‘When I was studying, in New York,’ he went on at last, ‘I was working on a thesis… well, I
‘It’s a catchy title.’
He fired a glance at me to reassure himself that I wasn’t mocking him.
‘I mean it,’ I said quickly, wanting to put him at ease because I was beginning to like him. ‘I think it’s a good topic for a thesis, and it’s a very catchy title. I think you should go ahead and finish it.’
He smiled again.
‘Well, Lin, life has a lot of surprises, and, as my uncle in New York used to say, most of them ain’t happy ones for a working stiff. Now I’m working for a black market, instead of working
The bitterness in his voice was disconcerting. His jaw began to set in a grim and almost angry expression as he stared at his joined hands. I moved to steer the conversation away from the past.
‘You know, I’ve been involved with a part of the black market that might interest you. Have you heard of the lepers’ medicine market?’
‘Sure,’ he replied, interest glittering in his dark brown eyes. He ran a hand over his face and up across the short, military haircut, prematurely streaked with grey and white. The gesture wiped his gloomy recollections away, and he gave me his full attention. ‘I heard that you met Ranjit-he’s incredible, isn’t he?’
We talked about Ranjitbhai, the king of his little group of lepers, and the black market they’d organised across the country. Their mysterious trade fascinated us equally. As a historian-or a man who’d once dreamed of becoming a historian, like his scholarly mother-Khaled was intrigued by the long evolution and secret conduct of the lepers’ organisation. As a writer, I was provoked by the story of their suffering and their unique response to it. After twenty minutes of excited, actuating discussion, we agreed to visit Ranjit together to find out more about the history of the black market in medicines.
And with that pledge between exiles, between scholar and writer, Khaled and I established a simple but enduring bond of intellectual respect. We became friends in the rapid, unquestioning way of criminals, soldiers, and other survivors of disaster. I visited him every day in his sparsely furnished, Spartan apartment near Andheri station. The sessions lasted five or six hours. They roved freely from ancient history to reserve bank interest-rate policies, from anthropology to fixed and floating currencies, and I learned more about that very common but complex crime in one month, with Khaled Ansari, than most street traders in dollars and Deutschmarks learned in a year of dealing.
And when the lessons were complete, I went to work with Khaled every morning and every evening, seven days a week. The pay was good. The wages I earned came in such quantities that I was often paid in thick blocks of rupees, direct from the bank and still bearing their steel staples all the way through the notes. Compared to the slum-dwellers I’d known as neighbours, friends, and patients for almost two years, I was already a rich man.
To ensure that the cuts and wounds of prison healed as quickly as possible, I’d taken a room at the India Guest House, at Khaderbhai’s expense. The clean, tiled shower and soft mattress did help me to heal, but there was more to the move than physical convalescence. The truth was that the months in Arthur Road Prison had damaged my spirit more than my body. And the lingering shame I felt over the deaths of my neighbour Radha in the cholera epidemic, and the two boys from my English class, gave me no peace. The prison torment, and my failures in the cholera epidemic: I might’ve survived either one of them on its own, and gone back to those loving, wretched acres when I was well enough. But both of them, together, were more than my frail self-respect could endure, and I couldn’t live in the slum or even sleep the night there.
