Last Man in Tower

  The tired Muslim man returned Masterji’s gaze. Their eyes met like foreign languages, and the labourer, without moving his lips, spoke at last.

  Have you never before noticed how many are all alone?

  Leaving the restaurant, Masterji held out a five-rupee note to the waiter, and pointed to the plate of biscuits, still being consumed, one at a time.

  Outside, a car with a huge plastic Red Bull on top of it was cruising down the road. The bull glowed in neon, and its snout blared a popular Hindi song, as the car stopped to hand out free cans of Red Bull to onlookers. The beat of the song tuned Masterji’s blood. Until now he had only been conscious of fighting against someone: that builder. Now he sensed he was fighting for someone. In the dark dirty valley under the concrete overpass half-naked labourers pushed and slogged, with such little hope that things might improve for them. Yet they pushed: they fought. As Mary was fighting to keep her hut by the nullah. And maid-servants like her across Vakola were fighting to keep their huts.

  Strips of incandescence from behind the buildings fell on the road, and people crowded into them as if they were the only points of fording the traffic. Illuminated in these strips, the straining coolies looked like symbols: hieroglyphs of a future, a future that was colossal. Masterji gazed at the light behind the dirty buildings. It looked like another Bombay waiting to be born.

  He knew that Ronak had a place in this new Bombay. Mary and all the other maid-servants had a place in it. Each one of the solitary, lost, broken men around him had a place in it.

  But for now their common duty was to fight.

  He heard the tuba again: the marching band, as if it had lost its way, had doubled back on its steps, and was heading again towards Victoria Terminus, greeting the hordes of new migrants with its blasts.

  Masterji walked behind the marching band towards VT, and felt – for the first time since his wife had died – that he was not alone in the world.

  4 SEPTEMBER

  Oval Maidan at sunset.

  Dust everywhere, and the sun doing wonderful things to the dust: electrolysing it into a golden cloud in which the stone of the Gothic towers, the singed green of the palm fronds, and the living brown of humans were blended into one.

  Driving past the maidan, the bars of the fence broke the cricket matches into large rectangular panels, like frames from a film put up on a wall for analysis.

  ‘Feeling better, Uncle?’

  ‘You’re a good girl, Rosie. A good girl to come to the hospital.’

  Resting his head on Rosie, Shah watched as the driver, who had collected the two of them from Breach Candy Hospital (Rosie, in the waiting room, had flicked through a copy of Filmfare magazine while they took his X-rays), now drove in slow circles around the heart of the city.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking about, Mr Confidence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Money. The only thing on your mind.’

  Her fingers moved into his pocket.

  ‘Your phone is ringing, Uncle.’

  ‘Let it.’

  ‘There are fifteen missed calls.’

  ‘Let there be a sixteenth. I don’t care about my work. I don’t care about anything.’

  ‘Why are you talking like this, Mr Confidence?’ She smiled at him.

  My Shanghai, Shah thought. Gone. Because of one old teacher.

  He felt as if a hand had entered his abdomen and surgically removed the breath.

  In the driver’s mirror he saw his blackened teeth and thought: Not nearly enough. Neither the damaged teeth, nor the disease in his chest, nor the blood he spat out, were nearly enough punishment. For the sin of being a mediocrity. The only real sin on this earth. He should have stayed in Krishnapur and cleared cow shit from the family shed.

  Fingers ran through his hair; he felt a breath on his face.

  ‘To-re-a-dor. To-re-a-dor.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Rosie.’

  Prising the blue X-ray folder away from him, she slid out the grinning phosphorescent skull.

  ‘So this is who you really are, Uncle.’

  He took it back from her and held it up against the light. Taking out a pen he began to sketch over the skull.

  ‘Don’t!’

  He slapped Rosie’s fingers away. He drew more lines up and down the glowing skull and showed her.

  ‘That’s my Shanghai, Rosie. Gothic style, Rajput touch, Art Deco fountain. My life’s story in one building. Why does that old teacher keep saying no to it? In China, you know what they would have done to a man like him by now?’

  She snatched at the X-ray; he raised his hand high to dodge her.

