Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [151]
Tomorrow by this time I will be different from all of them, he thought: and his hands became dark fists.
5 OCTOBER
When Masterji opened his eyes, he was still kneeling before the open green almirah. Sunlight had entered the room.
It was a new day: the anniversary of Purnima’s death.
My legs are going to hurt, he thought, searching for something to hold on to, as he raised himself up.
He walked over the underwear lying around the washing machine and went into the living room.
It was his wife’s first anniversary, but Trivedi had refused to do the rites. Where could he get them done at the last minute?
As he brushed his teeth, it seemed to him that the face in the mirror, enriched by wisdom from the foaming toothpaste, was offering him a series of counter-arguments: so what if Trivedi said no? Why a temple, why a priest? Physics experiments could be done by oneself at home: the existence of the sun and the moon, the roundness of the earth, the varying velocities of sound in solids and liquids, all these could be demonstrated in a small room.
True, he acknowledged, as he washed his face and mouth at the sink, very true.
He cupped the weak flow from the tap in his palm. It seemed that water was a part of all Hindu religious ceremonies. The Christians used it too. Muslims gargled and cleaned themselves before their namaaz.
He clutched a handful of water and went to the window. Sunlight, too, was congenial to religion. He opened the window and sprinkled water in the direction of the morning sun. Something was usually said to accompany this sprinkling. People used holy languages for this purpose. Sanskrit. Arabic. Latin. But the words came out of him in English. He said: “I miss you, my wife.”
He sprinkled more water.
“Forgive me for not being a better husband.”
He sprinkled the last of the water into the light.
“Forgive me for not protecting you from the things I should have protected you from.”
One drop of water had fallen on Masterji’s fingertip; it glowed in the morning light like a pearl.
The iridescent drop spoke to him, saying: I am what you are made of. And in the end I am what you return to. In between there were puzzling things a man had to do. Marry. Teach. Have children. And then his obligations were done and he would become drops of water again, free of life and its rainbow of restrictions. Death said to Masterji: Fear me not. Purnima your wife is more beautiful than ever, she is a drop of shining water. And Sandhya your daughter is right by her side.
The creeper from the Secretary’s home had grown down to Masterji’s window again; tender, translucent in the morning light, its blind pale tip curled up, apparently searching for him, like Sandhya’s infant finger, the first time he came close to her.
He fed it the water drop.
Something was usually done for others in remembrance rituals. When he had performed his father’s last rites in Suratkal, they had left steaming rice balls on a plantain leaf for the crows.
He came down to the compound, where Mrs. Puri was clapping to keep time for Ramu; with a gold-foil sword in his hand, the boy, whose cheeks had been rouged, walked four measured steps, swished his sword, and bowed before an imaginary audience. Masterji remembered: the annual pageant.
“Good luck, Ramu,” he said.
Ramu, despite his mother’s stern gaze, thrust his golden sword at Masterji.
Ajwani woke up and found himself under arrest.
Two samurai had taken his arms in theirs. “Tae kwon-do time, Papa”—little Raghav brought his fist right up to his father’s face. “You’ve overslept.”
In brilliant white outfits embellished with Korean symbols and a small Indian flag in the upper right-hand corner, the boys arranged themselves before the dining table in kicking-and-punching positions. Though not formally trained in the martial arts, Ajwani understood the basic principles of