Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga Read Free Book Online Page B

could still be seen (or so everyone was sure), just above Mrs Saldanha’s kitchen window.
    Now to the left, a loud voice, flipping diphthongs up and down. ‘Oy, oy, oyoyoyoy, my Ramu – come here… Turn that way, my prince, ayay…’ What was Ramu going to take to school for lunch, Masterji wondered, yawning, and turning to the side.
    A noise from the kitchen. The very noise Purnima used to make when chopping onions. He tiptoed into the kitchen to catch a ghost, if one was there. An old calendar was tapping on the wall. It was Purnima’s private calendar, illustrated with an image of the goddess Lakshmi tipping over a pot full of gold coins, and with key dates circled and marked in her private shorthand; she had consulted it to the day she had been admitted to the hospital (12 October; circled), so he had not replaced it with a new calendar at the start of the year.
    He would have to walk a bit today with his grandson; in anticipation, he wrapped a pink orthopaedic cloth tightly around his arthritic left knee before putting his trousers on. Back at his teakwood table, he picked up The Soul’s Passageway after Death .
    The bell rang: bushy-haired and bearded, Ibrahim Kudwa, the cyber-café owner from 4C, with dandruff sprinkled like spots of wisdom on the shoulders of his green kurta.
    ‘Did you see the sign, Masterji?’ Kudwa pointed to the window. ‘In the hole they made outside. I changed the sign from “inconvenience is in progress, work is regretted”, to the other way.’ Kudwa slapped his forehead. ‘Sorry, I changed it from “work is in progress, inconvenience is regretted”, to the other way round. I thought you would like to know.’
    ‘Very impressive,’ Masterji said, and patted his beaming neighbour. In the kitchen, the old calendar began tapping on the wall, and Masterji forgot to offer his visitor even a cup of tea.
    By midday, he was at the Byculla Zoo, leading his grandson hand in hand, from cage to cage. The two of them had seen a lioness, two black bears covered in fresh grass, an alligator in emerald water, elephants, hippos, cobras and pythons.
    The boy had questions: what is the name of that in the water? – who is the tiger yawning at? – why are the birds yellow? Masterji enjoyed giving names to the animals, and added a humorous story to explain why each one left his native land and came to Mumbai. ‘Do you think of your grandmother?’ he asked from time to time.
    The two of them stopped in front of a rectangular cage with bars, and a low tin roof; an animal moved from one end to the other. The idlers who had turned up to the zoo, even the lovers, stopped at the cage. A green tarpaulin on the roofing made a phosphorescent glow through which the dark animal came, jauntily, as if chuckling, its tongue hanging out, until it stood up on a red guano-stained stone bench and reared its head; then it got down, turned, went to the other end of the cage and reared its head before turning back. It was filthy – it was majestic: the grey fleece, the dark dog-like grinning face, the powerful striped lower limbs. Men and women watched it. Perhaps this mongrel beast looked like one of those, half politician and half criminal, who ruled the city, vile and necessary.
    ‘What is its name?’
    Masterji could not say. The syllables were there, on the tip of his tongue. But when he tried to speak they moved the other way, as if magnetically repulsed. He shrugged.
    At once the boy seemed frightened, as if his grandfather’s power, which lay in naming these animals, had ended.
    To cheer him up, Masterji bought him some peanuts (though his daughter-in-law had told him not to feed the boy), and they ate on the grass; Masterji thought he was in a happy time of his life. The battles were over, the heat and light were dimmed.
    Before it is too late , he thought, running his fingers through his grandson’s curly hair, I must tell this boy all that we have been through. His grandmother and I. Life in Bombay