Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [124]
“Don’t bring your mother’s name into this.”
“Your students always came first for you. Always. Not that they had any love for you.” He grinned. “They used to give you nicknames in class. Dirty nicknames.”
“That’s enough.” Masterji got up. “I’m going to see Noronha myself.”
“Go. Go. You think your darling Noronha will see you? Has he responded to your letters or phone calls? He was the one who gave you all those nicknames in class. Go. But before you go, let me give you some advice. Just once let me be a teacher to you, Father.”
(Why does everyone say that? Masterji wondered.)
“Do you know what it is you’re dealing with, Father? Construction. They’re mafia. Sangeeta Aunty tells me you love to talk about tidal waves and meteors in your science class. Worry about knives, Father: not the ocean. Haven’t you seen those big posters near the construction sites? ‘Your own swimming pool, gym, TV, wedding hall, air-conditioning.’ When you sell dreams like that you can murder anyone you want. The deadline is just a few days away. Keep saying no to Mr. Shah and we’ll find you one morning in a gutter. You. Are. All. Alone.” Gaurav stood up. “I have to go back to work now. We can’t take long breaks from the bank, or it goes into our next performance report.”
Masterji read the words he had written on the piece of paper:
Media
Law and order
Social workers
The paper flew into the busy road.
Walking out of the McDonald’s, he stood in front of Victoria Terminus.
High up on the building a gargoyle was watching him. Sticking its tongue out it said: I have students in high places. He turned his eyes away. Another gargoyle grinned: I claim no credit for Noronha. And a third smirked: A teacher is not without his connections.
Then all the stony mass of the Terminus was blown away: a horn had sounded just inches from Masterji’s ears. Members of an off-duty band were coming down the pavement; a man with the tuba was giving an occasional short blast to warn people to give way. They wore red shirts with golden epaulettes and white trousers with a black stripe down them, tucked into bedraggled black boots. Suddenly they were all around Masterji, with their silvery instruments; drawn by the blasts of the tuba, he followed. The musicians’ shirts were sweat-stained and their bodies slumped. He walked behind the man with the tuba; staring into its wide mouth, he began counting the nicks and dents on its skin.
Perhaps observing his presence in their midst, the musicians got rid of him as they came close to Crawford Market by taking a sudden right turn together. Masterji kept on walking in a straight line, like an animal dragged by its collar. His body was in the possession of inertia, but he had full control of his neck and eyes as he observed that the clock on the Crawford Market tower was broken. The pavement became dim. Now he was on Mohammad Ali Road. The dark canyon of concrete and old stone amplified the noise of the traffic. On either side, thick buildings blocked the light, while the JJ Flyover, raised on columns, its grooved body winding and twisting like an alligator on the hunt, secreted its shadow onto the road below.
Something touched him from his left.
Three goats had come out from an alley, and one of them rubbed against his left leg.
Day-labourers slept on the pavement, oblivious to the moving feet around them. The wooden carts that they had been pulling all day long lay beside them; from beneath one, a dog’s claws jutted out, as if the cart were relaxing its animal digits in the cool of the evening. An old man sat beside stacks of newspapers held down by rocks: each rock looking like a crystallization of some hard truth in the newsprint. Masterji stopped to watch the newspapers.
They shot an elected member of the city corporation dead. It was in the papers.
He remembered that Bhendi Bazaar, one of the