Setting Gustad’s fractured hip would be child’s play for Madhiwalla, the onlookers had said. (Always, there were onlookers when the Bonesetter was in attendance: well-wishers, admirers, patients’ relatives, the merely curious, all were welcome to watch — his skills and accomplishments were open to public scrutiny.) But it was a hideous and pitiful sight to behold, certainly not for the faint of heart. Broken bodies were everywhere — laid out on stretchers, bundled on the floor, collapsed in chairs, huddled in corners, their moans and shrieks filling the air. Splintered fibulae and tibiae that had ruptured the skin; a cracked humerus grotesquely twisting an elbow; the grisly consequences of a shattered femur — all these awaited their turn with the Bonesetter, awaited deliverance.
And Gustad, seeing and hearing such horrors as he had never witnessed before, soon forgot about the pain coursing through his own body. He wondered what could have inflicted such injuries on these people. In his grandfather’s furniture workshop he had seen the occasional severed finger or pulped thumb, but nothing like this. It seemed to him that somewhere, in a factory, someone was churning out these extravagant mutilations with great deliberation.
But along with the agony suffusing their screams and groans, he also detected a strain of hope, hope such as had never been expressed in the words of the most eloquent. Hope pure and primal, that sprang unattended and uncluttered from the very blood of the patients, telling Gustad that redemption was now at hand.
Later, he tried to remember what Madhiwalla had done to set the fractured hip. But all he could recall was his foot being grasped and the leg swung in a peculiar way. From that moment, the pain decreased. The setting was complete, and the bone would be healed by repeated application of a paste made from the bark of a special tree. The Bonesetter wrote down a number for Jimmy. The two who were labelling packets with smelly glue matched the coded number and gave him what was prescribed. Madhiwalla never charged a paisa for his treatment, nor did he reveal the names of the trees and herbs, in order to keep the unscrupulous from commercially exploiting his knowledge at the expense of the ailing poor. The rich were welcome to make donations. His secrecy was applauded by all, but it was also a source of concern: Madhiwalla was an old man, what would happen when he was no more, if his knowledge died with him? It was believed, however, that he was secretly training a successor who would emerge and heal when the need became evident.
Dilnavaz made the paste according to the Bonesetter’s prescription: by soaking the bark in water and grating it against the rough stone slab they used for grinding masala. It was hard work, making enough paste to coat the entire hip. And no sooner had she finished than it seemed to be time for the next application. Gustad felt guilty to see her sweat and pant over the stone, disregarding her back and shoulders that were screaming for rest, and with little Roshan also to take care of, just three months old. But for twelve weeks she gritted her teeth and carried on, refusing the help of outsiders, determined that her efforts alone would get her husband back on his feet.
A car door slammed in the rain. The Landmaster. What bad luck for Bamji, to have night duty on a night like this. But the car seemed to be idling outside. There was a burst of thunder, and then a splash. Was he having trouble with the engine? Gustad went to the window.
The car drove off before he could undo the clasp. The clock showed almost one. He opened the glass and stopped the pendulum with a finger, groping for the key. The shining stainless steel felt cool in his palm. He wound the clock and went to bed.
He slept fitfully, dreaming that he was walking to the bank from the Flora Fountain bus stop. Something struck him from behind. He turned and saw a hundred-rupee bundle at his feet. As he bent to pick it up, several more hit him, painfully hard. He asked his tormentors why. They refused to answer and continued their barrage. His spectacles were knocked off. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted. ‘I’ll complain to the police! I don’t want your rubbish!’ He flung back the money, but it returned as fast as he threw it. A police van drove up and Inspector Bamji stepped out. Gustad was overwhelmed by his good fortune. Bamji, however, without showing any sign of recognition, went to the crowd of money-throwers. ‘Soli, listen to me, let me tell you what happened!’ begged Gustad. Inspector Bamji, speaking in Marathi, to Gustad’s astonishment, told him to shut up: ‘Umcha section nai.’ ‘He’s a bank worker and he won’t take our money,’ the others complained, while Gustad watched, bewildered. ‘Where are we to go if the bank refuses it?’ ‘No!’ yelled Gustad, ‘I cannot take it, I have no place to put it! What will—’ Out of nowhere appeared Mr. Madon, his gold snuffbox in one hand and his Rolex chronometer in the other: ‘What is going on, Noble? Opening a branch operation on the pavement, hmm?’ He crunched Gustad’s fallen spectacles, brushed aside his explanations, and said it was past ten o’clock. ‘I give you thirty seconds to be at your desk.’ He held up the chronometer and said, ‘On your mark. Get set. Go.’ Gustad ran, elbowing his way through the crowds who were all headed in the other direction. How can that be, he wondered, it is not evening. As he reached the bank entrance, limping wildly, a sardonically smiling Mr. Madon materialized in the doorway and showed him the chronometer: ‘Thirty-four seconds. Sorry,’ and handed him a termination notice. ‘Please, Mr. Madon, please. Give me one more chance, please, it was not my fault, I…’
Dilnavaz shook him by the shoulder: ‘Gustad, you are dreaming. Gustad.’ He grunted once, turned over, and slept soundly the rest of the night.
iii
A grey drizzle filled the melancholy dawn. Gustad could not go outside for prayers. He opened the window a little. Swollen with water, it resisted, moaning ominously. A flock of startled wet crows half scuttled and half flapped their way to a safe distance. Some flew into the branches of the neem. He looked at the sky and concluded there was at least another day’s worth of rain in those clouds.
The bedraggled crows watched balefully, then began hopping back towards the window. By the time Gustad finished two cups of tea, the sky was lighter and the crows much louder. The shrieking and cawing finally got to Dilnavaz: ‘What is going on in the compound?’ He buttoned up his pyjama top, put on his rubber slippers and went out with an umbrella.
Crows had gathered from miles around. Besides the multitude teeming in the compound, there were clusters on the entrance steps, shaking out water from their feathers. Another disciplined black line perched along the awning. ‘Psssss!’ said Gustad, flapping his hands and stamping. He stepped around a large puddle outside the entrance, hissing and waving the open black umbrella like a giant crow. Then he saw the vinca bush, and his stomach turned. Bile-bittered tea rose to his mouth. The crows waited, wondering if they were about to lose their banquet. ‘Dilnavaz!’ he roared through the open window. ‘Come quickly!’
She was outside within moments, her feet flopping in Darius’s rain shoes which she had donned in her haste. ‘O God!’ she said, and covered her eyes. ‘Why ask me to look at it? What good is it to make me sick in the morning?’