AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Farrokh liked the phrase so much that he wrote it down.
“It was a transvestite prostitute, of all things,” Father Cecil whispered into the phone.
“Why are you whispering?” Dr. Daruwalla asked.
“The Father Rector is still upset about the episode,” Father Cecil confided to Farrokh. “Can you imagine? A hijra coming here—and during school hours!”
Dr. Daruwalla was amused at the presumed spectacle. “Perhaps he, or she, wanted to be better educated,” the doctor suggested to Father Cecil.
“It claimed it had been invited,” Father Cecil replied.
“It!” Dr. Daruwalla cried.
“Well, he or she—whatever it was, it was big and strong. A rampaging prostitute, a crazed cross-dresser!” Father Cecil whispered. “They give themselves hormones, don’t they?”
“Not hijras,” Dr. Daruwalla replied. “They don’t take estrogens; they have their balls and their penises removed—with a single cut. The wound is then cauterized with hot oil. It resembles a vagina.”
“Goodness—don’t tell me!” Father Cecil said.
“Sometimes, but not usually, their breasts are surgically implanted,” Dr. Daruwalla informed the priest.
“This one was implanted with iron!” Father Cecil said enthusiastically. “And young Martin was busy teaching. The Father Rector and I, and poor Brother Gabriel, had to deal with the creature by ourselves—until the police came.”
“It sounds exciting,” Farrokh remarked.
“Fortunately, none of the children saw it,” Father Cecil said.
“Aren’t transvestite prostitutes allowed to convert?” asked Dr. Daruwalla, who enjoyed teasing any priest.
“Raging hormones,” Father Cecil repeated. “It must have just given itself an overdose.”
“I told you—they don’t usually take estrogens,” the doctor said.
“This one was taking something,” Father Cecil insisted.
“May I speak with Martin now?” Dr. Daruwalla asked. “Or is he still busy teaching?”
“He’s eating his lunch with the midgets, or maybe he’s with the submidgets today,” Father Cecil replied.
It was almost time for the doctor’s lunch at the Duckworth Club. Dr. Daruwalla left a message for Martin Mills, but Father Cecil struggled with the message to such a degree that the doctor knew he’d have to call again. “Just tell him I’ll call him back,” Farrokh finally said. “And tell him we’re definitely going to the circus.”
“Oh, won’t that be fun!” Father Cecil said.
The Hawaiian Shirt
Detective Patel had wanted to compose himself before his lunch at the Duckworth Club; however, there was the interruption of this incident at St. Ignatius. It was merely a misdemeanor, but the episode had been brought to the deputy commissioner’s attention because it fell into the category of Dhar-related crimes. The perpetrator was one of the transvestite prostitutes who’d been injured by Dhar’s dwarf driver in the fracas on Falkland Road; it was the hijra whose wrist had
been broken by a blow from one of Vinod’s squash-racquet handles. The eunuch-transvestite had shown up at St. Ignatius, clubbing the old priests with his cast; his story was that Inspector Dhar had told all the transvestite prostitutes that they’d be welcome at the mission. Also, Dhar had told the hijras that they could always find him there.
“But it wasn’t Dhar,” the hijra told Detective Patel in Hindi. “It was someone being a Dhar imposter.” It would have been laughable to Patel, to hear a transvestite complaining that someone else was an “imposter,” if the detective had been in a laughing mood; instead, the deputy commissioner looked at the hijra with impatience and scorn. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, bony-faced hooker whose small breasts were showing because the top two buttons of his Hawaiian shirt were unbuttoned and the shirt was too loose for him; the looseness of his shirt and the tightness of his scarlet miniskirt were an absurd combination—hijra prostitutes usually wore saris. Also, they generally made more of an effort to be feminine than this one was making; his breasts (what the deputy commissioner could see of them) were shapely—in fact, they were very well formed—but there were whiskers on his chin and the noticeable shadow of a mustache on his upper lip. Possibly the hijra had thought that the colors of the Hawaiian shirt were feminine, not to mention the parrots and flowers; yet the shirt did little for his figure.
D.C.P. Patel continued the interrogation in Hindi. “Where’d you get that shirt?” the detective asked.
“Dhar was wearing it,” the prostitute replied.
“Not likely,” said the deputy commissioner.
“I told you he was being an imposter,” the prostitute said.
