Shantaram (61 page)

There's no heart like the Indian heart."

He was crying. Stunned, I watched him wipe the tears from his eyes, and I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. He was right, of course. Even though I'd been tortured in an Indian prison, and almost killed there, I had been set free, and they had given me my old passport when I left the prison. Is there any other country in the world, I asked myself, that would've let me go, as India did? And even in India, if the cops had checked on me and discovered a different story- that I cheated Indians, say, or ran Indian prostitutes, or beat up defenceless people-they would've taken the money, and then sent me back to Australia anyway. It was the land where the heart is king. I knew that from Prabaker, from his mother, from Qasim Ali, from Joseph's redemption. I'd known it even in the prison, where men like Mahesh Malhotra had taken a beating in order to smuggle food to me when I was starving.

"What's this? A lover's quarrel, perhaps?" Didier asked, inviting himself to sit down.

"Oh, fuck you, Didier!" Vikram laughed, pulling himself together.

"Ah, well, it's a touching thought, Vikram. But, perhaps when you are feeling a little better. And how are you today, Lin?"

"I'm fine," I smiled. Didier was one of three people who'd burst into tears when they saw me, flesh-withered and still ripped with cuts and wounds, soon after my release from Arthur Road Prison.

The second was Prabaker, whose weeping was so violent that it took me a full hour to console him. The third person, unexpectedly, was lord Abdel Khader, whose eyes filled with tears when I thanked him: tears that flowed on my neck and shoulder when he hugged me.

"What'll you have?" I asked him.

"Oh, very kind," he murmured, purring with pleasure. "I believe that I will begin with a flask of whisky, and a fresh lime, and a cold soda. Yes. That will be a good commencement, no? It is very strange, and a very unhappy business, don't you think, this news about Indira Gandhi?"

"What news?" Vikram asked.

"They are saying on the news, just now, that Indira Gandhi is dead."

"Is it true?" I asked.

"I fear that it is," he sighed, suddenly and uncharacteristically solemn. "The reports are not confirmed, but I think there is no doubt."

"Was it the Sikhs? Was it because of Bluestar?"

"Yes, Lin. How did you know?"

"When she stormed the Golden Temple, to get Bhindranwale, I had a feeling it was going to catch up with her."

"What happened? Did the KLF do it?" Vikram asked. "Was it a bomb?"

"No," Didier answered, gravely. "They say it was her bodyguards- her Sikh bodyguards."

"Her own bodyguard, for fuck's sake!" Vikram gasped. His mouth gaped open, and his gaze drifted on the tide of his thoughts.

"Guys-I'll be back in a minute. Do you hear that? They're talking about the story, right now, on the radio, at the counter.

I'll go and listen, and come back."

He jogged to the crowded counter where fifteen or twenty men pressed together, arms around shoulders to listen, while an almost hysterical announcer gave details of the murder in Hindi.

Vikram could've listened to the broadcast from his seat at our table-the volume was switched up to the maximum, and we heard every word. It was something else that drew him to the crowded counter: a sense of solidarity and kinship; a huddled need to feel the astounding news, through contact with his countrymen, even as he listened to it.

"Let's have that drink," I suggested.

"Yes, Lin," Didier answered, pouting with his lower lip, and offering a flourish of his hand to dismiss the distressing subject. The gesture failed. His head lolled forward, and he stared vacantly at the table in front of him. "I can't believe it. It is simply not believable. Indira Gandhi, dead... It is almost unthinkable. It is almost impossible to force myself to think of it, Lin. It is... you know... impossible."

I ordered for Didier, and let my thoughts wander while we listened to the plaintive screech of the radio announcer.

Selfishly, I wondered first what the assassination might mean for my security, and then what it might do to the exchange rates on the black money market. Some months before, Indira Gandhi had authorised an assault on the Sikh holy-of-holies, the Golden Temple, in Amritsar. Her goal was to drive out a large, well armed company of Sikh militants who'd entered the temple and fortified themselves there under the leadership of a handsome, charismatic separatist named Bhindranwale. Using the temple complex as a base, the militants had launched punitive attacks against Hindus, and those they described as recalcitrant Sikhs, for many weeks. Indira Gandhi, on the eve of a fiercely contested general election, had been deeply concerned that she would appear weak and indecisive if she failed to act. In what many judged to be the worst of her admittedly limited options, Indira had sent the army into battle with the Sikh rebels.

