Shantaram: A Novel

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Are you still one?’

  ‘Still one what?’

  ‘Are you still an anarchist?’

  It was a hard question to answer, because it forced me to compare the man I’d once been with the man I’d allowed myself to become.

  ‘Anarchists …’ I began and then faltered. ‘No political philosophy I ever heard of loves the human race as much as anarchism. Every other way of looking at the world says that people have to be controlled, and ordered around, and governed. Only the anarchists trust human beings enough to let them work it out for themselves. And I used to be that optimistic once. I used to believe and think like that. But I don’t, any more. So, no—I guess I’m not an anarchist now.’

  ‘And that hero—when you did the armed robberies, you identified with him?’

  ‘With Kelly, Ned Kelly, yeah. I think I did. He had a gang of young guys —his younger brother, and his two best friends—and they did these hold-ups, robbing people. The cops sent a hit squad after him, but he beat them, and a couple of cops got killed.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘They caught him. There was a shoot-out. The government declared war on him. They sent a trainload of cops after him, and they surrounded his gang, at a hotel in the bush.’

  ‘A hotel, in a bush?’

  ‘The bush—it’s what we call the countryside, in Australia. Anyway, Ned and his guys were surrounded by this army of cops. His best friend was shot in the throat, and killed. His kid brother, and another kid named Steve Hart, shot each other with their last bullets rather than let themselves be captured. They were nineteen years old. Ned had this armour made from steel—a helmet and a chest plate. He came at them, the army of cops, with both guns blazing. He frightened the shit out of them, at first, and they ran away. But their officers drove them back to the fight. They shot Ned’s legs out from under him. After a phoney trial, with false statements from witnesses, Ned Kelly was sentenced to death.’

  ‘Did they do it?’

  ‘Yeah. His last words were, Such is life. That was the last thing he said. They hanged him, and then cut off his head, and used it as a paperweight. Before he died, he told the judge who’d sentenced him that they’d meet, very soon, in a higher court. The judge died not long after.’

  She was watching the story in my face as I told it. I reached out for a handful of sand, and let it run through my fingers. Two large bats passed over our heads. They were close enough for us to hear the dry-leaf rustle of their wings.

  ‘I loved the Ned Kelly story when I was a kid. I wasn’t the only one. Artists and writers and musicians and actors have all worked on the story, in one way or another. He put himself inside us, in the Australian psyche. He’s the nearest thing we’ve got to Che Guevara, or Emiliano Zapata. When my brain got scrambled on heroin, I think I started to drown in a fantasy of his life and mine. But it was a messed-up version of the story. He was a thief who became a revolutionary. I was a revolutionary who became a thief. Every time I did a robbery—and I did a lot of them—I was sure the cops would be there, and I’d be killed. I was hoping it would happen. I played it out in my mind. I could see them calling me to stop, and I’d reach for a gun, and they’d shoot me dead. I was hoping the cops would shoot me down in the street. I wanted to die that way …’

  She reached out to put an arm around my shoulders. With her free hand, she held my chin, and turned my head to face her smile.

  ‘What are the women like, in Australia?’ she asked, running her hand through my short, blonde hair.

  I laughed, and she punched me in the ribs.

  ‘I mean it! Tell me what they’re like.’

  ‘Well, they’re beautiful,’ I said, looking at her beautiful face. ‘There’s a lot of beautiful women in Australia. And they like to talk, and they like to party—they’re pretty wild. And they’re very direct. They hate bullshit. There’s nothing like an Australian woman for taking the piss out of you.’

  ‘Taking your piss?’

  ‘Taking the piss,’ I laughed. ‘Letting the air out of your chest, you know, ridiculing you, stopping you from getting too many big ideas about yourself. They’re great at it. And if they stick a pin in you, to let a bit of hot air out, you can be pretty certain you had it coming.’

  She lay back on the sand, with her hands clasped behind her head.

  ‘I think Australians are very crazy,’ she said. And I would like very much to go there.’

