Last Man in Tower (26 page)

Sipping tea, he listened to Masterji’s story with fast-blinking eyes (Masterji wondered if the lack of eyebrows affected the beating of the eyelashes), and then turned to a younger man, who was quietly sitting in a corner chair.

‘I know of Vishram Society. It is a famous building in Vakola.’

The younger man said: ‘It used to be a jungle there. Now it’s an up-and-coming area.’

‘These builders –
all
criminals. Engaged in nothing but
number two
activities. Who is this Confidence Shah? Must be some slum rat.’

The younger man said: ‘I think I’ve heard of him. Did redevelopment work in Mira Road. Or maybe Chembur.’

Old Parekh ran his hand over his three long silver hairs.

‘A
slum rat
.’ He smiled at Masterji. ‘You’ve come to the right place, sir. You’re looking at a man who deals with a baker’s dozen of slum rats every single day. But first, we must know, what is your position in the eyes of the law. And the law has very specific eyes: Are you the sovereign of the place, or a representative of the said sovereign?’

‘I’ve lived there for over thirty years. Since I came to Vakola to teach at the school.’

‘A teacher?’ Mr Parekh’s jaw dropped. He blew into his hand-kerchief. ‘It is against Hindu Dharma to threaten a teacher. I have studied Western law and Indian Dharma alike, sir. I have even been to see the world’s biggest temple—’ He tapped the glass-faced photograph behind him. ‘Name of Angkor Wat. Let us see your share certificate in the Society,’ he said, with inquiring fingers. ‘At once, at once.’ Masterji felt as if he were being asked to undress at the doctor’s office. He had brought the document in a manila folder, and produced it now.

‘It is in your wife’s name.’

‘In her will I am named as the inheritor.’

‘It should have been transferred to your name. We can manage. As long as you have her will in your secure possession.’

He gave the document to the younger man, who almost ran from the office.

Masterji’s entire legal claim to 3A, Vishram Society, was now out of his hands; he followed its progress – via footfalls, and then creaking in the wooden planks of the ceiling – into the body of a machine; a photocopier, presumably; levers moved and cameras clicked. His certificate – his claim to a piece of Vishram Society – was being multiplied. His case felt strengthened already. The thumps and footfalls repeated in reverse – the young man re-entered the office with the original certificate and three photocopies. He pulled his chair up next to Parekh’s; almost cheek to cheek, the two men looked over the certificate together. Father and son, Masterji decided.

‘There is also another petitioner in the matter,’ he said. ‘Mr Pinto. My neighbour.’

The senior Parekh spoke first.

‘Excellent. That doubles the sovereignty in the matter. Now, as per Mofa Act—’

A whisper from the young man: ‘He may not know…’

‘Do you know of Mofa?’

Masterji smiled meekly.

‘Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act 1963. Mofa.’

‘Mofa,’ Masterji agreed. ‘Mofa Act.’

‘As per Mofa Act, 1963…’ The old lawyer paused; breathed. ‘… and also the MCSA Act 1960, which is to say, Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960, you are the sole sovereign authority of said flat. Now the Society cannot force you to sell said flat, even by majority vote. This is confirmed by Bombay High Court decision 1988, in Bombay Cases Reporter 1988, Volume 1, page 443.’

‘443?’ said the other man. ‘Not 443, Mr Parekh. 444.’

(
Mr Parekh? Not his son, then
, Masterji thought.)

The old man closed his eyes.

‘444. Correction acknowledged. Bombay Cases Reporter 1988, Volume 1, page 444. Dinoo F. Bandookwala versus Dolly Q. C. Mehta. The Honourable Judge has frankly stated as per the authentic interpretation of the Mofa Act and the MCSA Act, neither BMC nor MHADA nor the Building Society is the sovereign and supreme trustee of the flat but the said owner. In this case, your good self, acting as the legal inheritor of your deceased spouse. So there is every reasonable confidence and expectation of victory. As per authentic interpretation of Mofa Act 1963 and MCSA Act 1960.’

Masterji nodded. ‘I cannot pay you. It is a case you must take in the public interest. The security of senior citizens in this city is at stake.’

‘I understand, I understand,’ Parekh said. He swiped his hand through the air, like an experienced slayer of slum rats.

‘You can settle your bill when there is a settlement,’ his younger partner explained with a smile.

