Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [39]
“How is your spit today, Uncle?”—Rosie shouted at the bathroom. It was a role every mistress sooner or later took to playing, that of surrogate mother.
“Clear, Rosie.”
He coughed and spat, then dipped his finger in the spit and inspected it. Last December it had been much darker, and sometimes flecked with red.
“Don’t lie to me, Uncle. I can hear the cough. Like the thunder they use in films.”
“If I had designed the human body, I’d have done a much better job, Rosie. The materials used are not the best. Corners have been cut. The structure collapses too soon.” He laughed. “But I’m fine, Rosie. By the grace of Lord SiddhiVinayak I’m fine.”
By the grace of the Lord. Rosie knew exactly what that meant. By my own grace. Just like a film producer who says, once you’ve sucked his cock, “By the grace of God, you’ll get a small role in this film.”
She sighed, and cleared the greasy plates from the table.
Six months earlier: Shah had been waiting in a restaurant for an order of chow mein that his mistress of the time, Nannu, had wanted him to bring her, personally; she was in one of her hysterical moods. The pretty girl in the tank-top had smiled at him, walked up to him without an invitation, and stuck out her hand: “My name is Rosie. Yours?” He had known, at once, what was on offer. This was Versova, after all. “Thank you,” he had smiled and left. Nannu was lighter-skinned.
Next morning—one of those small things that add up to make life grand—opening the newspaper, he saw this in a side-column: “Aspiring model arrested in Oshiwara gym. Accused of stealing from women’s locker.” He read the name of the girl: “Rosie.” A challenge thrown down to his will power. He had cancelled the morning’s meetings, driven down to the Oshiwara gym; settled in cash with the gym owner; gone to the police station, freed her, and looking at her, her shoulders, hair, still, after a day in the lock-up, in good shape, had decided, “She’ll do.” Nannu was given three days to clear out of this flat; after which he moved Rosie in here, telling her she could continue to do what she came to Bombay for: try and make it in the movies. No need for petty hustling as long as she lived with him; just one great hustle and humiliation to accept. One or two mornings a week she went to see a producer about an itty-bitty role in a new production; sometimes had her hopes of success renewed, at other times worried about ageing, felt she would never make it, and asked for “help” in setting up a hairdressing studio of her own, which Shah promised she would receive. At the end of their relationship. But until then, if she made eyes at anyone else, she would fly head-first into the Indian Ocean.
When he came out of the shower, she was singing songs in a foreign language.
“Opera,” she shouted in response to his question. There was a new craze for Italian opera in Bollywood, and she was trying out bits of songs. They were called “aria.”
“Ariya,” he said, rubbing his hair with a soft white towel. “Is that how it’s said?”
“Aaa-ria, Uncle. Don’t pronounce things like a Gujarati village goat.”
“Ha, ha. But I am a Gujarati village goat, Rosie.”
Another of her moods; and he enjoyed all of them. “Get a room with a sea view. One wall is always new,” they said in real estate. Get a woman who changes and you have a dozen women. He relished the smell of Pears Soap on his skin; he wanted her in his arms.
“Why don’t you introduce me to Satish, Uncle? I’m in his age group, I can talk to him if he’s in trouble,” she asked, when he emerged, still rubbing his hair.
“I’ll bring you a model of the Shanghai, Rosie. It’s so beautiful, you should see it. Gothic, Italian, Indian, Art Deco styles, all in one. My whole life story is in it.”
“Why don’t you introduce me to Satish, Uncle?”
He bent down and rubbed more vigorously, so the moisture from his hair irritated her face.
“I’m not your prostitute! I’m not your property! I don’t give a shit about your