The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Okay. A fresh lime soda, no ice.’

  One of the players wearing room service livery threw his cards into the pot, and left the table to get the juice.

  There was a shout, coming from the main door of the suite. As we looked up, Didier entered the office, dragging the major-domo by the length of his prominent nose.

  ‘This imbecile insists that my name does not appear on the list of permitted guests,’ Didier huffed and puffed.

  ‘What an outrage,’ I said. ‘Like, say, pulling someone’s nose, for no reason.’

  ‘No reason? When I explained that such an oversight is quite impossible, because my name appears on every list, from Interpol to the Bombay Cricket Club, even though I abhor the game of cricket, he actually tried to shut the door in my face.’

  ‘Can I suggest, Didier, that you let go of his face?’

  ‘Oh, Lin!’ Didier protested, squeezing the man’s nose harder in his closed fist.

  The major-domo squealed.

  ‘He’s only doing his job, Didier.’

  ‘It is his job to welcome me, Lin, not to exclude me.’

  ‘I quit this job!’ the major-domo quacked.

  ‘Another thing,’ I tried, ‘is that you don’t know where that nose you’re squeezing has been.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Didier agreed, his lip curling in distaste as he released the major-domo’s nose. ‘Where can I wash my hands?’

  ‘Through there,’ Scorpio said, nodding through the doorway. ‘Second door on the right.’

  Didier glowered at the major-domo, and left the room. The major-domo looked at me. I have no idea why people look at me when I have absolutely nothing to do with anything.

  ‘Might be a good idea to put Didier on your short list, Scorpio,’ I said, reaching out to pick up a small bundle of notes from the pile of winnings in front of Gemini George.

  ‘But, Lin,’ Scorpio whined. ‘Didier grabbed my major-domo by the nose.’

  ‘You’re lucky it was only your man’s nose he got hold of.’

  ‘Damn right about that!’ Gemini laughed. ‘Singh! Put Mr Didier Levy on the short list, right away.’

  ‘I quit this job,’ Singh mumbled again, clutching at his nose.

  ‘That’s your right,’ I said, handing him the money I’d taken from the table. ‘But if you do, you’ll get drummed out of the Guild of Major-Domos. If you’ll accept our sincere apology, on behalf of our friend, and this money for your trouble, we can put this behind us.’

  The man held his nose with one hand, fondled the notes with the other, and then wagged his head, moving back to his position near the door.

  ‘Are you sure it’s major-domos?’ Gemini asked mischievously. ‘Isn’t it majors-domo?’

  ‘Say, Lin,’ Scorpio remarked, brightening suddenly. ‘D’ya think . . . maybe . . . you could stay on with us here for a while? We got plenty of room. We’re thinking of taking the whole floor, and you’d be a real help in getting the hang of this being rich thing.’

  ‘Great idea,’ Gemini agreed. ‘Stay here, Lin. Ask Lisa to move in, too. Liven up the place.’

  ‘Nice offer, guys.’

  ‘Is that a no?’ Scorpio asked.

  ‘You’ve got Divya on the case,’ I said. ‘From what I can see, she’s doing a pretty good job.’

  ‘She scares the crap outta me,’ Scorpio complained.

  ‘Everyone scares the crap outta you,’ Gemini commented. ‘That’s one of the reasons why we love you. What are you doin’ here, anyway, Scorp? You never come in here. You hate poker.’

  ‘I don’t hate poker.’

  ‘Okay then, Maverick, what’s up?’

  ‘It’s serious.’

  ‘It can’t be more serious than the next hand, Scorp. Lin just gave away all my winnings to your majors-domo, because Didier pulled his nose.’

  ‘Quite rightly,’ Didier added, rejoining us.

  ‘Can’t argue there,’ Gemini agreed. ‘I’ve wanted to do it myself, occasionally, but I thought Singh would hit me. Now, gentlemen, I intend to win back all me previous winnings, so let’s play.’

  ‘I mean it, Gemini,’ Scorpio said. ‘It’s serious stuff.’

  ‘I’m playin’ against Didier. He’s a shark. He’ll gut me, if I so much as wink. How can it be more serious than that, Scorpio?’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about the new security arrangements.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The new security arrangements.’

