A Mercedes was parked not far from the doorway of the internet café.
Kudwa came to the doorway. Ajwani stood by his side; he knew the two had just been talking about him. Now, Ajwani and Kudwa seemed to say with their eyes, they could – if he entered the café, if he accepted the logic of the boycott – give him back his place in the hierarchy of Vishram Society. Ajwani, a natural-born middle-man, could broker the deal: at a rate of so much rage forsaken, of so much pride swallowed, he would be readmitted into the common life of his Society.
‘Mr Shah has sent his car for you; he is waiting in his Malabar Hill home. You have nothing to fear. He admires teachers.’
Masterji could barely ask: ‘What is all this about?’
‘I’ve been asked to bring you to Mr Shah’s house. We will drop you back to Vishram, Masterji. The driver is right here.’
Tinku Kothari, standing on the threshold of the café, watched Masterji.
‘Is there a bathroom in there?’ he asked – he could still smell the dream-fish on his moustache and fingertips.
‘Arjun has a toilet in the back,’ Kudwa said. ‘It’s not very clean, but…’ Monkey-like Arjun, from the lunette, indicated with his screwdriver the way.
He was standing before the toilet bowl when the engine of the Mercedes came to life, and once that noise started, he simply could not urinate.
Everything in the moving car was sumptuous – the air-conditioned air, the soft cushions, the floral fragrance – and all of it added to Masterji’s discomfort.
He sat in the back, his arms between his knees.
Ajwani, seated by the driver, turned every few minutes, and smiled.
‘Is everything okay back there?’
‘Why would it not be?’
He was sure he reeked of fish, all the way from his moustache-tips to his fingertips, and this shamed and weakened him. He closed his eyes and settled back for the long ride into the city.
‘Why is there no traffic today?’ he heard Ajwani asking. ‘Is it a holiday?’
‘No, sir. We’re almost alone on the roads.’
‘I know that: but why?’
Some time passed, and then he heard Ajwani say: ‘There really is no traffic. I don’t understand.’
Masterji opened his eyes: as if by magic, they were already at the foot of Malabar Hill.
Resplendent in his circle of fire, his foot pressing down on the demon of ignorance, the bronze Nataraja stood on the table in the living room. The plaster-of-Paris model of the Shanghai sat at the god’s feet, in ambiguous relationship, of either deference or challenge, to his power.
In a corner of the room, far from the gaze of the bronze Nataraja statue, Shanmugham opened the glass panels of his employer’s drinks cabinet. Three rows of clean crystal glasses filled the wooden shelves above the cabinet.
All the pots and pans in the kitchen shook in a bout of metallic nervousness: Giri was hacking at something with a cleaver.
Shanmugham closed the cabinet door.
His phone rang. It was Ajwani: they had reached the building.
‘But Mr Shah has just left,’ Shanmugham said. ‘He’s gone to his boy’s school for a meeting. You’re not supposed to be here for an other hour.’
‘There was no traffic. I’ve never seen a thing like it. Should we go up and down Malabar Hill? Stop at Hanging Gardens?’
‘No. Come in, and wait here for Mr Shah. I’ll text him that you’re early.’
He waited for them in the doorway under the golden Ganesha medallion. When the old teacher stepped out of the lift, Shanmugham noticed that he had a slight limp. Arthritic in one leg. A weakness. He namasted the old man with great warmth and ushered him into the living room.
‘Can I get you something to drink, Masterji? We have Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola…’
Ajwani came in behind them.
‘Black Label for me,’ he said.
‘Only Mr Shah can open his drinks cabinet. You’ll have to wait.’ Shanmugham turned to his other guest. ‘Are you sure, nothing for you? Not even a Pepsi?’
Masterji sat hunched over on the beige sofa, looking at the floor.
‘I have to go to the toilet,’ he said, getting up.
‘The guest-room toilet is out of order. But if you have no objection’ – Shanmugham paused, and added with a significant smile, ‘you can use Mr Shah’s. That’s his bedroom there.’
Entering a dark room with a double-bed, Masterji located the toilet and closed the door behind him.
Here, at last, he could urinate.
