Shantaram полностью

Vikram’s eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed into a disapproving frown. He lifted the hat from his back and examined it, turning it in his hands and flicking specks of dust from the rim.

‘You know, Lin, you’ve been here for a while now, and you’ve learned some language, and been to the village, and lived in the slum, and even been the fuck to jail and all, but you still don’t get it, do you?’

‘Maybe not,’ I conceded. ‘Probably not.’

‘Damn right you don’t, man. This is not England, or New Zealand, or Australia, or wherever the fuck else. This is India, man. This is India. This is the land of the heart. This is where the heart is king, man. The fuckin’ heart. That’s why you’re free. That’s why that cop gave you back your phoney passport. That’s why you can walk around, and not get picked up, even though they know who you are. They could’ve fucked you, Lin. They could’ve taken your money, Khader’s money, and let you go, and then get some other cops to bust you, and send you the fuck home. But they didn’t do it, and they won’t do it, because you got them in their heart, man, in their Indian fuckin’ heart. They looked at all what you did here, and how the people in that slum love you, and they thought, Well, he fucked up in Australia, but he’s done some good shit here. If he pays up, we’ll let the fucker go. Because they’re Indians, man. That’s how we keep this crazy place together-with the heart. Two hundred fuckin’ languages, and a billion people. India is the heart. It’s the heart that keeps us together. There’s no place with people like my people, Lin. There’s no heart like the Indian heart.’

He was crying. Stunned, I watched him wipe the tears from his eyes, and I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. He was right, of course. Even though I’d been tortured in an Indian prison, and almost killed there, I had been set free, and they had given me my old passport when I left the prison. Is there any other country in the world, I asked myself, that would’ve let me go, as India did? And even in India, if the cops had checked on me and discovered a different story-that I cheated Indians, say, or ran Indian prostitutes, or beat up defenceless people-they would’ve taken the money, and then sent me back to Australia anyway. It was the land where the heart is king. I knew that from Prabaker, from his mother, from Qasim Ali, from Joseph’s redemption. I’d known it even in the prison, where men like Mahesh Malhotra had taken a beating in order to smuggle food to me when I was starving.

‘What’s this? A lover’s quarrel, perhaps?’ Didier asked, inviting himself to sit down.

‘Oh, fuck you, Didier!’ Vikram laughed, pulling himself together.

‘Ah, well, it’s a touching thought, Vikram. But, perhaps when you are feeling a little better. And how are you today, Lin?’

‘I’m fine,’ I smiled. Didier was one of three people who’d burst into tears when they saw me, flesh-withered and still ripped with cuts and wounds, soon after my release from Arthur Road Prison. The second was Prabaker, whose weeping was so violent that it took me a full hour to console him. The third person, unexpectedly, was lord Abdel Khader, whose eyes filled with tears when I thanked him: tears that flowed on my neck and shoulder when he hugged me.

‘What’ll you have?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, very kind,’ he murmured, purring with pleasure. ‘I believe that I will begin with a flask of whisky, and a fresh lime, and a cold soda. Yes. That will be a good commençement, no? It is very strange, and a very unhappy business, don’t you think, this news about Indira Gandhi?’

‘What news?’ Vikram asked.

‘They are saying on the news, just now, that Indira Gandhi is dead.’

‘Is it true?’ I asked.

‘I fear that it is,’ he sighed, suddenly and uncharacteristically solemn. ‘The reports are not confirmed, but I think there is no doubt.’

‘Was it the Sikhs? Was it because of Bluestar?’

‘Yes, Lin. How did you know?’

‘When she stormed the Golden Temple, to get Bhindranwale, I had a feeling it was going to catch up with her.’

‘What happened? Did the KLF do it?’ Vikram asked. ‘Was it a bomb?’

‘No,’ Didier answered, gravely. ‘They say it was her bodyguards-her Sikh bodyguards.’

‘Her own bodyguard, for fuck’s sake!’ Vikram gasped. His mouth gaped open, and his gaze drifted on the tide of his thoughts. ‘Guys-I’ll be back in a minute. Do you hear that? They’re talking about the story, right now, on the radio, at the counter. I’ll go and listen, and come back.’