  ‘Teachers are the worst kind of people, Rosie. All that time they spend beating children, it makes them cruel. Twisted on the inside.’

  ‘Unlike builders, of course.’

  And though he wished she wouldn’t make jokes like this, he had to chuckle.

  She laughed at her own joke as she slid his X-ray back into its manila folder. A husky cackle: it made Shah shiver. One of the things he loved about Rosie – her voice always had its knickers down.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, though the girl was already beside him. ‘Come here.’ He kissed her on the neck.

  It was first time he had done something like this in the car; Parvez, his driver, pretended not to notice.

  Shah did what he had not done for days. He forgot about the Shanghai.

  At the next traffic signal, they stopped by a bus painted with advertisements for a new Bollywood film – Dance, Dance.

  ‘What’s the inside scoop, Rosie?’ Shah asked, tapping the glass with his fingers. ‘Why is that Punjabi man wasting so much money on this flop?’

  It was a film that had excited much speculation in the papers. The case was an unusual one: the film was a ‘comeback’ vehicle for the 1980s film star Praveena Kumari. Ms Kumari, at the height of her fame, had quit Bollywood to settle in America; now, visibly ageing and heavy, she had been cast in a big-budget film – a certain flop. The film’s producer was a walnut-headed Punjabi, noted for cunning and parsimony. That he would waste such money (for the production was lavish, and the marketing too) was the subject for discussion in Bombay that month, trumping such other questions as a possible change in the government in Delhi, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, or new national figures on child malnutrition.

  Oh, yes. Rosie had the inside ‘scoop’. Leaning forward, she whispered into the builder’s ear: ‘Her blowjobs sing across the decades.’

  Shah grinned. It made sense. Old walnut-head, who had cast Kumari in her first film, had never forgotten her, and the moment she phoned him long-distance – ‘I want to be big in films again, Uncle’ – he had laid a project worth millions at her thick feet.

  He laughed so much he had to cough.

  ‘Here’s your Shanghai,’ Rosie said, handing him the folder with the X-ray.

  She had just entertained him; he was vulnerable.

  ‘I want to be taken into your home,’ she said. ‘I want to see where you eat and sleep.’

  At once Parvez turned the car towards Malabar Hill.

  A quarter of an hour later, a blue cleaning-rag on his shoulder, Giri stood at the dining table, his hand on the breadknife, and watched the girl in the short skirt.

  Shah was out on the open terrace; Rosie, in the living room, was looking over the model of the Shanghai that was sitting near the dancing Nataraja.

  Next she peeked into the bedrooms. Giri followed, making sure she did not steal anything. He knew about the theft at the Oshiwara gym. When she went into the kitchen, he stood in the doorway and folded his arms.

  To-re-a-dor – emitting little contralto bursts the girl opened the wooden cupboards in the kitchen wall. To-re-a-dor. Giri watched with his mouth open.

  He made way; the boss had come into the kitchen. From the look on his face Giri knew he had been talking to Shanmugham about the mess in Vakola.

  Shah exhaled, and said: ‘All right, Rosie. You’ve seen the
house. Now let’s go.’

  She turned around with twinkling eyes.

  ‘Why? What’s the hurry?’

  ‘My son will be home soon. Isn’t it time for Satish, Giri?’

  ‘So why should I leave? I want to meet him. Heard so much about him.’

  ‘We’re going to the Versova flat, Rosie. Right away.’

  ‘Oh, you want to fuck me, but you don’t want your son to meet me, is that it?’

  She opened and shut another kitchen cupboard.

  He pulled her hands back from the shelves; they wriggled out of his and opened another panel.

  ‘Enough of this, Rosie. I’ve just been to the hospital and I’m tired.’

  To-re-a-dor – she put her hands inside, and tapped on the pots and pans. To-re-a-dor!

  Shah watched her sniffing inside his wife’s cabinets, playing with his wife’s utensils and vessels.

  Louder and louder she sang in the foreign language, until Shah reached over her head with his thick arms and – as if he were closing a trap on an animal – slammed the panel doors shut on her nose.

