Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger

When I woke up, someone was standing in my room, turning the lights on and off.

It was Pinky Madam.

"Get ready. You're going to drive me."

"Yes, madam," I said, rubbing my eyes. "What time is it?"

She put a finger to her lips.

I put on a shirt, and then got the car out, and drove it to the front of the building. She had a bag in her hand.

"Where to?" I asked. It was two in the morning.

She told me, and I asked, "Isn't Sir coming?"

"Just drive."

I drove her to the airport, I asked no questions.

When she got out at the airport, she pushed a brown envelope into my window-then slammed her door and left.

And that was how, Your Excellency, my employer's marriage came to an end.

Other drivers have techniques to prolong the marriages of their masters. One of them told me that whenever the fighting got worse he drove fast, so they would get home quickly; whenever they got romantic he let the car slow down. If they were shouting at each other he asked them for directions; if they were kissing he turned the music up. I feel some part of the responsibility falls on me, that their marriage broke up while I was the driver.

The following morning, Mr. Ashok called me to the apartment. When I knocked on the door, he caught me by the collar of my shirt and pulled me inside.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he said, tightening his hold on the collar, almost choking me. "Why didn't you wake me up at once?"

"Sir…she said…she said…she said…"

He grabbed me and pushed me against the balcony of the apartment. The landlord inside him wasn't dead, after all.

"Why did you drive her there, sister-fucker?"

I turned my head-behind me I saw all the shiny towers and shopping malls of Gurgaon.

"Did you want to ruin my family's reputation?"

He pushed me harder against the balcony; my head and chest were over the edge now, and if he pushed me even a bit more I was in real danger of flying over. I gathered my legs and kicked him in the chest-he staggered back and hit the sliding glass door between the house and the balcony. I slid down against the edge of the balcony; he sat down against the glass door. The two of us were panting.

"You can't blame me, sir!" I shouted. "I'd never heard of a woman leaving her husband for good! I mean, yes, on TV, but not in real life! I just did what she told me to."

A crow sat down on the balcony and cawed. Both of us turned and stared at it.

Then his madness was over. He covered his face in his hands and began to sob.

I ran down to my room. I got into the mosquito net and sat on the bed. I counted to ten to make sure he hadn't followed me. Then, reaching under the bed, I took out the brown envelope and opened it again.

It was full of one-hundred-rupee notes.

Forty-seven of them.

I shoved the envelope under the bed: someone was coming toward my room. Four of the drivers walked in.

"Tell us all about it, Country-Mouse."

They took positions around me.

"Tell you what?"

"The gatekeeper spilled the beans. There are no secrets around here. You drove the woman somewhere at night and came back alone. Has she left him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"We know they've been fighting, Country-Mouse. And you drove her somewhere at night. The airport? She's gone, isn't she? It's a divorce-every rich man these days is divorcing his wife. These rich people…" He shook his head. His lips curled up in scorn, exposing his reddish, rotting, paan -decayed canines. "No respect for God, for marriage, family-nothing."

"She just went out for some fresh air. And I brought her back. That gatekeeper has gone blind."

"Loyal to the last. They don't make servants like you anymore."

I waited all morning for the bell to ring-but it did not. In the afternoon, I went up to the thirteenth floor, and rang the bell and waited. He opened his door, and his eyes were red.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, sir. I came to…make lunch."

"No need for that." I thought he was going to apologize for almost killing me, but he said nothing about it.

"Sir, you must eat. It's not good for your health to starve…Please, sir."

With a sigh, he let me in.

Now that she was gone, I knew that it was my duty to be like a wife to him. I had to make sure he ate well, and slept well, and did not get thin. I made lunch, I served him, I cleaned up. Then I went down and waited for the bell. At eight o'clock, I took the elevator up again. Pressing my ear against the door, I listened.

Nothing. Not a sound.

I rang the bell: no response. I knew he couldn't be out-I was his driver, after all. Where could he go without me?

The door was open. I walked in.

He lay beneath the framed photo of the two Pomeranians, a bottle on the mahogany table in front of him, his eyes closed.

I sniffed the bottle. Whiskey. Almost all of it gone. I put it to my lips and emptied the dregs.

"Sir," I said, but he did not wake up. I gave him a push. I slapped him on the face. He licked his lips, sucked his teeth. He was waking up, but I slapped him a second time anyway.

(A time-honored servants' tradition. Slapping the master when he's asleep. Like jumping on pillows when masters are not around. Or urinating into their plants. Or beating or kicking their pet dogs. Innocent servants' pleasures.)

I dragged him into his bedroom, pulled the blanket over him, turned the lights off, and went down. There was going to be no driving tonight, so I headed off to the "Action" English Liquor Shop. My nose was still full of Mr. Ashok's whiskey.

The same thing happened the next night too.

The third night he was drunk, but awake.

"Drive me," he said. "Anywhere you want. To the malls. To the hotels. Anywhere."

Around and around the shiny malls and hotels of Gurgaon I drove him, and he sat slouched in the backseat-not even talking on the phone, for once.

When the master's life is in chaos, so is the servant's. I thought, Maybe he's sick of Delhi now. Will he go back to Dhanbad? What happens to me then? My belly churned. I thought I would crap right there, on my seat, on the gearbox.

"Stop the car," he said.

He opened the door of the car, put his hand on his stomach, bent down, and threw up on the ground. I wiped his mouth with my hand and helped him sit down by the side of the road. The traffic roared past us. I patted his back.

"You're drinking too much, sir."

"Why do men drink, Balram?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Of course, in your caste you don't…Let me tell you, Balram. Men drink because they are sick of life. I thought caste and religion didn't matter any longer in today's world. My father said, 'No, don't marry her, she's of another…' I…"

Mr. Ashok turned his head to the side, and I rubbed his back, thinking he might throw up again, but the spasm passed.

"Sometimes I wonder, Balram. I wonder what's the point of living. I really wonder…"

The point of living? My heart pounded. The point of your living is that if you die, who's going to pay me three and a half thousand rupees a month?

"You must believe in God, sir. You must go on. My granny says that if you believe in God, then good things will happen."

"That's true, it's true. We must believe," he sobbed.

"Once there was a man who stopped believing in God, and you know what happened?"

"What?"

"His buffalo died at once."

"I see." He laughed. "I see."

"Yes, sir, it really happened. The next day he said, 'God, I'm sorry, I believe in You,' and guess what happened?"

"His buffalo came back to life?"

"Exactly!"

He laughed again. I told him another story, and this made him laugh some more.

Has there ever been a master-servant relationship like this one? He was so powerless, so lost, my heart just had to melt. Whatever anger I had against him for trying to pin Pinky Madam's hit-and-run killing on me passed away that evening. That was her fault. Mr. Ashok had nothing to do with it. I forgave him entirely.