Shantaram (122 page)

I waved, and nodded, but I couldn't give the answering call to the slogan. I didn't know how much truth or courage was in my decision to join them on their mission to Sri Lanka. Not much, it seemed to me, as I rode away from them, from all of them, and surrendered to the warm night, and the press and pause of traffic.

A blood-red moon was rising from the sea as I reached the Back Bay road leading to Nariman Point. I parked the bike beside a cold-drink stall, locked it, and threw the keys to the manager, who was a friend from the slum. With the moon behind me, I set out along the footpath beside a long curve of sandy beach where fishermen often repaired their nets and battered boats. There was a festival on that night in the Sassoon Dock area. The celebrations had drawn most of the local people from the huts and shelters on the beach. The road where I walked was almost deserted.

And then I saw her. She was sitting on the edge of an old fishing boat that was half-buried on the beach. Only the prow and a few metres of the long boat's gunnels protruded from the surrounding waves of sand. She was wearing a long, salwar top over loose pants. Her knees were drawn up, and she was resting her chin on her arms as she stared out at the dark water.

"This is why I like you, you know," I said, sitting down beside her on the rail of the beached fishing boat.

"Hello, Lin," she replied, smiling, her green eyes as dark as the water. "I'm glad to see you. I thought you weren't coming."

"Your message sounded kind of... urgent. I nearly didn't get it.

It was just lucky that I ran into Didier on his way to the airport, and he told me."

"Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting," she murmured.

"Fuck you, Karla," I replied, laughing.

"Old habits," she grinned, "die hard-and lie harder."

Her eyes moved across my features for a moment, as if she was searching a map for a familiar reference point. Her smile slowly faded.

"I'm going to miss Didier."

"Me, too," I muttered, thinking that he was probably in the air already, and on his way to Italy. "But I think he'll be back before too long."

"Why?"

"I put the Zodiac Georges in his apartment, to look after it."

"Ooooh!" she winced, making a perfect kiss of her perfect mouth.

"Yeah. If that doesn't bring him back quick, nothing will. You know how he loves that apartment."

She didn't answer, but her stare tightened in the intensity of her concentration.

"Khaled's here, in India," she remarked flatly, watching my eyes.

"Where?"

"In Delhi-well, near Delhi, actually."

"When?"

"The report came in two days ago. I had it checked. I think it's him."

"What report?"

She looked away, towards the sea, and breathed a long, slow sigh.

"Jeet has access to all the wire services. One of them sent a report about a new spiritual leader named Khaled Ansari, who walked all the way from Afghanistan, and was pulling in big crowds of followers wherever he went. When I saw it, I asked Jeet to check it out for me. His people sent a description, and it fits."

"Wow... thank God... thank God."

"Yeah, maybe," she murmured. Something of the old mischief and mystery flared in her eyes.

"And you're sure it's him?"

"Sure enough to go there myself," she answered, looking at me once more.

"Do you know where he is-now, I mean?"

"Not exactly, but I think I know where he's going." "Where?"

"Varanasi. Khaderbhai's teacher, Idriss, lives there. He's very old now, but he still teaches there."

"Khaderbhai's teacher?" I asked, stunned to think that in all the hundreds of hours I'd spent with Khader, listening to his philosophy lectures, he'd never mentioned the name.

"Yes. I met him once, right at the start, when I first came to India, with Khader. I was... I don't know... I guess you'd call it a nervous breakdown. There was this plane, going to Singapore.

I don't even know how I got on it. And I broke down-just, kind of, cracked up. And Khader, he was on the same plane. And he put his arm around me. I told him everything... absolutely... everything. And next thing, I'm in this cave with a giant Buddha statue and this teacher named Idriss-Khader's teacher."

There was a pause while she let those memories pull her into the past, but then she shook herself free, and back into the moment.

"I think that's where Khaled is going-to see Idriss. The old guru fascinated him. He was obsessed about meeting him. I don't know why he never got around to it then, but I think that's where he's headed now. Or maybe he's already there. He used to ask me about him all the time. Idriss taught Khader everything he knew about Resolution theory, and-"

"About what?"

"Resolution theory. That's what Khader called it, but he said it was Idriss who gave it that name. It was his philosophy of life, Khader's philosophy, about how the universe is always moving toward-"

"Complexity," I interrupted. "I know. I talked about it a lot with him. But he never called it Resolution theory. And he never talked about Idriss."

"That's funny, because I think he loved Idriss, you know, like a father. Once, he called him the teacher of all teachers. And I know he wanted to retire up there, not far from Varanasi, with Idriss. Anyway, that's where I'm going to start looking for Khaled."

"When?"

"Tomorrow."

"O-kay,"
I responded, avoiding her eyes. "Is this... is this anything to do with... well, you and Khaled, from before?"

"You can be such a fuck sometimes, Lin, you know that?"

I looked up sharply, but I didn't respond. "Did you know Ulla's in town?" she asked after a while.

"No. When did she get in? Have you seen her?"

"That's just it. I got a message from her. She was at the President, and she wanted to see me right away."

"Did you go?"

"I didn't want to," she mused. "If you got the message, would you have gone?"

"I guess," I answered, staring out at the bay where moonlight crested on the serpent curves of a gently rolling sea. "But not for her. For Modena. I saw him a while ago. He's still nuts about her."

"I saw him tonight," she said quietly.

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Just before. With her. It freaked me out. I went to the hotel and up to her room. There was another guy there, a guy named Ramesh-"

"Modena told me about him. They're friends."

"So, he opens the door, and I walk in, and I see Ulla, sitting on the bed, resting her back against the wall. And Modena, he's lying across her legs, with his head back near her shoulder. That face..."

"I know. It's a hell of a mess."

"It was weird. It was freaking me out, the whole scene. I'm not sure why. And Ulla, she tells me she inherited a lot of money from her father-they're very rich, you know, Ulla's family. They practically own the town in Germany where she was born, but they cut her off cold when she was heavy into drugs. She never got a thing from them for years-not until her father died. So when she inherited the money, she got this idea to come back and look for Modena. She felt guilty, she said, and she couldn't live with herself. And she found him. He was waiting for her. And they were together, when I went to see her, like some... some kind of a love story."

"Damn, if he wasn't right about her," I said softly. "He told me - he knew she'd come back for him, and she really did. I never believed it for a second. I thought he was just crazy."

"The way they were sitting together, with him across her legs.

You know the Pieta? Michelangelo? It looked exactly like that. It was so strange. It really shook me up. Some things are so weird they make you angry, you know?"

"What did she want?" "What do you mean?"

"Why did she call you to the hotel?"

"Oh, I get it," she said, with a little smile. "Ulla always wants something."

I raised an eyebrow, returning her stare, but said nothing.

"She wanted me to arrange a passport for Modena. He's been here for years. He's an overstayer. And he's got a few problems with the Spanish police, under his own name. He needs a new passport to get back into Europe. He could pass for Italian. Or maybe Portuguese."

"Leave it to me," I said calmly, thinking that I knew the reason, at last, why she'd asked me to meet with her. "I'll get on it tomorrow. I know how to get in touch with him, for photos and whatever-although there'd be no mistaking his face at a customs check. I'll fix it."

"Thanks," she said, meeting my eyes with such fervent intensity that my heart began to beat hard against my chest. It is always a fool's mistake, Didier once said to me, to be alone with someone you shouldn't have loved. "What are you doing, Lin?"

"Sitting here with you," I replied, smiling.

"No, I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to stay in Bombay?"

"Why?"

"I was going to ask you... if you want to come with me, to find Khaled."

I laughed, but she didn't laugh with me.

"That's the second-best offer I've had today."

"The second best?" she drawled. "What was the first?"

"Someone invited me to go to the war, in Sri Lanka."

She clamped her lips tightly around an angry response, but I held my hands up in surrender, and spoke quickly.

"I'm just kidding, Karla, just kidding. Take it easy. I mean, it's true about the invitation to go to Sri Lanka, but I'm just ... you know."

She relaxed, smiling again.

"I'm out of practice. It's been a long time, Lin."

"So... why the invitation now?"

"Why not?"

"That's not good enough, Karla, and you know it."

