Gregory David Roberts - Shantaram

A ridge of purplish scar tissue was prominent on the brown skin of his forehead. His dark eyes moved in their deep hollows like hunted things, constantly seeking concealment. His ears looked as though they'd been chewed by some beast that had blunted its teeth on them, and given up the task. His most striking feature was his nose, an instrument so huge and magnificently pendulous that it seemed designed for some purpose altogether more grand than merely inhaling air and fragrances. I thought him ugly, then, when I first knew him, not so much for the unbeautiful set of his features as for their joylessness. It seemed to me that I'd never seen a human face in which the smile had been so utterly defeated.

The chillum returned to me for the third time, but the smoke was hot and tasted foul. I announced that it was finished. Nazeer seized it from me roughly and puffed with furious determination, managing to extract a dirty brown cloud of smoke. He tapped the gitak stone out onto his palm to reveal a tiny residue of white ash. Making sure that I was watching, he blew the ash from his hand to the ground at my feet, cleared his throat menacingly, and then left us.

"Nazeer doesn't like me very much."

Khaderbhai laughed. It was a sudden and very youthful laugh. I liked it, and I was moved to join him, though I didn't really understand why he was laughing.

"Do you like Nazeer?" he asked, still laughing.

"No, I guess I don't," I answered, and we laughed all the harder.

"You do not want to teach Tariq English, because you do not want the responsibility," he said, when the laughter had subsided.

"It's not just that... well, yes, it is just that. It's..." I looked into those golden eyes, pleading with them. "I'm not very good with responsibility. And this... this is a lot of responsibility. It's too much. I can't do it."

He smiled, and reached out to rest his hand on my forearm.

"I understand. You are worried. It is natural. You are worried that something might happen to Tariq. You are worried that you will lose your freedom to go where you want, and to do what you want. This is only natural."

"Yes," I murmured, relieved. He did understand. He knew that I couldn't do what he asked. He was going to let me off the hook.

Sitting there, on the low stool beside his chair, I had to look up at him, and I felt at some disadvantage. I also felt a sudden rush of affection for him, an affection that seemed to proceed from and depend upon the inequalities between us. It was vassal love, one of the strongest and most mysterious human emotions.

"Very well. My decision is this, Lin-you will take Tariq with you, and have him remain with you for two days. If, after this forty-eight hours, you think it is impossible for the situation to continue, you will bring him back here, and I will ask no more of you. But I am sure that he will be no problem to you. My nephew is a fine boy."

"Your... nephew?"

"Yes, the fourth son of my youngest sister, Farishta. He is eleven years old. He has learned some English words, and he speaks Hindi, Pashto, Urdu, and Marathi fluently. He is not so tall for his age, but he is most sturdy in his health."

"Your nephew-," I began again, but he cut me off quickly.

"If you find that you can do this thing for me, you will see that my dear friend in the zhopadpatti, Qasim Ali Hussein-you know him, of course, as the head man-he will help you in every way.

He will arrange for some families, including his own, to share your responsibility, and provide homes for the boy to sleep in, as well as your own. There will be many friends to help you look after Tariq. I want him to know the hardest life of the poorest people. But above all, I want him to have the experience of an English teacher. This last thing means a great deal to me. When I was a boy..."

He paused, allowing his gaze to shift and settle on the fountain and the wet surface of the great, round boulder. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the liquid light on the stone. Then a grave expression passed across them like a cloud-shadow slinking over smooth hills, on a sunny day.

"So, forty-eight hours," he sighed, bringing himself to the moment. "After that, if you bring him back to me, I will not think the worse of you. Now it is time for you to meet the boy."

Khaderbhai gestured toward the arches of the cloister, behind me, and I turned to see that the boy was already standing there. He was small for his age. Khaderbhai had said that he was eleven years old, but he seemed to be no more than eight. Dressed in clean, pressed kurta-pyjama and leather sandals, he clutched a tied calico bundle in his arms. He stared at me with such a forlorn and distrustful expression that I thought he might burst into tears. Khaderbhai called him forward, and the boy approached us, making a wide detour around me to the far side of his uncle's chair. The closer he came, the more miserable he seemed.

Khaderbhai spoke to him sternly and swiftly in Urdu, pointing at me several times. When he finished, the boy walked to my stool and extended his hand to me.

"Hello very much," he said, his eyes huge with reluctance and fear.

I shook hands with him, his small hand vanishing in mine. Nothing ever fits the palm so perfectly, or feels so right, or inspires so much protective instinct as the hand of a child.

"Hello to you, too, Tariq," I said, smiling in spite of myself.

His eyes flickered a tiny, hopeful smile in response, but doubt quickly smothered it. He looked back to his uncle. It was a look of desperate unhappiness, drawing his closed mouth wide and pulling his small nose in so tightly that it showed white at the corners.

Khaderbhai returned the look, staring strength into the boy, then stood up and called for Nazeer once more in that half-shout.

"You will forgive me, Mr. Lin. There are a number of matters that require my urgent attentions. I will expect you in two days, if you are not happy, na? Nazeer will show you out."

He turned without looking at the boy, and strode off into the shadowed arches. Tariq and I watched him leave, each of us feeling abandoned and betrayed. Nazeer walked with us to the door. As I changed into my street shoes, Nazeer knelt and pressed the boy to his chest with surprising and passionate tenderness.

Tariq clung to him, grabbing his hair, and had to be prised from the embrace with some force. When we stood once more, Nazeer gave me a look of eloquent, lingering menace-If anything happens to this boy, you will answer to me for it-and turned away from us.

A minute later we were outside, on the street beside the Nabila Mosque, boy and man joined tightly at the hand but in nothing else except our bewilderment at the power of the personality that had pushed us together against our wills. Tariq had simply been obedient, but there was something craven in my helplessness to resist Khaderbhai. I'd capitulated too readily, and I knew it.

Self-disgust quickly became self-righteousness. How could he do this to a child, I asked myself, his own nephew, give him up so easily to a stranger? Didn't he see how reluctant the boy was?

It's a callous disregard for the rights and well-being of a child. Only a man who thought of others as his playthings, would surrender a child to someone like... like me.

Furious at my feeble pliancy-How did I let him force me to do this?-and burning with spite and selfishness, I dragged Tariq along at a jogging trot as I marched through the swarming street.

Just as we passed the main entrance to the mosque, the muezzin began to recite the call to prayer from the minarets above our heads.

Allah hu Akbar Allah hu Akbar Allah hu Akbar Allah hu Akbar Ash-hadu an-la Ila ha-illallah Ash-hadu an-la Ila ha-illallah

God is great, God is great I bear witness that there is no god but _God...