The bylane, like the others around the red-light district, was busy with the hammering of iron and the hiss of white-blue oxyacetylene flame. In an economy typical of the city, the metal-working district is packed into the mazy lanes around Falkland Road – the pounding of steel and sex combined in the same postcode. Ajwani had seen the metal-cutting shops in passing many times before.
Now he walked about the glaring and hissing workshops like a man who had stumbled into a new country. Outside one shop, the metal worker lifted up his rusty visor and stared at him.
Ajwani turned away from his gaze. He walked further down the lane. Strings of glossy ribbons led down to a bulbous green mosque at the end. An acrid industrial stench. Behind a chink in a blue door, a man in a visor squatted on the floor and seared a rod with a flame. Metal grilles for windows were stacked outside another shop. A worker stood tapping on the grilles; a customer in a grey suit was listening to him.
‘… a flower pattern in the iron rods is normal, it’s free. But this thing you want, two flowers joining together… I’ll add two rupees per kilogram…’
‘Oh, that’s too much,’ the customer said. ‘Too much, too much.’
Suddenly both the worker and the customer turned and faced Ajwani.
He walked to the end of the lane. Right in front of the green mosque, he saw a buffalo tied to a tree; the restless head and horns of the animal emerged from the deep shade and then drew back into it.
A door opened in what he had thought was the mosque wall. A piece of corrugated iron roofing emerged from it. Two bare-chested men carried it in front of Ajwani, and he saw his own shadow ripple over the folds of iron.
He stared at the disappearing shadow; he shivered.
‘It is not just a push,’ he said aloud, and turned, to make sure the buffalo had not overheard him.
Ajwani sneaked past the workshops to the main road. Leaning on the horseless silver carriages, the prostitutes sucked their teeth for him as he left Falkland Road. His eyes full of oxyacetylene, his sinuses full of fumes, the broker staggered back towards Marine Drive.
He still heard hammer blows from the workshops that were far behind him; his nose still burned, as if reality had been brought red-hot right up to it. He stopped for breath. Ahead, foreshortened by the perspective, the massed buildings skidded like a single lightning bolt of stone and masonry towards Chowpatty beach. The plunge in the city’s topography worked a corresponding effect in Ajwani’s mind; all other thoughts fell away, isolating a lone enormous truth.
… it is not ‘just a push’. It is killing a man.
A rubber ball struck the demon’s face painted on the wall of the Tamil temple.
Masterji opened his eyes, and stood up in the shade of the fruit tree. He realized he had gone to sleep. As he rubbed his eyes, he heard a woman’s voice booming: ‘Rakesh: is that how to bowl? Don’t you watch TV?’
Masterji hid behind the tree; he had recognized the voice.
‘Yes, Aunty. Sorry.’
‘I am not your aunty.’
Half a dozen boys converged around Mrs Rego. Sunil and Sarah were with her, and also Ramu, who was dressed in a red shirt, with make-up on his face and a golden sword in his hand. The pageant day must have ended. Why was Mrs Puri not around? Why had she left Ramu with Mrs Rego, of all people? But he no longer had any right to ask about their lives.
‘… boys, a promise is a promise, I know, but I just can’t go today. I will take you to the beach, and all of us will have sugarcane juice there. In the meantime I hope all of you have been staying out of trouble and…’
‘Aunty, no trip to the beach and a lecture? That’s not fair, is it?’
‘I am sorry, Vikram. I will take all of you one day.’
The cricket game continued after Mrs Rego left. One of the boys chased the ball into the temple courtyard.
‘Masterji,’ he said. ‘I’m Mary’s son. Timothy.’
Taking the old teacher by the hand he brought him out to show the other boys. At once, two of them ran away.
‘What happened?’ Masterji asked.
‘Oh, that Kumar, he’s a strange boy. Dharmendar too.’
Timothy smiled.
‘Will you take us to the beach, Masterji? Mrs Rego Aunty was supposed to take us.’
‘Why do you want to go to the beach?’
‘Why do you think? To play cricket there.’
‘So go on your own.’
‘Well, someone has to pay for bus fare. And sugarcane juice afterwards, Masterji.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll take you there one of these days. If you can answer this question: why are there tides at the beach?’
‘No reason.’
‘There is a reason for everything.’ Masterji pointed to the boy who had been bowling at Timothy. ‘What is your name?’
‘Vijay.’
‘Do you know the reason, Vijay?’
He picked up a red stone, went to the wall of the Tamil temple, and drew a circle above the demon’s wide-open mouth.
‘This is the earth. Our planet. In infinite space.’
Masterji saw shadows on the wall – he felt sweat and heat nearby – he realized that they had all gathered behind him.
‘Our earth is that small?’ someone asked.
About to reply, Masterji stopped and said: ‘I can start a school here. An evening school.’
‘Evening school?’ Timothy asked. ‘For who?’
The boys looked at one another; Masterji looked at them and smiled, as if the answer were obvious.
