‘You paid homicidal maniacs to watch out for me?’
‘I did.’
‘That’s very thoughtful. And expensive. Maniacs don’t come cheap.’
‘You are right. I took some money from Khaled’s treasure, to pay for it.’
‘How did Khaled feel about that?’
‘He agreed. My feeling is that the only way I can lure him back to Bombay, and his true destiny, is to bring his treasure from the mountain to the city, one piece at a time.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
He looked me up and down, profoundly offended.
‘I never make jokes.’
‘You do, too,’ I laughed. ‘You just don’t know you do. You’re a funny guy, Abdullah.’
‘I am?’ he asked, grimacing.
‘You hired homicidal maniacs to protect me. You’re a funny guy, Abdullah. Lisa always laughed when she was with you, remember?’
Lisa.
He looked across the fields, the muscles in his jaw rippling, although his eyes were perfectly still. University students were playing cricket, kicking footballs, sitting in groups, doing cartwheels, and dancing for no reason.
Lisa.
‘You were her Rakhi brother,’ I said. ‘She never told me.’
‘Big changes are coming,’ Abdullah said, finding my eyes. ‘The next time you see me, perhaps it will be at my funeral. Kiss me as a brother, and pray that Allah forgives my sins.’
He kissed my cheek, whispered goodbye, and slipped gracefully into the stream of students flowing through the arch.
The fields, surrounded by the long, speared fence, seemed like a vast green net, cast by the sun to catch brilliant young minds. My eyes searched for Vinson and Rannveig, in the far corner of the park, but I couldn’t find them.
Abdullah was already gone when I reached my bike. It was high noon, and he didn’t want to explain being seen with me. I wondered when, and how, I’d ever see him again.
I rode back to the Sassoon Dock area, and Vikrant’s metal shop. I presented the renowned knife-maker with the two halves of the sword willed to me by Khaderbhai.
Vikrant’s bargaining system was to begin with the cheapest solution, sell you on it, and then expose the fatal flaw in the cheapest option. That, of course, led to the next cheapest option, the next hard sell, the next fatal flaw, and the next option, and the next fatal flaw.
I’d tried over the years to get Vikrant to cut straight to the very-expensive-option-with-zero-fatal-flaws, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option.
‘Do we have to do the option thing again, Vikrant? Can’t you just gimme the deluxe deal now? I really don’t give a shit how much it costs. And it’s really irritating, man.’
‘As in everything else in life,’ the knife-maker said, ‘there’s a right way, and a wrong way, to be irritating.’
‘Uh-huh?’
‘Indeed. Me, for example, I’m professionally irritating. My irritating goes with the territory. But you, you’re irritating without any reason at all.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You’re irritating me now, even as we speak.’
‘Fuck you, Vikrant. Are you gonna fix the sword, or not?’
He studied the weapon for some time, trying not to smile.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But only if I can fix it my own way. The hilt has a fatal flaw. A third-rate option.’
‘Great. Go ahead.’
‘No,’ he said, holding the sword in his upturned palms. ‘You must understand. If I fix it my way, it will never break, and it will be a partner with Time, but it will not be the same sword that Khaderbhai’s ancestors carried into battle. It will look different, and it will feel different. The soul of it will be different.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you want to preserve history,’ the knife-maker asked, allowing himself a smile, ‘or do you want history to preserve you?’
‘Funny guy, Vikrant. I want the sword to last. It’s like a trust, and I can’t be sure that the next guy will have it repaired if it breaks again. Do the deluxe, Vikrant. Make her last forever, and give her a makeover, but keep her under wraps until you’re finished, okay? It makes me sad.’
‘The sword, or the trust?’
‘Both.’
‘Thik, Shantaram.’
‘Okay. And thanks for the message you sent through Didier, about Lisa. Meant a lot.’
‘She was a nice girl,’ he sighed, waving goodbye. ‘Gone to a better place, man.’
‘A better place,’ I smiled, thinking it strange that we can think of any life as better than the life we’re living.
