Last Man in Tower Read online

  ‘Among young people today, it is a common thing for boy and girl to live without marriage,’ he said. ‘At the end, one says to the other, you go your way, I go my way. There is no sense of shame in the modern way of life, what do you expect me to do about it?’

  (Mr Pinto, distracted by a stock market report on the TV, had to be filled in on the topic of discussion by his wife. ‘… the modern girl on our floor.’)

  Turning to her left, Mrs Puri called: ‘Ramu, have you fed the dog?’

  Ramu – his soft, pale face hinted at the presence of Down’s syndrome – looked perplexed. His mother and he left a bowl full of channa near the black Cross to feed stray animals that wandered into the Society; he looked about for the bowl. The dog had found it.

  Now Mrs Puri turned back to the Secretary to make one thing clear: the modern, shame-free way of living counted for nothing with her.

  ‘I have a growing son—’ She dropped her voice. ‘I don’t want him living with the wrong kind of people. You should call Import-Export Hiranandani now.’

  That Mr Hiranandani, the owner and original resident of 3B, a shrewd importer-exporter of obscure goods, known for his guile in slipping phosphates and peroxides through customs, had moved to a better neighbourhood (Khar West) was understandable; all of them dreamed of doing the same thing. Differences of wealth among the members did not go unnoticed – Mr Kudwa (4C) had taken his family last summer to Ladakh, rather than nearby Mahabaleshwar, as everyone else did, and Mr Ajwani the broker owned a Toyota Qualis – yet these were spikes and dips within the equalizing dinginess of Vishram. The real distinction was leaving the Society. They had come to their windows and cheered Mr Hiranandani when he departed with his family for Khar West; yet his behaviour since had been scandalous. Not checking the identity of this girl tenant, he had taken her deposit and handed her the keys to 3B, without asking the Secretary or his neighbours if they wanted an unmarried woman – a journalist, at that – on their floor. Mrs Puri was not one to pry – not one to ask what was happening within the privacy of a neighbour’s four walls – but when the condoms come tumbling on to your doorstep, well, then!

  As they were talking, a trickle of waste water moved towards them.

  A pipe from Mrs Saldanha’s ground-floor kitchen discharged into the open compound; although she had been chided often, she had never connected her kitchen sink into the main sewage – so the moment she began her cooking, it burped right at their feet. In every other way, Mrs Saldanha was a quiet, retreating woman – her husband, who was ‘working in Vizag’, had not been seen in Vishram for years – but in matters of water, brazen. Because she lived on the ground floor, she seemed to have it longer than anyone else did, and used it shamelessly when they could not. The emission of waste water into the compound only underlined her water-arrogance.

  A glistening eel of water, its dark body now tinted with reddish earth, nosed its way towards the parliament. Mr Pinto lifted the front feet of the ‘prime’ chair and moved out of the sewage-eel’s path; and it was forgotten.

  ‘Have you seen anyone going into her room?’ the Secretary asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘I am not one to pry into my neighbours’ lives, am I?’

  ‘Ram Khare hasn’t told me he has seen any boy come into the building at night.’

  ‘What does that mean, Ram Khare has seen nothing?’ Mrs Puri protested. ‘A whole army could come in, and he would see nothing.’

  The stray dog, having done crunching its channa, ran towards the parliament, trotted throught the water, slid under the chairs, and headed up the stairwell, as if pointing out to them the solution to their crisis.

  The Secretary followed the dog.

  Breathing heavily, one hand on the banister and one hand on her hip, Mrs Puri went up the stairs. Through the star-shaped holes in the wall she could see Mr Pinto standing by the black Cross to keep watch on Ramu until she returned.

  She smelled the dog on the second landing of the stairs. Amber eyes shone in the dim stairwell; pale legs, impastoed with dry dung, shivered. Mrs Puri stepped over the sickly legs and walked to the third floor.

  The Secretary was standing by Masterji’s door, with a finger on his lips. From inside the open door, they could hear voices.

  ‘… and my hand represents…?’

  ‘Yes, Masterji.’

  ‘Answer the question, boys: my hand represents…?’

  ‘The earth.’

  ‘Correct. For once.’

