Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

Khaderbhai was sitting in a cane emperor chair, to one side of the fountain. He was reading a book, which he closed and placed on a glass-topped table when I arrived.

"Salaam aleikum, Mr. Lin," he smiled. Peace be with you.

"Wa aleikum salaam. Aap kaise hain?" And with you be peace. How are you, sir?

"I am well, thank you. Mad dogs and Englishmen may very well be out and about in the midday sun, but I prefer to sit here, in the shade of my humble garden."

"Not so humble, Khaderbhai," I remarked.

"Do you think it altogether too grand?"

"No, no. I didn't mean that," I said hurriedly, because that's precisely what I'd been thinking. I couldn't help but recall that he owned the slum where I lived; the dusty, barren slum of twenty-five thousand people, where nothing green existed after eight rainless months, and the only water was rationed from wells that were padlocked shut, most of the time. "This is the most beautiful place I've ever seen in Bombay. I couldn't have imagined this from the street outside."

He stared at me, for a few moments as if measuring the exact width and depth of the lie, and then waved me to a small, backless stool that was the only other chair in the courtyard.

"Please sit down, Mr. Lin. Have you eaten?"

"Yes, thank you. I had a late breakfast."

"Allow me to serve you tea, at least. Nazeer! Idhar-ao!" he shouted, his voice startling a pair of doves that had been pecking for crumbs at his feet. The birds flew up and flapped around Nazeer's chest as he entered. They seemed to be unafraid of him, even to recognise him, and they settled on the flagstones once more, following him like tame puppies.

"Chai bono, Nazeer," Khaderbhai commanded. His tone with the driver was imperious, but not severe, and I guessed that it was the only tone Nazeer felt comfortable with and respected. The burly Afghan withdrew silently, the birds hop-running behind him into the very house.

"Khaderbhai, there's something I want to say before we... talk about anything else," I began quietly. My next words drew his head up swiftly, and I knew that I had his full attention. "It's about Sapna."

"Yes, go on," he murmured.

"Well, I thought about it a lot last night, what we were talking about, and what you asked me to do at the meeting, to sort of help you and so on, and I've got a problem with it." He smiled, and raised one eyebrow quizzically, but he said nothing more, and I was forced to explain myself further.

"I know I'm not saying this very well, but I just don't feel right about it. No matter what this guy did, I don't want to be put in a position of being... well, a kind of cop. I wouldn't feel right about working with them, even indirectly. In my country, the phrase helping the police with their enquiries is a euphemism for informing on someone. I'm sorry. I understand that this guy killed people. If you want to go after him, that's your business, and I'm happy to help you out in any way I can. But I don't want to be involved with the cops, or to help them do it.

If you're working outside the law, on your own-if you want to go after him, and put him out of action personally, for whatever reason of your own-then I'll be glad to help. You can count me in, if you want to fight his gang, whoever they are."

"Is there anything more?"

"No. That's... that's... pretty much it."

"Very well, Mr. Lin," he replied. His face was impassive as he studied me, but there was a puzzling laughter in his eyes. "I may put your mind at rest, I think, in assuring you that while I do assist a large number of policemen financially, so to say, I do not ever work with them. I can tell you, however, that the matter of Sapna is a deeply personal one, and I would ask that if you should wish to confide anything at all about this terrible fellow, you will speak of it only to me. You will not speak to any of the gentlemen you met here, last night, about this Sapna or... or to anyone else. Is that agreed?"

"Yes. Yes, that's agreed."

"Was there anything else?"

"Well, no."

"Excellent. Then, to business: I have very little time today, Mr.

Lin, so I will come directly to the point of the matter. The favour that I mentioned yesterday-I want you to teach one small boy, named Tariq, the English language. Not everything, of course, but enough that his English will be considerably improved, and that he will have some little advantage when he begins his formal studies."

"Well, I'll be happy to try," I stammered, bewildered by the request, but not daunted by it. I felt competent to teach the fundamentals of the language that I wrote in every day of my life. "I don't know how _good I'll be at it. I think there must be a lot of people who'd be better than I would, but I'm happy to take a shot at it. Where do you want me to do it? Would I come here to teach him?"

He looked at me with benign, almost affectionate condescension.

"Why, he will stay with you, naturally. I want you to have him with you, constantly, for the next ten or twelve weeks. He will live with you, eat with you, sleep at your house, go where you go. I do not simply want that he learns the English _phrases. I want that he learns the English way. Your way. I want that he learns this, with your constant company."

"But... but I'm not English," I objected stupidly.

"This is no matter. You are English enough, don't you think? You are a foreigner, and you will teach him the ways of a foreigner.

It is my desire."

My mind was hot, my thoughts scattered and flapping like the birds that he'd startled with his voice. There had to be a way out. It was impossible.

"But I live at the zhopadpatti. You know that. It's very rough.

My hut is really small, and there's nothing in it. He'll be uncomfortable. And it's... it's dirty and crowded and... where would he sleep and all that?"

"I am aware of your situation, Mr. Lin," he replied, a little sharply. "It is precisely this, your life in the zhopadpatti, that I want him to know. Tell me your honest opinion, do you think that there are lessons to be learned in the slum? Do you think he will benefit from spending some time with the city's poorest people?"

I did think that, of course. It seemed to me that every child, beginning with the sons and daughters of the rich, would benefit from the experience of slum life.

"Yes, I suppose I do. I do think it's important to see how people live there. But you have to understand, it's a huge responsibility for me. I'm not doing a spectacular job of looking after myself. I don't know how I could look after a kid."

Nazeer arrived with the tea and a prepared chillum.

"Ah, here is our tea. We shall first smoke, yes?"

We first smoked. Nazeer squatted on his haunches to smoke with us. As Khaderbhai puffed on the clay funnel, Nazeer gave me a complex series of nods, frowns, and winks that seemed to say, Look, see how the master smokes, see what a great lord he is, see how much he is, that you and I will never be, see how lucky we are to be here with him. Nazeer was a head shorter than I was, but I guessed that he was at least several kilos heavier. His neck was so thick that it seemed to draw his powerful shoulders up towards his ears. The bulky arms that stretched the seams of his loose shirt appeared to be only slightly more slender than his thighs. His broad, permanently scowling face was composed of three downward curves, something like the insignia of sergeant's stripes. The first of them consisted of his eyebrows, which began a little above and in the centre of his eyes, and descended with bristling unruliness along the slope of his frown to the level of the eyes themselves.

The second curve began in the deep grooves at the wings of his nose, and divided his face all the way to the jaw. The third was drawn by the desperate, pugnacious unhappiness of his mouth, the upside-down horseshoe of bad luck that fate had nailed to the doorpost of his life.