by Michael Chacko Daniels

“Three dozen of the best,” Dad barks in English.

Zane Gray’s heart-thumping western adventure fades as I devote full attention to the magnificent sounds of my larger-than-life father.

I have a ringside seat on mother’s famously modern, washable, cream, Rexene sofa, eight feet from his glass-topped, metal frame desk.

The Man of the House has a thick, black-knuckle grip on his precious, large, black telephone, which he has planted firmly against his right ear. His left index finger is thrust into the other auditory canal to shut out ambient noise and my irrepressible three siblings in our small, office-cum-residence Bombay flat on a sticky Bombay night in July 1958.

Could the finger-in-the-orifice lock qualify as a yoga mudra, I wonder.

The old, brown Bush radio, working for once, periodically blares All India Radio’s 9 p.m. news: Iraq’s ruler has been overthrown... United States marines have landed in Beirut to protect the Lebanese government... Castro continues to pound the forces of Fulgencio Batista...

“Inform Crawford Market foolwallah, nothing but the best will do,” Dad shouts.

Foolwallah?

Linguistically challenged, I break words down: Wallah — Hindi; English equivalents — fellow, vendor, merchant.

But does foolfellow, foolvendor or foolmerchant make sense?

No.

Undoubtedly, the meaning will hit me suddenly. It usually does with Dad’s Hindi inversions, fuel for our diversions — rhymes, puns and derisions. I make allowances for him. Having grown up in the southern Indian state of Kerala — Dravidian Malayalam-land, he calls it, nostalgically — he enunciates the different sounds of Bombay Hindi, alien to his tongue, as if he had acquired them from irritated, impatient British colonials.

“Repeat, no second best. For sending foreign, for Very VIP. Repeat, Most Important Foreign Person. Absolutely no error permitted. Inform foolwallah: Satisfied customer — life-long customer.”

What’s happening? my raised eyebrows telegraph to mother — roused from the kitchen by The Bark.

Her yellow cotton sari is wet in the middle from washing the night’s dishes. A tracery of the day’s sweat marks the visible left armpit of the obligatory tight choli blouse.

She ignores me. Dad’s words mesmerize.

What worries her?

As soon as he’s off the telephone, she mumbles in a rush, inaudibly, cropping her syntax to suit her speed, “Who you sending three dozen roses to? All neighbors hear. All windows open. They like government’s All India News from our radio, our news from your mouth.”

They certainly do. And their sons torment me with their spectacular and sundry knowledge of us.

I sense she wants to describe the size of his mouth, but edits it out at the last moment.

Her wheat-colored face reveals traces of red, her brown eyes have grown large.

Will she cry?

“What do you mean, woman?”

“I came into the room and I heard you!”

“Say what?”

“Three dozen roses…”

“Stop! Roses? Who wants roses?”

“You ordered roses…”

“What’s this from you about roses? You only like lilies.”

“That’s what I…”

“You have a sister by the name of Lily, and always say, ‘I only lilies like.’”

A smile transforms her face. “You’re ordering lilies for me? What a change! Why didn’t you make it a total surprise?”

The pleasure on her face stops him for a moment.

“What secrets are possible in this small flat?” he asks, finally.

“Why should we have secrets? Secrets are for people who have something to hide. Good people have nothing to hide. That’s why I throw the windows open. Many neighbors shut their windows. Everything hush-hush. God only knows what’s happening! That is, until no time for anyone to help.”

Dad’s eyebrows butt. He shakes his head, impatiently.

Woman of the House out of control, again, I assume, he’s thinking.

His raised palms face her, form stop signs.

This hand gesture definitely qualifies as a yoga mudra, I decide.

“Don’t be silly, woman! You are completely mistaken!”

“Who are you calling ‘Silly woman’? In my father’s house, no one called me ‘Silly Woman!’”

“You were just a girl then. Now, you see secrets where there are none. Enough! Stop this nonsense! I wasn’t ordering flowers, not for you, not for anyone else. When I order flowers, I say flowers. When I order fruit, I say fruit. Anyway, I order flowers only for weddings and funerals. You know anyone getting married? Anyone kicked the bucket? No? Good! I was ordering fool.”

Fool?

A light goes on. I attack the mystery: Did his inflexible tongue mean phoolwallah (flowermerchant), phalwallah (fruitmerchant) or foolwallah (clownmerchant)? It must be one of the first two, I decide — even for him, three dozen clowns would be a strange order.

“Who are you calling ‘Silly’? Only a fool would say fool for fruit. Fruit is pronounced phal in Hindi. Pha not foo,” her lips and teeth move swiftly up, down, back and forth in a dance that produces no look of enlightenment on his face.

She continues: “When you said foolwallah, I thought, ‘Any ordinary person would think, Man of the House is ordering flowers. It couldn’t be clowns. What use would he have for clowns?’ Though listening to you murder Hindi, any ordinary person would have to be forgiven for wondering — Who is clown and who silly?”

I can see he’s about to blow a nut. I am glad soft objects dominate within his reach. No paper weights, no graven images, the latter a consequence of his Baptist persuasion — of the British, not the American, variety.

The heaviest items are the slim telephone directory and a pincushion.

I’m sure I’ll survive one or both, in case he surrenders to impulse and gives a heave-ho and misses Mum, as he usually does.

I discount the telephone as a missile — it is the chief tool of his trade, more valuable than gold and not easily replaceable, if damaged, in telephone-starved Bombay. All other things, he, himself, has strategically removed because of his habit of throwing valuable objects during periodic bouts of anger.

Miraculously, he doesn’t respond.

Is he counting to 100? I wonder. Is he reforming?

A standstill.

