The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Call it what you will,’ Mahmoud Melbaaf said softly, ‘it is still a problem. They have attacked our men in the street. Not a kilometre from here, two of our best earners were hacked with choppers, in the middle of the day.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Faisal added.

  ‘That’s why we have our Afghan brothers on duty,’ Mahmoud Melbaaf continued. ‘The Scorpions have been trying to cut into our areas at Regal and Nariman Point. I kicked them out of there, but there were five of them, and if Abdullah hadn’t been with me it would’ve gone the other way. My name alone, and yours, too, Sanjay, doesn’t scare them. And if Little Tony hadn’t cut that dealer’s face last week, they’d still be selling drugs outside KC College, fifty steps from your door. If that’s not a problem, I haven’t seen one.’

  ‘I know,’ Sanjay replied more gently, glancing quickly at the boy, Tariq.

  The cold stare in the boy’s eyes never wavered.

  ‘I know what you’re saying,’ Sanjay said. ‘Of course I know. What the hell do they want? Do they want a war? They really think they can win that? What do they want, those fucks?’

  We all knew what the Scorpion Gang wanted: they wanted it all, and they wanted us dead, or gone.

  In the silence that followed his rhetorical question I looked at the faces of the Council members, trying to judge their mood, and their willingness to fight yet another turf war.

  Sanjay lowered his eyes, cold eyes in a sensitive face, as he considered the options open to him. His prudent instinct, I knew, was to avoid a fight and negotiate a deal, even with predatory enemies like the Scorpions. What mattered to Sanjay was the deal, not how, or where, or who was on the other end.

  He was brave and ruthless, but his first impulse always led him to buy his way out. It was Sanjay who’d put the boardroom table in the Council room, and I realised, staring at his puzzlement and indecision, that the table wasn’t an expression of pride or self-aggrandisement: it was a visible representation of his true nature to negotiate, and seal the deal.

  The seat next to Sanjay, on his right, was always empty in memory of his childhood friend Salman, who’d died in battle during the last big power struggle against a rival gang.

  Sanjay had spared a survivor of that defeated group. It was the man he’d spared, Vishnu, who’d built up the Scorpion Gang, and now threatened Sanjay himself.

  Sanjay knew that the men on his own Council who’d disagreed with that clemency, and who’d insisted that the man had to be killed and the book closed on the matter, would see the current trouble as a vindication of their views, and a weakness of leadership.

  As I watched him, Sanjay’s hand slowly drifted to his right across the polished surface of the table, as if searching for the hand and the warrior advice of his dead friend.

  To Sanjay’s right, beside the empty chair, was Mahmoud Melbaaf, the slim, watchful Iranian whose serene stare and equable temperament never faltered, no matter how fierce the provocation.

  But his calm was the child of sadness, and he never laughed, and almost never smiled. Some great loss had struck at his heart and settled there, smoothing out peaks and troughs of emotion, as wind and sand smother mountains in the desert.

  Beside Melbaaf was Faisal, the ex-boxer, the almost-champion. A crooked manager, who stole all Faisal’s competition earnings, had driven the knife deeper by running off with his girl. Faisal killed him, and the girl left the city, never to be seen again.

  Emerging from eight years in prison, with instincts as quick and deadly as his fists, he’d worked as an enforcer for the Sanjay Company for several years. He had a reputation for rapid resolutions of debt problems. Although his skills as a boxer were sometimes exercised, very often his scarred face and fierce stare were enough to provoke debtors into finding the necessary funds.

  After the last big turf war, which left a few places on the Council empty, Faisal had been rewarded with a permanent seat.

  Next to Faisal, leaning in close to him, was his constant companion, Amir. With his large head, round and blunt as a river stone, scarred face, luxuriant eyebrows and elaborate moustache, Amir had the mysterious allure of a South Indian movie star.

  A notoriously good dancer, despite his considerable paunch, he recounted stories in a bellowing basso, played jokes on everyone but Abdullah, was the first to hit the dance floor at any party, and the first into any fight.

  Amir and Faisal controlled the drugs in South Bombay, and their street dealers brought in one quarter of all the Company’s profits.