  And it should’ve been as happy, it should’ve been as easy, it should’ve been as good for ever as it was in those Goan days and nights of love. We should’ve built a life from the stars and the sea and the sand. And I should’ve listened to her—she told me almost nothing, but she did give me clues, and I know now that she put signs in her words and expressions that were as clear as the constellations over our heads. But I didn’t listen. It’s a fact of being in love that we often pay no attention whatsoever to the substance of what a lover says, while being intoxicated to ecstasy by the way it’s said. I was in love with her eyes, but I didn’t read them. I loved her voice, but I didn’t really hear the fear and the anguish in it.

  And when the last night came, and went, and I woke at dawn to pre-pare for the trip back to Bombay, I found her standing at the doorway, staring at the great shimmering pearl of the sea.

  ‘Don’t go back,’ she said as I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her neck.

  ‘What?’ I laughed.

  ‘Don’t go back to Bombay.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want you to.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just what I said—I don’t want you to go.’

  I laughed, because I thought it had to be a joke.

  ‘Okay’ I said, smiling and waiting for the punch line. ‘So, why don’t you want me to go?’

  ‘Do I have to have a reason?’ she demanded.

  ‘Well … yeah.’

  ‘It just so happens, I do have reasons. But I’m not going to tell you.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘No. I don’t think I should have to. If I tell you I’ve got reasons, it should be enough—if you love me, like you say you do.’

  Her manner was so vehement, and the stand she was taking so inflexible and unexpected, that I was too surprised to be angry.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I said reasonably, ‘let’s try this again. I have to go back to Bombay. So, why don’t you come with me, and then we’ll be together, for ever and ever, amen.’

  ‘I won’t go back,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘I can’t … I just don’t want to, and I don’t want you to, either.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see the problem. I can do what I have to do in Bombay, and you can wait here. I’ll come back when it’s all done.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ she repeated in that same monotone.

  ‘Come on, Karla. I have to go back.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  My smile curled into a frown.

  ‘Yes, I do. I promised Ulla I’d be back in ten days. She’s still in trouble. You know that.’

  ‘Ulla can look after herself,’ she hissed, still refusing to turn and look at me.

  ‘Are you jealous of Ulla?’ I asked, grinning, as I reached out to stroke her hair.

  ‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’ she snapped. She turned, and there was fury in her eyes. ‘I like Ulla, but I’m telling you she can take care of herself.’

  ‘Take it easy. What’s the matter? You knew I was going back. We’ve talked about this. I’m getting into the passport business. You know how important that is for me.’

  ‘I’ll get you a passport. I’ll get you five passports!’

  My stubbornness began to rouse itself.

  ‘I don’t want you to get me a passport. I want to learn how to make them and change them myself. I want to learn it all—everything I can. They’re going to teach me how to fix passports, and forge them. If I lea
rn that, I’ll be free. And I want to be free, Karla. Free. That’s what I want.’

  ‘Why should you be any different?’ she demanded.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nobody gets what they want,’ she said, ‘Nobody does. Nobody.’

  Her fury dimmed into something worse, something I’d never seen in her: a resigned and defeated sorrow. I knew it was a sin to put such a feeling in such a woman, in any woman. And I knew, watching her little smile fade and die, that sooner or later I would pay for it.

  I spoke to her softly, slowly, trying to win her agreement.

  ‘I sent Ulla to my friend Abdullah’s. He’s looking after her. I can’t just leave her there. I have to go back.’

  ‘I won’t be here, when you look for me next time,’ she said, turning to lean against the doorway once more.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just what I said.’

  ‘Is that some kind of threat? Is that an ultimatum?’

  ‘You can call it what you like,’ she answered dully, as if waking from a dream. ‘It’s just a fact. If you go back to Bombay, I’ll give up on you. I won’t go with you, and I won’t wait for you. Stay with me now, here, or go back alone. The choice is yours. But if you go back, it will finish us.’

  I stared at her, bewildered and angry and in love.

