‘Ah,’ I said, ‘so the girls you’ve got here are models, waiting for assignments.’
‘You could say that,’ Diva replied, turning to Karla. ‘I know it’s a while since we talked about this, Karla, but I was hoping you’re still interested. I’d love to have your ideas in this. What do you think?’
‘I liked it when it was just an idea,’ she said. ‘And I’m happy to see you make it real. Count us in, for as long as we’re here in town. Let’s talk about it next week, over dinner at our place, okay?’
‘Yeah,’ Diva said vaguely, her eyes drifting to the garlanded photograph of her father.
We let her have some time, both of us content to wait until her trance ended.
‘You know why I insisted that everyone call me Diva?’ she asked after a while, still staring at the photograph. ‘I was in the bathroom, at a party, and I heard what my own friends called me, behind my back. Trivia Divya, they said. Trivia Divya. And you know what? They were right. I was. I was trivial. So I changed my name to Diva, that night, and made everybody call me that. But this is the first time that I’ve felt untrivial, if there’s such a word.’
‘Essential is the word, Diva,’ Karla said.
The young heiress turned her face to Karla’s and smiled, laughing softly.
‘It’s all good,’ she said, standing from her chair with a stretch and a yawn.
We stood with her, and she walked us to the tall doors of her office.
‘So glad you’re free,’ Karla said, hugging her as we left. ‘Fly high, baby bird.’
We roamed free on the bike, at slow speed, thinking different thoughts. I was thinking of the poor little rich girl, who’d lived in a slum and given away a fortune. Karla was thinking something else.
‘They’re all very classy ex-callgirls,’ she said over my shoulder.
‘What?’
‘They’re all ex-callgirls.’
‘Who?’
‘The pretty girls back at the office, who were doing nothing, very prettily. They’re all ex-callgirls. Dominatrices, actually. Experts in fetish. Diva hired them for the fetish party, but after the party, offered them jobs. They all came. They’re not modelling for Diva. They’re running the marriage and wedding agency.’
‘They should do fine,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, when I brought it up?’
‘Stop the bike,’ she said, leaning away from me.
I pulled into the exit lane, near a bus stop.
‘Are you seriously asking me,’ she asked, her breath on my neck, ‘why I didn’t tell you that we were going to a carnival of ex-callgirls?’
‘Well . . . ’
I swung back into the traffic and rode for a while, but then stopped again, because Oleg was sitting in the middle of the road divider, playing the guitar. We pulled up beside him.
‘What are you doing, Olezhka?’ Karla asked, smiling a handful of queens.
‘Playing guitar, Karla,’ he grinned back, Russianly.
‘See you round, Oleg,’ I said, revving the engine.
Karla pressed a finger gently on my shoulder, and the engine cooled down.
‘Why here?’ Karla asked.
‘The acoustics are perfect,’ he said, smiling, deliberately. ‘The sea behind me, and the buildings –’
‘What are you playing?’ Karla asked.
‘It’s a song called “Let the Day Begin”, by The Call. This guy, Michael Been, he’s like a saint of rock and roll. I love him. Can I play it for you?’
‘See you round, Olezhka,’ I said, revving again.
‘Why don’t you hop on board,’ Karla said.
‘Really?’ Oleg and I said at the same time.
‘We’ll drop you at home,’ she said. ‘We’re on our way to Dongri.’
Oleg climbed up behind Karla. We rode with her legs wrapped around me on the petrol tank. She was leaning against Oleg, who had his guitar strung on his back.
We cruised past a group of traffic cops, waiting at a crossing to bring down a zebra or two in the jungle street.
‘Vicaru naka,’ I said in Marathi. Don’t ask.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Karla hadn’t visited the perfume bazaar in Dongri, or
anywhere in the area, since the fire at Khaderbhai’s mansion. But she mixed her own perfume, and needed her special fragrances. When she finally felt ready to face a page she’d turned without reading, we became a thread in the tightly woven carpet of traffic to visit her favourite shop, just off Mohammed Ali Road.
Great Ali, one of three cousin-brothers named Ali in his family, the others being Sad Ali and Considerate Ali, welcomed us into his shop, settling us on cushions.
‘I’ll pour some tea, Karla Madame,’ Considerate Ali said.
‘It has been so long,’ Sad Ali said. ‘We’ve missed you.’
‘I have your private selection ready for you, Karla Madame,’ Great Ali said.
We drank tea, while Karla examined her special essences and listened to a story about a rare perfume, carried from a rare corner of the rarefied world.
As we were leaving, the large elderly merchant, dressed in white, asked if he could inhale Karla’s own perfume, but once. Karla obliged, extending the frond of her slender wrist, the palm of her hand falling like a leaf in the rain.
The perfume traders all inhaled several times professionally, and then shook their heads doubtfully.
‘One of these days,’ Great Ali said, as we left, ‘I will discover the secret of your bouquet.’
‘Never say die,’ Karla replied.
We walked the street again, on the way back to the bike, Karla’s small vials of precious scents and oils jingling softly in a black velvet bag. After a few steps, we saw two men we knew well from the old days of the Khaderbhai Company. They crossed to the footpath near us.
Salar and Azim were street guys, who’d spent years on the lowest tier of Company condescension. While favoured sons died, they survived there in the shallows long enough to find higher positions in the new Khaled Company, desperate to replace its fallen soldiers.
They wore new Company clothes, and fidgeted with their new gold chains and bracelets, still finding the right place to carry the burden of obedience.
They’d known Karla since before my time with the Company, and liked her. They told her a scary-funny gangster story, because they knew she’d like it. She did, and responded with a scary-funny bad-girl story. They laughed, throwing their heads back, their gold necklaces catching the evening light.
‘So long, guys,’ I said. ‘Allah hafiz.’
‘Where you going?’ Salar asked.
‘Back to the bike, on Mohammed Ali Road.’
‘We’ll walk with you. There’s a short cut, through here. We’ll show you.’
‘We’re going this way,’ I said. ‘Might do some more shopping. Allah hafiz.’
‘Khuda hafiz,’ Azim replied, waving goodbye.
I didn’t want to walk anywhere with Khaled Company men, or any soldiers, from any Company. I didn’t want to reminisce. I didn’t even want to remember.
For the thousandth time, I thought about leaving the Island City with Karla, and setting up somewhere else on a remote beach. You can’t escape the Company in the city. The Company is the city. You can only escape the Company in a place where there’s nothing left to own.
We walked through thin crowds, and we were about to cross the cobbled entrance to a side alley, when screams ripped silken peace, and people ran panicked from the entrance to the alleyway.
I glanced at Karla, wanting to be somewhere else. We both knew, or suspected, that Salar and Azim must be involved. We’d known them for years, but Company street wars weren’t my problem any more, and I was ready to leave.
Karla wasn’t: she urged me forward, and we edged closer to look. A man came staggering out
of the alley and stumbled into me. It was Salar. He was bloody, all over. He’d been stabbed several times in the chest and stomach. He collapsed against me, and I held him in my arms.
I glanced past him and saw Azim, face down, and pulsing the last of his blood into the stones of the alley.
‘I’ll get a cab,’ Karla said, darting away.
Salar lifted his hand, with effort, and tugged at his gold neck-chain until it broke.
‘For my sister,’ he said, pressing it against me.
I put the chain in my pocket, and took a firm grip around his waist.
‘I can’t let you lie down, brother,’ I said. ‘I wish I could, but I’ll never get you up again in one piece, if I do. Karla’s got a taxi coming. Hold on, man.’
‘I’m done for, Lin. Leave me. Y’Allah, the pain!’
‘I don’t know how, but they missed your lungs, Salar. You’re still breathing air. You’re gonna make it, man. Just hold on.’