‘My share certificate, please’ – Masterji gestured. The lawyer did nothing, so he reached over and almost pulled it out of his hands. Now he felt strong enough to say: ‘There will be no settlement in this matter.’

‘
Eventually
there will be a settlement,’ Parekh corrected him. ‘How long do you and your Mr Pinto plan on resisting this slum rat?’

‘For ever.’

For a moment everything in the office seemed to come to a stop: the fluids in Parekh’s head ceased to circulate, the rats in the wall and the termites in the old wooden ceiling stopped burrowing; even the particles of disinfectant spreading through the air stopped their dispersion.

Parekh smiled. ‘As you wish. We’ll fight him…’ He turned towards the spittoon: ‘… for ever.’

With a papaya wrapped in newspaper under his arm, Masterji returned to Vishram Society. Waiting for him at the gate were Ajwani, the Secretary, Mr Ganguly from the fifth floor, Ibrahim Kudwa, and the guard.

They did not make way for him. Ajwani’s hand was clamped down on the latch.

‘Gentleman,’ he said. ‘
English
gentleman.’

Thinking they had heard about his visit to the lawyer, Masterji said: ‘It is my right: it is my right as a citizen to see a lawyer.’

‘He doesn’t know yet,’ Ram Khare shouted. ‘Let him go in and see. Please. It is a difficult hour for the Society.’

Ajwani removed his hand from the latch. As Masterji walked in, the guard said: ‘I told you, Masterji, that this would happen. God has seen that I have done my duty.’

He saw people standing around the plastic chairs: the two Pintos were the only ones sitting down. Mr Pinto’s foot was bandaged, and it was propped up on a cushion. Mrs Puri was dabbing Mrs Pinto’s forehead with a wet end of her sari.

When she saw Masterji, she let out a sharp cry: ‘Here comes the madman!’

Ajwani and the Secretary, along with Ibrahim Kudwa, walked behind Masterji.

‘What happened to you, Mr Pinto?’

‘Look at him, asking!’ Mrs Puri said. ‘Does this thing and pretends not to know about it. Tell him, Mr Pinto. Tell.’

On her command, the old man spoke: ‘He said he was going to hurt… my wife – at her age – old enough to be his grandmother. He… said he was going to come with a knife next time… he… and then I got frightened and fell into the gutter.’

‘
Who
told you this?’ Masterji knelt to be at eye level with his oldest friend. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Just outside the gate… Shelley and I were walking… it must have been four o’clock, and then I heard this puppy whimpering, and I went outside, and got down into the gutter to save the puppy. Then this boy, he had a gold chain on his neck, eighteen-nineteen years old, and a hockey stick with him, he stood over me and said, are you the man from Vishram who wants nothing? And I said, who are you? And then… he put the stick on top of my head and he said, next time, it will be a knife…’ Mr Pinto swallowed. ‘… And then he said, “Do you understand now, what it means, to want nothing?” And then I turned and tried to run but I fell into the gutter and my foot…’

‘We had to take him to Doctor Gerard D’Souza’s clinic on the main road,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘Thank God, it’s just a sprain. Doctor D’Souza said at his age he could have broken his foot. Or something else.’

Mrs Pinto, unable to hear more, sank her face into Mrs Puri’s blouse.

Masterji stood up.

‘Don’t worry, Mr Pinto. I’ll go to the police at once. I’ll tell them to arrest Mr Shah. I taught the sons of some of the constables. You don’t worry.’

‘No,’ said Mr Pinto. ‘Don’t go again.’

‘No?’

The old accountant shook his head. ‘It’s all over, Masterji.’

‘What is all over?’

‘We can’t go on like this. Today my foot is hurt, tomorrow…’

Leaving the papaya on the ground, Masterji stood up.

‘You must be brave, Mr Pinto. This Shah cannot threaten us in daylight.’

Mrs Pinto pleaded with her face and fingers. ‘Please, Masterji, let’s forget about this. Let’s just sign Mr Shah’s document and leave this building. I began all this by saying I didn’t want to go. Now I tell you, it’s over. Let’s go. You come and have dinner with us this evening. We’ll eat together.’

‘I won’t eat with cowards.’

Masterji kicked the papaya; shedding its newspaper wrapping, it scudded along and smacked the wall of Mrs Saldanha’s kitchen.

‘I’m going to the police station, with or without you,’ he said. ‘This builder thinks he can frighten
me
? In my own home?’

Mrs Puri got up.

