Shantaram полностью

She gave an anguished little sigh, and stretched her legs out to bury her bare feet in the sand. Watching the small cascades of soft sand spill over her moving feet, she spoke in a dull, flat tone, as if she was composing a letter-or recalling a letter, perhaps, that she’d written once and never sent to me.

‘I knew you were going to ask me, and I think that’s why I’ve waited so long to get in touch with you. I let people know that I was around, and I asked after you, but I didn’t do anything, until today, because… I knew you’d ask me.’

‘If it makes it any easier,’ I interrupted, sounding harder than I’d intended, ‘I know you burned down Madame Zhou’s place-’

‘Did Ghani tell you that?’

‘Ghani? No. I figured that one out myself.’

‘Ghani did it for me-he arranged it. That was the last time I spoke to him.’

‘The last time I spoke to him was about an hour before he died.’

‘Did he tell you anything about her?’ she asked, perhaps hoping that there were some parts of it she wouldn’t have to tell me.

‘About Madame Zhou? No. He didn’t say a word.’

‘He told me… a lot,’ she sighed. ‘He filled in a few gaps. I think it was Ghani who tipped me over the edge with her. He told me she had Rajan following you, and she only pulled her strings with the cops to get you arrested when Rajan told her you made love to me. I always hated her, but that did it. I just… it was one thing too many. She couldn’t let me have it, that time with you. She wouldn’t let me have it. So I called in some dues with Ghani, and he arranged it. The riot. It was a great fire. I lit some of it myself.’

She broke off, staring at her feet in the sand, and clamped her jaw shut. Reflected lights gleamed in her eyes. For a moment I let myself imagine how those green eyes must’ve blazed with firelight as she’d watched the Palace burn.

‘I know about the States, too,’ I said after a while. ‘I know what happened there.’

She looked at me quickly, reading my eyes.

‘Lisa,’ she said. I didn’t answer. Then, knowing instantly, as women do, what she couldn’t possibly know, she smiled. ‘That’s good-Lisa and you. You and Lisa. That’s… very good.’

My expression didn’t change, and her smile faded as she looked down at the sand once more.

‘Did you kill anyone, Lin?’

‘When?’ I asked, not sure if she was talking about Afghanistan or the much-smaller war against Chuha and his gang.

‘Ever.’

‘No.’

‘I’m glad,’ she breathed, sighing again. ‘I wish…’

She was silent again for a while. From somewhere beyond the deserted beach we heard the sounds of the festival: happy, roaring laughter rising over the blare of a brass band. Much closer, ocean music gushed onto the soft assenting shore, and the palms above us trembled in the cooling breeze.

‘When I went there… when I walked into his house, into the room where he was standing, he smiled at me. He was… actually… happy to see me. And for a split second, I changed my mind, and I thought it was… over. Then, I saw something else, right there in the middle of his smile… something dirty, and… he said… I knew you’d be back for more, one of these days… or something like that. And he… he kind of, he started looking around like he was making sure nobody was gonna bust in on us…’

‘It’s okay, Karla.’

‘When he saw the gun, it was worse, because he started… not begging… but apologising… and it was real clear, real clear, that he knew what he did to me… he knew… every part of it, and how bad it was. And that was much worse. And then he was dead. There wasn’t a lot of blood. I thought there would be. Maybe there was later. And I don’t remember the rest, until I was in the plane with Khader’s arm around me.’

She was quiet. I leaned over to pick up a conical shell descending in spirals to a sharp, eroded point. I pressed it into my palm until it pierced the skin, and then threw it away across the rippled sand. When I looked at her again, I found that she was staring at me and frowning hard.

‘What do you want?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I want to know why you never told me about Khaderbhai.’

‘Do you want it straight?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I couldn’t trust you,’ she declared, looking away again. ‘That’s not exactly right-I mean, I didn’t know if I could trust you. I think… now-I know-I could’ve trusted you all along.’

‘Okay.’ My teeth were touching, and my lips didn’t move.

‘I tried to tell you. I tried to get you to stay with me in Goa. You know that.’

‘It would’ve made a difference,’ I snapped, but then sighed just as she had, and relaxed my tone. ‘It might’ve made a difference if you’d told me that you worked for him-that you recruited me for him.’

‘When I ran away… when I went to Goa, I was in a bad way. The Sapna thing-that was my idea. Did you know that?’

‘No. Jesus, Karla.’

Her eyes narrowed as she read the angry disappointment in my face.