Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

The broker shook his head, punched on his mobile phone and murmured something.

‘What did you call me?’ The Secretary got up. ‘I know that you’ve been calling me that behind my back, Ajwani. Nothing man.’

The broker looked up from his mobile phone. ‘I speak my mind, Kothari. Don’t hide things.’

‘What does that mean? What have I been hiding all these years?’

Ibrahim Kudwa was waiting in the office; Mumtaz was by his side, with baby Mariam on her lap. He was going to intervene in the quarrel when Mrs Puri walked in and said: ‘Ibby.’

He smiled. ‘Sangeeta-ji,’ he said.

‘Ibby, the internet connection at home is a bit slow today. I don’t know if it’s a loose cable or…’ She smiled at Mumtaz. ‘Your husband is so good with computers and wires.’

Mumtaz watched her husband follow Mrs Puri up the stairs. He would come down speaking like her. Saying ‘Oy oy oy’ in every other sentence. In the way that the body of an unfaithful husband took on other fragrances, Ibrahim’s voice took on the accents of the women he was trying to impress.

If asked to decide who made the most incompatible couple in their building, the residents of Vishram would have had a hard time choosing between the Puris and the Kudwas. Before Mohammad’s birth Mumtaz Kudwa had worked at a dental clinic in Khar (West); now she left home once a day, to bring Mohammad back from school, and the other residents rarely spoke to her except on festivals like Republic Day. Ibrahim made his nest in other people’s homes. Always pressing the bell to chat, to offer a ride on his scooter, the free use of his internet café, and you felt he would have been happier watching TV on your sofa than on his own.

It had been an arranged marriage; even in the earliest, happiest days, Mumtaz had noticed odd things about her husband. If Ibrahim was treated like an adult, he acted like a child. Grateful to be included in a group, he would do anything others wanted of him, even if it demeaned or endangered him. In his own home, with his own father and mother, he was so thrilled when he got attention at the dinner table. One day she felt bold enough to ask: ‘Why do you worry so much about what they think about you?’ He was angry for days; and then, without consulting her, he announced that they would now live away from his family. They moved to an old building full of Hindus and Christians, and Ibrahim’s behaviour became worse. Mrs Puri pestered him for little favours — a free tube of potassium nitrate toothpaste for Ramu’s sensitive teeth, for instance — and Ibrahim, incapable of saying no, had forced her to smuggle six tubes out of the dentist’s clinic (‘it’s not stealing, it’s for a neighbour’).

She thought it would be worth leaving Vishram just to take her husband away from that woman.

With her child on her lap she looked at the door, only dimly aware that voices were rising around her as Ajwani and the Secretary argued.

Feeling too weak for the evening train, Masterji had hailed a taxi outside Gaurav’s building. Why not? A rich man could travel like a rich man. He put his hand out of the window and tapped at the side of the black Fiat. The trip by road took at least half an hour longer than the train would have; by the time he passed the Mayor’s mansion near Shivaji Park, Masterji felt stronger. Alighting near the Bandra mosque, he crossed the busy road and waited for an autorickshaw to economize on the last leg of his trip home.

He had barely unlatched the gate of Vishram Society when a dark body ran out of the bright building and put its arms around his neck.

‘Thank you, Uncle! Thank you so much.’

Radhika Saldanha — he realized, after some confusion, as she turned and bolted back into her home.

Mrs Saldanha, watching through the tear in her window, smiled at him as he entered the building.

He stopped, from habit, at the noticeboard: a new typewritten sign had been hammered with a nail into the central panel.

NOTICE

Vishram Co-operative Hsg Society Ltd, Vakola, Santa Cruz (E), Mumbai — 400055

Minutes of the extraordinary general meeting of ‘A’ Building, held on 6 July

Theme: dissolution of Society

All members were present by the time, 5.30 P.M.

Ramesh Ajwani (2C) took the chair and presided over the meeting.

ITEM NO. 1 OF THE AGENDA:

All members have agreed, unanimously, to accept the offer made by the Confidence Group. The residents of the Society have agreed unanimously to the dissolution of the Society, and to the demolition of its physical structure.

No other items were discussed in the meeting.

For the Vishram ‘A’ Tower Executive Committee,

Signed,

Ashvin Kothari,

Secretary, Vishram Tower (A)

Copy (1) To Members of ‘A’ Building, Vishram

Co-op Hsg Society Ltd

Copy (2) To the Secretary, Vishram Co-op Hsg

Society Ltd

Note: Signatures of all members of the Society are listed below, next to their respective unit numbers (with square footage in brackets)

The Secretary emerged from his office with a smile.

‘What is this?’ Masterji asked, his index finger on the noticeboard. ‘I just got back to Vishram. I haven’t signed anything yet.’

Kothari came to the noticeboard and squinted; the lynx-like laugh-lines spread from his eyes. ‘Well, I was just saving time, Masterji. Since you’ve agreed, I thought I’d type up the notice.’

Masterji’s index finger had not moved.

‘Did I agree? When did I agree? I said I was going to speak to my son. That was all.’

The Secretary stopped smiling. ‘It was not my idea, actually. Ajwani’s idea. He forced me to put it up before you came back… he…’

Dislodging Masterji’s hand from the glass, the Secretary lifted it open. He tore off the notice, one half of which fell to the floor.

‘There, Masterji, are you happy?’

He was not.

‘Who gave you the right to say I have agreed? Why do you say I’ve signed something?’

‘Thank you, Masterji.’ Mrs Puri was coming down the stairs. ‘Thank you for thinking of all of us.’

Masterji’s index finger was again on the empty noticeboard.

‘Sangeeta, did you know the Secretary thinks he can forge my signature?’

‘Masterji!’ The Secretary raised his voice. ‘This is too much drama. It is just a simple thing — a simple mistake that we made! And I keep telling you, it was not my idea. It was Ajwani!’

Masterji took the crumpled form from the floor and straightened it out. He read it again.

‘It is a signature,’ he whispered. ‘ My signature.’

‘Mrs Puri…’ The Secretary looked up. ‘You are his champion in the building. Talk to him, won’t you?’

‘Masterji. We waited for hours for you. I didn’t collect water for Ramu’s evening bath. You did tell us you would sign it.’

A voice boomed: ‘Don’t blame us, Masterji. We just put that notice up half an hour ago. Why did you take so long to come back?’

Ajwani’s small black face looked down from the second-floor banister.

‘It’s true, Masterji,’ the Secretary said. ‘If you had come back just half an hour ago…’

‘I couldn’t come sooner, because… I wasn’t feeling well…’

People looked down from various places along the stairwell: Mr Ganguly, Ajwani, Mr Puri, Ibrahim Kudwa, Mr Vij.

He wanted to breathe in the camphor-scented air from his wife’s cupboard. Mrs Puri stepped aside to let him go. The sick dog lay on the first landing, trembling from its joints. Masterji stopped in front of it and looked up at his neighbours. It was like being at the train compartment’s edge again, with the warm wind blowing into his eyes and the other train rushing past: he saw the demonic faces crowding around him.