The army operation to dislodge the militants from the Golden Temple was known as Operation Bluestar. Bhindranwale's militants, believing themselves to be freedom fighters and martyrs for the Sikh cause, met the army force with reckless and desperate resistance. More than six hundred lives were lost, and many hundreds of people were injured. In the end, the Golden Temple complex was cleared, and Indira emerged as anything but indecisive or weak. Her goal of reassuring the Hindu heartland of voters had been achieved, but the Sikh struggle for a separate homeland, called Khalistan, was rich in new martyrs. And across the world, Sikh hearts clenched around their determination to avenge the profane and bloody invasion of their holiest shrine.

The radio at the counter gave us no other details, but the message wailed from the speaker that she'd been murdered. Only a few months after Bluestar, Indira's own Sikh bodyguards had killed her. The woman who'd been reviled as a despot by some, adored as the mother of the country by many others, and so closely identified with the nation as to be indistinguishable from its past, and from its destiny, was gone. She was dead.

I had to think. I had to calculate the danger. Security forces across the country would be on special alert. There would be ramifications-riots, killings, looting, and burning, as revenge exacted on the Sikh communities for her murder. I knew it.

Everyone in India knew it. On the radio, the announcer was talking about troop deployments in Delhi and in Punjab aimed at quelling anticipated disturbances. The tension would bring new dangers for me, a wanted man, working for the mafia, and living in the country with an expired visa. For a few moments, sitting there as Didier sipped his drink, as the men in the restaurant strained in silence to listen, and the early evening blushed our skin with rose-gold, my heart thumped with fear. Run, my thoughts whispered. Run now, while you can. This is your last chance...

But even then, as I formed the clear thought to flee the city, I felt myself relaxing into a dense, fatalistic calm. I wouldn't leave Bombay. I couldn't leave Bombay. I knew that, as surely as I'd ever known anything in my life. There was the issue of Khaderbhai: my financial debt to him had been repaid from the wages I'd made in his service with Khaled, but there was a moral debt that was harder to repay. I owed him my life, and we both knew it. He'd hugged me when I came out of the prison and, crying at my pitiful state, he'd promised me that for so long as I remained in Bombay, I would be under his personal protection.

Nothing like Arthur Road would ever happen to me again. He'd given me a gold medal featuring the Hindu aum symbol joined to a Muslim crescent and star, which I wore on a silver chain around my neck. Khaderbhai's name was inscribed on the back, in Urdu, Hindi, and English. In the event of trouble I was to show the medal, and ask that he be contacted at once. That security was imperfect, but it was better than anything I'd known since my exile had begun. His request for me to stay in his service, the unspoken debt that I owed him, and the safety that being Khader's man offered-all of those elements held me in the city.

And there was Karla. She'd disappeared from the city while I was in prison, and no-one knew where she'd gone. I had no idea where in all the wide world I might begin to look for her. But she loved Bombay. I knew that. It seemed reasonable to hope she might return. And I loved her. It grieved me-an emotion that was, in those months, even stronger than my love for her-that she must be thinking I'd abandoned her: that I got what I wanted, when we made love, and then dumped her. I couldn't move on without seeing her again, and explaining what had happened that night. So I stayed there, in the city, a minute's walk from the corner where we'd met, and I waited for her to return.

I glanced around the subdued, listening restaurant, and caught Vikram's eye. He smiled at me, and wagged his head. It was a heart-broken smile, and his eyes were inflamed with unshed tears.

Still, he smiled to comfort me, to reassure me, to include me in his bewildered grieving. And with that smile I suddenly knew that there was something else holding me there. In the end I realised that it was the heart, the Indian heart that Vikram had talked about-the land where heart is king-that held me when so many intuitions told me I should leave. And the heart, for me, was the city. Bombay. The city had seduced me. I was in love with her.

There was a part of me that she invented, and that only existed because I lived there, within her, as a Mumbaiker, a Bombayite.

