The Mountain Shadow

by Gregory David Roberts

  ‘Send it to the Jehangir gallery,’ she said. ‘They’ve got the integrity to run it, and they deserve it more than you do.’

  ‘But, Karla,’ he pleaded.

  ‘I think we’re done here,’ she said to me, standing up.

  Taj unfolded his tall frame to stand in front of her.

  ‘Please reconsider this, Karla,’ he said.

  He grabbed her arm.

  I shoved him away.

  ‘Stay back, Taj,’ I said quietly.

  ‘You’re making a mistake, Karla,’ he said. ‘We’re really moving into big money, here at the gallery.’

  ‘I’ve got money,’ Karla said. ‘What I want is respect. I’m done here, Taj. The gallery is yours, from now on. Be as apolitical as you like. I’m walking out. The exhibition insurance is on you, while you send the Marathi show to me, so make sure nothing happens before it reaches the Jehangir. Good luck, and goodbye.’

  We rode away, switching to one of my rounds.

  ‘You know he’s gay, right?’ Karla asked as we rode, her arm over my shoulder.

  ‘I know who’s gay?’

  ‘Taj.’

  ‘Taj is gay?’

  ‘You didn’t know, did you?’

  ‘Unless people tell me, I almost never know.’

  ‘And you were jealous, right?’

  I thought about it for a kilometre or so.

  ‘Are you saying you can’t be attracted to a gay man?’

  She thought about it, for a kilometre or so.

  ‘Good point,’ she said. ‘But not that gay man.’

  ‘But you went away with him for two days.’

  ‘To a spa,’ she said. ‘To drink juices, and get myself recharged for the fight. Taj just came along for company, to work out gallery stuff.’

  ‘And I couldn’t have come along for company, to work out stuff?’

  ‘I was protecting you from my schemes, remember?’ she said, whispering into my ear. ‘And anyway, Didier likes him.’

  ‘Didier and the sculptor?’

  ‘Taj has already done some nude studies of Didier. They’re pretty good.’

  ‘He’s going to make a statue of Didier?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll never hear the end of this.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I promised we’d be there for the unveiling.’

  ‘I might pass. I’ve already seen Didier unveiled.’

  ‘He’s doing Didier as Michelangelo’s David, at forty-nine years old.’

  ‘I’m definitely not going.’

  I slowed the bike and stopped at the kerb of a wide, relatively empty boulevard. When you ride the Island City’s streets for long enough, you get to feel them.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked.

  ‘The traffic’s not right,’ I said, looking around.

  ‘What’s not right about it?’

  ‘There isn’t any. The cops are holding it back for some reason.’

  A fleet of cars passed us at speed, lights flashing red as new blood. A second cavalcade followed, and a third. We watched them rush lines of light into the night until the street was quiet again, and the normal traffic resumed.

  ‘They’re heading to Bandra in a hurry,’ I said, as I put the bike into gear, and rode away slowly. ‘Cops and journalists. Must be something big.’

  ‘Do you care?’ she said, her arm around my shoulder.

  ‘No,’ I called back. ‘Come and meet somebody cool. I have to drop some money off at a bank.’

  Half-Moon Auntie excelled herself for Karla. At one point she sent me away, telling me that the next portion of her performance was for women only.

  I slipped and slid away at slow speed on the fish-oil floor, resisting the impulse to glance back.

  ‘Nice,’ Karla said, when she joined me in the Colaba market. ‘That’s some serious yoga. Someone absolutely has to paint that woman.’

  ‘Maybe one of your young painters?’

  ‘Good idea,’ she laughed. ‘I think we’re going to do some pretty interesting stuff together, Shantaram.’

  ‘You got that right.’

  A young prostitute, from the Regal Circle sex roundabout, was returning home through the market to her hut in the fishermen’s slum. Her name was Circe, and she was a handful.

  Her bing, if she hadn’t made enough money, was to pester men to have sex with her until they did, or until they paid her to stop pestering.

