Last Man in Tower

by Aravind Adiga

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Tell them not to do it. We can all live together in the building like before. Tell Mrs Puri. Tell the Secretary.’

  Mr Pinto put the phone down.

  ‘Who was that?’ his wife asked.

  ‘Do not,’ he said, ‘make me pick up the phone again tonight. Do not.’

  He took the phone off the hook.

  He and Shelley watched their favourite Hindi TV serial, in which the acting was so exaggerated, and the zoom-in camera so frequently used, that an absence of sound only mildly inhibited one’s understanding of the plot.

  Mr Pinto folded his arms in front of the TV and watched. On a piece of paper by the side of his sofa, he had written:

  $100,000 × 2

  and

  $200,000 × 1

  *

  The Daisy Duck clock outside chimed nine o’clock. In the inner room of the Renaissance Real-Estate Agency, Kudwa was singing ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, while the Secretary was slapping his thighs in time.

  ‘Ajwani is not coming.’ Mrs Puri stood up from the cot and straightened her sari. ‘Something has happened to him.’

  ‘So?’ Kudwa stopped singing. ‘It’s over, isn’t it?’

  Without looking at each other, Mrs Puri and her husband held hands.

  ‘We can’t waste this chance, Ibby. It’s for Ramu.’

  ‘I can’t let you two do it on your own.’ The Secretary got up. ‘I’ll make sure no one’s watching. That’s my responsibility. And you, Ibrahim. Will you go to the police?’

  Ibrahim Kudwa blinked, as if he couldn’t understand the Secretary’s words. ‘You are my neighbours of nine years,’ he said.

  The Secretary embraced him. ‘You were always one of us, Ibrahim. From the first day. Now go home and sleep.’

  Kudwa shook his head.

  ‘Nine years together. If you’re going to jail, I’m going to jail too.’

  It was decided that the Puris would leave first. The back door that led from the inner room to a side alley closed behind them.

  Kothari’s mobile phone rang a few minutes later.

  ‘Masterji is on the terrace. Ram Khare is not in his booth. Come.’

  They went out through the back door. They crossed the market. On the way to the Society, Kudwa said: ‘Maybe we should ask him. If he’ll sign.’

  Both stopped. To their left, a paper kite had floated down and collapsed on the road.

  The Secretary moved, but not Ibrahim Kudwa; the Hindu holy man was sleeping by the whitewashed banyan outside his cyber-café. A cyclostyled advertisement had been pasted over his head:

  STRONGLY SCENTED PHENYL. DISINFECTS. FRESHENS YOUR HOUSE. BUY DIRECT. 170 RS FOR FIVE LITRES.

  If only, Kudwa thought, I could inhale the cleansing scent of disinfectant right now. He looked up and saw the dark star from last Christmas over his café.

  ‘Do you think… they expect me to come all the way to the Society?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Ibrahim?’

  ‘I mean, do Mrs Puri and Mr Puri expect me to come all the way? Or would they know I was being supportive if I came this far and went back?’

  ‘Ibrahim, I expect you to come with me all the way. We have to make sure Mr and Mrs Puri are safe. We’re not doing anything.’

  The door of the cyber-café trembled. Kudwa realized that it had not been doubled-bolted from the inside. How many times had he told Arjun, someone could pick the lock from the outside and steal the computers unless he…

  ‘Ibrahim. I need you.’

  ‘Coming.’

  With Vishram Society in sight, the two men were spotted.

  ‘It’s Trivedi. He’s coming this way. We should go back.’

  ‘He won’t say a thing tomorrow. I know this man.’

  Trivedi, bare-chested except for his shawl, smiled at the men, and passed them.

  When they got to the gate, the Secretary looked up and said: ‘He’s not on the terrace.’

  They unlatched the gate and tiptoed through the compound, the Secretary darting into his office for a few seconds, leaving Ibrahim Kudwa rubbing his hands by the noticeboard.

  ‘What do you want that for?’ he asked, when Kothari emerged with a roll of Scotch tape.

  ‘Go into the office,’ the Secretary whispered, ‘and bring the hammer with you. It’s sitting next to the typewriter.’

  Mrs Puri was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Her husband stood behind her.

