Last Man in Tower (13 page)

He turned the page.

She had drawn the hibiscus plants that grew by the back of the compound, and the little spider’s webs between their leaves, shiny and oval and gliding over one another like parallel Milky Ways. Father and daughter, in the old days, had often stopped in the garden to look at the webs and talk of the differences between men and spiders. He remembered one difference they had agreed on. A spider’s mind is outside him; every new thought shoots off at once in a strand of silk. A man’s mind is inside. You never know what he’s thinking. Another difference. A spider can live without a family, all alone, in the web he makes.

A smattering of applause from below; the builder must have arrived.

Mr Pinto is holding a chair for me
. With Sandhya’s sketchbook in his hand, he stood by the window.

A fat man with a gold necklace stood by the black Cross between the two Secretaries.

‘… to me you are now members of my own family. I say this, and the proof is in the motto of the Confidence Group: from my family to…’

Poor Mr Pinto had given up his fight to protect the vacant seat. Someone from Tower B had taken it.

Standing at the window, he turned the pages of the sketchbook back and forth. Parrots, churches, washing, trees, Sandhya’s school dress, her face, her brushed and shampooed hair, as if they were corpuscles of sunlit water, bobbed up and down around him. Every now and then, in the distracted way that a man busy at the office might overhear the odd snippet of cricket commentary from a colleague’s desk, he heard voices from the meeting.

‘… I speak for everyone here, Mr Shah, when I ask: are you serious about this offer? Will you honour it in all its details?’

‘… it is normal for developers to offer members of the existing Society units in the new building. Why are you not…’

‘Why are the residents of Tower B, which is newer and in better condition in every way, not getting a higher rate per square foot than…’

He turned to the last page. Here she had scribbled in pencil: ‘Je tien. Vous tenez. Il tient. Vous Tenez. Nous…’ Practising the French that he had been teaching her at home, two evenings a week. Masterji scraped on the ‘tien’ with a finger and looked around for a red pen. He did not want his daughter speaking incorrect French for all of eternity.

A piercing voice – the Battleship’s – made him turn to the window:

‘We do not want your money, whether it is 200 per cent or 250 per cent. This is our home and no one can ask us to leave it.’

Silence from down below. The Battleship and both her children had risen to their feet.

‘By our Lord Jesus Christ I will fight you. I know builders, and they are all liars and criminals. Better you leave now. Right now.’

It was one thing to oppose the deal, but why this personal attack? Did she know this Mr Shah to call him a liar? He closed the window.

He saw the Rubik’s Cube lying on the teakwood table. It was stiff with age, and rotating the colours took effort, as if he were working the jaws of a small animal.

Half an hour later, when Mr Pinto walked in through the open door, he found Masterji asleep at the table, his daughter’s sketchbook on the floor, its pages fluttering in the breeze from the window.

He shut the door, and went back down to 2A, where his wife lay in bed.

‘Asleep, Shelley. In his chair. I fought so hard to keep his seat for him.’

‘Mr Pinto. Don’t be so petty. When we said no to the offer, he said no at once.’

He grumbled.

‘Now go up and wake him. He hasn’t had any dinner.’

Mr Pinto looked out of the window. The crowd below had gathered in two nuclei; some residents stood around Mrs Rego (‘all builders are liars, and this one is no different’) and another group, right below his window, were listening to Ajwani, the broker.

‘Our place is 812 square feet. At 20,000 rupees a square foot, that is…’

Ajwani sketched the number of zeros in the air.

‘And mine is bigger than yours, Ajwani,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘Twenty-two square feet bigger. That means I get…’

With a thick finger she superimposed her figure on Ajwani’s figure. Now Ibrahim Kudwa added his on top of hers.

‘But mine is slightly bigger than yours, Mrs Puri…’

Mr Pinto shook his head.

‘Aren’t they going to work tomorrow?’ he whispered to his wife. ‘Don’t their children have to go to school? They’ve forgotten everything because of this money.’

‘They’re very excited, Mr Pinto. They’re going to agree to the proposal and throw us out of the building.’

‘What a thing to say, Shelley! This is a Registered Co-operative Society. Not a jungle. If even one person says no that means that the Society cannot be demolished. Let’s have dinner now.’

His wife got up from the bed.

