The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Do you have any infected with you?’

  ‘Open the fucking door, Jaswant.’

  The barricade scraped and shuddered away from the door, and we scrambled inside. Jaswant shoved the sculpture back into place, turned quickly and pointed at Vinson, who was swirling drunk.

  ‘He looks infected,’ Jaswant said.

  ‘I have so gotta piss,’ Vinson said.

  ‘Is he leaking fluids?’ Jaswant said, stepping back a pace.

  ‘He’ll leak them on the floor, if you don’t stop talking,’ I said, trying to escape.

  ‘Did you see any infected out there?’ Jaswant asked.

  ‘Enough with the zombies,’ I said, leading Vinson to my room. ‘This is Randall.’

  ‘Hi, Randall. I’m Jaswant. How was it out there?’

  ‘Quiet for now,’ Randall said. ‘But I’m completely with you on zombie vigilance. Prudence is the only wisdom, where the undead are concerned.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Jaswant said, returning to his chair. ‘I keep telling them. Plagues. Chaos. Situations like this. It’s always how it begins.’

  ‘Jaswant,’ I said, trying to keep Vinson vertical and open the door to my rooms, which was surprisingly difficult. ‘I’m gonna need more supplies. As you can see, I’ve got guests.’

  ‘You bet your foreigner ass you have,’ he laughed.

  I opened the door and found Didier in my room, with Oleg, Diva, and the Diva girls, Charu and Pari.

  They were all in costume. Diva was in a leopard-print bodysuit. Didier had abandoned his gladiator torso, except for a leather mask, but kept the tutu and tights. Oleg was a Roman senator, in sandals, and a toga made from one of my sheets. Charu and Pari were cat people, complete with tiny ears and long tails. Charu was Persian grey, and Pari was night black.

  ‘Lin!’ Didier said from his place beside Diva on a mattress on the wooden floor. ‘We were being fashionably late for the party, and we were stopped at a police roadblock before we got there, so we returned here, just as the whole city went into lockdown.’

  ‘Hi, Lin,’ Diva said. ‘Do you mind that we’re here?’

  ‘Of course, not. Happy to see you. This is –’

  ‘Randall, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘And your beautiful face begs no introduction.’

  ‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

  ‘Hi, I’m Vinson,’ Vinson said, ‘and I found my girlfriend. She’s in an ashram.’

  ‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

  ‘This is Charu,’ Diva said. ‘And this is Pari.’

  ‘She’s in an ashram,’ Vinson said, shaking hands with Pari.

  ‘Is she like, possessed?’ Pari asked.

  ‘Or dying of an incurable disease?’ Charu offered.

  ‘What?’ Vinson asked, swaying as he tried to focus on them. ‘You know, I really gotta pee.’

  I steered him to the bathroom and shut the door.

  ‘You look messed up, Shantaram,’ Diva said, standing up and offering her arms. ‘Gimme a hug, yaar.’

  She hugged me, and sat down again next to Didier on the mattress. I looked at the mattress. It was familiar. I glanced through my bedroom door at my bed. The mattress was gone. The bare wooden bed was a coffin. My mattress was on the floor.

  ‘I hope you do not object, Lin,’ Didier said, drinking my zombie rations. ‘Since we are all stuck here for the Devil knows how long, it seemed like the only viable solution, to move the mattress here.’

  ‘Jaswant!’ I called out to the manager. ‘I have more guests. I’ll take everything you’ve got!’

  ‘That’s not how it’s done, baba,’ he called back. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Jaswant, it’s either me, or I’m sending Didier out there to negotiate.’

  ‘Apology accepted,’ he said. ‘The stuff is yours.’

  He brought cardboard boxes into the room, and cases of bottled water. He returned with a gas bottle and a two-burner stove.

  He shoved my journals and notes to the side, and installed the stove, lighting it with a battery-powered sparker shaped like a pistol. He turned the gas high and low and high again, as if releasing fireflies from a bottle.

  ‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

  Jaswant bowed.