  ‘It’s a five-star hotel,’ Gemini replied. ‘We’re safe as ’ouses, Scorp.’

  ‘No, we’re totally and completely unsafe,’ Scorpio said. ‘A kidnapper could hide in a food trolley, or even disguise himself as a concierge. Then we’re finished. Everybody trusts the concierge. We’re vulnerable to attack here, Gemini.’

  ‘Attack? What are you, Scorp, an evil warlord?’

  ‘We’re vulnerable. I mean it, Gemini.’

  ‘Well, if it’s so important, get it off your chest, then. Go on.’

  ‘But . . . I can’t talk about security in front of other people.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be . . . secure.’

  ‘Don’t we want our friends to be secure, too?’

  ‘But there are employees of the hotel here.’

  ‘And if our bein’ ’ere poses some kind of risk to them,’ Gemini said, shuffling the cards, ‘wouldn’t it be fair to include the ’otel employees in our security arrangements, especially the ones gambling with me, so that they can stay safe, too?’

  ‘What?’ Scorpio said, shaking his head.

  Didier cut the deck, and Gemini paused, the cards in his hand.

  ‘How about this, Scorpio,’ he said, smiling at the friend he loved more than anyone or anything in the world. ‘Let’s just invite all of our friends and all their families to live ’ere with us. Everybody. We’ll rent three floors of the ’otel, bring in everyone, and all their families, to stay for as long as they like, and shower them with generosity and happy fun, and spend lots and lots of money at the ’otel, so they’re ’appy, and we’ll be safe. See? That’s your new security arrangement, right there, innit?’

  He turned from his bewildered friend to me, the smile all hearts and diamonds.

  ‘Last chance, Lin,’ Gemini said, waiting to deal the cards. ‘Are you in?’

  ‘No, I’m gone,’ I replied, pressing my hand onto Didier’s shoulder to say goodbye.

  When I left them, Gemini was dealing the cards expertly, a wicked gleam in his eyes. Didier Levy was the only man I knew who was a better card cheat than Gemini George. I didn’t want to stay long enough to see one of them lose.

  In the corridor outside the suite, I found Naveen and Divya.

  ‘Hey, Lin,’ Naveen greeted me, a happy smile moving across his handsome face. ‘Are you leaving just now?’

  ‘Yeah. Hey, Divya.’

  ‘It’s Diva, sweetheart,’ she corrected, smiling and pressing her small hand against my forearm. ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘Stuff to do,’ I answered, smiling back at them.

  We stood there in silence for a moment. We were still smiling.

  ‘What?’ Divya asked at last.

  ‘Nothing,’ I laughed. ‘It’s just, you two seem to be getting on better.’

  ‘Well,’ Divya sighed, ‘he’s not such a chudh, when you get to know him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Naveen said.

  ‘I mean, elements of the chudh are still there,’ Divya clarified. ‘And they’ll probably always be. You can’t make a silk tie from a pig’s ear, after all.’

  ‘That’s a silk purse,’ Naveen corrected.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A silk purse, not a silk tie,’ Naveen insisted.

  ‘What’s this? You’re going to start
carrying a purse now, or what?’

  ‘No, of course not. The saying is You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. It doesn’t mention silk ties.’

  ‘What are you, the prince of fucking proverbs, all of a sudden?’

  ‘I’m just saying –’

  ‘I need a licence from you to change a proverb? Is that it?’

  ‘So, anyway, bye,’ I said, pressing the button for the elevator.

  I stepped inside. They were still arguing furiously. The doors closed, and the elevator descended, but it seemed that I could still hear them through several floors.

  On the ground floor I discovered that they’d actually stepped into a neighbouring elevator, and had argued all the way down beside me. They spilled out into the lobby, squabbling still.

  ‘Hello, again.’

  ‘Sorry, Lin,’ Naveen said, detaching himself from Divya. ‘I realised that I forgot to tell you something.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘It’s about your friend Vikram,’ Naveen said quietly. ‘He’s moved into Dennis’s place. He’s sleeping there, on the floor, and he’s hitting the smack pretty hard. I haven’t been there myself, in a while, but I heard from Vinson that he’s in a bad way. Vinson doesn’t go there any more, and neither do I, much. I thought . . . maybe you didn’t know.’

