“Language,” said Dina.
Maneck smiled, which stretched the cut lip. He restrained himself and took a piece of ice.
“That’s it — that’s your new name,” said Om. “Umbrella Bachchan.”
“What are you waiting for?” Dina turned angrily to the rent-collector again. “You tell your landlord, I am not leaving, I won’t give up this flat.”
“I don’t think it will help, sister,” said Ibrahim sorrowfully, “but I wish you best of luck,” and he left.
Maneck said he did not want to create trouble for Dina Aunty with his presence. “Don’t worry about me,” he uttered with minimum lip movement. “I can always return home.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said. “After all these months, more than halfway to your diploma, how can you disappoint your parents?”
“No no, he is right,” said Ishvar. “It’s not fair, all this suffering for you because of us. We will go back to the nightwatchman.”
“Stop talking nonsense, all of you,” snapped Dina. “Let me think for a minute.” She said they were missing the point. “You heard Ibrahim’s words — the landlord just wants an excuse. Your going away will not save my flat.”
The only thing she could count on, in her opinion, was her brother’s ability to straighten out the dispute — with money, smooth words, or whatever it was that he was so good at using in his business dealings. “Once again, I’ll have to swallow my pride and ask for his help, that’s all.”
XII. Trace of Destiny
THEY MOVED MECHANICALLY THROUGH their morning acts of washing and cleaning and tea-making. Om’s stomach was sore where he had been punched, but he did not tell his uncle. They crept into Maneck’s room to check on him. He was still asleep. There were stains on his pillow; his lip and nose had bled again during the night. They called Dina to see it.
She was mentally rehearsing her meeting with Nusswan, imagining his smug face, the expression proclaiming his indispensability. She bent over Maneck — how innocent is his sleep, she thought, and felt like stroking his forehead. The lip was black where the blood had clotted. The final trickle from the nose had also congealed. They backed softly out of the room. “He’s all right,” she whispered. “The cut is dry, let him sleep.”
As she was readying to leave for her brother’s office, Beggarmaster arrived at the door, briefcase chained to his left wrist. It was his scheduled collection day. Ishvar had the money put aside from the previous week’s earnings, safe in Dina’s cupboard.
She urged him to level with the man that the next instalment would be difficult. “Better to tell him now than to have him come looking for you with a stick.”
Beggarmaster listened sceptically. Measured against his own experiences, the account of the goondas’ nocturnal assault sounded too theatrical to be true. He suspected his clients were concocting the story, preparing to renege on their contract.
Then they took him inside, showed him the shattered windows, battered sewing-machines, torn dresses and soiled fabrics, and he was convinced. “This is bad,” he said. “Very bad. Such amateurs they must be, to behave like this.”
“I’m ruined,” said Dina. “And it’s not the tailors’ fault that they won’t be able to pay you next week.”
“Believe me, they will,” he said grimly.
“But how?” implored Ishvar. “If we are thrown out and cannot work? Have mercy on us!”
Taking no notice of him, Beggarmaster walked around the room, inspecting, rapping his knuckles on the table, jotting in his little notepad. “Tell me how much it will cost to fix all the damage.”
“What good is that going to do?” cried Dina. “Those goondas will return tomorrow if we don’t vacate! And you want to waste time on an account? I have more urgent things on my mind, making sure I have shelter!”
Beggarmaster looked up from his notepad, slightly surprised. “You already have shelter. Right here. This is your flat, isn’t it?”
She nodded impatiently at the silly question.
“Those goondas committed a big mistake,” he continued, “and I am going to correct it for them.”
“And when they come back?”
“They won’t. You tailors have made your payments regularly, so you don’t have to worry — you are under my protection. Everything will be taken care of. But unless I know the amount of damage, how will I reimburse you? You want to start your sewing business again or not?”
Now it was Dina’s turn to look sceptical. “What are you, an insurance company?”
He smiled modestly in reply.
There was nothing to lose, she decided, and started multiplying the mutilated length of Au Revoir fabric by the price per yard. The loss totalled nine hundred and fifty rupees plus tax. Ishvar estimated the charge for repairing the sewing-machines to be approximately six hundred. The belts and needles were broken; and the flywheels and treadles would have to be realigned or replaced, besides a general overhaul.
Beggarmaster wrote it down, totting up the cost of the slashed mattress, pillows, wooden stools, sofa, cushions, and windows. “Anything else?”
“The umbrella,” said Maneck, awakened by their voices. “They broke some ribs.”
Beggarmaster added it to the list, then recorded the landlord’s office address and descriptions of the two men. “Good,” he said. “That’s all I need. If your landlord doesn’t know you’re my clients, he’ll soon find out. He’ll settle the damages, once I pay him a little visit. Now don’t worry, just wait for me, I’ll be back this evening.”
“Should I make a complaint to the police?” asked Dina.
He gave her a weary look. “If you like. But you might as well complain to that crow on your window.” The bird cawed and flew away; he felt vindicated.
Beggarmaster’s assurances could not fully assuage Dina’s doubts. She went to Nusswan’s office in order to inform him of the situation. In case his help was required later, she decided, or he would say: Digging a well when the house is on fire.
The peon informed her sadly that Nusswan sahab was out of town for a meeting; he always felt sad about sahab’s sister. “He won’t be back till tomorrow night.”
Dina left the office, tempted to stop at the Venus Beauty Salon and talk with Zenobia. But to what purpose? Empty consolation would solve nothing; besides, it would be accompanied by Zenobia’s infuriating “I warned you but you wouldn’t listen.”
She returned to the flat, praying that Beggarmaster would come through. A stench followed her inside the door, and she puzzled about it. “Can you smell it?” she asked Ishvar.
They went around room by room, checking the kitchen and wc as well. The malodour trailed them everywhere without revealing itself. “Maybe it’s from outside, from the gutter,” said Om. But when they stuck their heads out through the window, the smell seemed to diminish.
“Those stinking goondas must have left it behind,” she said, and Ishvar agreed. Then Om, who was kneeling on the floor, picking up the last bits of broken glass, discovered the smell was coming from her shoe. She had stepped in something on the pavement. She went outside, scraped off the brown mess from the sole, and washed it.
For most of the day Maneck stayed in bed with a thundering headache. Dina and the tailors attempted to restore some order to the shambles of the flat. They swept up the cotton fill, stuffed it back in, and sewed up the slashes, but the cushions still looked deflated. Plumping and patting could not take away their limpness. Next they tackled the paan stains, which were everywhere.