"Okay," she sighed, glancing at me and then looking away to follow the breeze weaving wave-patterns on the sand. "I guess I was hoping to find something like... like what we had in Goa."

"What about... Jeet?" I asked, ignoring the opening she'd given me. "How does he feel about you going off to find Khaled?"

"We lead separate lives. We do what we want. We go where we want."

"Sounds... breezy," I offered, struggling to find a word that wasn't a lie, but wouldn't offend. "Didier made it sound more serious than that-told me the guy asked you to marry him."

"He did," she said flatly.

"And?"

"And what?"

"And will you-marry him, I mean?"

"Yes. I think I will."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

"Don't start that again."

"Sorry," she said, sighing through a tired smile. "I've been running with a different crowd. Why marry Jeet? He's a nice guy, he's healthy, and he's loaded. And, hey, I think I'll do a better job of spending his money than he does."

"So what you're telling me is that you're ready to die for this love."

She laughed and then turned to me, suddenly serious again. Her eyes, pale with moonlight; her eyes, the green of water lilies after the rain; her long hair, black as forest river stones; her hair that was like holding the night itself in the wrap of my fingers; her lips, starred with incandescent light; lips of camellia-petal softness warmed with secret whispers. Beautiful.

And I loved her. I loved her still so much, so hard, but with no heat or heart at all. That falling love, that helpless, dreaming, soaring love, was gone. And I suddenly knew in those seconds of ... cold adoration, I suppose... that the power she'd once held over me was also gone. Or, more than that, her power had moved into me, and had become mine. I held all the cards. And then I wanted to know. It wasn't good enough to just accept what had happened between us. I wanted to know everything.

"Why didn't you tell me, Karla?"

She gave an anguished little sigh, and stretched her legs out to bury her bare feet in the sand. Watching the small cascades of soft sand spill over her moving feet, she spoke in a dull, flat tone, as if she was composing a letter-or recalling a letter, perhaps, that she'd written once and never sent to me. "I knew you were going to ask me, and I think that's why I've waited so long to get in touch with you. I let people know that I was around, and I asked after you, but I didn't do anything, until today, because... I knew you'd ask me."

"If it makes it any easier," I interrupted, sounding harder than I'd intended, "I know you burned down Madame Zhou's place-"

"Did Ghani tell you that?"

"Ghani? No. I figured that one out myself."

"Ghani did it for me-he arranged it. That was the last time I spoke to him."

"The last time I spoke to him was about an hour before he died."

"Did he tell you anything about her?" she asked, perhaps hoping that there were some parts of it she wouldn't have to tell me.

"About Madame Zhou? No. He didn't say a word."

"He told me... a lot," she sighed. "He filled in a few gaps. I think it was Ghani who tipped me over the edge with her. He told me she had Rajan following you, and she only pulled her strings with the cops to get you arrested when Rajan told her you made love to me. I always hated her, but that did it. I just... it was one thing too many. She couldn't let me have it, that time with you. She wouldn't let me have it. So I called in some dues with Ghani, and he arranged it. The riot. It was a great fire. I lit some of it myself."

She broke off, staring at her feet in the sand, and clamped her jaw shut. Reflected lights gleamed in her eyes. For a moment I let myself imagine how those green eyes must've blazed with firelight as she'd watched the Palace burn.

"I know about the States, too," I said after a while. "I know what happened there."

She looked at me quickly, reading my eyes.

"Lisa," she said. I didn't answer. Then, knowing instantly, as women do, what she couldn't possibly know, she smiled. "That's good-Lisa and you. You and Lisa. That's... very good."

My expression didn't change, and her smile faded as she looked down at the sand once more.

"Did you kill anyone, Lin?"

"When?" I asked, not sure if she was talking about Afghanistan or the much-smaller war against Chuha and his gang. "Ever."

"No."

"I'm glad," she breathed, sighing again. "I wish..."

She was silent again for a while. From somewhere beyond the deserted beach we heard the sounds of the festival: happy, roaring laughter rising over the blare of a brass band. Much closer, ocean music gushed onto the soft assenting shore, and the palms above us trembled in the cooling breeze.