‘You can’t spend that shit anywhere but in Mauritius,’ I scoffed, recalling what I’d learned about restricted and open currencies while working with Khaled Ansari. ‘It’s a restricted currency.’
‘I know, of course, baba,’ the driver smiled. ‘We arranged it with Abdul. We don’t have the dollars just now, man. All fuckin’ tied up in other deals. So we’re paying in Mauritian rupees. You can change them back to dollars on your way home,
I sighed, breathing slowly and forcing calm into the little whirlwind that my mood was making out of my mind. I looked out the window. We were parked in what seemed to be a green forest fire. Tall plants as green as Karla’s eyes whirled and shuddered in the wind all around us. There was no-one and nothing else in sight.
‘Let’s just see what we got here. Ten passports at seven thousand bucks apiece. That’s seventy thousand bucks. At the exchange rate of, say, thirty Mauritian roops to the dollar, that gives me no less than two million, one hundred thousand rupees. That’s why you got such a big bag. Now, forgive me for seeming obtuse, gentlemen, but just where the fuck am I going to change two million rupees into dollars without a fuckin’
‘No problem,’ the driver responded quickly. ‘We’ve got a moneychanger,
‘Okay,’ I smiled. ‘Let’s go and see him.’
‘You’ll have to go there alone, man,’ the passenger said, laughing happily. ‘He’s in Singapore.’
‘
‘Don’t be all upset,
‘Okay,’ I sighed. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel. If this checks out with Abdul, we’ll do the deal.’
‘The hotel,’ the driver said, sliding his glasses down over the dartboards of his eyes.
‘The hotel!’ the passenger repeated, and the yellow Exocet hurtled back along the winding roads once more.
The trip through Singapore passed off without a hitch, and the Mauritian currency fiasco provided a few unexpected benefits. I made a valuable, new contact in the Singapore moneychanger-an Indian from Madras named Shekky Ratnam-and I took my first look at the profitable smuggling run of duty free cameras and electrical goods from Singapore to Bombay.
When I rode out to the Oberoi Hotel to meet Lisa Carter, after handing the dollars to Abdul Ghani and collecting my fee, I felt positive and hopeful for the first time in far too long. I began to think that I might’ve thrown off the dark moods that had settled on me after Prabaker’s wedding night. I’d travelled to Zaïre, Mauritius, and Singapore on forged passports without raising the vaguest suspicion. In the slum, I’d survived from day to day on the small commissions I made from tourists, and I had only my compromised New Zealand passport. Just a year later I lived in a modern apartment, my pockets were bulging with freshly ill-gotten gains, and I had five passports in five different names and nationalities, with my photograph on every one of them. The world of possibility was opening up for me.
The Oberoi Hotel stood at Nariman Point, on the handle of Marine Drive’s golden sickle. Churchgate Station and Flora Fountain were a five-minute walk away. Ten minutes more in one direction led to Victoria Terminus and Crawford Market. Ten minutes in the other direction from Flora Fountain led to Colaba and the Gateway Monument. The Oberoi lacked the postcard recognition that the Taj Hotel inspired, but it compensated for that with character and flair. Its piano bar, for example, was a small masterpiece of light and cleverly private spaces, and its brasserie vied determinedly for the title of the best restaurant in Bombay. Walking into the dark, richly textured brasserie from the brilliant day, I paused and blinked until my eyes found Lisa and her group. She and two other young women were sitting with Cliff De Souza and Chandra Mehta.
‘Hope I’m not late,’ I said, shaking hands all round.
‘No, I think
The girls laughed hysterically. Their names were Reeta and Geeta. They were aspiring actresses on the first rung-a lunch date with key second-tier players-and they gushed it up with a bug-eyed enthusiasm that wasn’t far from panic.
