Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [146]
Mrs. Rego had not paid much attention to her plate of bhelpuri. Now she began eating.
Frank rubbed his hands. “I know why he’s doing this. It’s a statement, isn’t it? Against development. Against unplanned development.”
Mrs. Rego ate bhelpuri. Mrs. Puri stood up and faced the foreigner.
“He’s not making a statement. He’s mad.”
The American winced.
“No, I think it’s a statement.”
“What do you know—you don’t live in Vishram. Yesterday he was walking on the terrace. Round and round and round. With a Rubik’s Cube in his hand. What does that mean, except: ‘I have lost my mind completely.’ And we hear him, don’t we, my husband and I, from next door. Talking to his wife and daughter as if they were alive.”
Mrs. Puri looked at Ramu. The boy was playing with Mrs. Rego’s children.
“No statement is happening here,” she whispered. “Just madness.”
The plate of bhelpuri dropped from Mrs. Rego’s hand. She began to sob.
Catherine squatted by her sister and rubbed her back.
“Frank, did you have to mention that horrible man? Did you have to upset my sister?”
“What did I do?” The man looked around. “I just said—”
“Shut up, Frank. You are so insensitive sometimes. Don’t cry, Georgina. We’ll get you another plate. Here, look at me.”
“I’m going to lose the money, it’s not fair,” Mrs. Rego sobbed. “It’s not fair, Catherine. You’ve trumped me again. You always do.”
“Oh, Georgina ….”
Mrs. Rego’s children came to either side of her and held her hands protectively.
“Mummy,” Sunil whispered, “Aunty Catherine’s children are stupid. You know that. Sarah and I will make a lot of money for you, and you’ll trump her again. Mummy, don’t cry.”
An hour later, Mrs. Puri opened the gate of Vishram Society for her Ramu. Mrs. Rego and her children came in behind Ramu.
“All of Vishram Society is helpless before a bird,” Mrs. Puri said, when she stood outside Mrs. Saldanha’s kitchen.
The crow’s nest had come up above Mrs. Saldanha’s kitchen window; it had been showering twigs and feathers into the kitchen for days. Mary had refused to do anything; it would bring bad luck to toss the eggs down. “I am a mother too,” she had retorted, when Mrs. Saldanha accused her of dereliction of her duties.
Now the eggs had hatched. Two blood-red mouths opened out of little beaks and screeched desperately, all day long. The mother crow hopped from chick to chick and pecked each one consolingly, but they, with raised beaks, cried out for more, much more.
“We’ll tell the Secretary to call the seven-kinds-of-vermin man,” Mrs. Rego said, keeping her eyes to the ground.
This man, who worked near the train station, was often called to Vishram to knock down a wasps’ nest or a beehive; he scraped it down with his pole and sprayed white antiseptic on the wall.
“Don’t call anyone,” Mrs. Puri said. She seized Mrs. Rego by the arm to arrest her.
“We will do it right now. You watch.”
She took out her mobile phone and punched at the buttons. Ajwani was at home. He came down wearing a banian over his trousers and scratched his forearms: he lived directly above the nest, it was true, but on the second floor …
“It is just a crow, and we are people,” Mrs. Puri reasoned with him.
Ajwani remembered a long pole he used to clean cobwebs from the ceiling.
A few minutes later, he was leaning out of his wife’s kitchen window, aiming the long pole at the crow’s nest like a billiards-player. His sons stood on either side and guided his aim.
The Secretary came out of his office to watch. So did Mrs. Saldanha.
Mrs. Puri sent Ramu up the stairs; he was under orders to wait for her on the first landing.
“Do it quickly,” she shouted at Ajwani. “The mother knows.”
Ajwani pushed at the nest with the pole. The crow flew up, its claws extended. Ajwani pushed again; the nest tipped over the edge, the two chicks screeching desperately. “A little to the left, Father,” Raghav said. The broker gave a final nudge: the nest dropped to the ground, scattering sticks and leaves.
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