Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

Kumar put down his cricket bat, and stood by Dharmendar’s side, to indicate his share of the responsibility. He bowed his head: Ajwani disdained to slap it. He wiped his palms on his safari suit, as if he had soiled them by touching one so unworthy.

‘You had the key, you had to go in and put a hand over his mouth and give him a message. And you couldn’t do that.’

‘He was… very fierce, Ajwani Uncle.’

The broker scowled. ‘And now you’re playing cricket .’

‘Forgive us, Uncle,’ Kumar said. ‘We’re no good for work like this.’

A plane with the red-and-white Air India colours rose into the sky. Below its roar, Ajwani cursed and spat into the grass.

‘How many boys wait for a call like this? A chance to make some easy money. The beginning of a career in real estate. And I had to pick the two of you. Kumar: didn’t I find your family a place in the slums? Was there any other way you could have got a roof over your heads for 2,500 rupees a month?’

‘No, Uncle.’

‘And you, Dharmendar: didn’t I help your mother find a job as a maid in Silver Trophy Society? Didn’t I go there and speak to the Secretary personally?’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘And you boys let me down like this. Running from a 61-year-old…’ He shook his head. ‘And now the police will be here. After me.’

‘Forgive us, Uncle.’

‘What happened to the key I gave you?’ Ajwani gestured for it with his fingers.

‘We lost the key,’ Kumar said.

‘When we were running out of the building, Uncle.’

‘Lost the key!’ Ajwani shouted. ‘When the police come to arrest me, I should give them your names and say it was your idea.’

‘We’ll go to jail for you, Uncle. You are like a father to—’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Ajwani said. ‘Shut up.’

Almost choking with disgust, he walked back to the market and crossed the road to his office.

When Mani returned to the Renaissance Real-Estate office, he found his boss lying on the cot in the inner room, with one foot stretched out and playing with the coconuts in the wicker basket.

‘Why, Mani? Why did I give the job to those boys? I know so many people along the highway. I should have gone to a real goonda. Someone with experience.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Mani sat in a corner and watched the boss.

‘I have failed in everything I’ve put my hand to, Mani. I bought Infosys shares in 2000. Four days later the Nasdaq crashed. Even in real estate I keep buying at the wrong time. I am just a comedian in my own movie.’ His eyes filled with tears; his voice broke. ‘Get out of here, Mani.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And take care of my children when the police come to question me, Mani.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Picking up the black curved knife, the broker sliced open a coconut, drank its water, then got down on the floor and did twenty-five push-ups in an attempt to improve his morale.

At three o’clock, when Mani came back to the inner room, he was still lying on the cot, looking at the ceiling.

‘The way he dealt with those two useless boys, Mani. There’s guts in a 61-year-old doing that. Even in an enemy I admire courage.’

Now that he had done this terrible thing to Masterji, Ajwani felt closer than ever before to the stern sanctimonious old teacher, whom he had neither liked nor trusted all these years.

To wake up every morning white and hot and angry. To become a young man again at the age of sixty-one. What must it feel like? Ajwani clenched his fist.

At four o’clock, he called the Secretary’s office.

Kothari’s voice was relaxed. ‘You have nothing to worry about. He hasn’t gone to the police.’

‘He isn’t going to file a complaint against us?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘I’ve been thinking about it all morning,’ the Secretary said. ‘Like you, I sat here shaking in my office. But the police never came. Why didn’t Masterji call them?’

‘That’s what I asked you, Kothari.’

‘Because,’ the voice on the phone dropped to a whisper, ‘he knows he’s the guilty one. Not going to the police, what does it mean? Full confession. He accepts responsibility for everything that has gone wrong in this Society. And to think we once respected the man. Now listen, Ajwani. The deadline ended yesterday. At midnight. Correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘But no one has come from the builder’s office. To tell us that it is over, and Tower A is no longer wanted by the Confidence Group.’

‘What does it mean?’ Ajwani whispered back. ‘Is Shah giving us more time? He said he would never do that.’

‘I don’t know what it means,’ the Secretary said. ‘But look — all of us have signed and dated our agreement forms before October 3. Correct? If Shanmugham comes tomorrow and says, it is over, we can always say, but we did sign the forms. You did not come yesterday.’

Ajwani exhaled. Yes, it could still work. Nothing had been lost just yet.

‘But this means…’

‘This means,’ the Secretary continued for him, ‘we have to try something even more simple with Masterji. Tonight .’

‘Not tonight,’ Ajwani said. ‘I need a day. I have to plan things.’

The voice on the other end of the phone paused.

‘And you call me a nothing man, Ajwani?’

‘Why do I have to do everything? Do it yourself this time!’ the broker shouted. He slammed the phone down.

You stink. You people.

He could smell them from his room too well. He burned the candle, he burned an incense stick, he sprayed a perfume about the rooms, but he could still smell them.

I’ll go up as high as possible , Masterji thought.

So he climbed the stairs and went out on to the terrace again. Standing at the edge, he looked down on the black Cross, which was being garlanded by Mrs Saldanha.

She must be praying I should die , he thought.

He circled about the terrace. After a while, he saw small faces down in the compound, staring up: Ajwani, Mrs Puri, and the Secretary were watching him.

Those who had tried to attack him in his room the previous night now gaped at him from down there, as if he were a thing to fear. How monstrous a child’s face with a torch-light must seem to a poisonous spider. He smiled.

The smile faded.

They were pointing at him and whispering into each other’s ears.

‘Go down at once,’ he told himself. ‘By staying up here you are only giving them an excuse to do something worse to you.’

Half an hour later he was still up there: with his hands clasped behind his back, walking in circles around the terrace, as helpless to stop moving as those down below were to stop watching.

They stood, white and pink, on a metal tray in front of the glass-encased figure of the Virgin; their individual flames merged into a thick fire and swayed, alternately answering the sea breeze and the chanting of the kneeling penitents. Thick, blackened wicks emerged from the melting candles like bone from a wound.

White and pink wax dripped like noisy, molten fat on to the metal under-plate, then hardened into white flakes that were blown around like snow.

‘How long is Mummy going to pray today?’

The Virgin stood on a terrace with the sea of Bandra behind her and the stony grey Gothic façade of the church of Mount Mary in front of her.

Sunil and Sarah Rego waited at the wall of the terrace; Mrs Puri stood beside them, ruffling Ramu’s hair and goading him to say the words (which he once knew so well): ‘Holy Roman Catholic.’

It had been Mrs Puri’s idea that they should come here: the black Cross in the compound had failed them. Eaten prayer after prayer and flower garland after flower garland and done nothing to change Masterji’s mind.