by Bajaj, Karan
‘He is alive,’ said Maki.
‘Don’t move,’ I said. ‘Just stay still.’
A foolish comment, if ever there was one. He couldn’t move if he tried. His face was shattered, just blood and bone; any move to stem the blood flow would probably make it worse. He won’t make it, I thought suddenly. Just as Ishmael didn’t.
‘It wasn’t even a planned attack. I think someone from Jocinha saw him standing alone and took a shot,’ said Maki. ‘They want to take over Jakeira. Thankfully, a runt spotted them and we got there in time.’
‘Isn’t Jocinha a part of the Comando Vermelho? Aren’t Donos in different favelas forbidden from killing each other?’ I asked.
They looked at each other as if they had never considered this question before.
Their surprise made sense. I should have figured it out earlier. The Red Command wasn’t set up like a sugared water company with a chief executive in charge; it was a loose confederate of Donos across different favelas, who tried to set boundaries where they could, but ultimately, everyone had to watch out for themselves.
Alex and the doctor, a fair-skinned gentleman who had probably been persuaded to come from a city clinic, rushed into the room. The doctor stared at Marco and went closer to inspect him. He touched the gooey flesh on his forehead and Marco screamed.
‘I can try to fix him but I need blood immediately. Do you know his blood group? Does it match anyone’s here?’ he said.
The thugs looked at one another. Of course, they hadn’t ever found out their blood groups.
‘I am O positive,’ I said, remembering the results from my US visa application. ‘Universal donor, right?’
Another thought had entered my mind which made me volunteer like an idiot. Whether they knew it or not, I was sure most of these thugs had HIV or some other deadly STD. For no other reason than that they all loved to go bareback and alternately called me a pussy and a faggot for insisting on a condom.
‘I will need to test both of you first since this is a live transfusion,’ said the doctor. ‘His blood may show an adverse reaction to the antibodies in your blood, which could kill him - or you.’
‘Do we have time?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Where will you test anyway?’ said Alex. ‘You know we can’t take him to a hospital.’
I paused for a moment. Heck, I thought. I am not a hero, I don’t want to be a hero, but here I am in the same no-win position once again. Hadn’t I learnt the last time round that there was no karmic justice? What goes around doesn’t come around. I had lost an arm the last time I’d tried to be bigger than I was. What would I lose this time?
‘Is there a chance I might lose the function of my other arm?’ I asked.
I wasn’t particularly concerned about death. I had nothing much to live for and not much to look forward to. What I feared was the thought of being fed like a baby and needing someone to wipe my arse. Not that I could even afford it if it came to that.
‘There is always a chance,’ said the doctor sagely.
Great, I thought. Now what? I looked at the door longingly. I could still get out of here and pursue my dream of becoming a corporate coolie.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘You are going to die a dog’s death,’ I said as Marco began to gain consciousness.
The doctor had cleaned his wound and we were now connected with the rickety transfusion equipment. My right wrist, attached to the catheter, hurt like hell, and I rotated it every few minutes to ensure that I hadn’t lost control of it. Not this arm, I prayed, anything but.
‘Shut up, you fag,’ he said through his pain and began to drift away.
‘You act cool, like a movie star, but you are as afraid to die as anyone else,’ I said, still smarting from being put in this position. ‘Why else would you keep moving from house to house every night to avoid getting shot?’
He made as if to reach for a gun and collapsed from the effort.
Slowly he got better, as did I.
‘Are you still going to go?’ he said when he had regained consciousness. I was standing by his bed, right arm intact, staring at his heavily bandaged head. He looked like Frankenstein and I felt a sudden wave of affection for him.
‘Yes,’ I said sadly. ‘I’ve nowhere to go but I can’t live this life any more. It is unnecessary and wrong.’
‘I chose this life,’ he said, sounding less stubborn than usual.
‘So did the people who came to kill you,’ I said. ‘Weren’t they from the Red Command as well? Everyone watches out for their own interest here. If you want to have principles, choose bigger ones. You are just a small-time dealer now, but you can become bigger and put an end to this stupid violence - at least in this favela.’
I expected protest but heard none.
‘What do you have in mind, men?’ he asked.
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We don’t need to do anything dramatic. We will just launder the drug money every month so that it’s clean. Once we have enough white money, we can invest in a variety of legal businesses. Money will bring more money.’
‘And how do you launder it?’
‘It should be pretty simple from what I’ve read,’ I said. ‘We need to start a small business with borrowed funds from which we get a regular inflow of clean cash. When we deposit that cash in the bank, we keep slipping in portions of your drug money; once the money is in the financial system, it’s clean. Within a few months, we should have enough clean money to start making significant legal investments in stocks and real estate, and soon you can get out of the drug trade entirely - if you want to.’
‘What small business do we start?’
‘Well, something like… retail, for instance,’ I said after a moment’s thought. ‘Thousands of legal transactions every day, lots of clean cash to be deposited in the banks, no one will notice if we slip in a few thousand dollars of drug money every week. What can we retail in?’
‘Guns,’ he replied at once.
