One foot was raised behind her, resting on the wall. She was wearing an elegant yellow skirt, a white high-necked blouse and ankle-strap heels. Her skirt was split at the side, and her short, fine legs were revealed by the pose. She was a girl who knew how to pose: she’d posed for every magazine in the country.
I glanced at Naveen. He was studying her with the eyes of love: desire, stripped of hunger.
Naveen let her have it. She was stubborn, and proud. He knew that he had to be brutally honest to have a chance of convincing her of the dangers she faced.
Every twisted deal that untangled itself at the feet of a gangster, a crooked politician or a cop, gunning for him, spooled out in front of her. Her foot slid down the wall, and she straightened up, bracing herself.
‘The threat is very real, Miss Diva,’ Didier said gently. ‘We have all examined this matter, and we have all concluded that your safety is in peril.’
‘They’re bad guys,’ Naveen said. ‘And your dad’s surrounded by good guys he doesn’t trust. I think that’s why he gave me the job of making sure you’re safe, and told me not to bring you back to the mansion.’
‘Mummy,’ she moaned very softly, calling out to a ghost.
‘I recommend leaving, Miss Diva,’ Didier advised. ‘Fast, and far away. I would be honoured to arrange it. Lin can provide the false papers. There is sufficient money. You would be safe, until this matter is resolved.’
‘I won’t leave while my dad’s still here,’ she pouted. ‘What if he goes to jail? He’ll need me. No matter what else I have to do, I won’t leave Bombay while he’s here.’
‘The alternative is hiding here, in the slum nearby,’ Naveen said. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’
‘The slum? First, you tell me that my dad is a crook, and that other crooks are trying to kill him, so they might kidnap me or kill me, which I’ve been dealing with all my life, and now –’
‘It’s . . . it’s really bad,’ Naveen said. ‘I mean, I told you, Diva. I’m scared myself. Please, listen to us.’
‘I lived there, Diva,’ I said. ‘You’ll be safe in the slum, and it shouldn’t be for long.’
‘The slum?’ she repeated, trying again, but there wasn’t much fight left in her.
‘Do you have someone close enough to you, to trust with your life?’ Didier asked.
The slim socialite flinched as if he’d shocked her: more than her father’s misdeeds, or the threat to her own safety. She backed away half a step, and then regained her composure.
‘I’ve got a lot of distant relatives, but no-one close. My Mother was an only child, like me, and my father’s brother passed away two years ago. Since my Mother died, there’s only my dad and me. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Hiding in this place, Miss Diva, will not be pleasant,’ Didier advised. ‘The people are civilised, but the circumstances are primitive. Do you not wish to reconsider?’
‘I’m not leaving.’
‘I told you so,’ Naveen said, adjusting the backpack.
I left them talking, and went to check the end of the laneway.
The street at the end of the alley led to the white arches and porthole windows of the World Trade Centre, and then to the slum beyond.
It was quiet. The pavement dwellers had settled down for the night on footpaths. Frisky dogs, hungry for their own hour of power, jerked, jumped and barked. An almost empty bus swept around the corner in front of me. Movie posters adorned the sides like heralds, draped over a war elephant.
Streetlamps showed the entrance to the slum, near the end of the street. I knew how hard the life was in that slum. I knew how rich the rewards were. The slum was a jellyfish, an empathic dome of common cause: filaments of love and common suffering touched every life.
Diva walked toward me slowly, with Naveen and Didier. Naveen put his arm around her. She didn’t push it away.
Maybe he’d told her that the backpack she’d been teasing him about was filled with her things, which he’d hastily gathered for her from the suite at the Mahesh. Maybe, as other loves closed for her, she was finally opening to him.
She came into the light, and I saw that she was afraid.
‘It’s gonna be okay, kid,’ I said, making her look me in the eye. ‘You’ve got a pretty cool ride ahead of you, with pretty cool neighbours.’
‘I heard the neighbourhood improved a lot when you moved out,’ she said, but there was only a candle-fire in it. ‘So, tell me, slum dweller, is there anything I should know?’
‘The more you go with it,’ I said, as we neared the wide path beside the open latrine, leading to the slum, ‘the better it gets.’
‘That’s what my therapist said,’ she muttered, ‘before I sued him for harassment.’
‘You won’t be harassed by anything but love in the slum,’ I said. ‘But that takes some getting used to, as well.’
‘Bring it on,’ the brave, scared socialite said. ‘Tonight, I’ll take all the love I can get.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