  She was too surprised even to cry; bending over, she began sobbing and spitting. A drop of blood fell from her nose.

  ‘Spit into the sink,’ Shah said. ‘The car is leaving for Versova in five minutes.’

  As she washed her nose, Giri handed her the blue rag from his shoulder: ‘Take this, Miss. Take it. And don’t cry, please. It makes Giri want to cry too.’

  Rosie winced; Shah had taken her white arm in his right hand. With his other, he dialled Shanmugham’s number.

  ‘I’ve made up my mind,’ he said when the phone was answered.

  His fingers pressed up and down Rosie’s arm; he heard his left-hand man’s voice quiver with excitement.

  ‘I’ve got the man from Andheri, Boss. He’s the one who helped me deliver the Sion project for you. The boy we used to scare that other old man – Mr Pinto – won’t be good for anything more than threatening words. But this Andheri fellow will be perfect. No police record.’

  ‘Shanmugham: shut up and listen to me.’

  And then, still holding on to Rosie’s arm, he told his left-hand man what he wanted done at Vishram Society.

  A pause. Then the voice on the phone said: ‘Boss: are you sure? We’re paying them? Why?’

  ‘Shanmugham,’ Shah said, ‘I found you in a slum in Chembur. Correct?’

  ‘Yes, Boss.’

  ‘And if you ask one more question like that, I’ll send you back there.’

  He hung up and turned to Rosie. A pink plaster sat on her nose: Giri had brought out the Band-Aids kept for Satish’s football wounds. She was looking at the kitchen floor.

  ‘See what you made me do to your pretty face, Rosie? Come, let’s go to Versova. I’m hungry. Come.’

  She turned: her eyes were livid, and the fingers of her right hand trembled. Shah braced himself. Was it coming – the slap? But a need greater than retribution – the promised hair salon, her future in dependence – relaxed her fingers.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Shah grinned. Texting his driver to get the car ready, he led Rosie out of the flat: towards toast, beach, and bed.

  Giri stayed in the kitchen and wiped away the stains of water and blood.

  BOOK EIGHT

  Deadline

  29 SEPTEMBER

  Humming a favourite film song (… geet amar kar do) and walking up to his flat with a packet of fresh milk, Masterji found Ms Meenakshi waiting at his door. The girl showed him a set of keys.

  ‘I’m leaving today.’

  Masterji nodded. ‘In that case you must come in, Ms Meenakshi. Tea? Biscuits?’

  She wore a white T-shirt, and a denim skirt that left most of her knees uncovered; she sat on the sofa while he put milk on the gas stove and chopped a piece of ginger in the kitchen.

  ‘Masterji, your life could be in danger and you’re talking about tea and biscuits?’

  He ignited the burner of the stove with a match.

  ‘What will that man Shah do, Ms Meenakshi? We have gone through things in our generation that I can’t explain to you. Do you know about PL 480? During the 1965 war the Americans stopped our food supply to help Pakistan. PL 480 was their wheat programme, and they cut it off. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri asked each Indian to give up a meal to help the nation win the war. This trouble is nothing.’

  The living room filled with the smell of burned milk. Masterji came out of the kitchen with two cups of steaming ginger tea.

  Ms Meenakshi sipped her tea. ‘You’re all alone here, Masterji. Do you really understand this? A man with a gun could come to your door and shoot you. It’s been done before.’

  Masterji put his cup down on the teakwood table.

  ‘No. I am not alone, Ms Meenakshi.’

  He wanted to throw shadows on the wall to explain to her.

  ‘There are more parties involved in this dispute than just Mr Shah, my neighbours, and me. Millions are involved. Even after you leave Vishram, you will still be involved.’

  She waited for him to explain. He smiled and stirred the sediment in the teacup.

  Wiping her hands on her skirt, the girl said: ‘You asked what Public Relations is, Masterji. Go to the papers. Tell them your story.’

  ‘I wrote to a student of mine at the Times… and it came to nothing.’

