Last Man in Tower Read Free

May-n-tenanse…’
    The visitor knocked on the door with the back of his hand.
    ‘Is there a place to rent here?’
    The man with the sandwich, Mr Kothari, Secretary of Vishram Tower A, paused with a finger over the old Remington.
    ‘There is,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’
    Ignoring the visitor, he continued typing, eating, and mumbling. There were three printed sheets on his desk, and he picked one up and read aloud: ‘… questionnaire from the Municipality. Have all the children in the Society received anti-polio drops? If so, kindly provide… if not, kindly…’
    A small hammer sat near the typewriter. With the polio notice in one hand, the Secretary stood up with the hammer in the other hand and went to the noticeboard, whose glass face he opened. The visitor saw him pinning the notice into place with a nail, then driving the nail into the wooden board with three quick blows – tuck, tuck, tuck – before closing the glass. The hammer returned to its spot near the typewriter.
    Back in his chair, the Secretary picked up the next piece of paper. ‘… complaint from Mrs Rego. Giant wasps are attacking… why am I paying monthly maintenance fees if the Society cannot hire the…’ He crushed it.
    And then the final sheet. ‘… complaint from Mrs Rego. Ram Khare has been drinking again. He should be replaced with a sober, professional… Why am I paying monthly maintenance…’ He crushed it.
    About to return to his typing, he remembered the visitor.
    ‘A place to buy, you said?’ he asked hopefully.
    ‘Rent.’
    ‘Good. What is your line of work?’
    ‘Chemicals.’
    ‘Good. Very good.’
    Dark-skinned, tall, upright, in well-ironed Oxford-style shirt and pleated cotton trousers, the visitor gave the Secretary no reason to doubt that he was in a solid field like Drug & Chem.
    ‘Nothing is strictly speaking available now,’ the Secretary confessed, as the two men climbed the stairs. (‘Ninety-nine per cent of the time the lift works.’) ‘But, I can tell you, confidentially, that the owner of 3B is not fully happy with the present situation .’
    An eczema of blue-skinned gods, bearded godmen, and haloed Christs covered the metal door of 3B – a testament to generations of ecumenical tenants who had each added a few icons of their own faith without removing those of any other – so that it was impossible to know if the present tenant was Hindu, Christian, or a member of a hybrid cult practised only in this building.
    About to knock on the door, the Secretary checked himself – his fist was going to hit a sticker with the face of Jesus on it. Shifting his hand to find one of the few blank spots on the door, he knocked with care; after knocking again, he used his master key.
    The cupboard doors had been left wide open; the floor an archipelago of newspapers and undergarments – the Secretary had to explain that 3B was currently rented to a most unsatisfactory single woman, a working journalist. The stranger looked at the peeling grey paint and the water-damage blotches on the wall; the Secretary got ready with the official line given to potential tenants – ‘in the monsoons the rainwater stains the walls, but does not reach the floor’. He got ready with official answers to all the usual tough questions – how many hours of water supply, how much noise from the planes at night, whether the electricity ‘tripped’.
    Stepping over a variety of underwear, the stranger touched the wall, scratched on the flaking paint and sniffed. Turning to the Secretary, he took out a striped red notebook and wet a finger on his tongue.
    ‘I want a legal history of Towers A and B.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A summary of lawsuits filed, pending, or likely to arise in the future?’
    ‘There was a disagreement between the Abichandani brothers, true, over 1C. Solved out of court. We are not court-loving people here.’
    ‘ Very good. Are there any “peculiar situations”?’
    ‘Peculiar…?’
    ‘I mean: family