John Irving - A Son of the Circus

As for the missionary, he was taken aback to see a man in a black kimono holding a black umbrella—an ominous image. But the umbrella was undaunting to Vinod, who slipped close to Dr. Daruwalla and whispered, “I am finding him preaching to transvestite prostitutes—the hijras are almost killing him!”

Farrokh knew who Martin Mills was as soon as the missionary spoke: “I believe you’ve met my mother and father—my name is Martin, Martin Mills.”

“Please come in—I’ve been expecting you,” Dr. Daruwalla said, taking the beaten man’s arm.

“You have? ” said Martin Mills.

“There is being brain damage!” Vinod whispered to the doctor, who supported the wobbly missionary into the bathroom, where he told Martin to strip. Then the doctor prepared an Epsom-salts bath. While the bath was filling, Farrokh got Julia out of bed and told her to get rid of Vinod.

“Who’s taking a bath at this hour?” she asked her husband.

“It’s John D.’s twin,” Dr. Daruwalla said.

Julia had managed to coax Vinod no farther than the foyer when the phone rang. She answered quickly. Vinod could hear the entire conversation because the man on the other end of the phone was screaming. It was Mr. Munim, the first-floor member of the Residents’ Society.

“I saw him getting on the lift! He woke all the dogs! I saw him—your dwarf!” Mr. Munim shouted.

Julia said, “I beg your pardon—we don’t own a dwarf.”

“You don’t fool me!” Mr. Munim hollered. “That movie star’s dwarf—that’s who I mean!”

“We don’t own a movie star, either,” Julia told him.

“You are violating a stated rule!” Mr. Munim screamed.

“I don’t know what you mean—you must be out of your mind,” Julia replied.

“The taxi-walla used the lift—that midget thug!” Mr. Munim cried.

“Don’t make me call the police,” Julia said; then she hung up.

“I am using the stairs, but they are making me limp—the whole six floors,” Vinod said. Martyrdom strangely suited him, Julia thought, but she realized that Vinod was lingering in the foyer for a purpose. “There are being five umbrellas in your umbrella stand,” the dwarf observed.

“Would you like to borrow one, Vinod?” Julia asked him.

“Only for helping me on the stairs,” Vinod replied. “I am needing a cane.” He’d left the squash-racquet handles in his taxi; were he to encounter either a first-floor dog or Mr. Munim, Vinod wanted a weapon. Therefore, he took an umbrella with him; Julia let him out the kitchen door, which led to the back stairs.

“Maybe you are never seeing me again,” Vinod told her. As the dwarf peered down the stairwell, Julia noticed that he was slightly shorter than the umbrella that he’d chosen; Vinod had taken the biggest umbrella.

In the bathtub, Martin Mills looked as if he welcomed the stings from his raised red welts, and he never flinched while Dr. Daruwalla sponged off the multitude of minor wounds caused by the gruesome leg iron; the doctor thought that the missionary appeared to miss the leg iron after it had been removed, and Martin twice expressed concern that he’d left his whip in the heroic dwarf’s car.

“Vinod will surely return it to you,” Dr. Daruwalla said. The doctor was not as amazed by the missionary’s story as the missionary himself was amazed; given the magnitude of the mistaken identity, Dr. Daruwalla was astonished that Martin Mills was still alive—not to mention that his wounds were minor. And the more the missionary babbled on and on about his experience, the less he bore any resemblance, in Farrokh’s eyes, to his taciturn twin. Dhar didn’t babble.

“Well, I mean I knew I wasn’t among Christians,” Martin Mills said, “but still I hardly expected the violent hostility toward Christianity that I encountered.”

“Now, now—I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion,” Dr. Daruwalla cautioned the agitated scholastic. “There is some sensitivity, however, toward proselytizing… of any kind.”

“Saving souls is not proselytizing,” Martin Mills said defensively.

“Well, as you say, you were not exactly in Christian territory,” Dr. Daruwalla replied.

“How many of those prostitutes are carrying the AIDS virus?” Martin asked.

“I’m an orthopedist,” the doctor reminded the scholastic, “but people who know say forty percent—some say sixty.”

“Either way,” said Martin Mills, “that’s Christian territory.”

For the first time, Farrokh considered that the madman before him posed a threat to himself that might exceed the danger presented by his striking resemblance to Inspector Dhar.

“But I thought you were an English teacher,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “As a former student of the place, I can assure you, St. Ignatius is first and foremost a school .” The doctor knew the Father Rector; Dr. Daruwalla could well anticipate that this was precisely what Father Julian would have to say about the matter of saving prostitutes’ souls. But as Farrokh watched Martin step naked from the bath—whereupon, unmindful of his wounds, the missionary began to vigorously towel himself dry—the doctor further anticipated that the Father Rector and all the aged defenders of the faith at St. Ignatius would have a hard time convincing such a zealous scholastic as this that his duties were restricted to improving the English of the upper classes. For as he rubbed and rubbed the towel against the lash marks until his face and torso were striped as bright red as when the whip had only just struck him, Martin Mills was all the while thinking of a reply. Like the crafty Jesuit that he was, he began his answer with a question.

“Aren’t you a Christian?” the missionary asked the doctor. “I believe my father said you were converted, but that you’re not a Roman Catholic.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Dr. Daruwalla replied cautiously. He gave Martin Mills a clean pair of his best silk pajamas, but the scholastic preferred to stand naked.

“Are you familiar with the Calvinist, Jansenist position in regard to free will?” Martin asked Farrokh. “I’m greatly oversimplifying, but this was that dispute born of Luther and those Protestant divines of the Reformation—namely, the idea that we’re doomed by original sin and can expect salvation only through divine grace. Luther denied that good works could contribute to our salvation. Calvin further denied that our faith could save us. According to Calvin, we are all predestined to be saved—or not. Do you believe that?”

By the way the logic of the Jesuit was leaning, Farrokh guessed that he should not believe that, and so he said, “No—not exactly.”

“Well, good—then you’re not a Jansenist,” the scholastic said. “They were very discouraging—their doctrine of grace over that of free will was quite defeatist, really. They made us all feel that there was absolutely nothing we could do to be saved—in short, why bother with good works? And so what if we sin?”

“Are you still oversimplifying?” asked Dr. Daruwalla. The Jesuit regarded the doctor with sly respect; he also took this interruption as a useful time in which to put on the doctor’s silk pajamas.

“If you’re suggesting that it’s almost impossible to reconcile the concept of free will with our belief in an omnipotent and omniscient God, I agree with you—it’s difficult,” Martin said. “The question of the relationship between human will and divine omnipotence… is that your question?”

Dr. Daruwalla guessed that this should be his question, and so he said, “Yes—something like that.”

“Well, that really is an interesting question,” the Jesuit said. “I just hate it when people try to reduce the spiritual world with purely mechanical theories—those behaviorists, for example. Who cares about Loeb’s plant-lice theories or Pavlov’s dog?” Dr. Daruwalla nodded, but he didn’t dare speak; he’d never heard of plant lice. He’d heard of Pavlov’s dog, of course; he could even recall what made the dog salivate and what the saliva meant.