in the afternoon—a long layover, the onetime Jesuit was thinking… and there was something different about the New York ticket.

“That’s an open ticket to New York,” Farrokh said in an offhand manner. “It’s a daily nonstop flight. You don’t have to fly to New York on the day you arrive in Switzerland. You have a valid ticket for any day when there’s an available seat in first class. I thought you might like to spend a day or two in Zürich—maybe the weekend. You’d be better rested when you got to New York.”

“Well, that’s awfully kind of you. But I’m not sure what I’d do in Zürich …” Martin was saying. Then he found the hotel voucher; it was with his plane tickets.

“Three nights at the Hotel zum Storchen—a decent hotel,” Farrokh explained. “Your room overlooks the Limmat. You can walk in the old town, or to the lake. Have you ever been in Europe?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Martin Mills. He kept staring at the hotel voucher; it included his meals.

“Well, then,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. Since the deputy commissioner had found this phrase so meaningful, the doctor thought he’d give it a try; it appeared to work on Martin Mills. Throughout dinner, the reformed Jesuit wasn’t at all argumentative; he seemed subdued. Julia worried that it might have been the food, or that Dhar’s unfortunate twin was ill, but Dr. Daruwalla had experienced failure before; the doctor knew what was bothering the ex-missionary.

John D. was wrong; his twin wasn’t a quitter. Martin Mills had abandoned a quest, but he’d given up the priesthood when the priesthood was in sight—when it was easily obtainable. He’d not failed to be ordained; he’d been afraid of the kind of priest he might become. His decision to retreat, which had appeared to be so whimsical and sudden, had not come out of the blue; to Martin, his retreat must have seemed lifelong.

Because the security checks were so extensive, Martin Mills was required to be at Sanar two or three hours before his scheduled departure. Farrokh felt it would be unsafe to let him take a taxi with anyone but Vinod, and Vinod was unavailable; the dwarf was driving Dhar to the airport. Dr. Daruwalla hired an alleged luxury taxi from the fleet of Vinod’s Blue Nile, Ltd. They were en route to Sanar when the doctor first realized how much he would miss the ex-missionary.

“I’m getting used to this,” Martin said. They were passing a dead dog in the road, and Farrokh thought that Martin was commenting on his growing familiarity with slain animals. Martin explained that he meant he was getting used to leaving places in mild disgrace. “Oh, there’s never anything scandalous—I’m never run out of town on a rail,” he went on. “It’s a sort of slinking away. I don’t suppose I’m anything more than a passing embarrassment to those people who put their faith in me. I feel the same way about myself, really. There’s never a crushing sense of disappointment, or of loss—it’s more like a fleeting dishonor.”

I’m going to miss this moron, Dr. Daruwalla thought, but what the doctor said was, “Do me a favor—just close your eyes.”

“Is there something dead in the road?” Martin asked.

“Probably,” the doctor replied. “But that’s not the reason. Just close your eyes. Are they closed?”

“Yes, my eyes are closed,” the former scholastic said. “What are you going to do?” he asked nervously.

“Just relax,” Farrokh told him. “We’re going to play a game.”

“I don’t like games!” Martin cried. He opened his eyes and looked wildly around.

“Close your eyes!” Dr. Daruwalla shouted. Although his vow of obedience was behind him, Martin obeyed. “I want you to imagine that parking lot with the Jesus statue,” the doctor told him. “Can you see it?”

“Yes, of course,” Martin Mills replied.

“Is Christ still there, in the parking lot?” Farrokh asked him. The fool opened his eyes.

“Well, I don’t know about that—they were always expanding the capacity of the parking lot,” Martin said. “There was always a lot of construction equipment around. They may have torn up that section of the lot—they might have had to move the statue …”

“That’s not what I mean! Close your eyes!” Dr. Daruwalla cried. “What I mean is, in your mind , can you still see the damn statue? Jesus Christ in the dark parking lot—can you still see him?”

“Well, naturally—yes,” Martin Mills admitted. He kept his eyes tightly closed, as if in pain; his mouth was shut, too, and his nose was wrinkled. They were passing a slum encampment lit only by rubbish fires, but the stench of human feces overpowered what they could smell of the burning trash. “Is that all?” Martin asked, eyes closed.

“Isn’t that enough?” the doctor asked him. “For God’s sake, open your eyes!”

Martin opened them. “Was that the game—the whole game?” he inquired.

“You saw Jesus Christ, didn’t you? What more do you want?” Farrokh asked. “You must realize that it’s possible to be a good Christian, as Christians are always saying, and at the same time not be a Catholic priest.”

“Oh, is that what you mean?” said Martin Mills. “Well, certainly—I realize that!”

“I can’t believe I’m going to miss you, but I really am,” Dr. Daruwalla told him.

“I shall miss you, too, of course,” Dhar’s twin replied. “In particular, our little talks.”

At the airport, there was the usual lineup for the security checks. After they’d said their good-byes (they actually embraced), Dr. Daruwalla continued to observe Martin from a distance. The doctor crossed a police barrier in order to keep watching him. It was hard to tell if his bandages drew everyone’s attention or if it was his resemblance to Dhar, which leaped out at some observers and was utterly missed by others. The doctor had once again changed Martin’s bandages; the neck wound was minimally covered with a gauze patch, and the mangled earlobe was left uncovered—it was ugly but largely healed. The hand was still mittened in gauze. To everyone who gawked at him, the chimpanzee’s victim winked and smiled; it was a genuine smile, not Dhar’s sneer, yet Farrokh felt that the ex-missionary had never looked like such a dead ringer for Dhar. At the end of every Inspector Dhar movie, Dhar is walking away from the camera; in this case, Dr. Daruwalla was the camera. Farrokh felt greatly moved; he wondered if it was because Martin more and more reminded him of John D., or if it was because Martin himself had touched him.