How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid Page B

forearms, his sinews remain supple. He owns several secondhand cars, none of them large enough to attract attention, and is habitually to be seen alone in a backseat, immersed in a newspaper, while a driver and sharp-eyed guard ride in front. He cannot himself drive, having come late and suddenly into his prosperity, but he has other offsetting and more lucrative talents, not least his superb numeracy and his keen sensibility for font.
    He sits now in a small, windowless room in his factory, an art deco bungalow that has been converted surreptitiously into a manufacturing facility, its boundary wall raised for seclusion in precisely the same manner as those of neighboring private residences. Despite his success, or rather, you have concluded, underpinning it, he oversees the counting of his money himself.
    You stand in line, waiting your turn, your pockets bulging with cash and chits of paper bearing mnemonic aids scrawled so illegibly as to be virtually encrypted. When his accountant gestures with his head for you to proceed, you hand over your take and orally present your breakdown, both of which are checked against past figures and inventory records.
    â€œSales are up,” you conclude.
    â€œLike everybody’s,” the accountant says deprecatingly.
    â€œMine more than most.”
    Your master mentions one of your customers. “Last month you said he didn’t see a market for tuna.”
    You nod. “That’s what he said.”
    â€œWhat changed?”
    â€œI gave him a few free cans.”
    â€œWe don’t give anything for free.”
    â€œI paid for them. Personally.”
    â€œI see. And?”
    â€œHe sold them. Fast. Now he’s a believer.”
    The accountant enters some numbers into his laptop. Your master scrutinizes the result. He grunts and the accountant returns to you a small portion of the bills you brought in. This is your compensation, determined by adding together a notional fixed salary, a percentage commission, and a variable kicker based on how well your master feels business is doing and you are doing within it. You try to gauge the amount by the thickness of the wad and the colors of its constituent notes as you shove it into your pocket. You will count it later.
    You are about to leave when your master tells you to ride with him, an unusual and worrisome request. You follow him to his car, where he takes out his phone and dials as he instructs his driver to drive. His guard watches you closely in the rearview mirror.
    Your master conducts his telephonic conversation in a rural dialect that he does not realize you, whom he presumes to be a city fellow, understand fluently. Even if your master knew this, however, it would not concern him. He employs the dialect not for privacy but because it puts at ease the supplier he has on the line. Your master has spent time in many of the small towns in the region that forms the economic hinterland to your metropolis, and his chameleon-like ability to match his speech to his surroundings has often worked to his advantage. He would likely be proud of it, if he were the sort of man who was proud of such things. But he is too practical for that.
    You sit in silence as your master discusses at length stock movements and delivery dates. The car approaches the outskirts of the city, passing the disinterred earth and linear mounds of vast middle-class housing developments. Rows of electricity poles rise in various stages of completion, some bare, some bridged by taut cables, occasionally one from which wires dangle to the ground.
    When your master hangs up he asks what you think of a colleague.
    â€œI think he’s good,” you say.
    â€œThe best?”
    â€œOne of.”
    â€œWas he stealing from me?”
    Everyone steals, at least a little. But you say, “He’s not crazy.”
    â€œWhere was he today?”
    â€œI didn’t see him.”
    He snorts. “You won’t be seeing him.”
    The