Oh, never mind, I’ll think about it later.
She swept these thoughts from her mind, lay down on the bed and put on the sports channel.
AT MIDDAY, AJATASHATRU went down to the lobby. Coming back from the restaurant the previous evening, he had gone up to his room and finished copying out his manuscript so he could give it to Hervé. By now, the Frenchman would have handed it to the publisher, who was staying in Rome this week.
Sophie Morceaux was waiting for him, reading a French book, the title of which Ajatashatru did not understand, as it did not contain the words eau de toilette, homme, femme, nouveau parfum or Christian Dior. Instead it seemed to say something like On Winter Mornings the Rabbits Yelp Lugubriously on the Road by a certain Angélique Dutoit Delamaison. Sensing his presence, the young woman looked up and slid a pretty red bookmark between the pages she had been reading.
‘Change of plans, Aja. We’ll eat lunch together a bit later. The editor from Éditions d’Havoc wants to meet you.’
‘Oh. When?’
‘Right now,’ replied the actress, pointing with her slender finger to the lobby bar, where Hervé was drinking a cocktail with another man. ‘Tell me all about it afterwards,’ she added with a happy smile.
Sheepishly, the writer walked the few yards that separated him from the two men. Why did the publisher want to see him so quickly? Had he even had time to read the manuscript?’
‘The great I-jab-at-you-to-thank-you!’ announced Hervé, getting to his feet.
‘Jabba-the-Hutt’s-back-tooth?’ said the other man. ‘What a fantastic name!’
‘My name is Ajatashatru, but you may call me Marcel, if that’s easier.’
‘My name is Gérard François – typical French name, you know?’ said the publisher in perfect English. ‘Not very original compared to yours . . . Anyway, I read your novel, or rather your short story, because it’s not very long. I heard you wrote it on your shirt? You should have continued it on your trousers . . . But, anyway, I liked it a lot.’
The three men sat down. Gérard François did not look like either of the celebrity managers. In fact, he was the exact opposite. He was not fat and did not have clammy hands. He was a tall man, with an athletic build. He had the blue eyes and handsome, tanned face of a ski instructor. He was wearing an elegant designer suit and a tie, despite the heat. So he looked like a skier and had a name like a French singer: a nice mix.
‘One thing about it does bother me, though – the end. Change the end,’ he said with the air of a man used to giving orders and seeing them carried out. ‘Because I’ve read that story before, only in a hospital.’
Beautiful people command respect more easily than ugly people, the Indian thought. They exercise a sort of natural attraction. They also arouse the admiration and envy of others. It’s a sort of manipulation, hypnosis without any tricks. We listen to them because, next to them, we feel like losers.
‘That’s funny,’ said Hervé, who had not resisted the temptation to read the manuscript before giving it to the publisher, ‘because I’ve read it before too, only in a monastery.’
‘So situating the action in a Sri Lankan prison is an original idea, I agree, but change the end, please. Because the moment we learn that the window looks out onto a wall – we’ve been expecting that since the third page of your story. And given that there are only four pages . . . that doesn’t leave much space for suspense!’
Ajatashatru realised that this story, which had been born in his brain, had actually gestated in someone else’s brain before him.
‘Come up with another twist for the end,’ Hervé suggested in a kind voice, saddened by the crestfallen expression on the debut novelist’s face. ‘Like . . . I don’t know, we discover that the blind man is not actually blind. Or that he’s not in prison, that it was all a dream.’
‘That’s too obvious and overused,’ said the publisher. ‘It needs an ending that no one will be expecting. But I’m sure our writer will find a wonderful idea. Won’t you, A-chattering-Hindu? After all, he has quite a Maecenas behind him . . . Ah, Sophie, Sophie . . . But anyway, back to business . . . Perhaps this will inspire you?’
With these words, he took out a few sheets of paper.
‘We are going to sign a contract today and you will have an advance so that you can work on the book in the best possible conditions. Inspire us, Mr A-jaunt-I-sat-through. Did I pronounce that correctly?’
