Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘Hey!’ Mrs Rego shouted. ‘Turn your phone off while driving!’

A motorcyclist was wobbling down the road, his head propped to one side as he talked on his phone. He grinned as he passed her, and kept talking.

Breaking the law in broad daylight. Did the police care? Did anyone care? You would never get away with talking on your phone while driving in Bandra — that much had to be said for the western side of the railway lines. Raise property prices in Vakola by 20 per cent, and fellows like this — she snapped her fingers — evaporate.

The Institute for Social Action lay halfway between Vishram Society and the slums that lay further down the road. An old tiled building, the door left open at all times.

Saritha was standing outside the door, waiting for Mrs Rego.

Along with Julia and Kamini, Saritha was one of the three socially committed girls from good families (employment at the Institute was strictly restricted to good families) who answered to Mrs Rego. Saritha’s role was to conduct research into public interest litigation on slum redevelopment, and kill the lizards that overran the walls. For if there was much compassion at the Institute for the poor, there was none for reptiles or arachnids; Mrs Rego hated and feared anything that crawled on walls.

‘What is it?’ she shouted at Saritha. ‘Is there a lizard in the office?’

Saritha tilted her head.

Now Mrs Rego saw it: there was a black Mercedes parked right by the Institute. Shanmugham stood by the car. He smiled, and made a sort of salute, as if he worked for her.

‘Mrs Rego, my boss wants to have a word with you. He sent the car for you.’

‘How dare you,’ she said. ‘How dare you! Get out of here, or I’ll call the police.’

‘He just wants to have lunch with you, Mrs Rego. Please… just for ten minutes.’

She went into her office and closed the door. She took up the papers on her desk and read. A reply from a German government-run social welfare body; yes, there was funding available for those doing work for the poor in Mumbai. The deadline, unfortunately, had… A request from a social worker studying for her Ph.D. at the University of Calicut. She was collecting data on child sponsorship; did the Institute have any information on children…

Mrs Rego looked at the clock.

‘Is that man still outside?’ she shouted.

Saritha came into the office and nodded.

From her office window, she saw Mr Shah’s half-built towers in the distance: blue tarpaulin covered them against the rains, and work went on inside the covers.

A gust of wet wind blew through the window; Mrs Rego rubbed her goosebumpy forearms.

‘That’s a shark, sir. Freshwater. A small one. But authentic.’

The smell of beer, prawn, curry, butter, oil thickened the recycled air-conditioned air inside the restaurant. An aquarium had been set into the near wall. The thing that had been called a shark gaped with a stupid open mouth in one corner, while smaller fish glided around, scoffing at its sharkish pretensions.

Mr Shetty, the manager, stood with his hands folded in front of his crotch.

‘A recent addition to the aquarium,’ he said. ‘I hope you approve of it.’

In the restaurant in Juhu — Mangalorean seafood, his favourite cuisine — Dharmen Shah sat in silence at a table with a view of the door. The ceiling of the restaurant was vaulted, an allusion to the caves of Ajanta; the wall opposite the aquarium was covered with a bas-relief, in plaster of Paris, of the great civic monuments of the city — VT, the Rajabai Tower, the columned façade of the Asiatic Society library. Beer, prawn, curry, butter, oil mingled in the chilled air.

The manager waited for Mr Shah to say something.

A waiter brought a whole lobster on a plate and placed a bowl of butter by the side. More food came: crab, fish curry, a prawn biryani. Wrapped in aluminium foil, a stack of glistening naans arrived in a wicker basket. Four flavoured cream spreads were placed next to it: pudina, garlic, lemon, and tomato.

Maybe she isn’t going to come , Shah thought, as he tore apart the bread with his fingers.

She had quoted God’s name, after all. ‘By the Lord Jesus Christ I will…’

He wondered which of the four cream spreads to dip his bread in.

Remember, Dharmen: he told himself. A person who quotes Jesus is not, in real-estate terms, a Christian. No. A person who quotes Jesus is looking for a higher price to sell.

Humming a Kishore Kumar tune, he dipped the bread into the pudina cream.

Next he went for the buttered crab. With a long thin spoon, Shah scooped the baked flesh from the salted and peppered exoskeleton of the crab; when all the easy meat had been carved from the chest and eaten, he tore the limbs apart, and chewed on them, one at a time, biting into the shell and chewing till it cracked open, before sucking at the warm white flesh. The waiters were prepared to carve out the flesh and bring it on a small plate, but Dharmen Shah did not want it that way. He wanted to feel he was eating a thing that had been breathing just an hour ago: wanted to feel, once again, the extraordinary good fortune of being one of those still alive.

He began to think of the woman again. Mrs Rego. Maybe she was not going to come? No. No. A social worker needs a builder. We make each other: she can be so pure only if I am so evil. She will come to me.

He spat out shell and cartilage on to the porcelain plate. With a finger he checked the colour of the mucus that covered the shell.

The restaurant door opened: Shanmugham stepped in from blinding light, like a figure in a revelation.

He’s come alone , Mr Shah thought. So she said no . He could not breathe.

The restaurant door opened again: silhouetted against the painful white light, Shah saw a middle-aged woman.

He wiped his lips and stood up.

‘Ah, Mrs Rego, Mrs Rego. How nice of you to come. I assume the traffic kept you so long?’ he asked, looking at Shanmugham.

Who made a quick negative movement of his head.

Mrs Rego did not sit down.

‘Why have you brought me here, Mr Builder? What is the business?’

Shah spread his arms over the dishes on the table.

‘ This is the business. We Gujaratis don’t like to eat alone. Would you like some fresh-lime soda, Mrs Rego? — and you must sit down, please.’

‘I’m not hungry. I may go back now.’

‘No one is stopping you at any time, Mrs Rego. There are autorickshaws right outside. You will be back in Vakola in ten minutes.’

Mrs Rego looked around the restaurant; she looked at the vaulted ceiling, at the bas-relief, and stared at the fish. ‘But why have you brought me here?’

Shah shared the joke with his food.

‘She is frightened I will do something to her. With that shark near by: I must look like some James Bond villain. Shanmugham, please call the manager of the restaurant here.’

Who came, with folded hands, leaning forward, eager to please.

‘Mr Shetty: this is Mrs Rego. You have seen her with me at… what time is it? 1.20 p.m. I want you to write it down in your register. Mrs Rego, resident of 1B, Vishram Society Tower A, Vakola, seen in the presence of Mr Shah. I want that down, word for word — do you have that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And please send a waiter for our order.’

The builder looked at his nervous guest.

‘Now: if anything happens to you, I will go to jail. You are a social worker: the press and the television people will show me no mercy. I took the liberty of ordering some dishes of seafood and crab before you got here. Shanmugham, you too sit down, and eat.’

Mrs Rego did not move. She stood staring at Mr Shah’s plate, on which gristle, bone, flesh, had piled up around bread, rice, and red curry.