The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  A young gangster watching from behind the master began to laugh, but the master silenced him.

  Andrew spun around, and stepped toward me more cautiously. I closed the gap between us quickly, and we exchanged a flurry of jabs, thrusts and counter-moves.

  For a moment we were locked in a tight clinch, heads knocking together. Using some main strength, I shoved Andrew off balance, and he lurched backward into the closed end of the corridor to regain his footing.

  Attacking again, Andrew feinted jabs, lunging at me. Each time I arched my back, pulling out of range, and slapped at his face with my free left hand.

  Several of the young gangsters training in the gym had gathered near the entrance to the corridor to watch. They laughed with each slap, infuriating Andrew. He was a full member of the Sanjay Company Council, and the position, if not the man, demanded respect.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Andrew screamed at the onlookers.

  They fell silent at once.

  Andrew glared at me, his teeth clenched on the hatred he felt for me. His shoulders arched around the anger pumping outward from his heart. The muscles stiffened in his arms, and he began to shiver with the strain of suppressing his rage.

  It hurt him not to win. He thought he was good with a knife, and I was making him realise that he wasn’t.

  I should’ve let him win. It would’ve cost me nothing. And he was my boss, in a sense. But I couldn’t do it. There’s a corner of contempt we reserve for those who hate us, when we’ve done them no wrong: those who resent us without cause, and revile us without reason. Andrew was corralled into that corner of my disdain as surely as he was trapped in the dead end of the training corridor. And contempt almost always conquers caution.

  He lunged. I swung around, avoiding the blow, and brought my pointed handle down into his back, between the shoulder blades.

  ‘Three points!’ Hathoda called.

  Andrew lashed out with his handle, swinging round to face me. He was off balance again, and a sweep of my foot brought him down beside me. Landing heavily on top of him, I jabbed the hammer handle into his chest and kidneys.

  ‘Six more points!’ Hathoda called out. ‘And stop! Time to rest!’

  I stepped back from Andrew. Ignoring Hathoda’s command, he stood and rushed at me, jabbing with his wooden blade.

  ‘Stop!’ Hathoda shouted. ‘Rest period!’

  Andrew pressed on, slashing at me, trying to draw blood. Against the rules of training, he was trying to stab me in the throat and the face.

  I parried and protected myself, stepping further into the dead-end corridor. Countering with my fists and handle, I struck back at him through every opening. Within seconds our hands and forearms were bleeding. Strikes against our chests and shoulders sent thin streams of blood down our bodies.

  We bounced off the padded walls and into one another, fists and handles flashing, breathing hard and fast as our feet began to slip on the stone floor, until the wrestling struggle sent us both to the ground.

  Luckier in the fall, I closed an arm around Andrew’s neck, locking him in a chokehold. His back was to my chest. As he tried to wriggle free I wrapped my legs around his thighs, holding him immobile. He thrashed around, making us slither on the slippery stone, but my grip on his throat was solid, and he couldn’t shake me off or twist himself free.

  ‘Do you quit?’

  ‘Fuck you!’ he spluttered.

  A voice spoke from a place of ancient instinct.

  This is a wolf in a trap. If you let it go, sooner or later, it’ll come back.

  ‘Lin!’ a different voice said. ‘Lin brother! Let him go!’

  It was Abdullah. The strength drained from my arms and legs, and I let Andrew slide away from me, onto his side. He gasped, choking and coughing, as Hathoda and several young gangsters crowded into the corridor to assist him.

  Abdullah reached out and pulled me to my feet. Breathing hard, I followed him to the rows of hooks where I’d left my things.

  ‘Salaam aleikum,’ I greeted him. ‘Where the fuck did you come from?’

  ‘Wa aleikum salaam. From heaven, it seems, and just in time.’

  ‘Heaven?’

  ‘It would certainly have been hell, if you had finished him, Lin. They would have sent someone like me to kill you for it.’

  I gathered my shirt, knives, money and watch. In the entrance to the gym I used a wet towel to wipe down my face, chest and back. Strapping on the knives, I threw the shirt over my shoulders, and nodded to Abdullah.

