Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘I don’t know, Mrs Pinto, what the “simple thing” is any more than you do. It’s Ajwani’s idea. He has connections in the slums. They just want me to give him the duplicate key to Masterji’s flat. I can’t do that, Mrs Pinto. It’s against the rules.’

Mrs Pinto sucked in the dark air of the stairwell.

‘Will Mr Shah really not extend the deadline?’

The Secretary exhaled.

‘Every time I hear a car or an autorickshaw, the tea spills from my teacup. It could be that Shanmugham fellow, coming to say, Sorry, it’s over .’

‘Then we won’t see the dollars.’

‘Dollars?’

‘Rupees.’

‘Why doesn’t Masterji see it the way we do?’

‘He doesn’t even come down to have dinner. Thinks he’s too good for Mr Pinto and me. After poor Mr Pinto broke his leg for Masterji’s sake. Thinks he’s a great man because he’s fighting this Shah. Went and spoke to the papers about his own Society.’

‘After all the times he came down to your house and ate your food. Ingratitude is the worst of sins, my father always said.’ He paused. ‘My father was the greatest man I ever knew. If he had stayed in Africa, he would have become a millionaire. A prince. But the foreigners didn’t want him to succeed. Isn’t that always the story of our people?’

Mrs Pinto placed her cold hand on his. ‘Is someone walking up the stairs?’ she whispered.

The Secretary peered down the stairwell. ‘Just the dog.’

With his palm he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

‘Why don’t you make a duplicate of Masterji’s key?’ Mrs Pinto put her hand on the Secretary’s shoulder. ‘That won’t be against the rules. The key will always be in your possession. Just give the duplicate to Ajwani.’

‘I could do that.’ Kothari nodded. ‘It would be within the rules.’

‘My husband will come with you, if you want.’

‘No, Mrs Pinto. It’s my responsibility. I’ll go to Mahim, so no one will recognize me.’

‘Bandra is far enough.’

‘You’re right.’ He smiled. ‘In all these years we’ve never talked like this, Mrs Pinto.’

‘In parliament we have. But not like this. I have always admired you. I never thought you stole money from the Society. I never did.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Pinto.’

She got up, with her hand to the wall. ‘It’s for his own sake, remember. This Confidence Shah is not a Christian man.’

Kothari prodded the stray dog to get it out of Mrs Pinto’s way and she went on down the stairs.

In the lowest drawer of his desk, the Secretary of Vishram Society keeps a box of the spare keys to all the units in the building. To be loaned to the rightful owner in case of emergency: no key to leave the box for more than twenty-four hours.

A pair of fingers disturbed the keys. One key was removed. Then the man who had stolen the key closed the door of the Secretary’s office behind him.

Something growled at him from the black Cross: the stray dog was looking up from its bowl of channa.

Kothari bought a twice-buttered sandwich at the market; he ate it in the autorickshaw that took him to the train station, and licked his fingers as he stepped out.

Full, he dozed on the Churchgate-bound local, until the smell of the great black sewer outside Bandra woke him.

Straightening his comb-over to make sure it covered his baldness, Kothari descended on to the platform. A pink palm shot out at him from a dark blazer: ‘Ticketticket.’

He handed over his three-month first-class rail pass to the ticket inspector; as the man in the blazer checked the validity of the pass, he recited:

‘Do as you will, evil king:

I, for my part, know right from wrong

And will never follow you,

said the virtuous demon Maricha

When the lord of…’

Except for that one time he thought he was going to jail because he forgot to pay his advance tax, the Secretary had never felt like this.

The evening rays of the sun, intercepted by trees and shop fronts around the station, fell near his feet like claw marks on bark. He was heading down one of the alleys by the side of the Bandra train station. On every side of him, he saw bananas, cauliflower, apples, burnished and expanded by the golden light. Like another strange kind of fruit, giant cardboard keys, yellow and white, dangled from the branches of the next banyan tree; each bore the legend:

RAJU KEY-MAKER. MOBILE PHONE: 9811799289

Beneath them, the key-maker sat on a grey cloth, his tools and keys spread before him. He worked with a knife, cutting a piece of iron into a new key, closing an eye to compare it with another key that he brought out from his shirt pocket.

‘Can you make a duplicate for me?’ the Secretary asked. ‘It’s for my mother-in-law’s house — in Goregaon.’

The key-maker indicated that he should move so his shadow fell to the side.

Kothari felt the key grow hot in his hand.

‘Had some free time on Gandhi Jayanti, thought, let’s get it done… Go to my mother-in-law’s house in Goregaon and check for yourself. The building is right there. Near the Topi-wala cinema hall.’

‘Look here,’ the key-maker said. ‘I’ve got six orders ahead of yours.’

Nearly two hours later, Ajwani opened his door to find the Secretary standing with something wrapped in a handkerchief in his hand.

He smiled and reached for the handkerchief; but the Secretary hid it behind his back.

‘Look here, Ajwani, if you’re getting anything extra for this from Shah — and I know you are — I want half of it. I did all the work today.’ Coming close to Ajwani’s ear, he whispered: ‘I want a large glass panel in my living room in Sewri. For a full view of the flamingoes. A large glass panel.’

Ajwani grinned. ‘You’re becoming a man, Kothari. All right, fifty fifty.’

He reached behind the Secretary’s back and took the thing wrapped in a handkerchief; in return he handed the Secretary a large soft packet.

‘Cotton wool,’ he said. ‘Distribute it to everyone in the Society. Before 9 p.m. I’m going right now to see the boys.’

The Secretary turned his face to the right and held the cotton bale up to his ear. ‘ Don’t tell me what is going to happen.’

Outside Vishram Society, the street lamps were flickering to life. Mrs Puri was out in the market, shopping for fresh, vitamin-rich spinach with which she would stimulate her son’s slow neurons.

A jarring noise of brakes tore through the market. The Tata Indigo, which had swerved from the main road, slowed down, but not fast enough: there was a mad squealing, and a thrashing of living limbs under its wheels.

‘You’ve killed it!’ someone shouted at the driver. ‘And on Gandhi Jayanti!’

Two men came out of a grocery store; one of them, who wore a blue lungi, tied it up around his knees. ‘Pull him out of his car and give him a thrashing!’ he yelled.

The Indigo sped away; the grocery-store men went back to their work.

The stray yellow dog, an uninvited and unexpelled guest at Vishram Society for so many months, lay in a puddle of dark sticky blood near the market. A crow hopped by the side of the animal. It picked at its entrails.

Mrs Puri shielded Ramu’s face with her palm. He whimpered. Hugging him into her side, she led him back to Vishram, and left him there with Mrs Saldanha.

She shook Ram Khare out from his guard’s booth.

Ram Khare brought water in the channa bowl Ramu had left near the black Cross. The dog was too weak to drink it. They lowered the animal into the gutter, so that it might pass away in dignity, if not in comfort.

‘Ask the municipality men to take it with them when they come here in the morning, Ram Khare. We can’t leave its body out here.’