  Sitting close to Amir was his protégé, Andrew DaSilva, a young street gangster who’d been appointed to the Council as a concession to Amir. He’d taken control of the prostitution and pornography rackets, captured from the defeated gang in the last turf war.

  The fair young man, with light brown hair and camel-coloured eyes, had the illusive innocence in his bright smile that cruelty fashions from fear, and cunning. I’d seen the mask fall. I’d seen the snarl of the whip in his eyes. But others didn’t seem to see it: his reflexive smile restored the disguise quickly enough to save him from the distrust that his true nature should’ve provoked in others.

  And he knew that I knew. Every time he looked at me, there was a question in his eyes. Why can you see me?

  We’d come close to violence, DaSilva and I, and we both knew that one day, one night, in one situation or another, there’d be a head count that would leave one of us behind.

  Looking at him then, at that Council meeting, I was sure that when it did finally come, Andrew wouldn’t be alone: he’d be leaning, hard, on the strong, wide shoulders of his friend Amir.

  Next around the table was Farid, known as Farid the Fixer, whose devotion to Khaderbhai had rivalled that of grizzled Nazeer. Farid blamed himself for Khaderbhai’s death in Afghanistan, convincing himself, despite our assurances, that if he’d been there with us in the snow, Khaderbhai might’ve survived.

  His guilt and despair drove him to recklessness, but it also pushed him into a deeper friendship with me. I’d always liked Farid. I liked his furiousness, and his willingness to run into the storm: the shadow that fell before rather than behind his every step.

  As I looked at him, that day, in the long pause while Sanjay decided what action to take about rogue landlords, unlicensed thugs, and predatory Scorpions, Farid looked up at me with embers of sorrow burning his eyes. For a moment I was back there, on the snow-scattered mountain, staring into the dead, snow-stone face of Khaderbhai: the man Farid and I had both called father, father, father.

  The last man at the table before Hussein and Abdullah coughed politely. His name was Rajubhai, and he was the controller of currencies for the Company. A fat man, who carried his sumptuous girth with ingenuous pride, Rajubhai had the look of an elder from a distant village, but he was a born Mumbaikar.

  A splendid pink turban covered his head, and he wore the traditional white dhoti beneath his knee-length sleeveless serge tunic. Never fully relaxed beyond the serene boundaries of his currency counting room, Rajubhai fidgeted in his place, glancing at his watch whenever Sanjay wasn’t looking.

  ‘Okay,’ Sanjay said at last. ‘This landlord has got big balls, I’ll give him that, but it’s not acceptable, what he did. It will send out all the wrong signals, and this is a bad time to be sending wrong signals. Abdullah, Hussein, Farid, go pick up one of those thugs he hired, the biggest, toughest one, the leader. Take him to the second floor of that other building, the new apartment tower they’re building at Navy Nagar.’

  ‘Ji,’ Abdullah replied. Sir.

  ‘Use that new place, where they paid the Scorpion Gang instead of us last month. Throw the madachudh off the second floor of that building. Make sure he hits the site management office, if you can, or something else that will send a message to the construction company and the Scorpion fuckers both. Give the guy some cheerful fucking encouragement, first. Find out everythi
ng he knows. If he survives after you throw him out the window, the goon is free to leave.’

  ‘Jarur.’ Abdullah nodded. Certainly.

  ‘After that,’ Sanjay added, ‘round up the rest of those thugs, and take them to visit the landlord who hired them. Make them beat him up. Make his own hired goons kick the shit out of him. Be sure they give him a solid pasting. Then cut their faces, and send them out of the city.’

  ‘Jarur.’

  ‘When he wakes up, tell the landlord his tax has doubled. Then make him pay for all the time and trouble he’s caused. And the hospital bills, for Shining Patel and Rafiq. Best qawwali singer I ever heard, that guy. A damn shame.’

  ‘That it was,’ Mahmoud Melbaaf agreed.

  ‘A damn shame,’ Amir sighed.

  ‘You got all that, Abdullah?’ Sanjay asked.

  ‘Got it.’

