Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [5]
About to knock on the door, the Secretary checked himself—his fist was going to hit a sticker with the face of Jesus on it. Shifting his hand to find one of the few blank spots on the door, he knocked with care; after knocking again, he used his master key.
The cupboard doors had been left wide open; the floor an archipelago of newspapers and undergarments—the Secretary had to explain that 3B was currently rented to a most unsatisfactory single woman, a working journalist. The stranger looked at the peeling grey paint and the water-damage blotches on the wall; the Secretary got ready with the official line given to potential tenants—“in the monsoons the rainwater stains the walls, but does not reach the floor.” He got ready with official answers to all the usual tough questions—how many hours of water supply, how much noise from the planes at night, whether the electricity “tripped.”
Stepping over a variety of underwear, the stranger touched the wall, scratched on the flaking paint and sniffed. Turning to the Secretary, he took out a striped red notebook and wet a finger on his tongue.
“I want a legal history of Towers A and B.”
“A what?”
“A summary of lawsuits filed, pending, or likely to arise in the future.”
“There was a disagreement between the Abichandani brothers, true, over 1C. Solved out of court. We are not court-loving people here.”
“Very good. Are there any ‘peculiar situations’?”
“Peculiar …?”
“I mean: family disputes ongoing or pending, pagdi system dealings, illegal sub-rentings, transfers of property under the informal method?”
“None of that happens here.”
“Murders and suicides? Assaults? Any and all other things that may make for bad luck, karma, or negative energy in the Vastu sense?”
“Look here.” Secretary Kothari folded his arms on his chest. The stranger seemed to want to know the moral history of every doorknob, rivet, and nail in the Society. “Are you from the police?”
The visitor looked up from his notepad, as if he were surprised.
“We live in a dangerous time, do we not?”
“Dangerous,” the Secretary conceded. “Very.”
“Terrorists. Bombs in trains. Explosions.”
The Secretary couldn’t argue.
“Families are coming apart. Criminals taking over politics.”
“I understand now. Can you repeat your questions?”
When he was gone, the Secretary, though eager to resume his typing, found himself too nervous. He refreshed each day’s labours with two ready-made sandwiches, purchased in the morning and stored in the drawers of his desk. Unwrapping the second sandwich, he nibbled on it ahead of schedule.
He thought of the visitor’s jagged upper tooth.
“Fellow might not even be in chemicals. Might not even have a job.”
But the anxiety must have been merely digestive in nature, for he felt better with each bite he took.
The residents of Vishram Tower A, thanks to the ledger in the guard’s booth, knew the basic facts about the strangers who visited them, something that could not necessarily be said about the people they had lived with for twenty or thirty years.
Late in the morning Mr. Kothari (4A), their Secretary, got on his Bajaj scooter and left on “business.” Early in the afternoon, while all the others were still working, he drove back, the rear-view mirror of his scooter reflecting a quadrilateral of sunlight onto his upper breast like a certificate of clear conscience. From his movements his neighbours had deduced the existence of a “business” that did not require a man’s presence for more than two or three hours a day and yet somehow funded a respectable existence. That was all they knew about Mr. Kothari’s life outside their gates. If they asked, even in a round-about way, how he had saved up enough to buy the Bajaj, he would reply, as if it were explanation: “Not a Mercedes-Benz, is it? Just a scooter.”
He was the laziest Secretary they had ever had, which made him the best Secretary they had ever had. Asked to resolve disputes,