Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [94]
Said in English, the force of that word, coerce, weakened both Ajwani and Shanmugham.
The aroma of batter-fried food blew onto the terrace. Giri was walking towards the men with a silver tray full of just-fried pakoras sitting on paper stained with fresh grease.
“Hot, hot, hot, hot.”
“Please offer the pakoras to Mr. Murthy from Vishram Society,” Shanmugham said. “He’s a teacher.”
“Hot, hot, hot, hot ….” Giri brought the tray over to the distinguished visitor.
The old man’s left hand slapped at the tray; it slipped in and out of Giri’s hands, then crashed to the floor. Shanmugham and Ajwani moved their feet to dodge the rolling pakoras. Giri stared with an open mouth. When the three of them looked up, they realized they were alone on the terrace.
1 AUGUST
In the morning, at the dining table with the red-and-white cloth, the Pintos heard what had happened at Malabar Hill, while in the kitchen, Nina, their maid-servant, obscured by steam, took idlis out of the pressure cooker.
“So you just left?”
“They were threatening me,” Masterji said. “Of course I left.”
“Ten thousand appointments are missed in this city because of too much traffic, and you missed Mr. Shah because of too little traffic. Fate, Masterji,” Mr. Pinto said, as the maid tipped three idlis onto his plate. “The very definition.”
“You sound bitter, Mr. Pinto.” Masterji leaned back and waited for his idlis. Three for him too.
“And what do we do now?” Shelley asked. As usual, she received only two idlis.
“We will wait till October 3. The deadline will expire and that Shah fellow will go away. He said so, don’t you remember?”
“And until then the boycott will get worse.”
“There’s something bigger than us involved here, Mr. Pinto. Yesterday, when I was at the builder’s terrace I saw something in the ocean. Things are changing too fast in this city. Everyone knows this, but no one wants to take responsibility. To say: ‘Slow down. Stop. Let’s think about what’s happening.’ Do you understand me?”
But that was not it, either. There was something more in the foaming white waters: a sense of power. Breaking an implicit rule—never to touch another man’s body while they were eating—he reached over and gripped his friend’s shoulder. Mr. Pinto almost spat out his idli.
After dinner the maid poured tea into small porcelain cups.
“This boycott,” Mr. Pinto said. “It is already so difficult to bear. Shelley cries every night in bed. How can they do it to us, after all these years of living together?”
“We mustn’t think badly of our neighbours.” Masterji sipped his tea. “Purnima would not like it. Remember what she used to tell us about man being like a goat tied to a pole? There is a radius of freedom, but the circumference of our actions is set. People should be judged lightly.”
Mr. Pinto, who had never been sure how well Purnima’s image squared with Catholic teaching, grunted.
Masterji was cheerful. Breaking a rule not to impose on the Pintos’ generosity, he asked Nina for a second cup of tea.
The defecators have left the water’s edge at the slummy end of Versova beach; while, in an equal exchange, the posh end of the beach has rid itself of the joggers, callisthentic stretchers, and tai-chi practitioners. It is a quarter past ten. Down a concrete path comes a saddled white horse. This path cuts between boulders to lead to the beach; drawing the horse by its stirrups, a boy stops to whisper into its ear. No one here, Raja. In the evening they will come, children to be taken for a ride over the sand. For now we are alone, Raja.
The ambient murmur of the waves makes their privacy more exclusive; on a high rock the boy sits to bring his mouth level with Raja’s large ear.
The boy stops talking. There is someone else on the beach. A fat man is standing at the water’s edge, looking out at the blue-grey mess of towers on the distant Bandra