  ‘Hey, Shantaram,’ she said. ‘Fuck me long, double price.’

  ‘Hi, Circe,’ I said, trying to pass her, but she scampered into my path, her hands on her hips.

  ‘Fuck me quick, fuck me long, you shit!’

  ‘Bye, Circe,’ I said, dodging away again, but she grabbed her yellow sari in her hands, and ran around to face me again.

  ‘You fuck, or you pay,’ she said, seizing my arm mid-pester, and trying to rub against me.

  Karla shoved her in the chest with both hands, sending her reeling away.

  ‘Stay back, Circe,’ she growled in Hindi, her fists raised.

  Circe brushed her sari into place and walked away, avoiding Karla’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, so that’s how it’s done,’ I said.

  ‘Cute girl,’ Karla said. ‘Ever since the fetish party, all I’ve met are people I would’ve added to the list.’

  ‘I’ll bet. I’ve finished my rounds. Where to next, Miss Karla?’

  ‘Now, my love, we rise all the way to the bottom of the pork barrel.’

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  We rode south to the Taj Mahal hotel, where Karla had a meeting with stockholders of Ranjit’s media conglomerate.

  Early evening was still gold in the eyes of the Sikh security team that greeted Karla at the hotel. She was wearing clear plastic sandals and a grey boilermaker suit she’d cut up, leaving wide, open shoulders, and roped in with a belt made of black plaited hemp. Her hair was styled by the wind, on the back of my motorcycle, and looked pretty good.

  I was wearing black jeans, my denim vest and a Keith Richards T-shirt I’d bartered off Oleg, and looked not so pretty good for a business meeting. But I didn’t care: they weren’t dressed for my world, either.

  The meeting was in the business clubrooms. We stepped into a tiny elevator. As the doors closed, I offered Karla my flask. She sipped it and passed it back as the elevator opened on a narrow corridor, leading to a treasure room of affluently understated decadence.

  Leather chairs and couches, each one the price of a family car, were parked against wide mahogany panels, imported from faraway countries where mahogany trees are murdered for their flesh. Crystal glasses stung the eyes with glittering reflections, carpets surrendered like sponges, expensive paintings of expansive business leaders enriched the walls, and white-gloved waiters waited patiently on every unfulfilled need.

  There were six businessmen in the room, all of them well dressed and well preserved. When we entered the clubroom they froze, staring at Karla.

  ‘I am so very sorry for your loss, Karla-Madame,’ one of the businessmen said.

  ‘So very sorry, Madame,’ others said.

  I looked at Karla. She was reading their eyes and faces. Wherever it led, she didn’t like it.

  ‘Something happened to Ranjit,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’ Karla asked quietly.

  ‘Ranjit has expired, Karla-Madame,’ the businessman said. ‘He was shot by someone, tonight, in Bandra. Just now. It is on the news.’

  I realised that the red cavalcades of police cars and press cars we’d seen, rushing toward Bandra, were racing to the scene of Ranjit’s shooting. Karla had the same idea. She looked at me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  She nodded, her lips taut.

  ‘If you w
ill excuse me, gentlemen,’ she said, her voice firm. ‘I will ask you to adjourn this meeting for forty-eight hours, if that is suitable.’

  ‘Of course, Karla-Madame.’

  ‘Anything you say, Karla-Madame.’

  ‘Take all the time you need, Karla-Madame.’

  ‘So sorry for your loss.’

  In the elevator she clung to me, her face in my chest, and cried. Then the elevator jammed to a halt, stuck between floors.

  She stopped crying, wiped her eyes, and looked around with a widening smile.

  ‘Hello, Ranjit,’ she said. ‘Come out and fight me like a ghost.’

  The elevator started again, and began to descend.

  ‘Goodbye, Ranjit,’ I said.

  On the street, beside the bike, I held her hand.

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘If I could, if he’s still there,’ she said, ‘I’d like to identify him. I don’t want to do it in the morgue.’

