Shantaram (111 page)

They were the new blood, the new mafia dons, the new lords of the city: Sanjay, the efficient killer with the movie-star looks;

Andrew, the genial Goan who dreamed of taking his seat on the mafia council; Amir, the grizzled veteran with the story-teller's gift; Faisal, the cold-hearted enforcer who only asked one question-Finger, arm, leg, or neck?-when he was given an assignment; Farid, known as the Fixer, who solved problems with fire and fear, and who'd raised six much younger brothers and sisters, alone, when his parents died in a cholera-infested slum; and Salman, the quiet one, the humble one, the natural leader, who controlled the lives of hundreds in the little empire that he'd inherited and held by force.

And they were my friends. More than friends, they were my brothers in their brotherhood of crime. We were bonded to one another in blood-not all of it other people's-and boundless obligation. If I needed them, no matter what I'd done, no matter what I wanted them to do, they would come. If they needed me, I was there, without cavil or regret. They knew they could count on me. They knew that when Khader had asked me to join him in his war I'd gone with him, and I'd put my life on the line. I knew I could count on them. When I'd needed him, Abdullah had been there to help me deal with Maurizio's body. It's a significant test, asking someone to help you dispose of a murdered man's body. Not many pass it. Every man at the table had passed that test; some of them more than once. They were a solid crew, to use the Australian prison slang. They were the perfect crew for me, an outlaw with a price on my head. I'd never felt so safe-not even with Khaderbhai's protection-and I never should've felt alone.

But I was alone, and for two reasons. The mafia was theirs, not mine. For them, the organisation always came first. But I was loyal to the men, not the mafia; to the brothers, not the brotherhood. I worked for the mafia, but I didn't join it. I'm not a joiner. I never found a club or clan or idea that was more important to me than the men and women who believed in it.

And there was another difference between the men in that group and me-a difference so profound that friendship, on its own, couldn't surmount it. I was the only man at that table who hadn't killed a human being, in hot blood or cold. Even Andrew, amiable and garrulous young Andrew, had fired his Beretta at a cornered enemy-one of the Sapna killers-and emptied all seven rounds of the magazine into the man's chest until he was, as Sanjay would've said, two or three times dead.

Just at that moment the differences suddenly seemed immense and unconquerable to me-far greater and more significant than the hundred talents, desires, and tendencies that we had in common. I was slipping away from them, right there and then, at the long table in the Taj. While Amir told his stories and I tried to nod and smile and laugh with the others, grief came to claim me. The day that had started well, and should've been like any other, had spun askew with Salman's little words. The room was warm, but I was cold. My belly hungered, but I couldn't eat. I was surrounded by friends, in a vast, crowded restaurant, but I was lonelier than a mujaheddin sentry on the night before battle.

And then I looked up to see Lisa Carter walk into the restaurant.

Her long, blonde hair had been cut. The new short style suited her open, honest, pretty face. She was dressed in pale blue-her favourite colour-a loose shirt and pants, with matching blue sunglasses propped in her thick hair. She looked like a creature of light, a creature made out of sky and clean, white light.

Without considering what I was doing, I stood and excused myself, and left my friends. She saw me as I approached her. A smile as big as a gambler's promise unveiled her face as she opened her arms to hug me. And then she knew. One hand reached up to touch my face, her fingertips reading the braille of scars, while the other hand took my arm to lead me out of the restaurant and into the foyer.

"I haven't seen you for weeks," she said as we sat together in a quiet corner. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I lied. "Were you going in to have some lunch?"

"No. Just coffee. I've got a room here, in the old part, looking out over the Gateway. It's a million-dollar view, and a great room. I've got it for three days while Lettie sews up a deal with a big producer. This is one of the fringe benefits she managed to squeeze out of him. The movie business-what can I say?"

"How's it going?"

"Great," she smiled. "Lettie loves every minute of it. She deals with all the studios and the booking agents now. She's better at it than me. She drives a better deal for us every time. And I do the tourists. I like that part better. I like meeting them and working with them."