  ‘He just returned from the terrace and closed his door. You men took too long.’

  ‘Do we call it off?’ Kudwa asked. ‘Another day?’

  ‘No. Do you have the key, Kothari?’

  The Scotch tape was not the only thing the Secretary had brought from the office. He inserted the spare key to 3A into the hole and struggled with it. They heard the sound of a television serial from the Pintos’ room.

  ‘Should we ask him, one more time, if he will sign?’

  ‘Shut up, Ibrahim. Just stay there and watch the door.’

  The door opened. Masterji had gone to sleep in his living room, his feet on the teakwood table, the Rubik’s Cube by his chair.

  Kudwa came in behind the others and closed the door. The Secretary, moving to the chair, cut a piece of Scotch tape and pressed it over Masterji’s mouth.

  That awoke the sleeping man. He ripped the Scotch tape off his mouth.

  ‘Kothari? How did you get in?’

  ‘You have to agree now, Masterji. Right now.’

  ‘Think of Gaurav,’ Mrs Puri asked. ‘Think of Ronak. Say “Yes.” Now.’

  ‘Get out,’ the old man said. ‘All of you get out of my—’

  The Secretary moved before he could finish the sentence: he cut another slice of Scotch tape and tried to stick it over the old man’s mouth. Masterji pushed the Secretary back. Mr Puri stood stiff near the door.

  ‘Kothari, don’t touch him,’ Ibrahim Kudwa warned.

  Masterji, recognizing the voice of his protector, got up and began to turn in his direction.

  ‘Ibby,’ Mrs Kudwa said. ‘Ibby.’

  At once, Ibrahim Kudwa lifted the hammer he had brought from the Secretary’s office, lunged forward, and hit Masterji on the crown of his head. Who, more from surprise than anything else, fell back into his chair with such force that it toppled over and his head landed hard on the floor. Masterji lay there like that, unable to move, though he saw things with clarity. Ibrahim Kudwa stared with an open mouth; the hammer dropped from his hand. I should reach for the hammer, Masterji thought, but the Secretary lunged and picked it up. Now he felt a weight on his chest: Kothari, pressing a knee on his torso, turned the hammer upside down and stubbed it on his forehead using both his hands. It hurt. He tried to shout, but he heard only a groan from his mouth. Now something, or someone, sat on his legs, and he lost control of them; he was aware that Kothari was pounding his forehead with the hammer again and again. The blows were landing somewhere far away, like stones falling on the surface of a lake he was deep inside. He thought of a line from the Mahabharata: ‘… King Dhritharashtra’s heart was like a forest lake, warm on the surface but icy at the bottom.’ Kothari stopped and took a breath. Poor man’s arms must be aching by now, Masterji thought. He was sure he had never seen anyone move as fast as Kothari was moving with the hammer, except for the boy at the McDonald’s on Linking Road when he lifted French fries from the hot oil, slammed them into the metal trough, and put the empty container back in the oil. Then the hammer hit his forehead again. ‘Kothari. Wait.’ Now Sanjiv Puri came from the bedroom with a large dark thing, which he lowered on to Masterji’s face. When the dark thing touched his nose, Masterji understood. Yes. The pillow from his bed. It pressed down on his nose and crushed his moustache: he understood that Sanjiv Puri was sitting on it. His legs thrashed: not to free themselves, but to take him down to the bottom of the lake faster. He was in very cool and black water now.

  ‘He’s unconscious. Sanjiv, enough. Get up
.’

  Sanjiv Puri looked at his wife, who was sitting on Masterji’s legs, and then at Ibrahim Kudwa, who was watching things with an open mouth.

  ‘Quickly. You take the feet, Kothari will take the head,’ Mrs Puri told her husband. ‘Ibby, pick up that hammer. Don’t leave it here.’

  Kudwa, rubbing his forearms, stood still. ‘Oy, oy, oy,’ he said.

  ‘Wait,’ Sanjiv Puri said. ‘First put some more tape on his mouth. In case he wakes up.’

  Kothari did so. Then the two men lifted Masterji’s body, and moved towards the door. Mr Puri winced: ‘I stepped on something.’ His wife kicked the Rubik’s Cube out of their path.

  She opened the door for the men, and checked the corridor.

