Shantaram (38 page)

"Yes, Madame. His name is Parker, Gilbert Parker. He is attached to the embassy, but this is not an official visit, of course."

"Of course. Give Rajan your card, Mr. Parker."

It was a command. I took one of the cards from my pocket and handed it to Rajan. He held it at the edges, as if he was afraid of contamination, and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"Karla did not tell me, when she telephoned, Mr. Parker-have you been in Bombay very long?" Madame Zhou asked me, switching to Hindi.

"Not so long, Madame."

"You speak Hindi quite well. My compliments."

"Hindi is a beautiful language," I replied, using one of the stock phrases that Prabaker had taught me to recite. "It is a language of music and poetry."

"It is also a language of love and money," she chuckled greedily.

Are you in love, Mr. Parker?"

I'd thought hard about what she might ask me, but I hadn't anticipated that question. And just at that moment, there was probably no other subject that could've unsettled me more. I looked at Karla, but she was staring down at her hands, and she gave me no clue. I didn't know what Madame Zhou meant by the question. She hadn't asked me if I was married or single, engaged or involved.

"In love?" I mumbled, the words sounding like an incantation in Hindi.

"Yes, yes, romantic love. Your heart lost in the dream of a woman's face, your soul lost in the dream of her body. Love, Mr.

Parker. Are you in it?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

I don't know why I said it. The impression that I was making an act of confession, there, on my knees before the metal grate, was even more pronounced.

"How very sad for you, my dear Mr. Parker. You are in love with Karla, of course. That's how she got you to do this little job of work for her."

"I assure you-"

"No, Mr. Parker, I assure you. Oh, it may be true that my Lisa's father is pining for his daughter, and that he has the power to pull some strings. But it was Karla who talked you into this-of that, I'm quite sure. I know my dear Karla, and I know her ways.

Don't think for a moment that she will ever love you in return, or keep any of her promises to you, or that anything but sorrow will come of the love you feel. She will never love you. I tell you this out of friendship, Mr. Parker. This is a little gift for you."

"With respect," I said, through clenched teeth, "we're here to talk about Lisa Carter."

"Of course. If I let my Lisa go with you, where will she live?"

"I... I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?"

"No, I..."

"She will live at-" Karla began.

"Shut up, Karla!" Madame Zhou snapped. "I asked Parker."

"I don't know where she will live," I answered, as firmly as I could. "I think that's up to her."

There was a lengthy pause. It was becoming an effort of concentration to listen and speak in Hindi. I felt lost, in over my head. It was going badly. She'd asked me three questions, and I'd stumbled badly on two of them. Karla was my guide in that strange world, but she seemed as confused and wrong-footed as I was. Madame Zhou had told her to shut up, and she'd swallowed it with a meekness I'd never seen or even imagined in her. I took a glass and drank some of the nimbu pani. The iced lime-juice was spiced with something hot to the taste like chilli powder. There was a shadowy movement and whisper in the darkness of the room behind the metal grate. I wondered if Rajan was in there with her. I couldn't make out the shape.

She spoke.

"You can take Lisa with you, Mr. Parker-in-love. But if she decides to come back here to me, I will not give her up. Do you understand me? She will stay here, if she comes back, and I will be unhappy if you trouble me about it again. You are, of course, free to enjoy our many delights, whenever you wish, as my guest.

I would like to see you... relax. Perhaps, when Karla is finished with you, you will remember my invitation? In the meantime, remember-Lisa is mine if she returns to me. That matter is finished between us, today, here and now."

"Yes, yes, I understand. Thank you, Madame."

The relief was enormous. I felt sapped with it. We'd won. It was done, and Karla's friend was free to come with us.

Madame Zhou began to speak again, very quickly, and in another language. I guessed it to be German. It sounded harsh and threatening and angry, but I couldn't speak German then, and the words might've been kinder than they sounded to me. Karla responded from time to time with Ja or Nat%urlich nicht, but little else. She was rocking from side to side, sitting back on her folded legs. Her hands were in her lap. Her eyes were closed. And as I watched her, she began to cry. The tears, when they came, slipped from her closed eyelids like so many beads on a prayer chain. Some women cry easily. The tears fall as gently as fragrant raindrops in a sun-shower, and leave the face clear and clean and almost radiant. Other women cry hard, and all the loveliness in them collapses in the agony of it. Karla was such a woman. There was terrible anguish written in the rivulets of those tears and the torment that creased her face.

