1.1 The Male Rate

Mr Rat settled into his usual spot by the window. He was dressed meticulously in tight blue jeans, a white shirt and brand-new, high-top sneakers. He always chose a stylish pair of rubber soles, roomy inside, with a sharp branded design. It was a wet month and a thunderstorm had just passed. From his fourth-floor vantage point, he glanced at the eastern sky as the resonant call for prayer echoed from a nearby mosque.

He spread his apparatus on the table. On a large dinner plate, he mixed a mountain of loose tobacco with a blade slick with cannabis oil, which he extracted from a half-kilogram packet. With skilful ease, he filled twelve emptied tubes of Marlboro and neatly tucked them back into the pack. For a shallow addict, this part of the ritual was most rewarding—requiring his absolute focus.

As the echoes of the prayer faded, he noticed a white utility truck rolling on the street below and heading west at a moderate speed. He walked out of the room to cross the communal area to a restroom. This fourth-floor apartment was temporarily vacant for renovations and he was the only occupant of the attached anteroom, at this house called Whistle Blow, in Mafannu.

Peering through the bathroom skylight, Rat saw a bright moon cutting through the retreating rainclouds in the western horizon. Below, through the thick foliage of a plum tree, the red taillights of a pickup truck blinked in the distance.

He assumed it was the same vehicle he spotted a moment ago. Down on the street, the faint clatter of a couple of sanitation workers collecting garbage drifted up through the early dawn air. Garbage in…garbage out.

Rat was far from middleclass. He preferred an easy life, unbothered by the sweat of labour. Unmarried and childless, he was the only brother to four sisters who entirely supported him. After years of sibling disputes following their father’s death, they had finally settled the fate of their ancestral plot in Henvéru. Their mother was still alive, but their single-story home, Fair Weather, had been demolished to make way for a ten-story building. It had taken five years just to agree on how to obtain capital for the project. For the fear of mortgaging the land for a bank loan, some of the sisters had disagreed. Eventually, they reached a solution, signing a fifteen-year contract with a wealthy businessman who took an interest in the lot. In the meantime, his youngest sister had secured him this rent-free stay at Whistle Blow, which belonged to her husband.

Rat did not bother looking for a job. Previously, he spent over twenty years serving the government as an agriculturist. He had travelled extensively on fellowships and trained island farmers across the country. He was proficient at his work, even if he had been consistently underrated by his superiors. He told a friend about how he took many chances on island girls who were training for the farms and expected to win their credentials.

One day, Rat walked in with a freshly rolled joint and 50,000 rufiya stuffed into his pockets. A huge bundle of cash in local currency, withdrawn from the bank on behalf of his youngest sister to pay project dues. Walking around the city with that sum of money in his pockets was quite reckless. Sarah managed the funds, paying a stipend to him and the others as agreed in the due course of the construction. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, a couple of months had passed with no work going on at the site. It was just another delay.