Shantaram полностью

‘I know, I know, she wasn’t supposed to call anyone. But she did, and she told him about this place. She was supposed to meet them both, here, tonight. But Modena didn’t show. It’s not her fault, Lin. She didn’t know Maurizio put you in it. He just told us about it, then, a minute ago. He told us he gave your name to a couple of Nigerian thugs. He put you in it, to save himself. He said he had to have the money, to get away, because they’d be after him when they were finished with you. The hero was trying to beat it out of her, where Modena is, when you got here.’

‘Where’s the money?’ I asked Ulla.

‘I don’t know, Lin,’ she cried. ‘Fuck the money! I didn’t want it in the first place. Modena was ashamed that I was working. He doesn’t understand. I rather would work on the street, and keep him safe, than have this crazy thing happen. He loves me. He loves me. He didn’t have any-thing to do with you and the Nigerians, Lin, I swear it. That was Maurizio’s idea. It’s been going on for weeks now. That’s what I’ve been so scared about. And then tonight, Modena got hold of the money Maurizio stole-the money he stole from the Africans-and he hid it. He did it for me. He loves me, Lin. Modena loves me.’

She trailed off in stuttering sobs. I turned to Lisa.

‘I’m taking him with me.’

‘Good!’ she snapped.

‘Will you be okay?’

‘Yeah. We’re fine.’

‘Have you got any money?’

‘Yeah. Don’t worry.’

‘I’ll send Abdullah as soon as I can. Keep the doors locked, and don’t let anyone in but us, okay?’

‘You got it,’ she smiled. ‘Thanks, Gilbert. That’s the second time you came riding to the rescue.’

‘Forget it.’

‘No. I won’t forget it,’ she said, closing and locking the door behind us.

I wish I could say that I didn’t hit him. He was big enough and strong enough to defend himself, but he had no heart for fighting, and there wasn’t any victory in hitting him. He didn’t fight or even struggle. He whimpered and cried and begged. I wish I could say that a stern justice and a righteous revenge for the wrong that he’d done to me had curled my hands into fists, and punched him. But I can’t be sure. Even now, long years later, I can’t be sure that the violence I did to him didn’t come from something darker, deeper, and far less justifiable than angry retribution. The fact was that I’d been jealous of Maurizio for a long time. And in some part, some small but terrible part, I may have struck at his beauty, and not just his treachery.

On the other hand, of course, I should’ve killed him. When I left him, bloody and broken, near the St. George Hospital, a warning voice told me it wasn’t the end of the matter. And I did hesitate, looming over his body with murder in my eyes, but I couldn’t take his life. Something he’d said, when he was begging me to stop beating him, stayed my hand. He said that he’d named me, that he’d thrown me to the Nigerian thugs when he had to invent someone else who was responsible for his theft, because he was jealous of me. He was jealous of my confidence, my strength, and my friendships. He was jealous of me. And in his jealousy he hated me. And in that, we weren’t so different, Maurizio and I.

It was still with me, all of it, the next day, when the Nigerians were gone and I went to Leopold’s, looking for Didier to return his unused gun. It was still with me, clotting my mind with anger, confused in regret, when I found Johnny Cigar waiting for me outside. It was still there, as I struggled to focus, and understand his words.

‘It’s a very bad thing,’ he said. Anand Rao has killed Rasheed this morning. He cut his throat. It’s the first time, Lin.’

I knew what he meant. It was the first murder in our slum. It was the first time that one slum-dweller had ever killed another in the Cuffe Parade slum. There were twenty-five thousand people in those little acres, and they fought and argued and bickered all the time, but none, not one of them, had ever killed another. And in the shocked moment, I suddenly remembered Madjid. He, too, had been murdered. I’d managed, somehow, to push the thought of his death away from my waking, working mind, but it had been gnawing through the screen of my composure slowly, steadily, all the while. And it broke through then, with the news of Rasheed’s death. And that other murder-the slaughter, Ghani had said-of the old gold smuggler, the mafia don, became confused with the blood that was on Anand’s hands. Anand, whose name meant happy. Anand, who’d tried to talk to me and tell me about it, who’d come to me that day in the slum for help, and found none.