I avoided better places, and spent the long day and evening doing the rounds of currency dealers and touts, from the Fountain to the Point to the mangroves in Colaba Back Bay.
I listened to Chinese-whispered gangster gossip up and down the strip, made notes on all the money changers’ tallies and estimates, checked them against Didier’s notes, found out who the principal predators were, which restaurants favoured us and which banned us, how often the cops demanded money, which men could be trusted, which girls couldn’t be trusted, which shops were fronts for other businesses, and how much each square foot of black market footpath in Colaba cost.
Crime does pay, of course, otherwise nobody would do it. Crime usually pays faster, if not better, than Wall Street. But Wall Street has the cops. And the cops were my last stop before visiting the slum, to check on Diva and Naveen.
Lightning Dilip gestured toward a chair, when I walked into his office.
‘Don’t sit in the fucking chair,’ he said. ‘What the fuck do you want?’
He was looking me over, remembering the last beating he’d given me, hoping for a limp.
‘Lightning-ji,’ I began politely. ‘I just want to know if I can still bribe you, now that I’m freelancing, or if I have to go to Sub-Inspector Patil. I’m hoping for you, because the sub-inspector can be a real pain in the ass. But if you tell him that, I’ll deny it.’
The constables laughed. Lightning Dilip glared at them.
‘Throw this motherfucker in the under barrack,’ he said to the cops, lounging in the doorway. ‘And kick his head sideways.’
They stopped laughing, and moved toward me.
‘Just kidding,’ Lightning laughed, holding up a hand to stop his men. ‘Just kidding.’
The cops laughed. I laughed, too. It was pretty funny, in its own way.
‘Five per cent,’ I said.
‘Seven and a half,’ Lightning shot back. ‘And I’ll give you a chair to sit in, next time you visit the under barrack.’
The cops laughed. I laughed, too, because I would’ve given him ten per cent.
‘Done. You drive a hard bargain, Lightning-ji. You didn’t marry a Marwari wife for nothing.’
The Marwaris are trading people from Rajasthan, in northern India. They have a reputation for shrewd business, and sharp deal making. Lightning Dilip’s Marwari wife had a reputation for spending money faster than Lightning could beat it from his victims.
He looked at me, tasting the mention of his wife without pleasure. His lip curled. Every sadist has a sadist in the shadows. When you know who it is, just the mention of the name is enough.
‘Get out of here!’
‘Thank you, Sergeant-ji,’ I said.
I walked past the cops who’d chained and kicked me, weeks before. They smiled, and nodded good-naturedly. That was pretty funny too, in its own way.
Chapter Fifty
I parked outside the slum and made my way to Johnny’s house. He wasn’t there, so I went to the adjoining huts being used by Naveen and Diva. I heard them, as usual, before I saw them.
‘Do you know what a woman has to do to take a shit around here?’ Diva demanded, as I walked into the little clear space in front of th
eir huts.
‘Wow, that was a long conversation,’ I said. ‘Weren’t you on that last time?’
‘Do you know, Mr Kharab Dhandha Shantaram?’ she demanded, using the term for dirty business.
‘I do. I used to live here. And it ain’t right.’
‘Damn right, it’s not right,’ Diva said, turning from me to poke Naveen in the chest. ‘A woman can’t shit in the daytime, for example.’
There were several people in the group. Naveen and Didier were standing in front of Naveen’s hut. Diva was with Johnny’s wife, Sita, and three girls from surrounding houses.
‘I –’ Naveen tried.
‘Imagine if someone told you that you can’t take a shit, all day, because you’re a man, and somebody might see you taking a shit. You’d totally freak out, right?’
‘I –’
‘Well, that’s what we get told, because we’re women. And when we are allowed to take a shit, when the sun goes down, we have to clamber around the rocks, and do it in some miserable fucking place in the total dark, because if we carry a torch, someone might see that we’re taking a shit!’
