Feeling reckless, he mixed together whatever remained in the bottles: Bilimoria’s XXX rum, lemon, Golden Eagle, soda water. He tasted it and made a wry face. Nevertheless, he drank half the glass, then went to his grandfather’s black desk. It had two side-by-side drawers. The one on the right was smaller, and under it, a cabinet formed the supporting pedestal. He tried to open the cabinet door quietly; it had always been tight. His hands were a little unsteady. It swung open with a soft moan of wood against wood.
The smell of old books and bindings, learning and wisdom floated out. On the top shelf, at the rear, were E. Cobham Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and the two volumes of Barrère and Leland’s Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, the 1897 edition. Like the furniture, Gustad had rescued these from his father’s bankrupt bookstore. Reaching in, he pulled out Brewer’s Dictionary and opened it at random. He held it up to his nose and closed his eyes. The rich, timeless fragrance rose from the precious pages, soothing his uneasy, confused spirit. He shut the book, tenderly stroking its spine with the back of his fingers, and replaced it on the shelf.
Some works by Bertrand Russell, a book titled Mathematics for the Millions, and Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations also stood on this shelf. They belonged to his college days, the only books he had managed to keep. He used to joke with Malcolm the musician that he was going through college on the Buy-This-Year, Sell-Next-Year textbook plan. How nicely all these would have stood in the bookcase Sohrab and he were planning to make. Not now. The boy is nothing to me now.
Occupying the front of the shelf, flat on their covers, lay an abridged Webster and a pocket edition of Roget blanketed by a higgledy-piggledy miscellanea: dog-eared envelopes, plastic boxes containing paper clips and rubber bands, two rolls (half-and three-quarters-used respectively) of sellotape, a bottle of Camel Royal Blue Ink, an unlabelled bottle of red ink (used exclusively for inscribing greeting cards or white wedding-gift envelopes: salutations, blessings for a long, happy life and, in the bottom left-hand corner, the amount enclosed). Other odds and ends on the shelf were not readily identifiable. Parts of dismembered pens, a glue bottle’s rubber cap-cum-nipple, a bladeless penknife, a metal clamp assembly divorced from its file, lay tangled in string and rubber bands.
The bottom shelf was devoted entirely to files, folders and old magazines. He carefully lifted a stack overflowing with variegated rectangles of yellowed newsprint, and groped for the letter. His fingers closed on it. He let the stack settle back. A box of ancient rusting nibs, from the days before ballpoint pens, lost its perch. The nibs inside collided, metal to metal, and metal to cardboard. The sound came and went, like a maraca played and silenced instantaneously.
He took the letter to the lamplight. He had read it several times, secretly, since its arrival. The envelope was typewritten. The return address was a post office box in New Delhi, and the sender’s name was absent. It had elicited a mixture of nervousness and curiosity the first time: he did not know anyone in New Delhi. Inside was a single sheet of paper, of excellent quality, thick and fibred. He read it again.
My dear Gustad,
This letter must come as a big surprise to you. After all this time, you must have given up on me, especially because of the way I left Khodadad Building.
You are very angry with me for that, I know. I am not good at letter-writing, but please accept my sincere apologies, and believe me when I say I had no choice. If I make up some excuse, I would be lying, and I do not want to do that. I am still not at liberty to tell you details, except it is a matter of national security. You know I was doing work for the government after leaving the army.
Something relating to my assignment needs to be done in Bombay. I immediately thought of you, since there is no one I trust more. Your friendship means a lot to me, and your dear wife Dilnavaz, and your two wonderful sons and sweet little Roshan. I don’t have to tell you that all of you were, and still are, like my own family.
What I need is quite simple. It just involves a parcel which I would like you to receive on my behalf. If you cannot do this favour, I understand. But I will have to turn to less reliable people. Please let me know. And please do not be offended by the post office box number, my address remains confidential because of regulations.
Once again, I beg your forgiveness. Some day, I will tell you the whole story, when our family (if you do not mind my calling us that) is together again.
Your loving friend,
Jimmy
Gustad felt the paper between thumb and finger. How rich, he thought, comparing it to the thin sheets in his own desk. Jimmy was always well-off, but so generous. Constantly buying gifts for the children. The badminton racquets, cricket bat and stumps, table-tennis set, dumb-bells. And he would never give them to the children himself. Always gave them to me, said they were my children, so I had first right to their gratitude and joy. But whenever Jimmy arrived, Roshan, Darius and Sohrab would at once leave what they were doing to sit with him. He was their hero, even Sohrab’s, who was always so selective. Look at him now, turning up his nose at Dinshawji.
Gustad lowered the wick of the kerosene lamp and leaned back in the armchair. The light, very soft now, made the room dreamlike in its glow. O Dada Ormuzd, what kind of joke is this? In me, when I was young, You put the desire to study, get ahead, be a success. Then You took away my father’s money, left me rotting in the bank. And for my son? You let me arrange everything, put it within reach, but You take away his appetite for IIT. What are You telling me? Have I become too deaf to hear You?
He took up his glass again. The rum-beer was tasting better now, he decided, and swallowed more. How many years have I watched over Sohrab and waited. And now I wish I was back at the beginning, without knowledge of the end. At the beginning, at least there was hope. Now there is nothing. Nothing but sorrow.
What kind of life was Sohrab going to look forward to? No future for minorities, with all these fascist Shiv Sena politics and Marathi language nonsense. It was going to be like the black people in America — twice as good as the white man to get half as much. How could he make Sohrab understand this? How to make him realize what he was doing to his father, who had made the success of his son’s life the purpose of his own? Sohrab had snatched away that purpose, like a crutch from a cripple.
The rum-beer was delicious. He drained the glass. The tension was slowly going out of him. Kicked him nine years ago to save his life…I can kick him again. Out of my house, out of my life. To learn respect…how much he means to me…meant to me…that day…
That day, it had been a morning of rain. No, a whole day of rain: rain mingled with the smell of diesel fumes. And he had got on the wrong bus with ten-year-old Sohrab while heading for lunch. Gustad had taken a special half-day’s leave from Mr. Madon the bank manager, to celebrate Sohrab’s first day at St Xavier’s High School. Gaining admission was not easy. The school’s motto was Duc In Altum, adhered to with especial rigour when selecting new students. There was a tough entrance examination, followed by an interview, and Sohrab had done so well in both. Ten years old, and already his English was fluent. Not like that other interview for kindergarten when he was three, where the headmistress had asked, ‘What soap do you use?’ and Sohrab had answered, ‘Sojjo soap,’ using the Gujarati word for good.