  ‘Restaurants are closed,’ he said, ‘and there’s no take-out, no deliveries, and nothing but what you cook yourselves, for who knows how long.’

  ‘We’re gonna need more to smoke,’ I said, at the door to my room.

  ‘That can be arranged, but it won’t be cheap, with this lockdown.’

  ‘I’ll take it all.’

  ‘There you go again. Haven’t you learned anything? You’re a menace to honest business.’

  ‘Didier!’

  ‘Apology accepted. I’ll bring the stuff along later. It’s in the tunnel.’

  ‘The tunnel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a tunnel, underneath this hotel?’

  ‘Of course there’s a tunnel. That’s why I bought it. Sikhs, surviving World War Three, remember?’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  His eyes narrowed.

  ‘I’m afraid . . . that’s above your pay grade,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

  ‘Unless –’

  ‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

  ‘Unless,’ he persisted, ‘the zombies break through, and it’s our final option. If I had that phaser pistol, we’d be on easy street.’

  ‘Enough with the zombies.’

  ‘You’re no fun at all,’ he said, walking back to his desk. ‘The stove is a rental. I’ve put it on your bill.’

  I took a look at the barricade, thinking of Karla, waiting for the time to search again, and glanced back at the people in my room.

  Oleg was going through the boxes. He pulled out some pots and pans.

  ‘Very useful,’ he said.

  ‘If only we’d saved a servant,’ Pari said.

  Diva lost it, laughing so hard that she pulled her knees up to her chest and rolled herself into a very tight in-joke.

  ‘No need for servants,’ Oleg smiled. ‘Have you ever tried Russian food? You’ll go mad for it, I promise you.’

  ‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

  Oleg had sent the T-shirts to Moscow, one to each non-identical twin, and by Didier’s rules he was free to get re-scented while he waited for Irina, his pheromone pilgrim, to respond.

  The Diva girls liked him. Everybody liked him. Hell, I liked him. But all I could think of was Karla, out there, stuck in a building somewhere, with no security but her own.

  ‘Can I help with the cooking?’ Vinson chimed in as he drunk-shuffled out of the bathroom.

  ‘Inadvisable, Mr Vinson,’ Randall intoned. ‘I suspect that Mr Oleg’s culinary skills are a spectator sport, not a blood sport.’

  ‘Who are you again?’ Diva asked, leaning against Didier on the mattress.

  ‘He’s Randall,’ Didier said. ‘I told you about him. He’s a mystery, explained in clever phrases.’

  ‘I’m Randall, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘And honoured to make your re-acquaintance.’

  ‘Please, come and sit with us, Randall,’ she said, patting the bed.

  ‘May I respectfully request, Miss Diva, that Mr Vinson be permitted to join me? He seems to have been left in my charge, and I think he should gently recline.’

  ‘Of course,’ Diva said, patting the mattress. ‘Put it here, Vinson.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ Vinson said, as Randall eased him into a semi-slump on my mattress, one of my pillows behind his head. ‘My girlfriend is in an ashram, you know. I’m afraid I got a little tight, tonight, and actually even yesternight, because she’s in an ashram, you know, and that means, like, God is her boyfriend now or something, and how can I
fight that? How can anyone fight God? And, like, if He’s so powerful, why doesn’t He get His own girl? It’s got me beat. It really has.’

  ‘It’s got you bad, baby,’ Diva said.

  ‘It’s got everybody bad, if you’ll pardon me, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘It’s the fight or flight of affection.’

  Diva reached across Didier to put her hand on Randall’s arm.

  ‘If I said I’d double what Karla is paying you, would you jump ship, Randall?’

  ‘Working for Miss Karla is beyond price,’ Randall smiled. ‘It is a privilege, so, with respect, I will remain on board, and help Miss Karla man a lifeboat, if required.’

  Diva sized him up, wandering through his smile.

  ‘We’re going to get to know one another considerably better,’ she said, ‘if we stay locked up here all night.’

  ‘Every minute in your company is an honour, Miss Diva.’

  I left that minute with them, honoured to be alone for a minute in my bedroom, but Diva quickly followed me, spun me around, and grabbed the lapels of my vest.

  ‘Is there something between Randall and Karla?’ she whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If there is, I wouldn’t poach on her territory. I like Karla.’

  ‘Poach?’

  ‘But if there isn’t, I tell you, Lin, this guy is so hot. He’s like melting fucking hot, yaar.’

  Places in our beautiful Bombay are burning, I thought. Places are gone. People are gone.

  ‘Right,’ I said, staring at her, not understanding why she wasn’t preparing for a lockdown of the city that could last for days, but glad to see a tiger-growl of the old Diva.

  ‘So, it’s cool, then?’

  She was searching my eyes innocently.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And there’s absolutely nothing between Karla and Randall? Because, I mean, he’s so hot, it’s like pretty hard to believe, you know?’

  Worlds aren’t meant to change so quickly, so strangely, but they always do. I couldn’t understand any of it. Karla riding with Benicia, Naveen riding with Kavita, Diva dancing with Randall, my room filled with people riding out the storm. I only had one rope in that storm: Karla, maybe stuck somewhere, waiting for me to come.

  ‘You’re cool, Diva. It’s okay.’

  She skipped from the bedroom, and I shut the door behind her, leaning against it without locking it. I didn’t want them to hear the sound of the lock turning, and feel unwelcome. They were welcome to stay for a month, as far as I was concerned. I pushed against the door with my back, expecting someone to open it at any minute, but needing a minute to myself.

  Kavita was right. Karla never moved from the altar inside, even while I lit candles of devotion with Lisa. Karla was the altar inside, from the first second that I saw her.

  Is it a sin to give your love to someone, when you can’t give your heart? Did we die inside, for a while, or did we keep love alive? Did she cut her wings, that dove, when she threw the window open? Was the happy life I thought we had, just the happy life I thought I had? Did I live a lie with Lisa, or lie a life?

  Laughter rollicked in the rollicking room next door: a lifeboat, adrift on irresistibility. And for some peaceful minute of unwelcome truth, the door against my back was the wall of a confessional, and all my sins of omission and commission tumbled through my heart: Nazeer and Tariq, neglected friends burned and shot, and Lisa, neglected love lost forever. Remorse for my selfishness crawled across my skin. And I begged the dead to forgive me.

  Laughter and stamping feet drummed through the door, tapping me on the back. I didn’t know if it was absolution or penance. I decided to call it even, and began to clean up my bedroom, in case any of the survivors in the next room needed a place to sleep.

  I folded sheets and a blanket on the wooden bed base, to provide as much comfort as possible for any weary sleeper. I tidied the room, put my books in one corner, and my guitar in the other, and wiped the floors over with a damp cloth.

  And somewhere in that unexpected service to unexpected guests, somewhere in the peace and simplicity and necessity of it, the stream of regret became a river, and I let Kavita and Lisa go.

  Wherever they’d been, wherever they were going, living or dead, I let them go. I remembered how they laughed, how I’d made both of them laugh. And I smiled, thinking of it, and that smile opened the grated window, and set them free.

  Chapter Seventy

  Life on the run strings its own fences. The living room was full of peaceful friends, but it was also full of dangerous weapons. I’d placed each weapon carefully, from every corner and piece of furniture, and from the balcony to the front door, considering every contingency of attack. I hadn’t considered that the room might be invaded by friends.

  I went back into the room and picked up the notes and journals Jaswant had sacrificed for his stove.

  ‘Guys, guys,’ I said, interrupting them.

  Everyone looked up. They were smiling.

  ‘I was planning for uninvited guests, and instead, tonight, I’ve got invited guests.’

  They cheered and clapped.

  ‘No, wait, you’re all welcome, of course, and thanks to Jaswant’s foresight we’ve got plenty of food and water and other stuff to ride this out.’

  They cheered and clapped.

  ‘No, wait, the thing is, I was expecting uninvited guests, see, so I left a few weapons around.’

  They blinked at me. They thought it was a joke, I guess, and were waiting for the punchline.

  I reached above the almost empty bookshelf, and brought down a hatchet.

  ‘Just go back to what you were doing,’ I said, hatchet in hand. ‘Relax. I’ll go around picking up the weapons, because I don’t want anyone to get accidentally hurt. Okay?’

  They blinked at me again. Didier was wearing a mask, and even he was blinking.

  ‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

  I put the jungle-street weapon on my wooden bed and went back to the room, gathering up knives, a gun, two clubs and a nifty knuckleduster. The last weapon was a set of Vikrant’s throwing knives, which I’d hidden behind a corner balcony support, near where Diva was sitting.

  ‘You’re either tragically paranoid,’ Diva said, ‘or tragically right.’

  ‘I don’t have time to be paranoid,’ I laughed. ‘There are too many people out to get me.’

  I kept the handgun in my vest pocket. I couldn’t hide it in the apartment, because I couldn’t trust any of them if they found it. It’s bad karma to let someone get killed with your gun, Farid, dead Farid the Fixer, once said to me. Right up there under killing someone with it yourself.

  Didier and Oleg had their own guns, if guns were needed. And there was a chance, if things got worse, that they might. Riots burn city blocks in Bombay, and other Indian cities. And around the fire in rings of blades and clubs are some of the people who lit the fire, waiting for prey to run.

  I’d made a deal with Dominic to make another tour, in two hours. He needed to go home, eat, take a nap, and report again for duty. With the city in lockdown, every cop worked every shift.

  I’d planned to forget the food, and go straight to the nap, but with my place full of people and my mattress on the floor, the night had unplanned itself.

  I went back into the main room and looted Jaswant’s supplies, heaped on the table beside the stove. I ate a banana off the bunch with one hand, and almonds with the other. I drank half a glass of honey from a pot. Then I cracked three eggs into a big glass, poured milk on it, threw in some turmeric powder, and drank it down.

  The girls had been watching.

  ‘Eeeuw,’ Charu said.

  She was a pretty girl. For a second, the vain part of me wanted to explain that I had to be on the road again, without any place to eat, and I didn’t have time to cook. But I was in love, and van
ity, that little shadow of pride, couldn’t weaken me.

  ‘You want one?’ I asked, offering her the glass.

  ‘Eeeuw,’ Charu said.

  ‘Is that like a magic trick, or something?’ Pari asked.

  ‘If it’s tricks you like, Miss Pari,’ Didier said. ‘Look no further than Didier.’

  ‘Wow. I want to see every single trick, Didier,’ Charu said.

  ‘Make it thrilling, Didier,’ Pari added.

  Things got back to unusual. Everybody said something essential, inessentially. I went back to my bedroom, racked my weapons into a roll, and stashed them on a window ledge, obscured by a dresser.

  ‘You know, if this was a horror movie,’ Oleg said, leaning in the doorway behind me, ‘the hidden weapons would be a tension point.’

  ‘Unless you knew,’ I said, tucking the roll out of sight. ‘Then you’d be the tension point.’

  ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘Have you ever played Dragon Quest? They’re mad for it in Moscow.’

  ‘I’m taking off, Oleg,’ I said, turning to face him.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said quickly, ‘you’re taking off? I thought nobody was taking off. Never split up. That’s the first rule of crazy-time survival tactics.’

  ‘Strange as these words are, I’m leaving you in charge.’

  ‘In charge of what?’

  ‘In charge of my room, while I’m gone.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, considering. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’

  ‘Don’t let anything happen to my journals. Make sure the rations hold out for everybody. And if Karla comes back before me, guard her.’

  ‘Sure you want to take a risk on me?’ he asked. ‘I’m a tension point, now, because I know where the weapons are.’

  ‘Cut it out, Oleg.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he smiled. ‘But it’s so much fun. Randall said that there were these creepy experiments in a lab near here, and one of the subjects escaped recently. It was in the newspaper. The girls are scared to death. I might get lucky tonight. Is that allowed, if it’s on the couch?’

  I looked at him, thinking about burning buildings, and burning friends.