Shantaram (118 page)

"Decent?" Didier scoffed. "What do you mean, decent? My apartment is without parallel in Bombay, Lin. You know that. Excellent, I can understand. Superb, I can accept. But decent-non! It is like saying that I live in the fish market and, er, what do you say, whoosh it out every day with a water hose!"

"So what do you think? I've gotta go."

"Decent!" he sniffed.

"Come on, man, will you forget about that!"

"Well, yes, perhaps you are right. I have nothing against them.

The George from Canada, the Scorpio, he does speak some French.

That is true. Yes. Yes. Tell them I think it is a good idea. Tell them to see me, and I will speak to them-with very careful instructions."

Laughing as I said goodbye, I joined Johnny Cigar at the doorway of the restaurant. He pulled me close to him.

"Can you come with me? Now?" he asked.

"Sure. Walking or taxi?"

"I think taxi, Lin."

We pushed our way through the breaking waves of walkers to the road and found a taxi. I was smiling as we waved the taxi down and climbed inside. For months, I'd been trying to find a way to help Gemini and Scorpio George that was more meaningful than the money I gave them from time to time. Didier's holiday with Arturo provided the perfect opportunity. I knew that three months in Didier's apartment would add years to their lives: three months without the stress of street living and with the secure good health that only a home and home cooking can provide. And I also knew that, with the Zodiac Georges in his apartment while he was gone, Didier would worry just enough to make his return to Bombay a little more likely, and a little sooner.

"Where to?" I asked Johnny.

"World Trade Centre," he told the driver, smiling at me but clearly concerned about something.

"What's up?"

"There is a problem at the zhopadpatti," he answered me.

"Okay," I said, knowing that he wouldn't say anything else about the problem until he thought the moment was right. "How's the baby?"

"Fine, very fine," he laughed. "He has such a strong grab on my fingers. He will be big and strong-bigger than his father, sure.

And Prabaker's baby, from the sister of my Sita, Parvati, that baby is also very beautiful. He is very much like Prabaker... in his face and his smiling."

I didn't want to think about my dead, beloved friend.

"And how's Sita? And the girls?" I asked.

"They are fine, Lin, all fine."

"You'll have to watch out, Johnny," I warned him. "Three kids in less than three years-before you know it, you'll be a fat, old guy with nine kids climbing all around you."

"It is a fine dream," he sighed happily.

"How's work? How are you... how you doing for money?"

"Also fine, very fine, Lin. Everybody pays taxes, and nobody likes it. My business is good. Sita and me, we decided to buy the house next to ours, and make a bigger house for the family."

"That's fantastic! I can't wait to see it."

There was a little silence and then Johnny turned to me with an expression of worry, almost of torment.

"Lin, that time when you asked me to work for you, to work with you, and I refused-"

"It's okay, Johnny."

"No, it is not okay. I want to tell you, I should have said yes, and I should have worked beside you." "Are you in trouble?" I asked, not understanding him. "Is business not as good as you said it was? Do you need money?"

"No, no, everything is fine with me. But if I was with you that time, watching you, maybe you would not still be working for all these months at the black business, with those goondas."

"No, Johnny."

"I blame myself every day, Lin," he said, his lips pulled wide in an anguished grimace. "I think that you asked me to work with you, to be your friend, because you did need a friend at that time. I was a bad friend, Lin, and I blame myself. Every day I feel bad about it. I am so sorry that I refused you."

I put my hand on his shoulder, but he wouldn't meet my eye.

"Look, Johnny, you've got to understand. What I do, I don't feel good about it, but I don't feel bad about it, either. You do feel bad about it. And I respect that. I admire it. And you're a good friend."

"No," he murmured, his eyes still downcast.

"Yes," I insisted. "I love you, man."

"Lin!" he said, grabbing my arm with sudden, urgent concern.

"Please, please, be careful with these goondas. Please!"

I smiled, trying to put him at ease.

"Man," I protested, "are you ever gonna tell me what this damn trip is about?"

"Bears!" he said.

"Bears?"

"Well, actually, you know, only one bear is our problem. You know Kano? Kano the bear?"

"Sure I know him," I muttered. "Bahinchudh bear-what's happened?

Has he got himself put in jail again?"

"No, no, Lin. He is not in the jail."

