John Irving - A Son of the Circus

It’s best to picture him on a snowy evening, when darkness has fallen early in Toronto. Snow always made him melancholic, for it snowed all night the night his mother died. On snowy mornings, Farrokh would go sit in the guest bedroom where Meher had drifted away; some of her clothes were in the closet—something of her scent, which was the scent of a foreign country and its cooking, still lingered in her hanging saris.

But picture Dr. Daruwalla in the streetlight, standing directly under a lamppost in the falling snow. Picture him at the northeast corner of Lonsdale and Russell Hill Road; this Forest Hill intersection was familiar and comforting to Farrokh, not only because it was within a block of where he lived, but because, from this junction, he could view the route he’d taken those many days when he’d walked his children to school. In the opposite direction, there was Grace Church on-the-Hill… where he’d passed a few reflective hours in the safety of his former faith. From this street corner, Dr. Daruwalla could also see the chapel and the Bishop Strachan School, where the doctor’s daughters had ably demonstrated their intelligence; and Farrokh wasn’t far from Upper Canada College, where his sons might have gone to school—if he’d had sons. But, the doctor reconsidered, he’d had two sons—counting John D. and the retired Inspector Dhar.

Farrokh tipped his face up to the falling snow; he felt the snow wet his eyelashes. Although Christmas was long past, Dr. Daruwalla was pleased to see that some of his neighbors’ houses still displayed their yuletide ornamentation, which gave them unusual color and cheer. The snow falling in the streetlight gave the doctor such a pure-white, lonely feeling, Farrokh almost forgot why he was standing on this street corner on a winter evening. But he was waiting for his wife; the former Julia Zilk was due to pick him up. Julia was driving from one of her women’s groups; she’d phoned and told Farrokh to wait at the corner. The Daruwallas were dining at a new restaurant not far from Harbourfront; Farrokh and Julia were a faithful audience for the authors’ readings at Harbourfront.

As for the restaurant, Dr. Daruwalla would find it ordinary; also, they were eating too early for the doctor’s taste. As for the authors’ readings, Farrokh detested readings; so few writers knew how to read aloud. When you were reading a book to yourself, you could close the cover without shame and try something else, or watch a video, which the ex-screenwriter was more and more apt to do. His usual beer—and he often had wine with his dinner—made him too sleepy to read. At Harbourfront, he feared he’d start snoring in the audience and embarrass Julia; she loved the readings, which the doctor increasingly viewed as an endurance sport. Often, too many writers read in a single night, as if to make a public demonstration of Canada’s esteemed subsidy of the arts; usually, there was an intermission, which was Dr. Daruwalla’s principal reason for loathing the theater. And at the Harbourfront intermission, they’d be surrounded by Julia’s well-read friends; her friends were more literary than Farrokh, and they knew it.

On this particular evening (Julia had warned him), there was an Indian author reading from his or her work; that always presented problems for Dr. Daruwalla. There was the palpable expectation that the doctor should “relate” to this author in some meaningful way, as if there were that recognizable “it” which the author would either get right or get wrong. In the case of an Indian writer, even Julia and her literary friends would defer to Farrokh’s opinion; therefore, he would be pressed to have an opinion, and to state his views. Often, he had no views and would hide during the intermission; on occasion, to his shame, the retired screenwriter had hidden in the men’s room.

Recently, quite a celebrated Parsi writer had read at Harbourfront; Dr. Daruwalla had the feeling that Julia and her friends expected the doctor to be aggressive enough to speak to the author, for Farrokh had read the justly acclaimed novel–he’d much admired it. The story concerned a small but sturdy pillar of a Parsi community in Bombay—a-decent, compassionate family man was severely tested by the political corruption and deceit of that time when India and Pakistan were at war.

How could Julia and her friends imagine that Farrokh could talk with this author? What did Dr. Daruwalla know of a real Parsi community—either in Bombay or in Toronto? What “community” could the doctor presume to talk about?

Farrokh could only tell tales of the Duckworth Club—Lady Duckworth exposing herself, flashing her famous breasts. One didn’t have to be a Duckworthian to have already heard that story, but what other stories did Dr. Daruwalla know? Only the doctor’s own story, which was decidedly unsuitable for first acquaintances. Sex change and serial slaying; a conversion by love bite; the lost children who were not saved by the circus; Farrokh’s father, blown to smithereens… and how could he talk about the twins to a total stranger?

It seemed to Dr. Daruwalla that his story was the opposite of universal; his story was simply strange—the doctor himself was singularly foreign. What Farrokh came in contact with, everywhere he went, was a perpetual foreignness—a reflection of that foreignness he carried with him, in the peculiarities of his heart. And so, in the falling snow, in Forest Hill, a Bombayite stood waiting for his Viennese wife to take him into downtown Toronto, where they would listen to an unknown Indian reader—perhaps a Sikh, possibly a Hindu, maybe a Muslim, or even another Parsi. It was likely that there would be other readers, too.

Across Russell Hill Road, the wet snow clung to the shoulders and hair of a mother and her small son; like Dr. Daruwalla, they stood under a lamppost, where the radiant streetlight brightened the snow and sharpened the features of their watchful faces—they appeared to be waiting for someone, too. The young boy seemed far less impatient than his mother. The child had his head tilted back, with his tongue stuck out to catch the falling snow, and he swung himself dreamily from his mother’s arm—whereas she kept clutching at his hand, as if he were slipping from her grasp. She would occasionally jerk his arm to make him stop swinging, but this never worked for long, and nothing could compel the boy to withdraw his tongue; it remained sticking out, catching the snow.

As an orthopedist, Dr. Daruwalla disapproved of the way the mother jerked on her son’s arm, which was totally relaxed—the boy was almost limp. The doctor feared for the child’s elbow or his shoulder. But the mother had no intention of hurting her son; she was just impatient, and it was tedious for her—how the boy hung on her arm.

For a moment, Dr. Daruwalla smiled openly at this Madonna and Child; they were so clearly illuminated under their lamppost, the doctor should have known that they could see him standing under his lamppost—just as clearly. But Farrokh had forgotten where he was—not in India—and he’d overlooked the racial wariness he might provoke in the woman, who now regarded his unfamiliar face in the streetlight (and in the whiteness of the falling snow) as she might have regarded the sudden appearance of a large, unleashed dog. Why was this foreigner smiling at her?

The woman’s obvious fear both offended and shamed Dr. Daruwalla; he quickly stopped smiling and looked away. Then the doctor realized that he was standing on the wrong corner of the intersection. Julia had plainly instructed him to stand on the northwest corner of Lonsdale and Russell Hill Road, which was exactly where the mother and her son were standing. Farrokh knew that by crossing the street and standing beside them, he would probably create mayhem in the woman’s mind—at best, extreme apprehension. At worst, she might scream for help; there would be accusations that could rouse the neighbors—conceivably, summon the police!