‘An advance?’ asked Ajatashatru, who could not have cared less how the man pronounced his name (badly, as it happened).
‘Yes, money to cover your expenses while you finish the book. An advance on the sales royalties,’ the handsome man explained. ‘Do you have a bank account?’
‘Um, no.’
‘I thought as much. Which is why I took the liberty of anticipating . . .’
And, like a magician, he made a little black briefcase appear from under the table.
‘All right, let’s come to an agreement over the amount. How does fifty thousand euros sound?’ the man said with a self-satisfied smile, his slender, tanned fingers drumming confidently on the black briefcase.
‘Fifty thousand,’ repeated Ajatashatru doubtfully.
The handsome hidalgo’s smile vanished.
‘What? You don’t think that’s enough? All right, then . . . seventy thousand.’
The Indian said nothing.
‘You’re a tough negotiator, Mr Ah-ha-I-have-you! How about ninety thousand?’
Once again, the budding writer did not react at all.
‘Well, well . . . who do you think you are, my little friend, J. K. Rowling?’
The former fakir’s face lit up. ‘J. K. Rowling? Isn’t he some kind of magician?’
‘She is a magician, yes. A magician who transforms words into gold. Oh, all right . . . One hundred thousand euros, and that’s my last offer!’
‘OK,’ said Ajatashatru, unblinkingly.
A triumphant smile spread across the publisher’s tanned face.
‘Try not to look too thrilled! A hundred thousand euros for a first-time writer . . . and yes, you may be a genius who writes on his shirts, but you’re still a first-time writer . . . well, personally, I think that’s a pretty damn good advance. Anyway, I knew you would accept when it got to a hundred thousand. Which is why you will find that precise sum – not one euro less or more – in this briefcase.’
In fact, this little game might have gone on much longer, because our reformed fakir did not have the faintest idea how much money one hundred thousand euros really was, hence his apparent lack of reaction.
After a moment, he seemed to finally respond, and a broad smile appeared on his face. Surely this was enough money to buy an aeroplane ticket to Paris. And if there was any change left over, he could get a bouquet of flowers for Marie.
The man handed him the contract. Even though it was written in English, Ajatashatru signed it without even reading it, so excited was he at the prospect of going to see the Frenchwoman, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Surprise!
‘I’m glad you came to an agreement,’ said Hervé. ‘A-jack-an-ace-a-two, all you have to do now is rework the ending of the book. As for the money, that is a lot of cash. Don’t open the briefcase here – do it in your room, alone. The streets and hotels of Rome are not particularly safe. You’ll have to put all of that money in the bank. We can take care of that for you this afternoon, if that’s all right with you.’
The two men got up and left. Alone now, the Indian got up too, briefcase in hand, and approached the reception desk. Behind the counter, a digital display gave the real-time exchange rate of every currency in the world. That morning, one euro was worth exactly 67.8280 Indian rupees.
The calculation did not take long.
‘Six million seven hundred and eighty-two thousand eight hundred rupees!’ Ajatashatru breathed, in his own language, hardly able to believe his eyes. ‘Holy cow!’
With that much money, he wouldn’t just be able to buy an aerop
lane ticket and a bouquet of flowers, but the aeroplane itself, along with all its crew, and an entire florist’s shop. Held to his chest at that moment was more money than he could hope to earn in ten reincarnations.
Keeping a very tight grip on the briefcase, he ran to the lift, unwittingly ignoring an astonished-looking Sophie Morceaux, who was waiting to eat lunch with him.
AJATASHATRU OGHASH RATHOD had been pacing up and down his room for several minutes now, like a dog that cannot decide where it wants to sleep. His indecisiveness concerned where he might hide such a huge amount of money. Having been a thief himself, he knew that nowhere in the world was entirely secure, least of all an Italian hotel room, and that it would take no more than five minutes for any passing robber to find the briefcase stuffed full of cash and make off with it.