"It's a fuckin' bad business, yaar," Vikram muttered as he rejoined us. "There's going to be a lot of blood spilled over this, yaar. On the radio, they're saying that Congress Party gangs are roaming in Delhi, going from house to house, and spoiling for a fight with the Sikhs."

We were silent, all three of us, lost in our own speculations and worry. Then Didier spoke.

"I think I have a lead for you," he said softly, wrenching us into the moment once more. "About the jail?"

"Oui."

"Go on."

"It is not much. It does not add much to what you already know- that it was a person of some power, as your patron, Abdel Khader, has told you."

"Whatever it is, Didier, it's more than I've got now."

"As you wish. There is a... man of my acquaintance... who must visit the Colaba police station on a daily basis. We were talking, earlier today, and he mentioned the foreigner who was in the lock-up there some months ago. The name he used was the Bite of the Tiger. I cannot imagine how you came to win such a name for yourself, Lin, but I make a wild guess that it is not entirely flattering, the story, non? Alors, he told me that the Bite of the Tiger-you-was betrayed by a woman."

"Did he give you a name?"

"No. I asked him, and he said that he did not know who she is. He did say that she is young, and very beautiful, but he may have invented those last details."

"How reliable is this man of your acquaintance?"

Didier pursed his lips, and let out a puff of air.

"He can be relied upon to lie, and cheat, and steal. That is the extent of his reliability, I am afraid, but in these things he does show a marvellous predictability. However, in this case I think he has no reason to lie. I think you were the victim of a woman, Lin."

"Well, that makes two of us, yaar. You and me both, brother,"

Vikram put in. He finished his beer, and lit one of the long, thin, cheroots that he smoked as much for the complement they made to his costume as for the enjoyment of the smoke.

"You have been going out with Letitia for three months now,"

Didier observed. His frown was irritated and profoundly unsympathetic. "What is your problem?"

"You tell me! I'm going out with her all over the place, and I still can't get to first base. I'm not even in the ballpark. Fuck the ballpark, yaar-I'm not even in the fuckin' zip code. This chick is killin' me. This love is killin' me. She's playing hard to get. And brother, I'm hard but not getting any. I swear, I'm about to fuckin' explode!"

"You know, Vikram," Didier said, his eyes shining once more with shrewdness and good humour, "I have a strategy that just might work for you."

"Didier, man, I'll try anything. The way things are, with this Indira thing and all, I gotta grab any chance while I can. Who knows where we'll all be tomorrow, na?"

"Yes, well, attention! This plan, it involves great daring, and careful planning, and a precise timing. If you are careless, it might cost you your life."

"My... my life?"

"Yes. Make no mistake. But if you succeed, I think you will win her heart forever. Are you, how do they say it, are you game, to try it?"

"I'm the game-iest motherfucker in the whole damn saloon, yaar.

Let's hear it!"

"I might take this as my cue to leave, before you guys get too deep into this," I interrupted, standing and shaking hands with both men. "Thanks for the tip, Didier. I appreciate it. And a tip for you, Vikram-whatever you plan to try with Lettie, you can start by losing the phrase
hot-titty
English _chick. Every time you call her that, she winces like you just strangled a baby rabbit."

"You really think so?" he asked, frowning his puzzlement.

"Yes."

"But it's one of my best lines, yaar. In Denmark-"

"You're not in Denmark any more, Toto."

"Okay, Lin," he conceded, laughing. "Listen, when you find out what went down with the jail thing... I mean, who the motherfucker was who put you in there, and all... well, if you need a hand, count me in. Okay?"

"Sure," I said, enjoying the good eye contact. "Take it easy."

I paid the bill and left, walking along the Causeway to Regal Cinema roundabout. It was early evening, one of the three best times of day in Bombay city. Early morning before the heat, and late night after the heat are special times of day, with special pleasures; but they're quiet times, with few people. Evening brings the people to their windows, balconies, and doorways.

Evening fills the streets with strolling crowds. Evening is an indigo tent for the circus of the city, and families bring children to the entertainments that inspire every corner and crossroad. And evening is a chaperone for young lovers: the last hour of light before the night comes to steal the innocence from their slow promenades. There's no time, in the day or night, when there are more people on the streets of Bombay than there are in the evening, and no light loves the human face quite so much as the evening light in my Mumbai.