"Good. At least he's not a recidivist."

"Actually, you know, he escaped from the jail."

"Shit..."

"And now he is a fugitive bear, with a reward price on his head, or his paws, or any part of him they can catch."

"Kano's on the run?"

"Yes. They even have a wanted poster."

"A what?" "A wanted poster," he explained patiently. "They took a photo of him, that Kano, with his two blue bear-wallahs, when they arrested them again. Now, they are using that photo for the wanted poster."

"Who's _they?"

"The state government, the Maharashtra police, the Border Security Force, and the Wildlife Protection Authority."

"Christ, what did Kano do? Who did he kill?"

"Not killed anyone, Lin. The story, what happened, the Wildlife Authority has a new policy, to stop cruelty to the dancing bears.

They don't know that Kano's bear-wallahs, they love him so much, like a big brother, and he loves them also, and they would never hurt him. But the policy is the policy. So, the Wildlife-wallahs, they captured Kano, and they took him to the animal jail. And he was crying and crying for his blue bear-wallahs. And the bear wallahs, they were outside the animal jail, and they were also crying and crying. And two of those Wildlife-wallahs, two watchmen on duty, they got very upset about all the crying, so they went outside, and they started beating Kano's blue men with lathis. They gave them a solid pasting. And Kano, he saw his two blue men getting that beating, and he just lost his control. He broke down that cage and made an escape. The two bear-wallahs got a big feeling of courage, and they beat up the Wildlife fellows and ran away with Kano. Now they are hiding in our zhopadpatti, in the same hut that you used to have as your house. And we have to try to get them out of the city without getting captured. Our problem is how to get that Kano from the zhopadpatti to Nariman Point. There is a truck waiting there, and the driver has agreed to take Kano away with his bear-wallahs."

"Not easy," I murmured. "And with a goddamn wanted poster for the blue guys and the bear. Jesus!"

"Will you help us, Lin? We feel very sorry for that bear. Love is a special thing in the world. When two men have so much love in their hearts, even so it is for a bear, it must be protected, isn't it?"

"Well..."

"Isn't it?"

"Sure it is," I smiled. "Sure it is. I'll be glad to help, if I can. And you can do me a favour as well."

"Anything."

"Try to get me one of those wanted posters with the picture of the bear and the blue guys. I gotta have one of those posters."

"The poster?"

"Yeah. It's a long story. Don't worry about it. Just, if you see one, grab it for me. Have you got a plan?"

The taxi pulled up outside the slum as the evening, emptied of its sunset and pale enough to unveil the first few stars, drew squealing, playing faronades of children back to their huts, where plumes of smoke from cooking fires fluttered into the cooling air.

"The plan," Johnny announced as we walked quickly through the familiar lanes, nodding and smiling to friends along the way, "is to dress up the bear in a disguise."

"I dunno," I said doubtfully. "He's real tall, as I remember, and kinda big."

"At first, we put a hat and a coat on him, and even an umbrella hanging from his coat, like an office-working fellow."

"How did he look?"

"Not so good," Johnny replied without a trace of irony or sarcasm. "He still looked quite a lot like a bear, but a bear with clothes."

"You don't say."

"Yes. So, now the plan is to get a big Muslim dress, you know the one? From Afghanistan? Covering all the whole body, with only a few holes to see out of it."

"A burkha."

"Exactly. The boys went to Mohammed Ali Road to buy the biggest one they could find. They should be-ah! Look! They are here already, and we can try it, to see how does it look."

We came upon a group of a dozen men and a similar number of women and children gathered near the hut where I'd lived and worked for almost two years. And although I'd left the zhopadpatti, convinced that I could never live there again, it always gave me a thrill of pleasure to see the humble little hut, and stand near it. The few foreigners I'd taken to the slum-and even the Indians, such as Kavita Singh and Vikram, who'd visited me there - had been horrified by the place and aghast to think that I'd chosen to stay there so long. They couldn't understand that every time I entered the slum I felt the urge to let go and surrender to a simpler, poorer life that was yet richer in respect, and love, and a vicinal connectedness to the surrounding sea of human hearts. They couldn't understand what I meant when I talked about the purity of the slum: they'd been there, and seen the wretchedness and filth for themselves. They saw no purity. But they hadn't lived in those miraculous acres, and they hadn't learned that to survive in such a writhe of hope and sorrow the people had to be scrupulously and heartbreakingly honest. That was the source of their purity: above all things, they were true to themselves.

