Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

"Well," I said, shuffling my feet to move around him and greet Kalpana, the last friend sitting in the loop of the table. She was working as a first-assistant director for Mehta-De Souza productions, and in training to become a director in her own right. She looked up at me and winked.

"Wait," Ranjit requested, softly but quickly. "I wanted to tell you... about your stories... your short stories..."

I turned to flinch a frown at Kavita Singh, who hunched her shoulders and raised the palms of her hands as she looked away.

"Kavita let me read them, and I wanted to tell you how good they are. I mean, how good _I think they are."

"Well, thanks," I muttered, trying once again to move past him.

"Really. I read them all, and I think they're really great."

There are few things more discomfiting than a spontaneous outburst of genuine decency from someone you're determined to dislike for no good reason. I felt a little blush of shame beginning to spread across my cheeks.

"Thanks," I said, putting truth into my eyes and my voice for the first time. "It's damn nice to hear, even if Kavita wasn't supposed to show them to anyone."

"I know she wasn't," he said quickly. "But I think you should- show them to someone, I mean. They're not right for my paper.

It's not the right forum. But The Noonday, well, it would be the perfect forum for them. And I know they'd buy them for a very fair price. The editor of The Noonday, Anil, is a friend of mine.

I know what he likes, and I know he'll like your stories. I didn't show him your work, of course. Not without your permission. But I did tell him that I read them, and that I think they're good. He wants to meet you. If you take your stories to him, I'm sure you'll get on well with him. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. He's hoping to see you. But it's up to you. Whatever you decide, I wish you all the best."

He sat down, and I moved past him to greet Kalpana and then take my place beside Didier. I was so distracted by the exchange with Ranjit-Jeet-Choudry that I only half-listened to Didier's announcement of his planned trip to Italy with Arturo. Three months, I heard him say, and I remember thinking that three months in Italy could become three years, and that I might lose him. The thought was so strange that I wouldn't let myself consider it. Bombay without Didier was like... Bombay without Leopold's, or the Haji Ali Mosque, or the Gateway Monument. It was unthinkable.

Pushing the thought away, I looked around the laughing, drinking, talking table of friends, and filled the empty glass within me, pouring their successes and their hopes into my eyes. Then I returned my attention to Ranjit, Karla's boyfriend. I'd done my homework on him in recent months. I knew that he was the second eldest-some said the favourite-of four sons born to Ramprakash Choudry, a truck driver who'd made his fortune resupplying coastal towns in Bangladesh that had been hit by cyclones. The first government tenders had grown into major contracts, requiring fleets of trucks and, eventually, chartered aircraft and ships. Along the way, Choudry had acquired a small-circulation Bombay newspaper as part of a merger with a more diversified transport and communications firm.

He'd handed the paper to his son Ranjit, who'd just graduated with a business degree and was the first, on both sides of his family, to complete high school and to attend any kind of further-education college. Ranjit had been running the paper, re badged as The Daily Post, for eight years. His success with The Post, as it was known, had allowed Ranjit to segue into the incipient field of independent television production.

He was wealthy, influential, popular, and possessed of an entrepreneurial elan in print, movies, and television: a media baron in the making. There were rumours of resentments stirring in the heart of Ranjit's older brother Rahul, who'd joined his father in the transport business in his early teenage years, and had never enjoyed the private-school education lavished upon Ranjit and the younger siblings. There was gossip, also, about the two younger brothers, the wild parties they sometimes threw, and the large bribes required to keep them out of trouble. There was no criticism of Ranjit, however, in any connection; and apart from those few simmering concerns, his life seemed almost charmed.

He was, as Lettie had once said, quite a fat and shiny catch. And as I watched him with friends-listening more than he talked, smiling more than he frowned, self-deprecating and considerate, tactful and attentive-I had to admit to myself that he was a very likeable man. And, strangely, I felt sorry for him. A few years or even months before, I would've been jealous that he was such a likeable man-such a very nice guy, as more than a few people said to me when I'd asked them about him. I would've hated him. But I felt nothing like that for Ranjit Choudry. Instead, as I watched him, remembering too much of what I'd felt for Karla, and thinking about her clearly for the first time in... a long time, I felt sorry for the rich, handsome media baron, and I wished him luck.

For half an hour I talked across the table with Lisa and the others and then I looked up to see Johnny Cigar, standing in the wide doorway and gesturing to catch my eye. Delighted to have an excuse to leave, I turned to Didier and drew him around to face me. "Listen, if you're really serious about going to Italy for three months-"

"Certainly, I am-" he began, but I cut him off quickly.

"And if you're really serious about needing someone to look after your place for you while you're away, I think I've got just the guys for the job."

"Oh, yes? And who are they?"

"The Georges," I replied. "The Zodiac Georges. Gemini and Scorpio."

Didier was appalled.

"But these... these George people... they are, how can I say it?"

"Reliable?" I suggested. "Honest. Clean. Loyal. Brave. And, above all, the most important qualification for situations like this, they're absolutely not interested in staying in your apartment for a minute longer than you want them to. In fact, I'll have a damn hard job talking them into it in the first place. They like the street. They won't want to do it. But if I let them know they're doing me a favour, they might agree. They'll do a good job of looking after your place for you, and they'll get three months of safe living in a decent place."

"Decent?" Didier scoffed. "What do you mean, decent? My apartment is without parallel in Bombay, Lin. You know that. Excellent, I can understand. Superb, I can accept. But decent-non! It is like saying that I live in the fish market and, er, what do you say, whoosh it out every day with a water hose!"

"So what do you think? I've gotta go."

"Decent!" he sniffed.

"Come on, man, will you forget about that!"

"Well, yes, perhaps you are right. I have nothing against them.

The George from Canada, the Scorpio, he does speak some French.

That is true. Yes. Yes. Tell them I think it is a good idea. Tell them to see me, and I will speak to them-with very careful instructions."

Laughing as I said goodbye, I joined Johnny Cigar at the doorway of the restaurant. He pulled me close to him.

"Can you come with me? Now?" he asked.

"Sure. Walking or taxi?"

"I think taxi, Lin."

We pushed our way through the breaking waves of walkers to the road and found a taxi. I was smiling as we waved the taxi down and climbed inside. For months, I'd been trying to find a way to help Gemini and Scorpio George that was more meaningful than the money I gave them from time to time. Didier's holiday with Arturo provided the perfect opportunity. I knew that three months in Didier's apartment would add years to their lives: three months without the stress of street living and with the secure good health that only a home and home cooking can provide. And I also knew that, with the Zodiac Georges in his apartment while he was gone, Didier would worry just enough to make his return to Bombay a little more likely, and a little sooner.