Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘He’s not seeing us, Father. Your Noronha.’

‘What do you mean?’

Closing an eye, Gaurav dug into the chocolate mud that sat at the bottom of the disappearing vanilla.

‘It’s not a story for his newspaper.’

‘Why not? One retired man fights a big builder. “Last Man in Tower Fights Builder.” That sounds like a story to me.’

Gaurav shrugged; he ate his ice cream.

Masterji stared at his son, his mouth open. ‘Did your connection really speak to Noronha? Do you have a connection at the Times ?’

Gaurav’s spoon scraped the last of the chocolate mud from the bottom of the cup.

‘I was waiting for you to call me, Father. For so many days. I said to Sonal, there is trouble at Vishram. Sangeeta Aunty keeps phoning me. My own father does not phone. But when you do call, what do you say?’

Gaurav crushed his cup.

‘Contact Noronha for me. Set up an appointment. I do have a connection at the Times , Father. I wouldn’t lie to you. I got Noronha’s number, and I picked up the phone to call him, and I thought, my father is treating me like a servant. Not like his only living child.’

A small red moth flitted about Masterji’s hand, like a particle of air trying to warn him about something.

‘Gaurav, I called you because I have nowhere else… You are the last place.’

‘Father, what is it you want from the Confidence Group?’

Masterji had never seen Gaurav sound and look so decisive. He felt the strength draining from him.

‘Nothing.’

The boy raised his upper lip in a sneer. Purnima used to do that.

‘You’re lying, Father.’

‘Lying?’

‘Don’t you see what’s behind this nothing? You . You think you are a great man because you’re fighting this Shah. Another Galileo or Gandhi. You’re not thinking of your own grandson.’

‘I am thinking of Ronak. This man Mr Shah threatened the Pintos. In daylight. Would you want Ronak to grow up in a city where he can be bullied or threatened in daylight? Gaurav: listen. Dhirubhai Ambani said he would salaam anyone to become the richest man in India. I’ve never salaamed anyone. This has been a city where a free man could keep his dignity.’

Gaurav glared. His sharp features and oval face, except for the fat that had accumulated on them, resembled his father’s: but when he frowned, a dark slant furrow cut into his brow, like a bookmark left there by his mother.

‘Maybe you should have saluted more people, Father.’

For months now he had imagined himself speaking to Purnima, and hearing soft distant replies: but now it was as if his wife were talking from right in front of him.

‘Maybe Sandhya would not have had to take the train if you had made more money. Maybe she would have been in a taxi, safe, that day she was pushed out. She was my sister, I think of her too.’

‘Son. Son.’ Masterji pressed down on the piece of paper he had been writing on. ‘Son.’

‘Every other parent in Vishram Society has thought of their children. But not you. It’s always been this way. When I was in your physics class in school you punished me more than the others.’

‘I had to show the other boys there was no favouritism.’

‘All my life I’ve been frightened of you. You and that steel foot-ruler with which you hit my knuckles. For sleeping in the afternoon . Is that a crime? You made my mother’s life a living hell. Fighting with her over every five rupees she spent. Don’t you remember what she said, on her deathbed, when I asked if she had had a good life? She said, I had a happy childhood, Gaurav. A happy childhood , Father — and nothing after that.’

‘Don’t bring your mother’s name into this.’

‘Your students always came first for you. Always. Not that they had any love for you.’ He grinned. ‘They used to give you nicknames in class. Dirty nicknames.’

‘That’s enough.’ Masterji got up. ‘I’m going to see Noronha myself.’

‘Go. Go. You think your darling Noronha will see you? Has he responded to your letters or phone calls? He was the one who gave you all those nicknames in class. Go. But before you go, let me give you some advice. Just once let me be a teacher to you, Father.’

( Why does everyone say that? Masterji wondered.)

‘Do you know what it is you’re dealing with, Father? Construction. They’re mafia. Sangeeta Aunty tells me you love to talk about tidal waves and meteors in your science class. Worry about knives, Father: not the ocean. Haven’t you seen those big posters near the construction sites? “Your own swimming pool, gym, TV, wedding hall, air-conditioning.” When you sell dreams like that you can murder anyone you want. The deadline is just a few days away. Keep saying no to Mr Shah and we’ll find you one morning in a gutter. You. Are. All. Alone.’ Gaurav stood up. ‘I have to go back to work now. We can’t take long breaks from the bank, or it goes into our next performance report.’

Masterji read the words he had written on the piece of paper:

Media

Law and order

Social workers

The paper flew into the busy road.

Walking out of the McDonald’s, he stood in front of Victoria Terminus.

High up on the building a gargoyle was watching him. Sticking its tongue out it said: I have students in high places . He turned his eyes away. Another gargoyle grinned: I claim no credit for Noronha . And a third smirked: A teacher is not without his connections .

Then all the stony mass of the Terminus was blown away: a horn had sounded just inches from Masterji’s ears. Members of an off-duty band were coming down the pavement; a man with the tuba was giving an occasional short blast to warn people to give way. They wore red shirts with golden epaulettes and white trousers with a black stripe down them, tucked into bedraggled black boots. Suddenly they were all around Masterji, with their silvery instruments; drawn by the blasts of the tuba, he followed. The musicians’ shirts were sweat-stained and their bodies slumped. He walked behind the man with the tuba; staring into its wide mouth, he began counting the nicks and dents on its skin.

Perhaps observing his presence in their midst, the musicians got rid of him as they came close to Crawford Market by taking a sudden right turn together. Masterji kept on walking in a straight line, like an animal dragged by its collar. His body was in the possession of inertia, but he had full control of his neck and eyes as he observed that the clock on the Crawford Market tower was broken. The pavement became dim. Now he was on Mohammad Ali Road. The dark canyon of concrete and old stone amplified the noise of the traffic. On either side, thick buildings blocked the light, while the JJ flyover, raised on columns, its grooved body winding and twisting like an alligator on the hunt, secreted its shadow on to the road below.

Something touched him from his left.

Three goats had come out from an alley, and one of them rubbed against his left leg.

Day-labourers slept on the pavement, oblivious to the moving feet around them. The wooden carts that they had been pulling all day long lay beside them; from beneath one, a dog’s claws jutted out, as if the cart were relaxing its animal digits in the cool of the evening. An old man sat beside stacks of newspapers held down by rocks: each rock looking like a crystallization of some hard truth in the newsprint. Masterji stopped to watch the newspapers.

They shot an elected member of the city corporation dead. It was in the papers.

He remembered that Bhendi bazaar, one of the recruiting grounds of the mafia, was just around the corner. Any of these unshaven men by the side of the road, with nothing to do but suck tea, would do it for Mr Shah. A knife would be stuck into his neck. Worse: his knees would be smashed. He might be turned into a cripple. Blinded.