"And you like it that sooner or later, no matter how nice they are, they always go away?"

"Yeah. That, too."

"How's Vikram? I haven't seen him since-since the last time I saw you and Lettie."

"He's cool. You know Vikram. He's got a lot more time on his hands now. He misses the stunt thing. He was really big on that, and he was great at it. But it drove Lettie crazy. He was always jumping off moving trucks and crashing through windows and stuff.

And she worried a lot. So she made him give it up."

"What's he doing now?"

"He's kind of the boss, you know? Like the executive vice president of the company-the one Lettie started, with Kavita and Karla and Jeet. And me." She paused, on the verge of saying something, and then plunged on. "She was asking after you."

I stared back at her, saying nothing. "Karla," she explained. "She wants to see you, I think."

I held the silence. I was enjoying it, a little, that so many emotions were chasing one another across the soft, unblemished landscape of her face.

"Have you seen any of his stunts?" she asked.

"Vikram's?"

"Yeah. He did a whole lot before Lettie made him stop."

"I've been busy. But I really want to catch up with Vikram."

"Why don't you?"

"I will. I heard he's hanging out at the Colaba Market every day, and I've been wanting to see him. I'm working a lot of nights, so I haven't been to Leopold's lately. It's just... I've been... busy."

"I know," she said softly. "Maybe too busy, Lin. You don't look too good."

"Gimme a break," I sighed, trying to laugh. "I work out every day. I do boxing or karate every other day. I can't get any fitter than this."

"You know what I mean," she insisted.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. Listen, I should let you go..."

"No. You shouldn't."

"I shouldn't?" I asked, faking a smile.

"No. You should come with me, now, to my room. We can have coffee sent up. Come on. Let's go."

And she was right: it was a spectacular view. Tourist ferries bound for the caves on Elephanta Island, or returning to shore, rose up the wavelets and rolled over them in proud, practised glissades. Hundreds of smaller craft dipped and nodded like preening birds in the shallow water while huge cargo vessels, anchored to the horizon, lay motionless on that cusp of calm where the ocean became the bay. On the street below us, parading tourists wove coloured garlands with their movements through and around the tall, stony gallery of the Gateway Monument.

She kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed. I sat near her on the edge of the bed. I stared at the floor near the door. We were quiet for a while, listening to the noises that pushed their way into the room with a breeze that caused the curtains to riffle, swell, and fall.

"I think," she began, taking a deep breath, "you should come and live with me."

"Well, that's-"

"Hear me out," she cut in, raising both palms to silence me.

"Please."

"I just don't think-"

"Please."

"Okay," I smiled, sitting further along the bed to rest my back against the bed-head.

"I found a new place. It's in Tardeo. I know you like Tardeo. So do I. And I know you'll like the apartment, because it's exactly the kind of place we both like. And I think that's what I'm trying to get at, or trying to say-we like the same things, Lin.

And we got a lot in common. We both beat the dope. That's a fuckin' hard thing to do, and you know it. And not many people do it. But we did-we both did-and I think that's because we're alike, you and me. We'd be good, Lin. We'd be... we'd be real good."

"I can't say... for sure... that I beat the dope, Lisa."

"You did, Lin."

"No. I can't say I won't ever touch it again, so I can't say I beat it."

"But that's even more reason to get together, don't you see?" she insisted, her eyes pleading and close to tears. "I'll keep you straight. I can say I won't ever touch it again, because I hate the stuff. If we're together, we can work the movie business, and have fun, and watch out for each other."

"There's too much..."

"Listen, if you're worried about Australia, and jail, we could go somewhere else-somewhere they'll never find us."

"Who told you about that?" I asked, keeping my face straight.

"Karla did," she answered evenly. "It was in the same little conversation we had once, where she told me to look after you."

"Karla said that?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"A long time ago. I asked her about you-about what her feelings were, and what she wanted to do."

"Why?"

"Whaddaya mean, why?"

"I mean," I replied slowly, reaching out to cover her hand with mine, "why did you ask Karla about her feelings?"