  The bi-weekly science ‘top-up’ was in session. Mrs Puri joined the Secretary by the door, the only one in Vishram Society unmarked by religious icons.

  ‘This is the earth in infinite space. Home of Man. Follow me?’

  Reverence for science and learning made the Secretary stand with folded hands. Mrs Puri pushed past him to the door. She closed an eye and spied in.

  The living room was dark, the curtains were drawn; a table lamp was the only source of light.

  A silhouette of a huge fist, looking like a dictator’s gesture, appeared on the wall.

  A man stood next to the table lamp, making shadows on the wall. Four children sitting on a sofa watched the shadows he conjured; another sat on the floor.

  ‘And my second fist, which is going around the earth, is what?’

  ‘The sun, Masterji’ – one of the boys.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No, no, no. The sun is this. See—’ A click, and the room went entirely dark. ‘Earth without sun.’ Click. ‘Earth with sun. Understand? Lamp: sun.’

  ‘Yes, Masterji.’

  ‘All of you say it together.’

  ‘Yes, Masterji’ – three voices.

  ‘All of you.’

  ‘Yes, Masterji’ – four.

  ‘So my second, that is to say, my moving fist is –? Big white object seen at night if you look up.’

  ‘Moon.’

  ‘Correct. MOON. Earth’s satellite. How many satellites does the Earth have?’

  ‘Can we go now, Masterji?’

  ‘Only after we get to the eclipse. And what are you wriggling about for, Mohammad?’

  ‘Anand is pinching me, Masterji.’

  ‘Stop pinching him, Anand. This is physics, not fun. Now: how many satellites does…’

  The boy on the floor said: ‘Question, Masterji.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Masterji, what happened when the dinosaurs died out? Show us again how the meteor hit the earth.’

  ‘And tell us about global warming again, Masterji.’

  ‘You’re trying to avoid my question by asking your own. Do you think I taught in school for thirty-four years not to see through tricks like this?’

  ‘It’s not a trick, Masterji, it’s a—’

  ‘Enough for today. Class is over,’ Masterji said and clapped his hands.

  ‘We can go in now,’ the Secretary whispered. Mrs Puri pushed open the door and turned the lights on in the room.

  The four boys who had been sitting on the sofa – Sunil Rego (1B), Anand Ganguly (5B), Raghav Ajwani (2C) and Mohammad Kudwa (4C) – got up. Tinku Kothari (4A), the fat son of the Secretary, struggled to his feet from the floor.

  ‘Enough, boys, go home!’ Mrs Puri clapped. ‘Masterji has to have dinner soon. Class is over. Go, go, go.’

  It was not a ‘class’, though conducted with such dignity, but an after-class science ‘top-up’ – meant to do to a normal schoolchild what a steroidal injection does to a merely healthy athlete.

  Anand Ganguly picked up his cricket bat, which was propped up against the old fridge; Mohammad Kudwa took his blue cricket cap, emblazoned with the star of India, from above the glass cabinet full of silver trophies, medals, and certificates attesting to Masterji’s excellence as a teacher.

  ‘What a surprise to see you here,’ Masterji said. ‘I hardly have visitors these days. Adult visitors, that is.’

  Mrs Puri checked to see if the lights were off in 3B – of course they were,
young people of that lifestyle are never home before ten – and closed the door. She explained, in low tones, the problem caused by Masterji’s neighbour and what had been found in her rubbish by the early-morning cat.

  ‘There is a boy who goes into and comes out of that room with her,’ Masterji conceded. He turned to the Secretary. ‘But she works, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Journalist.’

  ‘Those people are known for their number two activities,’ Mrs Puri said.

  ‘She seems to me, though I have only seen her from a distance, a decent girl.’

  Masterji continued, his voice gaining authority from the echoes of ‘sun, moon, eclipse, physics’ that still seemed to ring through it: ‘When this building first came up, there were no Hindus allowed here, it is a fact. Then there were meant to be no Muslims, it is a fact. All proved to be good people when given a chance. Now, young people, unmarried girls, they should also be given a chance. We don’t want to become a building full of retirees and blind people. If this girl and her boyfriend have done something inappropriate, we should speak to them. However…’ He looked at Mrs Puri. ‘… we have no business with her rubbish.’