So, with my dishonest heart thrilling at the nearness of my once and favourite home, I joined the group and then gasped as a huge, shrouded figure emerged from beside the hut and stood among us.

"Holy shit!" I said, gawking at the towering, immense form. The blue-grey burkha covered the standing bear from its head to the ground. I found myself wondering at the size of the woman that garment had been intended to cover, because the standing bear was a full head taller than the tallest man in our group. "Holy shit!"

As we watched, the shapeless form took a few lumbering steps, knocking over a stool and water pot as it swayed and lurched forward.

"Maybe," Jeetendra suggested helpfully, "she is a very tall, fat ... clumsy kind of a woman."

The bear suddenly stooped and then fell forward onto its four paws. We followed it with our eyes. The blue-grey, burkha-clad figure trundled forward, all the while emitting a low, grumbling moan.

"Maybe," Jeetendra amended, "she is a small, fat... growling woman."

"A growling woman?" Johnny Cigar protested. "What the hell is a growling woman?"

"I don't know," Jeetendra whined. "I am only trying to be helping."

"You're going to help this bear all the way back to jail," I muttered, "if you let it go out of here like that."

"We could try the hat and coat again," Joseph offered. "Maybe a bigger hat... and... and a more fashionable coat."

"I don't think fashion's your problem," I sighed. "From what Johnny tells me, you have to get Kano from here to Nariman Point without the cops spotting you, is that right?"

"Yes, Linbaba," Joseph answered. In the absence of Qasim Ali Hussein, who was enjoying a six-month holiday in his home village with most of his family, Joseph was the head man of the slum. The man who'd been beaten and disciplined by his neighbours for the brutal, drunken attack on his wife had become a leader. In the years since that day of the beat- ing, Joseph had given up drinking, regained his wife's love, and earned the respect of his neighbours. He'd joined every important council or committee, and worked harder than any other in the group. Such was the extent of his reform and his sober dedication to the well-being of his family and his community that, when Qasim Ali nominated Joseph as his temporary replacement, no other name was tendered for consideration. "There is a truck parked near to the Nariman Point. The driver says that he will take the Kano and carry him out of the municipality, out of the state, also. He will put him and the bear-wallahs back in their native place, back in U.P., all the way back to Gorakhpur side, near to the Nepal. But that truck driver, he is afraid to come near this place to collect the Kano. He wants that we take that bear to _him only. But how to do it, Linbaba? How to get such a big bears to that place? Sure thing a police patrol will see Kano and make an arrest of him. And they will be arresting us, also, for the help of escaping bears. And then? What then? How to do it, Linbaba? That is the problem. That is why we were thinking about the disguises."

"Kano-walleh kahan hey?" I asked. Where are Kano's handlers?

"Here, baba!" Jeetendra replied, pushing the two bear-handlers forward.

They'd washed themselves clean of the brilliant blue dye that usually covered their bodies, and they'd stripped away all of their silver ornaments. Their long dreadlocks and decorated plaits were concealed beneath turbans, and they wore plain white shirts and trousers. Unadorned and decolourised, the blue men seemed spiritless, and much smaller and slighter than the fantastic beings I'd first encountered in the slum.

"Tell me, will Kano sit on a platform?"

"Yes, baba!" they said with pride.

"For how long will he sit still?"

"For an hour, if we are with him, near him, talking to him. Maybe more than one hour, baba-unless he needs to make a wee. And if so, he is always telling first."

"Okay. Will he sit on a small, moving platform-one on wheels-if we push it?" I asked them.

There was some discussion while I tried to explain what kind of platform or table I had in mind: one mounted on wheels for carrying fruit, vegetables, and other goods around the slum and displaying them for sale. When it was clear, and such a hawker's cart was found and wheeled into the clearing, the bear-handlers waggled their heads excitedly that yes, yes, yes, Kano would sit on such a moving table. They added that it was possible to steady him on the table by using ropes, and that he wouldn't find that secure fastening objectionable if they first explained its necessity to him. But what, they wanted to know, did I have in mind?