Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

‘He rang the bell and asked for you.’

‘I know what is going on,’ Kudwa said. ‘No one told me, but I’m not as stupid as you think. And I know you didn’t tell me because you thought a Muslim wouldn’t want to help you.’

‘Nothing is going on, Ibby.’

Kudwa sat beside her on the cot. ‘Don’t treat me like a child. Ajwani is going to do something . Tonight.’

The Secretary looked at the Puris.

‘What’s the point of hiding it from Ibrahim?’

‘We know it’s dangerous, Ibby. That is why we kept you out of it.’ Mrs Puri reached for his forearm and stroked it. ‘The only reason. We know you have Mumtaz and the children to take care of.’

Her husband moved protectively in front of her. ‘Will you tell the police about us now?’

‘No!’ Ibrahim Kudwa winced. He slapped his breast pocket, brimming with heart-shaped antacid tablets. ‘You’re my friends . Don’t you know me by now? I want to save you. How can Ajwani get away with this?’ he pleaded with folded palms. ‘Ram Khare will be watching from his booth. Someone passing on the road might see. Masterji might cry out. It’s a trap — can’t you see? The builder has trapped all of you. From the day he paid the money to Tower B ahead of schedule: this is what he wanted you to do.’

‘And he’s right , Ibby,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘That man walked into Mumbai with nothing on his feet, and look at him now. And look at us . We should have done this a long time now.’

‘Don’t raise your voice,’ the Secretary said. ‘Speak to Ajwani when he gets here, Ibrahim. Me, I don’t want the money. I just want to make sure that no one goes to jail. That is my sacred responsibility here.’

The lynx-lines spread wide around his eyes; he grinned.

He picked up the big crescent knife from the basket and scraped it against the nuts.

‘Ajwani is an expert at this. I’m not quite sure how it’s done.’ Selecting a large coconut, which was still attached to the brown connective tissue of the tree it had been hacked from, Kothari held it out at arm’s length: then he stuck the knife into it. Three hesitant strokes, then it came to him. Thwack thwack thwack . The white flesh of the coconut exposed; fresh water spilling out.

‘Not for me,’ Kudwa said, pointing to the antacid tablets in his translucent shirt pocket. ‘Bad stomach.’

‘Have it, Ibrahim. All of us are going to. It will cure a weak stomach.’

Kudwa had a sip, and then offered the coconut to Mrs Puri, who sipped and passed it to her husband. When he was done, the Secretary reached in with his knife, and carved out the white flesh of the coconut, which he offered to Mrs Puri.

‘It’s there, why waste it?’

‘All right.’

Mrs Puri scooped the coconut flesh with her fingers, and passed it to Kudwa, who did the same, and licked the white slop off his fingers.

The Secretary pitched the coconut into the corner. Kudwa pointed at the knife that he had just placed over the coconuts.

‘Is Ajwani going to do it with that…?’

The Secretary pushed the basket away with his foot.

‘We don’t know anything about it, Ibby. We’re just here to give Ajwani some support.’

‘That’s right,’ the Secretary said. ‘We’ll say we were here with him when it happened.’

They sat there, in the inner room: the chiming of the Daisy Duck clock from outside told them it was a quarter past seven.

Kudwa stretched his legs.

‘What is that you’re humming, Ibrahim?’

With sly fingers the Secretary pinched the strip of heart-shaped antacid tablets from the shirt pocket and examined them.

‘“Hey Jude”.’

The Secretary put the antacid tablets back into Kudwa’s shirt pocket. ‘What is that?’

‘You don’t know? How is it possible?’

‘I’m a Mohammad Rafi man, Ibrahim.’

‘Here,’ Kudwa said. ‘It’s an easy song. Here, I’ll show you.’ Clapping his hands together, he began to sing.

‘Voice is so beautiful, Ibby,’ Mrs Puri said.

He blushed.

‘Oh, no, no. It’s terrible now, Sangeeta-ji. I don’t practise. But you should have heard it in college…’ Kudwa moved his hand over his head, to indicate past glories.

‘Should I go on with “Hey Jude”, or do you want something in Hindi?’

He waited for an answer from Mrs Puri. Standing at the door of the inner room, she was telling Mani: ‘Close the outer door. And don’t answer the phone for any reason. Do you understand?’

Returning after dark, Masterji stopped in the stairwell of Vishram Society; his red fingers reached for the wall.

By the banister on which his daughter used to slide down on her way to school (her father upstairs shouting: ‘Don’t do that, you’ll fall’), he said aloud: ‘I am starting an evening school. For the boys who play cricket by the temple.’

At once he felt something he had almost forgotten: a sensation of fear. ‘Have to get checked for diabetes tomorrow,’ he reminded himself. ‘It’s just a question of taking tablets and watching the sweets. You’ll be fine.’

He kept going up the stairs to the fifth floor, where he opened the door that led to the roof terrace.

Firecrackers were exploding in the distance. The wedding of a rich man , Masterji thought. Or perhaps it was an obscure festival. Incandescent rockets and whirligigs and corkscrews shot through the night sky: Masterji put both hands on the short wall of the terrace. He heard a snatch of what he thought was band music.

‘We beat Mr Shah,’ he wanted to shout, so loudly that the people celebrating could hear, and celebrate louder.

He wished he could go to where the rockets were bursting: and soar over the fireworks, over Santa Cruz, over the churches and beaches of Bandra, over the temple at SiddhiVinayak and the darkened race course at Mahalakshmi, until he alighted at Crawford Market. There he would look for that bearded day-labourer and fall asleep by his side, adding to the numbers of those who were not alone tonight.

Mr Pinto did not hear the phone, but its ringing pierced through the cotton wool to reach his wife’s more sensitive ears. She shook his shoulder until he unplugged his ears and reached for the receiver: it might be the children calling from America.

For an instant he thought the threatening calls were starting again. It was the same voice.

‘Pinto? Don’t you know me? It’s Ajwani.’

Mr Pinto breathed out. ‘You frightened me.’ He looked at the clock. ‘It’s eight fifteen.’

(‘Is it Tony?’ Mrs Pinto whispered. ‘Deepa?’)

The thin voice on the phone said: ‘No one else is picking up, Pinto. It’s all up to you.’

‘What are you talking about, Ajwani? You’re frightening me.’

‘Do you know where I am? In Dadar. I can’t leave the station. The hand shakes. It took me an hour to pick up the phone.’

‘The Secretary told us to stay in bed and wear ear-cotton tonight, Ajwani. We are watching television. Good night.’

‘… Pinto… tell them it’s a mistake, Pinto. You must tell them it’s a mistake.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Tell them not to do it. We can all live together in the building like before. Tell Mrs Puri. Tell the Secretary.’

Mr Pinto put the phone down.

‘Who was that?’ his wife asked.

‘Do not ,’ he said, ‘make me pick up the phone again tonight. Do not.’

He took the phone off the hook.

He and Shelley watched their favourite Hindi TV serial, in which the acting was so exaggerated, and the zoom-in camera so frequently used, that an absence of sound only mildly inhibited one’s understanding of the plot.

Mr Pinto folded his arms in front of the TV and watched. On a piece of paper by the side of his sofa, he had written: