Shantaram полностью

‘You can call it what you like,’ she answered dully, as if waking from a dream. ‘It’s just a fact. If you go back to Bombay, I’ll give up on you. I won’t go with you, and I won’t wait for you. Stay with me now, here, or go back alone. The choice is yours. But if you go back, it will finish us.’

I stared at her, bewildered and angry and in love.

‘You have to give me more than that,’ I said, more softly. ‘You’ve gotta tell me why. You’ve gotta talk to me, Karla. You can’t just give me an ultimatum, without any reason, and expect me to go along with it. There’s a difference between a choice and an ultimatum: a choice means that you know what’s going on, and why, before you decide. I’m not the kind of man you can give an ultimatum to. If I was, I wouldn’t have escaped from jail. You can’t tell me what to do, Karla. You can’t order me to do something, without an explanation. I’m not that kind of man. You’ve gotta tell me what’s going on.’

‘I can’t.’

I sighed, and spoke evenly, but my teeth were clenched.

‘I don’t think I’m… doing a very good job… of explaining this. The fact is, there isn’t a lot that I respect about myself. But the little bit that I’ve still got left-it’s all I’ve got. A man has to respect himself, Karla, before he can respect anyone else. If I just give in, and do whatever you want me to do, without any kind of reason, I wouldn’t respect myself. And if you tell the truth, you wouldn’t respect me, either. So, I’m asking you again. What’s this all about?’

‘I… can’t.’

‘You mean, you won’t.’

‘I mean, I can’t,’ she said softly, and then she looked straight into my eyes. ‘And I won’t. That’s just how it is. You told me, just a little while ago, that you would do anything for me. I want you to stay here. I don’t want you to go back to Bombay. If you do go back, it’s all over between us.’

‘What kind of man would I be,’ I asked, trying to smile, ‘if I went along with that?’

‘I guess that’s your answer, and you’ve made your choice,’ she sighed, pushing past me to walk out of the hut.

I packed my bag and strapped it to the bike. When all was ready, I went down to the sea. She rose from the waves and walked toward me slowly, dragging her feet through the shifting sand. The singlet and lungi clung to her body. Her black hair gleamed sleek and wet under the soaring sun. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

‘I love you,’ I said, as she came into my arms and we kissed. I spoke the words against her lips, her face, her eyes. I held her close to me. ‘I love you. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. I’ll be back soon.’

‘No,’ she answered woodenly her body not stiff, but utterly still, the life and the love drained out of it. ‘It won’t be all right. It won’t be okay. It’s over. And I won’t be here, after today.’

I looked into her eyes, and felt my own body harden, hollowed out by pride. My hands fell from her shoulders. I turned, and walked back to the bike. Riding to the last little cliff that gave a view of the beach, our beach, I stopped the bike and shielded my eyes to look for her. But she was gone. There was nothing but the waves breaking like the curved spines of playful porpoises, and the traceless, empty, tousled sheets of sand.

A SMILING SERVANT opened the door and ushered me into the room, gesturing for me to be silent. He needn’t have bothered. The music was so loud in the room that I couldn’t have been heard, even if I’d shouted. Cupping his hand as if it were a saucer, and pretending to sip from it, he mimed an offer of chai. I nodded. He closed the door behind him quietly, leaving me alone with Abdul Ghani. The portly figure stood in the broad curve of a high bay window, looking out at a wide view of roof-garden plateaus, balconies ablaze with green and yellow saris hung out to dry, and rust-red herringbone rooftops.