‘What did he tell you?’
‘Tell me?’ The phrase struck me as peculiar; it carried the hint that there were things he shouldn’t tell. ‘He was giving me some background on some of the people at Leopold’s. The Afghans, and the Iranians, and the Shiv Sainiks—or whatever they’re called—and the local mafia dons.’
She gave a wry little smile.
‘I wouldn’t take too much notice of what Didier says. He can be very superficial, especially when he’s being serious. He’s the kind of guy who gets right down to the skin of things, if you know what I mean. I told him once he’s so shallow that the best he can manage is a single entendre. The funny thing is, he liked it. I’ll say this for Didier, you can’t insult him.’
‘I thought you two were friends,’ I remarked, deciding not to repeat what Didier had said about her.
‘Friends … well, sometimes, I’m not really sure what friendship is. We’ve known each other for years. We used to live together once—did he tell you?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Yeah. For a year, when I first came to Bombay. We shared a crazy, fractured little apartment in the Fort area. The building was crumbling around us. Every morning we used to wake with plaster on our faces from the pregnant ceiling, and there were always new chunks of stone and wood and other stuff in the hallway. The whole building collapsed in the monsoon a couple of years ago, and a few people were killed. I walk that way sometimes, and look up at the hole in the sky where my bedroom used to be. I suppose you could say that we’re close, Didier and I. But friends’? Friendship is something that gets harder to understand, every damn year of my life. Friendship is like a kind of algebra test that nobody passes. In my worst moods, I think the best you can say is that a friend is anyone you don’t despise.’
Her tone was serious, but I allowed myself a gentle laugh.
‘That’s a bit strong, I think.’
She looked at me, frowning hard, but then she, too, laughed.
‘Maybe it is. I’m tired. I haven’t had enough sleep for the last few nights. I don’t mean to be hard on Didier. It’s just that he can be very annoying sometimes, you know? Did he say anything about me?’
‘He … he said that he thinks you’re beautiful.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes. He was talking about beauty in white people and black people, and he said Karla is beautiful.’
She raised her eyebrows, in mild and pleased surprise.
‘Well, I’ll take that as a significant compliment, even if he is an outrageous liar.’
‘I like Didier.’
‘Why?’ she asked quickly.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s his professionalism, I think. I like people who are expert at what they do. And there’s a sadness in him that … kind of makes sense to me. He reminds me of a few guys I know. Friends.’
‘At least he makes no secret of his decadence,’ she declared, and I was suddenly reminded of something Didier had told me about Karla, and the power of secrets. ‘Perhaps that’s what we really have in common, Didier and I—we both hate hypocrites. Hypocrisy is just another kind of cruelty. And Didier’s not cruel. He’s wild, but he’s not cruel. He’s been quiet, in the last while, but there were times when his passionate affairs were the scandal of the city, or at least of the foreigners who live here. A jealous lover, a young Moroccan boy, chased him down the Causeway with a sword one night. They were both stark naked—quite a shocking event in Bombay, and in the case of Didier, something of a spectacle, I can report. He ran into the Colaba police station, and they rescued him. They are very conservative about such things in India, but Didier has one rule—he never has any sex-involvement with Indians—and I think they respect that. A lot of foreigners come here just for the sex with very young Indian boys. Didier despises them, and he restricts himself to affairs with foreigners. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why he told you so much of other people’s business tonight. He was trying to seduce you, perhaps, by impressing you with his knowledge of dark business and dark people. Oh, hello! Katzeli! Hey, where did you come from?’
We’d come upon a cat that was squatting on the sea wall to eat from a parcel someone had discarded there. The thin, grey animal hunkered down and scowled, growling and whining at the same time, but it allowed Karla to stroke its back as it lowered its head to the food once more. It was a wizened and scabrous specimen with one ear chewed to the shape of a rosebud, and bare patches on its sides and back where unhealed sores were exposed. I found it amazing that such a feral, emaciated creature should permit itself to be petted by a stranger, and that Karla would want to do such a thing. Even more astounding, it seemed to me then, was that the cat had such a keen appetite for vegetables and rice, cooked in a sauce of whole, very hot chillies.
‘Oh, look at him,’ she cooed. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’
‘Well …’
‘Don’t you admire his courage, his determination to survive?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t like cats very much. I don’t mind dogs, but cats …’
‘But you must love cats! In a perfect world, all the people would be like cats are, at two o’clock in the afternoon.’
I laughed.
‘Did anyone ever tell you you’ve got a very peculiar way of putting things?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, turning to me quickly.
Even in the streetlight I could see that her face was flushed, almost angry. I didn’t know then that the English language was a gentle obsession with her: that she studied and wrote and worked hard to compose those clever fragments of her conversation.
‘Just that you have a unique way of expressing yourself. Don’t get me wrong, I like it. I like it very much. It’s like … well … take yesterday, for instance, when we were all talking about truth. Capital T Truth. Absolute truth. Ultimate truth. And is there any truth, is anything true? Everybody had something to say about it—Didier, Ulla, Maurizio, even Modena. Then you said, The truth is a bully we all pretend to like. I was knocked out by it. Did you read that in a book, or hear it in a play, or a movie?’
