Truth Lake by Shakuntala Banaji Read Free Book Online Page B

interests, not Jobal's, stupido! So if I say I want out of some bullshit little deal then that's what you do. Get us out of that project and no, you won't be apologising to anyone! Jobal sat on his ass for long enough without calling, now it’s our turn to play poker.' When he was annoyed Sinbari sounded like a magnate in an American film. It might have been the influence of the years he spent building out in California with his American ex-wife Mimi. Although he claimed he’d never watched a single movie.
    'Can I ask why you're doing this, sir?' Sadrettin once more had his voice under control. Only the sweat that poured off him gave any indication of the pressure he was under.
    'You can ask . . ..' Sinbari stopped running and stared hard at his handsome assistant. Then he relented. 'The capital's needed elsewhere. Is that a good enough reason for you?'
    A man carrying a pile of rolled up newspapers cycled by and stared at them.  Sadrettin gave him an evil look and the man turned his head sharply away. Sadrettin was breathing heavily; he felt nauseous but calm.
    He had made the choice as a very young man to leave the small family firm in Bihar and strike out on his own in Delhi. He'd worked as a p.a. for almost four years before he was headhunted by the Randhor-Sinbari group. He'd gone to them eagerly and so far he had never had cause to rue his decision.
    'May I ask where we are going to invest the Konali funds?'
    They began to walk. Behind Sadrettin's question lay years of experience about the changeable nature of property investment in the subcontinent and an intimate understanding of the methods they had used to satisfy their investors that Konali was indeed the perfect site for Randhor-Sinbari's latest tourist offering, an island just off the South-western coastline, almost deserted, tropical, utterly exclusive but quite unlike Goa in its bizarre abundance of caves and natural rock carvings that dated back hundreds of years.
    The question went unanswered and, as Sadrettin held the door for his boss to enter the mirrored marble hall of the Sinbari mansion, he felt rather than saw the look of irritation on Sinbari's face. And perhaps he was right after all. The Tsunami has wrecked islands just to the East of Konali. People weren’t queuing up to go back there, despite the reassurances of the government.
    They entered the home gymnasium together but Sadrettin said he didn't feel up to more exercise and excused himself. Stripping off his shirt he made straight for the showers. 
    He was a man of enterprise, just like his employer, he reassured himself. What was the point of questioning such business decisions? Money and morality never could be allowed to mix, he’d learned. Ethics made men sentimental, made them weak, and Sinbari certainly was not weak.
    His previous boss had been too malleable, too slow, shallow, naïve; he had allowed political pressures and alliances to dominate and his employees to drift away. Sinbari had not pushed himself to this position by treading lightly on the anxieties or interests of others. Was there not something primordial and utterly admirable about a character who could take from its environment and shape all that crossed its path to suit itself? Others seemed as shadows or clouds on the horizon to Sinbari's vigorous and amoral stature.
    Such thoughts made Sadrettin long to spend more time with his employer. That, and the delicate tracery of lines around the eyes, which made Antonio's tanned face seem so poignant and vulnerable when in fact he was at his most ruthless.
    Sadrettin rarely allowed himself to dissect his sentiments towards the man who employed him and now urgency tugged at his gut. Their auditors would be furious. He would have to work fast so that International trading standards commissioners didn't get a whiff of the new deal and start arguing that the money was already committed elsewhere. But what was this new deal. . .? Where . . .? 
    Suddenly he stopped on his way to