  ‘You’re right. I didn’t. Thanks.’

  I glanced at Divya, who was waiting near the bank of elevators. Until that moment I hadn’t really noticed how pretty she was. Her wide-set eyes tapered gently to almond-shaped points, where the long lashes were born. Her fine nose curled at the edges to meet the bow of her smile in lines that descended along a scimitar curve to the corners of her mouth.

  I glanced at Naveen, and he was staring adoration at her.

  And then, in that strange little moment of staring at Naveen and Divya, I felt a shadow pass through me. I shivered. I shifted my gaze to meet Naveen’s eyes, hoping that he’d felt it too.

  My heart was beating fast, and the sudden sense of dread was so strong that I could feel it in my throat. I searched Naveen’s eyes, but there was nothing. He smiled back at me.

  ‘Listen,’ I said, taking half a step away from them. ‘Stay together.’

  ‘Ah, well . . . ’ Divya grinned, about to make some joke.

  ‘Don’t stop arguing,’ I said quickly, taking another step away. ‘But stay together. Look after each other, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Naveen laughed. ‘But –’

  I fled, making my way quickly to my parked bike and wrestling it out onto the main road. A few hundred metres away I stopped the bike suddenly, and glanced back over my shoulder at the windowed tower of the Mahesh hotel. I rode away, fast.

  I parked the bike outside the house where Dennis lived. The concertina of folding French doors was open on the long veranda. I stepped up onto the veranda, and tapped on the open doors.

  Sandal-slap footsteps approached quickly. A curtain was drawn aside, and I saw Jamal, the One Man Show. He beckoned me inside, motioning for me to be silent.

  I entered the room, squinting my eyes to adjust to the gloom. Hashish scented the air, mixed with a powerful drift from a large wad of incense sticks, burning in an empty vase.

  Dennis was in his customary pose, stretched out in the centre of the large bed, with his hands folded over one another on his chest. He wore pale blue silk pyjamas, and his feet were bare.

  I heard a rattling cough to my right and saw Vikram, stretched out on a piece of carpet. Billy Bhasu was sitting on the floor beside him. He was preparing another chillum.

  A voice spoke from a darkened corner of the room. It was Concannon’s.

  ‘Look what the grimalkin dragged in,’ he said. ‘I hope you’ve come to join my little gang, boyo. I’m not in a mood for disappointing drugs, or disappointing men.’

  Ignoring him, I went to Vikram’s side. Billy Bhasu crab-walked out of the way, and continued preparing the chillum. I pushed at Vikram to rouse him.

  ‘Vikram! Vik! Wake up, man!’

  His eyes opened slowly, and then fell shut.

  ‘Last chance, Shantaram,’ Concannon said softly. ‘Are you with me, or against me?’

  I shook Vikram again.

  ‘Wake up, Vik. We’re going, man.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Concannon chided. ‘Can’t you see the man’s happy?’

  ‘It’s not happiness, if you can’t feel it.’

  I shook Vikram’s shoulder again.

  ‘Vikram! Wake up!’

  He opened his eyes, looked at me, and smiled a sloppy grin.

  ‘Lin! How are you, man?’

  ‘How are you, man?’

  ‘Nothing to worry,’ he replied sleepily, his eyes drooping and closing. ‘It’s all cool, man. It’s all . . . cool . . . ’

  He began to snore. His face was dirty. He was a shrinking form inside the clothes of a healthier man.

  ‘Vik! Wake up, man!’

  ‘Leave him the fuck alone,’ Concannon said aggressively.

  ‘Mind your own business, Concannon,’ I said, not looking at him.

  ‘Why don’t you make me?’

  It’s childish, and we all know it, but it often works.

  ‘Why don’t I?’ I replied, facing him for the first time.

  I could just make out the cold fire in his ice-blue eyes.

  ‘How about this?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll take my friend home to his parents, and then I’ll come back here, and we’ll meet outside. Sound okay?’

  He stood up and approached me, standing close.

  ‘There’s two things that I hold sacred. A man’s right to crush his enemies, and a man’s right to destroy himself in any way he sees fit. We’re all goin’ down. All of us. We’re all on the same road. Vikram’s just a little way further down the road than you and me, that’s all. That’s his natural born right. And you’re not stoppin’ him.’