‘Don’t be angry. Please go upstairs and wake Masterji. We should all have some soup and bread.’

‘All right,’ Mr Pinto said, and put on his shoes.

The black Mercedes had been stuck in traffic near the Vakola highway for half an hour. ‘Something’s bothering you, Shanmugham.’

He turned from the front seat to face his employer.

‘No, Mr Shah.’

‘Don’t lie. I watched you while I was talking to those people in Vishram. You kept rubbing your hands.’

‘Nineteen thousand rupees a square foot, sir. Tower A was built in 1959 or 1960, sir. Ten thousand is a very good rate for a place like that.’

His employer chuckled.

‘Shanmugham. Six years you’ve worked for me and still you are an idiot. I’ve
underpaid
by a thousand rupees a square foot.’

The traffic jam began to clear; Shah looked at his assistant’s eyes in the driver’s mirror.

‘Those people would be thrilled at an offer of 10,000 a square foot. So 20,000 is unbelievable. Correct? And 19,000 is the same as 20,000 in a man’s mind.’ He hummed an old Hindi film song.

‘Turn left,’ Shanmugham told the driver, when they got on to the highway to Bandra. ‘Quickly. Turn left. Down the service road, until I tell you to stop.’

‘It’s still 200 per cent of the market rate, sir. We’ll have to sell the Shanghai at 25,000 a square foot – more – to make any profit. This is the east, sir. Who will pay that much money to live here?’

‘You can’t insult these people, Shanmugham. You can’t offer them ten per cent or fifteen per cent above market value. You’re asking them to give up their homes, the only homes some of them have ever had. You have to respect human greed.’

The driver now pulled on to the wasteland by the side of the highway.

‘The Secretary said he’d join us here, sir. He’ll give us a call when he reaches the highway.’

‘Let’s get out of the car, Shanmugham. I hate sitting still.’

A tall building stood at the end of the wasteland, bearing the letters ‘YATT’ in white, and a red arc below, like the finishing touch to a signature. Beyond it was the weak glow of Vakola. A few curious faces. Men crossing the wilderness to a row of huts in the distance.

‘See where they’ve set up a few tents—’ Shah pointed to a spot near the bushes. ‘In five days that will become an entire slum. No property deeds, no titles, legal rights. What a hunger for land.’ He rubbed his palms together, scraping his rings against one another. ‘I’ve got it too. Your boss – as you know – is a villager. He has no college degree, Shanmugham: he chews
gutka
, like a villager. But hunger is an excellence. Look’ – he pointed to the hotel – ‘they’ve lost the “H”. How careless posh people are. If it were my hotel I would have had the manager shot.’

Shah now pointed his finger northward, two or three times, to emphasize some place far, far away in that direction.

‘In 1978, when I was still learning this business, a friend, a broker, offered me a whole floor in a new project in Cuffe Parade. Name of Maker Towers. Three fifty rupees a square foot was the rate. It would be a new kind of construction, a small city, built on reclaimed land. I went to see the building and the area. I phoned my friend, and said: “No.” Why? That building was coming up where there had been sea just five years ago – and I thought, the land is the land and the water is the water. One day the water will swallow this land back. A square foot in Maker Towers would be worth today, what, 2,000 or 3,000 times my initial investment. That land is now worth more than land in London, more than land in New York. One day, ten years later, I came by Maker Towers, and I saw that building, how solid it looked, how many people had bought flats in it, and I thought: “I was beaten. Someone was dreaming bigger than me.” And there and then, I promised Lord SiddhiVinayak: “I am never going to underestimate this city again.” Mumbai’s future is here in the east, Shanmugham. This is where the space is, and once the new roads and new metro lines come up, the east will grow. We’ll get 25,000, maybe 30,000 a square foot for the Shanghai. Even more for the next thing we build. Vishram is an old Society. But it is the most famous building in the area. We’ll take it and we’ll break it – and everyone will know. Vakola is ours.’

He smiled at his assistant. ‘For six years we’ve been together. You’re like a son to me, Shanmugham. A son. Will you do this new job for me?’

For six years, at the start of each new project, Shah had asked him the same question, and for six years Shanmugham had answered this question in the same way. He extended his arm, showing a locked fist to his boss, and then opened it.

‘I’ve got this Society in my palm, sir. I know these people inside out.’

