Sebastian Modena

Sebastian Modena is a Spanish criminal whose quiet manner makes him an effective broker in Maurizio Belcane’s prostitution business in Bombay. He is also Ulla Volkenberg’s devoted lover. When Maurizio’s exploitation of Ulla and theft of a Nigerian businessman’s $60,000 drive the partners into conflict, Modena takes the money and hides it, seeking to free her and escape Maurizio’s control. Captured by his former partner, he refuses to reveal that Ulla is nearby with the money, making that silence his final act of protection in the available account.

Identity and Background

Modena is thirty years old when Ulla recounts his history. He is slight and short, with a timid manner and a dour disposition. Those qualities are not simply liabilities: when he approaches wealthy Arab and Indian customers on Maurizio’s behalf, his unassuming presence helps set them at ease. As the operation’s point man in Bombay, he finds clients and connects them with the women Maurizio exploits. He receives one-fifth of the money Maurizio takes from them, leaving him to do much of the practical work while Maurizio keeps the larger share.

His background differs sharply from Maurizio’s. One of thirteen children in an Andalusian Gypsy family, Modena grows up thinking of himself as the smallest and least valued member of the group. He is barely literate and learns crime rather than scholarship as a means of getting by. His early livelihood consists of swindling, grifting, and petty theft across Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and India. He preys on tourists, taking limited amounts and moving on before staying long enough in one place to attract trouble.

Work with Maurizio Belcane

After arriving in Bombay, Modena meets Maurizio and spends two years working for him. His role is to procure customers for the foreign prostitutes in Maurizio’s stable, while Maurizio manages the larger business and claims most of its proceeds. Ulla sees Modena as accepting this unequal arrangement partly because he imagines himself as a small, useful companion to a more powerful partner. His loyalty to Maurizio, however, cannot survive what happens when Ulla enters their business.

Modena is with Maurizio at Leopold’s Beer Bar when Maurizio brings Ulla along. She has been purchased from Madame Zhou’s Palace, and Maurizio expects to recover the cost by making her work twice a day, every day. Ulla says she recognizes Modena’s love for her at once and encourages his devotion because it is useful to her. His feelings, meanwhile, make the arrangement increasingly painful: he presses Maurizio to release her from the work, but Maurizio refuses and ridicules his affection. The intimacy between Ulla and Modena thus develops inside a business that treats her freedom and labor as part of its accounts.

The Money and the Break with Maurizio

Modena first encounters the Nigerian businessman who wants to spend $60,000 on heroin and introduces him to Maurizio. Maurizio takes the money and plans to move on, but Modena intervenes. He takes the stolen funds and goes into hiding, hoping to free Ulla from Maurizio and rid himself of the man he resents for keeping her in the business. His action also turns a concealed conflict between the partners into a dangerous public one: the Nigerian sends a hit squad to Bombay to recover the money.

To divert the men while he searches for Modena, Maurizio tells them that Lin stole the money. The false accusation places Lin in their sights and gives Maurizio time to pursue his former partner. Modena’s attempt to protect Ulla therefore has consequences beyond their relationship: the stolen funds become the cause of a pursuit, and Maurizio’s self-preservation draws Lin into the danger as well.

Capture and Protection of Ulla

After Modena disappears, Maurizio watches Ulla and follows her, expecting that she will eventually make contact with her lover. When Modena does reach out, Ulla goes to him without realizing that her visit will also lead Maurizio to his hiding place, a cheap hotel in Dadar. Maurizio arrives to find Modena alone; Ulla is concealed in an adjoining room, only a short distance away, with the money.

Modena is ill, and Maurizio tries to force him to disclose Ulla’s location. Modena does not reveal that she is close by. His silence protects both Ulla and the funds he took to help her, even as Maurizio searches for the answer. Ulla’s account establishes this refusal as the decisive action of Modena’s final known episode: the man once valued chiefly for his usefulness to a criminal partner chooses instead to withhold information from him. The available account does not establish what happens to Modena afterward.