Karla never cheated at any game, and Gemini knew it.
‘You’ll have to clear it with them first,’ Gemini said, nodding at the nurses. ‘They’ve got me on a pretty tight rein.’
‘Why don’t we start?’ Karla replied, winking at the nurses. ‘And if they get worried, we’ll stop. Where are the cards?’
‘In the top drawer of the cabinet, just beside you.’
I opened the drawer. There was a deck of cards, a cheap watch, a small bell from a charm bracelet, a war medal that might’ve been his father’s, a cross on a chain, and a wallet worn thin with patient penury.
Karla pulled three chairs close to the bed. I gave her the cards, and she shuffled them, spilling out hands on the spare chair. She held Gemini’s hand up to the plastic shield.
The nurses checked the hand as closely as Gemini did.
‘We’ll call your cards one-to-five, your left to your right,’ Karla said. ‘Anything you want to throw, call it by number. When you have your hand, call it by number, and I’ll rearrange it for you, okay?’
‘Got it,’ Gemini said. ‘I sit pat.’
One of the nurses made a noise, clicking her tongue against her teeth. Gemini turned to her. Both nurses were shaking their heads. Gemini turned back again.
‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘throw one and four, and give me two cards, please, Karla.’
The nurses nodded. Karla withdrew the unwanted cards, dealt two more into his hand, and showed them to him. They must’ve been good cards, because Gemini and the nurses poker-faced us.
‘I bet fifty,’ Gemini said. ‘Fight it out and stretch it out for me, Karla. I’ve got nowhere else to be, but in this game.’
‘I’ll see your fifty, and raise you a hundred,’ Karla said, ‘if you’ve got the stomach tubes for it.’
‘I’m out,’ I said, throwing in my cards, and leaving the duel to Karla and Gemini.
‘I’m so ready for this,’ Gemini laughed, and coughed. ‘Do your worst.’
‘I only play to win, Gemini. You know that.’
‘You remember that night,’ Gemini said, his smile a sunset in the valley of yesterday. ‘The housewarming party we threw, me and Scorpio? Remember that night?’
‘Great party,’ I said.
‘Good fun,’ Karla added.
‘That was a great party. The best ever. That was the time of my life.’
‘You’ll pull through,’ Karla said. ‘There’s plenty of pavement left in you, Gemini. Money time. Put up or shut up, street guy.’
We did the best we could for Gemini, and with a little help from his nurses he managed to cheat, for old times’ sake, every time we played.
We visited often, but at the end of every visit, away from Gemini’s room, we argued with Scorpio that his Zodiac twin should be in a hospital. Every time, Scorpio refused. Love has its own logic, just as it has its own foolishness.
In another room of life and death, across the city, Farzad, the young forger, responded to treatment. As the blood clot on his brain dissolved, he recovered his speech and movement.
A tremor that twitched his left eye closed, from time to time, reminded him that making cheeky remarks to vicious men ends viciously. The mysterious disappearance of Lightning Dilip reminded him, with a happier smile, that no-one escapes karma.
The three families shared the treasure, leaving a portion in a collective account to pay for the redecoration of their combined homes. They retained the domed space as the common area it had been, but took down the scaffolding, one freshly painted or remodelled section at a time, revealing the small basilica that it had become in the search.
Karla liked the scatter of catwalks, reaching three floors above us, and she liked the happy mix of Parsis, Hindus and Muslims even more.
While I went through paperwork with Arshan, once a week, bringing the illegal documents I’d created for him into line with his newly legal ones, Karla worked on the scaffolding with the families, paintbrush or power drill in hand.
She was a river, not a stone, and every day was another curve in tomorrow’s plain. She was pulled from a family she loved, and that loved her, she thought, until they took the word of a man, a friend and neighbour, who raped her. Years later, when she killed the rapist and went on the run, she severed every connection to her own life.
She was runaway tough, a dancing cat, a green witch, and safe from everything but herself, like me.