I stared at him. ‘I think I liked you better when the only sound out of your mouth was a groan.’
‘Do you know any business yourself, fucker?’ he asked.
I paused. What did I know besides silence and loss, and mathematics and cocaine?
‘I understand sports pretty well,’ I said. ‘We could retail in apparel and equipment for basketball, soccer, running, etc. That’s a start.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘So you are going to stay then, aren’t you?’
Unknowingly, we had hit a gold mine. Just as we opened our first sporting goods store in Ipanema in 1990, a wave of international retail chains entered Brazil, and shopping at large stores became the vogue for the growing middle class. One store became two, two became ten, and in three years’ time we were operating three hundred stores in Sao Paolo and Rio, generating a few million dollars of profit every year, and growing. What had started as a front for laundering drug money soon became vastly more profitable than the drug business itself, and to further establish its legality, I created shell companies in Hong Kong, Moldova and Seychelles - all laundering havens with no bank-reporting requirements - where we repatriated all our profits. The shell companies, in turn, made profits on local investments that were then re-invested in our retail holdings in Brazil. So intricate was the financial web we spun that it would take years for even the most dedicated investigator to trace the origins of our empire to a coca farm in a small Colombian village. I could now face Marco with some measure of pride - our involvement with the drug business had reduced to a token amount for solidarity with the Comando Vermelho, and we had prospered beyond our highest estimations.
‘Can I ask you a personal question, men?’ asked Marco during one of our monthly briefings on the state of accounts.
Three years after the shootout, the wound on his forehead had fully healed, but the scars from the stitches had twisted his br
ows into a perpetual frown. The juxtaposition of his usually smiling face with his scowling brow gave him a comical look, especially when he really was frowning, like now.
I couldn’t help smiling at him. ‘You sure can,’ I replied.
‘Why are you smiling, bastard?’ he said.
‘Because you look like a joker,’ I said. ‘Anyway, what’s bugging you?’
‘Look, I’m slow, so it’s taken me a while to understand all this stuff but I think I’m getting it now,’ said Marco, pointing at the computer. ‘What I don’t understand is what you get from all this, men. You don’t have a single bank account to your name, you live in one room in my house, you wear my hand-me-downs, you don’t even have a hundred dollars you could call your own. What are you in this for?’
‘Just look at what we have accomplished in the favela without relying on the drug trade,’ I said, answering his question indirectly. ‘Water and electricity are available twenty-four hours, the schools are flush with money, and everyone is more at peace now that gunshots don’t ring out every few hours. We could do so much more if we didn’t actually have to hide the progress from your Red Command brothers.’
‘I know all that but it still doesn’t fit. You didn’t grow up here, you don’t have family here. If you were doing charity, why stop at this? Why not do it in India? Or why not become a nun or a priest or something, men? You were a monk before, you could become one again. Instead, you are one of Rio’s rich - one with no money though. How stupid is that?’
‘This favela is my family,’ I began but stopped. It wasn’t true. True to an extent, perhaps, but my primary interest wasn’t charity. I had struggled with the same question myself. What drove me? Ambition, perhaps, but ambition for what? I craved nothing, I had no goals. What was I seeking then? I had figured it out for myself, but the explanation required remembering a time I would rather forget. Yet, I owed Marco something close to the truth.
‘A long time ago, someone unknowingly taught me the Hindu philosophy of the karma yoga, the path of detached action, of doing your duty without any attachment to the results. His words saved my life and I’ve tried to follow them since. I am happy and have no goals for myself; neither money nor power nor fame, not even charity. My only purpose is to give myself completely to my work, to unquestioningly perform my duty - even if it is to run a business for a slumlord with a twisted face!’
Marco pretended to shield his eyes from me. ‘Ah, ah,’ he shouted. ‘Your aura is blinding me, o saint!’
‘Some saint,’ I said. ‘You know better than anyone else how much I stumble. And if you don’t, just ask Lucia or Regina or Veronica or…’
‘They rave about your technique, by the way,’ he said. ‘They say you are gentle and silent; not like us macho Brazilian men. Are you in love with any of them, men?’
I squirmed. We never talked about that kind of stuff here. Anyone who talked about anything remotely related to love or romance would be called a faggot or a pussy. Women fell for Donos; Donos didn’t fall for women.
‘No,’ I said firmly.
‘Have you ever been in love, men?’
‘Jesus. What is this?’ I asked. ‘Can we finish the accounts now? We have a lot to cover today. We should open another shell company in Malta; there has been some change in regulation there.’
‘You know I don’t understand all that. Do what you want to,’ he said dismissively. ‘Was she in Cambodia?’
‘Love was the last thing on my mind in Cambodia. When I think of the people I met there, you are like a boy scout in comparison.’
I rarely talked about the time before Rio. The years spent in the monastery had helped me make a grudging peace with the past and I didn’t want to open old wounds.
‘Where is she then?’ he asked.
‘Are you sure you didn’t mix oestrogen in your cocaine today?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Let’s get back to business.’
‘My business is to know where she is,’ he said stubbornly.
I knew he wouldn’t let go.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a schoolboy crush.’
