A vision of Madhiwalla Bonesetter’s clinic swam briefly before Gustad’s eyes, of limbs hanging lifelessly, limp and defenceless as these waxen ones. His left hip twinged sharply with a forgotten pain. He passed a hand over his brow and looked to Malcolm to be guided through this world of wax. This unfinished Madame Tussaud’s, he thought.
‘You see,’ explained Malcolm, ‘suffering people come to Mount Mary and offer up the part that is troubling them. Think of it as a repair shop. Mother Mary is the Mechanic for all sufferers. She mends everything.’ His earthly correlatives made Gustad smile appreciatively. A repair shop, yes, that was good. Like the mechanics on Dr. Paymaster’s street.
‘Some people do it differently,’ continued Malcolm. ‘They first come and pray to Mother Mary, and promise to return with the part after it is cured. But that makes no sense to me. If your watch is not working, can the watch-repairer fix it unless you give it to him?’ The conclusion was irrefutable. The portly woman was moved to nod in agreement. ‘Also,’ said Malcolm, ‘it’s too much like bargaining, don’t you think? I trust Mother Mary completely with advance payment.’ The woman quivered on the stool. It was difficult to tell if she was shaking with mirth: her face was still impassive.
Malcolm picked out a female child’s torso and gave it to Gustad. ‘For Roshan. Next, your friend in hospital. If the cancer has spread, maybe best thing is to buy the full body.’ He indicated the male figure in the last row. The woman in black grudgingly got off her stool. ‘Who else?’
Gustad hesitated. ‘Can Mother Mary help with the head? I mean the mind? For someone not thinking straight?’
‘Oh yes, I think Sohrab will definitely benefit.’ Malcolm picked out a male head. ‘Now what about your hip?’
‘No, no, that’s OK.’
‘What rubbish, man. This morning only you were limping at the market, I saw myself. Come on, don’t be shy.’ The portly woman bent sideways on her stool to see around the cart, and examined Gustad. Having sized him up, she expertly picked out a wax leg. ‘Good,’ said Malcolm. ‘You will see how it helps. Who else?’ Gustad thought of Jimmy. The pleading note he sent me. All those scary things uttered by Ghulam Mohammed. Jimmy’s enemies, wanting to get rid of him and…
‘Anyone else?’ asked Malcolm again.
‘No. No one else.’
The portly woman in black totalled the purchases. ‘The offerings will work,’ explained Malcolm, ‘only if you pay. My money is no good.’
‘Of course, naturally.’
‘Four candles now,’ said Malcolm, moving to the other cart. ‘I always buy from both, to be fair.’
Gustad paid, and they went inside the hot crowded church. Devotees with offerings were slowly making their way towards the altar. The ceiling fan made a woman’s veil caress Gustad’s face. Candles in their hundreds were burning fiercely in flat metal trays. The collective light cast a brilliant orange glow towards the sanctuary. Around the trays were strewn countless limbs and figures, a waxwork universe petitioning on behalf of the suffering multitude. The intense heat from the candles was robbing the offerings of their shapes. Gustad knelt, following his friend’s example, then Malcolm indicated that the wax purchases should be relinquished and the candles lit. But it was difficult to find a bare spot amid the scorching blaze in progress. Malcolm looked around to see if anyone was watching. He made room by quickly knocking over a few candles that were down to half their size. Like a backhand table-tennis smash, thought Gustad. ‘Is that allowed?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Oh, it’s OK. Someone will later do the same to yours. Important thing is to light them.’ He drew Gustad’s attention to the main icon. ‘That’s the statue found by the fishermen.’
It was draped in rich, gold-embroidered fabrics; what seemed like precious or semi-precious stones glinted by candlelight. ‘Did they also find those clothes?’
‘No, no, they were made much later, from donations.’ Gustad wondered what the statue was wearing when it came ashore.
‘You see Baby Jesus on Mother Mary’s left arm? Once a year, He moves. Next year He will be on the right arm. No one knows how it happens. A true miracle.’ Then Malcolm fell silent. He crossed himself and started to pray. Gustad joined his hands, bowed his head and thought of Roshan, wishing her healthy and well again; of Dinshawji, that his suffering may ease; and of Sohrab, that his good sense be restored to him. He did not bother with his hip; it was really not that important.
The sea was steadily working its way to high tide. The two men selected a dry flat boulder to sit. ‘Such a beautiful place,’ said Gustad.
‘Yes, especially this part of Bandra. But the buggers have plans for reclamation and development.’
‘Roshan would really enjoy it. When we go to Chaupatty or Marine Drive sometimes, she loves to sit and watch the waves.’
Now and again, the salt spray touched their faces lightly, like the woman’s errant veil had touched Gustad’s cheek. After a while they had to pick another rock. ‘The sea is pushing us back,’ said Malcolm.
They talked fondly of the old days, of college, and the crazy old professors and padres. Gustad said he had never forgotten how kind Malcolm’s family had been to him, welcoming him in their home every evening, letting him share the music, even offering him a place to study. They tried to fill in for each other the lacunae in the scanty outlines exchanged earlier at Crawford Market. But to reclaim suddenly the gaping abyss which had swallowed up time was well-nigh impossible. They had to be content with wisps and strands that came to hand as they groped or stumbled their way through the vaults of memory.
‘That sonata you used to play with your father,’ said Gustad. ‘Da dee da da dee dum, Ta ta tum, Ta ta tum, Ta ta tum…You remember it?’
‘Of course,’ said Malcolm without hesitation. ‘Last movement of César Franck’s Sonata for violin and piano. In A. It was Daddy’s favourite.’
‘Mine, too,’ said Gustad. ‘Sometimes you two played it when it was getting dark in the evening. Before the lights came on. It sounded so beautiful, tears would almost spring to my eyes. I still cannot decide exactly whether it made me feel sad or happy. So difficult to describe.’ So difficult. Like Tehmul, all of us. Even with proper tongues, words are hard to find.
‘You won’t believe this,’ said Malcolm, ‘but after Daddy’s stroke, in such bad condition that he couldn’t hold his violin or remember his own name, this sonata was always in his head. He could only make sounds with his mouth, no speech. But he would keep humming the last movement.’
Malcolm whistled the theme as Gustad smiled encouragingly. ‘You know, I used to love to see your father put rosin on the bow, his face was always frowning with concentration when he did that. Then he would start to play, his bow moving up and down with so much life and power — gave me a strange feeling. As if he was searching desperately for something, but always disappointed. Because the piece ended before he found it.’
Malcolm nodded vigorously, he understood exactly. Gustad continued: ‘And the funny thing is, my father had the same kind of look in his eyes. Sometimes, when he was reading — a kind of sadness, that the book was finishing too soon, without telling him everything he wanted to know.’
‘That’s life,’ said Malcolm. The encroaching waves made them move again. Gradually, their conversation shifted to the present, to politics and the state of the nation. ‘Look at it. Indira has visited every country in Europe, they all say they sympathize. But nobody does a damn thing to make Pakistan behave decently. What is left but war?’