Last Man in Tower Read Online Free PDF Page 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