Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [165]
For two months after his death, Masterji was a residue of dark glamour on the Vakola market, a layer of ash over the produce. Then other scandals and other mysteries came. The vendors forgot him; Ajwani had become just another customer.
He walked away from the market, hands behind his back, until he heard hammers chipping away at stone and brick.
Vishram Society was overrun by workmen like a block of sugar by black ants. The roof had fallen in; men sat on the exposed beams and stood all along the stairs, hacking at wood with saws, and hammering at walls and beams. TNT could not be used in a neighbourhood this densely populated; the destruction had to be done by human hands. The men who had been working on the Confidence Excelsior and the Fountainhead were now chipping, peeling, and smashing Vishram; the women carried the debris on troughs on their heads and dumped it into the back of a truck.
Every few hours, the truck drove down the road, and poured its contents as filling into the foundations of the Ultimex Milano. The metal skeleton beneath the paint and plaster would be sent to workshops around Falkland Road to be broken up and recycled. Even in death, Vishram Society was being of service to Vakola and Mumbai.
As each hammer struck Vishram, the building fumed, emitting white puffs from its sides, like an angry man in the Tom and Jerry cartoons that Ajwani’s sons watched in the mornings. It looked like some slow torture for all the trouble that the building had given Mr. Shah. Some of the Christian workers had wanted to save the black cross, but it was gone, probably crushed into the foundations of the Milano. Soon all that would remain of Vishram Society would be the old banyan; and each time there was a wind, its leaves brushed against the abandoned guard’s booth like a child trying to stir a dead thing to life.
Ajwani leaned against the tree and touched its trunk.
“Rich man! Where have you been?”
A tall and lean man, brushing white dust from his white shirt and black trousers, had come up to him.
“You haven’t signed the Confidence Group papers,” Shanmugham said, “and without it we can’t give you the money.”
Ajwani stepped back from the tree.
Shanmugham raised a leg and patted white dust off his trousers.
“One and a half crores of rupees. All of you are now rich men, and what do I get, Mr. Ajwani? Nothing.”
Mr. Shah had not given him a bonus or an extra. Not even a pat on the head, not even what a dog would get for chasing a stick. All the boss had said was: “Now I want you to make sure that the demolition does not fall one day behind, Shanmugham. Time is money.”
For months he had been the man handing out red boxes of sweets to the residents of Vishram: where was his red box?
Moving close to the broker, he lowered his voice.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said. That day in your inner room, when we sat with the coconuts. About how some clever left-hand men actually manage to ….”
Shanmugham started. The broker was walking away briskly, arms swinging, as if he were about to break into a run.
“Come back, Mr. Ajwani! If you don’t sign your papers, you won’t get the money!”
What was wrong with the man?
With one eye closed, Shanmugham looked at the old banyan’s leaves: sunlight oozed through the dark canopy like raw white honey. He picked up a stone and threw it at the light.
16 DECEMBER
The lift opened: the chai boy stepped out into the car park with a tray full of teacups.
He stopped and stared.
The tall man in the white shirt was doing it again. Standing before his Hero Honda motorbike, he was talking into the rear-view mirror.
“Mr. Shah, I know you told me you didn’t want to talk about a certain event ever again, but yesterday I met that broker, and ….”
The tall man closed his eyes, and tried again.
“Mr. Shah, the real story behind … I know you told me never to mention it again, but ….”
The chai boy tiptoed around him; he took his tray of morning