  ‘Not the pucca papers. A tabloid. My boyfriend works for the Sun, Masterji – the one you…’ She smiled. ‘I told him what is happening here, and he said at once: “It’s a story!” He’ll interview you. The paper will run your photo. You’ll become famous. People will follow you on FaceBook.’

  Masterji got up.

  Everyone wants something from me, he thought. Shah wants to steal my home, and she wants to take my story.

  He went to the window and opened it. A potted creeper from the Secretary’s flat had grown down to his window; its lush green tendrils were blocking a part of his view. He began to snap its tendrils.

  Ms Meenakshi realized that this was a sign for her to leave.

  ‘I ask you once again, Masterji,’ she said from the door. ‘Will you tell your story? Every day, the danger to your life grows.’

  He stood at the window until she closed the door behind him. So now she was gone: soon she would be moving out of the building, this girl who had once disturbed him so much. He could not locate within himself the man who – just a few feet from where he now stood – had shoved Ms Meenakshi’s boyfriend with more-than-human strength. Maybe that was why she had been sent to this building: to discompose him at the time Shah made his offer.

  An autorickshaw entered the compound. He saw the girl get into it with her suitcases and bags.

  She was right. The deadline was coming close: and Mr Shah was going to send someone round soon.

  With a smile, he continued to break the creeper, which now smelled of raw, invigorating sap.

  30 SEPTEMBER

  Despite the runny noses, high temperatures, and inflamed conjunctiva that accompanied the change in the weather, Ram Khare still conceded that it was the ideal time of the year to enjoy life.

  October was almost here. The sun was now bothering other people in other cities. Evenings were becoming pleasant. So he did what he did once a year, and invited security guards from around the neighbourhood for a round of chai.

  They gathered around his booth in grey or khaki uniforms, smoking beedis or twirling keychains; Khare, perhaps more conscientious as a host than as a guard, made sure each one had a full glass of tea, before he took one for himself from the tray that the chai-wallah had left.

  ‘Well, Ram Khare, what is happening at Vishram Society these days? Has it been hockey sticks or knives recently?’

  The other guards had heard the news about old Mr Pinto and the boy with the hockey stick. Looking around, Ram Khare confronted an impromptu tribunal of his colleagues. He put down his tea glass and stood before them.

  ‘Look: was Mr
Pinto threatened inside the wall – or outside the wall?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ one of the guards said. ‘He can’t watch over every bit of the earth, can he?’

  ‘But is this Masterji of yours a good man or a bad one?’ another guard asked. ‘Does he give good baksheesh?’

  Khare snorted. ‘In sixteen years, eight months, and twenty-nine days of knowing him, not a single tip.’

  General outrage. Let him be thrown from his window, kicked senseless, shot to death – anything!

  Since the holy digest was sitting right in the window of his booth, Ram Khare had to point out, in fairness: ‘But he did include my Lalitha in his lessons. The residents were not happy that a guard’s daughter was being taught with their children, but he said, nothing doing. She is a student like everyone else.’

  A piercing whistle came from the gate in front of Tower B: the guards turned.

  A truck began to move in reverse gear into the compound, directed by the whistle-blowing guard of that tower.

  ‘My friends, things have been bad in Vishram Society,’ Ram Khare said, raising his tea in a toast, ‘but from today, they become worse.’

  Mrs Puri and Ibrahim Kudwa watched from her window.

  Wooden beds and Godrej cupboards, carried down the stairwell of Tower B, were loaded on to the back of the truck. Then came writing tables covered in old newspaper and personal luggage wrapped in plastic.

  Having received their second instalment of money from the Confidence Group (paid by Mr Shah, in a surprise move, ahead of schedule), the families of Tower B were leaving for their new homes, one by one.

  Mrs Puri had heard the news from Ritika, her friend in Tower B, a couple of weeks ago.

  ‘One morning the money just comes into our Punjab National Bank account,’ Ritika had said. ‘More than a month early. The first instalment he paid as soon as we signed the vacating forms. We’ve got two-thirds of the money now – all those zeroes in our bank statements, Sangeeta. Everyone has run out and put down a deposit on a brand-new place. No one wants to stay in Vishram Society one day longer than they have to.’