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“You think! You don’t know?” Dr. Daruwalla cried.
“The point is, I need dialogue to cover every contingency,” the actor said.
“Precisely,” said Detective Patel.
“The deputy commissioner showed me the photographs of those drawings,” John D. said; his voice dropped away. “There must also be private drawings—things she keeps secret.” Again Farrokh was reminded of the boy who’d cried out, “They’re drowning the elephants! Now the elephants will be angry!”
Julia went to help Nancy finish dressing. Nancy had brought a suitcase of her clothes to the Daruwallas’, for she couldn’t make up her mind about what to wear to the New Year’s Eve party—not without Julia’s help. The two women decided on something surprisingly demure; it was a gray sleeveless sheath with a mandarin collar, with which Nancy wore a simple string of pearls. Dr. Daruwalla recognized the necklace because it was Julia’s. When the doctor retired to his bedroom and his bath, he brought a clipboard and a pad of lined paper with him; he also brought a bottle of beer. He was so tired, the hot bath and the cold beer made him instantly sleepy, but even with his eyes closed he was seeing the possible options for dialogue between John D. and the second Mrs. Dogar—or was he writing for Rahul and Inspector Dhar? That was a part of the problem; the screenwriter felt he didn’t know the characters he was writing dialogue for.
Julia told Farrokh how Nancy had become so agitated-trying to decide what to wear—that the poor woman had worked herself into a sweat; she’d had to take a bath in the Daruwallas’ tub, a concept that caused the screenwriter’s mind to wander. There was a lingering scent in the bathroom—probably not a perfume or a bath oil but something unfamiliar, not Julia’s—and the strangeness of it mingled with the doctor’s memory of that time in Goa. The foremost issue to resolve, in order to initiate the opening line of Inspector Dhar’s dialogue, was whether or not to have John D. know that Mrs. Dogar was Rahul. Shouldn’t he tell her that he knew who she was—that he knew her former self—and shouldn’t this be the first phase of the seduction? (“I always wanted you”—that kind of thing.)
The decision to have Nancy dress so demurely—she even wore her hair pulled up, off her neck—had sprung from Nancy’s desire not to be recognized by Rahul. Although the deputy commissioner had repeatedly told his wife that he very much doubted Rahul would recognize her, Nancy’s fear of being recognized persisted. The only time Rahul had seen her, Nancy had been naked and her hair was down. Now Nancy wanted her hair up; she’d told Julia that her choice of dress was “the opposite of naked.”
But if the gray sheath was severe, there was no hiding the heavy womanliness of Nancy’s hips and breasts; also, her heavy hair, which usually rested on her shoulders, was too thick and not quite long enough to be held neatly up and kept off her neck—especially if she danced. Strands of her hair would come loose; Nancy would soon look uncontained. The screenwriter decided that he wanted Nancy to dance with Dhar; after that, the possible scenes began to flow.
Farrokh put a towel around his waist and poked his head into the dining room, where Julia was serving some snacks; although it would be a long time before the midnight supper at the Duckworth Club, no one really wanted to eat. The doctor decided to send Dhar down to the alley, where the dwarf was waiting in the Ambassador. Dr. Daruwalla knew that Vinod was acquainted with many of the exotic dancers at the Wetness Cabaret; possibly there was one who owed the dwarf a favor.
“I want to get you a date,” Farrokh told John D.
“With a stripper?” John D. asked.
“Tell Vinod the more tarted up she is, the better,” the screenwriter replied. He guessed that New Year’s Eve was an important night at the Wetness Cabaret; whoever the exotic dancer was, she’d have to leave the Duckworth Club early. That was fine with Farrokh; he wanted the woman to make something of a production over leaving before midnight. Whoever she was, the screenwriter knew that her choice of dress would be the opposite of demure—she certainly wouldn’t look very Duckworthian. She’d be sure to get everyone’s attention.
On such short notice, Vinod wouldn’t have a wide range of choices; of the women at the Wetness Cabaret, the dwarf picked the one with the exotic-dancing name of Muriel. She’d impressed Vinod as being more sensitive than the other strippers. After all, someone in the audience had thrown an orange at her; such blatant disrespect had upset her. To be hired for a little dancing at the Duckworth Club—particularly, to be asked to dance with Inspector Dhar—would be quite a step up in the world for Muriel. Short notice or not, Vinod delivered the exotic dancer to the Daruwallas’ apartment in a hurry.
When Dr. Daruwalla had finished dressing, there was barely time for John D. to rehearse the dialogue. Both Nancy and Muriel needed coaching, and Detective Patel had to get Mr. Sethna on the phone; the detective recited quite a long list of instructions to the steward, which doubtless left the old eavesdropper with a surfeit of disapproval. Vinod would drive Dhar and the exotic dancer to the Duckworth Club; Farrokh and Julia would follow with the Patels.
John D. managed to pull Dr. Daruwalla aside; the actor steered the screenwriter out on the balcony. When they were alone, Dhar said, “I’ve got a question regarding my character, Farrokh, for you seem to have given me some dialogue that is sexually ambiguous—at best.”
“I was just trying to cover every contingency, as you would say,” the screenwriter replied.
“But I gather that I’m supposed to be interested in Mrs. Dogar as a woman—that is, as a man would be interested in her,” Dhar said. “While at the same time, I seem to be implying that I was once interested in Rahul as a man—that is, as a man is interested in another man.”
“Yes,” Farrokh said cautiously. “I’m trying to imply that you’re sexually curious, and sexually aggressive—a bit of a bisexual, maybe …”
“Or even strictly a homosexual whose interest in Mrs. Dogar is, in part, because of how interested I was in Rahul,” John D. interrupted. “Is that it?”
“Something like that,” said Dr. Daruwalla. “I mean, we think Rahul was once attracted to you—we think Mrs. Dogar is still attracted to you. Beyond that, what do we really know?”
“But you’ve made my character a kind of sexual mystery,” the actor complained. “You’ve made me odd. It’s as if you’re gambling that the weirder I am, the more Mrs. Dogar will go for me. Is that it?”
Actors are truly impossible, the screenwriter thought. What Dr. Daruwalla wanted to say was this: Your twin has experienced decidedly homosexual inclinations. Does this sound familiar to you? Instead, what Farrokh said was this: “I don’t know how to shock a serial killer. I’m just trying to attract one.”
“And I’m just asking you for a fix on my character,” Inspector Dhar replied. “It’s always easier when I know who I’m supposed to be.”
There was the old Dhar, Dr. Daruwalla thought—sarcastic to the core. Farrokh was relieved to see that the movie star had regained his self-confidence.
That was when Nancy came out on the balcony. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she asked, but she went straight to the railing and leaned on it; she didn’t wait for an answer.
“No, no,” Dr. Daruwalla mumbled.
“That’s west, isn’t it?” Nancy asked. She was pointing to the sunset.
“The sun usually sets in the west,” Dhar said.
“And if you went west across the sea—from Bombay straight across the Arabian Sea—what would you come to?” Nancy asked. “Make it west and a little north,” she added.