‘The police? You want to make things even worse?’ She put a finger on Masterji’s chest and pressed. ‘Why don’t we take
you
to the police?’

From another side, another finger poked him: Ajwani.

‘You have turned this Society into a house of violence. In forty-eight years nothing like this has happened in Vishram.’

Mrs Puri said: ‘A man who fights with his own son – and such a
lovely
son at that – what kind of a man is he?’

Ibrahim Kudwa stood behind her: ‘Sign Mr Shah’s agreement now, Masterji. Sign it
now
.’

‘I will not be made to change my mind like this,’ Masterji said. ‘So shut up, Ibrahim.’ Kudwa tried to respond, then sagged, and stepped back.

Moving him aside, Ajwani stepped forward. The Secretary came from the other direction. Shouts – people poked Masterji – someone pushed. ‘Sign it now!’

Ajwani turned and cursed. Mrs Saldanha’s waste water pipe was discharging right on to his foot. ‘Turn the tap off, Sal-dan-ha!’ he shouted.

‘Have!’ she shouted back, but the water still flowed, like a statement on the violence in parliament. The dirty water separated the crowd; from the stairwell, there came a barking – the old stray dog rushed out – the Secretary had to move, and Masterji ran up the stairs.

As he bolted the door behind him, he could hear Mrs Pinto’s voice: ‘No, please don’t go up. Please, be civilized!’

*

He barricaded the door with the teakwood table. When he went to the window, he saw them all gathered below, looking up at him. He stepped back at once.

So I’m the last man in the building now
, he thought.

He sniffed the air, grateful for the tannic smell that lingered from the brewing of ginger tea.

Pouring out what was left in the porcelain pot, he drank bitter cold tea.

He called the number on the business card he had brought with him.

‘Just lock yourself in,’ Mr Parekh said. ‘Tomorrow, come see me again: if I am not here, my son will see you.’

‘Thank you. I am all alone here.’

‘You are
not
alone. Parekh is with you. All four Parekhs are with you. If they threaten you I will send a legal notice: they’ll know they’re dealing with an armed man. Remember Dolly Q. C. Mehta versus Bandookwala. The Mofa Act is with you.’

‘How can they threaten good people in daylight? When did things change so much in this city, Mr Parekh?’

‘They have not changed, Masterji. It is still a good city. Say to yourself,
Mofa
,
Mofa
, and close your eyes. You sleep with the law by your side.’

But Ram Khare’s black snake was in his room now. Right in his bed, moving up his thigh. The snake’s tongue of violence flickered before him.
You’re next, Masterji
. A young man with a gold necklace and thick, veined arms comes to him one evening and says:
I just want to have a word with you, old man. Just a quick
…

He had been too scared to protect Purnima from her brothers: he would not be scared this time.

‘Go away,’ he said.

Slithering down his legs, the black snake left.

As the lawyer’s card rose and fell on his chest, Masterji looked at the sagging, scaly skin that covered his hands.
Mofa
, he recited as instructed.
Mofa
,
Mofa
. He gave his fingers a shake, and old age flew away: he saw young strong hands now.

3 AUGUST

To,
All Whom It May Concern
Within my Society and outside it

From,
Yogesh A. Murthy
3A, Vishram Society
Vakola, Mumbai 55

This is to state that intimidation in a free country will not be tolerated. I have been to the police station and received every assurance from the Senior Inspector that this is not a neighbourhood where a teacher can be threatened. I am not alone. The famous legal team of Bandra, Parekh and Sons, with whom I am in constant touch, will initiate action against any person or persons threatening me via phone or mail. In addition, I have students in high places such as the
Times of India
office. Vishram Society Tower A is my home, and it

Will not be sold
Will not be leased or rented
Will not be redeveloped

Signed (And this is the real signature of the man)
Yogesh Murthy.

*

The inspector at the Vakola police station meant what he said about his neighbourhood being safe for senior citizens.

A fat constable named Karlekar came to Vishram Society within half an hour of Masterji’s phone call in the morning.

After taking a statement from Masterji (who, it turned out, had not actually seen a thing, as he had been away in Bandra consulting a famous lawyer) Karlekar sat down at the Pintos’ dining table, wiping his sweaty forehead and looking at Mr Pinto’s bandaged right foot.

Mr Pinto said: ‘No one threatened me. I slipped outside the compound and twisted my foot. Serves me right, walking so fast at my age, doesn’t it, Shelley?’