If someone could see me now, he thought, wouldn’t they say, this is exactly what Masterji had planned from the start. To carry on a show so convincing even his son, his neighbours, would be taken in by it: and then allow himself to be driven here, in a chauffeured car, to the builder’s home, drink his water, piss in his piss-pot, and be “persuaded” by him, for a few extra lakhs?
He splashed water on his face. His eyebrows were damp and matted. He changed his pose to see his face from another angle.
Closing the toilet door behind him, he walked on tiptoe. The two of them were whispering on the sofa like old friends.
‘… I’m telling you, no traffic of any kind. What can I…’
‘And did you have to talk of drinks in the old man’s presence?’
‘He drinks. He’s quite modern. I know him, he’s my neighbour.’
‘Why is he taking so long, by the way?’
‘He pissed just before we headed out. He has that disease, which is called D-something. It weakens the lower organs.’
‘Diarrhoea?’
‘No, sir. Another D-word.’
‘Dementia?’
‘Not that.’ Ajwani tapped his forehead. ‘Listen, pour me something, won’t you? I am the man doing all the work here, remember that. And tell your boss’ – he dropped his voice – ‘one lakh is not enough as a sweetener. I want two. In cash.’
The two stopped talking. On a table in the corner of the room Masterji saw a sheaf of papers lying under a golden paperknife. What was the story about Mrs Rego’s Uncle Coelho and the builder who stole his property… didn’t it involve a knife?
‘May I recommend the view from the terrace, Masterji? It is the best view of the city you have ever seen, I guarantee it.’
‘Of course Masterji will appreciate the view,’ Ajwani giggled. ‘Such a sweetened view it is of Bombay.’
Masterji followed the men through glass doors on to a rectangular balustraded terrace, where the sea breeze blew into his hair. An agglomeration of skyscrapers, billboards, and glowing blocks spread before the old teacher’s wondering eyes. He had never seen Bombay like this.
A cloud of electric light enveloped the buildings like incense. Noise: a high keening pitch that was not traffic and not people talking but something else, something Masterji could not identify. A huge sign – ‘LG’ – stood behind the main bulk of towers; beyond it, he recognized the white glow from the Haji Ali shrine. To his left was dark ocean.
‘Breach Candy,’ Masterji reached for it with his finger. ‘This used to be the dividing line between Malabar Hill and Worli island. During high tide the water came in through there. The British called it the Great Breach of Bombay. I’ve seen it in old maps.’
‘Masterji knows everything. About the sun and moon, the history of Bombay, so much useful information.’
Ajwani turned and whispered to Shanmugham, who leaned down towards the short broker and listened.
His hands on the balustrade of the terrace, Masterji looked at the towers under construction in the dark. He thought of the shining knife on the desk. Each building seemed to be illuminated by its price in rupees per square foot, glowing like a halo around it. By its brightness he located the richest building in the vista.
‘Why have you come before us?’ the towers asked. Each glowing thing in the vista before him seemed like the secret of someone’s heart: one of them out there represented his own. An honest man? He had fooled his Society, th
e Pintos, even himself, but here on the open terrace he was stripped of all his lies. He had come here, frightened by the boycott, not oblivious to the possibilities of money, ready to betray the Pintos. Ready to betray the memories of his dead wife and dead daughter that were in the walls and paint and nails of Vishram Society.
‘Construction,’ Shanmugham said, coming close to Masterji. ‘Do you know how many cranes there are below us right now? The work continues all night. Dozens of buildings are coming up around us. And when all the work is finished… my God. This part of the city is going to be like New York. You must have been there, sir, to New York?’
He shook his head.
‘You can now,’ Ajwani smiled. ‘A holiday.’
‘No.’ Masterji leaned forward. ‘Oh, no, I won’t go. I won’t go anywhere. I won’t leave Vishram Society ever again.’
He saw Shanmugham turning to Ajwani, who rolled his eyes.
‘Masterji…’ the builder’s assistant came close. ‘Masterji. May I talk to you, man to man?’
Masterji smelled something bad from the man’s mouth, and thought of the green-covered cage at the zoo.
‘There’s a term we use in the business. A sweetener. Another thousand rupees per square foot? We don’t reward teachers enough in this country.’