  ‘Let us ride, my brother,’ he said softly, ‘and clear our minds.’

  Andrew DaSilva approached me, stopping two paces away.

  ‘This isn’t over,’ he said.

  I stepped in close and whispered, so that no-one else could hear.

  ‘You know what, Andy, there’s a lane at the back of this gym. Let’s get it over with, right now. Just nod your head, and we’ll get it done. No witnesses. Just us. Nod your head, big mouth.’

  I leaned back to look at his face. He didn’t move or speak. I leaned in again.

  ‘I didn’t think so. And now we both know. So back the fuck off, and leave me alone.’

  I gathered my things, and left the gym with Abdullah, knowing that it was a foolish thing to humiliate Andrew DaSilva, even privately. A wolf had escaped: a wolf that would probably return, when the moon was bad enough.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We rode together in silence to Leopold’s. Breaking with the discipline that usually kept him out of any place that served alcohol, Abdullah parked his bike next to mine, and walked inside with me.

  We found Didier at his usual table near the small northern door, facing the two wide entrance arches, showing the busy causeway.

  ‘Lin!’ he cried, as we approached. ‘I was so alone here! And drinking alone is like making love alone, don’t you think so?’

  ‘Don’t take me there, Didier,’ I said.

  ‘You are an unordained priest of denied pleasures, my friend,’ he laughed.

  He gave me a hug, shook hands with Abdullah, and called for the waiter.

  ‘Beer! Two glasses! And a pomegranate juice, for our Iranian friend! No ice! Hurry!’

  ‘Oh, yes sir, I’ll rush, and give myself a heart attack just to serve you,’ Sweetie growled, slouching away.

  He was on my list of top five waiters, and I knew some good ones. He ran the black market franchise in goods that moved through one door at Leopold’s and went out the other, without the owners knowing. He took franchise fees from every store on the street, hustled a couple of pimps, and ran a small betting ring. And somehow, he drove the whole thing on nothing more than surliness and pessimism.

  Didier, Abdullah and I sat side by side with our backs to the wall, watching the wide bar and the crowded street beyond.

  ‘So, how are you, Abdullah?’ Didier asked. ‘It has been too long since I’ve seen your fearsome, handsome face.’

  ‘Alhamdulillah,’ Abdullah replied, using the expression that meant Thanks and praise to God. ‘And how goes it with you?’

  ‘I never complain,’ Didier sighed. ‘It is one of my sterling qualities, as the English say. Mind you, if I did complain, I could be a master of the complaining arts.’

  ‘So . . . ’ Abdullah frowned. ‘It means . . . you are well?’

  ‘Yes, my friend,’ Didier smiled. ‘I am well.’

  The drinks arrived. Sweetie slammed the beers in front of us, but carefully wiped every trace of moisture from Abdullah’s glass of juice, placing it in front of him with a generous portion of paper napkins to the side.

  As Sweetie backed away from Abdullah he bowed, slightly, with each backward step, as if he were leaving the tomb of a saint.

  Didier’s mouth wrinkled with irritation. He caught my eye, and I laughed, spluttering beer foam from the top of my g
lass.

  ‘Really, Lin, these people are insupportable! I sit here every day, and every night, year after year. I have urinated rivers in the lavatories here, and subjected myself to food so miserable, for a Frenchman, that you cannot imagine, and all in the cause of a dedicated, and I think it not too immodest to say, magnificent, decadence. Me, they treat like a tourist. Abdullah comes only once in a year, and they are dying of love for him. It is infuriating!’

  ‘In the years that you have been here,’ Abdullah said, sipping his fresh juice, ‘they have come to know the limit of your tolerance. They do not know the limit of what I will do. That is the only difference.’

  ‘And if you stopped coming here, Didier,’ I added, ‘they’d miss you more than anyone else in the place.’

  Didier smiled, mollified, and reached for his glass.

  ‘Well, you are right, of course, Lin. I have been told, more than once, that I have an unforgettable character. Let us make a toast! To those who will weep, when we are gone!’