Mrs Pinto, being all but blind, had nothing to say on the matter.

The constable jotted things in his notepad. The Secretary came up to the Pintos’ flat to say that the so-called ‘disturbance’ was, essentially, an exaggeration.

‘We are an argumentative people, no doubt about it,’ the con stable agreed, with a smile. ‘The station receives imaginary complaints all the time. Burglars, fires, arson. Pakistani terrorists.’

‘A melodramatic people,’ the Secretary said. ‘It is all the films we watch. Thank you for not making a
sensation
of this matter.’

Constable Karlekar’s mouth had opened. ‘Look at that… oh, no… no…’ He pointed at a moth circling about the rotating ceiling fan in the Pintos’ living room; sucked in by the whirlpool of air, it drew closer and closer to the blades until two dark wings fluttered down to the floor. The constable picked up each wing.

‘I don’t like it when a moth is hurt in my neighbourhood,’ he said, handing over the severed wings to the Secretary. ‘Imagine what I feel like when an old man is threatened.’

The wings slipped through the Secretary’s fingers.

An hour later, the constable had dropped by Vishram Society again. He lit a cigarette by the gate and chatted to Ram Khare. The Secretary saw him getting down on his knees and peering at the dedicatory marble block outside Vishram, as if examining the 48-year-old certificate of good character issued to the building.

*

‘People will soon be talking all over Vakola. A policeman came to Vishram Society? The famous, respectable, honourable Vishram?’

‘Quiet, Shelley.’

Mr Pinto was at the window. A Burmese mahogany walking stick, a family heirloom, leaned on the wall next to him.

He and his wife were now in a new relationship to their Society. Neither of one camp nor of the other. Masterji no longer came to their table for food, nor did they go down to parliament, in which there was usually only one topic of discussion: the character of the resident of 3A.

This evening, the parliamentarians had begun by talking about Masterji and ended up fighting.

‘You got a secret deal. A
small sweetener
’ – Mrs Puri to Ajwani.

‘Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, Mrs Puri.’

‘A-ha!’ she shouted. ‘You confess. You did get one.’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’ve heard things,’ Mrs Puri said. ‘One thing I tell all of you here – even you, Mrs Saldanha in your kitchen: even you listen. No one is getting a secret deal unless my Ramu and I get one too.’

‘No secret deal has been given to anyone,’ the Secretary protested.

‘You must have been offered the very first one, Kothari.’

‘What an accusation. Didn’t you vote for me at the Annual General Meeting? I kept maintenance fees fixed at 1.55 rupees per square foot per unit, payable in two instalments. Don’t accuse me now of dishonesty.’

‘Why was the building never repaired all these years, Kothari? Is that how you kept the costs flat?’

‘I have often wondered the same thing.’

‘You’re every bit as bad as Masterji, Mrs Puri. And you too, Ajwani. No wonder Masterji turned evil, living among people like you.’

Using the Burmese walking stick, Mr Pinto limped to the bedroom, and lay down next to his wife.

‘Did Masterji have breakfast, Mr Pinto? He must be hungry.’

‘A man won’t die if he eats less for a few days, Shelley. When he gets hungry he’ll come back.’

‘I don’t think so. He is such a proud man.’

‘Whether
I’ll
let him back here is another thing, Shelley. Don’t you remember he called me a coward? He borrowed one hundred rupees from me to take an auto to Bandra West to see that lawyer. I’ve entered that in the No-Argument book. He’ll have to apologize, and pay my hundred rupees back, before he can eat at my dinner table again.’

‘Oh, Mr Pinto, really… not you, too. They abuse him so much in parliament these days.’

‘Quiet, Shelley. Listen,’ Mr Pinto whispered. ‘He’s walking to the window. He always does that when they start up about him, Shelley. Why? Have you thought about it?’

‘No. And I don’t want to.’

‘He wants to listen when they say bad things about him. That’s the only explanation.’

‘That can’t be right. Why would any man want to listen when such things are said about him? The other day Sangeeta said he used to beat Purnima. What a lie.’

Mr Pinto did not understand why the man did it, but each time parliament met down there to gossip about him, Masterji stood by the window, and sent down aerial roots to suck up slander and abuse.
That must be his new diet
, Mr Pinto thought.
He is chewing their thorns for lunch and nails for supper. From mockery he is making his protein.

As he looked at the chandelier, it seemed to be mutating into something stranger and brighter.