Free Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto Page B

knew but I don’t know.’
    So trying to tell Em that no one was going to poison her tea was simply not going to work. I wanted to say to Granny, ‘You’ll only make her think you’re one of the people who want to poison her.’ I didn’t have to say it because by the time I brought the tea back for all of us, Em had independently arrived at the same conclusion.
    â€˜Oh so they got to you too, huh?’
    Then to me: ‘Roger, take over.’
    Then she made a dismissive gesture.
    â€˜You want me to go?’ Granny asked, her tone suggesting that no one could want such a thing.
    Em laughed again.
    â€˜No, the boy will take you out and shoot you through the head.’
    Granny’s face collapsed.
    â€˜Never mind,’ I said to her. ‘Just think of the king and his ring.’
    Em sprayed us both with tea.
    â€˜He got you in the gut, you old hound dog.’
    I sympathized with Granny but I also felt a deep vexation. She loved Em and she thought that should be enough. It wasn’t. Love is never enough. Madness is enough. It is complete, sufficient unto itself. You can only stand outside it, as a woman might stand outside a prison in which her lover is locked up. From time to time, a well-loved face will peer out and love floods back. A scrap of cloth flutters and it becomes a sign and a code and a message and all that you want it to be. Then it vanishes and you are outside the dark tower again. At times, when I was young, I wanted to be inside the tower so I could understand what it was like. But I knew, even then, that I did not want to be a permanent resident of the tower. I wanted to visit and even visiting meant nothing because you could always leave. You’re a tourist; she’s a resident.
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    And as all analogies must, this one breaks down too. You would never be able to visit her tower. You would only be able to visit another tower, a quite similar yet independent one. There were no shared towers, no room for more than one person. I heard this often enough in the shared spaces where Em and I waited for test results, new prescriptions, other doctors.
    â€˜Nobody knows what I am going through.’
    â€˜What I suffer only I know.’
    And so on.
    Then one day I was sitting next to two polycot-swathed ladies, both of whom had troubled children.
    â€˜What days I have taken out, only I know,’ said one.
    â€˜But Brian has some good days, no? With Terry, can’t say when he gets up whether he’ll be this way or that way. Got to be on your toes. One day, Dr Menezes came over for Molly, my small one. She had fever, cough-cold, wouldn’t go to the clinic, lying down and crying. So I called Dr Menezes for a home visit . . .’
    â€˜Two hundred now?’
    â€˜Gone to sleep or what? Three hundred now and without pills. Open mouth. Aaahn. Pull this lid, pull that lid, cough for me, ptack-ptack on the chest and write write write. Finished. Three hundred rupees in the pocket and “Send her to the clinic next time” he got the bupka to tell me. I told him, “Doctor, with all this on my hands I got time? Better to spend this than to listen pitti-pitti-pitti all day.” So he’s saying, “Must take a heavy toll. How come I never see you in the clinic?” And I said, “Doctor, you’ll see me when Terry is well. Because I got no time to be sick when he’s like that.”’
    â€˜Brian is not less, let me tell you. One day, I went out, to novenas only, at Mahim church . . .’
    â€˜All the way?’
    â€˜Got to go, no?’
    â€˜You’re lucky you got time. I say in the morning, nine times while I’m cooking. Praying, praying, nine times. “Muttering Matilda”, that Terry put name for me. I’m saying, “Storming heaven on your behalf on’y.”’
    â€˜But I made promise. I got to go. I come back and he’s