The sun had slipped in between two skyscrapers on Malabar Hill; the nearer of the buildings had become a flickering silhouette, a thing alternately of dark and light, like the lowest visible slab of a ghat descending into a river.
Ajwani sat on the sea wall of Marine Drive, looking at the tetrapod rocks below him and the waves washing around them.
He had been thinking for over an hour, ever since he had come down here from Falkland Road. It all made sense to him now. So this was why Shah paid Tower B ahead of time. To get everyone at Vishram desperate. This was why he did nothing when the story ran in the newspaper. He wanted them to do it.
‘And making Shanmugham tell me his life’s story,’ Ajwani said, aloud, surprising a young Japanese man who had sat down by his side to take photographs of the city.
Ajwani thought about the details of Mr Shah’s story. Now it seemed to him that something was wrong with the information. If Shah had come to Mumbai with only twelve rupees and eighty paise, and no shoes on his feet, how did he manage to open a grocery store in Kalbadevi? There was a father in the village – he must have sent him money. Men do have a sense of responsibility to their first wife’s sons. Ajwani struck his forehead with his palm. These self-made millionaires always hide a part of the story. The truth was as obvious as the ocean.
‘It’s been cat and mouse. From the start.’
And the cat had always been Dharmen Shah.
I’m trapped, Ajwani thought, as he walked on the ocean wall towards Churchgate station. Mrs Puri and the Secretary were waiting for him. He, more than anyone else, had moved his nothing Society to this point. He could not fail them now. He looked down and thought if only he could live there, by the crabs, among the rocks by the breaking water.
Inside the station, Ajwani paid five rupees for a white plastic cup of instant coffee. His stomach needed help. All that industrial smoke from the metallurgical shops. Sipping the coffee, he walked to his platform; the Borivali local was about to depart.
Now he had industrial smoke and instant coffee in his stomach. He felt worse with each shake and jerk of the train.
He cursed his luck. Of all the things to pick up from Falkland Road – all the horrible names he had worried about for all these years – gonorrhoea, syphilis, prostatitis, Aids – he had to pick this up: a conscience.
‘You are at the Kala Paani,’ he told himself. ‘You have to cross it. Have to be one of those who get things done in life.�
��
A fellow passenger was staring at him. Lizard-like, stout, thick-browed, massively lipped, the man clutched a small leather bag in his powerful forearms: his eyes bulged as they focused on Ajwani.
The lizard-man yawned.
When he shut his mouth, he had taken on the face of the man aging director of the Confidence Group. In a moment the train compartment was full of Shahs.
‘Fresh air, please. Fresh…’ Ajwani moved through the crowd to the open door of the moving train. ‘Please please let me breathe.’
Migrants had squatted on the wasteland at the edge of the tracks; they had turned it into a vegetable patch, seeding and watering it. Ajwani held on to the rod in the open door of the train. Behind the little green fields he could see the blue tents they lived in. The sight was chastening; his stomach wanted to call out to them.
He began to vomit on to the tracks.
The lights were coming on in the market as the Secretary scraped his shoes on the coir mat outside the Renaissance Real-Estate office.
‘Come in, sir,’ Mani had said. Ajwani had told him what to do when Kothari arrived.
He showed the Secretary past the Daisy Duck clock into the inner room and told him to sit on the bed.
‘Your boss isn’t here?’ the Secretary said, looking at the empty cot. ‘I was hiding in my mother-in-law’s house all day long. In Goregaon. Near the Topi-wala building. I just got back to Vakola. Where is he?’
Mani shrugged.
‘He isn’t even picking up the phone. Maybe I should wait outside for him.’
‘It’s better that you wait here, sir, isn’t it?’ Mani’s eyes shone with their usual half-knowledge of his master’s dealings.
The Secretary sat on the cot in the inner room, looking at the wicker basket full of coconuts and wondering if the broker had counted them. A few minutes later the door creaked open.
‘You?’ Mrs Puri asked, as she came into the inner room. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’
‘I kept worrying about you, Mrs Puri. I came to check that you were all right,’ the Secretary said.
‘Better you leave us alone here, Kothari. All we want from you is an alibi.’
The Secretary of Vishram Society shook his head. ‘And what of my responsibility to you, Mrs Puri? My father said, a man who lives for himself is an animal. I’m going to make sure you’re all right. Now tell me, where is Ajwani?’
‘In the city,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘Falkland Road.’
‘On a day like this?’
‘Especially on a day like this. That’s the kind of man he is.’
‘Let me wait until he comes back. It’s my responsibility to do so. Don’t tell me to go away.’
‘You’re not such a bad Secretary after all,’ Mrs Puri said, as she sat on the cot.
Kothari kicked the wicker basket in the direction of Mrs Puri, who kicked it back, and this became a game between them. Someone knocked on the door of the inner room.
When the Secretary opened it, he saw Sanjiv Puri.
‘What are you doing here?’ Mrs Puri hissed. Her husband walked in, and along with him came Ibrahim Kudwa.
‘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 st
arting 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.’
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