Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

*

‘People will soon be talking all over Vakola. A policeman came to Vishram Society? The famous, respectable, honourable Vishram?’

‘Quiet, Shelley.’

Mr Pinto was at the window. A Burmese mahogany walking stick, a family heirloom, leaned on the wall next to him.

He and his wife were now in a new relationship to their Society. Neither of one camp nor of the other. Masterji no longer came to their table for food, nor did they go down to parliament, in which there was usually only one topic of discussion: the character of the resident of 3A.

This evening, the parliamentarians had begun by talking about Masterji and ended up fighting.

‘You got a secret deal. A small sweetener ’ — Mrs Puri to Ajwani.

‘Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Mrs Puri.’

‘A-ha!’ she shouted. ‘You confess. You did get one.’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’ve heard things,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘One thing I tell all of you here — even you, Mrs Saldanha in your kitchen: even you listen. No one is getting a secret deal unless my Ramu and I get one too.’

‘No secret deal has been given to anyone,’ the Secretary protested.

‘You must have been offered the very first one, Kothari.’

‘What an accusation. Didn’t you vote for me at the Annual General Meeting? I kept maintenance fees fixed at 1.55 rupees per square foot per unit, payable in two instalments. Don’t accuse me now of dishonesty.’

‘Why was the building never repaired all these years, Kothari? Is that how you kept the costs flat?’

‘I have often wondered the same thing.’

‘You’re every bit as bad as Masterji, Mrs Puri. And you too, Ajwani. No wonder Masterji turned evil, living among people like you.’

Using the Burmese walking stick, Mr Pinto limped to the bedroom, and lay down next to his wife.

‘Did Masterji have breakfast, Mr Pinto? He must be hungry.’

‘A man won’t die if he eats less for a few days, Shelley. When he gets hungry he’ll come back.’

‘I don’t think so. He is such a proud man.’

‘Whether I’ll let him back here is another thing, Shelley. Don’t you remember he called me a coward? He borrowed one hundred rupees from me to take an auto to Bandra West to see that lawyer. I’ve entered that in the No-Argument book. He’ll have to apologize, and pay my hundred rupees back, before he can eat at my dinner table again.’

‘Oh, Mr Pinto, really… not you, too. They abuse him so much in parliament these days.’

‘Quiet, Shelley. Listen,’ Mr Pinto whispered. ‘He’s walking to the window. He always does that when they start up about him, Shelley. Why? Have you thought about it?’

‘No. And I don’t want to.’

‘He wants to listen when they say bad things about him. That’s the only explanation.’

‘That can’t be right. Why would any man want to listen when such things are said about him? The other day Sangeeta said he used to beat Purnima. What a lie.’

Mr Pinto did not understand why the man did it, but each time parliament met down there to gossip about him, Masterji stood by the window, and sent down aerial roots to suck up slander and abuse. That must be his new diet , Mr Pinto thought. He is chewing their thorns for lunch and nails for supper. From mockery he is making his protein.

As he looked at the chandelier, it seemed to be mutating into something stranger and brighter.

In the wild, rain-wet grass outside the Speed-Tek Cyber Café, a white cat, rearing up, slashed at a russet butterfly just beyond its reach.

There was only one customer inside the café: hunched over terminal number six, emitting chuckles. Ibrahim Kudwa, sitting with little Mariam at the proprietor’s desk, wondered if it was time to make a surprise inspection of the chuckling customer’s terminal.

‘Ibby. Pay attention.’

Ajwani and Mrs Puri had been in the café for several minutes now.

Mrs Puri put her forearms on the table and pushed the piece of paper towards him.

‘All the others have agreed, except for you.’

To free Ibrahim’s arms, she asked for Mariam, who was wearing her usual striped green nightie.

‘My wife says I have a high ratio of nerves to flesh,’ Kudwa said, as he handed Mariam over to Mrs Puri. ‘I should never be asked to make decisions.’

‘A simple thing, this is,’ Ajwani said. ‘In extreme cases, a Housing Society may expel a member and purchase his share certificate in the Society. It’s perfectly legal.’

Ibrahim Kudwa’s arms were free: yet he would not touch the piece of paper lying before him.

‘How do you know? Are you a lawyer?’

Ajwani moved his neck from side to side and then he said: ‘Shanmugham told me.’

With Mariam in her hands, Mrs Puri glared at Ajwani. But it was too late.

‘And he’s an expert?’ Kudwa’s upper lip twitched. ‘I don’t like that man, I don’t like his face. I wish we had never been picked by that builder. We are not good enough to say no to his money, and not bad enough to say yes to what he wants us to do for it.’

‘Money is not the issue here, Ibby. It is the principle . We cannot let one man bully us.’

‘True, Sangeeta-ji, true,’ Kudwa said, looking at the ventilator of the cyber-café. ‘I teach both my sons that. Hold your head up high in life.’

Putting a finger to his lips, he got up from his chair, and tiptoed over to his customer at terminal six.

Pulling the customer from his seat, Kudwa dragged him to the door of the café, and shoved him out; the white cat meowed.

‘I don’t want your money, fine. Get out!’ he shouted. ‘This is not a dirty shop.’

‘Typical.’ He wiped his forehead and sat down. ‘Leave them alone for five minutes, and there’s no saying what they download. And if the police come here, who will they arrest for pornography? Not him .’

‘Listen, Ibrahim,’ the broker said. ‘I have always fought oppression. In 1965, when Prime Minister Shastri asked us to sacrifice a meal a day to defeat the Pakistanis — I did so. I was eight years old and gave up my food for my country.’

Kudwa said: ‘I was only seven years old. I gave up dinner when my father asked. All of us sacrificed that meal in 1965, Ramesh, not just you.’ He ran his fingers through his beard while shaking his head: ‘You want to throw an old man out of his home.’

Ajwani took Mariam from Mrs Puri; he gave the girl a good shake.

‘Ibrahim.’

‘Yes?’

‘You have seen how a cow turns its eyes to the side when it shits, and pretends not to know what it’s doing? Masterji knows exactly what he’s doing to us, and he’s enjoying it. Repressed, depressed, and dangerous: that’s your beloved Masterji in a nutshell.’

Mrs Puri slid the paper across the table, closer to Kudwa.

‘Ibby. Please listen to me. Masterji knows the builder can’t touch him now. The police are watching Vishram. This is the only way out.’

Kudwa put on his reading glasses. He picked up the paper and read:

… as per the Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act, 1960, Section 35, Expulsion of Members, and also points 51 through 56 of the Model Bye-laws, a member may be expelled from his Society if he:

1. Has persistently failed in payment of his dues to the Society

2. Has wilfully deceived his Society by giving false information

3. Has used his flat for immoral purposes or misused it for illegal purposes habitually

4. Has been in habit of committing breaches of any of the provisions of the bye-laws of his Society, which in the opinion of the fellow members of his Society are serious breaches