Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [128]
“And if you ask one more question like that, I’ll send you back there.”
He hung up and turned to Rosie. A pink plaster sat on her nose: Giri had brought out the Band-Aids kept for Satish’s football wounds. She was looking at the kitchen floor.
“See what you made me do to your pretty face, Rosie? Come, let’s go to Versova. I’m hungry. Come.”
She turned: her eyes were livid, and the fingers of her right hand trembled. Shah braced himself. Was it coming—the slap? But a need greater than retribution—the promised hair salon, her future independence—relaxed her fingers.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Shah grinned. Texting his driver to get the car ready, he led Rosie out of the flat: towards toast, beach, and bed.
Giri stayed in the kitchen and wiped away the stains of water and blood.
BOOK EIGHT
DEADLINE
29 SEPTEMBER
Humming a favourite film song (… geet amar kar do) and walking up to his flat with a packet of fresh milk, Masterji found Ms. Meenakshi waiting at his door. The girl showed him a set of keys.
“I’m leaving today.”
Masterji nodded. “In that case you must come in, Ms. Meenakshi. Tea? Biscuits?”
She wore a white T-shirt, and a denim skirt that left most of her knees uncovered; she sat on the sofa while he put milk on the gas stove and chopped a piece of ginger in the kitchen.
“Masterji, your life could be in danger and you’re talking about tea and biscuits?”
He ignited the burner of the stove with a match.
“What will that man Shah do, Ms. Meenakshi? We have gone through things in our generation that I can’t explain to you. Do you know about PL 480? During the 1965 war the Americans stopped our food supply to help Pakistan. PL 480 was their wheat programme, and they cut it off. Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri asked each Indian to give up a meal to help the nation win the war. This trouble is nothing.”
The living room filled with the smell of burned milk. Masterji came out of the kitchen with two cups of steaming ginger tea.
Ms. Meenakshi sipped her tea. “You’re all alone here, Masterji. Do you really understand this? A man with a gun could come to your door and shoot you. It’s been done before.”
Masterji put his cup down on the teakwood table.
“No. I am not alone, Ms. Meenakshi.”
He wanted to throw shadows on the wall to explain to her.
“There are more parties involved in this dispute than just Mr. Shah, my neighbours, and me. Millions are involved. Even after you leave Vishram, you will still be involved.”
She waited for him to explain. He smiled and stirred the sediment in the teacup.
Wiping her hands on her skirt, the girl said: “You asked what public relations is, Masterji. Go to the papers. Tell them your story.”
“I wrote to a student of mine at the Times … and it came to nothing.”
“Not the pucca papers. A tabloid. My boyfriend works for the Sun, Masterji—the one you ….” She smiled. “I told him what is happening here, and he said at once: ‘It’s a story!’ He’ll interview you. The paper will run your photo. You’ll become famous. People will follow you on Facebook.”
Masterji got up.
Everyone wants something from me, he thought. Shah wants to steal my home, and she wants to take my story.
He went to the window and opened it. A potted creeper from the Secretary’s flat had grown down to his window; its lush green tendrils were blocking a part of his view. He began to snap its tendrils.
Ms. Meenakshi realized that this was a sign for her to leave.
“I ask you once again, Masterji,” she said from the door. “Will you tell your story? Every day, the danger to your life grows.”
He stood at the window until she closed the door behind him. So now she was gone: soon she would be moving out of the building, this girl who had once disturbed him so much. He could not locate within himself the man who—just a few feet from where he now stood—had shoved Ms. Meenakshi’s boyfriend with more-than-human strength. Maybe that was why she had been sent to this building: to discompose him at the time Shah made his offer.
An autorickshaw entered the compound. He saw the girl get into it with