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By Root 773 0

in America—a good, Christian country—one in Michigan, the other in Buffalo. The children were far away, but they had Vishram all around them, warm, human, familiar; it was the protective keratin they had secreted from the hardships of their lives. It guided Shelley down its stairs and around its fragrant garden. How would she find her way in a strange new building? Mr. Pinto and his wife had sat on the sofa, hand in hand, feeling more in love than they had in years. And when Masterji said, “If it’s no from you, it’s no from me,” Shelley Pinto had begun to cry. A husband by her side, and a wise man for a friend.

All day long, whether eating breakfast with Masterji or lying in bed, she had heard the buzz of discussion around Vishram. What if the others overpowered them and carried her off to a building with strange walls and neither “the Diamond” nor “the Bad Tooth” nor her million other eyes? Her heart beat faster. She forgot how many steps lay before her and the ground floor.

The powerful voice of Mrs. Rego revived her.

“It’s an illusion, Mr. Pinto. I know about these builders. They won’t ever pay up.”

We have the Battleship on our side, Mrs. Pinto thought. How can we lose?

“We knew all these years you were strange, Mrs. Rego, but we did not realize you were actually mad,” Mrs. Puri fired back at the Battleship.

Now Mrs. Pinto’s heart sank. Mrs. Puri is on their side. How can we win?

“This is a democracy, Mrs. Puri. No one will silence me. Not you, not all the builders of the world.”

“I’m just saying, Mrs. Rego, even a Communist must understand that when someone comes and offers us 20,000 rupees a square foot we should say yes. Once you think of all the repairs we need to make to the building, to each individual flat, before it can be sold—new paint, new doors—it is closer to 250 per cent of market value. And think of the time it takes to find a buyer in a neighbourhood like this. Mr. Costello waited six months, gave up, and went to Qatar. This is cash in hand.”

“But will this Mr. Shah actually pay?” Ibrahim Kudwa’s voice.

Good. Ibrahim Kudwa, the cyber-café owner, was the average man in the building. If he was sceptical, everyone was sceptical.

“Look,” Mr. Pinto said, when his wife came out into parliament, groping for a chair. The main item of evidence.

“How will she survive in another Society?”

Aware that people were looking at her, Mrs. Pinto held her smile for all to see.

“Just wait until this man comes here and speaks to us,” Mrs. Puri said. “Is that too much to ask of all of you?”

Ibrahim Kudwa came up to Mrs. Pinto and whispered: “I wanted to tell you about the sign that I changed outside the Society. They’ve filled up the hole now, but there was a sign there. It said: ‘Work in progress, inconvenience regretted,’ but I changed it to ‘Inconvenience in progress, work regretted.’ ”

“That’s very clever, Ibrahim,” she whispered back. “Very clever.”

She could almost hear the blood rushing proudly to his cheeks. Ibrahim Kudwa reminded her of Sylvester, a pet dog that she had once had. Always needed an “attaboy,” and a pat on the head.

“Now all of you must excuse us. Shelley and I are going for our walk.”

Masterji, who had been sitting in the “prime” chair, pretending not to watch Mrs. Saldanha’s kitchen TV, got up in stages. He followed Mr. and Mrs. Pinto to the compound wall.

Behind him, he could hear the indiscreet Ibrahim Kudwa whispering: “What’s his position?”

Masterji slowed to hear the faithful Mrs. Puri’s reply: “The moment his friends said, we don’t want the money, he said, me too.”

Even though he had opposed the offer, she was proud of him, and wanted everyone to know this.

“He is an English gentleman. Only when the Pintos change their answer will he change his.”

Suppressing his smile, Masterji caught up with the Pintos. Shelley had her hand on her husband; he could hear her count her steps. When she counted “twenty” she had passed the danger-zone: where the boys played their cricket game, and their smacked balls could hit her cheeks or stomach. Now she would smell hibiscus plants for twenty