From behind the grate, the smoky voice full of spitting sibilants and crunching words continued. Karla swayed and sobbed in utter silence. Her mouth opened, and then closed soundlessly. A pearl of sweat trickled from her temple across the folded wing of her cheek. More sweat stippled her upper lip, dissolving in the tears. Then there was nothing from behind the metal grate: no sound or movement or even the sense of a human presence. And with an effort of will that clenched her jaws to white and set her body trembling, Karla swept her hands over her face, and her crying ceased.

She was very still. She reached out with one hand to touch me.

The hand rested on my thigh, and then pressed downward with regular, gentle pressures. It was the tender, reassuring gesture she might've used to calm a frightened animal. She was staring into my eyes, but I wasn't sure if she was asking me something or telling me something. She breathed deeply, quickly. Her green eyes were almost black in the shadowed room.

I didn't understand any of it. I couldn't understand the German chatter, and I had no idea what was going on between Karla and the voice behind the metal grille. I wanted to help her, but I didn't know why she'd cried, and I knew that we were probably being watched. I stood up, and then helped her to stand. For a moment, she rested her face against my chest. I put my hands on her shoulders, steadying her and easing her away from me. Then the door opened, and Rajan came into the room.

"She is ready," Rajan hissed.

Karla brushed at the knees of her loose trousers, picked up her bag, and stepped past me toward the door.

"Come on," she said. "The interview's over." For a moment I looked at the marks, the curved indentations that her knees had made in the brocade cushion beside me on the floor.

I felt tired and angry and confused. I turned to see Karla and Rajan staring at me impatiently in the doorway. As I followed them along the corridors of the Palace, I grew more sullen and resentful with every step.

Rajan led us to a room at the very end of a corridor. The door was open. The room was decorated with large movie posters-Lauren Bacall in a still from To Have And Have Not, Pier Angeli from Somebody Up There Likes Me, and Sean Young from Blade Runner. A young and very beautiful woman sat on the large bed in the centre of the room. Her blonde hair was long and thick, ending in spirals of lush curls. Her sky-blue eyes were large and set unusually wide apart. Her skin was flawless pink, her lips painted a deep red. A suitcase and a cosmetic case were snapped shut and resting on the floor at her golden-slippered feet.

"About fucking time. You're late. I'm going outta my mind here."

It was a deep voice. The accent was Californian.

"Gilbert had to change his clothes," Karla replied, with something of her familiar composure. "And the traffic, getting here-you don't want to know."

"Gilbert?" Her nose wrinkled with distaste.

"It's a long story," I said, not smiling. "Are you ready to go?"

"I don't know," she said, looking at Karla.

"You don't know?"

"Hey, fuck _you, Jack!" she exploded, rounding on me with so much fury that I didn't see the fear behind it. "What the hell business is it of yours, anyway?"

There's a special anger we reserve for people who won't let us do them a good turn. My teeth began to grind with it.

"Look, are you coming or not?"

"Did she say it's okay?" Lisa asked Karla. Both women looked to Rajan, and then to the mirror on the wall behind him. Their expressions told me that Madame Zhou was watching us, and listening, as we spoke.

"It's fine. She said you can go," I told her, hoping she wouldn't comment on my imperfect American accent.

"Is this for real? No bullshit?"

"No bullshit," Karla said.

The girl stood up quickly and grabbed at her bags. "Well, what're we waiting for? Let's get the fuck outta here before she changes her goddamn mind."

Rajan stopped me at the street door, and gave me a large, sealed envelope. He stared that perplexing malice into my eyes once more, and then closed the door. I caught up to Karla and pulled her round to face me.

"What was that all about?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, a little smile trying to light her eyes. "It worked. We got her out."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you and me, and that crazy game Madame Zhou was playing up there. You were crying your eyes out, Karla-what was it all about?"

