Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘You have been asked to wait,’ said Mrs Pinto, as the Secretary tried to make his way around the plastic chairs into his office. She was the oldest woman in the Society; Mr Kothari had no choice but to stop.

Mrs Puri caught up with him.

‘Is it true, Kothari, what they say the early-morning cat found in 3B’s rubbish?’

The Secretary, not for the first time during his tenure, cursed the early-morning cat. This cat prowled the waste bins that the residents left out in the morning for Mary to collect, in the process spilling beans, bones, and whisky bottles alike. So the residents of the building knew from the rubbish who was a vegetarian and who merely claimed to be one; who was a rum-man and who a gin-man; and who had bought a pornographic magazine when on holiday in Singapore. The main aim of this cat — ginger and scrawny, according to some, black and glossy according to others — indeed, was to make sure there was no privacy in the building. Of late the ginger (or black) fellow had led Mrs Puri to a vile discovery when it knocked over the waste bin of 3B (the flat Kothari had shown to the inquisitive stranger).

‘Among young people today, it is a common thing for boy and girl to live without marriage,’ he said. ‘At the end, one says to the other, you go your way, I go my way. There is no sense of shame in the modern way of life, what do you expect me to do about it?’

(Mr Pinto, distracted by a stock market report on the TV, had to be filled in on the topic of discussion by his wife. ‘… the modern girl on our floor.’)

Turning to her left, Mrs Puri called: ‘Ramu, have you fed the dog?’

Ramu — his soft, pale face hinted at the presence of Down’s syndrome — looked perplexed. His mother and he left a bowl full of channa near the black Cross to feed stray animals that wandered into the Society; he looked about for the bowl. The dog had found it.

Now Mrs Puri turned back to the Secretary to make one thing clear: the modern, shame-free way of living counted for nothing with her.

‘I have a growing son—’ She dropped her voice. ‘I don’t want him living with the wrong kind of people. You should call Import-Export Hiranandani now .’

That Mr Hiranandani, the owner and original resident of 3B, a shrewd importer-exporter of obscure goods, known for his guile in slipping phosphates and peroxides through customs, had moved to a better neighbourhood (Khar West) was understandable; all of them dreamed of doing the same thing. Differences of wealth among the members did not go unnoticed — Mr Kudwa (4C) had taken his family last summer to Ladakh, rather than nearby Mahabaleshwar, as everyone else did, and Mr Ajwani the broker owned a Toyota Qualis — yet these were spikes and dips within the equalizing dinginess of Vishram. The real distinction was leaving the Society. They had come to their windows and cheered Mr Hiranandani when he departed with his family for Khar West; yet his behaviour since had been scandalous. Not checking the identity of this girl tenant, he had taken her deposit and handed her the keys to 3B, without asking the Secretary or his neighbours if they wanted an unmarried woman — a journalist, at that — on their floor. Mrs Puri was not one to pry — not one to ask what was happening within the privacy of a neighbour’s four walls — but when the condoms come tumbling on to your doorstep, well, then!

As they were talking, a trickle of waste water moved towards them.

A pipe from Mrs Saldanha’s ground-floor kitchen discharged into the open compound; although she had been chided often, she had never connected her kitchen sink into the main sewage — so the moment she began her cooking, it burped right at their feet. In every other way, Mrs Saldanha was a quiet, retreating woman — her husband, who was ‘working in Vizag’, had not been seen in Vishram for years — but in matters of water, brazen. Because she lived on the ground floor, she seemed to have it longer than anyone else did, and used it shamelessly when they could not. The emission of waste water into the compound only underlined her water-arrogance.

A glistening eel of water, its dark body now tinted with reddish earth, nosed its way towards the parliament. Mr Pinto lifted the front feet of the ‘prime’ chair and moved out of the sewage-eel’s path; and it was forgotten.

‘Have you seen anyone going into her room?’ the Secretary asked.

‘Of course not,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘I am not one to pry into my neighbours’ lives, am I?’

‘Ram Khare hasn’t told me he has seen any boy come into the building at night.’

‘What does that mean, Ram Khare has seen nothing?’ Mrs Puri protested. ‘A whole army could come in, and he would see nothing.’

The stray dog, having done crunching its channa, ran towards the parliament, trotted throught the water, slid under the chairs, and headed up the stairwell, as if pointing out to them the solution to their crisis.

The Secretary followed the dog.

Breathing heavily, one hand on the banister and one hand on her hip, Mrs Puri went up the stairs. Through the star-shaped holes in the wall she could see Mr Pinto standing by the black Cross to keep watch on Ramu until she returned.

She smelled the dog on the second landing of the stairs. Amber eyes shone in the dim stairwell; pale legs, impastoed with dry dung, shivered. Mrs Puri stepped over the sickly legs and walked to the third floor.

The Secretary was standing by Masterji’s door, with a finger on his lips. From inside the open door, they could hear voices.

‘… and my hand represents…?’

‘Yes, Masterji.’

‘Answer the question, boys: my hand represents…?’

‘The earth.’

‘Correct. For once.’

The bi-weekly science ‘top-up’ was in session. Mrs Puri joined the Secretary by the door, the only one in Vishram Society unmarked by religious icons.

‘This is the earth in infinite space. Home of Man. Follow me?’

Reverence for science and learning made the Secretary stand with folded hands. Mrs Puri pushed past him to the door. She closed an eye and spied in.

The living room was dark, the curtains were drawn; a table lamp was the only source of light.

A silhouette of a huge fist, looking like a dictator’s gesture, appeared on the wall.

A man stood next to the table lamp, making shadows on the wall. Four children sitting on a sofa watched the shadows he conjured; another sat on the floor.

‘And my second fist, which is going around the earth, is what?’

‘The sun, Masterji’ — one of the boys.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No, no, no. The sun is this. See—’ A click, and the room went entirely dark. ‘Earth without sun.’ Click. ‘Earth with sun. Understand? Lamp: sun.’

‘Yes, Masterji.’

‘All of you say it together.’

‘Yes, Masterji’ — three voices.

‘All of you.’

‘Yes, Masterji’ — four.

‘So my second, that is to say, my moving fist is —? Big white object seen at night if you look up.’

‘Moon.’

‘Correct. MOON. Earth’s satellite. How many satellites does the Earth have?’

‘Can we go now, Masterji?’

‘Only after we get to the eclipse. And what are you wriggling about for, Mohammad?’

‘Anand is pinching me, Masterji.’

‘Stop pinching him, Anand. This is physics, not fun. Now: how many satellites does…’

The boy on the floor said: ‘Question, Masterji.’

‘Yes?’

‘Masterji, what happened when the dinosaurs died out? Show us again how the meteor hit the earth.’

‘And tell us about global warming again, Masterji.’

‘You’re trying to avoid my question by asking your own. Do you think I taught in school for thirty-four years not to see through tricks like this?’