‘I –’
‘And women get molested, out there in the dark. There’s crazy guys hanging around. Guys who don’t mind that the place is full of shit. Guys who actually prefer it that way. I’m not kidding, and I’m not putting up with it. I waited till dark to take a shit, and I’m not doing that again. I’m the fuck out of here, and that means tonight! I’m leaving.’
Naveen was considering whether to say I again. He looked at Didier. Didier looked at me. I looked at the fascinating knot on the edge of a bamboo support pole.
There was a commotion, and Johnny rushed in from one of the narrower lanes we used for short cuts.
He saw us, and stopped. His mouth was open. His hands were out in front of him, as if he was holding a branch.
‘What is it, Johnny?’ Sita asked, in Marathi.
‘I . . . I can’t . . . ’
‘Johnny, what’s up?’ I asked.
He was stiff, as if he was ready to run somewhere. His face struggled. Sita went to him, and led him away. After a minute she returned, and called Naveen and me to her.
Didier and the girls remained with Diva.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ Diva said. ‘I’m leaving! Hello? Did everybody forget that part?’
Johnny was sitting in a plastic armchair, drinking from a bottle of chilled water.
‘They are all dead,’ he said.
‘Who’s dead?’ Naveen asked.
‘Aanu’s father, I mean Diva’s father, and everyone at his house. Everyone. Even the gardeners. Even the pets. It was a horrible massacre.’
‘When?’
‘Just now,’ Johnny said breathlessly. ‘Lin, how can we tell that girl? I can’t do it. I can’t.’
‘Did you check the story?’
‘Yes, Naveen, of course I did. The police and press are going mad. It will be on the news, very soon, and then she will know anyway. Should we just wait? What are we going to do?’
‘Turn on the radio, Johnny,’ I said.
Sita clicked on the local news channel.
Bad words like slaughter and massacre poured from the mouth of the radio. Mukesh Devnani and seven of his household had been killed. The household pets had been killed. Nothing, and no-one, was spared.
Divya Devnani, the words said, again and again, the sole heir to the Devnani fortune, might also have been killed in the slaughter, the massacre, the slaughter.
‘We can’t let her find out by hearing that,’ I said. ‘She’s gotta be told.’
‘I’ll tell her,’ Naveen said, soft light in his eyes.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘It’s tough on you, but it should be you. But not here. Let’s go down to the rocks, and the sea. There’s a quiet place I know.’
She didn’t protest, when we walked through the slum, but as we stepped among the black stones on the shoreline, she tried to walk back into the slum. I think she sensed that bad news had found a place to drown itself.
Naveen held her in his arms, and told her. She broke the hug, walked a few uncertain steps on the rocky shore, and began to stagger away.
Naveen followed her closely, catching her a few times when her bare feet slipped between the rocks.
She stumbled on in a daze, her eyes blind, her legs moving in an instinct to flee suffering and fear.
I’d seen it before, during a prison riot: a man so scared that he walked into a stone wall, again and again, always hoping for a door. Her mind was somewhere else, searching for the vanished world.
Without her realising it, Naveen led her in a wide arc, and back to me. She sat placidly, then, on a boulder, and very slowly came back to herself. When she did, she started crying uncontrollably.
I left her with Naveen, who loved her, and returned to the huts to bring Sita and the girls to help. Sita was gone, but I found Karla and the Zodiac Georges instead.
I looked at Didier. Diva’s hiding place in the slum was a secret.
‘I thought it wise, that she have some support,’ Didier said. ‘Especially since we shall all be spending the night here to support her, in this . . . community facility, is it not so?’
Karla kissed me hello.
‘How is she?’
‘It hit her like an axe handle,’ I said, ‘but she came around okay. She’s a tough girl. Good that you’re here. She’s with Naveen, down by the sea. I’d give them a while yet. She’s pretty cut up, and Naveen knew her father.’
‘Didier is too much of a gentleman to keep a secret,’ Didier said, ‘and leave Diva without friends, on a night of such terrible disaster as this.’
‘And Didier is too scared of ghosts,’ Karla added, ‘to stay here alone.’
‘Ghosts?’
‘Clearly,’ Didier said, ‘the place is haunted. I am sensing presences.’