She used the money she’d made on the stock market to hire people, new friends and not-quite strangers, giving them office space she’d rented in the Amritsar hotel. She was gathering a new family around her, as so many in the old family she’d found in Bombay left the Island City, or died, or were dying, like Gemini George.
I didn’t know how much of the gathering she did at the Amritsar hotel was considered, and how much was unconscious instinct. But when she worked with the three families in the treasure-hunters’ palace, she settled quickly and happily into their routine, and I saw the hunger for it, in both of us: the desire that had matured into need.
The word family is derived from the word famulus, meaning a servant, and in its early usage, familia, it literally meant the servants of a household. In its essence, the longing for family, and the ravenousness that the loss of family creates in us, isn’t just for belonging: it’s for the grace that abides in serving those we love.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
It was a season of change, and the Island City seemed to be sprucing itself up for a parade that hadn’t been called. Road dividers wore gleaming new coats, painted by men who risked their lives at every stroke. Shops redecorated, and shoppers redecorated with them. New signs announced old privilege on every corner. And beloved mould, nature’s comment on our plans, was scraped from buildings and painted over.
‘Why don’t you like the new makeover?’ a friend who owned a restaurant asked me, staring up at his freshly painted enterprise from the pavement.
‘I liked the old makeover. Your paint job is dandy, but I liked the one made by the last four monsoons.’
‘Why?’
‘I like things that don’t resist nature.’
‘You’ve gotta keep up with the times, man,’ he said, holding his breath as he entered his renovated restaurant, because it was impossible to breathe and stay conscious at the same time, so close to the drying paint.
Fashion is the business end of art, and even Ahmed’s House of Style finally succumbed to the tyranny of assimilation. His hand-painted sign was corporatised into the stigmata of avarice, a logo. Straight razors and angry bristle brushes were gone, replaced by a selection of hair-care chemicals that signs assured us hadn’t been tested on baby rabbits, and wouldn’t blind or kill the people who used them.
Even the aftershave, Ambrosia de Ahmed, had vanished, but I was lucky enough to arrive in time to save the mirror, starred with pictures of Ahmed’s free haircuts, each one like the death photo of an outlaw, murdered by justice.
‘Not the mirror!’ I said, stopping small men with big hammers from smashing it off the wall.
‘Salaam aleikum, Lin,’ Ahmed said. ‘The whole place is being renovated, for Ahmed’s New House of Style.’
‘Wa aleikum salaam. Not the mirror!’
I had my back to the mirror, my arms wide to stop the hammers. Karla was standing beside Ahmed, her arms folded, a cheeky smile playing in the garden of her eyes.
‘The mirror has to go, Lin,’ Ahmed said. ‘It doesn’t fit with the new look.’
‘This mirror goes with every look,’ I protested.
‘Not with this look,’ Ahmed said, sliding a brochure from a pile, and handing it to me.
I looked the picture over, and handed it back.
‘It looks like a place to eat sushi,’ I said. ‘People can’t argue politics and insult each other in a place like that, Ahmed, even with the mirr
or.’
‘New policy,’ he said. ‘No insults. No politics, religion or sex.’
‘Are you mad, Ahmed? Censorship, in a barber shop?’
I looked at Karla, and she was having a pretty good time.
‘Come on,’ I pleaded. ‘There has to be at least one place where nobody kisses anybody on the ass.’
Ahmed gave me a stern look.
It wasn’t his own stern look: it was the stern look on a handsome face beneath a pompadour haircut, in a catalogue of cuts and styles for the New House of Style.
I flipped through the pictures, knowing that Ahmed was probably proud of it, because he’d illegally included photos of movie stars and prominent businessmen to give the collection currency.
I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but for me the catalogue was the wrong set of victims.
‘You can’t break the mirror, Ahmed.’
‘Will you sell it to me, exactly as it is?’ Karla asked.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, Ahmed. Is it for sale?’
