Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [113]
“Theft,” Kudwa whispered. “You’re asking me to approve of theft.”
“It is not theft. I’m telling you, Ibrahim, because I know what it is to steal. I am not a good man like you are. I tell you: this is not theft.”
Kudwa slapped the table, startling Mariam, who began crying.
His visitors got up; Kudwa consoled his child. When they had reached the door, he thought he heard Ajwani whisper: “… so typical of his community.”
He could hear Mrs. Puri whisper back: “… do you mean?”
He saw Ajwani at the door, playing with the white cat, and speaking to Mrs. Puri, who was hidden behind the banyan tree.
“Do they join the army? The police? Zero national spirit. Zero.”
Kudwa could barely breathe.
“Why bring in religion, Ajwani?” Mrs. Puri asked from behind the tree. “He has been in Vishram for ten years … well, nine ….”
The broker pressed the white cat with his shoe; it curled itself helplessly around his foot.
“It is time to say it, Mrs. Puri. If he were a Christian, a Parsi, a Sikh, even a Jain—he would have agreed to this.”
And then the two voices faded away.
Kudwa closed his eyes; he patted his daughter.
Did Ajwani think he could not see through his plan? Mrs. Puri was in it, too. They had probably rehearsed that speech before coming into his café. Next they would be teasing him for his dandruff. But it would not work. Would not. With his left hand he brushed at his shoulders.
He tried to break into his neighbours’ minds. Did Ajwani not see that expulsion would boomerang on them? This new tactic would only harden Masterji.
But maybe Ajwani wanted things to go wrong.
Kudwa had heard the rumour that the broker had been promised a “sweetener” by Mr. Shah. Maybe the worse things became at Vishram, the higher Ajwani’s price would climb. The web was so complex now. Kudwa saw intentions buried in intentions within Vishram Society, and was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice when the white cat came into the office, climbed up on his table, and almost scratched Mariam’s face.
17 AUGUST
A man in danger must follow a routine.
Masterji now went out only twice a day. Morning for milk, evening for bread. In public he kept close to the crowd; every ten steps or so he turned around and checked behind him.
He gave in to an afternoon nap. In the evenings, in the dark, he could summon the memory of Purnima if he stood in front of the almirah breathing in the camphor and her old sari. But the afternoons were bright and difficult; the world outside beckoned to him. A regular nap helped him pass the time.
This afternoon, however, he had had a nightmare. He had been dreaming of Purnima’s brothers.
Waking in the dim evening, he limped to the basin in the living room. He struck the tap with the heel of his palm.
He stared at the dry tap, and felt there was nothing strong inside him at that moment.
Closing his eyes he thought of a full moon he had seen many years ago, during a week-long holiday in Simla, up in the Himalayas, just a few months before his marriage. He had stayed in a cheap hotel; one night the moonlight was so powerful it had woken him up. When he went outside, the cold sky above the mountains was filled with a bigger and brighter moon than he had ever seen before. A voice had whispered, as if from the heavens: “Your future will be an important one.”
He drew a circle in the dry basin.
He walked to the threshold of the toilet and stopped: black ants were crawling over the tiled floor. Placing his hands on the doorframe, he leaned in. At the base of the toilet bowl, the black things had lined up like animals at a trough.
Could there be any question now? They had come for the sugar in his urine. He could hear Purnima’s voice pleading with him: “You have to get yourself checked. Tomorrow.”
He went to the kitchen, and counted off on her calendar. Forty-seven days to go. With his finger on the circled date, he said, aloud, so it would reach her clearly: “If I go for a check-up and they say I have diabetes, it will weaken me, Purnima. I