While the fine lines that divided and connected the legal and illegal were nowhere more elegantly drawn, they weren't unique to the diverse society of Leopold's. The traders in the street stalls outside sold counterfeits of Lacoste, Cardin, and Cartier with a certain impudent panache, the taxi drivers parked along the street accepted tips to tilt their mirrors away from the unlawful or forbidden acts that took place on the seats behind them, and a number of the cops who attended to their duties with diligence, at the station across the road, had paid hefty bribes for the privilege of that lucrative posting in the city centre.

Sitting at Leopold's, night after night, and listening to the conversations at the tables around me, I heard many foreigners and not a few Indians complain about the corruption that adhered to every aspect of public and commercial life in Bombay. My few weeks in the city had already shown me that those complaints were often fair, and often true. But there's no nation uncorrupted.

There's no system that's immune to the misuse of money.

Privileged and powerful elites grease the wheels of their progress with kickbacks and campaign contributions in the noblest assemblies. And the rich, all over the world, live longer and healthier lives than the poor. There is a difference between the dishonest bribe and the honest bribe, Didier Levy once said to me. The dishonest bribe is the same in every country, but the honest bribe is India's alone. I smiled when he said that, because I knew what he meant. India was open. India was honest.

And I liked that from the first day. My instinct wasn't to criticise. My instinct, in the city I was learning to love, was to observe, and become involved, and enjoy. I couldn't know then that, in the months and years to come, my freedom and even my life would depend on the Indian willingness to tilt the mirror.

"What, alone?" Didier gasped, returning to the table. "C'est trop! Don't you know, my dear friend, it is faintly disgusting to be alone here? And, I must tell you that being disgusting is a privilege I reserve, exclusively, for myself. Come, we will drink."

He flopped into a chair beside me, calling his waiter to order more drinks. I'd spoken to him at Leopold's almost every night for weeks, but we'd never been alone. It surprised me that he'd decided to join me before Ulla, Karla, or another of his friends returned. In a small way, it was a kind of acceptance, and I felt grateful for it.

He drummed his fingers on the table until the whisky arrived, drank half his glass in a greedy gulp and then relaxed at last, turning to me with a narrow-eyed smile.

"You are heavy in thoughts."

"I was thinking about Leopold's-looking around, and taking it all in."

"A terrible place," he sighed, shaking his head of thick curls.

"I hate myself for enjoying it so much here."

Two men, wearing loose trousers gathered tightly at the ankles and dark green vests over their long-sleeved, thigh-length shirts, approached us, and drew Didier's keen attention. They nodded to him, provoking a broad smile and a wave, and then joined a group of friends at a table not far from our own.

"Dangerous men," Didier muttered, the smile still creasing his face as he stared at their backs. "Afghans. Rafiq, the small one, he used to run the black market in books."

"Books?"

"Passports. He was the boss. A very big fellow, previously. Now he runs brown sugar through Pakistan. He makes a lot more money from the brown sugar, but he is very bitter about this losing of the book business. Men were killed in that struggle-most of them his men."

It wasn't possible that they could've heard the remark, but just then the two Afghans turned in their seats and stared at us with dark, serious expressions, as if responding to his words. One of their companions at the table leaned close, and spoke to them. He pointed at Didier, then at me, and they shifted their gaze to look directly into my eyes.

"Killed..." Didier repeated softly, smiling even more broadly until the two men turned their backs to us once more. "I would refuse to do business with them, if only they did not do such good business."

He was speaking out of the corner of his mouth, like a prisoner under the eyes of the warders. It struck me as funny. In Australian prisons, that whispering technique is known as _side-

_valving. The expression spoke itself clearly in my mind and, together with Didier's mannerism, the words put me back in a prison cell. I could smell the cheap disinfectant, hear the metal hiss of the keys, and feel the sweating stone under my fingertips. Flashbacks are common to ex-prisoners, cops, soldiers, ambulance drivers, fire fighters, and others who see and experience trauma. Sometimes the flashback is so sudden, and so inappropriate to the surrounding circumstance, that the only sane reaction is foolish, uncontrollable laughter.

"You think I'm joking?" Didier puffed indignantly. "No, no, not at all."

"This is the truth, I assure you. There was a small war over this business. See, here, even now as we speak, the victors arrive.

That is Bairam, and his men. He is Iranian. He is an enforcer, and one of those who works for Abdul Ghani, who, in his turn, works for one of the great crime lords of the city, Abdel Khader Khan. They won this little war, and now it is they who control the business in passport books."

He gestured with a slight nod of his head to point out a group of young men, dressed in stylish western jeans and jackets, who'd just entered through one of the arches. They walked to the manager's desk and greeted the owners of Leopold's warmly before taking a table on the far side of the room. The leader of their group was a tall, heavy-set man in his early thirties. He lifted his plump, jovial face above the heads of his friends and swept the room from right to left, acknowledging deferential nods and friendly smiles from a number of acquaintances at other tables.

As his eyes found us, Didier waved a greeting.

"Blood," he said softly, through his bright smile. "For a time yet, these passports will be stamped in blood. For me it is nothing. In matters of food I am French, in matters of love I am Italian, and in matters of business I am Swiss. Very Swiss.

Strictly neutral. But there will be more blood on these books, of that I am sure."

He turned to me and blinked once, twice, as if severing the thread of daydream with his thick lashes.

"I must be drunk," he said with pleasurable surprise. "Let's have another drink."

"You go ahead. I'll sit on this one. How much do these passports cost?"

"Anything from one hundred to one thousand-dollars, of course.

Do you want to buy one?"

"No..."

"Ah. This is a Bombay gold dealer's no. It is a no that means maybe, and the more passionate the no, the more definite the maybe. When you want one, come to me. I will arrange it for you- for a small commission, of course."

"You make a lot of... commissions here?"

"Mmm, it goes. I cannot complain," he grinned, his blue eyes gleaming through lenses of pink, alcoholic wetness. "I make ends meet, as they say, and when they meet I get a payment from both of the ends. Just now, tonight, I made the arrangements for a sale-two kilos of Manali hashish. You see those Italian tourists, over there, by the fruits, the fellow with the long, blonde hair, and the girl in red? They wanted to buy. Someone-you see him, out there on the street, the one with a dirty shirt and no shoes, waiting for his commission-he put them to me, and then I in my turn put them to Ajay. He makes hashish business, and he is an excellent criminal.

See now, he sits with them, and all are smiling. The deal is done. My work for this night is finished. I am a free man!"

He thumped the table for another drink, but when the small bottle arrived he grasped it for a while with both hands, staring at it with a brooding, pensive expression.