‘No. I made it up myself.’
‘Well, that’s what I mean. I don’t think I could repeat anything that the others said, and be sure of getting it exactly right. But that line of yours—I’ll never forget it.’
‘Do you agree with it?’
‘What—that the truth is a bully we all pretend to like?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, I don’t, not at all. But I love the idea, and the way you put it.’
Her half-smile held my stare. We were silent for a few moments, and just as she began to look away I spoke again to hold her attention.
‘Why do you like Biarritz?’
‘What?’
‘The other day, the day before yesterday, you said that Biarritz is one of your favourite places. I’ve never been there, so I don’t know, one way or the other. But I’d like to know why you like it so much.’
She smiled, wrinkling her nose in a quizzical expression that might’ve been scornful or pleased.
‘You remember that? Then, I guess I better tell you. Biarritz … how to explain it … I think it’s the ocean. The Atlantic. I love Biarritz in the wintertime, when the tourists are gone, and the sea is so frightening that it turns people to stone. You see them standing on the deserted beaches, and staring at the sea—statues, scattered along the beach between the cliffs, frozen stiff by the terror they feel when they look at the ocean. It’s not like other oceans—not like the warm Pacific or the Indian. The Atlantic there, in winter, is really unforgiving, and ruthlessly cruel. You can feel it calling to you. You know it wants to drag you out and pull you under. It’s so beautiful, I just burst into tears the first time I really looked at it. And I wanted to go to it. I wanted to let myself go out and under the big, angry waves. It’s the scariest thing. But the people in Biarritz, they’re the most tolerant and easy-going people in Europe, I think. Nothing freaks them out. Nothing is too ove
r-the-top. It’s kind of weird—in most holiday places, the people are angry and the sea is calm. In Biarritz, it’s the other way around.’
‘Do you think you’ll go back there one day—to stay, I mean?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘If I ever leave here, for good, it’ll mean going back to the States. I grew up there, after my parents died. And I’d like to go back, some day. I think I love it there, most of all. There’s something so confident and open-hearted and … and brave about America, and the American people. I don’t feel American—at least, I don’t think I do—but I’m comfortable with them, if you know what I mean, more than I am with any other people, anywhere.’
‘Tell me about the others,’ I asked, wanting to keep her talking.
‘The others?’ she asked, frowning suddenly.
‘The crew at Leopold’s. Didier and the others. Tell me about Letitia, to start with. How do you know her?’
She relaxed, and let her eyes roam the shadows on the far side of the street. Still thinking, still considering, she lifted her gaze to the night sky. The blue-white light from a street lamp melted to liquid on her lips and in the spheres of her large eyes.
‘Lettie lived in Goa for a while,’ she began, affection playing in her voice. ‘She came to India for the usual mix—parties and spiritual highs. She found the parties, and she enjoyed them, I think. Lettie loves a party. But she never had much luck with the spiritual side of things. She went back to London—twice in the same year—but then she came back to India for one last try at the soul thing. She’s on a soul mission. She talks tough, but she’s a very spiritual girl. I think she’s the most spiritual of all of us, really.’
‘How does she live? I don’t mean to pry—it’s what I was saying before, I just want to learn how people make a living here. How foreigners get by, I mean.’
‘She’s an expert with gems—gemstones and jewels. She works on a commission basis for some of the foreign buyers. It was Didier who got her the job. He has contacts everywhere in Bombay.’
‘Didier?’ I smiled, genuinely surprised. ‘I thought that they hated each other—well, not hate exactly. I thought they couldn’t stand each other.’
‘Oh, they annoy one another, sure. But there’s a real friendship there. If anything bad happened to one of them, the other would be devastated.’
‘How about Maurizio?’ I asked, trying to keep my tone even. The tall Italian was too handsome, too confident, and I envied him for what I saw as his deeper knowledge of Karla, and his friendship with her. ‘What’s his story?’
‘His story? I don’t know what his story is,’ she replied, frowning again. ‘His parents died, leaving him a lot of money. He spent it, and I think he developed something of a talent for spending money.’
‘Other people’s money?’ I asked. I might’ve seemed too eager for that to be true, because she answered me with a question.
‘Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him?’
‘Yeah. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they’ll both drown, and the scorpion says that he’s a scorpion, and it’s his nature to sting.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, nodding slowly until the frown left her brow. ‘That’s Maurizio. And if you know that, he’s not a problem, because you just don’t offer to carry him across the river. Do you know what I mean?’
I’d been in prison. I knew exactly what she meant. I nodded, and asked her about Ulla and Modena.
‘I like Ulla,’ she answered quickly, turning that half-smile on me again. ‘She’s crazy and unreliable, but I have a feeling for her. She was a rich girl, in Germany, and she played with heroin until she got a habit. Her family cut her off, so she came to India—she was with a bad guy, a German guy, a junkie like her, who put her to work in a very tough place. A horrible place. She loved the guy. She did it for him. She would’ve done anything for him. Some women are like that. Some loves are like that. Most loves are like that, from what I can see. Your heart starts to feel like an overcrowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out—your friends, everyone you used to know. And it’s still not enough. The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it. I’ve seen that happen to a lot of girls here. I think that’s why I’m sick of love.’
