Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

A blind man sat outside the temple with a tray that held flowers of four colours, strung into small garlands. A few red petals had flown from his tray and floated on a sunken manhole cover that had filled up with black water. Masterji thought of the beautiful bronze tray with petals floating on it that he had seen at Gaurav’s home.

Water buffaloes came near the temple, coated in dust and dung, their dark bulging bellies spangled by flies.

Leaning back against the wall of the temple, he saw, through the coconut trees, Mr Shah’s two buildings. The work appeared to be complete: a continuous row of windows sparkled down the side of each building. Soon, catching the angle of the setting sun, the buildings would flash like side-by-side comets. He remembered the blue tarpaulin that had covered their structures when he had last seen them; that must have been in June or July. He became aware of the passage of time, and it occurred to him that the deadline had really passed now. The fifth of October.

‘It is over,’ he said softly. And then, he got up and said, in the direction of Mr Shah’s two buildings: ‘You have lost.’

The tree in the courtyard began to shake. A boy was up in the branches, while a girl held out her blue skirt to collect what he was throwing down.

‘What are you doing up there, fellow?’

The boy smiled and half opened his hand, revealing three tiny green fruits.

‘And who’re you ?’ he asked the girl.

She spoke into her skirt.

‘What was that?’

‘Sister.’

Masterji closed an eye against the sun and looked at the boy. ‘Throw me one, and I won’t tell the priest you’re taking his fruit.’

The boy let one of the fruits slip from his palm; Masterji caught and chewed on it. Citrus-like and sour, it reminded him of things he had once climbed trees for. That was before his thread ceremony in Suratkal at the age of fourteen, a full day’s business of chanting Sanskrit in front of a sacred fire and blinking and coughing in the wood smoke, at the end of which a lean, geriatric, crow-like priest spoke to him the formulaic words of wisdom for coming-of-age Brahmin boys: ‘This means no more climbing trees for fruit, my son. No more stoning dogs, my son. No more teasing girls, my son.’ Then the priest had concluded by saying: ‘And now you are a man.’

But that had not been true. Only now, at the age of sixty-one, did he finally feel like a man.

‘Help us down, Grandfather,’ the boy said, and Masterji steadied his waist as he climbed down the branches. The boy and his sister divided the spoils; Masterji watched and wished Ronak were here.

He thought of that evening at Crawford Market, when he had seen the light behind the buildings and pledged to fight Mr Shah.

But that fight was over. The deadline had passed, and that builder would go somewhere else. What was he expected to do from now on?

The residue of citrus on his tongue had turned bitter. He covered his face with his hands, and closed his eyes.

Mrs Puri applied mascara, fluttering her lashes to even the colour. In a corner, Ramu fluttered his eyelashes too.

Boxing with him all the way, Rum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum, Mrs Puri led him down to 1B and pressed the bell.

When Mrs Rego opened her door, Mrs Puri stopped boxing with Ramu, and asked: ‘Didn’t you tell me you were going to your sister’s place this evening? The one who lives in Bandra?’

‘No… I didn’t tell you that.’

Mrs Puri smiled.

‘You should go to see her, Mrs Rego. And you should take my Ramu with you, too.’

‘But… I promised the boys who play cricket at the Tamil temple I would take them to the beach.’

‘This is a favour I ask of you as a neighbour. Have I ever asked you, in all these years, to take care of Ramu?’

Mrs Rego looked from Ramu to his mother, waiting for an explanation.

‘Ramu has to be David, Slayer of Goliath, in the school pageant. I will have to stay back to help them remove the stage decorations until nine o’clock.’

‘But Ramu can stay with me right here.’

Mrs Puri put her hand on her neighbour’s shoulder.

‘I want you to go to your sister’s house. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it?’

The five-second rule. As children in Bandra, Mrs Rego and her sister Catherine had played it each time a chicken leg or a slice of mango had fallen to the floor. Pick it up before a count of five and you did not have to worry about germs. You would stay safe. She remembered this now.

Saying, ‘I’d be happy to do this for you’ — one, two, three, four — Mrs Rego closed the door.

‘Be brave, Ramu. I have to leave you with Communist Aunty. Mummy must help the other Mummys clean the stage after the pageant — or who else will take responsibility?’

Ramu hid inside his aeroplane quilt and sulked with the Friendly Duck.

Sitting beside her son, Mrs Puri checked her mobile phone, which had just beeped. Ajwani had sent her a text message: ‘Going city. Back 6 clock.’

She knew exactly which part of the city he was going to.

Falkland Road.

Her brother Vikram had been in the Navy, and in the mess they had been issued with bottles of Old Monk rum every week. It brought the heat into the blood. Men performing bold physical action needed heat.

In her mind’s eye she saw Ajwani crouching on the terrace, now moving fleetfoot behind Masterji, until the time came for the push. Heat: a man needed it for these things. If he had to go to Falkland Road for his heat, then so be it.

An arm slid out from the aeroplane quilt and bunched the bangles on Mrs Puri’s forearm together, until her wrist was plated with gold like a warrior’s. She shook her arm, and the bangles trinkled down; the sweet music drew Ramu, beaming like sunrise, out of his quilt.

Up and down his mother’s forearm he rubbed her golden bangles. Her flesh grew warm and the hairs on her forearm were singed from the friction.

Mrs Puri wanted to wince. She smiled and let her son continue to play.

Mumtaz Kudwa called her husband some time after noon to say she had overheard Mrs Puri asking Mrs Rego to take care of Ramu in the evening. And then the Secretary knocked on the door to say that no one was to leave the building after nine o’clock.

‘What are they going to do to Masterji this time?’ Kudwa asked his wife.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I thought they would have told you.’

‘They always leave me out. They didn’t tell me when they got the duplicate keys done… what do you think I should do — should I go to Sangeeta-ji and ask her what is going on?’

Mumtaz started to say something but stopped, and settled on the old formula: ‘It’s up to you. You’re the man of the house.’

Typical , he thought, stroking Mariam’s hair as he sat in his cybercafé, typical. A man has a right to expect his wife to make a decision for him now and then, but not Ibrahim Kudwa. As alone after marriage as he was before marriage.

On a corner of his table was the black helmet of his new Bajaj Pulsar. He wished he had listened to Mumtaz and waited until the deadline before buying the bike: if they didn’t get the money now, how would he pay its monthly instalments?

If only you were older , he thought, bouncing Mariam on his knee. If only you could tell your father what to do .

He looked at the helmet.

Now he saw it creeping over his table again: the black swamp. He heard his neighbours standing behind him, and yelling for him to reach into it.

Little Mariam cried. Her father had banged his fist on his desk and shouted: ‘No.’

Giving instructions to Arjun, his assistant, to double-lock the door, he shut his internet café and went home with his daughter.