Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

Masterji felt the floor slipping beneath his feet: ‘It’s starting again.’ He heard his blood sugar chuckling. His left knee swelled up in pain; his eyes dimmed.

‘Masterji,’ Ajwani reached for him. ‘Masterji, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ he shook off Ajwani’s hand. ‘Nothing.’

‘Just stay calm, Masterji. And breathe deeply. It will…’

Look down , a voice said. Look at me . Masterji turned to his left and saw the swirls in the ocean, the foam that was hitting the wall along the shore of Bombay. The foam thickened. The ocean rammed into the wall of Breach Candy like a bull. Look at me, Masterji . The bull came in again and rammed into the wall of the city and back he went to gather his strength. Look at me .

The oceans were full of glucose.

‘What are you saying, Masterji?’ Ajwani asked. He looked at Shanmugham with a grin.

Shanmugham remembered the sign on the mansion that he saw every morning on his drive up Malabar Hill. ‘This place is dilapidated, dangerous, and unfit for human beings to be around.’ The Municipality should hang the same sign on old men like this. He tried to touch Masterji, who took a step back and glared at him: ‘Did you bring me here to coerce me?’

Said in English, the force of that word, coerce , weakened both Ajwani and Shanmugham.

The aroma of batter-fried food blew on to the terrace. Giri was walking towards the men with a silver tray full of just-fried pakoras sitting on paper stained with fresh grease.

‘Hot, hot, hot, hot.’

‘Please offer the pakoras to Mr Murthy from Vishram Society,’ Shanmugham said. ‘He’s a teacher.’

‘Hot, hot, hot, hot…’ Giri brought the tray over to the distinguished visitor.

The old man’s left hand slapped at the tray; it slipped in and out of Giri’s hands, then crashed to the floor. Shanmugham and Ajwani moved their feet to dodge the rolling pakoras. Giri stared with an open mouth. When the three of them looked up, they realized they were alone on the terrace.

In the morning, at the dining table with the red-and-white cloth, the Pintos heard what had happened at Malabar Hill, while in the kitchen, Nina, their maid-servant, obscured by steam, took idlis out of the pressure cooker.

‘So you just left?’

‘They were threatening me,’ Masterji said. ‘Of course I left.’

‘Ten thousand appointments are missed in this city because of too much traffic, and you missed Mr Shah because of too little traffic. Fate, Masterji,’ Mr Pinto said, as the maid tipped three idlis on to his plate. ‘The very definition.’

‘You sound bitter, Mr Pinto.’ Masterji leaned back and waited for his idlis. Three for him too.

‘And what do we do now?’ Shelley asked. As usual, she received only two idlis.

‘We will wait till October 3. The deadline will expire and that Shah fellow will go away. He said so, don’t you remember?’

‘And until then the boycott will get worse.’

‘There’s something bigger than us involved here, Mr Pinto. Yesterday, when I was at the builder’s terrace I saw something in the ocean. Things are changing too fast in this city. Everyone knows this, but no one wants to take responsibility. To say: “Slow down. Stop. Let’s think about what’s happening.” Do you understand me?’

But that was not it, either. There was something more in the foaming white waters: a sense of power. Breaking an implicit rule — never to touch another man’s body while they were eating — he reached over and gripped his friend’s shoulder. Mr Pinto almost spat out his idli.

After dinner the maid poured tea into small porcelain cups.

‘This boycott,’ Mr Pinto said. ‘It is already so difficult to bear. Shelley cries every night in bed. How can they do it to us, after all these years of living together?’

‘We mustn’t think badly of our neighbours.’ Masterji sipped his tea. ‘Purnima would not like it. Remember what she used to tell us about man being like a goat tied to a pole? There is a radius of freedom, but the circumference of our actions is set. People should be judged lightly.’

Mr Pinto, who had never been sure how well Purnima’s image squared with Catholic teaching, grunted.

Masterji was cheerful. Breaking a rule not to impose on the Pintos’ generosity, he asked Nina for a second cup of tea.

The defecators have left the water’s edge at the slummy end of Versova beach; while, in an equal exchange, the posh end of the beach has rid itself of the joggers, callisthentic stretchers, and t’ai-chi practitioners. It is a quarter past ten. Down a concrete path comes a saddled white horse. This path cuts between boulders to lead to the beach; drawing the horse by its stirrups, a boy stops to whisper into its ear. No one here, Raja. In the evening they will come, children to be taken for a ride over the sand. For now we are alone, Raja.

The ambient murmur of the waves makes their privacy more exclusive; on a high rock the boy sits to bring his mouth level with Raja’s large ear.

The boy stops talking. There is someone else on the beach. A fat man is standing at the water’s edge, looking out at the blue-grey mess of towers on the distant Bandra shoreline. The boy strokes his horse’s ear, and watches the fat man.

Shah had been staring at the turrets of the hotel at Land’s End in Bandra. Somewhere beyond it, where the planes were landing, was Santa Cruz. Somewhere in there was Vishram Society Tower A. He saw the building in front of him, dirty, pink, rain-stained. Six floors. He held out his palm and closed his fingers.

Footsteps behind him. Shah turned.

Descending from the rocks behind him, the tall chastened figure of Shanmugham walked on to the beach with a small blue tin in his hands.

‘This is for you, sir,’ he said, handing it over to Shah.

Rosie, who had seen her Uncle alone down by the beach, had summoned Shanmugham and handed over the blue tin of gutka .

Shah scooped out some gutka , and chewed.

Shanmugham could see the thinking part of his employer, his jaw, struggling to make sense of things.

‘I still don’t understand. You and that broker — all you had to do was keep that teacher there till I got back.’

‘He became violent, sir. Ask Giri. He hit the tray and then he ran out.’

‘I don’t like blaming another man when it’s my fault,’ Shah said, chewing fast. ‘Going to see that headmaster — a total waste of time. What does the man do? Namastes me, says, what an honour to meet you, Developer sir, and then asks for advice on a one-bedroom he is buying in Seven Bungalows. Would the Four Bungalows area be a better investment? Will Andheri East show superior appreciation once the Metro comes up? I should have stayed home and finished off this Vishram Society teacher. My fault. My fault.’ He bit his lower lip.

‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Don’t say sorry, Shanmugham. It is a worthless word. Listen to me: every midget in Mumbai with a mobile phone and a scooter fancies himself a builder. But not one in a hundred is going to make it. Because in this world, there is a line: on one side are the men who cannot get things done, and on the other side are the men who can. And not one in a hundred will cross that line. Will you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Shah spat on the beach.

‘We have been reasonable in every way with this old teacher. We asked him what he wanted from us, and promised to give it to him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Now let him find out what it means to want nothing in Mumbai.’

Shanmugham held out his fist to his employer and opened it. ‘Yes, sir.’

On the way back, the builder stopped to stroke the horse. Ignoring him, the boy whispered into the large pink ear.