  ‘Wait for the lift. I’ve hit the button.’

  ‘It never works, let’s take the stairs, there’s two strong men here. He has lost a lot of weight.’

  ‘It was working in the morning. Wait.’

  Mrs Puri jabbed the ‘call’ button again and again.

  Sanjiv Puri had given up on the lift, and had begun moving with Masterji’s feet (his end of the dazed body) towards the stairs, when the machine clicked – the whirls and wheezes began – and a circle of light moved up towards them.

  His wife held the door open from the outside until the three bodies were in. The Secretary managed to reach the button for the fifth floor. The two men saw, in the round white light on the roof of the lift, three tiny dark shapes. Wasps, which must have flown into the light a long time ago: six undecomposed wings.

  When they reached the fifth floor, Sanjiv Puri prepared to press against the lift door; but it swung open of its own accord. His wife, despite her bulk, had come up the stairs faster than they had.

  While they brought the body out of the lift, she pushed open the door leading to the roof terrace.

  ‘We’ll never take him up that way,’ the Secretary said, looking at the steep narrow staircase.

  ‘One step at a time. You can do it,’ Mrs Puri said, from above them. ‘One step at a time.’

  The two men put the body down and changed positions. Sanjiv Puri, the stronger of the two, took the head this time. The Secretary followed with the feet. One step at a time. Pigeons scattered on the terrace as they came out.

  ‘Mrs Puri…’ the Secretary panted, ‘make sure no one is sitting down there in parliament…’

  The wall of the terrace was three feet high. Mrs Puri looked down.

  ‘He’s opened his eyes. Do you have the hammer here?’

  ‘No, I left it in the room.’

  ‘Why didn’t you bring it up with you?’

  ‘You never told me to…’

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘Get the work done.’

  The two men staggered with the body, which had begun to squirm, to the edge of the terrace; on a count of three, they heaved it up and pushed.

  ‘Why isn’t it going over?’

  ‘He’s awake again. He’s holding on to the terrace with his hand. Push harder. Push.’

  Watching the struggle, Mrs Puri joined in, and pressed her back and buttocks against the stone that had blocked her happiness for so long.

  Now, when he opened his eyes, he could not tell if he were dead or alive; these men seemed to be demons, though kindly, who were forcing his body to budge from some place between life and death where it was stuck.

  And this was because he was neither good nor bad enough; and neither strong nor weak enough. He had lost his hands; he had lost his legs; he could not speak. Yet everything he had to do was right here, in his head. He thought of Gaurav, his son, his living flesh. ‘Help me,’ he said.

  And then he realized that the thing that was blocking his passage was cleared, and he was falling; his body had begun its short earthly flight – which it completed almost instantaneously – before Yogesh Murthy’s soul was released for its much longer flight over the oceans of the other world.

  Down on the ground it lay, sprawled, in perfect imitation of a suicide’s corpse.

  Loose strands of hair fell down the sides of Kothari’s bald head; he rearranged them into a comb-over.

  ‘We have to go back and find that hammer, Mrs Puri. And where is Ibrahim? Is he still in the room? What is he doing there? Mrs Puri, are you listening to me?’

  ‘He’s still alive,’ she said. ‘He’s moving down there.’

  The Secretary was out of breath. So Sanjiv Puri ran down the stairs to the fifth floor, took the lift, and burst out of the entranceway. He stood by the body, turned his head upwards and shook it. The movement had stopped. It was just a death spasm.

  A corona of dark liquid surrounded the head; Mrs Puri thought she saw things coming out of the skull. It was done.

  ‘Scotch tape…’ she hissed at her husband from the terrace. ‘The Scotch tape on his mouth. Quick-ly. Ram Khare is coming back.’

  A special night. He usually had a quarter of Old Monk rum in his room, but tonight he had gone into a bar and said: ‘Whisky. Royal Stag.’

  Why not? It was the evening of 5 October. The fight in his Society had to be over now. Even if you thought that the builder had delayed by one day, that was yesterday. Any man who gave his word that he would not extend the deadline would lose face if he did so after today.

  The TV screen in the bar was playing a movie featuring Praveena Kumari, a famous ‘sex bomb’ of the 1980s, now making a come-back in a film called Dance, Dance. Ram Khare had never been a fan. Not curvy enough.

