A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
“Maybe. But the rules are different in chess.”
“The rules should always allow someone to win,” Om insisted. The logical breakdown troubled him.
“Sometimes, no one wins,” said Maneck.
“You were right, it is a stupid game,” said Om.
After five days of rain the skies did not let up, and the two were a thorough nuisance in the flat. They amused themselves watching Ishvar and Dina at work. “Look,” whispered Maneck. “His tongue always pokes into his cheek when he starts the machine.” And they found hilarious her habit of hiding both lips between her teeth when measuring something.
“That’s too slow, yaar,” observed Om, as his uncle paused to load a bobbin from the spool. “I can wind it in thirty seconds.”
“You are young, I am old,” said Ishvar good-humouredly. He slipped the fresh bobbin into the shuttle and slid the metal plate over it.
“I always keep six bobbins ready,” said Om. “Then I can change them phuta-phut, without stopping in the middle of a dress.”
“Aunty, you should also grow long nails on your little fingers, like Ishvar. It will look great.”
Her patience quickly ran out. “You two are becoming trouble with a capital t. Just because you have a vacation doesn’t mean you sit and eat up our heads with your nonsense. Either go out or start working.”
“But it’s raining, Aunty. You don’t want us to get wet, do you?”
“You think the whole city pulls a blanket over its head because of a little rain? Take the umbrella, it’s hanging from the cupboard in your room.”
“That’s a ladies’ umbrella.”
“Then get wet. But stop bothering us.”
“Okay,” said Om. “We’ll go somewhere in the afternoon.”
They removed themselves to the verandah, and Maneck suggested a second visit to the aquarium. Om said he had a better idea: “Jeevan’s shop.”
“Boring, yaar – there’s nothing to do there.”
Om revealed his plan: to convince Jeevan to let them measure female customers.
“Okay, let’s go,” grinned Maneck.
“I’ll teach you this game,” said Om. “Measuring the chest is easier than playing chess. And much more fun, for sure.”
The shop was quiet when they arrived. Jeevan was taking a nap, stretched out on the floor behind the counter. On a stool by his head a transistor radio played soft sarangi music. Om turned up the volume, and Jeevan awoke with a start.
He sat gulping air for a minute, his eyes bulging. “Why did you do that? It’s a joke or what? Now I’ll have a headache the whole afternoon.”
He refused to even consider Om’s offer of free help. “Measure my customers? Forget it. I know what you are up to. That swelling between your legs will drag my shop’s good name through the mud.”
Om promised to behave professionally and not let his fingers wander. He declared that his skills were rusting due to working from paper patterns. “I just want to keep in touch with real tailoring.”
“Tits are what you want to keep in touch with. You can’t fool me. Stay away from my lady customers, I’m warning you.”
Maneck wandered into the changing booth behind the curtain. “Wouldn’t it be fun to hide in here when they came for a trial.”
Om inspected the interior too. He found three clothes hooks and a mirror, but nowhere to conceal oneself. “It’s impossible,” he concluded.
“You think so, do you?” said Jeevan. “Now let me show you smart boys something.” He led them behind the counter, to the rear of the partition that formed the back of the booth. “Put your eye to that,” he said, indicating a crack in one corner.
Om gasped. “You can see everything from here!”
“Let me look,” said Maneck, pushing him. “It’s perfect, yaar!”
Jeevan strummed his lips and smirked. “Yes, but don’t get any ideas. I will be in a madhouse before I let you in here.”
“Aray, please!” said Om. “It’s such a perfect top-to-bottom free show!”
“Perfect, yes. Free, no. Everything has a price. You go for cinema, there is a ticket to buy. Take the train, and there is the fare to pay.”
“How much?” asked Om.
“Never mind how much. I cannot risk my shop’s honour.”
“Please, yaar, Jeevan, please!”
He began to relent. “You’ll behave yourselves? No going crazy at the sight of flesh?”
“We’ll do whatever you say.”
“Okay. Two rupees each.”
