Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [28]
“Forgive me, sir.”
Shah walked with Shanmugham from the Fountainhead to his other building.
Shanmugham felt his shirt sticking to his back. His employer’s shirt was wet too, but it seemed to him that these were spots not of moisture, but of molten butter. The man who had been sick in the morning now glowed with health. Shanmugham could barely keep up with him.
They were at a group of workers’ huts in between the two building projects. A stunted gulmohar tree stood here with criss-crossing branches, like a man who has got his arms in a tangle by pointing in every direction at once. A water pump dripped in its shade. A heap of sand was piled up on one side of the tree, with crushed stones on the other side. Two of the workers’ children had pitched a tyre on a low branch, on which they swung until their feet dug into the sand. Another had picked up an axe, with which he attacked the sand, sneezing each time his wobbling blows connected.
The builder stopped by the water pump to read a message on his mobile phone.
“That was from Giri.” He put his phone into his pocket. “I would have cancelled the birthday party for Satish but the invitations have gone out. The boy has agreed to be there, and behave himself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have children don’t you, Shanmugham?”
“Yes, sir. Two sons.”
“I hope they never become to you, Shanmugham, the curse mine is to me.”
“Shall I go now, sir? To Vishram Society—to make the offer?”
“You wait until I tell you to go. The astrologer is going to call me and give me the exact time. This won’t be an easy project, Shanmugham. We need every chance we can get. The stars might help us.”
Shah pointed with his mobile phone across the road. A plane went overhead; waiting until its boom passed, he said: “Look at his guts, Shanmugham. Right under my nose he buys that place.”
Across the road, a giant billboard had come up next to the ramshackle brick houses with corrugated tin roofs held down by rocks.
ULTIMEX GROUP
IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE FUTURE SITE OF
“ULTIMEX MILANO”
A NEW CONCEPT IN HOUSING
SUPER LUXURY APARTMENTS
“Do you know when he’s going to start work?”
“No word yet, sir.”
“People will laugh at me if he finishes his building first, Shanmugham.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Shah went alone to the Excelsior. The work had fallen behind schedule here, so Shanmugham knew that his boss would have plenty to do for the next few hours.
He sat in the shade of the stunted tree, his mobile phone in his right hand.
The three workers’ children sat on the sand pile, watching him with open mouths.
Showing them a closed fist, Shanmugham said: “Mr. Secretary, members of Vishram Society, all your dreams are ….”
A water buffalo drew near the children.
Shanmugham left the site, had lunch on the main road, returned, and waited near the sand. The children came back to watch. He practised again on them. Taking out his blue-checked handkerchief, which his wife laid folded for him every morning on the breakfast table, he wiped his face: temples, nose, and then the back of his neck, down to the first sharp knob of his spine. He folded the handkerchief back into the square his wife had made. Then, lunging forward, he showed the children his jagged tooth: Aaaargh!
They ran.
He left the site, had tea near the main road, and returned to the pile of sand. The children came back to watch. The water buffalo moved near the sand, turning its long curved horns from side to side; a crow glided to the earth in between the buffalo’s horns, and sucked a worm raw out of a hole.
Some time after five o’clock, Shanmugham reached his hand into his pocket and fumbled: his mobile phone had beeped. Mr. Shah, standing on the third floor of the Excelsior, was waving at him.
The message had arrived from the astrologer in Matunga.
Leaving his group of spectators seated on their sand pile, Shanmugham sprinted from the construction site, down the mud path, past the Gold Coin and Silver Trophy Societies, past the Tamil temple in front of which boys were playing cricket (hopping