Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger

The Mongoose switched to English-and I didn't catch what he said-but Mr. Ashok replied in Hindi, "Pinky thinks the same too. That's the only thing you and she agree on, but I won't have it, Mukesh. We don't know who's who in Delhi. This fellow, we can trust him. He's from home."

At that moment I looked at the rearview mirror, and I caught Mr. Ashok's eyes looking at me: and in those master's eyes, I saw the most unexpected emotion.

Pity.

"How much are they paying you, Country-Mouse?"

"Enough. I'm happy."

"Not telling me, eh, Country-Mouse? Good boy. A loyal servant to the end. Liking Delhi?"

"Yes."

"Ha! Don't lie to me, sister-fucker. I know you're completely lost here. You must hate it!"

He tried to put his hand on me, and I squirmed and moved back. He had a skin disease-vitiligo had turned his lips bright pink in the middle of a pitch-black face. I'd better explain about this skin disease, which afflicts so many poor people in our country. I don't know why you get it, but once you do, your skin changes color from brown to pink. Nine cases out of ten, it's a few bright pink spots on a boy's nose or cheeks like a star exploding on his face, or a rash of pink on the forearm like someone burned him with boiling water there, but sometimes a fellow's whole body has changed color, and as you walk past, you think, An American! You stop to gape; you want to go near and touch. Then you realize it's just one of ours, with that horrible condition.

In the case of this driver, since the flash of pink had completely discolored his lips-and nothing else-he looked like a clown at the circus with painted lips. My stomach churned just to see his face. Still, he was the only one of the drivers who was being nice to me, so I stayed close to him.

We were outside the mall. We-a dozen or so chauffeurs-were waiting for our masters to finish their shopping. We weren't allowed inside the mall, of course-no one had to tell us these things. We had made a ring by the side of the parking lot, and we were smoking and chatting-every now and then someone would emit a red jet of paan from his mouth.

On account of the fact that he too was from the Darkness-he had of course guessed my origin at once-the driver with the diseased lips gave me a course on how to survive Delhi and make sure I wasn't sent back to the Darkness on the top of a bus.

"The main thing to know about Delhi is that the roads are good, and the people are bad. The police are totally rotten. If they see you without a seat belt, you'll have to bribe them a hundred rupees. Our masters are not such a great lot, either. When they go for their late-night parties, it's hell for us. You sleep in the car, and the mosquitoes eat you alive. If they're malaria mosquitoes it's all right, you'll just be raving for a couple of weeks, but if it's the dengue mosquitoes, then you're in deep shit, and you'll die for sure. At two in the morning, he comes back, banging on the windows and shouting for you, and he's reeking of beer, and he farts in the car all the way back. The cold gets really bad in January. If you know he's having a late-night party, take along a blanket so you can cover yourself in the car. Keeps the mosquitoes away too. Now, you'll get bored sitting in the car and waiting for him to come back from his parties-I knew one driver who went nuts from the waiting-so you need something to read. You can read, can't you? Good. This is the absolutely best thing to read in the car."

He gave me a magazine with a catchy cover-a woman in her underwear was lying on a bed, cowering from the shadow of a man.

MURDER WEEKLY

RUPEES 4.50

EXCLUSIVE TRUE STORY:

"A GOOD BODY NEVER GOES TO WASTE"

MURDER. RAPE. REVENGE.

Now I have to tell you about this magazine, Murder Weekly, since our prime minister certainly won't tell you anything about it. It's sold in every newsstand in the city, alongside the cheap novels, and it is very popular reading among all the servants of the city-whether they be cooks, children's maids, or gardeners. Drivers are no different. Every week when this magazine comes out, with a cover image of a woman cowering from her would-be murderer, some driver has bought the magazine and is passing it around to the other drivers.

Now, don't panic at this information, Mr. Premier-no beads of chill sweat need form on your yellow brow. Just because drivers and cooks in Delhi are reading Murder Weekly, it doesn't mean that they are all about to slit their masters' necks. Of course, they'd like to. Of course, a billion servants are secretly fantasizing about strangling their bosses-and that's why the government of India publishes this magazine and sells it on the streets for just four and a half rupees so that even the poor can buy it. You see, the murderer in the magazine is so mentally disturbed and sexually deranged that not one reader would want to be like him-and in the end he always gets caught by some honest, hardworking police officer (ha!), or goes mad and hangs himself by a bedsheet after writing a sentimental letter to his mother or primary school teacher, or is chased, beaten, buggered, and garroted by the brother of the woman he has done in. So if your driver is busy flicking through the pages of Murder Weekly, relax. No danger to you. Quite the contrary.

It's when your driver starts to read about Gandhi and the Buddha that it's time to wet your pants, Mr. Jiabao.

After showing it to me, Vitiligo-Lips closed the magazine and threw it into the circle where the other drivers were sitting; they made a grab for it, like a bunch of dogs rushing after a bone. He yawned and looked at me.

"What does your boss do for a living, Country-Mouse?"

"I don't know."

"Being loyal or being stupid, Country-Mouse? Where is he from?"

"Dhanbad."

"He's into coal, then. Probably here to bribe ministers. It's a rotten business, coal." He yawned again. "I used to drive a man who sold coal. Bad, bad business. But my current boss is into steel, and he makes the coal men look like saints. Where does he live?"

I told him the name of our apartment block.

"My master lives there too! We're neighbors!"

He sidled right up to me; without moving away-that would have been rude-I tilted my body as far as I could from his lips.

"Country-Mouse-does your boss"-he looked around, and dropped his voice to a whisper-" need anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Does your boss like foreign wine? I have a friend who works at a foreign embassy as a driver. He's got contacts there. You know the foreign-wine foreign-embassy scam?"

I shook my head.

"The scam is this, Country-Mouse. Foreign wine is very expensive in Delhi, because it's taxed. But the embassies get it in for free. They're supposed to drink their wine, but they sell it on the black market. I can get him other stuff too. Does he want golf balls? I've got people in the U.S. Consulate who will sell me that. Does he want women? I can get that too. If he's into boys, no problem."

"My master doesn't do these things. He's a good man."

The diseased lips opened up into a smile. "Aren't they all?"

He began whistling some Hindi film song. One of the drivers had begun reading out a story from the magazine; all the others had gone silent. I looked at the mall for a while.

I turned to the driver with the horrible pink lips and said, "I've got a question to ask you."

"All right. Ask. You know I'll do anything for you, Country-Mouse."

"This building-the one they call a mall-the one with the posters of women hanging on it-it's for shopping, right?"

"Right."

"And that"-I pointed to a shiny glass building to our left-"is that also a mall? I don't see any posters of women hanging on it."