Читаем Shantaram полностью

‘Ah, it is not only brown sugar and hashish that comes from Afghanistan into India,’ he confided, lowering his voice and speaking from the corner of his mouth once more. ‘There are guns, heavy weapons, explosives. The Sikhs are using these weapons now, in Punjab, and the Muslim separatists in Kashmir. There are weapons, you see. And there is power, the power to speak for many of the poor Muslims who are the enemies of the Shiv Sena. If you control one trade, the drugs, you can influence the other, the guns. And the Sena Party is desperate to control the flow of guns into their state, their Maharashtra. Money and power. Look there, at the table next to Rafiq and his men. You see the three Africans, two men and a woman?’

‘Yes. I noticed her before. She’s very beautiful.’

Her young face, with its prominent cheekbones, softly flared nose, and very full lips, looked as if it had been carved in volcanic stone by the rush of a river. Her hair was braided into a multitude of long, fine, beaded plaits. She laughed, sharing a joke with her friends, and her teeth gleamed large and perfectly white.

‘Beautiful? I think not. Among the Africans, the men are beautiful, in my opinion, whereas the women are merely very attractive. For Europeans, the opposite is true. Karla is beautiful, and I never knew a European man who is beautiful in that way. But that is another matter. I mean only to say that they are customers of Rafiq, Nigerians, and that their business between Bombay and Lagos is one of the concessions-a spin-off is the term, I think-of this deal with the Sainiks. The Sena has a man at Bombay Customs. So much money is moving from hand to hand. Rafiq’s little scheme is a tangle of countries, Afghanistan and India, Pakistan and Nigeria, and of powers-police and customs and politicians. All of it is a part of the struggle for control here in our cursed and beloved Bombay. And all of it, all this intrigue, grows from the closing down of my dear old opium dens. A tragedy.’

‘This Rafiq,’ I muttered, perhaps sounding more flippant than I’d intended, ‘is quite a guy.’

‘He is Afghan, and his country is at war, my friend. That gives him an edge, as the Americans say. And he works for the Walidlalla mafia council-one of the most powerful. His closest associate is Chuha, one of the most dangerous men in Bombay. But the real power here, in this part of the city, is the great don, lord Abdel Khader Khan. He is a poet, a philosopher, and a lord of crime. They call him Khaderbhai. Khader-Elder Brother. There are others, with more money and more guns than Khaderbhai-he is a man of rigid principles, you see, and there are many lucrative things that he will not do. But those same principles give him-I am not sure how to say it in English-the immoral high ground, perhaps, and there is no-one, in this part of Bombay, who has more real power than he does. Many people believe that he is a saint, with supernatural capabilities. I know him, and I can tell you that Khaderbhai is the most fascinating man I ever met. If you will allow me the small immodesty, this makes him a truly remarkable individual, for I have met a great many interesting men in my life.’

He left the words to swirl for a moment in the eye contact between us.

‘Come, you are not drinking! I hate it when people take so long to drink a single glass. It is like putting on a condom to masturbate.’

‘No really,’ I laughed. ‘I, er, I’m waiting for Karla to come back. She’s due any minute now.’

‘Ah, Karla…’ He said her name with a long, purring roll. And just what are your intentions with our inscrutable Karla?’

‘Come again?’

‘Perhaps it is more useful to wonder what intentions she has for you, no?’

He poured the last of the one-litre bottle into his glass and topped it up with the last of the soda. He’d been drinking steadily for more than an hour. His eyes were as veined and bloodshot as the back of a boxer’s fist, but the gaze that stared from them was unwavering, and his hands were precise in their movements.

‘I saw her on the street, just hours after I landed in Bombay,’ I found myself saying. ‘There was something about her that… I think she’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed here this long. Her and Prabaker. I like them-I liked them both on sight. I’m a people person, if you know what I mean. If the people in it were interesting, I’d prefer a tin shed to the Taj Mahal-not that I’ve seen the Taj Mahal yet.’

‘It leaks,’ Didier sniffed, dismissing the architectural wonder with two words. ‘But did you say interesting? Karla is interesting?’

He laughed out loud again. It was a peculiarly high-pitched laugh, harsh and almost hysterical. He slapped me hard on the back, spilling a little of his drink.

‘Ha! You know, Lin, I approve of you, even if a commendation from me is a very fragile endorsement.’