Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [121]
Masterji took the red book and removed the rubber band. The No-Argument book had been returned to him, with a yellow Post-it note on its cover, All debts settled and accounts closed.
“Don’t be angry with Mr. Pinto,” Mary whispered. “They forced him to do it. Mrs. Puri and the others.”
Masterji nodded. “I don’t blame him. He is frightened.”
He did not know whether to look at Mary. In all these years, he had not exchanged, except on matters directly related to her work, even a dozen words with the cleaning woman of his Society.
She smiled. “But you don’t worry, Masterji. God will protect us. They’re trying to throw me out of my home too. I live by the nullah.”
Masterji looked at Mary’s hands, which were covered in welts. He remembered a boy in school whose mother was a scavenger. Her hands were scored with rat-bites and long scratches.
How could they throw a poor woman like this out of her hut? How many were being forced out of their homes—what was being done to this city in the name of progress?
Closing the door behind Mary, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against the cool wood: “Must not get angry. Purnima would not want it.”
The phone began ringing. Though he was waiting for Gaurav’s call, he approached the phone as he had recently learned to, with trepidation.
He picked up the receiver and brought it to his ear. He breathed out in relief.
Gaurav.
“Good news, Father. I got through to Noronha. My connection put me through. I explained the situation: the threats, the phone calls, the attack on Mr. Pinto—”
Masterji was so excited he passed the receiver from one ear to the other.
“And today’s deceit by the lawyer? You didn’t leave that out?”
“—that too, Father. Noronha is going to meet us.”
“Wonderful, wonderful.”
“Father, Noronha is just going to hear us. He can’t promise anything.”
“I understand,” Masterji said. “I understand fully. I just want a chance to hit back at this Mr. Shah. Right now the score is one hundred to zero in his favour. I just want one good hit at his fat stomach. That’s all I ask from Noronha.”
“He’ll meet us tomorrow in the Times of India office at five o’clock. Can you meet him in the lobby? Yes, I’ll come from work straight to VT.”
“Thank you, son. In the end there is family, or what else is there? I knew I could count on you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Masterji lay in bed and thrashed his feet like a boy.
At Mr. Shah’s Malabar Hill home, Giri had wiped the kitchen clean, turned off the gas, opened the day’s mail, and sorted the letters. The last thing he had to do before leaving was to forge his employer’s signature.
Taking out his bifocals—a gift from his master on his fiftieth birthday—Giri sat at the table with the poster of the Eiffel Tower-under-construction behind him. He turned on the desk lamp, and opened the second drawer, which stored the chequebooks. Giri’s hand, which reproduced his master’s 1978 signature with exactness, was considerably more authentic than Shah’s, which had shifted in character over the years. For this reason Shah had long entrusted the signing of monthly bills to him. Giri took them out of a blue manila folder one by one. The electricity bill. The monthly maintenance charge from the Society. A five-thousand-rupee voluntary request for the installation of “water-harvesting” tanks in the building.
“Voluntary.” Giri sniffed. That meant in English you give money if you want. He crushed the paper and threw it into the waste basket.
Next he studied his master’s credit card bill before signing a cheque for it. He went through another credit card bill and signed a second cheque for the “Versova person”—whom he refused to dignify with a more precise title.
He turned off the desk lamp.
Nearly nine o’clock. He would have to take an hour-long train to Borivali, where he lived in a one-bedroom with his mother. In the kitchen Giri changed out of his blue lungi into a pair of brown polyester trousers, and put on a white shirt over his banian.
Satish had left his bedroom. Giri straightened the sheets.
Mr. Shah was in bed, his arm