  He had his whisky and asked for another.

  The truth be told, he thought, I was always hoping that Masterji would defeat the builder. Where would I find work at another building at my age?

  Now he was hungry.

  A fine meal of chow mein, fried in a large black wok, at a street-side stand run by Gurkhas. Ram Khare sat on a bench next to the wok, and ate with a plastic fork, splashing a vivid green sauce and ketchup on the chow mein.

  Done with his dinner, he washed his mouth and headed back to Vishram.

  He had unlatched the gate and was walking to his booth, when he saw a human being lying near the entranceway of the Society.

  Catherine D’Mello-Myer’s flat in the Bandra Reclamation was a warm anarchy of left-wing academic journals and foreign toys.

  Her three children and their two cousins had rampaged through the kitchen and the bathroom before she ordered them into the TV room, where they had turned on the Sony PlayStation.

  Now she sat at the dinner table with her sister and the sweet imbecile boy holding his green sign saying ‘NO NOISE’. His sword had become a piece of crushed cardboard on the floor.

  Catherine had never seen her sister like this.

  Mrs Rego sat at the table with her right hand lying on a black mobile phone.

  Frank, Catherine’s American husband, looked out from their bedroom. He gestured with his head towards the children screaming at their PlayStation.

  She glared at him.

  Some things men could not understand. Her sister had never done this before – come here at such short notice, bringing along her children and this neighbour’s son.

  Catherine knew she had never done enough for poor Georgina.

  She understood that an important call was going to be made from that mobile phone. Her job was to take care of the children until the call was made, and Frank could go to hell.

  ‘Come, Ramu,’ she said, drawing the imbecile boy away from her sister. She touched him and withdrew her hand almost at once.

  ‘Georgina,’ she whispered. ‘I think he’s soiled his trousers.’

  The boy parted his lips, and began to emit a soft, high-pitched whine.

  Mrs Rego picked up her mobile phone and dialled.

  ‘Is that you, Mrs Puri?’ she asked, when the call was answered.

  Catherine came closer to listen.

  ‘No, it’s Mr Puri,’ a man’s voice said. ‘My wife will call you in half an hour. The police are asking her some questions – there has been an unfortun
ate incident at the building. Is Ramu safe?’

  Frank, opening the door of the bedroom to send another message, saw Mrs Rego break down and sob, while her sister stood over her, patting her back and whispering: ‘Georgina, now, now…’

  *

  Bowing to the golden Ganesha on the lintel, Shanmugham walked through the open door of his employer’s home in Malabar Hill.

  He heard Kishore Kumar’s “Ek Aise Gagan Ke Tale” on a tape recorder.

  The living room was deserted. A plate full of chewed crusts lay on the dining table; he recognized the marks of his employer’s teeth on the toast.

  The fragrance of gutka guided him to the bedroom.

  Dharmen Shah lay in a nest of printed papers, scratching on a pad with a pencil. The plaster-of-Paris model of the Confidence Shanghai sat beside him near the bedside lamp.

  ‘What?’

  Shanmugham did not know how to say it. He felt a strange fear of incriminating himself with any word he might use.

  Looking up from his calculations, Shah saw his assistant’s hand rising up in a fist.

  The fist opened.

  ‘How?’

  ‘He fell, sir. From the terrace. About one hour ago. They say it’s suicide.’

  Shah opened his red mouth. Eyes closed, he pressed his head back against the white pillow. ‘I thought it would be a push down the stairs, or a beating at night. That’s all.’

  He caressed the soft pillow.

  ‘I forgot we were dealing with good people, Shanmugham.’

  Scattering papers, the fat man climbed off the bed.

  ‘You drive back to Vakola. Find out from your connection in the police station what is happening with their investigation. I’ll call the astrologer in Matunga and get an auspicious date to start the demolition.’

  7 OCTOBER

  MUMBAI SUN

  SUICIDE IN SANTA CRUZ (EAST)?

  By a staff reporter

  Mr Yogesh Murthy, a retired teacher at the famous St Catherine’s School in the neighbourhood, allegedly committed suicide last night from the rooftop of ‘Vishram’ Society in Vakola, Santa Cruz (E).