Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [153]
But that had not been true. Only now, at the age of sixty-one, did he finally feel like a man.
“Help us down, Grandfather,” the boy said, and Masterji steadied his waist as he climbed down the branches. The boy and his sister divided the spoils; Masterji watched and wished Ronak were here.
He thought of that evening at Crawford Market, when he had seen the light behind the buildings and pledged to fight Mr. Shah.
But that fight was over. The deadline had passed, and that builder would go somewhere else. What was he expected to do from now on?
The residue of citrus on his tongue had turned bitter. He covered his face with his hands, and closed his eyes.
Mrs. Puri applied mascara, fluttering her lashes to even the colour. In a corner, Ramu fluttered his eyelashes too.
Boxing with him all the way, Rum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pum, Mrs. Puri led him down to 1B and pressed the bell.
When Mrs. Rego opened her door, Mrs. Puri stopped boxing with Ramu, and asked: “Didn’t you tell me you were going to your sister’s place this evening? The one who lives in Bandra?”
“No … I didn’t tell you that.”
Mrs. Puri smiled.
“You should go to see her, Mrs. Rego. And you should take my Ramu with you, too.”
“But … I promised the boys who play cricket at the Tamil temple I would take them to the beach.”
“This is a favour I ask of you as a neighbour. Have I ever asked you, in all these years, to take care of Ramu?”
Mrs. Rego looked from Ramu to his mother, waiting for an explanation.
“Ramu has to be David, Slayer of Goliath, in the school pageant. I will have to stay back to help them remove the stage decorations until nine o’clock.”
“But Ramu can stay with me right here.”
Mrs. Puri put her hand on her neighbour’s shoulder.
“I want you to go to your sister’s house. It’s a simple thing, isn’t it?”
The five-second rule. As children in Bandra, Mrs. Rego and her sister Catherine had played it each time a chicken leg or a slice of mango had fallen to the floor. Pick it up before a count of five and you did not have to worry about germs. You would stay safe. She remembered this now.
Saying, “I’d be happy to do this for you”—one, two, three, four—Mrs. Rego closed the door.
“Be brave, Ramu. I have to leave you with Communist Aunty. Mummy must help the other mummies clean the stage after the pageant—or who else will take responsibility?”
Ramu hid inside his aeroplane quilt and sulked with the Friendly Duck.
Sitting beside her son, Mrs. Puri checked her mobile phone, which had just beeped. Ajwani had sent her a text message: “Going city. Back 6 clock.”
She knew exactly which part of the city he was going to.
Falkland Road.
Her brother Vikram had been in the navy, and in the mess they had been issued with bottles of Old Monk rum every week. It brought the heat into the blood. Men performing bold physical action needed heat.
In her mind’s eye she saw Ajwani crouching on the terrace, now moving fleetfoot behind Masterji, until the time came for the push. Heat: a man needed it for these things. If he had to go to Falkland Road for his heat, then so be it.
An arm slid out from the aeroplane quilt and bunched the bangles on Mrs. Puri’s forearm together, until her wrist was plated with gold like a warrior’s. She shook her arm, and the bangles trinkled down; the sweet music drew Ramu, beaming like sunrise, out of his quilt.
Up and down his mother’s forearm he rubbed her golden bangles. Her flesh grew warm and the hairs on her forearm were singed from the friction.
Mrs. Puri wanted to wince. She smiled and let her son continue to play.
Mumtaz Kudwa called her husband some time after noon to say she had overheard Mrs. Puri asking Mrs. Rego to take care of Ramu in the evening. And