Once, many years ago, she had overcome his objections and taken him to visit one of her gurus: she had somehow got it into her head that this man would be able to remedy her failure to bear a male child and she had insisted that Bahram go with her to see him. After resisting for months Bahram had finally relented when she pointed out that her child-bearing years were almost at an end: in the hope of buying some peace at home, he had agreed to visit the miracle-monger. This master of fecundity turned out to be a hirsute, ash-covered sadhu who lived in the jungles of Borivli, two hours from the city: he had asked Bahram many questions and had taken extensive readings of his pulse; then after much cogitation and coaxing he had announced that the cause of the problem had been revealed to him – it lay not with Shireenbai but with him, Bahram. The masculine energies of Bahram’s bodily fluids had become depleted, he said, because of his domestic circumstances: it could scarcely be otherwise with a ghar-jamai – a man who lived under the roof of his wife’s family was bound to be weakened by his dependency on his in-laws. To make him strong enough to sire a male child would be no easy task, but could be achieved if he, Bahram, were willing to dose himself with potions, apply certain ointments, and of course, contribute very large sums of money to the sadhu’s ashram.

Bahram had been uncharacteristically patient in enduring this performance, but at the end of it he let his annoyance show by asking: Are you sure you know what you are talking about?

The old man, whose cataract-clouded eyes contained a surprising glint of shrewdness, had smiled at him sweetly and answered: Why? Do you have any reason to think that your seed is capable of begetting a male child?

Bahram had understood at once that the old man had sprung a carefully crafted trap. To denounce him as a fraud would surely have excited Shireenbai’s suspicions, and expensive though the alternative might be, the cost was negligible in comparison with the price he would have to pay if it came to be known that he had already sired a son – a bastard. A short while ago, a similar revelation had caused an upheaval in the community: the man concerned, a trader of Bahram’s acquaintance, had been expelled from the Parsi panchayat. Not only had he become a social outcast, a pariah to whom no Parsi would so much as rent a room, he had also been financially ruined because no one would do business with him any more; there was almost no price that Bahram would not have paid to prevent such an outcome.

Yet, when he tried to speak the words of denial he found himself gagging on them. It was one thing to skim over the subject in silence; but to actively deny his son’s existence, to pretend that he had played no part in engendering the life of his own child – this was impossibly difficult. Fatherhood and family were a kind of religion to him, and it would be like denying his faith, erasing the sacred ties of blood that connected him, not only to his son but also to his daughters.