"Because I had a crush on you, stupid!" she explained, holding my eye for a second and then looking away again. "That's why I went with Abdullah-to make you jealous, or interested, and just to be close to you, through him, because he was your friend."

"Jesus," I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Is it still Karla?" she asked, her eyes following the rise and breathless fall of the curtains at the window. "Are you still in love with her?"

"No."

"But you still love her."

"Yes."

"And... how about me?" she asked.

I didn't answer because I didn't want her to know the truth. I didn't want to know the truth myself. And the silence thickened and swelled until I could feel the tingling pressure of it on my skin.

"I've got this friend," she said at last. "He's an artist. A sculptor. His name's Jason. Have you ever met him?"

"No, I don't think so."

"He's an English guy, and he's got a real English way of looking at things. It's different than our way, our American way, I mean.

He's got a big studio out near Juhu Beach. I go there sometimes."

She was silent again. We sat there, feeling the breeze alternately warm and cool as the air from the street and the bay swirled into the room. I could feel her eyes on me like a blush of shame. I stared at our two hands joined and resting on the bed.

"The last time I went there, he was working on this new idea. He was filling empty packaging with plaster, using the bubble packs that used to have toys in them, you know, and the foam boxes you get packed around a new T.V set. He calls them negative spaces.

He uses them like a mould, and he makes a sculpture out of them.

He had a hundred things there-shapes made out of egg cartons, and the blister-pack that a new toothbrush came in, and the empty package that had a set of headphones in it."

I turned to look at her. The sky in her eyes held tiny storms.

Her lips, embossed with secret thoughts, were swollen to the truth she was trying to tell me.

"I walked around there, in his studio, you know, looking at all these white sculptures, and I thought, that's what I am. That's what I've always been. All my life. Negative space. Always waiting for someone, or something, or some kind of real feeling to fill me up and give me a reason..."

When I kissed her, the storm from her blue eyes came into our mouths, and the tears that slid across her lemon-scented skin were sweeter than honey from the sacred bees in Mombadevi's Jasmine Temple garden. I let her cry for us. I let her live and die for us in the long, slow stories our bodies told. Then, when the tears stopped, she surrounded us with poised and fluent beauty-a beauty that was hers alone: born in her brave heart, and substantialised in the truth of her love and her flesh. And it almost worked.

We kissed again as I prepared to leave her room-good friends, lovers, gathered into one another then and forever by the clash and caress of our bodies, but not quite healed by it, not quite cured by it. Not yet.

"She's still there, isn't she?" Lisa said, wrapping a towel around her body to stand in the breeze at the window.

"I've got the blues today, Lisa. I don't know why. It's been a long day. But that's nothing to do with us. You and me... that was good-for me, anyway."

"For me, too. But I think she's still there, Lin."

"No, I wasn't lying before. I'm not in love with her any more.

Something happened, when I came back from Afghanistan. Or maybe it happened in Afghanistan. It just... stopped."

"I'm going to tell you something," she murmured and then turned to face me, speaking in a stronger, clearer voice. "It's about her. I believe you, what you said, but I think you have to know this before you can really say it's over with her."

"I don't need-"

"Please, Lin! It's a girl thing. I have to tell you because you can't really say it's over with her unless you know the truth about her-unless you know what makes her tick. If I tell you, and it doesn't change anything or make you feel different than how you feel now, then I'll know you're free."

"And if it does make a difference?"

"Well, maybe she deserves a second chance. I don't know. I can only tell you I never understood Karla at all until she told me.

She made sense, after that. So... I guess you have to know.

Anyway, if there's anything gonna happen for us, I want it to be clear-the past, I mean."

"Okay," I relented, sitting in a chair near the door. "Go ahead."

She sat on the bed once more, drawing her knees up under her chin in the tight wrap of the towel. There were changes in her, and I couldn't help noticing them-a kind of honesty, maybe, in the way her body moved, and a new, almost languorous release that softened her eyes. They were love-changes, and beautiful for that, and I wondered if she saw any of them in me, sitting still and quiet near the door.