She glanced at Lisa, who stood close by, impatient and shielding her eyes, even though the late-afternoon light wasn't bright. She looked at me again, her green eyes puzzled and tired.

"Do we have to talk about this now, in public?"

"No, we don't!" Lisa answered for me.

"I'm not talking to you," I snarled, not looking at her. My eyes were fixed on Karla's face.

"You're not talking to me, either," Karla said firmly. "Not here.

Not now. Let's just go."

"What is this?" I demanded.

"You're over-reacting, Lin."

"I'm over-reacting!" I said, almost shouting, and proving her right. I was angry that she'd told me so little of the truth, and prepared me so poorly for the interview. I was hurt that she didn't trust me enough to give me the whole story. "That's funny, that's really funny."

"Who is this fucking jerk?" Lisa snarled.

"Shut up, Lisa." Karla said, just as Madame Zhou had said it to her, only minutes before. Lisa reacted just as Karla had, with meek, sullen silence.

"I don't want to talk about this now, Lin," Karla said, turning to me with an expression of hard, reluctant disappointment. There are few things people can do with their eyes that hurt more, and I hated to see it. Passers-by stopped near us on the street, staring and eavesdropping openly.

"Look, I know there's a lot more going on here than getting Lisa out of the Palace. What happened up there? How did she... you know, how did she know about us? I'm supposed to be some guy from the embassy, and she starts talking about being in love with you. I don't get it.

And who the hell are Ahmed and Christina? What happened to them?

What was she talking about? One minute you're indestructible, and then the next minute you're breaking down, while Madame Nutcase is babbling away in German or whatever."

"It was Swiss-German, actually," she snapped, a flash of spite in the gleam of her clenched teeth.

"Swiss, Chinese, so what? I just want to know what's going on. I want to help you. I want to know... well, where I stand."

A few more people stopped to join the idlers. One group of three young men stood very close, leaning on one another's shoulders and gawking with aggressive curiosity. The taxi driver who'd brought us there was standing beside his cab, five metres away.

He twirled his handkerchief to fan himself, watching us, smiling.

He was much taller than I'd thought him to be; tall and thin and dressed in a tightly fitting white shirt and trousers. Karla glanced over her shoulder at him. He wiped at his moustache with the red handkerchief, and then tied it as a scarf around his neck. He smiled at her. His strong, white teeth were gleaming.

"Where you're standing is right here, on the street, outside the Palace," Karla said. She was angry and sad and strong-stronger than I was at that moment. I almost hated her for it. "Where I'm sitting is in that cab. Where I'm going is none of your damn business."

She walked away.

"Where the hell did you get that guy?" I heard Lisa say, as they approached the cab.

The taxi driver greeted them, waggling his head happily. When they drove past me, there was music playing, Freeway of Love, and they were laughing. For one explosive moment of writhing fantasy I saw them all together, naked, the taxi driver and Lisa and Karla. It was improbable and ridiculous and I knew it, but the squirm was in my mind, and a white-hot thump of rage went pulsing along the thread of time and fate that connected me to Karla.

Then I remembered that I'd left my boots and clothes at her apartment.

"Hey!" I called after the retreating cab. "My clothes! Karla!"

"Mr. Lin?"

There was a man standing beside me. His face was familiar, but I couldn't place it immediately. "What?"

"Abdel Khader want you, Mr. Lin."

The mention of Khader's name jolted my memory. It was Nazeer, Khaderbhai's driver. The white car was parked nearby.

"How... how did you... what are you doing here?"

"He say you come now. I am driving." He gestured toward the car, and took two little steps to encourage me.

"I don't think so, Nazeer. It's been a long day. You can tell Khaderbhai that-"

"He say you come now," Nazeer said grimly. He wasn't smiling, and I had the feeling that I would have to fight him if I wanted to avoid getting into the car. I was so angry and confused and tired, just then, that I actually considered it for a moment. It might cost less energy, in the long run, to fight with him, I thought, than to go with him. But Nazeer screwed his face into agonised concentration, and spoke with unaccustomed courtesy.