Karla arrived in two minutes, swinging the door of the taxi open. We bundled Salar into the back with me, while Karla gave instructions from the front seat.
I don’t know how much she paid the taxi driver, but he didn’t blink at the blood, and got us to GT Hospital in record time, driving against the flow of traffic.
At the hospital entrance, orderlies and nurses put Salar on a gurney, and wheeled him inside. I started to go with them into the hospital, but Karla stopped me.
‘You can’t go anywhere looking like that, my love,’ she said.
The shirt and T-shirt under my cut-off vest were smothered in blood. I took the vest off, but it only made the splash of blood across my T-shirt look worse.
‘To hell with it. We’ve gotta stay with Salar until the Company gets here. The guys who did this might try again, and we can’t call the cops to help.’
‘Just a minute,’ Karla said.
She stopped a lawyer, walking toward us briskly, his white court-collar stiff with presumptions and his client papers bunched against his arm to prevent escape.
‘I’ll give you ten thousand rupees for your jacket,’ Karla said, waving a fan of notes.
The lawyer looked at the money, squinted at her, and started emptying the pockets of his one-thousand-rupee jacket. Karla dressed me with crossed lapels, and a turned-up collar. She cleaned the smudges off, licking her fingers and wiping them over my face.
‘Let’s go see how Salar is doing,’ she said, leading me into the hospital.
We waited in a corridor, near the operating theatre. Black and white tiles, begging for a pattern unsquared, met grey-green walls showing low-tide marks from the hypnotic mops of tired cleaners. Function is servant or master, and wherever it rules, suffering sits in corridors purged of consideration.
‘Are you okay, kid?’
‘I’m good,’ she smiled. ‘You?’
‘I’m –’
Four young Khaled Company gangsters clamped along the corridor, pushing attitude. Their leader, Faaz-Shah, was a hothead, and for some reason it got hotter when he saw me.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he demanded, stopping a few paces away.
I stood up in front of Karla, my hand on a knife. She knew most of the older gangsters in the Company, but not many of the young volcanoes.
‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said.
Faaz-Shah hesitated, looking for something he couldn’t find in my eyes. I’d fought beside two of his older brothers, in battles with other gangs. And I’d fought beside Khaled, their new leader. I’d never fought beside Faaz-Shah.
‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ he said more softly. ‘What happened to Salar? Why are you here?’
‘Why weren’t you here?’ I asked. ‘How did you hear about it?’
‘We have people in the hospital,’ he said. ‘We have people everywhere.’
‘Not in the alley, where Azim and Salar got knifed.’
‘Azim?’
‘He was gone, bled-out, when I saw him.’
‘Where was this?’
They were hard young gangsters, the kind who always find a bad mood, no matter how hard you try to hide it, and they were angry. I was safe, because I was the guy who simply did the right thing, and sooner or later they’d know that. But none of them were safe, if they got angry enough to get mouthy with Karla.
‘Karla,’ I said, smiling her with me, ‘can you please find out if there’s some tea, somewhere?’
‘Be a pleasure,’ she said, smiling back mystery as she walked past the young gangsters.
‘It was the first open gully, on Mohammed Ali,’ I said, when Karla left. ‘Coming from the perfume bazaar, heading back to the city. I met them, just before it happened.’
‘You what?’
‘We were in the bazaar, and we ran across Salar and Azim. We talked, and we kept walking. They took a short cut, through the alleys. By the time we walked around to the open gully, it was all over. Salar fell into my arms. Someone was waiting for them.’
I opened the black jacket, showing the blood, and closed it again. They were abashed, as gangsters are, when they realise that they’re in a debt of honour.
‘We got him here in a taxi,’ I said, sitting down. ‘We’ve been waiting, to see if he’s okay, after surgery. You can join us, if you like. Karla’s bringing tea.’
‘We’ve got things to do,’ Faaz-Shah said.
‘We’ve also been waiting for someone from the Company to sit with Salar. He’s not safe here. Leave a man with him, Faaz-Shah.’
