Swimming Lessons

  ROHINTON MISTRY

  Swimming Lessons

  Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay and now lives near Toronto. His first novel, Such a Long Journey, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and received, among other awards, the Governor General’s Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book of the Year. His second novel, A Fine Balance, was awarded the Giller Prize and the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for 1996 and was short-listed for the Booker prize.

  ALSO BY ROHINTON MISTRY

  A Fine Balance

  Such a Long Journey

  FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, MARCH 1997

  Copyright © 1987 by Rohinton Mistry

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Canada in hardcover as Tales from Firozsha Baag by Penguin Books Canada Limited in 1987. First published in the United States in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, in 1989.

  The following stories were previously published in slightly different versions. “Auspicious Occasion” in The Fiddlehead, No. 141, Autumn 1984, and The New Press Anthology #2: Best Stories, General Publishing, 1985. “One Sunday” in The Antigonish Review, Number 61, Spring 1985. “The Ghost of Firozsha Baag” in Quarry, Volume 35, Number 2, Spring 1986. “Condolence Visit” in Canadian Fiction Magazine, Number 50/51. “The Collectors” in Malahat Review, Number 72, 1985. “Of White Hairs and Cricket” in Waves, Volume 14, Number 3, Winter 1986. “Lend Me Your Light” in The Toronto South Asian Review, Volume 2, Number 3, Winter 1984. “Exercisers” in Canadian Fiction Magazine, Number 54. “Condolence Visit,” “The Collectors,” and “Lend Me Your Light” in Coming Attractions #4, Oberon Press.

  The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the Explorations Program of the Canada Council and that of the Ontario Arts Council, which made it possible to write some of these stories.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mistry, Rohinton, 1952–

  [Tales from Firozsha Baag]

  Swimming lessons and other stories from Firozsha Baag / by Rohinton Mistry.—1st Vintage International ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-679-77632-1

  1. Bombay (India)—Social life and customs—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR9199.3.M494T35 1996

  813′.54—dc20 96-31214

  CIP

  Random House Web address: http://www.randomhouse.com/

  Author photograph courtesy of F. Mistry

  Ebook ISBN 9780525565239

  v5.3.1

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Rohinton Mistry

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Auspicious Occasion

  One Sunday

  The Ghost of Firozsha Baag

  Condolence Visit

  The Collectors

  Of White Hairs and Cricket

  The Paying Guests

  Squatter

  Lend Me Your Light

  Exercisers

  Swimming Lessons

  “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short”

  —Henry David Thoreau

  Auspicious Occasion

  With a bellow Rustomji emerged from the WC. He clutched his undone pyjama drawstring, an extreme rage distorting his yet unshaven features. He could barely keep the yellow-stained pyjamas from falling.

  “Mehroo! Arré Mehroo! Where are you?” he screamed. “I am telling you, this is more than I can take! Today, of all days, on Behram roje. Mehroo! Are you listening?”

  Mehroo came, her slippers flopping in time — ploof ploof — one two. She was considerably younger than her husband, having been married off to a thirty-six-year-old man when she was a mere girl of sixteen, before completing her final high-school year. Rustomji, a successful Bombay lawyer, had been considered a fine catch by Mehroo’s parents — no one had anticipated that he would be wearing dentures by the time he was fifty. Who, while trapped in the fervour of matchmaking at the height of the wedding season, could imagine a toothless gummy mouth, morning after morning, greeting a woman in her absolute prime? No one. Certainly not Mehroo. She came from an orthodox Parsi family which observed all important days on the Parsi calendar, had the appropriate prayers and ceremonies performed at the fire-temple, and even set aside a room with an iron-frame bed and an iron stool for the women during their unclean time of the month.

  Mehroo had welcomed her destiny and had carried to her new home all the orthodoxy of her parents’. Except for the separate “unclean” room which Rustomji would not hear of, she was permitted everything. In fact, Rustomji secretly enjoyed most of the age-old traditions while pretending indifference He loved going to the fire-temple dressed up in his sparkling white dugli, starched white trousers, the carefully brushed pheytoe on his head — he had a fine head of hair, not yet gone the way of his teeth.

