Free Tales From Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry Page B

her a portable cassette tape recorder from Canada, remembering her fondness for music, so she could tape her favourite songs from All India Radio’s two Western music programs: “Merry Go Round” and “Saturday Date.” Daulat, however, had refused it, saying “Poor Minocher sick in bed, and I listen to music? Never.”She would not change her mind despite Sarosh-Sid’s recounting of the problems he had had getting it through Bombay customs.
    Now she wished she had accepted the gift. It could be handy, she thought with bitterness, to tape the details, to squeeze all of her and Minocher’s suffering inside the plastic case, and proffer it to the visitors who came propelled by custom and convention. When they held out their right hands in the condolence-handshake position (fingertips of left hand tragically supporting right elbow, as though the right arm, overcome with grief, could not make it on its own) she could thrust towards them the cassette and recorder: “You have come to ask about my life, my suffering, my sorrow? Here, take and listen. Listen on the machine, everything is on tape. How my Minocher fell sick, where it started to pain, how much it hurt, what doctor said, what specialist said, what happened in hospital. This R button? Is for Rewind. Some part you like, you can hear it again, hear it ten times if you want: how nurse gave wrong medicine but my Minocher, sharp even in sickness, noticed different colour of pills and told her to check; how wardboy always handled the bedpan savagely, shoving it underneath as if doing sick people a big favour; how Minocher was afraid when time came for sponge bath, they were so careless and rough – felt like number three sandpaper on his bedsores, my brave Minocher would joke. What? The FF button? Means Fast Forward. If some part bores you, just press FF and tape will turn to something else: like how in hospital Minocher’s bedsores were so terrible it would bring tears to my eyes to look, all filled with pus and a bad smell on him always, even after sponge bath, so I begged of doctor to let me take him home; how at home I changed dressings four times a day using sulfa ointment, and in two weeks bedsores were almost gone; how, as time went by and he got worse, his friends stopped coming when he needed them most, friends like you, now listening to this tape. Huh? This letter P? Stands for Pause. Press it if you want to shut off machine, if you cannot bear to hear more of your friend Minocher’s suffering…”
    Daulat stopped herself. Ah, the bitter thoughts of a tired old woman. But of what use? It was better not to think of these visits which were as inevitable as Minocher’s death. The only way out wasto lock up the flat and leave Firozsha Baag, live elsewhere for the next few weeks. Perhaps at a boarding-house in Udwada, town of the most sacrosanct of all fire-temples. But though her choice of location would be irreproachable, the timing of her trip would generate the most virulent gossip and criticism the community was capable of, to weather which she possessed neither the strength nor the audacity. The visits would have to be suffered, just as Minocher had suffered his sickness, with forbearance.
    The doorbell startled Daulat. This early in the morning could not bring a condolence visitor. The clock was about to strike nine as she went to the door.
    Her neighbour Najamai glided in, as fluidly as the smell of slightly rancid fat that always trailed her. The pounds shed by her bulk in recent years constantly amazed Daulat. Today the smell was supplemented by
dhansaak masala
, she realized, as the odours found and penetrated her nostrils. It was usually possible to tell what Najamai had been cooking, she carried a bit of her kitchen with her wherever she went.
    Although about the same age as Daulat, widowhood had descended much earlier upon Najamai, turning her into an authority on the subject of Religious Rituals And The Widowed Woman. This had never bothered