  ‘You have to give me more than that,’ I said, more softly. ‘You’ve gotta tell me why. You’ve gotta talk to me, Karla. You can’t just give me an ultimatum, without any reason, and expect me to go along with it. There’s a difference between a choice and an ultimatum: a choice means that you know what’s going on, and why, before you decide. I’m not the kind of man you can give an ultimatum to. If I was, I wouldn’t have escaped from jail. You can’t tell me what to do, Karla. You can’t order me to do something, without an explanation. I’m not that kind of man. You’ve gotta tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  I sighed, and spoke evenly, but my teeth were clenched.

  ‘I don’t think I’m … doing a very good job … of explaining this. The fact is, there isn’t a lot that I respect about myself. But the little bit that I’ve still got left—it’s all I’ve got. A man has to respect himself, Karla, before he can respect anyone else. If I just give in, and do whatever you want me to do, without any kind of reason, I wouldn’t respect myself. And if you tell the truth, you wouldn’t respect me, either. So, I’m asking you again. What’s this all about?’

  ‘I … can’t.’

  ‘You mean, you won’t.’

  ‘I mean, I can’t,’ she said softly, and then she looked straight into my eyes. ‘And I won’t. That’s just how it is. You told me, just a little while ago, that you would do anything for me. I want you to stay here. I don’t want you to go back to Bombay. If you do go back, it’s all over between us.’

  ‘What kind of man would I be,’ I asked, trying to smile, ‘if I went along with that?’

  ‘I guess that’s your answer, and you’ve made your choice,’ she sighed, pushing past me to walk out of the hut.

  I packed my bag and strapped it to the bike. When all was ready, I went down to the sea. She rose from the waves and walked toward me slowly, dragging her feet through the shifting sand. The singlet and lungi clung to her body. Her black hair gleamed sleek and wet under the soaring sun. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

  ‘I love you,’ I said, as she came into my arms and we kissed. I spoke the words against her lips, her face, her eyes. I held her close to me. ‘I love you. It’ll be okay. You’ll see. I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘No,’ she answered woodenly her body not stiff, but utterly still, the life and the love drained out of it. ‘It won’t be all right. It won’t be okay. It’s over. And I won’t be here, after today.’

  I looked into her eyes, and felt my own body harden, hollowed out by pride. My hands fell from her shoulders. I turned, and walked back to the bike. Riding to the last little cliff that gave a view of the beach, our beach, I stopped the bike and shielded my eyes to look for her. But she was gone. There was nothing but the waves breaking like the curved spines of playful porpoises, and the traceless, empty, tousled sheets of sand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A SMILING SERVANT opened the door and ushered me into the room, gesturing for me to be silent. He needn’t have bothered. The music was so loud in the room that I couldn’t have been heard, even if I’d shouted. Cupping his hand as if it were a saucer, and pretending to sip from it, he mimed an offer of chai. I nodded. He closed the door behind him quietly, leaving me alone with Abdul Ghani. The portly figure stood in the broad curve of a high bay window, looking out at a wide view of roof-garden plateaus, balconies ablaze with green and yellow saris hung out to dry, and rust-red herringbone rooftops.

  The room was huge. Ornate ceiling rosettes surrounded thick, gold suspension chains for three elaborate chandeliers on the distant ceiling. At the end of the room near the main door, there was a long dining table with twelve high-backed teak chairs. A mahogany armoire ran the length of the table against one wall, and was topped by an immense, rose-glass mirror. Beside the armoire, there was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase running the further length of the wall. On the opposite long wall of the room, four tall windows looked upon the uppermost branches and cool, shading leaves of plane trees lining the street below. The centre of the room, between the wall of books and the tall windows, was set up as an office. A teak-and-leather captain’s chair, facing the main door, served a broad, baroque desk. The far end of the room was decorated for entertaining, with leather chesterfields and deep armchairs. Two enormous bay windows in the end wall, behind the couches, dominated the room with arches of brilliant sunlight. French doors set into the two bay windows opened onto a wide balcony, giving the view of Colaba’s inner-city rooftop gardens, clotheslines, and neglected gargoyles.

