Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga Read Free Book Online Page A

two assistants, also in black gowns and wigs. When he heard why the policemen had summoned him, D’Souza burst into laughter.
    “This fellow is just teasing you,” he told Ramesh. “He can’t possibly go up the hill with his legs like that.”
    D’Souza pointed a finger at the middle part of Xerox’s body. “And if you do try to sell it, mind—it won’t be just your legs that we break next time.”
    A constable laughed.
    Xerox looked at Ramesh with his usual ingratiating smile. He bent low with folded palms and said, “So be it.”
    D’Souza sat down to drink Old Monk rum with the policemen, and they settled into another game of cards. Ramesh said he had lost money on the market the past week; the lawyer sucked at his teeth and shook his head, and said that in a big city like Bombay everyone was a cheat or a liar or a thug.
    Xerox turned around on his crutches and walked out of the station. His daughter came behind him. They headed for the Lighthouse Hill. The climb took two hours and a half, and they stopped six times for Xerox to drink tea, or a glass of sugarcane juice. Then his daughter spread out the blue sheet in front of Deshpremi Hemachandra Rao Park, and Xerox lowered himself. He sat on the sheet, stuck his legs out slowly, and put a large paperback down next to him. His daughter sat down too, keeping watch over the book, her back stiff and upright. The book was banned throughout the Republic of India and it was the only thing that Xerox intended to sell that day: The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie.

DAY TWO (AFTERNOON):
     

ST. ALFONSO’S BOYS’ HIGH SCHOOL AND JUNIOR COLLEGE
     
    A short walk from the park rises a massive gray Gothic tower on which is painted a coat of arms and the slogan LUCET ET ARDET . This is the St. Alfonso’s Boys’ High School and Junior College, established 1858, one of the oldest educational establishments in the state of Karnataka. The Jesuit-run school is Kittur’s most famous, and many of its alumni have gone on to the Indian Institute of Technology, the Karnataka Regional Engineering College, and other prestigious universities in India and abroad.
     
     
    S EVERAL SECONDS, PERHAPS even a full minute, had passed since the explosion, but Lasrado, the chemistry professor, had not moved. He sat at his desk, his arms spread apart, his mouth open. Smoke was billowing from the bench at the back of the room, a yellow dust like pollen had filled the room, and the stench of fireworks was in the air. The students had all left the classroom by now; they watched from the safety of the door.
    Gomati Das, the calculus teacher, arrived from next door with most of his class; then came Professor Noronha, the English and ancient history man, bringing his own flock of curious eyes. Father Almeida, the principal, pushed his way through the crowd and entered the acrid classroom, his palm over his nose and mouth. He lowered his hand and cried, “What is the meaning of this nonsense?”
    Only Lasrado was left in the classroom; he stood at his desk like the heroic boy who would not leave the burning deck. He replied in a monotone.
    “A bomb in class, Pather. The bench all the way in the back. It went opp during the lecture. About one minute apter I began talking.”
    Father Almeida squinted at the thick smoke, and then turned to the boys. “The youth of this country have gone to hell and will ruin the names of their fathers and grandfathers—!”
    Covering his face with his arm, he walked gingerly to the bench, which had toppled over from the blast.
    “The bomb is still smoking,” he shouted. “Shut the doors and call the police.”
    He touched Lasrado on the shoulder. “Did you hear me? We must shut the doors and—”
    Red faced with shame, quivering with wrath, Lasrado turned suddenly and—addressing principal, teachers, students—yelled:
    “You puckers! Puckers! ”
    In moments the entire junior college emptied; the boys gathered in the garden, or in the corridor of the