‘Cheating honourably,’ Didier corrected.
‘How to
‘Cheating at cards is simply magic,’ Didier said modestly. ‘And magic is simply cheating at cards.’
I let them play, sitting beside them and sipping one of Didier’s emergency flasks. It was a difficult night for me, too, although not the mind-shock that it was for Diva.
I felt the dome of the slum community beginning to close over me with sounds, smells and a swirl of defiant memories. I was back in the womb of mankind. I heard a cough nearby, a man crying out in sleep, a child waking, and a husband talking softly to his wife about their debts in Marathi. I could smell incense, burning in a dozen houses around us.
My heartbeat was trying to find its synchrony with twenty-five thousand others, fireflies, uneven until they learn to flash and fade in the same waves of light. But I couldn’t connect. Something in my life or my heart had changed. The part of me that had settled so willingly in the lake of consciousness that was the slum, years before, was missing.
When I escaped from prison I searched for a home, wandering from country to city, hoping that I’d recognise it when I found it. When I met Karla, I found love, instead. I didn’t know then that the search for one always leads to the other.
I said goodnight to Didier and Naveen, checked on Diva, already asleep in the arms of new Diva girls, and walked those lanes feeling sadder than I could understand.
A small pariah dog joined me, skipping ahead and then running back to collide with my legs. When I left the slum and started my bike, she joined a pack of street dogs, howling provocatively.
I headed to the Amritsar hotel to do some writing. As I cruised along the empty causeway I noticed Arshan, Farzad’s father, the nominal head of the three families that were looking for treasure.
Arshan wasn’t treasure hunting: he was staring fixedly at the Colaba police station, across the road from where he stood. I wheeled the bike around in a circle, and pulled up beside him.
‘Hi, Arshan. How’s it going?’
‘Oh, fine, fine,’ he said absently.
‘It’s kinda late,’ I observed. ‘And this is a rough neighbourhood. There’s a bank, a police station and a fashion brand store, all within twenty metres.’
He smiled softly, but his eyes never wavered from the police station.
‘I’m . . . I’m waiting for someone,’ he said vaguely.
‘Maybe he isn’t coming. Can I offer you a lift home?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said again. ‘I’m fine, Lin. You go on.’
He was so distracted that his hands were twitching, reflexes driven by violent thoughts, and his expression had unconsciously settled into a grimace of pain.
‘I’m gonna have to insist, Arshan,’ I said. ‘You don’t look good, man.’
He gradually brought himself back to the moment, shook his head, blinked the stare from his eyes, and accepted the ride.
He didn’t say a word on the way home, and only muttered thanks and farewell abstractedly, as he walked toward the door of his home.
Farzad opened for us, gasping in concern for his dad.
‘What is it, Pop? Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, boy,’ he replied, resting on his son’s shoulder.
‘Lin, will you come in?’ Farzad asked.
It was a brave offer, because the kid was still in the Company, and we both knew Sanjay wouldn’t approve of him hosting me.
‘I’m good, Farzad,’ I said. ‘Let’s catch up, one of these days.’
At the Amritsar I threw everything off and took a long shower. Diva, who must’ve enjoyed baths foaming with scented oils in her father’s mansion, would have to wash in a small dish of water in the slum, and like the other girls, she’d have to wash fully clothed.
I made a no-bread sandwich of tuna fish, tomato and onion between slices of Parmesan cheese, drank two beers, and looked over Didier’s black market scams for a while.
He’d made pages of notes, with profiles on the key players, profit margins per month, salaries, and bribery payoffs. When I’d read them, I shoved the papers to the end of the bed, and picked up my journal.
There was that new short story I’d been trying to write, about happy, loving people doing happy, loving things. A love story. A fable. I tried to put a few more lines into the stream of words I’d already composed. I reread the first paragraph.