  To Rustomji’s present yelling Mehroo responded good-humouredly. She tried to remain calm on this morning which was to culminate in prayers at the fire-temple; nothing would mar the perfection of Behram roje if she could help it. This day on the Parsi calendar was particularly dear to her: on Behram roje her mother had given birth to her at the Awabai Petit Parsi Lying-In Hospital; it was also the day her navjote had been performed at the age of seven, when she was confirmed a Zoroastrian by the family priest, Dustoor Dhunjisha; and finally, Rustomji had married her on Behram roje fourteen years ago, with feasting and celebration continuing into the wee hours of the morning — it was said that not one beggar had gone hungry, such were the quantities of food dumped in the garbage cans of Cama Garden that day.

  Indeed, Behram roje meant a lot to Mehroo. Which is why with a lilt in her voice she sang out: “Com—ing! Com—ing!”

  Rustomji growled back, “You are deaf or what? Must I scream till my lungs burst?”

  “Coming, coming! Two hands, so much to do, the gunga is late and the house is unswept —”

  “Arré forget your gunga-bunga!” howled Rustomji. “That stinking lavatory upstairs is leaking again! God only knows what they do to make it leak. There I was, squatting — barely started — when someone pulled the flush. Then on my head I felt — pchuk — all wet! On my head!”

  “On your head? Chhee chhee chhee! How horrible! How inauspicious! How…” and words failed her as she cringed and recoiled from the befouling event. Gingerly she peeked into the WC, fearing a deluge of ordure and filth. What she did see, however, was a steady leak — drip drip drip drip — rhythmical and regular, straight into the toilet bowl, so that using it was out of the question. Rustomji, still clutching his pyjama drawstring, a wild unravelled look about him, fumed behind her as she concluded her inspection.

  “Why not call a good plumber ourselves this time instead of complaining to the Baag trustees?” Mehroo ventured. “They will once again do shoddy work.”

  “I will not spend one paisa of my hard-earned earnings! Those scoundrels sitting with piles of trust money hidden under their arses should pay for it!” stormed Rustomji, making sweeping gestures with the hand that was free of the pyjama string. “I will crap at their office, I will go to crap at their houses, I will crap on their doorsteps if necessary!”

  “Hush, Rustomji, don’t say such things on Behram roje,” Mehroo chided. “If you still have to go, I will see if Hirabai next door does not mind.”

  “With
her stupid husband there? A thousand times I’ve told you I will not step inside in Nariman’s presence Anyway, it is gone now. Vanished,” said Rustomji with finality. “Now my whole day will be spoilt. And who knows,” he added darkly with perverse satisfaction, “this may even lead to constipation.”

  “Nariman must have left for the library. I will ask Hirabai, you might have to go later. I am going there now to telephone the office, and when I come back I will make you a nice hot cup of tea. Drink that quickly, gudh-gudh, the urge will return,” soothed Mehroo, and left. Rustomji decided to boil water for his bath. He felt unclean all over.

  The copper vessel was already filled with water. But someone had forgotten to cover it, and plaster from the ceiling had dripped into it. It floated on the surface, little motes of white. Like the little motes that danced before Rustomji’s eyes when he was very tired, after a long day in the hot, dusty courthouse, or when he was very angry, after shouting at the boys of Firozsha Baag for making a nuisance with their cricket in the compound.

  Plaster had been dripping for some years now in his A Block flat, as it had been in most of the flats in Firozsha Baag. There had been a respite when Dr Mody, gadfly to the trustees (bless his soul), had pressed for improvement with the Baag management. But that period ended, and the trustees adopted a new policy to stop all maintenance work not essential to keep the buildings from being condemned.

  Following a period of resistance, most of the tenants had taken to looking after their own flats, getting them replastered and painted. But to this day Rustomji stubbornly held out, calling his neighbours fools for making things easy for the trustees instead of suffering the discomfort of peeling walls till the scoundrels capitulated.