So he decided the wisest thing was not to let it out of his sight. In fact, safer still, he would not let it out of his touch. Yes, he was going to hold onto this briefcase for dear life.
He had taken a quick look inside the briefcase when he first got back to the room, just to make sure the money was real, and that he himself had not been conned and lied to. But no, it really was bursting at the seams with pretty purple notes. Genuine €500 notes, printed on both sides!
All right, so what should I do now? he wondered. He could hardly lug the briefcase around everywhere he went, even if that was the safest option. Sophie was waiting for him so they could eat lunch together. Perhaps it would be wiser if she came up and they ate in his room? Yes, that seemed the safest option.
He picked up the telephone, called reception and asked the employee to tell the pretty young woman who was reading in the lobby that she should go up to room 605.
Ten seconds later, there was a knock at the door.
Wow, that was fast!
‘Hairdresser!’ shouted a nasal voice from the other side of the door.
Unless she had suddenly caught a cold and changed her profession, it did not seem likely that this was Sophie Morceaux.
‘Sorry?’
Ajatashatru was not entirely au fait with local customs, but he found it rather strange that a hotel, even an ultra-luxurious hotel like this one, would allow a hairdresser to offer their services in the corridors. And, anyway, everything seems strange and suspicious when you are holding a briefcase containing €100,000 in cash.
‘No thanks.’
‘You have to at least sign this paper to show that I’ve offered you the services.’
Sign a paper? That seemed serious. And surely he had nothing much to fear from a hairdresser . . .
‘Where should I sign?’ the Indian asked unsuspectingly as he opened the door.
‘Where should you die?’ he was corrected by a small, swarthy man, who blocked the door with his foot and pulled a flick knife from the pocket of his cheap trousers. Hairdressers aren’t what they used to be.
Seeing the man’s heavily scarred arms, the ex-fakir joked, ‘Sorry, I’ve given up pain.’ But his nonchalance was a bluff.
‘I have a message from Gustavo,’ the man said in heavily Italian-accented English.
His face, unusual physique and dress sense were all reminiscent, Ajatashatru thought, of the French taxi driver.
‘Just-a-mo? Sorry, I don’t know him. I’m Oghash.’
This reply did not seem to please the Italian, who leapt forward, knife in hand. Ajatashatru jumped quickly backwards, allowing him to evade the blade but also allowing his attacker to enter the room. Remembering his fight in Barcelona, and in particular the ice cooler that had smashed him in the face, the Indian decided to try something similar, and he drove the briefcase hard into the Italian’s nose, thus evening the score. The man’s large head crashed noisily into the door of the wardrobe that stood at the side of the entrance hall.
The path to freedom was now clear. But only for a few seconds: the time it took the gypsy to recover from the blow. Ajatashatru did not hang around. He ran through the open doorway and hurtled down the emergency stairs as if he were being pursued by a guy who wanted to turn him into a sieve, which indeed he was.
Arriving in the hotel lobby, he passed the reception desk and sped towards the exit, once again failing to even notice the beautiful but rather surprised actress who was waiting to eat lunch with him.
AT THAT MOMENT, Sophie Morceaux was watching, open-mouthed, as Ajatashatru rushed from the hotel, carrying a briefcase. As Hervé had just told her the good news about the €100,000 advance, it seemed clear that her new friend had fled with the bread, made a dash with the cash, decided to go with the dough. This felt like a smack in the face to her. Sophie’s concepts of friendship and trust had been dealt a severe blow. How could he do this to her? She had taken him in, given him a room, a handsome suit, her affection and her time. She had even found him a publisher merely by batting her eyelids.
She sighed. After all, this man was essentially just an illegal alien, a petty criminal. What did she expect? A leopard can’t change its spots. She felt betrayed, thrown away like a used Kleenex, and she promised herself she would be more wary towards the next Indian who came out of her Vuitton trunk. Enough was enough! In a rage, she threw her copy of On Winter Mornings the Rabbits Yelp Lugubriously on the Road by Angélique Dutoit Delamaison to the floor and went to shut herself up in her room.