  Abdul Ghani stood there, listening to the music and singing that thundered from an expensive sound system built into the wall of books. The voices and the music were familiar, and a few moments of concentration brought them back to me. They were the Blind Singers, the same men I’d heard as Khaderbhai’s guest, on the first night that I met him. The song wasn’t one I recalled from that concert, but I was struck, at once, by its passion and power. As the thrilling, heart-wrenching chorus of voices finished, we stood in a throbbing silence that seemed to resist the noises of the households within the building and of the street below us.

  ‘Do you know them?’ he asked, without turning around.

  ‘Yes. They’re the Blind Singers, I think.’

  ‘Indeed, they are,’ he said in the mix of Indian lilt and BBC newsreader’s tone that I’d come to enjoy. ‘I love their music, Lin, more than anything I have ever heard, from any culture. But in the heart of my love for it, I have to say that I am afraid. Every time I hear them—and I play them every day, when I am at home here—I have the feeling that I am hearing the sound of my own requiem.’

  He still hadn’t turned to face me, and I remained standing near the centre of the long room.

  ‘That … that must be unsettling.’

  ‘Unsettling …’he said softly. ‘Yes. Yes, it is unsettling. Tell me, Lin, do you think that one great act of genius can allow us to forgive the hundred flaws and failures that bring it into being?’

  ‘It’s … hard to say. I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but I guess it depends on how many people benefit by it, and how many people get hurt.’

  He turned to face me, and I saw that he was crying. Tears rolled quickly, easily, and continuously from his large eyes, and spilled across the plump cheeks to the belly of his long silk shirt. His voice, however, was calm and composed.

  ‘Did you know that our Madjid was killed last night?’

  ‘No,’ I frowned, shocked by the news. ‘Killed?’

  ‘Yes. Murdered. Slaughtered like some beast, in his own house. His body was torn to pieces, and the pieces were found in many differe
nt rooms of the house. The name Sapna was daubed on the walls with his own blood. Police are blaming fanatics who follow this Sapna. I’m sorry, Lin. Forgive my tears, please. I’m afraid that this bad business has taken its toll on me.’

  ‘No, not at all. I’ll … I’ll come back at another time.’

  ‘Of course not. You’re here now, and Khader is anxious for you to begin. We’ll drink tea, and I will pull myself together, and then we’ll examine the passport business, you and I.’

  He walked to the hi-fi set, and extracted the cassette tape of the Blind Singers. Sliding it into a gold plastic case, he approached me and pressed it into my hand.

  ‘I want you to have this, as a present from me,’ he said, his eyes and cheeks still wet with tears. ‘It’s time I stopped listening to it, and I feel sure that you will enjoy it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I muttered, almost as confused by the gift as I was by the news of Madjid’s death.

  ‘Not at all, Lin. Come, sit with me. You were in Goa, I believe? Do you know our young fighter, Andrew Ferreira? Yes? Then you know he is from Goa. He goes there, often, with Salman and Sanjay, when I have work for them. You must all go there together, some time—they will show you the special sights, if you get my meaning. So tell me, how was your trip?’

  I answered him, trying to give my whole attention to the conversation, but my mind was thick with thoughts of Madjid; dead Madjid. I couldn’t say that I’d liked him, or even that I’d trusted him. Yet his death, his murder, shook me, and filled me with a strange, excited agitation. He’d been killed—slaughtered, Abdul had said—in the house at Juhu where we’d studied together, and he’d taught me about gold and golden crimes. I thought of the house. I remembered its view of the sea, its purple-tiled swimming pool, its bare, pale-green prayer room where Madjid had bent his ancient knees, five times every day, and touched his bushy grey eyebrows to the floor. I remembered sitting outside that room, near the pool, waiting for him as he took time out to pray. I remembered staring at the purple water as the murmured syllables of the prayers buzzed past me into the swaying fronds of palms leaning in around the pool.