In the human silence, the reassuring rumble of vibrant Bombay’s eclectic street energy — a lumbering double-decker bus, a wobbling lorry and an itinerant, melancholic songstress dominate the night.

The Woman of the House, unsatisfied with his answers, renews her cross examination: “Who were you ordering the fruit for? For one of your foreign women friends who say, ‘You are so handsome!’? Don’t say, ‘It’s for business.’ It’s not time for Diwali holiday gifts for your contacts.”

“What rot, woman! I don’t make gifts to females. Can I help it if these foreign women decide I am handsome? Pay no attention to them. Rest assured, if I were in their country they would have nothing to do with me.”

“You certainly pay attention to them. If not for one of your women friends, then, for whom, and what for?”

“First, what? I ordered Alphonsoes.”

“Alphonsoes?”

“Yes, Goa-style.”

“Why Goa-style? Are they Portuguese-trained fools?”

“No! No! Ha! Ha! Ha! Only a Kerala backwaters’ woman would say that. Think what, not who.”

“Insults and riddles will not hide a guilty secret from me when I set my mind to it.”

“Alphonso mangoes, woman! Not Fools! Alphonsoes! India’s finest mangoes!”

“Why the best Alphonsoes?”

“To send to Canada…”

“I knew it! You philanderer! Womanizer! Foreign skirt-chaser! They will be the death of you, yet! For that Mrs. Smith who went home to Winnipeg with her missionary husband and divorced him soon afterwards. When she was here, her lips were very, very busy with ‘How charming you are!’”

“Only a woman like you, from Kerala’s backwaters, would mistake politeness for passion.”

“Politeness? Big difference between ‘Charming!’ and — ‘Good morning!’ ‘Excuse me!’ and ‘Thank you!’ Any ordinary person would acknowledge the difference, except Man of the House!”

“You have a filthy mind! I was thinking of your son, only.”

I wake up.

“Is he not your son, also? What has he got to do with Mrs. Smith? Did he run after her? Whose mind is the filthy one? Not mine! I am a God-fearing woman.”

“Yes, he’s our son. He had nothing to do with her; shied away from her all the time.”

I squirm. Mentally, I launch a telephone book at him and strike bull’s-eye.

“How will sending three dozen Alphonso mangoes to Canada help our son?”

I, too, am intrigued.

“He wants to study abroad, right?”

Could he be smarter than I give him credit?

“Yes, but I wish he would remain in Bombay.”

“When a young man seeks new horizons, who are we to stand in his way?”

Is this the new Man of the House?

“You don’t have a mother’s heart.”

“That I don’t. Nor does he. Do you want to know who the mangoes are for?”

She shows him the face of her right palm and gives it a good shake.

“You can hold on to big, new, guilty secret. I think I’m going to wash some clothes before going to bed. You have hatched some crazy scheme, again. That’s why my brothers called you Mr. Long Shot.”

“Better Mr. Long Shot, than your brothers — ‘Messrs Missed Opportunities and No Shots.’”

“Open your mouth — utter bad words about my family. I never disrespect yours.

He rises from the chair. My arm is ready to protect myself, be it telephone book or pincushion that he’s about to throw.

He reactivates his Stop Sign Mudra.

My sigh of relief is audible.

“The mangoes are for one John George Diefenbaker, Prime Minister of Canada. All three dozen of them. India’s finest Alphonsoes I will send three dozen every month until our son gets a scholarship to attend a Canadian college.”

The Woman of the House looks at me, eyes dilated. I’m not sure whether it’s from shock or admiration for his long shot. Or from fear his new gambit will launch me away from her. A mother’s heart, I know little of.

But my neighborhood tormentors’ sharp ears, I do.

My face remains frozen in time.

Her right hand covers her mouth.

She looks up at the large, framed print of Christ in a field of wheat, hanging above the Bush radio.

Her silent prayer wafts past me.

“Three dozen Alphonso mangoes for Mr. Diefenbaker!” she exclaims, rising. “You think he’s one of your favors-in-exchange-for-gifts business contacts! What will you think of next? I am going to wash some clothes. Make sure you get some phal for us, too. We all enjoy eating mangoes this time of the year. We will appreciate them.”

~ ~ ~

Next day, my pals have a new song:

Three dozen Alphonso fools

For one Mr. Diefenbaker,

P. M. of Canada.

 

Foolwallah, none but the best, I repeat.

Please, Mr. Diefenbaker,

Eat my fool,

Take my son to Canada.

Yours truly,

Mr. Long Shot.

Our windows continue to remain open per orders of the Woman of the House.

Man of the House awaits Mr. Diefenbaker’s thank you note.

~ ~ ~

Three months later, Mr. Diefenbaker’s office responds: “Thank you for the fruit. We must inform you that all such agricultural produce is promptly destroyed. Do not send any more.”

Woman of the House says, “An ordinary person would say, you would have had a better ‘long shot,’ if you had ordered three dozen homebred Canadian clowns to entertain your good Mr. Diefenbaker. If you made any monthly advance orders of Alphonsoes, one small reminder: The children and I love mangoes. We promise to eat, not promptly destroy, them.”

To me she says later, “Put this down in your score book: ‘A complete No Shot for the one-and-only Master of Missed Opportunities.’”

She paused, then added: “What else can anyone expect from a man who doesn’t know a mother’s heart?”

 

 

First published in Dragonfire

Michael Chacko Daniels (GJ,Medill, Northwestern University), former community worker and clown, grew up in India. He lives and works in San Francisco. His short stories have appeared in Cricket Online Review, Dragonfire, Denver Syntax, and Apollo's Lyre. Books:  Split in Two (2004), Anything Out of Place Is Dirt (2004), and That Damn Romantic Fool (2005).