  I took her to Bandra, riding fast, Randall following behind. We pulled up at a press cordon, established near the dance bar where Ranjit’s silver bullet had found him.

  His body was still inside the nightclub. The police were waiting to remove the corpse of the famous tycoon, we heard, because one of the major television reporters hadn’t arrived. Karla, Randall and I took up a position in the crowd with a view of the arc lights trained by local camera crews on the entrance to the nightclub.

  I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t want to see Ranjit’s body being carried out on a gurney. And there were a lot of cops standing around.

  I looked at Karla. She was blazing queens, scanning the scene, taking in the large broadcast vans, the arc lights, and the lines of cops.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  ‘I have to do it,’ she said. ‘It’s my last job for Ranjit’s family. My way to make it up to them for playing Ranjit’s game, I guess.’

  Karla lurched forward through the press cordon. Cameras flashed. I was half a pace behind her, and Randall was at my side.

  ‘Stand aside,’ Randall said calmly in Marathi and Hindi, passing through the ranks of the cops and journalists. ‘Please, show respect. Please, show respect.’

  The press and the cops let Karla into the club, but stopped Randall and me at the door. We waited for ten long minutes until she came back to us. Her head was high, her eyes staring straight ahead, but she was resting on the arm of a senior officer.

  ‘It is a terrible business, Madame,’ the officer said. ‘We have not completed our enquiries, but it seems that your husband was shot by a young man, who –’

  ‘I can’t discuss this now,’ Karla said.

  ‘Of course not, Madame,’ the OIC said quickly.

  ‘Please, excuse my rudeness,’ Karla said, stopping him with a raised hand. ‘I simply wanted you to attest that I have identified Ranjit’s body. His family must be informed, quickly, and with my positive identification you can now perform that onerous task, isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, Madame.’

  ‘Then, do you attest my identification, and will you inform Ranjit’s family?’

  ‘I attest it, Madame,’ the officer said, saluting. ‘And I will perform that duty.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Karla said, shaking his hand. ‘You no doubt have questions you would like to ask me. I’ll visit your office at any time that you require me.’

  ‘Yes, Madame. Please, take my card. And may I express my sorrow, for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you again, sir,’ Karla said.

  When we left the cordon of cops to walk back to the bike, some photographers tried to take Karla’s picture. Randall held them back, and paid them to stop shouting for the freedom of the press.

  We rode back to the south, and she cried, her cheek pressed against my back. When we stopped at a traffic light, Randall jumped from the car and offered her tissues from a red ceramic box. Karla accepted them, before the signal changed. And I think that little, thoughtful act saved her, because she stopped crying after that, and simply clung to me, and never cried for Ranjit again.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  I took her back to the Amritsar hotel, and the Bedouin tent. She let me undress her and put her to bed: one of a lover’s treasures. And she slept through dawn and daylight, and violet evening, and woke under an exile moon.

  She stretched, saw me, and looked around her.

  ‘How long have I been out?’

  ‘A day,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly midnight. You missed tomorrow.’

  She sat upright quickly, messing her hair perfect.

  ‘Midnight?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Were you watching me, while I slept?’

  ‘I was too busy. I wrote out a pretty eloquent statement for the cops, and signed it for you, and delivered it. They liked it. You don’t have to go back.’

  ‘You did all that?’

  ‘How you feeling?’ I smiled.

  ‘I’m good,’ she said, wriggling off the bed. ‘I’m good. And I gotta pee.’

  She came back showered, in a white silk robe, and I was trying to think of a way to let her talk about Ranjit, dead Ranjit, and what it felt like, seeing his body, when there was a knock on the door.

  ‘That’s Naveen’s knock,’ Karla said. ‘You wanna let him in?’

  ‘You know his knock?’

  I opened the door and welcomed the young detective into the tent.

  ‘What’s up, kid?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Ranjit, Karla,’ he said.

  ‘Someone had to kill him,’ Karla replied, lighting a small joint. ‘I’m just glad it wasn’t me. It’s okay, Naveen. I slept it off, and I’m okay.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Glad to see you’re still punching.’