Om watched Maneck check his pocket. “Yes, we have enough.”
“But I want only one at a time back here. And no noise, not even breathing, understand?” They nodded. Jeevan examined the order book. Two women were due that evening, one for a blouse and one for pants. “Who wants which?”
Maneck suggested tossing a coin. “Heads,” said Om, and won. He closed his eyes, smiling, trying to decide, and selected pants. Jeevan said they had at least an hour to wait, the customers would be coming after five. Since the rain had eased up, the two decided to go for a stroll.
It was a tense, silent walk, the air heavy with expectation. They spoke just once, to concur that they should be getting back in case the women were early. Barely fifteen minutes had elapsed.
They waited on edge in the shop, getting on Jeevan’s nerves. There were four false alarms – people collecting repairs and alterations. At a quarter to six, their patience was rewarded.
“Yes, madam, your blouse is ready for trial,” said Jeevan, giving the boys a discreet nod. He browsed through a stack of clothes to allow Maneck time to slide behind the counter into the dark space. Then, retrieving the blouse, he indicated the curtain to the woman. “In there, madam, thank you very much.”
Maneck thought the pounding of his heart would knock down the partition. High heels tapping sharply on the stone floor, she entered, hung the new blouse on a hook, and drew the curtain. She pulled her neatly tucked top out of her skirt and unbuttoned it, her back towards him. He watched her reflection in the mirror.
He held his breath as the top came away. She was wearing a white brassière. Her thumbs travelled under the straps, shifting their position. Two red lines upon the skin of her shoulders marked the place. Then she moved her hands behind and unhooked the brassière.
For one insane moment he thought it was coming off. He clenched his fist. But the hook was merely moved to the next loop on the fraying elastic band. She rolled her shoulders a couple of times and adjusted the cups, pushing them higher till they settled snugly, and put on the new blouse.
Beads of perspiration rolled down Maneck’s forehead and stung his eyes. She left the booth. He took the opportunity to inhale deeply. Through the crack, past the open curtain, he could see Jeevan checking the fit. Om turned suddenly and winked at the crack, putting his hands on his chest and squeezing.
The blouse was satisfactory. She returned to change, and exited in less than a minute. Maneck waited; he could hear Jeevan thanking her and providing a final delivery date. Then the high heels tapped their way down the steps, and he emerged from the hiding place.
He wiped his brow on his sleeve, shaking out the shirt underneath his armpits. “It’s so hot behind the partition.”
“Don’t blame the partition. Your heat rises from your lower part,” laughed Jeevan. He gestured for the money, and Maneck paid up.
“How was it?” asked Om. “What did you see?”
“It was great. But she was wearing a bra.”
“What did you expect?” said Jeevan. “My customers are not low-class village women. They work in big offices – secretaries, receptionists, typists. They apply lipstick and rouge, and wear top-quality underwear.”
Om had to wait another half-hour before his customer arrived. He sidled nonchalantly past the counter, disappearing before Jeevan found the garment and directed the woman into the booth.
When she stepped out Maneck wished he could have opted for this one. The way the new pa
She returned behind the curtain. Seconds later, there was a muffled thud and a scream.
Jeevan jumped. “Madam! Is everything all right?”
“I heard a noise! From the back!”
“Please madam, it’s all right, I promise you,” he grovelled with masterful calm and speed. “It’s only rats. Please don’t worry.”
She came out flustered, flinging the pants on the counter. He reverently restored them to their hanger. “I’m very sorry you were frightened, madam. Rats are such a problem wherever you go in the city.”
“You should do something about it,” she said angrily. “It’s not nice for your customers.”
“Yes, madam. Sometimes it hides in the boxes behind the partition and makes a noise. I’ll have to spread more poison for it.” He apologized again and saw her off.
Om emerged wearing a sheepish smile, quite ready to be teased about his trouser-rat. Jeevan clipped him viciously over the head. “Saala idiot! Such huge trouble you could have made for me! What caused the noise?”