He understood now. It was the smell of his own cowardice, blown back at him from this creature’s mouth.
‘And what was that redevelopment project you were telling me about, Ajwani… where the old couple refused to take the offer, and then one day… did they fall down the stairs? Or were they pushed, or… old people should take care. It’s a dangerous world. Terrorism. Mafia. Criminals in charge.’
‘Oh, yes. That old couple in Sion you were talking about, they were pushed. For sure.’
In the light of the towers Shanmugham’s thoughts seemed to crystallize into giant letters in front of Masterji: ‘This is how I will flatter the old man, and very subtly, bully him. I will show him the kingdoms of the earth and give him a hint of the instruments of torture.’ So they had shown him all the kingdoms of Bombay and told him: ‘Take your pick.’ And he knew now what he wanted.
Nothing.
Masterji could see black water crashing into the ocean wall that was meant to keep it out, rolling back and crashing again.
Once before, when Purnima had been threatened by her brothers, he had been weak. Not wanting trouble at his Society, he had again been weak.
‘And Masterji – the Pintos want you to agree. For their sake you must say yes.’
‘Don’t you speak about the Pintos.’
‘Your friend Mr Pinto is not the man you think he is, Masterji. Until two weeks ago he used to drink Royal Stag whisky. The other morning, a used Blenders Pride quarter-bottle carton turns up in his rubbish. He has started paying fifteen rupees more for a bottle of whisky. Why? Because he loves money more than he loves his wife’s blindness.’
So he is examining our rubbish, Masterji thought. But a man’s rubbish is not the truth about him, is it?
‘You don’t know a thing about Mr Pin… Mr Pint… Mr Pint…’
Masterji felt the floor slipping beneath his feet: ‘It’s starting again.’ He heard his blood sugar chuckling. His left knee swelled up in pain; his eyes dimmed.
‘Masterji,’ Ajwani reached for him. ‘Masterji, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ he shook off Ajwani’s hand. ‘Nothing.’
‘Just stay calm, Masterji. And breathe deeply. It will…’
Look down, a voice said. Look at me. Masterji turned to his left and saw the swirls in the ocean, the foam that was hitting the wall along the shore of Bombay. The foam thickened. The ocean rammed into the wall of Breach Candy like a bull. Look at me, Masterji. The bull came in again and rammed into the wall of the city and back he went to gather his strength. Look at me.
The oceans were full of glucose.
‘What are you saying, Masterji?’ Ajwani asked. He looked at Shanmugham with a grin.
Shanmugham remembered the sign on the mansion that he saw every morning on his drive up Malabar Hill. ‘This place is dilapidated, dangerous, and unfit for human beings to be around.’ The Municipality should hang the same sign on old men like this. He tried to touch Masterji, who took a step back and glared at him: ‘Did you bring me here to coerce me?’
Said in English, the force of that word, coerce, weakened both Ajwani and Shanmugham.
The aroma of batter-fried food blew on to the terrace. Giri was walking towards the men with a silver tray full of just-fried pakoras sitting on paper stained with fresh grease.
‘Hot, hot, hot, hot.’
‘Please offer the pakoras to Mr Murthy from Vishram Society,’ Shanmugham said. ‘He’s a teacher.’
‘Hot, hot, hot, hot…’ Giri brought the tray over to the distinguished visitor.
The old man’s left hand slapped at the tray; it slipped in and out of Giri’s hands, then crashed to the floor. Shanmugham and Ajwani moved their feet to dodge the rolling pakoras. Giri stared with an open mouth. When the three of them looked up, they realized they were alone on the terrace.
1 AUGUST
In the morning, at the dining table with the red-and-white cloth, the Pintos heard what had happened at Malabar Hill, while in the kitchen, Nina, their maid-servant, obscured by steam, took idlis out of the pressure cooker.
‘So you just left?’
‘They were threatening me,’ Masterji said. ‘Of course I left.’
‘Ten thousand appointments are missed in this city because of too much traffic, and you missed Mr Shah because of too little traffic. Fate, Masterji,’ Mr Pinto said, as the maid tipped three idlis on to his plate. ‘The very definition.’