‘I need every man I’ve got. And you’re here. You’re still loyal to the Company, aren’t you?’
‘Which Company is it now?’
He laughed, and then stopped hard on a different thought.
‘I really do need all my men tonight. He’s family, you know.’
‘Salar?’
‘Yes. He’s an uncle of mine. His family’s on the way. I’d appreciate it, if you’d stay until they get here.’
‘Done. And keep this for him,’ I said, pulling the chain from my pocket. ‘He wants it to go to his sister, if he doesn’t make it.’
‘I’ll give it to her.’
He accepted the chain gingerly, as if he expected it to move in his hand, and then scrunched it into a pocket. He looked at me, his eyes floating on reluctant shores.
‘I owe you on this, Lin,’ he said.
‘You don’t.’
‘I do,’ he said, clenching his teeth.
‘Okay then, transfer the debt to Miss Karla. If you ever hear anything that might harm her, warn her about it, or me, and we’ll be square. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Khuda hafiz.’
‘Allah hafiz,’ I replied, watching them stamp out, shields of revenge in their eyes.
I was glad to be out. I was glad to be carrying the wounded, instead of wounding them, I guess, just as Concannon was glad to be burying them, instead of killing them. In that grey-green silence, the smell of disinfectant, bleached linen and bitter medicine was suddenly too medical, and my heart was beating fast.
For a few seconds, emotions running on habit had stamped out into the night with Faaz-Shah and the others, riding to war before we knew it was declared. All that fight and fear rushed back into me, as if I’d already fought a battle. And then I realised that I didn’t have to fight it. Not this time. Not ever again.
Chapter Ninety
I looked up from brutal thoughts and saw Karla, walking toward me slowly down the long hospital corridor. She had a man with her. He was a cleaner, dressed in the working clothes of a peon, or someone who does menial work. Karla’s face was brilliant with light, her smile a secret, waiting to be told.
She sat the man next to me.
‘You absolutely have to meet this man, and hear his story,’ Karla said. ‘Dev, meet Shantaram. Shantaram, meet Dev.’
&n
bsp; ‘Namaste,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Please tell him, Dev,’ Karla said, smiling at me.
‘But it is not a very entertaining story, and it is sad. Perhaps another time.’
He started to rise from the seat, but we eased him down gently again.
‘Please, Dev,’ Karla urged. ‘Just tell him, as you told it to me.’
‘But I could lose my job,’ he said uncertainly, ‘if I don’t return to my duties.’
‘Good,’ Karla said. ‘Because, when we leave here, you’re coming with us.’
He looked at me. I smiled back.
‘Whatever she says,’ I said.
‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘I have a shift to finish.’
‘First the story, please, Dev,’ Karla said. ‘Then we’ll finish at the start.’
‘Well, as I was telling you while we were waiting for the chai,’ he began, looking at his hands. ‘My name is Dev, and I am a sadhu.’
His head was shaved, and he wore no amulets or bracelets. Beyond his uniform, he was stripped clean. He was a very simple, lean man, with a cap on his head and bare feet.
His face was stronger than the man, though, and his eyes, when he raised them, still burned fires on beaches.
Shiva sadhus cover themselves with ashes from the crematoria, talk to ghosts, and summon demons, even if only in their own minds. The body language was submissive, but the face was indomitable.
‘I had long dreadlocks once,’ he mused. ‘They’re antennae, you know, for people who smoke. I never went without a smoke, with my dreads. Now, with shaved head, no stranger will share a glass of water with me.’
‘Why did you shave them off, Dev?’ I asked.
‘I shamed myself,’ he said. ‘I was at the peak of my powers. Lord Shiva walked step by step with me. Snakes could not bite me. I slept with them, in the forest. Leopards visited me, waking me with kisses. Scorpions lived in my hair, but never stung me. No man could look into the eyes of my penance without flinching.’
The Mountain Shadow Page 93