Читаем Shantaram полностью

‘Oh, you know,’ I laughed. A crisis here, a rescue there. You look great, Lisa.’

Her blonde hair was longer and thicker than when I’d last seen her. Her face was fuller and healthier, but her figure was trim and more athletic. She was wearing a white halter-neck top, a white mini-skirt, and Roman sandals. Her legs and slender arms were tanned to a golden chestnut. She looked beautiful. She was beautiful.

‘I stopped being a fuck-up, and took the cure,’ she snarled, scowling through a bright, false smile. ‘What can I tell ya? It’s either one or the other, and you can’t have it both ways. When you’re sober and fit, it’s the world that’s fucked.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ I replied, laughing until she laughed with me.

‘Who’s your friend?’

‘Abdullah Taheri, this is Lisa Carter. Lisa, this is Abdullah.’

‘Nice bike,’ she purred.

‘Would you like to… ride it?’ he asked, smiling with all of his white, strong teeth.

She looked at me, and I raised my hands in a gesture that said, You’re on your own, kid. I got off the bike and joined her on the road.

‘This is my stop,’ I said. Lisa and Abdullah were still staring at one another. ‘There’s a free seat, if you want it.’

‘Okay’ she smiled. ‘Let’s do it.’

She hitched up her skirt and climbed onto the back of the bike. The two or three men, out of several hundred on the street, who weren’t already looking at her, joined in the chorus of stares. Abdullah shook hands with me, grinning like a schoolboy. He kicked the bike into gear, and roared off into the meandering traffic.

‘Nice bike,’ a voice behind me said. It was Gemini George.

‘Not real safe, though, those Enfields,’ answered another voice, with a strong Canadian accent. It was Scorpio George.

They lived on the street, sleeping in doorways and foraging for commissions among the tourists who wanted to buy hard drugs. And it showed. They were unshaven, unwashed, and unkempt in appearance. They were also intelligent, honest, and unconditionally loyal to one another.

‘Hi, guys. How’s it going?’

‘Well, son, very well,’ Gemini George answered, the song of Liverpool in his accent, ‘We’ve got a client, you know, at about six o’clock tonight.’

‘Touch wood,’ Scorpio added, his dour frown already focusing on the troubles the evening might bring.

‘Should do all right out of it,’ Gemini said cheerily. ‘Nice client. Nice little earner.’

‘If it all goes okay, and nothing goes wrong,’ Scorpio mused fretfully.

‘Must be something in the water,’ I muttered, watching the tiny white speck of Abdullah’s shirt, or Lisa’s skirt, disappear in the distance.

‘How’s that?’ Gemini asked.

‘Oh, nothing. Just, everyone seems to be falling in love lately.’

I was thinking of Prabaker, Vikram, and Johnny Cigar. And I knew the look I’d seen in Abdullah’s eyes as he’d ridden off. He was a long way more than interested.

‘Funny you should mention that-what do you make of sexual motivation, Lin?’ Scorpio asked me.

‘Come again?’

‘In a manner of speakin’,’ Gemini innuendoed, winking indecently.

‘C’mon, be serious for a minute,’ Scorpio scolded. ‘Sexual motivation, Lin-what do you make of it?’

‘What, exactly, do you mean?’

‘Well, we’re having a debate, you know-’

‘A discussion,’ Gemini interrupted. ‘Not a debate. I’m discussin’ with you, not debatin’ you.’

‘We’re having this discussion, about what it is that motivates people.’

‘I give you fair warnin’, Lin,’ Gemini said, sighing mightily. ‘We’ve been having this discussion for two weeks, and Scorpio still won’t see reason.’

‘As I said, we’re having this discussion about what it is that motivates people,’ Scorpio George pressed on, his Canadian accent and professorial manner combining in the documentary voice-over style that most irritated his English friend. ‘Y’see, Freud said we’re motivated by the drive for sex. Adler disagreed, and said that it was the drive for power. Then Victor Frankl, he said sex and power were important drives, but when you can’t get either one-no sex and no power-there’s still something else that drives us on and keeps us goin’-’

‘Yes, yes, the drive for meaning,’ Gemini added. ‘Which is really just the same thing in different words. We have a drive for power because power gives us sex, and we have a drive for meaning because that helps us to understand sex. It all comes down to sex in the end, no matter what you call it. Those other ideas, they’re just the clothes, like. And when you get the clothes off, it’s all about sex, innit?’

‘No, you’re wrong,’ Scorpio contradicted him. ‘We’re all driven by a desire to find meaning in life. We have to know what it’s all about. If it was just sex or power we’d still be chimpanzees. It’s meaning that makes us human beings.’

‘It’s sex that makes human beings, Scorpio,’ Gemini put in, his wicked leer working even harder. ‘But it’s been so long, you’ve probably forgotten that.’