A homeless man, one of those sleeping under the concrete bridge that went over the highway, had been watching the two of them from beneath the protection of a blanket. Seeing the tall one in the white shirt walking towards him, he ducked under it.

Shanmugham signalled to a slow-moving autorickshaw.

A few seconds later, Kothari, the Secretary, came back with him to where the builder waited.

‘Sorry. Couldn’t bring my scooter. Had to take an auto. And what traffic.’

Shah swept the apology away.

‘If I were to leave every time a man got stuck in traffic, I would never meet anyone in this city. You didn’t tell anyone you were coming here?’

‘I was told not to tell anyone.’ The Secretary looked at Shanmugham. ‘Even my wife doesn’t know. Even
I
don’t know why I’m here.’

‘Nothing secret going on. My son’s birthday is next week, but we’re having the celebration tonight. I just wanted you to join me for some food. Some drinks if you like.’

Kothari breathed out. ‘Of course. How nice of you. Will we be waiting for Mr Ravi – the Secretary of Tower B?’

‘No. He isn’t invited.’

The car doors slammed, and then they were on their way into the city. Kothari sat slumped, hands between his knees.

‘Have you been to Malabar Hill before?’ the builder asked.

‘To the Hanging Gardens once or twice. No other reason.’

‘I’ve lived in Malabar Hill twelve years. And I’ve never been to the Hanging Gardens.’

Both of them laughed. The Secretary straightened his back and breathed out.

The barbecued mutton melted under his tongue like hot chocolate.

The Secretary opened his eyes, dried them with an index finger, and looked for the chicken kebabs. On a silver tray, floating about the far side of Mr Shah’s terrace. All the other guests were there: in suits, silk shirts, sleeveless saris and sherwanis, sitting at ebony tables lit by fat candles.

Kothari waved, so that the waiter would make an excursion to where he stood, alone, against the balcony. He felt the bald head beneath his comb-over becoming damp –
spicy
, that mutton. Rubbing his hands, he turned around to suck in cool air from the city: a panorama of glowing towers that stretched all the way to the distant dome of Haji Ali.

‘Paneer, sir?’

A waiter brought a silver tray full of those paneer cubes that seemed to have little cucumber-bits inside. Clutching three cubes in his hand, Kothari said, ‘Son, won’t you call that mutton man back here?’

With each deposit of rich food in his stomach, Kothari became less conscious of his 70 per cent polyester 30 per cent cotton shirt, bought near Andheri train station for 210 rupees, and of his
banian
, bought for thirty-five rupees a pack of six, that glowed underneath like in an X-ray.

Oh, that gorgeous buffet table, which launched satellites of silver trays filled with kebabs.

In the centre of the table he saw a vision of a Johnnie Walker Black Label, five or six times the size of a normal bottle, suspended upside-down from a metal rack and ending in a little plastic tap on which a bow-tied attendant had a finger permanently placed.

‘Mr Kothari!
There
you are!’ The builder waved at him from the table.

Soon the Secretary found himself one of the charms auxiliary to the Johnnie Walker; Shah introduced him to each person who came up for a drink, saying, ‘This is Mr Kothari.’

Each one of the guests appeared to run a construction company. One of them, after shaking his hand, asked: ‘Which Group do you represent?’

‘Vishram,’ the Secretary replied.

The man nodded knowingly, as if recognizing the name. ‘A good Group. Good work you fellows are doing.’

Now the Secretary found himself led to one of the tables, where he sat next to a chubby unhappy teenager in a golden jacket, whom he took for the birthday boy.

The host was speaking into a cordless mike.

‘I want to thank all of you for coming here to attend my son’s birthday. The community to which we belong, the builders’ community, is known to be a close-knit one, and your presence here demonstrates this continuing closeness.’ (Scattered applause.) ‘I will come to your tables to thank each of you personally. But first, as a surprise treat, I am honoured to present a man who brings back lots of memories for all of us: the original dream-merchant himself.’

Music blared on the loudspeakers. To the rhythm of the audience’s clapping, a man in a grey suit got up from one of the tables, and came to the buffet table. A once-famous actor, now in his forties, a professional guest at birthday parties and weddings. With a forced smile, he turned a few steps with his right hand up in the air. A young girl in a red dress joined him in the dancing, and guests whistled. A mobile phone flashed its camera.