Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"Okay," I smiled, sitting further along the bed to rest my back against the bed-head.

"I found a new place. It's in Tardeo. I know you like Tardeo. So do I. And I know you'll like the apartment, because it's exactly the kind of place we both like. And I think that's what I'm trying to get at, or trying to say-we like the same things, Lin.

And we got a lot in common. We both beat the dope. That's a fuckin' hard thing to do, and you know it. And not many people do it. But we did-we both did-and I think that's because we're alike, you and me. We'd be good, Lin. We'd be... we'd be real good."

"I can't say... for sure... that I beat the dope, Lisa."

"You did, Lin."

"No. I can't say I won't ever touch it again, so I can't say I beat it."

"But that's even more reason to get together, don't you see?" she insisted, her eyes pleading and close to tears. "I'll keep you straight. I can say I won't ever touch it again, because I hate the stuff. If we're together, we can work the movie business, and have fun, and watch out for each other."

"There's too much..."

"Listen, if you're worried about Australia, and jail, we could go somewhere else-somewhere they'll never find us."

"Who told you about that?" I asked, keeping my face straight.

"Karla did," she answered evenly. "It was in the same little conversation we had once, where she told me to look after you."

"Karla said that?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"A long time ago. I asked her about you-about what her feelings were, and what she wanted to do."

"Why?"

"Whaddaya mean, why?"

"I mean," I replied slowly, reaching out to cover her hand with mine, "why did you ask Karla about her feelings?"

"Because I had a crush on you, stupid!" she explained, holding my eye for a second and then looking away again. "That's why I went with Abdullah-to make you jealous, or interested, and just to be close to you, through him, because he was your friend."

"Jesus," I sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Is it still Karla?" she asked, her eyes following the rise and breathless fall of the curtains at the window. "Are you still in love with her?"

"No."

"But you still love her."

"Yes."

"And... how about me?" she asked.

I didn't answer because I didn't want her to know the truth. I didn't want to know the truth myself. And the silence thickened and swelled until I could feel the tingling pressure of it on my skin.

"I've got this friend," she said at last. "He's an artist. A sculptor. His name's Jason. Have you ever met him?"

"No, I don't think so."

"He's an English guy, and he's got a real English way of looking at things. It's different than our way, our American way, I mean.

He's got a big studio out near Juhu Beach. I go there sometimes."

She was silent again. We sat there, feeling the breeze alternately warm and cool as the air from the street and the bay swirled into the room. I could feel her eyes on me like a blush of shame. I stared at our two hands joined and resting on the bed.

"The last time I went there, he was working on this new idea. He was filling empty packaging with plaster, using the bubble packs that used to have toys in them, you know, and the foam boxes you get packed around a new T.V set. He calls them negative spaces.

He uses them like a mould, and he makes a sculpture out of them.

He had a hundred things there-shapes made out of egg cartons, and the blister-pack that a new toothbrush came in, and the empty package that had a set of headphones in it."

I turned to look at her. The sky in her eyes held tiny storms.

Her lips, embossed with secret thoughts, were swollen to the truth she was trying to tell me.

"I walked around there, in his studio, you know, looking at all these white sculptures, and I thought, that's what I am. That's what I've always been. All my life. Negative space. Always waiting for someone, or something, or some kind of real feeling to fill me up and give me a reason..."

When I kissed her, the storm from her blue eyes came into our mouths, and the tears that slid across her lemon-scented skin were sweeter than honey from the sacred bees in Mombadevi's Jasmine Temple garden. I let her cry for us. I let her live and die for us in the long, slow stories our bodies told. Then, when the tears stopped, she surrounded us with poised and fluent beauty-a beauty that was hers alone: born in her brave heart, and substantialised in the truth of her love and her flesh. And it almost worked.

We kissed again as I prepared to leave her room-good friends, lovers, gathered into one another then and forever by the clash and caress of our bodies, but not quite healed by it, not quite cured by it. Not yet.

"She's still there, isn't she?" Lisa said, wrapping a towel around her body to stand in the breeze at the window.

"I've got the blues today, Lisa. I don't know why. It's been a long day. But that's nothing to do with us. You and me... that was good-for me, anyway."

"For me, too. But I think she's still there, Lin."

"No, I wasn't lying before. I'm not in love with her any more.

Something happened, when I came back from Afghanistan. Or maybe it happened in Afghanistan. It just... stopped."

"I'm going to tell you something," she murmured and then turned to face me, speaking in a stronger, clearer voice. "It's about her. I believe you, what you said, but I think you have to know this before you can really say it's over with her."

"I don't need-"

"Please, Lin! It's a girl thing. I have to tell you because you can't really say it's over with her unless you know the truth about her-unless you know what makes her tick. If I tell you, and it doesn't change anything or make you feel different than how you feel now, then I'll know you're free."

"And if it does make a difference?"

"Well, maybe she deserves a second chance. I don't know. I can only tell you I never understood Karla at all until she told me.

She made sense, after that. So... I guess you have to know.

Anyway, if there's anything gonna happen for us, I want it to be clear-the past, I mean."

"Okay," I relented, sitting in a chair near the door. "Go ahead."

She sat on the bed once more, drawing her knees up under her chin in the tight wrap of the towel. There were changes in her, and I couldn't help noticing them-a kind of honesty, maybe, in the way her body moved, and a new, almost languorous release that softened her eyes. They were love-changes, and beautiful for that, and I wondered if she saw any of them in me, sitting still and quiet near the door.

"Did Karla tell you why she left the States?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"No," I replied, choosing not to repeat the little that Khaled had told me on the night that he walked into the snow.

"I didn't think so. She told me she wasn't going to tell you about it. I said she was crazy. I said she had to level with you.

But she wouldn't. It's funny how it goes, isn't it? I wanted her to tell you, then, because I thought it might put you off her.

Now, I'm telling you, so that you can give her one more chance- if you want to. Anyway, here it is. Karla left the States because she had to. She was running away... because she killed a guy."

I laughed. It was a small chuckle, at first, but it rolled and rumbled helplessly into a belly laugh. I doubled over, leaning on my thighs for support.

"It's really not that funny, Lin." Lisa frowned.

"No," I laughed, struggling to regain control. "It's not... that. It's just... _shit! If you knew how many times I worried about bringing my crazy, fucked up life to _her! I kept telling myself I had no right to love her because I was on the run. You gotta admit, it's pretty funny."

She stared at me, rocking slightly as she hugged her knees. She wasn't laughing.