Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

She was born in Switzerland, in Basel, and she was an only child.

Her mother was Swiss-Italian, and her father was Swedish. They were artists. Her father was a painter, and her mother was a soprano coloratura. Karla Saaranen's memories of her early childhood years were the happiest of her life. The creative young couple was popular, and their house was a meeting place for poets, musicians, actors, and other artists in the cosmopolitan city. Karla grew up speaking four languages fluently, and spent many long hours learning her favourite arias with her mother. In her father's studio, she watched him magic the blank canvases with all the colours and shapes of his passion.

Then, one day, Ischa Saaranen failed to return from an exhibition of his paintings in Germany. At close to midnight, the local police told Anna and Karla that his car had left the road during a snowstorm. He was dead. Within a year, the misery that ruined Anna Saaranen's beauty, and killed her lovely voice, finally smothered her life as well. She took an overdose of sleeping tablets. Karla was alone.

Her mother's brother had settled in America, in San Francisco.

The orphaned girl was only ten when she stood next to that stranger at her mother's grave and then travelled with him to join his family. Mario Pacelli was a big, generous-hearted bear of a man. He treated Karla with affectionate kindness and sincere respect. He welcomed her into his family as an equal in every way to his own children. He told her often that he loved her and that he hoped she would grow to love him, and to give him a part of the love for her dead parents that he knew she kept locked within her.

There was no time for that love to grow. Karla's uncle Mario died in a climbing accident, three years after she arrived in America.

Mario's widow, Penelope, took control of her life. Aunt Penny was jealous of the girl's beauty and her combative, intimidating intelligence-qualities not discernible in her own three children. The more brightly Karla shined, in comparison to the other children, the more her aunt hated her. There's no meanness too spiteful or too cruel, Didier once said to me, when we hate someone for all the wrong reasons. Aunt Penny deprived Karla, punished her arbitrarily, chastised and belittled her constantly, and did everything but throw the girl into the street.

Forced to provide her own money for all her needs, Karla worked after school every night at a local restaurant, and as a baby sitter on weekends. One of the fathers she worked for returned, alone and too early, on a hot summer night. He'd been to a party, and had been drinking. He was a man she'd liked, a handsome man she'd found herself fantasising about from time to time. When he crossed the room to stand near her on that sultry summer night, his attention flattered her, despite the stink of stale wine on his breath and the glazed stare in his eyes. He touched her shoulder, and she smiled. It was her last smile for a very long time.

No-one but Karla called it rape. He said that Karla had led him on, and Karla's aunt took his part. The fifteen-year-old orphan from Switzerland left her aunt's home, and never contacted her again. She moved to Los Angeles, where she found a job, shared an apartment with another girl, and began to make her own way. But after the rape, Karla lost the part of loving that grows in trust. Other kinds of love remained in her-friendship, compassion, sexuality-but the love that believes and trusts in the constancy of another human heart, romantic love, was lost.

She worked, saved money, and went to night school. It was her dream to gain a place at a university-any university, anywhere- and study English and German literature. But too much in her young life had been broken, and too many loved ones had died. She couldn't complete any course of study. She couldn't remain in any job. She drifted, and she began to teach herself by reading everything that gave her hope or strength.

"And then?"

"And then," she said slowly, "one day, I found myself on a plane, going to Singapore, and I met a businessman, an Indian businessman, and my life... just... changed, forever."

She let out a sighing gasp of air. I couldn't tell if it was despairing or simply exhausted.

"I'm glad you told me."

"Told you what?"

She was frowning, and her tone was sharp.

"About... your life," I answered.

She relaxed.

"Don't mention it," she said, allowing herself a little smile.

"No, I mean it. I'm glad, and I'm grateful, that you trusted me enough to... talk about yourself."

"And I meant it, too," she insisted, still smiling. "Don't mention it-any of it-to anyone. Okay?"

"Okay."

We were silent for a few moments. A baby was crying somewhere nearby, and I could hear its mother soothing it with a little spool of syllables that were tender and yet faintly annoyed at the same time.

"Why do you hang out at Leopold's?"

"What do you mean?" she asked sleepily.

"I don't know. I just wonder."

She laughed with her mouth closed, breathing through her nose.

Her head rested on my arm. In the darkness her face was a set of soft curves, and her eyes gleamed like black pearls.

"I mean, Didier and Modena and Ulla, even Lettie and Vikram, they all fit in there, somehow. But not you. You don't fit."

"I think... they fit in with me, even if I don't fit in with them," she sighed.

"Tell me about Ahmed," I asked. "Ahmed and Christina."

She was silent for so long, in response to the question, that I thought she must've fallen asleep. Then she spoke, quietly and steadily and evenly, as if she was giving testimony at a trial.

"Ahmed was a friend. He was my best friend, for a while, and kind of like the brother I never had. He came from Afghanistan, and was wounded in the war there. He came to Bombay to recover-in a way, we both did. His wounds were so bad that he never really did get his health back completely. Anyway, we kind of nursed each other, I guess, and we became very close friends. He was a science graduate, from Kabul University, and he spoke excellent English.

We used to talk about books and philosophy and music and art and food. He was a wonderful, gentle guy."

"And something happened to him," I prompted.

"Yeah," she replied, with a little laugh. "He met Christina.

That's what happened to him. She was working for Madame Zhou. She was an Italian girl-very dark and beautiful. I even introduced him to her, one night, when she came into Leopold's with Ulla.

They were both working at the Palace."

"Ulla worked at the Palace?"

"Ulla was one of the most popular girls Madame Zhou ever had.

Then she left the Palace. Maurizio had a contact at the German Consulate. He wanted to oil the wheels on some deal that he was working on with the German, and he discovered that the German was crazy about Ulla. With some heavy persuasion from the consulate officer, and all his own savings, Maurizio managed to buy Ulla free from the Palace. Maurizio got Ulla to twist the consulate guy until he did... whatever it was Maurizio wanted him to do.

Then he dumped him. The guy lost it, I heard. He put a bullet in his head. By then, Maurizio had put Ulla to work, to pay the debt she owed him."

"You know, I've been working up a healthy dislike for Maurizio."

"It was a shitty deal, true enough. But at least she was free from Madame Zhou and the Palace. I have to give Maurizio his due there-he proved it could be done. Before that, nobody ever got away-not without getting acid thrown in her face. When Ulla broke away from Madame Zhou, Christina wanted to break out as well. Madame Zhou was forced to let Ulla go, but she was damned if she was going to part with Christina as well. Ahmed was crazy in love with her, and he went to the Palace, late one night, to have it out with Madame Zhou. I was supposed to go with him. I did business with Madame Zhou-I brought businessmen there for my boss, and they spent a lot of money-you know that. I thought she'd listen to me. But then I got called away. I had a job... a job... it was... an important contact... I couldn't refuse. Ahmed went to the Palace alone. They found his body, and Christina's, the next day, in a car, a few blocks from the Palace. The cops... said that they both took poison, like Romeo and Juliet."