‘Whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re here.’
‘It’s been a while,’ she said, looking around at the slum huts. ‘Any special attractions this time? Cholera, typhoid?’
There’d been a cholera outbreak years before, while I was living in the slum. Karla had come to help me fight it. She’d accepted the local rats, nursed helpless people, and cleaned diarrhoea from earthen floors on her hands and knees.
‘It sounds crazy, I guess, but that time with you, back then, it’s one of my happiest memories.’
‘Mine, too,’ she said, glancing around. ‘And you’re right. It’s crazy. What are the girls doing to Diva’s place?’
‘They’re sprucing it up. Hoping to raise her spirits, I think.’
‘There are spirits being raised from the dead in this wild city tonight,’ she said. ‘That’s for sure.’
‘Terrible business,’ Scorpio added, joining us.
‘Poor little thing,’ Gemini said. ‘We’ve kept her suite open, at the Mahesh. It’s always there, if she wants it.’
‘Just keep this place to yourselves,’ I said. ‘Johnny and the others are taking a risk. Don’t let anyone know about Diva. Are we good?’
‘Good as gold, mate,’ Gemini replied.
‘Yes . . . ’ Scorpio hedged. ‘Unless . . . ’
‘Unless?’
‘Unless someone is forcing me to tell.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, suppose somebody started hitting me, to get me to tell, then I would tell. So, I can only promise confidentiality up to the point of physical harm.’
I looked at Gemini.
‘It’s one of Scorpio’s rules,’ he shrugged.
‘And a good one,’ Scorpio added. ‘If everyone in the world spilled their guts at the first sign of violence, there’d be no torture any more.’
‘SnitchWorld,’ Karla said. ‘I think you’re on to
something, Scorp.’
A man came through the lanes toward us, wheeling a bicycle laden with parcels.
‘Ah!’ Didier cried. ‘The relief supplies!’
The man unloaded a sponge mattress, a suitcase, a folding card table, four folding canvas stools and two sacks of booze from the bicycle. I looked at the booze.
‘It is for Diva,’ Didier said, catching my eye as he was counting the bottles. ‘The girl will need to get very drunk tonight, if on no other night in her life.’
‘Alcohol isn’t the answer to everything, Didier.’
Diva came out of the shadows suddenly.
‘I need to get very drunk,’ she said.
Didier stared his Told you so at me.
‘Will you . . . ’ Diva said, ‘my strange new friends, because none of you are my actual friends, and my actual friends aren’t here, and I may never see them again, like my father, will you help me to get very drunk, and clean me up when I get sick, and put me to bed safely, when I don’t know what’s going on any more?’
There was a pause.
‘Of course!’ Didier said. ‘Come here, sweet injured child. Come here to Didier, and we shall cry into everybody’s beer together, and spit into the eyes of Fate.’
She did cry, of course. She ranted, waved her arms, shouted, paced the little hut, tripped on the patchwork blankets, and called the girls in to dance with her.
When the ululating voices and handclap music reached a peak, she began to fall. Naveen caught her quickly and carried her to the bed of blankets, her arms falling at her sides like broken wings. She slowly curled her knees into her heart, and slept.
Sitting vigil in the next hut, Didier played poker with Naveen and the Zodiac Georges. It wasn’t a pretty game to watch: Scorpio never saw a crooked card, Didier and Gemini never played him a straight one, and Naveen couldn’t take his mind from the sleeping girl in the hut next door.
I looked in on Diva. Several of the neighbour girls were sleeping in the hut to keep Diva company. One girl of eighteen, named Anju, was cuddling the socialite’s shoulders in sleep. Another girl had her arm over Diva’s belly. Three girls snuggled in close to them. Somebody’s little brother was sleeping against their feet.
I trimmed the wick on the kerosene lantern to keep it alight, and lit a mosquito coil and a sandalwood incense stick from the flame. I set the coil and incense on a stand on top of the metal cabinet, and pulled the light plywood door shut on its rope hinges.
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