Summary:
Mother is having tea on the veranda with an Indian Christian family—Mr. Phailbus, his daughter Maggie, and his son Theo—when the German doctor Dr. Selzer passes by. Dr. Selzer is staying in what used to be the Shankars’ rooms. Dr. Selzer is tall like Colonel Bharucha or Mr. Rogers but not intimidating. He’s polite and perhaps also shy. He has become Lenny’s main doctor. When Dr. Selzer joins the group, Mother praises his skill as a doctor. Her limp is almost completely healed. Then Mother begins praising Mr. Phailbus, who is a successful homeopath (an expert in natural healing). She talks about how Mr. Phailbus cured her of a cyst with a little powder she drank.
Then a sound in what used to be Rosy and Peter’s compound arouses the group. While shy Dr. Selzer runs off, the group sees what is happening in the women’s home. A Sikh bodyguard is fighting with a group of men. One of them is covered with blood and dirt but when he wipes his face they realize he is Ice-candy-man. He and his goondas (hired thugs) escape in a cart while Mother yells insults at them. The Sikh guard also yells, saying that he will never let anyone touch the rescued women in the compound.
The reason Ice-candy-man was there fighting is that Ayah was taken to the camp run by the Ministry for the Rehabilitation of Recovered Women. Ayah is being processed, but the women there talk to Hamida and Lenny and tell them that Ayah does not want to see them yet. In excitement, Lenny chants “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” and the women in the camp yell “Hai! Hai! Hai!” Ayah comes out to the courtyard eventually and looks at Lenny as if they were strangers.
Later Lenny learns that Ayah was freed thanks to Godmother, who “singlehandedly engendered the social and moral climate of retribution and justice required to rehabilitate our fallen Ayah.” If not for her help, it would have taken the bureaucracy of the new state of Pakistan to rescue Ayah. Thanks to Godmother, though, policemen came to Hira Mandi and entered Ice-candy-man’s house, taking Ayah with them in a black van to the Recovered Women’s Camp. Neither Ice-candy-man’s threats or his group of cronies were able to do anything to get Ayah back.
Analysis
Lenny’s family, and especially her mother, are very fond of doctors. Now instead of being trusted to Colonel Bharucha’s character, Lenny is seen by the German-Jewish doctor Dr. Selzer. Even Lenny’s limp is barely there anymore, bringing an end to a recurring topic from the beginning of the novel. Another thing notable about the interaction with the doctor is how Lenny’s mother talks to him. She “hold[s] her shapely lips and chiseled chin in the refined and mannered way she assumes when talking to Englishmen and others of the white species.” She is interested in appearing cultured and sophisticated to Europeans.
With the recovery of Ayah, the novel reaches a climax. After the event of her kidnapping and then her marriage, she is finally on the way to reaching her goal of escaping. Overjoyed with Ayah’s escape, Lenny begins chanting “Ayah! Ayah! Ayah!” on the roof. Interestingly, the women in the Camp also join in with their own call of mourning “Hai! Hai! Hai!” For Lenny, this call reflects “the history of their cumulative sorrows and the sorrows of their Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, and Rajput great-grandmothers.” This passage suggests that beyond religious divides, all women share something of this sorrow and courage.
In describing Godmother’s effective plan to rescue Ayah, this chapter also has some light criticism of Pakistan. If not for Godmother’s intervention, the issue of finding Ayah “could have been consigned to the ingenious bureaucratic eternity of a toddler nation greenly fluttering its flag—with a white stripe to represent its minorities—and a crescent and star.” Pakistan is still a “toddler” or child as a nation because it is very young. The phrase “bureaucratic eternity” suggests that it is slow and not very effective, more interested in waving flags in displays of nationalism than in getting things done.
