Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"Hassaan Obikwa," the passenger beside me said, offering his hand.

"Lin Ford," I replied, shaking his hand and noticing for the first time how much gold he wore. There were rings on every finger. Some of them closed around blue-white, glittering diamonds. There was also a diamond-encrusted gold Rolex hanging loosely at his wrist.

"This is Raheem," he said, nodding to the driver. The huge man in the front seat glanced over his shoulder to offer me a broad grin. He rolled his eyes in a survivor's happy prayer, and turned to face the road.

"I owe you my life," Hassaan Obikwa said with a grim smile. "We both do. They wanted to kill us, back there, that's for sure."

"We were lucky," I answered, looking into his round, healthy, handsome face and beginning to like him.

His eyes and his lips defined his face. The eyes were unusually wide-set and large, giving him a slightly reptilian stare, and the marvellous lips were so full and sumptuously shaped that they seemed to be designed for a much larger head. His teeth were white and even at the front, but all the teeth on either side were capped with gold. Rococo curves at the corners of his wide nose gave his nostrils a delicate flare, as if he was constantly inhaling a pleasantly intoxicating scent. A wide, gold earring, conspicuous beneath his short black hair and against the blue black skin of his thick neck, pierced his left ear.

I glanced at his torn, bloody shirt, and at the cuts and bruises that were swelling on his face and every exposed centimetre of flesh. When I met his eyes again they were glittering with excited good humour. He wasn't too shaken by the violence of the mob, and neither was I. We were both men who'd seen worse, and had been through worse, and we recognised that in each other immediately. In fact, neither of us ever mentioned the incident directly after that day of our meeting. I looked into his glittering eyes, and I felt my smile stretching to match his.

"We were damn lucky!"

"Fuck yes! Yes, we were!" he agreed, laughing hard and slipping the Rolex watch from his wrist. He held it to his ear to make sure it was still ticking. Satisfied, he snapped the watch back on his wrist, and gave his full attention to me. "But the debt is there, and the debt is still important, even if we were very lucky. A debt like this-it is the most important of all a man's obligations. You must allow me to repay you."

"It'll take money," I said. The driver glanced in the rear-vision mirror and exchanged a look with Hassaan.

"But... this debt cannot be repaid with money," Hassaan answered.

"I'm talking about the cart-puller-the one you hit with your car. And the taxi you damaged. If you give me some money, I'll see that it gets to them. It'll go a long way to calming things down at Regal Circle. That's in my beat-I have to work there, every day, and people are going to be pissed off for a while yet.

Do that, and we'll call it square."

Hassaan laughed, and slapped his hand on my knee. It was a good laugh-honest but wicked, and generous but shrewd.

"Please don't worry," he said, still smiling broadly. "This is not my area, it is true, but I am not without influence, even here. I will make sure that the injured man receives all the money he needs."

"And the other one," I added.

"The other one?"

"Yes, the other one."

"The other... what?" he asked, perplexed.

"The taxi driver."

"Yes, yes, the taxi driver also." There was a little silence, humming with puzzles and questions. I glanced out the window of the cab, but I could still feel his enquiring eyes on me. I turned to face him again.

"I... like... taxi drivers," I said.

"Yes..."

"I... I know a lot of taxi drivers."

"Yes..."

"And that cab being smashed up-it'll cause a lot of grief for the driver and his family."

"Of course."

"So, when will you do it?" I asked.

"Do what?"

"When will you put the money up, for the cart-puller and the cab driver?"

"Oh," Hassaan Obikwa grinned, looking up again into the rear vision mirror to exchange a look with Raheem. The big man shrugged, and grinned back into the mirror. "Tomorrow. Is tomorrow okay?"

"Yeah," I frowned, not sure what all the grinning was about. "I just want to know, so that I can talk to them about it. It's not a question of the money. I can put the money up myself. I was planning to do it anyway. I've gotta mend some fences back there.

Some of them are... acquaintances of mine. So... that's why it's important. If you're not going to do it, I need to know, so that I can take care of it myself. That's all."

The whole thing seemed to be getting very complicated. I wished I'd never raised the matter with him. I began to feel angry at him, without really understanding why. Then he offered me his open palm in a handshake.

"I give you my word," he said solemnly, and we shook hands.

We were silent again, and after a few moments I reached over to tap the driver on the shoulder.

"Just here is fine," I said, perhaps a little more harshly than I'd intended. "I'll get out here."

The car pulled into the kerb, a few blocks from the slum. I opened the door to leave, but Hassaan gripped my wrist. It was a very strong grip. For a second, I calculated all the long way upward to the much greater strength I knew must be in Raheem's grip.

"Please, remember my name-Hassaan Obikwa. You can find me at the African ghetto, in Andheri. Everyone knows me there. Whatever I can do for you, please tell me. I want to clear my debt, Lin Ford.

This is my telephone number. You can reach me, from here, at any time of the day or the night."

I took the card-it bore only his name and number-and shook his hand. Nodding to Raheem, I left the car.

"Thank you, Lin," Hassaan called out through the open window.

"Inshallah, we'll meet again soon."

The car drove off, and I turned toward the slum, staring at the gold-lettered business card for a full block before I put it in my pocket. A few minutes later, I passed the World Trade Centre and entered the compound of the slum, remembering, as I always did, the first time I entered those blest and tormented acres.

As I passed Kumar's chai shop, Prabaker came out to greet me. He was wearing a yellow silk shirt, black pants, and red-and-black patent leather high-heeled platform shoes. There was a crimson silk scarf tied at his throat.

"Oh, Lin!" he called out, hobbling across the broken ground on his platform shoes. He clung to me, as much for balance as in friendly greeting. "There is someone, a fellow you know, he is waiting for you, in your house. But one minute please, what happened on your face? And your shirts? Have you been having it some fights, with some bad fellow? Arrey! Some fellow gave you a solid pasting. If you want me, I will go with you, and tell that fellow he is a bahinchudh."

"It's nothing, Prabu. It's okay," I muttered, striding toward the hut. "Do you know who it is?"

"Who it... is? You mean, who it is, who was hitting your face?"

"No, no, of course not! I mean, the man who's waiting in my hut.

Do you know who it is?"

"Yes, Lin," he said, stumbling along beside me and clutching my sleeve for support.

We walked on for a few more seconds in silence. People greeted us on every side, calling out invitations to share chai, food, or a smoke.

"Well?" I asked, after a while.

"Well? What well?"

"Well, who _is it? Who's in my hut?"

"Oh!" he laughed. "Sorry, Lin. I thought you want some surprises, so I didn't tell you." "It's hardly a surprise, Prabu, because you told me there was someone waiting for me in my hut."

"No, no!" he insisted. "You don't know it his name yet, so still you get the surprise. And that is a good things. If I don't tell you there is somebody, then you go to your hut, and you get the shocks. And that is a bad things. A shocks is like a surprise, when you are not ready."