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THE CROW ON THE CEILING FAN

Blood from Dwarfs

Usually, the dwarfs kept bringing him back—back to the circus and back to India The doctor was fa Bombay “for the last time”; almost every time he left India, he vowed that he’d never come back Then the years would pass—as a rule, notflight from Toronto That he was born in Bombay was not the reason; at least this hat the doctor claimed Both his mother and father were dead; his sister lived in London, his brother in Zürich The doctor’s as Austrian, and their children and grandchildren lived in England and in Canada; none of them wanted to live in India—they rarely visited the country—nor had a single one of theo back to Boain—if not forever, at least for as long as there were dwarfs in the circus

Achondroplastic dwarfs comprise the majority of circus clowns in India; they are the so-called circus ets—they’re dwarfs Achondroplasia is the most common type of short-limbed dwarfism An achondroplastic dwarf can be born of normal parents, but the dwarf’s children have a 50 percent chance of being dwarfs This type of dwarfisenetic event, a spontaneous mutation, which then becomes a dominant characteristic in the dwarf’s children No one has discovered a genetic enetics are bothering to search for such a marker

Quite possibly, only Dr Farrokh Daruwalla had the far-fetched idea of finding a genetic marker for this type of dwarfism By the passion of such a wishful discovery, the doctor was driven to gather samples of dwarf blood The whimsy of his idea was plain: his dwarf-blood project was of no orthopedic interest, and he was an orthopedic surgeon; genetics was only one of his hobbies Yet, although Farrokh’s visits to Bombay were infrequent and the duration of his stay was always short, no one in India had ever drawn blood from so many dwarfs; no one had bled as many dwarfs as Dr Daruwalla had bled In those Indian circuses that passed through Bombay, or in such circuses as frequented the smaller towns in Gujarat and Maharashtra, it ith affection that Farrokh was called “the vampire”

This is not to suggest that a physician in Dr Daruwalla’s field in India wouldn’t stumble across a fair number of dwarfs; they suffer fro knees and ankles, not to ressive, according to their age and weight; as dwarfs grow older and heavier, their pain gradually radiates into the buttocks, posterior thighs and calves

At the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Dr Daruwalla saw very fearfs; however, at the Hospital for Crippled Children in Bombay—where, from time to time, upon his return visits, Farrokh enjoyed the title of Honorary Consultant Surgeon—the doctor exah they would provide Dr Daruwalla with their faive him their blood It would have been unethical of hiainst their will; theachondroplastic dwarfs don’t necessitate testing their blood Therefore, it was only fair that Farrokh would explain the scientific nature of his research project and that he would ask these dwarfs for their blood Almost always, the dwarfs said no

A case in point was Dr Daruwalla’s closest dwarf acquaintance in Bombay; in the vernacular of friendship, Farrokh and Vinod went back a long way, for the das the doctor’s most visceral connection to the circus—Vinod was the first dhom Dr Daruwalla had asked for blood They hadroom of the doctor’s office at the Hospital for Crippled Children; their conversation coincided with the religious holiday of Diwali, which had brought the Great Blue Nile Circus to Boement at Cross Maidan A dwarf clown (Vinod) and his norht their dwarf son (Shivaji) to the hospital to have the child’s ears exained that the Hospital for Crippled Children concerned itself with ears—ears weren’t a common area of orthopedic complaint—but the dwarf correctly assumed that all dwarfs were cripples

Yet the doctor could never persuade Vinod to believe in the genetic reasons for either his or his son’s dwarfism That Vinod came from normal parents and was nonetheless a das not in Vinod’s view the result of a mutation The dwarf believed hisafter she conceived, she looked out theand the first living thing she saas a dwarf That Vinod’s wife, Deepa, was a normal woman—“almost beautiful,” by Vinod’s description—didn’t prevent Vinod’s son, Shivaji, fro a dwarf However, in Vinod’s view, this was not the result of a do what Vinod had told her Theshe looked at was Vinod, and that hy Shivaji was also a dwarf Vinod had told Deepa not to look at hiot

That Deepa was “almost beautiful” (or at least a normal woman), and yet she wasno dowry She’d been sold to the Great Blue Nile Circus by her mother And since Deepa was still very much a novice trapeze artist, she earned al her,” Vinod said

As for their child, Shivaji, recurrent and chronicachondroplastic dwarfs until the age of 8 or 10; if untreated, such infections often lead to significant hearing loss Vinod himself was half deaf But it simply wasn’t possible for Farrokh to educate Vinod on this enetics of his and Shivaji’s type of dwarfisers were characteristically splayed Dr Daruwalla also noted the dwarf’s short, broad feet and the flexed position of his elbohich could never be fully extended; the doctor tried to ertips reached only to his hips, his abdo on his back—the dwarf exhibited the typical forward curvature of the spine This lumbar lordosis and a tilted pelvis explain why all dwarfs waddle

“Dwarfs are just naturally waddling,” Vinod replied He was religiously stubborn and utterly unwilling to part with as le Vacutainer of his blood There he sat on the exa his head at Dr Daruwalla’s theories of dwarfism

Vinod’s head, like the heads of all achondroplastic dwarfs, was exceedingly large His face failed to convey a visible intelligence, unless a bulging forehead could be attributed to brain power; the ain typical of achondroplasia, was recessed The cheeks and the bridge of the nose were flattened, although the tip of the nose was fleshy and upturned; the jaw protruded to such a degree that Vinod’s chin was proreatest common sense, Vinod’s overall gressive appearance was further enhanced by a trait co achondroplastic dwarfs: because their tubular bones are shortened, theiran ith In Vinod’s case, a life of tuiven him especially well delineated shoulder ed He was a veteran circus clown, but he looked like aFarrokh was a little afraid of him

“And just what are you wanting with my blood?” the dwarf clown asked the doctor

“I’ which made you a dwarf,” Dr Daruwalla replied