Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

A small village had sprung up around the construction work: migrants from north India, the workers had re-created the old home. Cows swatting away flies, broth in an aluminium vessel boiling over, a small shrine of a red god. Hitching up his trousers, Shah walked up to the cow; he touched its forehead three times for good luck and touched his own.

A group of day-labourers were waiting for him.

‘How is the cement pouring today?’ he asked.

‘Very well, sir.’

‘Then why are you people standing here, wasting time?’

He counted the men. Six. They wore banians and white dhotis, and their bodies were filmed over with construction dust. The contractor in charge of work at the Fountainhead came running.

‘They say, sir, the heat… they want to go and tend their fields…’

Shah clicked his tongue.

‘I want them to speak for themselves.’

One of the group of mutineers, a small man with neatly parted hair, explained.

‘We can’t work in these conditions, sahib, please forgive us. We will finish the day’s work honestly, and leave in the evening. Ask the contractor. We have been your best workers until now.’

Shah looked up at the Fountainhead, and then at the Excelsior, and raised his eyes to the sun.

‘I know it is hot. The coconut palms are turning brown. The cows don’t want to stand even if you put food in front of them. I know it is hot. But we have only a month before it starts raining, and we must finish pouring concrete now. If we don’t, I will lose a month and a half — two months, if the rains are heavy. And time is one thing I cannot lose.’

He spat something thick, pink, and gutka -stained. He stroked the cow again, and spoke.

‘You may think, looking at me, he is a rich man, what does he know about the heat? Let me tell you.’

Using the hand which had been rubbing the cow, he pointed a finger at the men: ‘This Dharmen Shah of yours knows what it is to work and walk and sweat in the heat. He did not grow up in luxury like other rich men. He grew up in a village called Krishnapur in Gujarat. When he came to Bombay he had just twelve rupees and eighty paise on him and he came in summer. He took the train, he took the bus, and when he had no more money for the bus, he walked. His chappals wore away and he tied leaves around his feet and he kept walking. And you know what he found when he came to Bombay?’

Two fifty , Shanmugham thought. Don’t offer them more than 250 .

‘Gold.’ Mr Shah now showed the mutineers all his fingers and all his rings. ‘And the hotter it becomes, the more gold there is in the air. I will increase your pay…’ He squeezed his fingers back in and tingled them as he frowned. ‘… to… 300 rupees per day per man. That’s a hundred rupees more than you are getting now, and more than you’ll get anywhere else in Santa Cruz. You say you want to go home. Don’t I know what you’ll do? Work your farms? No. You’ll lie on a charpoy in the shade, smoke, play with a child. When the sun sets, you’ll drink. You’ll run out of money, come back on 15 June, when it’s raining, and beg me for work. Open your ears: the contractor will remember each worker who leaves now when the boss needed him most. No man who does not work for Shah when it is hot will work for him when it is cool. I will send buses around Maharashtra to pick up villagers and bring them here. It may double my expenses but I will do it. But if you stay and work, I’ll pay you 300 rupees, day after day. I’m tossing gold in the air. Who will grab it?’

The workers looked at one another: indecision rippled over them, and then the one with the neatly parted hair said: ‘Sahib, do you mean what you said, 300 a day? Even the women?’

‘Even the women. Even the children.’ Shah spat again and licked his lips. ‘Even your dogs and cats if they put bricks on their heads and carry them for me.’

‘We will stay for you, sahib,’ the worker said.

And though none of the other men in banians and dhotis looked happy, they seemed powerless to resist.

‘Good. Get to work at once. The rains are coming closer to Bombay every second we waste.’

When they were out of earshot, the contractor whispered: ‘Are you really going to pay the women the same, sir? Three hundred?’

‘How much are you giving them now?’

‘One twenty-five. If they’re hefty, 150.’

‘Give the women 200,’ Shah said. ‘The fat ones 220. But the men get 300 as I said.’

‘And you—’ he jabbed a gold-ringed finger at the contractor’s chest. ‘Next time something is wrong at the site, don’t tell me: “All is well, sir.” Does it hurt your mouth if the truth comes out of it once a year?’

‘Forgive me, sir,’ the contractor said.

‘They’re social animals, you understand. If one complains, all will complain. I need to know as soon as there is trouble.’

‘Forgive me, sir.’

Shah walked with Shanmugham from the Fountainhead to his other building.

Shanmugham felt his shirt sticking to his back. His employer’s shirt was wet too, but it seemed to him that these were spots not of moisture, but of molten butter. The man who had been sick in the morning now glowed with health. Shanmugham could barely keep up with him.

They were at a group of workers’ huts in between the two building projects. A stunted gulmohar tree stood here with criss-crossing branches, like a man who has got his arms in a tangle by pointing in every direction at once. A water pump dripped in its shade. A heap of sand was piled up on one side of the tree, with crushed stones on the other side. Two of the workers’ children had pitched a tyre on a low branch, on which they swung until their feet dug into the sand. Another had picked up an axe, with which he attacked the sand, sneezing each time his wobbling blows connected.

The builder stopped by the water pump to read a message on his mobile phone.

‘That was from Giri.’ He put his phone into his pocket. ‘I would have cancelled the birthday party for Satish but the invitations have gone out. The boy has agreed to be there, and behave himself.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You have children don’t you, Shanmugham?’

‘Yes, sir. Two sons.’

‘I hope they never become to you, Shanmugham, the curse mine is to me.’

‘Shall I go now, sir? To Vishram Society — to make the offer?’

‘You wait until I tell you to go. The astrologer is going to call me and give me the exact time. This won’t be an easy project, Shanmugham. We need every chance we can get. The stars might help us.’

Shah pointed with his mobile phone across the road. A plane went overhead; waiting until its boom passed, he said: ‘Look at his guts, Shanmugham. Right under my nose he buys that place.’

Across the road, a giant billboard had come up next to the ramshackle brick houses with corrugated tin roofs held down by rocks.

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‘Do you know when he’s going to start work?’

‘No word yet, sir.’

‘People will laugh at me if he finishes his building first, Shanmugham.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Mr Shah went alone to the Excelsior. The work had fallen behind schedule here, so Shanmugham knew that his boss would have plenty to do for the next few hours.

He sat in the shade of the stunted tree, his mobile phone in his right hand.

The three workers’ children sat on the sand pile, watching him with open mouths.

Showing them a closed fist, Shanmugham said: ‘Mr Secretary, members of Vishram Society, all your dreams are…’

A water buffalo drew near the children.