35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

182
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
A gold and ebony pipe of opium laced with cocaine was being
passed around while Ray exchanged dollars for rupees at nearly
double the government-enforced bank rate. From a locked drawer
in his great gilded whore of a desk, Sirdarji hefted bricks of
banknotes, stacking them in towers before him. He loved money
the way Ray did – loved the idea of it, the satisfying weight and bulk
of six-inch-thick slabs of big bills bound with string or rubber bands.
Both Ray and Sirdarji adored playing the burra sahib, the Big
Man someone the Raj had trained the little Indian man to recognise
instantly and treat with, stereotypical fawning obsequiousness. I
thought of Peter Sellers in The Party.
‘I’m gonna show my friend here the Cages tonight,’ Ray
announced, rolling up a sheaf of hundreds to shove into a trouser
pocket, smiling a foxy smile.
‘Ach!’ Sirdarji threw up thickly veined and brutal hands. ‘He
does not want those grass bidis, do you, my good friend?’ He flashed
a mouthful of gold teeth at me. ‘Grass bidis’ were country prostitutes.
‘My friends!’ Sirdarji exclaimed, magnanimously sweeping
jewelled fingers up toward the heavens again, as if about to grant us
half a kingdom. ‘You will do me the honour of taking my bibi khana
as if it were your own. As you are aware, Ray Sahib, I have only the
best girls. Tell him, tell your friend that Sirdarji’s bibi khana is the
best in all of the Bombay. You like white girl, you take her. Chinese
girl, Turkey girl, Sudan girl, India girl, America girl – yes, my good
friend, you take her. You take all . . . if you are takra!’ He shook a
clenched fist, making it clear what takra meant. ‘Everyone just like
Shahzadgai – I promise you, good friend. Puh Kher raghli . . . Always
it is so for friend of Ray Sahib at my house.’
He was speaking Pushtu, I discovered from Ray later, saying the
women in his personal whorehouse were all like princesses, and
that we were welcome there, welcome to all his girls: if we were
‘strong’ enough, that was. Pushtu was the language of Ray’s
underground empire. For the first time, I found out that the place
was called Swat. The state of Swat. I’d never heard of it, although
the name instantly conjured up swamps and plagues of mosquitoes
in my mind.
‘Sirdarji’s from Swat,’ Ray explained. ‘His real name is Rahmani