  Sanjay took a deep breath, puffing his cheeks as he let the air out, and looked around at the other members of the Council.

  ‘Are we done?’ he asked.

  There was a little silence, but then Rajubhai spoke up quickly.

  ‘Time and money wait for no man,’ he said, searching for his sandals.

  All the others stood. One by one, they nodded toward Tariq, the boy who sat in the emperor chair, before they left the room. When only Sanjay remained, and he, too, began to walk toward the door, I approached him.

  ‘Sanjaybhai?’

  ‘Oh, Lin,’ he said, turning quickly. ‘How was Goa? Those guns you brought back, that was good work down there.’

  ‘Goa was . . . fine.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But two things, actually, since I’ve been away. Cycle Killers, and Afghans. What’s going on?’

  His face moved into the shadowland of anger, and his lip began to curl. Leaning in close to me, he spoke in a whisper.

  ‘You know, Lin, don’t mistake your usefulness for your value. I sent you to Goa to get those guns because all my better men are too well known down there. And I wanted to make sure that none of my better men got busted on that first run, if it didn’t go well. Are we clear?’

  ‘You called me here to tell me that?’

  ‘I didn’t call you to this meeting, and I didn’t permit you to sit through it. I wouldn’t do that. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. It was Tariq who called you, and Tariq who insisted that you be allowed to stay.’

  Together we turned to look at the boy.

  ‘If you have the time, Lin?’ Tariq said, quietly but firmly.

  It wasn’t a request.

  ‘Well,’ Sanjay said, in a louder voice, slapping me on the shoulder, ‘I’ll be going. Don’t know why you came back, Lin. Me, I fucking love Goa. If it was me, I’d have disappeared, man, and stayed on the beach forever. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did.’

  Sanjay walked from the meeting room. I sat down beside Tariq again. I was angry, and it took me a while to look directly into the boy’s expressionless eyes. A full minute passed in slowly breathing silence.

  ‘You’re not going to ask me?’ Tariq began at last, smiling faintly.

  ‘Ask you what, Tariq?’

  ‘Why I called you to the Council meeting today.’

  ‘I’m assuming you’ll get around to it, sooner or later,’ I smiled back at him.

  Tariq seemed about to laugh, but regained his severe composure.

  ‘You know, Lin, that’s one of the qualities that my uncle liked most about you,’ he said. ‘Deep down, he said to me a few times, you’re more Inshallah, if you know what I mean, than any of us.’

  I didn’t respond. I assumed that using the term Inshallah, meaning The will of God, or If God wills it, meant that he considered me to be fatalistic.

  It wasn’t true. I didn’t ask questions about what we did, because I didn’t care. I cared about people, some people, but I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care what happened to me in those years after escaping from prison. The future always looked like fire, and the past was still too dark.

  ‘When my uncle died,’ Tariq continued, ‘we all worked according to the instructions in his will, and divided his many assets.’

  ‘I recall.’

  ‘As you know, I myself received this house, and a considerable sum of money.’

  I glanced around to look at Nazeer. The old soldier’s scowl remained, fierce and immutable, but one shaggy eyebrow twitched a flicker of interest.

  ‘And you,’ Tariq continued. ‘You never received anything from Khaderbhai. You were not mentioned.’

  I’d loved Khaderbhai. Damaged sons have two fathers: the wounded one they’re born with, and the one their wounded hearts choose. I’d chosen Khaderbhai, and I’d loved him.

  But I was sure, alone in that room inside where truth is a mirror, that even if he’d cared for me, in some way, he’d also seen me as a pawn in his great game.

  ‘I never expected to be mentioned.’

  ‘You did not expect to be remembered?’ he insisted, inclining his head to emphasise his doubt.

  It was exactly the same gesture that Khaderbhai had used when he was teasing me in philosophical discussions.

  ‘Even though you were so close to him? Even though he acknow­ledged you, more than once, as a favourite? Even though you, and Nazeer, were with him in the mission that cost him his life?’

  ‘Your English is getting damn good,’ I observed, trying to change the direction of the conversation. ‘This new tutor’s doing a great job.’