  ‘May they laugh instead!’ I said, clinking glasses with him.

  As I sipped my beer, a street tout named Saleh flopped into a chair across from me, knocking Abdullah’s glass, and spilling juice on the table.

  ‘What a fucking idiot that foreign guy is,’ he said.

  ‘Stand up,’ Abdullah said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stand up, or I will break your arms.’

  Saleh looked at Didier and me. Didier flapped his fingers at him, suggesting that he stand. Saleh looked at Abdullah again, and slowly stood.

  ‘Who are you?’ Abdullah demanded.

  ‘Saleh, boss,’ Saleh answered nervously. ‘My name is Saleh.’

  ‘Are you a Muslim?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Is this how a Muslim greets people?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you say what again, I will break your arms.’

  ‘Sorry, boss. Salaam aleikum. My name is Saleh.’

  ‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ Abdullah replied. ‘What is your business here?’

  ‘I . . . I . . . but . . . ’

  He wanted to say what again, and I hoped he wouldn’t.

  ‘Tell him, Saleh,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ve got this camera,’ he said, putting an expensive camera on the table.

  ‘I do not understand,’ Abdullah frowned. ‘We are sitting here to take refreshment. Why do you tell us this?’

  ‘He wants to sell it, Abdullah,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it, Saleh?’

  ‘From those fucking idiot backpackers behind me,’ he said. ‘The two skinny blonde guys. I was hoping you’d want to buy it, Lin. I need money quick, you see.’

  ‘I do not see,’ Abdullah said.

  ‘He cheated the backpackers out of their camera, and wants to cash in here,’ I said.

  ‘They totally fell for my story,’ he said. ‘Fucking idiots.’

  ‘If you swear again in my company,’ Abdullah said. ‘I will throw you into the traffic.’

  Saleh, like any street guy in the same circumstances, wanted to escape. He reached out to take the camera, but Abdullah raised a forbidding finger.

  ‘Leave it there,’ he said, and Saleh withdrew his hand. ‘By what right do you disturb the peace of other men with your commerce?’

  ‘R-right?’ Saleh stammered, mystified.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘People come up to me with business all the time, Abdullah.’

  ‘It is unacceptable,’ he grumbled. ‘How can you do business with men like this, who have no respect, or honour?’

  ‘Honour?’ Saleh mumbled.

  ‘See, Saleh, it’s like this,’ I said. ‘You see backpackers as victims, ripe for victiming, but we don’t see them that way. We see them as emissaries of empathy.’

  ‘What?’

  Abdullah grabbed his wrist.

  ‘I’m sorry, boss! I didn’t mean to say it!’

  Abdullah released him.

  ‘What’s the furthest you’ve been from Colaba in your life, Saleh?’

  ‘I went to see Taj Mahal at Agra once,’ he said. ‘That’s far.’

  ‘Who went with you?’

  ‘My wife.’

  ‘Just your wife?’

  ‘No, Linbaba, my wife’s sister also, and my parents, and my cousin-brother and his wife, and all the children.’

  ‘See, Saleh, those guys sitting over there, they’ve got more guts than you have. They put their world on their backs, go into wild places alone, and sleep under the protection of people they only met a few hours before.’

  ‘They’re just backpackers, man. Meat on the hoof.’

  ‘The Buddha was a backpacker, travelling around with what he carried. Jesus was a backpacker, lost to the world for years in travelling. We’re all backpackers, Saleh. We come in with nothing, carry our stuff for a while, and go out with nothing. And when you kill a backpacker’s happiness, you kill mine.’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m a businessman,’ he mumbled.

  ‘How much did you pay them, Saleh?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ Saleh demurred, his face dissolving in sly. ‘But I can say that it wasn’t more than twenty per cent. I’ll take twenty-five, if you’ve got it.’

  Abdullah seized him by the wrist again. I knew the grip. It started out bad, and got worse.

  ‘Are you refusing to tell the truth?’ Abdullah demanded.

  He turned to me.