  He stared at me, then at Karla, then at me again.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just getting my head around the two of you being together all the time.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘There’s a hotel pool, you know,’ he said happily, ‘on how long Oleg gets to keep your rooms. Oleg picked three –’

  ‘Any other news, Naveen?’ I asked, pulling on jeans.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘Dennis is ending his trance, tonight. There’s gonna be a lot of people there. I thought . . . maybe . . . you need to get out in the air, Karla.’

  Karla looked interested in seeing Dennis rise from his two-year sleep, but I wasn’t sure if she was ready for distraction. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it myself. I’d stayed up most of the night and day, watching over Karla and paying the cops to leave her alone. And the whole time I’d asked myself again and again the questions about Ranjit and Lisa, that only Ranjit, dead Ranjit, could answer.

  ‘You wanna go out, or stay in, girl?’

  ‘And miss a resurrection? I’ll be ready in five,’ she said.

  ‘Okay, I’m in,’ I said, pulling on a shirt. ‘It’s not every day someone rises from the dead.’

  We walked down to the arch beneath the hotel and found Randall sitting in the back of the car. He was reading a copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the interior lights a blue-white blush on his face.

  Karla had given him the car, because he refused to stop following her while she rode with me, just in case she needed him. He’d accepted the gift, and transformed the capacious rear seats into a sleeping lounge, complete with a small refrigerator running on battery power, and a sound system that was better than mine.

  He was barefoot, in black trousers and a white, open-necked shirt. His bronze, Goan eyes, faded by generations of sun and sea, were filled with happy light. He stepped from the car, and slipped into his sandals.

  He was handsome, tall, smart and brave. As he came to greet Karla, smiling teeth at her like shells on a
perfect shore, I could see why Diva liked him so much.

  ‘How are you, Miss Karla?’ Randall asked, taking her hand for a moment.

  ‘I’m fine, Randall,’ she said. ‘Got a nip you can give me, from your well-stocked bar? I had a bad dream last night, and I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Coming up,’ Randall replied, opening the door of the car and fetching a small bottle of vodka.

  ‘To the spirits of the departed,’ Karla said, throwing it back in two gulps. ‘Now, let’s go raise the dead.’

  ‘Would this be the rise of Dennis the Sleeping Baba, Miss Karla?’

  ‘Indeed it is, Randall,’ she replied wistfully. ‘Instead of a wake, let’s have an awake, shall we?’

  ‘With unadulterated pleasure,’ he smiled, sad for what she’d been through, but glad that she was up and out again. ‘To the psychic resuscitation it is.’

  ‘And not a death certificate too soon,’ Naveen added.

  I looked at the Indian–Irish detective, who was talking to Randall while he prepared the car, and wondered what thoughts roamed his mind: for three weeks, Randall had been dating the woman Naveen loved. I liked Randall, and I liked Naveen, almost as much as they seemed to like each other. Naveen hugged Randall, and Randall hugged Naveen. It looked genuine, and it was confusing: if things got ugly, I wouldn’t know which one to hit.

  ‘I’ll leave my bike, and ride with Randall,’ Naveen said, as Karla and I saddled up the bike.

  We rode between satin banners of traffic to the Colaban hive of ancient housing, near Sassoon Dock. The night smell of dead and dying sea things followed us past the dock, and lingered to the colony of verandas where Dennis reposed.

  There was a crowd on the street. Huge buses on the regular route ploughed fields of penitents, who moved aside in waves of heads and shoulders to let the metal whales swim through.

  We worked our way to a place near the front with a view of the veranda where Dennis, it was expected, would emerge from his long self-induced coma.

  People were holding candles and oil lamps. Some were holding bunches of incense. Others were chanting.

  Dennis appeared, standing in the doorway of his rooms. He looked at the wide veranda for a moment as if it was a red-tiled river, and then looked up at the crowd of supplicants gathered on the street a few steps below.