‘It would take me some time, to clean off the pictures,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘I’d like it with the pictures, if you don’t mind, Ahmed. It’s perfect as it is.’
I love you, Karla, I thought.
‘Very well, Miss Karla. Would, say, a thousand rupees, including transport and installation, be acceptable to you?’
‘It would,’ Karla smiled, handing him the money. ‘I’ve got a free wall in my place, and I’ve been trying to think what to put on it. If your men can remove it carefully, and set it up for me again at the Amritsar hotel today, I’d be much obliged.’
‘Done,’ Ahmed said, signalling the hammer-men to stand down. ‘I’ll walk you out.’
On the street, Ahmed looked left and right to make sure that no-one could hear, and leaned close.
‘I will still do house calls,’ he whispered. ‘Strictly off the books, of course, and top secret. I don’t want people thinking I’m not wholehearted, in the New House of Style.’
‘Now, that’s good news,’ I said.
‘So,’ Karla whispered, ‘if we were to gather a group of argumentative, very insulting men at our place, you’d be happy to come by and create Ahmed’s Old House of Style?’
‘You’ve already got the mirror,’ Ahmed smiled. ‘And I will really miss the dangerous discussions, in the New House of Style.’
‘Done,’ Karla said, shaking hands with him.
Ahmed looked at me, frowned, and straightened my collar so that it stood up at the back of my neck.
‘When are you going to buy a jacket with sleeves in it, Lin?’
‘When you start selling them at the New House of Style,’ I said. ‘Allah hafiz.’
‘Salaam, salaam,’ he laughed.
We rode away, and then Karla told me that the mirror was my second birthday present, reminding me, again, that it was my birthday, which I’d happily forgotten.
‘Please don’t tell anyone else,’ I called over my shoulder.
‘I know,’ she called back. ‘You like celebrating other people’s birthdays, and forgetting your own. Your secret’s safe with me.’
‘I love you, Karla. I was thinking that, just before. And thanks, for the mirror. You really got me there.’
‘I always get you there.’
We had more time to get one another, and ride and share a drink and eat meals together, because I sold my money-change operation to Jagat, for the twenty-five per cent he was already giving me. He managed the racket better than I did, and earned more money, respect and discipline from the shopkeeper changers. The fact that a year or so before he ran my bing he’d cut the little finger off a thief who stole from him added a certain sting to his slap.
I couldn’t visit Half-Moon Auntie in the fish market again, because Karla recruited her.
‘You want me to run your books?’ Half-Moon Auntie asked.
‘Who knows more about keeping people’s money safe than you do, Half-Moon Auntie?’ Karla said, facing pointed quarters of the moon.
‘That’s true,’ Half-Moon Auntie replied, considering. ‘But it could be a big job.’
‘Not that big,’ Karla said. ‘We only keep one set of books.’
‘I am accustomed to my regular visitors,’ Half-Moon Auntie said, leaning forward and beginning an orbital drift toward half-moon.
‘What you do behind your closed door is your business,’ Karla said. ‘What you do when the door is open is our business. If you’re interested, I have a friend, named Randall, who has a limousine. It’s parked below my building, most of the time.’
‘A limousine,’ Half-Moon Auntie said thoughtfully.
‘With blackout windows, and a long mattress in the back.’
‘I will consider it,’ Half-Moon Auntie replied, lifting one foot effortlessly behind her head.
And a few days later she considered her way into an apartment office, under our rooms at the Amritsar hotel, where Karla had rented the whole floor.
Half-Moon Auntie’s office was next to two others, already painted and furnished. One room bore the title Blue Hijab Marriage Counselling Services. The Muslim communist, or communist Muslim, had reunited with Mehmu earlier than expected, and she’d called Karla, asking if the offer of a partnership was still open.
‘She’s not here, yet,’ I said, when the brass sign was attached to the door.
‘She will be,’ Karla smiled. ‘Inshallah.’
‘What’s the third office for?’