  ‘Is this how you do your business, Lin brother? With untruthful men? I will give you this man’s tongue, in your hand.’

  ‘My tongue?’ Saleh squeaked.

  ‘I have been told,’ Didier recollected, ‘that a certain loathsome woman, named Madame Zhou, uses a human tongue as her powder puff.’

  Saleh pulled his hand free and ran, leaving the camera. There was a pause, while we hummed the incident in silence.

  ‘Please, Abdullah,’ I said after a while, ‘don’t cut out his tongue.’

  ‘Something more lenient?’

  ‘No. Let it go.’

  ‘I always say,’ Didier observed, ‘if you can’t say something nice about someone, rob him and shoot him.’

  ‘Sage words,’ Abdullah mused.

  ‘Sage words?’

  ‘It is self-evident, Lin,’ Didier said.

  Abdullah nodded agreement.

  ‘Just because you can’t find something nice to say about someone?’

  ‘Certainly, Lin. I mean, if you cannot find even one nice thing to say about a man, he must be an absolute swine. And all of us, who have experience of life, know that sooner or later, an absolute swine will cause you grief, or regret, or both. It is simply a prudent precaution to beat and rob negative people, before they beat and rob you. Self-defence, it seems to me.’

  ‘If these waiters knew you as we do, Didier,’ Abdullah said, ‘they would treat you with more respect.’

  ‘That is undoubtedly true,’ Didier concurred. ‘The more one knows Didier, the more one loves and respects Didier.’

  I stood, leaving my glass.

  ‘But, you’re not going?’ Didier protested.

  ‘I just came in to give you something. I’ve gotta get home, and get changed. We’re going out to dinner tonight, with Ranjit and Karla.’

  I unsnapped the stainless steel bracelet from my wrist, and slid the watch off over my hand. For a moment I felt the little clench of regret in losing something that I’d wanted too much. I handed the watch to Didier.

  He examined it, turning it over to read the text on the back, and then held it to his ear, listening to the click-whirr of the mechanism.

  ‘But . . . it is a fine watch!’ Didier gasped. ‘A beautiful instrument. Is it . . . is it really for me?’

  ‘Sure, it is. Try it on.’

 
; Didier snapped the bracelet shut on his wrist, and turned his hand up and down, left and right, to admire the watch.

  ‘It suits you,’ I said, standing to leave. ‘You coming, Abdullah?’

  ‘In fact, my brother, there is a beautiful woman, sitting in the corner,’ Abdullah said gravely, his eyes fixed to mine. ‘She has been staring at me, for the last fifteen minutes.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘I think I will remain here with Didier, for some time.’

  ‘Waiter!’ Didier called out quickly. ‘Another pomegranate juice! No ice!’

  I scooped up the camera and took a step away from the table, but Didier stood as well, and rushed to stop me.

  ‘You will see Karla tonight?’ he asked, leaning in close to me.

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘This is your idea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is Karla’s idea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then, who would do such a diabolical thing?’

  ‘Lisa set it up. Kind of a short notice thing. I only heard about it an hour ago. I got a note, while I was sitting at Edward’s bar. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Can you not find some excuse? Some way not to be there?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know what she has in mind, but Lisa’s note said she wants me to be there.’

  ‘Lin, it has been almost two years since you have seen Karla.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But . . . in matters of the heart, of love –’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘– those two years are simply two heartbeats.’

  ‘I –’

  ‘No, please! Let me say it. Lin . . . you are . . . you are in a darker place than you were two years ago. You are a darker man that you were when you first arrived in Bombay. I have never said this to you. I am ashamed to say that a part of me was glad to see it, at first. It was comforting. I was glad of the company, you might say.’

  He was almost whispering, and speaking in a fluid rush of syllables so swift that it was more like a prayer, or incantation, than a shared confidence.

  ‘What are you talking about, Didier?’

  ‘I feel for Karla, perhaps as much as you do, in my way. But being away from her did this to you. Loving her and losing her sent you into this shadow, and made you a darker man than God intended you to be.’