Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

Mrs Puri came out into the compound with Ramu; they went towards the black Cross with a bowl full of channa. As if she had a sixth sense, Mrs Puri looked up and saw her neighbour up on the terrace.

‘Masterji, what are you doing up there?’ she shouted. ‘It’s dangerous on the roof.’

Blushing with embarrassment, like a schoolboy who had been caught, Masterji came down the stairs at once.

To make up for his indiscreet walk around the terrace, he read from The Soul’s Passageway after Death for a while; then tried playing with his Rubik’s Cube. Eventually he yawned, shook himself awake, and walked down to the Secretary’s office.

Ajwani was in a corner of the office, reading the front page of the Times of India through his half-moon glasses. Secretary Kothari had another section of the paper; he was examining the real-estate advertisements. The two men were about to sip tea from little plastic cups; Kothari found a third cup into which he poured Masterji some of his tea. Ajwani came to the table to do the same.

‘Wonderful isn’t it, the rain,’ Kothari said, moving the little cup towards Masterji. ‘The whole world has become green. Everything grows.’

‘And buildings fall,’ Masterji said. Taking the Times of India from Ajwani, he read aloud the big story on the front page: ‘A three-storey building in Crawford Market fell during yesterday’s storm, killing the watchman and two others. Since the building was home to over twenty people, the people say it is a miracle only three died.’

Masterji kept reading. The desire for self-improvement had been the cause of destruction. Against the advice of the municipal engineer, the residents had installed overhead water tanks, and these, too heavy for the old building, had bent the ancient roof, which broke in the storm. Death, because they had wanted a better life.

‘There was also a collapse in Wadala. That’s in the inside pages.’

Ajwani crumpled his teacup and aimed it at the wastebasket.

‘Still, that makes it only six deaths this year. What was it last year? Twenty? Thirty? A light year, Masterji. A light year.’

A macabre competition that the men in Vishram had played for at least a decade. If it was a ‘heavy’ year for monsoon-related deaths, it accrued somehow to the advantage of one side (Masterji and Kudwa); a ‘light’ year was a point scored by the other (Mr Puri and the Secretary).

‘A light year,’ Masterji conceded. ‘But I’m hopeful. There’s a long way to go yet before this monsoon is over.’

‘I don’t like this competition,’ Ajwani said. ‘The roof that’s collapsing could one day be our own.’

‘Vishram? Never. This building would have lasted a thousand years.’

‘ Will last,’ Masterji corrected the Secretary, with a smile.

‘ Would have lasted.’

Masterji looked at the ceiling with a stylish wave of his hand: sardonic forbearance, as a character in a play might express it.

‘One point to your party,’ he said.

‘How is the girl in 3B? The journalist. Still troubling you?’

‘Oh, not at all. We’re friends now. She had tea with me the other day.’

‘Import-Export gave her notice. She has to leave by 3 October.’

Masterji turned to his left to face the broker. ‘Is Hiranandani finding a new tenant?’

‘Yes,’ Ajwani smiled. ‘Mr Shah, of the Confidence Group.’

Masterji looked at the ceiling and raised his voice. ‘Another point for that party. We’re losing here, my fellow Opposition members.’

Removing his glasses, Ajwani smiled. ‘I’ll give you the point, Masterji. I’ll give you one hundred debating points. But in return, will you do something for me? Both my boys are in your science top-up. Your two biggest fans in the world. Tell me everything you say. We must always make experiments before we believe things. Correct? Just for today, Masterji, let this Ajwani be a teacher to you. Make an experiment for him? Will you walk down the road, and take a look at what Mr Shah is building beyond the slums? And then will you honestly say that you are not impressed by this Mr Shah?’

Ramu, in T-shirt and jeans, had come down the stairs with his mother’s NO NOISE sign in his hands.

‘We’re going to SiddhiVinayak temple — we’ll pray for everyone,’ Mrs Puri said, telling the boy to wave at his three uncles, who waved back.

Ajwani, drawing his chair up to the Secretary’s table, summoned the other two with his fingers.

‘She comes back every day with brochures for new buildings, which turn up in her rubbish next day. Yet she says she goes to the temple.’

Masterji whispered back: ‘Your competition has just increased, Ajwani. God must have joined the real-estate business.’

Three men burst out laughing, and one of them thought: Exactly like old times . Nothing has changed .

When Masterji went outside, he found Ram Khare by the compound wall, examining a gleaming red object, a brand-new Bajaj Pulsar motorbike.

‘It’s Ibrahim Kudwa’s,’ Ram Khare said. ‘Bought it yesterday.’

‘He shouldn’t be spending money he doesn’t have.’

The guard smiled. ‘The mouth waters before it has food. It’s the human way, Masterji.’

The Pulsar’s metal skin gleamed like red chocolate. The segments of its body were taut, swollen, crab-like; the owner’s black helmet was impaled on the rear-view mirror. Masterji remembered the scooter he had once owned, and his hand reached out.

A rooster, one of those that wandered about Vakola and sometimes slipped into the compound of a Housing Society, flew on to the driver’s seat and clucked like a warning spirit.

This is what a woman wants. Not gold, not big cars, not easy cash.

This .

Rich dark fine-grained wood, with a fresh coat of varnish and golden handles.

Mrs Puri moved her hands over the face of the built-in cupboard, pulled the doors open, and inhaled the fresh-wood smell.

‘Madam can open the drawers too, if she wants.’

But Madam was already doing that.

The family Puri were in a sample flat on the sixth floor of the Rathore Towers — beige, brand-new, double-bedroomed, approximately 1,200-square-foot built-up area. Mr Puri stood by the window with Ramu, showing his son the common swimming pool, the gym with weight-loss guarantee, and the common table-tennis room down below.

The guide, who was holding a brochure in her hands, turned on a light.

‘And here is the second bedroom. If Madam would come this way?’

Madam was too busy opening the drawers. She was imagining the sunlight glowing on this beautiful piece of dark wood every morning for the rest of her life. Stocked chock-a-block with Ramu’s fragrant clothes. His towels in this drawer. His T-shirts here. T-shirts and shorts here. Polo shirts here. Fluffy trousers here.

‘Come this way, sir. And the child. And you too, madam. I’m sorry, I have another appointment after this.’

‘He’s not a child. He’s eighteen years old.’

‘Yes, of course,’ their guide said. ‘Observe the fittings and finishings. The Rathore Group is all about fittings and finishings…’

‘Why are there no curtain rods in the rooms?’

‘Madam is correct. But the Rathore Group would be happy to add curtain rods for someone like Madam.’

Red curtains would be perfect here. The place would look like a lighthouse at night. Neighbours would notice; people on the road would look up and say, ‘Who lives there?’

Mrs Puri pressed the soft hand that was in hers. Who else?

What an enormous, high-ceilinged, light-welcoming apartment. And look at the floor: a mosaic of black and white squares. A precise, geometrical delineation of space, not the colourless borderless floors on which she had fought and eaten and slept all her married life.