Madjid Rhustem

Madjid Rhustem is the experienced manager of Abdel Khader Khan’s gold-import operation, a teacher of the trade’s practical methods, and a figure whose genuine patience never overcomes Lin’s sense of unease. Through him, the book places the technical routines of gold smuggling beside the immense demand and greed that sustain it, while making his restrained kindness an uncomfortable contrast with Lin’s lack of personal feeling toward him.

Position in the gold operation

Grey-haired Madjid had managed Abdel Khader Khan’s substantial gold imports for almost ten years. After Lin spent four months in the black-market currency business, Abdel Khader Khan sent him to Madjid to learn gold smuggling. Madjid received him at his house overlooking the sea in Juhu, among the affluent elite, and introduced him to the methods by which gold was brought into India. Strict government controls on gold imports met an insatiable demand for the metal, giving the operation its economic rationale.

The business extended beyond Madjid’s lessons at home. A travel agency in the Fort area arranged journeys for at least five thousand contract workers each year. The gold they carried was reworked when necessary in a small workshop near the agency, then sold through the Zhaveri Bazaar jewellery market. One part of the operation generated more than four million American dollars a year in tax-free profit, and Abdel Khader Khan’s senior managers were wealthy and well respected. Madjid controlled the imports that fed this network.

Teacher and manager

Madjid taught with inexhaustible forbearance, explaining everything he believed Lin needed to know about gold and the practices of smuggling it. Lin remembers his dark eyes beneath bushy grey brows as he spent hour after hour on the lessons. Madjid commanded many strong men and could be ruthless with them when required, but Lin saw only kindness in his rheumy eyes. The combination makes him neither simply gentle nor simply hard: authority and patience coexist in his work.

At the nearby workshop, the trade appeared as measured routine. Madjid smiled at Lin’s entrance, then returned to the scales, where gold chains and heavy homemade bracelets were sorted into grades. Workers weighed each piece and then weighed the pieces in lots; the amounts went into a ledger and were checked against a separate sales ledger for the Zhaveri Bazaar. The careful accounting gives the smuggling operation an orderly, commercial surface, even as its profits depend on evading import controls.

Lin’s unease and their parting

Lin acknowledges that he felt a more personal connection with Khaled Ansari: he liked Khaled despite the anger and hatred that remained within him. Madjid, by contrast, was kind, patient, and generous, yet Lin felt nothing for him beyond a vague, premonitory unease. After each lesson, leaving Madjid’s house brought relief so strong that Lin describes it as washing the man’s voice and face from his mind. The response is striking precisely because Madjid has given him no obvious cause for distrust.

The gold itself deepened Lin’s discomfort. He had enjoyed working with Khaled Ansari’s currencies and expected to enjoy the passport business under Abdul Ghani, which seemed especially relevant to a fugitive. But the large quantities of gold unsettled him: in Lin’s reflection, money can be a means to an end, while gold can become an end in itself. He felt a dark mood while watching the chains and bracelets weighed and catalogued, and was glad Abdel Khader Khan had directed him to leave Madjid’s operation for other work.

Lin’s final departure is courteous but emotionally unreturned. He tells Madjid that Abdel Khader Khan has other work for him, without disclosing that he is to begin working with Abdul Ghani in the passport business. Madjid and Abdul Ghani are both members of Abdel Khader Khan’s mafia council, and Lin assumes they know the substance of decisions affecting him before he does. They shake hands; Madjid draws him into a stiff-armed, awkward attempt at a hug, smiles, and wishes him luck. Lin reads the smile as false but not malicious, describing Madjid as a man who treats smiling as an act of will. He thanks him for his patience but does not return the smile. Their farewell preserves Madjid’s goodwill while confirming the distance Lin has felt throughout their association.