The tweezers were lying on the table. I picked them up. They glinted pitilessly, like that long needle in Viraf’s father. I dropped them with a shudder, and they clattered against the table.
Daddy looked up questioningly. His hair was dishevelled as I had left it, and I waited, hoping he would ask me to continue. To offer to do it was beyond me, but I wanted desperately that he should ask me now. I glanced at his face discreetly, from the corner of my eye. The lines on his forehead stood out all too clearly, and the stubble flecked with white, which by this hour should have disappeared down the drain with the shaving water. I swore to myself that never again would I begrudge him my help; I would get all the white hairs, one by one, if he would only ask me; I would concentrate on the tweezers as never before, I would do it as if all our lives were riding on the efficacy of the tweezers, yes, I would continue to do it Sunday after Sunday, no matter how long it took.
Daddy put down the newspaper and removed his glasses. He rubbed his eyes, then went to the bathroom. How tired he looked, and how his shoulders drooped; his gait lacked confidence, and I’d never noticed that before. He did not speak to me even though I was praying hard that he would. Something inside me grew very heavy, and I tried to swallow, to dissolve that heaviness in saliva, but swallowing wasn’t easy either, the heaviness was blocking my throat.
I heard the sound of running water. Daddy was preparing to shave. I wanted to go and watch him, talk to him, laugh with him at the funny faces he made to get at all the tricky places with the razor, especially the cleft in his chin.
Instead, I threw myself on the bed. I felt like crying, and buried my face in the pillow. I wanted to cry for the way I had treated Viraf, and for his sick father with the long, cold needle in his arm and his rasping breath; for Mamaiji and her tired, darkened eyes spinning thread for our kustis, and for Mummy growing old in the dingy kitchen smelling of kerosene, where the Primus roared and her dreams were extinguished; I wanted to weep for myself, for not being able to hug Daddy when I wanted to, and for not ever saying thank you for cricket in the morning, and pigeons and bicycles and dreams; and for all the white hairs that I was powerless to stop.
The Paying Guests
Khorshedbai emerged from her room with a loosely newspapered package cradled in her arms. Then, as she had been doing every morning at eleven o’clock for the past four weeks, she began strewing its smelly contents over the veranda.
The veranda sat in the L of the flat’s two rooms. She was careful to let nothing fall by the door to her room. That she was on the ground floor of B Block, exposed to curious eyes passing in the compound, had not discouraged her for four weeks and did not discourage her now. None of the neighbours would interfere. Why, she did not know for certain. Perhaps out of respect for her grey hair. She also had the vague notion that praying every day at the agyaari had something to do with it.
Her work was methodical and thorough. She commenced with the window and its parapet, tossing onion skin, coconut husk, egg shells trailing gluey white, potato peelings, one strip of a banana skin, cauliflower leaves, and orange rind, all along the inside ledge. An eggshell rolled off. She picked it up and cracked it — there, that would keep it from falling — and replaced it on the parapet, between the coconut husk and potato peelings.
Pleased with her arrangement, Khorshedbai stepped to the door leading to the other room. Locked from the inside, as usual. The cowards. She draped the balance of the banana skin over the door handle, hung an elongated shred of fatty gristle from the knob, and scattered the remaining assorted peels and skins over the doorstep. The several bangles on her bony wrists tinkled softly: a delicate accompaniment while she worked over the veranda. Gentle though the sound was, it always annoyed her, announcing her presence like a cowbell. She pushed the bangles higher. Tight, around the forearms. To get rid of them without offending Ardesar would be such a comfort. The gold wedding bangle, encircling her wrist for forty years now, was the only one she cared for.
Khorshedbai reversed three paces and regarded her handiwork with satisfaction. Especially the length of gristle, which was pendulating gently with the weight of the bone at its extremity. Only one thing remained now. Collected from the pavement as an afterthought while returning from the agyaari, she hurled it against the locked door.
Dog faeces spattered the lower panel with a smack. Bits of it clung, the rest fell on the step. Behind the locked door Kashmira puzzled over the soft thud. She was alone with little Adil. The sound was quite different from the rustle and tinkle of the past four weeks, but she stayed where she was, behind the safety of the locked door. She could wait to find out what it was till Boman came home from work. Four weeks of calm and restrained littering had still not alleviated her fear that Khorshedbai would one day explode into an uncontrollable, shrieking madwoman. Or she could collapse into a whimpering mass of helplessness. If it did happen, Kashmira hoped it would be the latter.
Outside, Khorshedbai was delighted with the results. Had it dried up completely, it would not have stuck. But this was perfect. She crumpled up the newspaper and turned to leave, then stopped. Another afterthought — she raised her eyes heavenward in thanks and shredded the pages of The Indian Express into tiny pieces. She scattered them, tossed them, hither and thither, little paper medallions gently falling, to decorate the floor and window ledge and door. Traces of prance and glee crept into her step; she became a little girl indulging in forbidden fun. Strewing to the left and to the right, and up to the ceiling to watch it all float downward. The sari slipped off her head (she always kept her head covered) and the left shoulder (she deftly restored the fabric), and her bangles, having escaped the forearms to the freedom of the wrists, sounded louder, the fragile tinkles now a solid row of jingle-jangles.
From behind the locked door it sounded as though Khorshedbai had finally entered that long-feared state of frenzy, and Kashmira was worried. Khorshedbai could usually be controlled by Ardesar with his gentle voice of reason. She had heard him before, speaking so calmly and tenderly to his wife; it always brought a lump to Kashmira’s throat.
Ardesar had tried to dissuade Khorshedbai every day since she conceived of this scheme four weeks ago. That first morning, after tasting victory in the court case in which they had faced eviction, she woke up and said that Pestonji had given her a gift in the night. Whistling with his little red beak and fluttering his bright green wings in her dream, she said, he had revealed how to teach next door a lesson they would never forget. Ardesar had pleaded with her, but forty years of marriage should have taught him better. When Khorshed was resolved for fight and revenge nothing could stop her.
Now Ardesar could watch no more, after that nasty thing she hurled. Away, away from the door, away from this, this insane and filthy behaviour, he turned. Wringing his hands, he formed four words with his lips, over and over, in urgent supplication: Dada Ormuzd, forgive her. He paced the room in distress, stopping now and then to straighten and re-straighten the photoframes on the shelf. What was he to do? He could not question Pestonji’s dream-dictums without hurting his beloved Khotty. No, he could never do that. Besides, who was to say what dreams were all about, even scientists still knew so very little about the universe and its mysterious forces. He pulled out a chair as if to sit, then continued to pace. He repeatedly touched the bald spot on his head, fingered its peripheral strands, and tried to push the glasses (which had not strayed) up on his nose.