John Irving - A Son of the Circus

Dr. Lowji Daruwalla was understandably taken aback by the crudeness of the lovely movie star, who wasn’t really a movie star and who was suddenly terrified that her uncle, the director, would discover that she was pregnant and fire her from the picture. Old Lowji pointed out to Miss Rose that she had fewer than three weeks remaining on the shooting schedule; she wouldn’t begin to look pregnant for another three months or more.

Miss Rose then became obsessed with the question of whether or not Neville Eden would leave his wife and marry her. Dr. Lowji Daruwalla thought not, but he chose to soften the blow with an indirect remark.

“I believe that Mr. Danny Mills would marry you,” the senior Daruwalla offered tactfully, but this truth only depressed Veronica Rose, who commenced to weep. As for weeping, it wasn’t as commonplace at the Hospital for Crippled Children as one might suppose. Dr. Lowji Daruwalla led the sobbing actress out of his office and through the waiting room, which was full of injured and crippled and deformed children; they all looked pityingly upon the crying fair-haired lady, imagining that she’d just received some awful news regarding a child of her own. In a sense, she had.

At first, the news that Vera was pregnant didn’t spread far. Lowji told Meher, and Meher told Farrokh. No one else knew, and a special effort was made to keep this news from Lowji’s South Indian secretary, a brilliant young man from Madras. His name was Ranjit and he, too, had high hopes of becoming a screenwriter. Ranjit was only a few years older than Farrokh, his spoken English was impeccable, but thus far his writing had been limited to the excellent case histories of the senior Dr. Daruwalla’s patients that he composed, and to his lengthy memos to Lowji concerning what recent articles he’d read in the doctor’s orthopedic journals. These memos were written not to gain favor with old Lowji but as a means of giving the busy doctor some shorthand information regarding what he might like to read himself.

Although he came from a Hindu family of strictly vegetarian Brahmins, Ranjit had told Lowji—in his job interview—that he was wholly without religion and that he considered caste as “largely a means to hold everyone down.” Lowji had hired the young man in an instant.

But that had been five years ago. Although Ranjit totally pleased the senior Daruwalla as a secretary and Lowji had made every effort to further brainwash the young man in an atheistic direction, Ranjit was finding it exceedingly difficult to attract a prospective bride—or, more important, a prospective father-in-law—by the matrimonial advertisements he regularly submitted to The Times of India . He wouldn’t advertise that he was a Brahmin and a strict vegetarian, and although these things might not have mattered to him, they were of great concern to prospective fathers-in-law; it was usually the fathers-in-law, not the would-be brides, who responded to the advertisements—if anyone responded.

And now there was bickering between old Lowji and Ranjit because Ranjit had given in. His most recent advertisement in The Times of India had drawn over 100 responses; this was because he’d presented himself as someone who cared about caste and followed a strict vegetarian diet. After all, he told Lowji, he’d been made to observe these things as a child and they hadn’t killed him. “If it helps me to get married,” Ranjit said, “sporting a fresh puja mark, so to speak, will not kill me now.”

Lowji was crushed by this traitorousness; he’d considered Ranjit like a third son, and a cohort in atheism. Furthermore, the interviews (with over 100 prospective fathers-in-law) were having a deleterious influence on Ranjit’s efficiency; he was exhausted all the time, and no wonder—his mind was reeling with comparisons among 100 future wives.

But even in this state of mind, Ranjit was very attentive to the office visit of the Hollywood film goddess Veronica Rose. And since it was Ranjit’s job to formally compose old Lowji’s scribbles into a proper Orthopedic Report, the young man was surprised—after Vera’s teary departure—to see that Lowji had scrawled no more than “joint problem” in the sex symbol’s file. It was highly unusual for the senior Daruwalla to escort any of his patients home, particularly following a mere office visit—and especially when there were other patients waiting to see him. Furthermore, old Dr. Daruwalla had called his own home and told his wife that he was bringing Miss Rose there . All this for a joint problem? Ranjit thought it was most irregular.

Fortunately, the rigorous interviews that were the result of his highly successful matrimonial ads didn’t allow Ranjit much time or energy for speculation on Vera’s “joint problem.” His interest was provoked no further than to ask the senior Daruwalla what sort of joint problem the actress was suffering; Ranjit wasn’t used to typing up an incomplete Orthopedic Report.

“Well, actually,” Lowji said, “I have referred her to another physician.”

“ Not a joint problem then?” Ranjit inquired. All he cared about was correctly typing the report.

“Possibly gynecological,” Lowji answered warily.

“What sort of joint problem did she think she had?” Ranjit asked in surprise.

“Her knees,” Lowji said vaguely, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But I judged this to be psychosomatic.”

“The gynecological problem is psychosomatic, too?” Ranjit inquired. He foresaw difficult typing ahead.

“Possibly,” Lowji said.

“What sort of gynecological problem is it?” Ranjit persisted. At his age, and with his ambition to be a screenwriter, he was thinking that the problem was venereal.

“Itching,” said the senior Daruwalla—and to halt the inquisition at this juncture, he wisely added, “Vaginal itching.” No young man, he knew, cared to contemplate this. The matter was closed. Ranjit’s Orthopedic Report on Veronica Rose was the closest he would ever come to writing a screenplay (many years later, the younger Dr. Daruwalla would read this report with consistent pleasure—whenever he desired to make some contact with the old days).

The patient is confused by her knees. She imagines that she has no vaginal itching, which indeed she has, while at the same time she feels some pain in her knees, which in fact she does not have. Most naturally, a gynecologist is recommended.

And what a gynecologist was selected for the task! Few patients would ever claim that their confidence soared when they placed themselves in the hands of the ancient, accident-prone Dr. Tata. Lowji chose him because he was so senile, he was certain to be discreet; his powers of memory were too depleted for gossip. Sadly, the selection of Dr. Tata was lacking in obstetrical merit.

At least Lowji had the good sense to entrust his wife with the psychological care of Veronica Rose. Meher tucked the pregnant bombshell into a guest bed in the Daruwalla family mansion on old Ridge Road. Meher treated Vera like a little girl who’d just suffered a tonsillectomy. Although doubtless soothing, this mothering wouldn’t solve Vera’s problem; nor was Vera much comforted by Meher’s claim that, in her own case, she hadn’t really remembered the agony and the gore of childbirth. Over time, Meher told the knocked-up actress, only the positive parts of the experience stood out in her mind.

To Lowji, Meher was less optimistic. “Here is a bizarre and thankless situation that you have gotten us into,” she informed her husband. Then the situation worsened.

The next day, Gordon Hathaway called the senior Dr. Daruwalla from the slum set with the bothersome news that Veronica Rose had collapsed between takes. Actually, that was not what had happened. Vera’s so-called collapse had had nothing whatsoever to do with her unwanted pregnancy; she’d simply fainted because a cow had licked her and then sneezed on her. Not that this wasn’t disturbing to Vera, but the incident—like so many day-to-day occurrences in an actual slum—had been poorly observed and fervently misinterpreted by the horde of onlookers who reported the confused event.