At that moment, Gérard François was weaving his moped through Rome’s nightmarish traffic. Tied to his luggage rack was the contract signed by the unusual writer. He could already see the best-selling novel stacked high on the shelves of the world’s largest bookstores, and translated into thirty-two languages, including Ayapa Zoque, an ancient Mexican dialect spoken by only two people in the world, neither of whom could read.
At that moment, Ajatashatru was running towards the gardens he had seen from the window of his room. He had never run this fast in his life before. Particularly not while holding a briefcase containing €100,000.
At that moment, Hervé was in his room, swallowing the last mouthful of whisky from the minuscule bottle he had taken from the minibar. He was drinking to forget, but it wasn’t working. Again, he thought about Gérard François’s tanned complexion, his thick, moist lips. Why were his most handsome friends all heterosexual, handsome and, above all, friends?
At that moment, Gino, knife in hand and head still spinning slightly, was hurtling down the hotel’s stairs in pursuit of the Indian who had stolen from and humiliated his cousin, and was now re-offending, at his expense this time.
At that moment, Ajatashatru was still running.
At that moment, Captain Aden Fik (who?), at the helm of his freight ship flying the Libyan flag, was skirting the Italian coast, glad to be on his way home after three months at sea.
At that moment, Gustave Palourde was deep in discussion, over a good garlic chicken – un pollastre a l’ast – with the father of the young Catalan baggage handler about the marriage that would unite their respective progeny, and therefore their families.
At that moment, Miranda-Jessica Palourde, soon to be Miranda-Jessica Tom Cruise-Jesús Palourde Cortés Santamaría, was putting a half-eaten chicken thigh back on her plate and greedily licking her fingers while eyeing her future husband, who was sitting across from her.
At that moment, Mercedes-Shayana Palourde was shedding a few tears and deciding to give Sophie Morceaux’s chic underwear to her daughter for her wedding night.
At that moment, Tom Cruise-Jesús Cortés Santamaría was lost in contemplation of his future wife, who was lasciviously licking her fingers as she ate a chicken thigh. Had he been Hindu, he would have had no hesitation choosing which animal he would like to be in his next incarnation.
At that moment, Ajatashatru wondered if he would ever stop running.
IN SANSKRIT, AJATASHATRU means He whose enemy is not born. But he was really starting to put the lie to his name, given all the enemies he was accumulating.
When he lifted his eyes from the rough path on which he had been running since entering the Villa B
orghese gardens, the Indian noticed that he was in the middle of a small, circular clearing.
He looked left, then right. Exposed and defenceless, he thought he was done for. But this was not the end of his race. A few yards ahead, taking advantage of the treeless area, the Italians had installed a huge hot-air balloon. It was blue, decorated with classical golden motifs. Just beneath it, attached by thin ropes like a thousand golden threads, a basket that was fixed to the ground shivered slightly in the wind. This was the first time that Ajatashatru had seen such a contraption in reality. He had seen one in the film Five Weeks in a Balloon, though, adapted from Jules Verne’s novel of the same name.
When it was hoisted up over a hundred feet from the ground, this hot-air balloon provided tourists with a panoramic aerial view of the Roman capital for the modest sum of five euros.
As luck would have it, the basket was still on the ground, and a few tourists were queuing up to get in. There was no one inside at that moment, as the guide was very busy selling tickets.
Ajatashatru turned round. The gypsy was running towards him. He had put his knife away so as not to arouse suspicion, but the Indian was convinced that, once he got close enough, the fact that he was in full public view would not prevent him taking the knife out and running it through Ajatashatru as if the Rajasthani were a voodoo doll. Had he been performing one of his magic tricks, our ex-fakir might have been thrilled at such a prospect but, oddly enough, without a retractable blade and a few accomplices, the scenario lost much of its allure.
Without a second’s hesitation, the Rajasthani leapt into the wire basket.
The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir who got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe Page 12