  Mrs Puri winced. She wouldn’t tolerate this kind of talk from anyone else.

  She looked around the flat, which she had not visited in a while, still expecting to see Purnima, Masterji’s quiet, efficient wife, and one of her best friends in Vishram. Now that Purnima was gone – dead for more than six months – Mrs Puri observed signs of austerity, even disrepair. One of the two wall-clocks was broken. A pale rectangle on the wall above the empty TV stand commemorated the ancient Sanyo that Masterji had sold after her death, rejecting it as an indulgence. (What an error, Mrs Puri thought. A widower without a TV will go mad.) Water stains blossomed on the ceiling; the pipes on the fourth floor leaked. Each year in September Purnima had paid for a man from the slums to scrub and whitewash them. This year, unscrubbed, the stains were spreading like ghostly evidence of her absence.

  Now that Mrs Puri’s issue was dismissed, the Secretary raised his own, more valid, concern. He told Masterji about the inquisitive stranger who had come twice to the Society. Should they make a report to the police?

  Masterji stared at the Secretary. ‘What can this man steal from us, Kothari?’

  He went to the sink that stood in a corner of the room – a mirror above it, a framed picture of Galileo (‘Founder of Modern Physics’) above the mirror – and turned the tap; there was a thin flow of water.

  ‘Is this what he is going to steal from us? Our plumbing?’

  Each year, the contractor who cleaned the overhead tank did his work sloppily – and the silt from the tank blocked the pipes in all the rooms directly below it.

  The Secretary responded with one of his pacifying smiles. ‘I’ll have the plumber sent over next time I see him, Masterji.’

  The door creaked open: Sunil Rego had returned.

  The boy left his slippers at the threshold and entered holding a long rectangular scroll. Masterji saw the words ‘TUBERCULOSIS AWARENESS WEEK FUND-RAISING DRIVE’ written on the top.

  Fourteen-year-old Sunil Rego’s mother was a social worker, a formidable woman of left-wing inclinations nicknamed ‘The Battleship’ within the Society. The son was already proving to be a little gunboat.

  ‘Masterji, TB is an illness that we can overcome together if we all—’

  The old teacher shook his head. ‘I live on a pension, Sunil: ask someone else for a donation.’

  Embarrassed that he had to say this in front of the others, Masterji pushed the boy, perhaps too hard, out of the room.

  *

  After dinner, Mrs Puri, folding Ramu’s laundry on the dining table, looked at a dozen ripe mangoes. Her husband was watching a replay of a classic India versus Australia cricket match on TV. He had bought the mangoes as a treat for Ramu, who was asleep under his aeroplane quilt.

  Closing the door behind her, she walked up the stairs, and pushed at the door to Masterji’s flat with her left hand. Her right hand pressed three mangoes against her chest.

  The door was open, as she expected. Masterji had his feet on the small teakwood table in the living room, and was playing with a multi-coloured toy that she took a whole second to identify.

  ‘A Rubik’s Cube,’ she marvelled. ‘I haven’t seen one in years and years.’

  He held it up for her to see better.

  ‘I found it in one of the old cupboards. I think it was Gaurav’s. Works.’

  ‘Surprise, Masterji.’ She turned the mangoes in her right arm towards his gaze.

  He put the Rubik’s Cube down on the teakwood table.

  ‘You shouldn’t have, Sangeeta.’

  ‘Take them. You have taught our children for thirty years. Shall I cut them for you?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘I don’t have sweets every day – once a week: and today is not that day.’

  He would not bend on this, she knew.

  ‘When are you going to see Ronak?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’ He smiled. ‘In the afternoon. We’re going to Byculla Zoo.’

  ‘Well, take them for him then. A gift from his grandfather.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The boy shouldn’t be spoiled with mangoes. You are too generous in every way, Sangeeta. I see that there is a stray dog lying on the stairs now. It seems to be ill – there is a smell from it. I hope you didn’t bring it into the Society, as you have done before.’

  ‘Oh, no, Masterji,’ she said, tapping on the mangoes. ‘Not me. It was probably Mrs Rego again.’

