Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Yours?’

‘The Irishman borrowed it that night. He’d been shot the day before, I understand, but still insisted on going out. I let him have my driver.’

‘Where do I find this driver?’

‘He will not tell you anything,’ Vishnu said.

‘He might,’ I said through clenched teeth.

‘He’s dead. But, he did tell me everything he knew, before he died.’

‘What do you want, Vishnu?’

‘You know what I want. I want to stop the Sanjay Company from pumping weapons and bomb-makers from Pakistan into Bombay’s streets.’

‘That’s a little exaggerated -’ I began, but he cut me off, standing behind his desk with his fists on his hips.

‘You can’t deny it, because it’s happening everywhere,’ he said, raising his voice to a shout as he warmed to his theme. ‘Money from the Arabs, training in Pakistan, an army already on the move across the world. They’re about to take their first country, Afghanistan. It won’t be the last country the Islamic army takes, before this is over. If you can’t see what that means, you’re an idiot.’

‘Now you’re the one who’s disturbing your wife. I don’t want a political debate with you, Vishnu. I want the Irishman.’

‘Forget my wife, motherfucker, and forget the Irishman. Tell me what you think about all this. You’ve both been here long enough to feel the love of Mother India. Where do you stand?’

I looked at Didier. He shrugged.

‘The real fight,’ I replied, ‘is between Sunni and Shia Islam. Muslims are killing a hundred or more Muslims for every non-Muslim, one mosque and marketplace at a time. We don’t have a dog in that fight. We should stay out of it. And we definitely shouldn’t bomb or invade their countries, while they’re fighting that family feud. Or at any other time, for that matter.’

‘We Indians do have a dog in the fight,’ he said more seriously, his hands working. ‘Kashmir. That’s why they are hitting us, again and again. They want Kashmir as an independent Islamic State. Where do you stand on Kashmir?’

‘Kashmir is a war no-one can win. There should be blue United Nations helmets everywhere in Kashmir, protecting the people until it gets worked out.’

‘And would you feel the same way, if it was a state from your country?’

‘He has a point,’ Didier observed, gesturing with his cigar.

I looked at him, then back to Vishnu.

‘I don’t have a country. And I don’t have a girlfriend any more. Do you know anything that can help me find the man who killed her?’

He laughed, and his eyes flickered to the clock on the wall. It occurred to me, too late, that he was stalling.

The door opened behind us, and Lightning Dilip walked through. Six cops crowded into the room. Two cops grabbed me. Two cops grabbed Didier.

Lightning Dilip came to stand close to me, his belly bursting through his shirt.

‘I’ve been searching for you, Shantaram,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some unhappy questions to ask you.’

I looked at Vishnu. He was smiling. Lightning Dilip began to shove us toward the door.

‘Wait!’ Vishnu commanded, pointing at Didier. ‘I need Mr Levy. We have matters to discuss.’

‘ Jarur! ’ Lightning responded.

The cops released Didier. He looked at me, asking me with his eyes if we should fight and die, there and then. I shook my head, and he gave me a broken half-smile, sending courage into the prairie in my heart where fear was already running. It was okay. We’d both been in Lightning Dilip’s custodial care, and we both knew what to expect: the boot and the baton and exhaustion as the only mercy.

The cops dragged and shoved me out of the house. Scorpion gangsters jeered and mocked me from the stairwell. Danda kicked at me, as he slammed the door.

Eight hands and a few boots pushed me face down in the back of a jeep. They drove too fast to the Colaba police station, threw me out of the jeep, stomped on me a few times, and then dragged me into the stony courtyard.

They passed the row of offices where normal interrogations were held, and dragged me toward the under barrack, where abnormal interrogations were held.

I got up, and resisted arrest. I got in a couple of good shots, too. They didn’t like it. They slapped me around, and shoved me into one of the wide, dark cells.

There were four scared men in the cell, and I was one of them. The other three scared men, chained together in the far corner, were sitting on their haunches. Their faces were dirty, and their shirts were torn. They looked like they’d been there a while.

The cops chained me to the entry gate, low, forcing me to curl up in a ball on my knees.

Boom. A kick came out of nowhere. Hello, Lightning. Kick, punch, baton, punch, kick, kick, baton, kick, punch, punch, baton.

You beat Karla like this, you coward , I thought, finding an image I could use to lock my mind. Your karma’s waiting for you. Your karma’s waiting for you .

Then it stopped, like the last thunder, and I could hear the thudding storm rolling away.

When I thought it was safe, I risked a look and caught a glimpse of Lightning Dilip. He was staring at the three men huddled in the corner. He was breathing hard. His face was all the wrong happiness.

I got it. I was the warm-up act. The guys in the corner were the main event.

The guys in the corner got it too, and started to beg. I had time to breathe and move and check to see the damage.

I was lucky. No bones broken, nothing ruptured, arms and legs still working. It could’ve been worse, and had been before.

When Lightning Dilip went to work on the chained men, two cops uncuffed me from the gate, and took me back to the duty sergeant’s office, to decide how much of my money to keep. They took it all, of course: it cost me all I had to buy back my clothes, personal effects and knives. They threw my stuff into the road, and threw me after it, dressed in my shorts.

I stood in the deserted, late-night street beside a traffic island, picking up my clothes, one by one, until I was dressed. For a while I stayed there, staring at the police station, as you do, sometimes, out of that stubbornness born of injustice.

I was bleeding, beat up, in the middle of the fluorescent street. I could hear the screams of Lightning Dilip’s new victims. The flashing light on the corner bathed me in red with a slow heartbeat. I stared at the place where the screaming came from.

A black Ambassador car pulled to a stop beside me. The windows were down. I saw Farid in the front seat, beside a Company driver, named Shah. Faisal, Amir and Andrew DaSilva were in the back seat.

DaSilva had his elbow on the window. He reached under the dashboard of the car, and I instinctively pulled one of the knives. The gangsters laughed.

‘Here’s your money,’ DaSilva said, passing a package through the window. ‘Thirty grand. Severance pay, for the Sri Lanka run.’

I reached out to take the package, but he wouldn’t release it.

‘Two weeks, you’ve got, of Sanjay’s protection,’ he said, grinning into my eyes. ‘After that, why don’t you try to kill me, huh? And we’ll see what happens.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, Andy,’ I said, grabbing the package from his hand. ‘I have too much fun making you look bad, in front of your friends.’

‘Good one!’ Amir laughed. ‘I’m going to miss you, Lin. Challo! