The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  Sri Lanka, cargo ship, instructions: I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

  ‘Sri Lanka?’

  ‘You gave your word, that you would do it.’

  ‘I did, and I regret it.’

  ‘After this mission, you will be free. It is a clean way out. I think it is wise for you to agree. I will not be able to remove Sanjay for some time, and this way, you will be safe.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. Okay, Inshallah. Let’s ride.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said, leaning in close. ‘In the next weeks of your life, my brother, you must walk and talk very carefully.’

  ‘You know me,’ I smiled.

  ‘I do know you,’ he said solemnly. ‘And I know the demon inside you.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘There are demons in all of us. Some of them do not mean us any harm. They just want to live inside us. Some of them want more. They want to eat the souls that hold them.’

  ‘You know, Abdullah, I’m not really same-page with you on the demon thing.’

  He looked at me for a while, wind-worried leaves drifting in his amber eyes.

  ‘Hey, it’s okay –’ I began, but he cut me off.

  ‘I have heard you say that there are no bad or good men. That the deeds we do are good and bad, not the people who do them.’

  ‘It was Khaderbhai who said that,’ I replied, looking away.

  ‘Because he heard it from Idriss,’ Abdullah said quickly, and I looked back at him. ‘Every wise thing Khaderbhai said, was first said by Idriss. But in this, I do not agree with Idriss or Khaderbhai or you. There are bad men in this world, Shantaram brother. And in the end, there is only one way to deal with them.’

  He started his bike and rode away slowly, knowing I’d catch him.

  Karla joined me, and I kicked the bike to life. She got up behind me. That perfume: cinnamon, and pure oud. For a satin second her hair was against my neck.

  The engine rumbled, warming. She leaned close, one arm over my right shoulder, and one under my left. Her word-tattoo hand was on my chest.

  I heard the music, inside. Home. Home is the heart you’re born to love.

  We rode gentle curves and slopes, as the shadow of the mountain that brought us together vanished in the praying hands of trees. I had to brake hard on the dark road to avoid a fallen branch. She fell into me softly and held me. I didn’t know where her body ended, and I began. I didn’t want to know.

  I pulled away at speed to make the steep climb over the next hill. She braced herself, her hands hard on me. At exactly the right moment her palms and fingers slid across my ribs to find my heart, and held me as we crested the last dome of trees.

  When we reached the main road I swung shakily, love-clumsy, into fast clever traffic. A prodigal wind kissed her hair around my neck. And she clove to me, her starfish hand on my chest, as we rode through splashes of light streamed from desire, dying on billboards along the stingray tail highway home.

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘That was a long goodbye,’ Karla said, watching Abdullah ride away from the wide space in front of the Mahesh hotel.

  ‘It was a long ride,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, but, Abdullah, emotional. That’s not something you see every day.’

  ‘What can I tell you, Karla?’

  ‘What you can tell me is what you’re not telling me.’

  Khaled’s money will buy many guns, Abdullah had whispered to me in goodbye. It wasn’t especially emotional.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ I said.

  ‘Still not telling me.’

  She was still sitting behind me on the bike. In one hand she held the bag that Abdullah had carried for her on his bike. The other hand was on my hip. For once, I was glad to be on the other hand.

  ‘You know,’ I said happily, ‘I like this.’

  ‘Still not telling me.’

  ‘But I really do like this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sitting here, on the bike, and having a conversation with you like this.’

  ‘We’re not having a conversation.’

  ‘Technically, I think we are.’

  ‘Not telling me something doesn’t qualify as any kind of conversation, technically or otherwise.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a reverse conversation.’

  ‘There’s a forward step.’

  There was a little pause. The space around us was clear and free. The storm had passed, and fresh monsoon winds cooled the coast behind us.

  ‘You know, it really is damn nice, talking to you like this, I gotta say.’

  ‘Since you gotta say it, does the bike have to be a part of the conversation?’

  I turned the bike off.

  ‘So, what is it about this you like so much?’ she asked. ‘That we’re sitting so close, or that I can’t see your face?’

  ‘It’s because I can’t see your face. And . . . because we’re sitting so close.’

  ‘I thought so. Hey, wait a minute. My face is the problem?’

  ‘Your eyes, actually,’ I said, watching people, cars and horse-drawn carriages passing back and forth in front of the hotel.

  ‘My eyes, huh?’

  I felt her voice everywhere that her body touched mine.

  ‘If I can’t see your eyes, it’s like we’re playing chess, and you just lost your queen.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘And I’m powerless and defenceless?’

  ‘Not defenceless. But there’s definitely some lessness here.’

  ‘Lessness?’

  ‘The opposite of moreness.’

  ‘And that turns you on?’

  ‘Kinda.’

  ‘Because you like lessness in a woman?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s because looking at you is like we’re playing chess, and I’ve got one queen, and you’ve got four queens, eight queens, sixteen queens –’

  ‘I’ve got sixteen queens in the game?’

  ‘Oh yeah. All green. Sixteen green queens. And I can’t see any of them right now, in this bike-talk. And I love it. It’s liberating.’

  There was a pause. It didn’t last long.

  ‘This is the quality of your motorcycle conversation?’

  ‘It’s just a fact. A recently discovered fact, in fact. For now, sitting here like this, all your queens are locked in a box, Karla, and I’m loving it.’

  ‘You’re messed up, you know that?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘My eyes are nothing,’ she said after a while, some puzzle in her voice.

  ‘Well, your eyes, and the heart behind them, are everything to me.’

  She thought about it, maybe.

  ‘No, my will is everything.’

  She repeated the last word, as if pushing it from her body.

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘I’m with you and Idriss on will, but it’s the direction it takes that interests me.’

  She rested her forearms on my back.

  ‘When you were in prison,’ she asked slowly, ‘did you ever lose your will?’

  ‘Does getting chained to a wall and kicked unconscious count?’

  ‘Maybe. But when it happened, did you ever lose your will? Did they ever take your will from you?’

  I thought about it for a while. Once again, I wasn’t sure where she was leading the conversation, or whether I’d like it when we got there. But her big question had a small answer.

  ‘Yeah. You could say that. For a while.’

  ‘I had my will taken from me, too,’ she said. ‘I’d rather kill, than let that happen again. I killed the man who did it to stop it from happening to some other me, somewhere else. I’ll never let anyone take my will again.’

  The rebel yell: you’ll never take me alive.<
br />
  ‘I love you, Karla.’

  She was silent, even her breathing soundless.

  ‘Did that freak you out?’ I asked after a while, staring ahead at the moving street.

  ‘Of course not. Honesty is my only addiction.’

  She moved away from me, resting on her hands, and was silent again.

  ‘This bike-talk is fun,’ I said after a while. ‘You gotta admit.’

  ‘Then try holding up your end of the conversation. It’s tumbleweeds back here, Shantaram.’

  ‘Okay. Here goes. You talked about Ranjit, on the mountain. I didn’t say much then, but now that we’re bike-talking, I have a question. Why doesn’t Ranjit, who must keep living for a few months, just sell up and take you a long way from anywhere?’

  ‘He told you about the bomb, didn’t he?’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘He said you told him to fire the chauffeur. You were right, by the way. The guy was crooked.’

  ‘Ranjit went to a lot of trouble, asking me not to tell you, and then he went home and told you all about it.’

  ‘He’s a politician. Politics isn’t lying. It’s the art of knowing who’s lying.’

  ‘That still doesn’t answer the question. Why doesn’t he take the money and run? He’s a rich man.’

  She laughed, surprising me, because I couldn’t read her face, and because I didn’t think any part of it was funny.

  ‘You can’t run away from the game, Lin,’ she said.

  ‘I like this conversation. What are we talking about?’

  ‘Wherever you find it,’ she said, leaning in close, her breath on my neck. ‘Whatever it looks like, when you find the game that hooks you, there’s nowhere else you can be. Am I right?’

  ‘Are we talking about Ranjit, or Karla?’

  ‘We’re both players.’

  ‘I don’t like games. You know that.’

  ‘Some games might be worth the play.’

  ‘Like being king of Bombay, for instance?’

  I felt the tension move through her as she pushed away again.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘He’s ambitious,’ I said. ‘It shows. He has enemies.’

  She was silent for a while, and I had no clue to her thoughts. Bike-talking had its drawbacks.

  ‘Ranjit’s an imitation good guy,’ she said, ‘in a cast of genuine bad guys.’

  ‘An imitation good guy? They’re usually the ones who give genuine bad guys a bad name.’

  ‘Bad guys do a pretty good job of that on their own,’ she replied, laughing a little.

  ‘Why play games, Karla? Get out of this, now.’

  ‘I game, because I’m good at it. I game good.’

  ‘Walk away. If Ranjit’s so determined to be political, you’ve gotta be the one to walk away.’

  ‘Is this about Ranjit and me, or about you and me?’

  ‘This is about you. If we weren’t doing bike-talk, I probably wouldn’t be able to say it at all. Not to your eyes. I don’t like what’s going on. I don’t think Ranjit has any right to put you at risk. No ambition’s worth that.’

  ‘I’ll buy a bike,’ she said, leaning close again, and smiling on my back. ‘You’ll teach me to ride.’

  ‘I mean it, Karla. He’s rattling the unfriendly cage. Sooner or later, whatever’s inside the cage is gonna get out.’

  ‘Why are we talking about this?’

  ‘It’s like this. Ranjit can do politics, and I’ll ask friends to watch out for him, but you don’t have to be Ranjit’s wife here. You can be Ranjit’s wife a long way away from here. In London, for example.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘A lot of Indian wives escape to London.’

  ‘But I’m a Bombay girl, yaar. What would I do in London?’

  ‘You’re also American, and Swiss, and a lot of other nice places. You could set up a house in London for Ranjit, with Ranjit’s money, and hope he rarely visits it. Make it cool. Bombay cool. But make it so you can walk away, and never look back.’

  ‘And I’m still asking, what would I do there?’

  ‘You’d keep a low profile. And you’d use any extra money to make money for yourself, until you don’t need anyone else’s extra money any more.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Yeah. The real reason why so many people want to be rich is because they want to be free. Freedom means that you don’t need anyone else’s money.’

  ‘How does that work again?’ she asked, laughing.

  ‘Maybe you shave your lifestyle, save some money, and put a down payment on a house for yourself. You’re smart. In no time, you’ll turn one house into five.’

  ‘My lifestyle?’

  ‘What do I know? But whatever you do in London or anywhere would be safer than what you’re doing here, with Ranjit. Someone’s gonna hit him, and hit him hard, because he won’t shut up, and his political ambitions are making people nervous. Hell, I want to hit him, and I hardly even know him.’

  ‘His mouth is what put him in the game. That’s his table stake. If he wins this fight, his face will be on the political poster of his choice. He’ll get elected, too. I’m sure of it. And anyway, why the hell should he shut up, when he’s right?’

  ‘It’s not safe for you, that’s why.’

  ‘Let me tell you a little something about safety,’ she murmured, her face against the pillow of my back. ‘Safety is a cave, a nice warm cave, but the light is where the adventure is.’

  ‘Karla,’ I said, careful not to move, ‘you’ve got no idea how cool this is, listening to you, but not seeing you.’

  ‘You’re such an ass,’ she said, not moving.

  ‘No, really, it’s just great. And I was listening. I heard every word. Look, in my view, but who am I, the right woman is a big enough dream. If a guy wants a whole city, there’s something wrong with him.’

  ‘Less wrong than you, or more wrong than you, on a scale of you?’ she laughed.

  ‘You can’t go back home,’ I said firmly, my hands tight on the handlebars, ‘because you don’t know what’s waiting for you. And you can’t stay here, because you do know what’s waiting for you.’

  I was glad she couldn’t see my face, and glad she didn’t pull away.

  ‘Look, you’re probably on a most-wanted list, Karla. And I’m definitely most-wanted. We’re who we are, and who we are has no place in lives of public ambition. It’s bad for them, and it’s a lot worse for us if it falls down, and they’re looking for someone to blame for it.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ she murmured. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’

  ‘I don’t want to think of something happening to you, Karla. Ranjit’s making me think of it. A lot. I don’t like him for it. One way or another, this guy puts himself on everybody’s hurt list. Have mercy. Send me a postcard from London, and give me some peace of mind.’

  ‘Mercy,’ she said softly. ‘My favourite inessential virtue. I think you’ve done this motorcycle talk before.’

  ‘I was right about this, wasn’t I? It’s damn cool.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she murmured. ‘Is it my turn now?’

  ‘Your turn?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘For motorcycle talk?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sure, talk away,’ I said confidently, not careful what I wished for.

  She nestled in tighter, her lips close.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Ready for what?’

  ‘You don’t need coffee, or a joint?’

  ‘I’m good. I’m so good.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Gimme a dramatic pause.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Shut up! You’re dramatic pausing.’

  There was a dramatic pause.

 
‘That . . . truly . . . fucking . . . transcendent ride home,’ she said at last, murmuring the words onto my skin, ‘was a rip through space and time, baby. When you crashed down two gears and gunned it, passing between the passenger bus and the water tanker, my soul left my body. When we slid the closing gap and roared through, a voice in my head said Oh yeah . . . Oh yeah . . . Oh God . . . Oh God . . . all the way home.’

  She stopped, and stopped my heart.

  ‘How am I doin’ here, Shantaram, without all of my queens?’

  Fine. She was doing fine. I turned in the saddle until I could see a corner of her face.

  ‘I thought you didn’t believe in God, Karla,’ I smiled.

  ‘Who are we to believe in God?’ she said, her lips only lashes from my face. ‘It should be enough for anyone that God believes in us.’

  We could’ve kissed. We should’ve kissed.

  ‘I’m thinking that I have to talk to Lisa,’ I said, words cutting my own throat. ‘Are you thinking that you have to talk to Ranjit?’

  She drew away slowly, until shadows took her face. I turned to the front again. She didn’t say anything, so I spoke.

  ‘I have to talk to her.’

  ‘Well, you can do that here,’ she said quietly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lisa’s here, at the hotel. Gemini and Scorpio are throwing a party, in the penthouse suite. They’ve taken the whole floor, in fact. Tonight’s the official housewarming. Everyone in town is up there. That’s why the limos are prowling. That’s why I asked you to drop me here.’

  ‘But . . . why didn’t you mention this before?’

  ‘Why didn’t you know?’

  It was a good question. I couldn’t answer it.

  ‘Are you going?’ I asked her, still staring ahead.

  ‘I was going to ask you to be my door date.’

  ‘Ranjit isn’t here?’

  ‘Ranjit is otherwise detained, this evening. A monthly meeting with the City Council. Didier agreed days ago to walk me out, and have a drink with me at home. But I’d like you to walk me in. Are you up for it?’

  I wanted to see Lisa, and know that she was safe. I wanted to see Didier for a report about the fallout from the shooting at Leopold’s. Good reasons to go. But I was afraid of spending more time with Karla. I hadn’t seen her for two years, but she’d been as close to me on the ride home to the Island City as wings on my back. And it was Karla, so there wasn’t an easy way to anything. She wanted to keep her husband alive for at least a few months more: it was cold-blooded, but I didn’t care. She’d been hurt, and she hurt back, but I knew there was nothing bad in her, just as I knew that she wouldn’t harm Ranjit or anyone else without reason. She was too strong for the world she knew, and I loved that about her, and I thought that if I looked at her again, I wouldn’t have the courage to leave her side.