  When the neighbours, under the leadership of Nariman Hansotia, had decided to pool some money and hire a contractor to paint the exterior of A Block, Rustomji, on principle, refused to hand over his share. The building had acquired an appalling patina of yellow and grey griminess. But even the likeable and retired Nariman, who drove every day except Sunday in his 1932 Mercedes-Benz to the Cawasji Framji Memorial Library to read the daily papers from around the world, could not persuade Rustomji to participate.

  Totally frustrated, Nariman had returned to Hirabai: “That curmudgeon won’t listen to reason, he has sawdust in his head. But if I don’t make him the laughing-stock, my name isn’t Nariman.” Out of this exchange had grown an appended name: Rustomji-the-curmudgeon, and it had spread through Firozsha Baag, enjoying long life and considerable success.

  And Nariman Hansotia had then convinced the neighbours to go ahead with the work, advising the contractor to leave untouched the exterior of Rustomji’s flat. It would make Rustomji ashamed of himself, he thought, when the painting was finished and the sparkling façade of the building sported one begrimed square. But Rustomji was delighted. He triumphantly told everyone he met, “Mr Hansotia bought a new suit, and it has a patch on one knee!”

  Rustomji chuckled now as he remembered the incident. He filled the copper vessel with fresh water and hoisted it onto the gas stove. The burner hesitated before it caught. He suspected the gas cylinder was about to run out; over a week ago he had telephoned the blasted gas company to deliver a new one He wondered if there was going to be another shortage, like last year, when they had had to burn coals in a sigri — the weekly quota of kerosene had been barely enough to make the morning tea.

  Tea, thank God for tea, he thought, anticipating with pleasure the second cup Mehroo had promised. He would drink it in copious draughts, piping hot, one continuous flow from cup to saucer to mouth. It just might induce his offended bowels to move and salvage something of this ill-omened morning. Of course, there was the WC of Hirabai Hansotia’s that he would have to contend with — his bowels were recalcitrant in strange surroundings. It was a matter of waiting and seeing which would prevail: Mehroo’s laxative tea or Hirabai’s sphincter-tightening lavatory.

  He picked up the Times of India and settled in his easy chair, waiting for the bath water to boil. Something would have to be done about the peeling paint and plaster; in some places the erosion was so bad, red brick lay exposed. The story went that these flats had been erected in an incredibly short time and with very little money. Cheap materials had been used, and sand carted from nearby Chaupatty beach had been mixed in abundance with substandard cement. Now during the monsoon season beads of moisture trickled down the walls, like sweat down a coolie’s back, which considerably hastened the crumbling of paint and plaster.

  From time to time, Mehroo pointed out the worsening problem, and Rustomji took refuge in railing at the trustees. But today he did not need to worry. She would never mention it on a day like Behram roje. There was not any time for argument. Her morning had started early: she had got the children ready for school and packed their lunch; cooked dhandar-paatyo and sali-boti for dinner; starched and ironed his white shirt, trousers, and dugli, all washed the night before, and her white blouse, petticoat and sari; and now those infernal people upstairs had made the WC leak. If Gajra, their gunga, did not arrive soon, Mehroo would also have to sweep and mop before she could decorate the entrance with coloured chalk designs, hang up the tohrun (waiting since the flowerwalla’s six A.M. delivery) and spread the fragrance of loban through the flat — it was considered unlucky to omit or change the prescribed sequence of these things.

  But celebrating in this manner was Mehroo’s own choice. As far as Rustomji was concerned, these customs were dead and meaningless. Besides, he had repeatedly explained to her what he called the psychology of gungas: “If a particular day is important, never let the gunga know, pretend everything is normal. And never, never ask her to come earlier than usual, for she will deliberately come late.” But Mehroo did not learn; she trusted, confided, and continued to suffer.

  Gajra was the latest in a long line of gungas to toil at their house. Before her it had been Tanoo.