“Sorry, I slipped.”
“Slipped! What filthy things were you doing that you slipped? Get out, both of you! I don’t want to see you again in my shop!”
Maneck tried to placate Jeevan by offering the two rupees for Om’s viewing, but that only aggravated him further. He swept the hand aside and looked ready to strike him. “Keep your money! And keep this troublesome boy out of my shop!” He pushed them through the door and down the steps.
They were subdued as they walked up the lane to the main road. A crow shrieked from a window ledge. The sobering effect of Jeevan’s rage was deepened by the evening light lapping at the hem of darkness. Streetlamps started to flicker tentatively – yellow buds, intimating the arrival of the full glow. Something scampered across their path into an alley.
“Look,” said Maneck. “There goes madam’s rat.” They caught a flash of pink skin through the rodent’s diseased fur, patchy and mange-eaten.
“It’s searching for Advanced Tailoring,” said Om. “Wants to order a new suit.” They laughed. The rat disappeared into the alley’s darker recesses where a gutter gurgled. There were sharp squeaks, and sounds of splashing. They headed for the bus stop.
“So tell me,” Maneck nudged with an elbow. “What were you doing in there?”
Smiling wryly, Om made a fist and moved it up and down. A short laugh that was more like a cough broke from Maneck.
Ahead, something spattered onto the crowded pavement from an upper-storey window. Pedestrians who had been soiled screamed at the building. They reached the entrance steps and raced upstairs, though it was impossible to know which window was hiding the culprit.
“Did you see much?” asked Maneck.
“Everything. Her new pants were so tight, when she pulled them down her knickers went down as well.”
Maneck kicked a stone into the gutter. “You saw the hair?”
Om nodded. “It was a real bush.” He used both hands to describe it, wriggling his fingers to emphasize a rich thicket. “Have you ever seen one?”
“Only once. A long time ago. We used to have an ayah when I was small. I climbed on a chair while she was bathing and looked through the ventilator over the door. It scared me. It seemed fierce, as though it was going to bite.”
Om laughed. “It wouldn’t scare you now, for sure. You’d jump right into it.”
“Just give me a chance.”
They waited for the signal change to cross the road. At the edge of the footpath two policemen held up a rope, taut between them, keeping the crowds from spilling into traffic. People surged against the barrier like waves testing the shoreline. The policemen dug in their heels, straining, shouting, containing the impatient homeward-bound flock.
“You know, it’s a good thing the rat wasn’t really behind the partition,” said Maneck. “It would have chewed off your little soosoti in one second.”
“What do you mean by little?” said Om. “It stands up like this.” And he brandished his forearm energetically.
The proscriptive red hand on the traffic light disappeared, and a green stick-figure illuminated the round glass. The policemen skipped aside nimbly with the rope; the crowd swarmed across.
Fireworks reached their climax on the night before Divali, and sleep was difficult till well after midnight. At each detonation, especially of the red cubes called Atom Bombs, Ishvar sighed “Hai Ram” and put his hands over his ears.
“What’s the point in covering your ears after the bang?” said Om.
“What else can I do. Bilkool crazy, a time of light and celebration turning into pain and earache. Is this any way to welcome Lord Ram back to Ayodhya from his exile in the forest?”
“The problem is too much wealth in the city,” said Dina. “If people must make smoke of their money, I wish they would do it prettily.” She flinched as another Atom Bomb exploded, “If I was in charge, only sparklers, fountains, and chakardees would be allowed.”
“Hahnji, but the great religious experts will tell you that it wouldn’t be enough to frighten away the evil spirits,” said Ishvar sarcastically.
“These Atom Bombs will scare the gods as well,” she said, retreating from the verandah. “In Lord Ram’s place, I would run straight back to the forest rather than face the explosions of these fanatics.”
With a plug of cotton wool in each ear she started to work on the quilt. Ishvar followed her in a few minutes, sitting with his hands over his ears, and she got cotton wool for him too. At the next boom he beamed, to say it was working.