  ‘I like her,’ Tariq replied, but then his eyes flickered nervously, and he amended his hasty reply. ‘I mean, I respect my teacher. She is an excellent tutor. Rather better, I might say, than you were yourself, Lin.’

  There was a little pause. I put the palms of my hands on my knees, signalling that I was ready to leave.

  ‘Well –’

  ‘Wait!’ he said quickly.

  I frowned, looking hard at the boy, but relented when I saw the pleading crouched in his eyes. I sat back once more, and crossed my arms.

  ‘This . . . this week,’ he began again, ‘we discovered some new papers of my uncle. Those papers had been lost in his copy of the Koran. Or not lost, but simply not found, until this week. My uncle placed them there, just before he went to Afghanistan.’

  The boy paused, and I glanced back at the brawny bodyguard, my friend Nazeer.

  ‘He left you a gift,’ Tariq said suddenly. ‘It is a sword. His own sword, that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and that twice has been used in battle against the British.’

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘The papers are quite specific,’ Tariq said stiffly. ‘In the event of his death, the sword was to go to you. Not as a bequest, but as a gift, from my hands, directly to yours. You will honour me now, by accepting it.’

  Nazeer brought the sword. He unwrapped layers of silk cloth protection, and presented the sword to me in his upturned palms.

  The long sword was in a wide silver scabbard, chiselled to show a flight of hawks in relief. The apical portion of the scabbard showed an inscription from the Koran. The hilt was made of lapis, inlaid with turquoise to cover the fixing rivets. A hand guard of beaten silver swept in a graceful curve from the pommel to the cross guard.

  ‘It’s a mistake,’ I repeated, staring at the heirloom weapon. ‘It should be yours. It must be yours.’

  The boy smiled, grateful and wistful in equal measure.

  ‘You are quite right, it should be mine,’ he said. ‘But the papers, written in Khaderbhai’s own hand, are very specific. The sword is yours, Lin. And don’t think to refuse it. I know your heart. If you try to give it back to me, I will be offended.’

  ‘There’s another consideration,’ I said, still staring at the sword. ‘You know that I escaped from prison in my country. I could be
arrested and sent back there at any time. If that happens, the sword could be lost.’

  ‘You will never have trouble with the police in Bombay,’ Tariq insisted. ‘You are with us. No harm can come to you here. And if you leave the city for some long time, you can give the sword to Nazeer, who will protect it until you return.’

  He nodded to Nazeer, who leaned in closer, urging me to take the weapon from his hands. I looked into his eyes. Nazeer’s mouth tightened in a willow-droop smile.

  ‘Take the sword,’ he said in Urdu. ‘And draw the sword.’

  The sword was lighter than I’d expected it to be. I let it rest on my knees for a time.

  In that silent minute in the neglected mansion I hesitated, thinking that if I drew the sword from its scabbard, memories would bleed out from the sheath of forgetfulness, where some of the time, enough of the time, they were hidden. But tradition demanded that I draw the sword, as a sign of accepting it.

  I drew the blade into the light and stood, holding the naked sword at my side, the point of the blade only a finger’s breadth from the marble floor. And it was true. I felt it: the power in a thing to swell a tide of memory.

  I sheathed the sword again, and faced Tariq. The boy indicated the chair beside him with a nod of his head. I sat once more, the sword balanced across my knees.

  ‘The text on the sword,’ I said. ‘I can’t read the Arabic.’

  ‘Inna Lillahi wa inna –’ Tariq began in the poetry of the Koran.

  ‘– ilayhi raji’un,’ I finished for him.

  I knew the quote. We belong to God, and unto God do we return. Every Muslim gangster said it on the way into battle. We all said it, even if we weren’t Muslim, just in case.

  The fact that I couldn’t even read the Arabic inscription on the ancestor-sword Khaderbhai had left to me was a bitter pinch on Tariq’s face. I sympathised with him: I agreed with him, in fact, that I didn’t deserve the sword, and couldn’t know the blood significance that the heirloom had for Tariq.

  ‘There was a letter among those papers we found in the Holy Book,’ he said, controlling every breath and word. ‘It was a letter to you.’