  For two years, Tanoo came every morning to their flat to sweep and mop, do the dishes, and wash their clothes. A woman in her early seventies, tall and skinny, she was bow-legged and half blind, with an astonishing quantity of wrinkles on her face and limbs. Where her skin was not wrinkled, it was scaly and rough. She had large ears that stuck out under wisps of stringy, coconut-oiled grey hair, and wore spectacles (one lens of which was missing) balanced precariously on a thin pointed nose.

  The trouble with Tanoo was that she was always breaking a dish or a cup or a saucer. Mehroo was prepared to overlook the inferior sweeping and mopping; the breakage, however, was a tangible loss which Rustomji said would one day ruin them if a stop was not put to it.

  Tanoo was periodically threatened with pay cuts and other grimmer forms of retribution. But despite her good intentions and avowals and resolutions, there was never any improvement. Her dim eyes were further handicapped by hands which shook and fumbled because of old age and the long unhappiness of a life out of which her husband had fled after bringing into it two sons she single-handedly had to raise, and who were now drunkards, lazy good-for-nothings, and the sorrow of her old age.

  “Poor, poor Tanoo,” Mehroo would say, helpless to do anything. “Very sad,” Rustomji would agree, but would not do more.

  So plates and saucers continued to slip out of Tanoo’s old, weary hands, continued to crash and shatter, causing Rustomji fiscal grief and Mehroo sorrow — sorrow because she knew that Tanoo would have to go. Rustomji too would have liked to feel sorrow and compassion. But he was afraid. He had decided long ago that this was no country for sorrow or compassion or pity — these were worthless and, at best, inappropriate.

  There was a time during his college days, as a volunteer with the Social Service League, when he had thought differently (foolishly, he now felt). Sometimes, he still remembered those SSL camps fondly, the long train rides full of singing and merriment to remote villages lacking the most basic of necessities, where they dug roads and wells, built schoolhouses, and tau
ght the villagers. Hard work, all of it, and yet so much fun, what a wonderful gang they had been, like Dara the Daredevil, the way he jumped in and out of moving trains, he called himself the Tom Mix of the locomotive; and Bajun the Banana Champion — at one camp he had eaten twenty-one of them, not small ailchee ones either, regular long green ones; every one had been a real character.

  But Rustomji was not one to allow nostalgia to taint the colour of things as he saw them now. He was glad he had put it all behind him.

  The way it ended for Tanoo, however, eased the blow a little for Mehroo. Tanoo arranged to leave Bombay and return to the village she had left so long ago, to end her days with her sister’s family there. Mehroo was happy for her. Rustomji heaved a sigh of relief. He had no objections when Mehroo gave her generous gifts at the time of parting. He even suggested getting her a new pair of spectacles. But Tanoo declined the offer, saying she would not have much use for them in the village, with no china plates and saucers to wash.

  And so, Tanoo departed and Gajra arrived: young and luscious, and notorious for tardiness.

  Coconut hair oil was the only thing Gajra had in common with Tanoo. She was, despite her plumpness, quite pretty; she was, Rustomji secretly thought, voluptuous. And he did not tire of going into the kitchen while Gajra was washing dishes, crouched on her haunches within the parapet of the mori. When still a young boy, Rustomji had heard that most gungas had no use for underwear — neither brassiere or knickers. He had confirmed this several times through observation as a lad in his father’s house. Gajra provided further proof, proof which popped out from beneath her short blouse during the exertion of sweeping or washing. With a deft movement she would tuck back the ample bosom into her choli, unabashed, but not before Rustomji had gazed his fill. Like two prime Ratnagiri mangoes they were, he felt, juicy and golden smooth.

  “Her cups runneth over,” he would then gleefully think, remembering time and time again the little joke from his beloved school days at St Xavier’s. Though not given to proselytizing, the school had a custom of acquainting all its students, Catholic or otherwise, with the Lord’s Prayer and the more popular Psalms.