Читаем Shantaram полностью

Pushing the thought away, I looked around the laughing, drinking, talking table of friends, and filled the empty glass within me, pouring their successes and their hopes into my eyes. Then I returned my attention to Ranjit, Karla’s boyfriend. I’d done my homework on him in recent months. I knew that he was the second eldest-some said the favourite-of four sons born to Ramprakash Choudry, a truck driver who’d made his fortune resupplying coastal towns in Bangladesh that had been hit by cyclones. The first government tenders had grown into major contracts, requiring fleets of trucks and, eventually, chartered aircraft and ships. Along the way, Choudry had acquired a small-circulation Bombay newspaper as part of a merger with a more diversified transport and communications firm. He’d handed the paper to his son Ranjit, who’d just graduated with a business degree and was the first, on both sides of his family, to complete high school and to attend any kind of further-education college. Ranjit had been running the paper, re-badged as The Daily Post, for eight years. His success with The Post, as it was known, had allowed Ranjit to segue into the incipient field of independent television production.

He was wealthy, influential, popular, and possessed of an entrepreneurial élan in print, movies, and television: a media baron in the making. There were rumours of resentments stirring in the heart of Ranjit’s older brother Rahul, who’d joined his father in the transport business in his early teenage years, and had never enjoyed the private-school education lavished upon Ranjit and the younger siblings. There was gossip, also, about the two younger brothers, the wild parties they sometimes threw, and the large bribes required to keep them out of trouble. There was no criticism of Ranjit, however, in any connection; and apart from those few simmering concerns, his life seemed almost charmed.

He was, as Lettie had once said, quite a fat and shiny catch. And as I watched him with friends-listening more than he talked, smiling more than he frowned, self-deprecating and considerate, tactful and attentive-I had to admit to myself that he was a very likeable man. And, strangely, I felt sorry for him. A few years or even months before, I would’ve been jealous that he was such a likeable man-such a very nice guy, as more than a few people said to me when I’d asked them about him. I would’ve hated him. But I felt nothing like that for Ranjit Choudry. Instead, as I watched him, remembering too much of what I’d felt for Karla, and thinking about her clearly for the first time in… a long time, I felt sorry for the rich, handsome media baron, and I wished him luck.

For half an hour I talked across the table with Lisa and the others and then I looked up to see Johnny Cigar, standing in the wide doorway and gesturing to catch my eye. Delighted to have an excuse to leave, I turned to Didier and drew him around to face me.

‘Listen, if you’re really serious about going to Italy for three months-’

‘Certainly I am-’ he began, but I cut him off quickly.

‘And if you’re really serious about needing someone to look after your place for you while you’re away, I think I’ve got just the guys for the job.’

‘Oh, yes? And who are they?’

‘The Georges,’ I replied. ‘The Zodiac Georges. Gemini and Scorpio.’

Didier was appalled.

‘But these… these George people… they are, how can I say it?’

‘Reliable?’ I suggested. ‘Honest. Clean. Loyal. Brave. And, above all, the most important qualification for situations like this, they’re absolutely not interested in staying in your apartment for a minute longer than you want them to. In fact, I’ll have a damn hard job talking them into it in the first place. They like the street. They won’t want to do it. But if I let them know they’re doing me a favour, they might agree. They’ll do a good job of looking after your place for you, and they’ll get three months of safe living in a decent place.’

‘Decent?’ Didier scoffed. ‘What do you mean, decent? My apartment is without parallel in Bombay, Lin. You know that. Excellent, I can understand. Superb, I can accept. But decent-non! It is like saying that I live in the fish market and, er, what do you say, whoosh it out every day with a water hose!’

‘So what do you think? I’ve gotta go.’

‘Decent!’ he sniffed.

‘Come on, man, will you forget about that!’

‘Well, yes, perhaps you are right. I have nothing against them. The George from Canada, the Scorpio, he does speak some French. That is true. Yes. Yes. Tell them I think it is a good idea. Tell them to see me, and I will speak to them-with very careful instructions.’

Laughing as I said goodbye, I joined Johnny Cigar at the doorway of the restaurant. He pulled me close to him.

‘Can you come with me? Now?’ he asked.

‘Sure. Walking or taxi?’

‘I think taxi, Lin.’