Such A Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry

Author:Rohinton Mistry [Mistry, Rohinton]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-05-24T22:49:44+00:00

iv

Mr. Rabadi gathered up the newspapers outside his front door. He was unable to lift the lot in his arms, and insisted that Mrs. Rabadi help him. She was all for selling them to the jaripuranawalla but he would not listen. ‘I will show that rascal! You just do as I say!’

‘Yipyip! Yipyipyipyip!’ Dimple ran excitedly round the papers, tumbling the piles Mr. Rabadi had made. He dragged her inside, bade Mrs. Rabadi come out, then shut the door. ‘Carry,’ he ordered, pointing to one stack, and took the other himself.

In the compound, they ran into Inspector Bamji. ‘Hallo, hallo!’ he said. ‘Selling old papers? But shop will be closed now.’ He looked at his watch in confirmation.

‘I’ll show him!’ muttered Mr. Rabadi. ‘I came out to take Dimple for a walk, and tripped on them! Almost fell down the stairs and broke my neck! Outside my door he threw them!’

‘Who?’ asked Bamji.

‘That—that rascal!’ he sputtered. ‘Noble in name only!’

‘Gustad?’

‘Trying to kill me, laying a trap like that outside my door! What does he think in his own mind of himself?’ He dropped the papers close to the bushes. Mrs. Rabadi looked at him questioningly, clutching tight her stack, whereupon he grabbed her hands and pulled them apart. From his pocket he withdrew a matchbox.

‘Are you sure?’ said Inspector Bamji.

Mr. Rabadi struck and dropped a match. ‘First his son steals my papers!’ The newspapers caught. ‘If he thinks he can throw this outside my door and I will forget everything, he is mistaken!’ Within seconds the stacks were burning fiercely, which added fuel to Mr. Rabadi’s inflammation. His face turned a bright orange. ‘It is not the newspapers I care about! There are manners, apologies, respectfulness at stake! There are principles involved! Let him learn once and for all who he is tangling with!’

Inspector Bamji had nothing to say. Tehmul came to watch the flames. ‘Hothothothot.’ He edged closer, and Inspector Bamji pulled him back. ‘Careful, you Scrambled Egg. Or your face will get fried.’

Suddenly, there were yells of fire! fire! ‘Aag laagi! Aag laagi! Help! Call the boombawalla!’ Cavasji, leaning out the window upstairs with the subjo garland around his neck, gave the alarm. Mr. and Mrs. Rabadi melted away to their flat. Cavasji turned his attention to the sky. ‘Once again You have done it! Inflicting suffering on the poor only! The stink, the noise, the flood—now the fire! Have You ever burnt the homes of rich sethiyas? Have You ever, tell me!’

Gustad heard the shouts and simultaneously saw the orange glow through the window. When he got outside, only Tehmul was there. ‘GustadGustad. Hothothothot.’

The blaze was dying. Charred bits of newspaper lay by the bushes. Soon the breeze carried the scraps through the compound, and Tehmul began chasing after them. Gustad went inside, amused that the dogwalla idiot had been provoked to such lengths.

But something more had been provoked, Gustad soon realized. Mosquitoes, stirred up as never before, and maddened by the smoke. They descended in clouds

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