Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [136]
Walking up from the black cross, where she had been standing for a while, his mother called to him. The hibiscus plant shook.
She came near and saw what he was doing.
“… what is the meaning of …?”
The boy would not turn around. He had sucked in his lips; he kept poking the thing at the root of the plant. Mrs. Puri pulled him back and looked at him with disbelieving eyes.
“Don’t hurt the poor worm, Ramu. Is it hurting you?”
Shaking his mother’s hands off him, he thrust his wooden stick back into the coiled-up earthworm, which squirmed under the pressure, but did not uncoil. Mrs. Puri felt as if someone had poked a rod into her side.
“Oy, oy, oy, my Ramu, it is Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday. What would he say if he saw you?”
He must have overheard someone talking in the stairwell or in the garden. He knew what had happened last night.
“If Masterji doesn’t say yes, we won’t ever get our new home. Remember, Ramu, the wooden cupboard in that nice new building in Goregaon … the fresh smell, the sunlight on the wood?”
He did not turn around. She saw that he had cut the earthworm into two writhing pieces.
“I promise: not one thing to upset Masterji after this. I promise. Don’t hurt the worm.”
But he would not turn.
“Ramu. Are you fighting with your mother?”
Masterji, who had walked in through the gate, came towards the hibiscus plant. “Happy Gandhi Jayanti,” he said to the woman who had applied excrement to his door only a few hours ago.
She said nothing.
The boy dropped his stick and came to him; the old teacher put his arms around his neighbour’s son and whispered: “Mustn’t fight with Mummy, Ramu. The deadline will end soon. After that your mummy and I will be friends again.”
He left the two of them alone and went up to his flat.
Standing at the window of the living room, he was hoping to see some celebrations for Gandhi Jayanti. It was traditionally a big day at the Society. An old picture of Mahatma Gandhi kept inside the Secretary’s desk for such occasions would be placed over the guard’s booth. A black Sony three-in-one would play old film songs from Ibrahim Kudwa’s window.
His phone rang. It was Ms. Meenakshi, his ex-neighbour. She was calling from her new home in Bandra.
The response to the story about him—the one her boyfriend had written—had been “fantastic!” Would Masterji consider a follow-up? Would he keep a blog? Not a blong, a blog.
“Thank you for your help, Ms. Meenakshi, and give my regards to your boyfriend. But my answer remains no.”
He put the phone down. He went back to the window.
Another truck had stopped in front of Tower B; beds and tables had been brought down from the building and were being loaded onto it. The last residents were leaving. The remaining children of Tower B were playing cricket by the truck with the children of Tower A.
He closed his eyes: he imagined the living room full of his neighbours’ children again. Dirty cricket bats and bright young faces again.
“Today we shall see how sound travels at different speeds in solids and in liquids”—he stretched his legs—“right here in this room. And you, Mohammad Kudwa, make sure you don’t talk while the experiment is going on. No, I haven’t forgotten what you did last time ….”
When he woke from his nap, the truck was gone.
The security grilles, removed from what used to be Vishram Tower B, had left rusty ghost-shadows around the windows and balconies, like eyebrows plucked in a painful ceremony. Pigeons flew in and out of the rooms, now no one’s rooms, just the spent cartridges of old dreams. Yellow tape criss-crossed the base of the building:
THE CONFIDENCE GROUP (HEADQUARTERS: PAREL)
HAS TAKEN PHYSICAL POSSESSION OF THIS BUILDING
MARKED FOR DEMOLITION
Holding the latest letter from Deepa in her fingers, re-creating her daughter’s face and voice from the texture of the paper, Mrs. Pinto lay in bed. The stereophonic buzz of evening serials from TV sets on nearly every floor of the building penetrated her thoughts, as if they were long-wave