‘Surprises,’ she purred. ‘You have no idea what surprises I have in store for you, Shantaram.’
‘Can you surprise me with dinner? I’m starving.’
We were having dinner in the front garden of a Colaba Back Bay bistro, when we heard shouting from the street, a few steps away.
A car had stopped beside a man walking on the road. The men in the car were shouting for money he owed them. Two of the men got out of the car.
As we looked at the commotion, I saw that the man was Kesh, the Memory Man. He had his hands over his head as the two thugs began to hit him.
Karla and I got up from the table and joined Kesh. We made enough noise for them to get back in the car, and drive away.
Karla helped Kesh to sit with us, at the table.
‘A glass of water, please!’ she called to the waiter. ‘Are you alright, Kesh?’
‘I’m okay, Miss Karla,’ he said, rubbing a knot of bad debt on the top of his head. ‘I’ll go, now.’
He stood to leave, but we pulled him back into his chair.
‘Have dinner with us, Kesh,’ Karla said. ‘You can test your memory against ours. You’re pretty good, but my money’s on us.’
‘I really shouldn’t –’
‘You really should,’ I said, waving the waiter to our table.
Kesh looked at the menu carefully, closed it and made his choices.
‘The zucchini, black olive and crushed artichoke paste risotto,’ the waiter repeated. ‘The iceberg, seasoned with cracked pepper, ginger and pistachio sauce, and a tiramisu.’
‘You’re incorrect,’ Kesh said. ‘The cracked pepper, ginger and pistachio sauce is with the rocket salad, which is number seventy-seven on your menu. The iceberg is with lemon-garlic, chilli pepper and walnut-avocado sauce, which is number seventy-six on your menu.’
The waiter opened his mouth to reply, but his mental scan of the menu confirmed Kesh’s correction, and he walked away, shaking his head.
‘What’s the problem, Kesh?’ I asked.
‘I owe money,’ he said, smiling from the side of his disillusion. ‘The Memory Man business isn’t what it used to be. People are using phones for everything, now. Pretty soon, the whole world will be able to communicate with anyone, so long as they’re not actually there.’
‘You know what?’ I suggested, as the food arrived. ‘Grab a taxi, and come to the Amritsar hotel after this. We’ll be there ahead of you, on the bike.’
‘What have you got in mind?’ Karla squinted at me, lashes like lace.
‘Surprises,’ I tried to purr. ‘You have no idea what surprises I have in store for you, Karla.’
Didier was certainly surprised when I brought Kesh into his office, next to Karla’s at the Amritsar.
‘I do not see the . . . requirement for his services,’ Didier said, sitting professionally at his desk beside Naveen’s.
‘Kesh is the best Memory Man in the south, Didier,’ Naveen observed, sitting professionally at his own desk. ‘What did you have in mind, Lin?’
‘You know how you said that people always freeze up when you record their witness statements? They see the recorder and they freeze up?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Kesh can be your recorder. He remembers every conversation he hears. He can be your human recorder, and people will talk naturally in front of him.’
‘I like it,’ Karla laughed.
‘You do?’ Didier doubted.
‘I’ll hire him right now if you don’t, Didier.’
‘Hired,’ Didier said. ‘We have an interview with a millionaire and his wife, tomorrow morning at ten. Their daughter has gone missing. You can attend. But your mode of dress must be more . . . executive . . . in appearance.’
‘See you guys later,’ I said, pulling Kesh with us from their office.
In the corridor outside I gave him some money. He tried to stop me.
‘You have to clear all your debts tonight, Kesh,’ I said. ‘We don’t want those guys showing up around here. And you’re going straight tomorrow morning, remember? Go around and pay everyone off. Get clean, and be here at nine. Be the first one here, and the last to leave. You’ll do fine.’
He started to cry. I stepped back a pace, and let Karla take over. She hugged him, and he calmed down quickly.
‘You know what Didier said, about dressing like an executive?’ I said.
‘Yes. I’ll try to –’