I couldn’t tell if she was talking about herself, or pointing the words at me. Either way, they were sharp, and I didn’t want to hear them.
‘And how about Kavita? Where does she fit in?’
‘Kavita’s great! She’s a freelancer—you know that—a freelance writer. She wants to be a journalist, and I think she’ll get there. I hope she gets there. She’s bright and honest and gutsy. She’s beautiful, too. Don’t you think she’s a gorgeous girl?’
‘Sure,’ I agreed, recalling the honey-coloured eyes, the full and shapely lips, and the long, expressive fingers. ‘She’s a pretty girl. But they’re all good-looking people, I think. Even Didier, in his crumpled-up way, has got a touch of the Lord Byron about him. Lettie’s a lovely girl. Her eyes are always laughing—they’re a real ice-blue, her eyes, aren’t they? Ulla looks like a doll, with those big eyes and big lips on such a round face. But it’s a pretty doll’s face. Maurizio’s handsome, like a magazine model, and Modena’s handsome in a different way, like a bullfighter or something. And you’re … you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.’
There, I’d said it. And even in the shock of speaking the thought out loud, I wondered if she’d understood, if she’d pierced my words about their beauty, and hers, to find the misery that inspired them: the misery that an ugly man feels in every conscious minute of love.
She laughed—a good, deep, wide-mouthed laugh—and seized my arm impulsively, pulling me along the footpath. Just then, as if drawn from the shadows by her laughter, there was a clattering rattle of noise as a beggar, riding on a small wooden platform with metal ball-bearing wheels, rolled off the footpath on the opposite side of the street. He pushed himself forward with his hands until he reached the centre of the deserted road, wheeling to a stop with a dramatic pirouette. His piteously thin mantis-legs were folded and tucked beneath him on the platform, which was a piece of wood no bigger than a folded newspaper. He wore a boy’s school uniform of khaki shorts and a powder-blue shirt. Although he was a man in his twenties, the clothes were too big for him.
Karla called out, greeting him by name, and we stopped opposite him. They spoke for some time in Hindi. I stared across the ten metres that separated us, fascinated by the man’s hands. They were huge hands, as wide across the back, from knuckle to knuckle, as his face. In the streetlight I could see that they were thickly padded on the fingers and palms like the paws of a bear.
‘Good night!’ he called out in English, after a minute. He lifted one hand, first to his forehead and then to his heart, in a delicate gesture of consummate gallantry. With another swift, show-off’s pirouette, he propelled himself forward along the road, gaining speed as he rolled down the gentle slope to the Gateway Monument.
We watched him out of sight, and then Karla pulled at my arm, leading me along the path once more. I allowed myself to be led. I allowed myself to be drawn by the soft pleading of the waves, and the roulade of her voice; by the black sky, and the darker night of her hair; by the sea-tree-stone smell of the sleeping street, and the perfume sublime on her warm skin. I allowed myself to be drawn into her life, and the life of the city. I walked her home. I said good night. And I was singing quietly to myself as I went back along the silent brood of streets to my hotel.
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT YOU’RE SAYING is that we’re finally going to get down to the real deal.’
‘Real will be full, baba,’ Prabaker assured me, ‘and deal will be plen
ty also. Now you will see it the really city. Usually, I am never taking the tourists to these places. They are not liking it, and I am not liking their not liking. Or maybe sometimes they are liking it too much, in these places, and I am liking that even less, isn’t it? You must have it a good heads, to like these things, and you must be having a good hearts, to not like them too much. Like you, Linbaba. You are my good friend. I knew it very well, on that first day, when we were drinking the whisky, in your room. Now my Bombay, with your good heads and your good hearts, you will see it all.’
We were riding in a taxi along Mahatma Gandhi Road past Flora Fountain and towards Victoria Station. It was an hour before noon, and the swash of traffic that coursed through that stone canyon was swollen by large numbers of runners pushing tiffin carts. The runners collected lunches from homes and apartments, and placed them in tin cylinders called jalpaans, or tiffins. They pushed huge trays of the tiffins on long wooden carts, six men and more to a cart. Through the heavy metal-traffic of buses, trucks, scooters, and cars, they made deliveries at offices and businesses all over the city. None but the men and women who operated the service knew exactly how it was done: how barely literate men evolved the bafflingly complex system of symbols, colours, and key numbers to mark and identify the cylinders; how, day after day, hundreds of thousands of those identical containers swept through the city on their wooden axles, oiled with sweat, and reached the right man or woman, among millions, every time; and how all that was achieved at a cost measured in cents rather than dollars. Magic, the trick that connects the ordinary to the impossible, was the invisible river that ran through every street and beating heart in Bombay in those years, and nothing, from the postal service to the pleading of beggars, worked without a measure of it.
‘What number that bus, Linbaba? Quickly, tell it.’
‘Just a second.’ I hesitated, peering out of the half-open window of the taxi and trying to read the curlicue numbers on the front of a red, double-decker bus that had stopped opposite us momentarily. ‘It’s, ah, it’s a one-zero-four, isn’t it?’