‘You sound bitter, Mr Pinto.’ Masterji leaned back and waited for his idlis. Three for him too.
‘And what do we do now?’ Shelley asked. As usual, she received only two idlis.
‘We will wait till October 3. The deadline will expire and that Shah fellow will go away. He said so, don’t you remember?’
‘And until then the boycott will get worse.’
‘There’s something bigger than us involved here, Mr Pinto. Yesterday, when I was at the builder’s terrace I saw something in the ocean. Things are changing too fast in this city. Everyone knows this, but no one wants to take responsibility. To say: “Slow down. Stop. Let’s think about what’s happening.” Do you understand me?’
But that was not it, either. There was something more in the foaming white waters: a sense of power. Breaking an implicit rule – never to touch another man’s body while they were eating – he reached over and gripped his friend’s shoulder. Mr Pinto almost spat out his idli.
After dinner the maid poured tea into small porcelain cups.
‘This boycott,’ Mr Pinto said. ‘It is already so difficult to bear. Shelley cries every night in bed. How can they do it to us, after all these years of living together?’
‘We mustn’t think badly of our neighbours.’ Masterji sipped his tea. ‘Purnima would not like it. Remember what she used to tell us about man being like a goat tied to a pole? There is a radius of freedom, but the circumference of our actions is set. People should be judged lightly.’
Mr Pinto, who had never been sure how well Purnima’s image squared with Catholic teaching, grunted.
Masterji was cheerful. Breaking a rule not to impose on the Pintos’ generosity, he asked Nina for a second cup of tea.
The defecators have left the water’s edge at the slummy end of Versova beach; while, in an equal exchange, the posh end of the beach has rid itself of the joggers, callisthentic stretchers, and t’ai-chi practitioners. It is a quarter past ten. Down a concrete path comes a saddled white horse. This path cuts between boulders to lead to the beach; drawing the horse by its stirrups, a boy stops to whisper into its ear. No one here, Raja. In the evening they will come, children to be taken for a ride over the sand. For now we are alone, Raja.
The ambient murmur of the w
aves makes their privacy more exclusive; on a high rock the boy sits to bring his mouth level with Raja’s large ear.
The boy stops talking. There is someone else on the beach. A fat man is standing at the water’s edge, looking out at the blue-grey mess of towers on the distant Bandra shoreline. The boy strokes his horse’s ear, and watches the fat man.
Shah had been staring at the turrets of the hotel at Land’s End in Bandra. Somewhere beyond it, where the planes were landing, was Santa Cruz. Somewhere in there was Vishram Society Tower A. He saw the building in front of him, dirty, pink, rain-stained. Six floors. He held out his palm and closed his fingers.
Footsteps behind him. Shah turned.
Descending from the rocks behind him, the tall chastened figure of Shanmugham walked on to the beach with a small blue tin in his hands.
‘This is for you, sir,’ he said, handing it over to Shah.
Rosie, who had seen her Uncle alone down by the beach, had summoned Shanmugham and handed over the blue tin of gutka.
Shah scooped out some gutka, and chewed.
Shanmugham could see the thinking part of his employer, his jaw, struggling to make sense of things.
‘I still don’t understand. You and that broker – all you had to do was keep that teacher there till I got back.’
‘He became violent, sir. Ask Giri. He hit the tray and then he ran out.’
‘I don’t like blaming another man when it’s my fault,’ Shah said, chewing fast. ‘Going to see that headmaster – a total waste of time. What does the man do? Namastes me, says, what an honour to meet you, Developer sir, and then asks for advice on a one-bedroom he is buying in Seven Bungalows. Would the Four Bungalows area be a better investment? Will Andheri East show superior appreciation once the Metro comes up? I should have stayed home and finished off this Vishram Society teacher. My fault. My fault.’ He bit his lower lip.
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Don’t say sorry, Shanmugham. It is a worthless word. Listen to me: every midget in Mumbai with a mobile phone and a scooter fancies himself a builder. But not one in a hundred is going to make it. Because in this world, there is a line: on one side are the men who cannot get things done, and on the other side are the men who can. And not one in a hundred will cross that line. Will you?’