Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [159]
“Should I go on with ‘Hey Jude,’ or do you want something in Hindi?”
He waited for an answer from Mrs. Puri. Standing at the door of the inner room, she was telling Mani: “Close the outer door. And don’t answer the phone for any reason. Do you understand?”
Returning after dark, Masterji stopped in the stairwell of Vishram Society; his red fingers reached for the wall.
By the banister on which his daughter used to slide down on her way to school (her father upstairs shouting: “Don’t do that, you’ll fall”), he said aloud: “I am starting an evening school. For the boys who play cricket by the temple.”
At once he felt something he had almost forgotten: a sensation of fear. “Have to get checked for diabetes tomorrow,” he reminded himself. “It’s just a question of taking tablets and watching the sweets. You’ll be fine.”
He kept going up the stairs to the fifth floor, where he opened the door that led to the roof terrace.
Firecrackers were exploding in the distance. The wedding of a rich man, Masterji thought. Or perhaps it was an obscure festival. Incandescent rockets and whirligigs and corkscrews shot through the night sky: Masterji put both hands on the short wall of the terrace. He heard a snatch of what he thought was band music.
“We beat Mr. Shah,” he wanted to shout, so loudly that the people celebrating could hear, and celebrate louder.
He wished he could go to where the rockets were bursting, and soar over the fireworks, over Santa Cruz, over the churches and beaches of Bandra, over the temple at SiddhiVinayak and the darkened race course at Mahalakshmi, until he alighted at Crawford Market. There he would look for that bearded day-labourer and fall asleep by his side, adding to the numbers of those who were not alone tonight.
Mr. Pinto did not hear the phone, but its ringing pierced through the cotton wool to reach his wife’s more sensitive ears. She shook his shoulder until he unplugged his ears and reached for the receiver: it might be the children calling from America.
For an instant he thought the threatening calls were starting again. It was the same voice.
“Pinto? Don’t you know me? It’s Ajwani.”
Mr. Pinto breathed out. “You frightened me.” He looked at the clock. “It’s eight fifteen.”
(“Is it Tony?” Mrs. Pinto whispered. “Deepa?”)
The thin voice on the phone said: “No one else is picking up, Pinto. It’s all up to you.”
“What are you talking about, Ajwani? You’re frightening me.”
“Do you know where I am? In Dadar. I can’t leave the station. The hand shakes. It took me an hour to pick up the phone.”
“The Secretary told us to stay in bed and wear ear-cotton tonight, Ajwani. We are watching television. Good night.”
“… Pinto … tell them it’s a mistake, Pinto. You must tell them it’s a mistake.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tell them not to do it. We can all live together in the building like before. Tell Mrs. Puri. Tell the Secretary.”
Mr. Pinto put the phone down.
“Who was that?” his wife asked.
“Do not,” he said, “make me pick up the phone again tonight. Do not.”
He took the phone off the hook.
He and Shelley watched their favourite Hindi TV serial, in which the acting was so exaggerated, and the zoom-in camera so frequently used, that an absence of sound only mildly inhibited one’s understanding of the plot.
Mr. Pinto folded his arms in front of the TV and watched. On a piece of paper by the side of his sofa, he had written:
$100,000 x 2
and
$200,000 x 1
The Daisy Duck clock outside chimed nine o’clock. In the inner room of the Renaissance Real-Estate Agency, Kudwa was singing “A Hard Day’s Night,” while the Secretary was slapping his thighs in time.
“Ajwani is not coming.” Mrs. Puri stood up from the cot and straightened her sari. “Something has happened to him.”
“So?” Kudwa stopped singing. “It’s over, isn’t it?”
Without looking at each other, Mrs. Puri and her husband held hands.
“We can’t waste this chance, Ibby. It’s for Ramu.”
“I can’t let you two do it on your own.” The Secretary got up. “I’ll make sure no one’s watching. That’s my responsibility. And you,