Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

He was released by the crowd into harsh light and strong fragrance. On the bridge that led out from the station, under bare electric bulbs, men sold orange and green perfumes in large bottles next to spreads of lemons, tennis shoes, keychains, wallets, chikoos . A boy handed him a cyclostyled advertisement on yellow paper as he left the bridge.

He dropped the advertisement and walked down the stairs, avoiding the one-armed beggar, into a welcome-carpet of fructose. In the market by the station, mango-sellers waited for the returning commuters: ripe and bursting, each mango was like a heartfelt apology from the city for the state of its trains. Masterji smelled the mangoes and accepted the apology.

Near the mango-sellers, a man who had his head and arms sticking through the holes of a cardboard sign that said: ‘Fight seven kinds of vermin’, with appropriate illustrations below (cockroaches, honey bees, mongoose, ants, termites, lice, mosquitoes), saluted Masterji. This pest control man often came to Vishram to knock down, with a long bamboo pole, an impromptu beehive or a wasps’ nest on the roofing. Extending his hand through the illustrated cardboard sign he wore, he seized the old teacher’s arm.

‘Masterji. Someone was asking about Vishram Society in the market.’

‘Asking what?’

‘What kind of people lived in it, what their reputation was, did they fight with each other and with others, lots and lots of questions. He was a tall fellow, Masterji.’

‘Did he wear a white shirt and black trousers?’

‘Yes, I think so. I told him that any Society with a man like Masterji in it is a good Society.’

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Masterji said, having forgotten the pest control man’s name.

So the Secretary was right, something is going on , Masterji thought. He had a vision of the green cage in the zoo again; he smelled something animal and insolent. Maybe they should go to the police in the morning.

When he reached Vishram, the gate was padlocked. Walking with care over the recently filled-up construction hole, he slapped the heavy chains and lock against the gate. ‘Ram Khare!’ he shouted. ‘Ram Khare, it’s me!’

The guard came from his room in the back of the building and unlocked the chain. ‘It’s past ten o’clock, Masterji. Be a little patient.’

The stairwell smelled. He found the stray dog lying on the first landing of the stairs, its body shivering, foam at the mouth. Did no one care that this dog could be sick? The animal had lost a layer of subcutaneous fat, and its ribcage was monstrously articulated, like the maw of another beast that was consuming it.

Masterji prodded at the dog’s ribs with his foot; when it did not move, he kicked. It yelped and rocketed down the stairs.

Waiting for a few seconds to make sure the dog did not return, he continued up to the third floor, where, as he was turning the key to his room, he heard a click behind him. The door of 3B opened wide — light, laughter, music — a young man stepped out.

Ms Meenakshi, the journalist, loose-haired and wearing her nightie, had her hand on the young man’s shoulder as he took a big step into the hallway, which caused him to bump into the old school-teacher. ‘Sorry,’ the boy said. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’

He had bathed a few minutes ago, and Masterji smelled fresh soap.

‘Can’t you watch yourself?’ he shouted.

The boy grinned.

Before he knew what he was doing, Masterji had pushed the grinning thing. The boy fell back, banged his head into the door of 3B, and slid to the floor.

As Masterji watched, the young man rose to his feet, his fist clenched. Before either man could do anything, the girl began to scream.

What is Bombay?

From the thirteenth floor, a window answers: banyan, maidan, stone, tile, tower, dome, sea, hawk, amaltas in bloom, smog on the horizon, gothic phantasmagoria (Victoria Terminus and the Municipal Building) emerging from the smog.

Dharmen Shah watches the hawk. It has been hovering outside the window, held aloft by a mysterious current — a thrashing of sunlit wings — and it is on the sill. In its claws a mouse, or a large part of one. Entrails wink out of grey fur: a ruby inside ore. A second later, another hawk is also on the sill.

Opening the window, Shah leaned out as far as he could: the two birds were flying in a vindictive whirl around each other. The dead mouse, left behind on the sill, was oozing blood and grease.

Shah’s mouth filled with saliva. He had eaten a packet of milk biscuits in the past twelve hours.

Consoling his belly with a massage, Shah moved to the next window. He ate the view from here: the football field that occupied most of the Cooperage, the green Oval Maidan beside it, the gable and deep-arched entranceway of the University, the Rajabai Tower, and the High Court of Bombay. Amidst the coconut palms and mango trees, the red blossoms of a gulmohar burned like love bites on the summer’s day.

A stubby, gold-ringed index finger sketched round the Rajabai Tower and dragged it all the way to the other end of the Oval Maidan. There: it would fit much better there.

Shah looked down. On the road directly below the window, a woman was talking on a mobile phone. He craned his neck to see what she was wearing below her waist.

‘It’s a girl, isn’t it, Dharmen?’

Doctor Nayak came into the room with an X-ray photograph in his hand.

‘That’s the only thing that would get your neck out of the window.’

The doctor flipped the photograph, and held it up against the view of the city.

Dharmen Shah’s skull glowed. The X-ray had been taken less than an hour ago at the hospital. Shah saw something milky-white chuckling inside his cranium, a ghost grinning through his wide-open jaw. The doctor slid the X-ray back into its folder. He indicated for his guest and patient to use the sofa.

‘Why do you think I called you here to my home after the tests? I have cancelled three morning appointments for this.’

Shah, with hands massaging his belly, grinned. ‘Real estate.’ He stayed by the window.

‘Not this time, Dharmen. I wanted to say things that are better said in the house than at the hospital. In the hope that you might listen this time.’

‘ So grateful.’

‘It is a bit worse each time I see you, Dharmen. That thing that is growing in your chest and head. Chronic bronchitis. Worse and worse each time. You have infected mucus in your lungs and in your sinuses. The next stage is that you have trouble breathing. We may have to put you in a hospital bed. Do you want things to come to that?’

‘And why would things come to that?’ Shah knocked on the window. ‘Despite the fact that I take every blood test, X-ray, and medical pill that you recommend. After starving myself the previous night.’

Youthful and square-jawed, Doctor Nayak sported a black moustache above a tuft of goatee: when he grinned he looked like the Jack of Spades.

‘You’re a big, spoilt child, Dharmen. You don’t do what your doctor tells you to do, and you think he won’t find out as long as you turn up for blood tests and X-rays. I’ve been warning you for months. It’s the construction business that is doing this to you. All the dust you inhale. The stress and strain.’

‘I’ve been at construction sites for twenty-five years , Nayak. The problem began only a year or two ago.’

‘It’s all those old buildings you’re around. The ones you break up. Materials were used then that are banned now. Asbestos, cheap paint. They get into your lungs. Then these places you like going to, these slums.’

‘The place is called Vakola.’

‘I’ve seen it. Very polluted. Diesel in the air, dust. The system is weakened by pollution over time.’