  Though she had not actually given Masterji the mangoes, Mrs Puri felt the same sense of neighbourly entitlement that would have resulted from the act, and moved to his bookshelf.

  ‘Are you becoming religious, Masterji?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ he said.

  Sliding out a thin paperback from the shelf, she showed it to him as evidence; on the cover was an image of the divine eagle Garuda flying over the seven oceans.

  The Soul’s Passageway after Death.

  She read aloud from it: ‘In its first year out of the body, the soul travels slowly and at a low altitude, burdened by the sins of its…’

  ‘Purnima’s first anniversary is not so far away. She wanted me to read about God when she was gone…’

  ‘Do you think about her often, Masterji?’

  He shrugged.

  For his retirement, Masterji had hoped to re-read his collection of murder mysteries, and history books of old Rome (Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars; Tacitus, The Annals; Plutarch, Illustrious Figures of the Roman Republic) and old Bombay (A Brief Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone; The Stages of the Creation of the City of Bombay, fully illustrated). An Advanced French Grammar (with Questions and Answers Provided), bought so he could teach his children at home, also stood on the shelf. But since the murder novels were in demand throughout the Society, and neighbours borrowed them frequently (and returned them infrequently), he would soon be left only with history and foreign grammar.

  Mrs Puri claimed one of the last Agatha Christies from the bookshelf and smiled – there were a few Erle Stanley Gardners too, but she was not that bored.

  ‘Does it say on my door, Agatha Christie lending library?’ Masterji asked. ‘I won’t have any books to read if people keep borrowing them.’

  ‘I’m taking this for my husband. Not that I don’t read, Masterji. I was such a reader in my college days.’ She raised her hand over her head, to indicate its extent. ‘Where is the time now, with the boy to look after? I’ll bring it back next week, I promise you.’

  ‘Fine.’ He had begun playing with the Cube again. ‘Just bring the book back. Which one is it?’

  Mrs Puri turned the cover around so he could read the title: Murder on the Orient Express.

  Yogesh Murthy, known as Masterji, was one of the first Hindus allowed into Vishram on account of his noble profession and dignified bearing. He was lean, moustached, and of medium height: in ph
ysical terms, a typical representative of the earlier generation. Good with languages (he spoke six), generous with books, passionate about education. An adornment to his Society.

  Barely had the buntings of his retirement party (catered with samosa and masala chai, and attended by three generations of students) been cut from the auditorium of St Catherine’s the previous May than his wife was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – a side-effect, it was speculated, of years of medication for her rheumatoid arthritis. She died in October. She was his second death; a daughter, Sandhya, had fallen from a train over a decade ago. On the positive side of the ledger, Gaurav, his only surviving child, a banker, was now ‘put up’ in a good flat in South Mumbai – Marine Lines – by his employer (who had paid the six-month down-deposit for his flat and even took care, it was said, of half of each month’s rent); so Masterji’s story was, in a sense, over – career ended with retirement party (catered), wife passed away without unreasonable suffering, and child having migrated to the golden citadel of inner-city Bombay. What would he do with his remaining time – the cigarette stub of years left to a man already in his sixties? After the loss of his wife, he had continued to keep himself clean and his home tidy; had continued to teach children, to lend murder mysteries, to take his evening walks around the compound at the right pace and to buy his vegetables in appropriate quantities from the market. Controlling appetites and sorrows, he had accepted his lot with dignity, and this elevated his standing among his neighbours, who had all, in one way or the other, and usually in the matter of children or spouses, been blighted by fate. They knew they were complainers, and that he, though he had suffered more than his fair share, bore it.

  12 MAY

  ‘Oyoyoy, my Ramu. Out of bed now. Or Mummy will whack your bottom harder. Up, or the Friendly Duck will say, Ramu is a lazy lazy fellow.’

  Mrs Puri coaxed Ramu into a bath half filled with warm (never hot) water, and let him play with his Friendly Duck and Spiderman for a few minutes. Mr Puri, an accountant, left for work an hour before Ramu woke up, with a metal lunch box that his wife had packed. It was a long trip for him – auto, train, change of train at Dadar, and then a shared taxi from Victoria Terminus to Nariman Point, from where he would call Ramu punctually at noon to inquire about the state of the Friendly Duck’s health that day.