  It was an angry speech, and every word became just a little angrier.

  ‘Rights have duties,’ I answered him, staring back into the fury. ‘A friend has a duty to help a friend.’

  ‘I don’t have any friends,’ he said evenly. ‘Nobody does. There’s no such thing. Friendship’s a fairy story, like Father fuckin’ Christmas. And what kind of a cunt did that fat bastard turn out to be? A fuckin’ lie, that’s what he is. There are no friends in this world. There’s allies and there’s enemies in this life, and any one of them can change their coat as soon as look at you. That’s the truth of it.’

  ‘I’m gonna take Vikram outta here.’

  ‘The fuck you are!’

  He watched me for a moment, for five heartbeats, and slid his right foot backwards on the floor, shaping up for a fight. Not wanting to be caught flat-footed, I did the same. His hands slowly rose, stopping opposite his face, left fist forward. I raised my hands in response, my heart beating hard.

  Stupid. Men. We were going to fight, for nothing. You can’t fight for anything, of course: you can only fight against something. If you’re fighting, the part of you that was for something has already been forgotten, replaced by a part that’s violently against something. And in that minute, I was violently against Concannon.

  ‘One Man Show!’ the One Man Show said suddenly.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Concannon growled.

  ‘Guys!’ Dennis said from the bed, his eyes still closed. ‘My high! You’re killing my high!’

  ‘Go back to sleep, Dennis lad,’ Concannon said, watching my face. ‘This won’t take but a minute or two.’

  ‘Please, guys,’ Dennis pleaded, in his soft, sonorous voice. ‘Concannon! Come over here, at once, my wild son. Come and smoke a legendary chillum with me. Help me get my high back, man. And Lin, take Vikram with you. He’s been here for a week. Unlike the rest of us in this happy little tomb, he actually has a famil
y to go back to. Take him with you.’

  Concannon slowly let his fists fall to his sides.

  ‘Whatever you say, Dennis, me old reprobate,’ he grinned. ‘It’s no skin off my nose.’

  He went to sit beside Dennis on the huge bed.

  ‘Concannon,’ Dennis said, his eyes beginning to close again. ‘You’re the most alive human being I ever met. I can feel your energy, even when I’m dead. And that’s why I love you. But you’re killing my high.’

  ‘Settle down, Dennis me darlin’,’ Concannon said, his hand on Dennis’s shoulder. ‘There’ll be no more trouble.’

  I roused Vikram quickly, and forced him to stand. As we reached the doors, Concannon spoke again.

  ‘I won’t forget this, Shantaram,’ he said, his teeth showing in a furious grin.

  I took Vikram home in a taxi. He spoke only once.

  ‘She was a great chick,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘She really was. If she loved me, as much as I love her, she’d be perfect, you know what I mean?’

  I helped his sister put him to bed, drank three cups of tea with his worried parents, and then took a taxi back to my parked bike.

  I’d arranged to meet Lisa for lunch at Kayani’s, near the Metro Junction, and I rode there slowly, drifting at a walking pace on the long, leafy avenue of extravagantly coloured clothing stalls called Fashion Street. I was thinking about Concannon and Vikram and his parents, and my thoughts were wolves.

  Vikram’s father was an older man, long retired, whose youngest son had been born into the autumn of his life. The self-defeating disarray of Vikram’s addiction bewildered him.

  His handsome young son, who’d been something of a dandy, dressing himself in the black silk and silver buckles of his obsession with Sergio Leone’s movies, suddenly wore dirty clothes. His hair, which had once been coiffed to a millimetre’s perfection by his barber, hung in drifts, pressed flat where he’d slept. He didn’t wash himself or shave, sometimes for days at a time. He didn’t eat or speak to anyone at home. And the eyes that occasionally rose to meet his worried father’s were drained of light and life, as though the soul had already deserted the man, and was waiting for the body to fall.

  Filled with the avalanchine power of love for his English rose, Vikram, the rich boy who never worked, had created a business on the edge of the movie industry. He supplied foreign tourists to play non-speaking parts in Bollywood movies.