Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [64]
At dinner the Pintos would say, “Masterji, you’ve become so quiet these days,” and he would only shrug.
They asked him once or twice if he had had his diabetes test done yet.
Though he was spending more time by himself, he would not say he had been bored; he was conscious, indeed, of a strange contentment. But now, when he wanted to talk to someone, he found himself all alone.
He opened the door and went into the stairwell. Instead of going down the steps, he walked up. He walked up to the fifth floor, and paused in front of a steep single-file staircase, which led to the roof-top terrace.
After the suicide of the Costello boy in 1999, the Society had discouraged the use of the terrace, and children were forbidden from going up there.
Masterji went up the staircase to the terrace. The small wooden door at the end of the stairs had not been opened in a long time, and he had to push with his shoulder.
And then, for the first time in over a decade, he was on the roof of Vishram Society.
Fifteen years ago, Sandhya had come up here in the evenings to play on a rocking-horse, which was still rotting in a corner. Planting a foot on it, he gave it a little kick. It creaked and rocked.
Years of uncleaned guano had calcified on the floor of the terrace, and rainwater had collected over it.
Masterji walked slowly through water to the wall of the terrace. From here, he could see Mary picking up leaves and twigs that littered the compound, and Ram Khare walking back into his booth.
Mrs. Puri came out into the compound with Ramu; they went towards the black cross with a bowl full of channa. As if she had a sixth sense, Mrs. Puri looked up and saw her neighbour up on the terrace.
“Masterji, what are you doing up there?” she shouted. “It’s dangerous on the roof.”
Blushing with embarrassment, like a schoolboy who had been caught, Masterji came down the stairs at once.
To make up for his indiscreet walk around the terrace, he read from The Soul’s Passageway after Death for a while; then tried playing with his Rubik’s Cube. Eventually he yawned, shook himself awake, and walked down to the Secretary’s office.
Ajwani was in a corner of the office, reading the front page of the Times of India through his half-moon glasses. Secretary Kothari had another section of the paper; he was examining the real-estate advertisements. The two men were about to sip tea from little plastic cups; Kothari found a third cup into which he poured Masterji some of his tea. Ajwani came to the table to do the same.
“Wonderful isn’t it, the rain,” Kothari said, moving the little cup towards Masterji. “The whole world has become green. Everything grows.”
“And buildings fall,” Masterji said. Taking the Times of India from Ajwani, he read aloud the big story on the front page: “A three-storey building in Crawford Market fell during yesterday’s storm, killing the watchman and two others. Since the building was home to over twenty people, the people say it is a miracle only three died.”
Masterji kept reading. The desire for self-improvement had been the cause of destruction. Against the advice of the municipal engineer, the residents had installed overhead water tanks, and these, too heavy for the old building, had bent the ancient roof, which broke in the storm. Death, because they had wanted a better life.
“There was also a collapse in Wadala. That’s in the inside pages.”
Ajwani crumpled his teacup and aimed it at the wastebasket.
“Still, that makes it only six deaths this year. What was it last year? Twenty? Thirty? A light year, Masterji. A light year.”
A macabre competition that the men in Vishram had played for at least a decade. If it was a “heavy” year for monsoon-related deaths, it accrued somehow to the advantage of one side (Masterji and Kudwa); a “light” year was a point