Shantaram полностью

‘The thing with Ulla,’ she said quietly, ‘It’s been killing me, Lin. I can’t get Modena out of my mind. I’m reading all the papers, every day, looking for something about him-about maybe they found him or something. It’s weird… the thing with Maurizio, you know, I was sick with it for weeks after. I used to cry all the time, just walking on the street or reading a book or trying to sleep, and I couldn’t eat a meal without feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn’t stop thinking about his dead body… and the knife… what it must’ve felt like, when Ulla pushed the knife into him… But now, all that’s kind of faded. It’s still there, you know, in the bottom of my gut, but it doesn’t freak me out any more. And even Abdullah-I don’t know if I’m in shock or denial or whatever, but I don’t… let myself think about him. It’s like… like I accept it, or something. But Modena-that keeps getting worse. I can’t stop thinking about him.’

‘I see him, too,’ I muttered. ‘I see his face, and I wasn’t even there in that hotel room. It’s not good.’

‘I should’ve hit her.’

‘Ulla?’

‘Yes, Ulla!’

‘Why?’

‘That… callous… bitch! She left him there, tied up in that room. She brought you trouble, and me trouble and… Maurizio… But when she told us about Modena, I just put my arm around her, and took her to the shower, and looked after her like she’d just told me she hadn’t fed her pet goldfish. I should’ve slapped her or socked her one on the jaw or kicked her ass or something. Now she’s gone, and I’m still freaking out about Modena.’

‘Some people do that,’ I said, smiling at the anger in her because I felt it myself. ‘Some people always manage to make us feel sorry for them, no matter how stupid and angry we feel about it after. They’re the canaries, kind of, in the coalmines of our hearts. If we stop feeling sorry for them, when they let us down, we’re in deep trouble. And anyway, I didn’t get involved to help her. I did it to help you.’

‘Oh, I know, I know,’ she sighed. ‘It’s not Ulla’s fault. Not really. The Palace messed her up. It messed with her head completely. Everyone who worked for Madame Zhou got messed up in some way. You should’ve seen Ulla, back then, when she started work there. She was gorgeous, I gotta tell ya. And kind of… innocent… in a way that the rest of us weren’t, if you know what I mean. I went there already crazy when I first started work there. But it fucked me up, too. We all… we had to… we did some weird shit there…’

‘You told me about it,’ I said gently.

‘I told you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I told you what?’

‘You told me… a lot of it. The night I came around to get my clothes from Karla’s. I went there with the kid, Tariq. You were very drunk, and very stoned.’

‘And I told you about that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Jesus! I don’t remember that. I was starting to turkey. That was the first night, when I tried to get off the stuff-when I did get off the stuff. I remember the kid, though… and I remember you didn’t want to have sex with me.’

‘Oh, I wanted it, alright.’

She turned her head quickly and met my eye. Her expression smiled at the lips, but a tiny frown creased her forehead. She was wearing a red salwar kameez. The long, loose silk shirt clung to her breasts and the outline of her figure in the strong sea breeze. Her blue eyes glittered with courage and other mysteries. She was brave and fragile and tough in the same instant. She’d dragged herself from the life that was drowning her at Madame Zhou’s Palace, and she’d beaten heroin. In defence of her friend’s life, and her own, she’d helped to kill a man. She’d lost her lover, Abdullah, my friend, his body torn and mutilated by bullets. And it was all there, in her eyes and her thin face, thinner than it should’ve been. It was all there, if you knew what to look for, and if you knew where to look.

‘So, how did you end up at the Palace?’ I asked, and she flinched a little as I changed the subject.