Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [43]
Mary, having done with her evening cleaning of the Society’s common areas, was beginning to water the plants in the garden. Picking up the green pipe that lay in coils in the garden all the day long like a hibernating snake, she fitted it to a tap near the compound wall; sluicing the water flow with a pressed thumb, she began slapping the hibiscus plants awake. One-two-three-four-five, holding the pipe in her right hand, Mary counted off the seconds of irrigation for each plant on the joints of her left hand, like a meditating brahmin. Small rainbows sprang to life within the arch of the sluiced water, disappeared when the water moved away, then reappeared on the dripping spider’s webs that interlinked the branches.
Mrs. Pinto left the smell of hibiscus behind. Now came “the blood stretch”—the ten yards where the stench of raw beef from the butcher’s shop behind the Society wafted in, mitigated somewhat by the flourish of jasmine flowers growing near the wall.
“It’s your phone, Masterji.” Mrs. Pinto turned around.
She could pinpoint the exact cubicle within the building that a noise came from.
“It must be Gaurav again. The moment he smells money on me, my son calls.”
Gaurav had called earlier in the morning. The first call he had made to his father in months. He explained that “Sangeeta Aunty” had told him about the builder’s offer.
“I wish Mrs. Puri had not phoned him.”
“Oh, she is like a second mother to the boy, Masterji. Let her call.”
Masterji winced; yet he could not deny the fact.
Everyone in Vishram knew of Mrs. Puri’s closeness to the boy; it was one of the triumphs of their communal life—one of the cross-beams of affection that are meant to grow in any co-operative society. Even after Gaurav moved to Marine Lines for his work, Mrs. Puri stayed in touch with him, sending him regular packages of peanut-chikki and other sweets. It was she who had called to tell him of his mother’s death.
Masterji said: “I told Gaurav, you are my son, this is your home, you can come see me whenever you want. But there is nothing to discuss. The Pintos have said no.”
And then, looking at Mrs. Pinto through the corner of his eye, he waited in the hope that she too would call him an “English gentleman.”
Mr. Pinto completed the circuit of the compound wall, and scraped his chappals on the gravel around the guard’s booth. He waited for his wife and Masterji with his thin hands on his hips, panting like the winner in a geriatric sprint.
“Let’s do breathing exercises together,” he said, and gave Shelley his arm. “It makes you feel young again.”
As the three of them practised inhaling-exhaling-inhaling, the Secretary walked past with a large microphone, which he planted near the black cross.
At five o’clock, “Soda Pop” Satish Shah, recently the terrorizer of parked cars on Malabar Hill, stood by the entrance of the most famous Hindu shrine in the city, the SiddhiVinayak Temple at Prabhadevi, waiting for his father.
With the latest issue of Muscle-Builder magazine in his right hand, he was practising behind-the-head tricep curls with his left.
He paused, turned the page of the magazine, and practised more repetitions with his left hand.
With his right hand he touched his nose. It still hurt.
It had not been his idea to spray-paint the cars. He had told the other fellows: the police would never allow it in the city. Let’s go to the suburbs, Juhu, Bandra. A man could live like a king out there. But did they listen?
In any case, what had they done? Just spray a few cars and a van. It was nothing compared to what his father did in his line of work.
The bastard works in construction, Satish thought, and he has the guts to tell me I am the bad one in the family.
Thinking about his father, he goaded himself into practising his tricep curls faster. He thought about the way that man chewed gutka like a villager. The way he wore so many gold rings. The way he pronounced English, no better than Giri did. “Cho-chyal Enimalz. Cho-chyal.”
Satish felt someone seize him by the arm.
“This is not a thing to be doing here. You