‘That couldn’t happen to you.’
‘Well, it did. We barely met once.’
‘Romeo and Juliet dropped dead at their third meeting.’
‘To be or not to be taught love by a Shakespeare-quoting mobster! I prefer not to be,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we talk about your love life instead? It’s way more happening than mine.’
‘Did you sleep with her, men? Did you wow her with your technique?’
‘Are you crazy? I told you, we barely exchanged a few words.’
‘Where is she now?’ he asked. ‘Here, in Rio?’
I nodded.
‘Tell me her name. I will bring her to you. I run Rio.’
‘Really?’ I said mockingly. ‘Okay, wait a minute.’
I went to my room and came back with a Brazilian fashion magazine I had chanced upon a few days ago. I placed it on the table and it opened to the page I had pored over more than a few times.
‘There she is,’ I said, pointing to her picture. ‘Now tell me, is it an adolescent crush or what?’
‘Lara,’ he said softly, looking at her glossy picture hawking some French cosmetic. ‘I don’t know much about this world but she is some kind of model, I think. When did you meet her, men?’
‘On the flight to Rio, when I was in my tattered monk’s robes, bald, and with my empty sleeve dangling by my side - hardly the Don Juan she was waiting for.’
He looked at me but didn’t laugh as I had expected him to. ‘You have good taste. From what I’ve heard, she isn’t a slut.’
‘That was seven years ago,’ I said. ‘She probably married a soccer superstar and has three kids by now. Anyway, who cares? I’m not an adolescent in high school. We met, we talked, we said goodbye; no vows exchanged, no hearts broken. I was only reminded of her recently when I saw this magazine.’
‘Who cares if she is married? We can get rid of her faggot husband,’ he said confidently.
‘You are going to do no such thing!’ I said in alarm. ‘This isn’t a Paulo Coelho book. Supermodels don’t fall in love with one-armed thugs in real life.’
‘Paulo who?’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Just don’t do anything foolish. Do you ever see me pining for her or for anyone else? I’m very happy here. Don’t screw it up for nothing. If you are looking for things to do, get more involved in the business like I’ve been telling you to.’
‘You should go after her yourself then,’ he said. ‘If you are smart enough to make so much money from nothing, what is a woman?’
‘Go after what?’ I said. ‘Look, I kind of know what’s happening here, though I hate admitting it. Some men fall in love with celebrities or supermodels without knowing anything about them. These are men trying to prove a point to someone - the ex-lover who dumped them, or their mother whom they secretly fantasized about, or the bully in school who stuck it up their arse. Or they are trying to compensate for something, you know, being too short, being gay, stuttering, stammering, a small dick - or a missing arm.’
‘You should stop reading so many books,’ he said. ‘Besides, you know her. It’s not like you fell in love with a magazine cover.’
‘I’ve spoken to her once. Of course, that’s more than you can say about any of the women you sleep with, so by your standards, yes, I know her very well indeed.’
‘Very funny, wise guy,’ he said. ‘So, will you try or should I do it for you?’
‘There is nothing to try.’
‘Look, men.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how to say this, but there is something about you, men. I saw it when you came here, I see it now. You are different, men. You don’t belong here; you don’t belong anywhere. You are just… bigger than everyone and everything, you know. I don’t know how to say it but I think she will see it.’
It didn’t seem like she saw anything.
Buoyed by Marco’s enthusiasm, I had used our apparel marketing team to set up an appointment with her at our comfortable corporate office in the Ipanema business district. The plan was to launch a branded collection under her name.
I sat at my desk facing her and her lawyer - no doubt an auspicious beginning to the proposed romantic liaison. She looked just as she had in my memory: expressive brown eyes, a cleft below her chin, auburn hair streaked with gold; only the lines on her face had hardened. She would be thirty-six now, to my thirty-seven, and age, though kinder to her than to me, had left its mark.
‘What are your contract terms?’ she asked.
The greatest pick-up line in history.
‘Higher than the industry standard,’ I said. ‘A signing amount of one million dollars for the use of your name on our new sportswear collection and ten per cent commission on every item sold in that line.’
She consulted briefly with the crusty lawyer before turning back to me.
‘The signing amount is fine, but we want higher royalties per item - at least fifteen per cent,’ she said coldly.
I was about to agree when I stopped. Business was business, after all.
‘I’m afraid that won’t work for us,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget we will be undertaking all the marketing costs to promote the line, and it helps your personal brand as much as it helps our product line.’
‘12.5 per cent,’ she said.
‘Agreed, if we have full copyright on your images,’ I said. ‘We will use them wherever we think appropriate.’
Again, she consulted her lawyer.
‘Done, if I get final veto rights on all product designs in the line,’ she said.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘You have a deal.’
Her smile did not reach her eyes.
‘I will sign the agreement whenever it’s ready.’
‘If you wait a few minutes, I will get it drafted now,’ I said.
She looked at her watch. ‘Fine, I guess,’ she said haughtily.
For a second, I wondered if I had met her warm, bubbly twin sister on the flight, like that Hema Malini movie from another lifetime.