Maneck and Om refused to relinquish the verandah, though they stuck fingers in their ears if a reveller began preparing a string of red cubes. “Too bad we’re watching,” said Om. “Or they’d be in bed – jumping, for sure.”
“Who?”
“Dinabai and my uncle, who else?”
“You have a dirty mind.”
“Yes, I do,” said Om. “Listen, a riddle for you: to make it stiff and stand up straight, she rubs it; to make it slick and slide it in, she licks it. What is she doing?” He was laughing before he had finished reciting the question, while Maneck hushed him with a finger to his lips.
“Come on, answer. What’s she doing?”
“Fucking, what else?”
“Wrong. Give up? She’s threading a needle,” said Om smugly, as Maneck clapped a hand to his forehead. “Now whose mind is dirty?”
There were six days of vacation left before college reopened, and Om had an idea for more fun. He knew that age and moisture had distorted the bathroom door and its frame, leaving a sizeable gap when shut. He said they could take turns peeking while Dina bathed. The other would keep watch, to make sure Ishvar didn’t catch them at it.
“Your story about the bathing ayah gave me the inspiration. So what do you think?”
“You’re mad,” said Maneck. “I’m not going to.”
“What are you scared of? She won’t know, yaar.”
“I just don’t want to.”
“Okay, then I will.” He got up.
“No, you won’t.” Maneck grabbed his arm.
“Aray go! Who are you to tell me?” He wrenched his arm away, whereupon Maneck gripped his shoulders and pushed him back in the chair. They grappled in earnest. Om lashed out with his feet but Maneck worked his way behind the chair and pinned him to it. Om gave up, unable to move.
“You’re a selfish bastard,” he said softly. “I know you. All those months you lived alone with her, you must have watched her naked every morning in the bathroom. Now you won’t let me have the same fan.”
“It’s not true,” said Maneck vehemently from behind the chair. “I never have.”
“You’re lying. At least admit it. Come on, describe her for me if you won’t let me look. What about her tits? Are the nipples nice and pointy? And the –”
??
“- and the brown circles around the nipples, how big are they?”
“Shut up, I’m warning you.”
“And the cunt? Is it big and juicy with lots of –”
Maneck moved in front of the chair and slapped him across the mouth. Shocked, Om clutched his face silently for a few seconds. The pain filled his eyes. “You lousy fucker!” He came to life then, and sprang at him, swinging his fists wildly.
The chair fell over. Maneck caught one blow on the head, the rest landing harmlessly on his arms. To subdue Om without hurting him, he grabbed his shirt and pulled him into a close embrace; now the fists had no room to travel. There was the sound of something tearing. The pocket came away in his hand, and a rent appeared below the shoulder.
“Bastard!” screamed Om, redoubling his efforts. “You tore my shirt!”
The commotion grew loud enough for Ishvar to hear over the sound of his machine, bringing him to the verandah. “Hoi-hoi! What is this goonda-giri?”
In his presence their desire to fight suddenly evaporated. It was easy for him to separate them. Now the violence was all in the looks. They glared at each other for a moment before turning away.
“He tore my shirt!” cried Om, staring down at the disembowelled pocket.
“Such things happen if you fight. But why were you behaving like that?”
“He tore my shirt,” anguished Om again.
Meanwhile, Dina had heard the shouting and cut short her bath. “I can’t believe it,” she said, when Ishvar told her. “I thought it was ruffians on the street. You two? Why?”
“Ask him,” they each muttered.
“He tore my shirt,” added Om, “look,” and flapped the torn pocket before her.
“Shirt, shirt, shirt! Is that all you can say?” scolded Ishvar. “Shirt can be repaired. Why were you fighting?”
“I’m not rich like him, I only have two shirts. And he tore one.”
Maneck rushed to his room, grabbed the first shirt in sight, and returned to fling it at Om. He caught it and threw it back. Maneck let it lie where it fell.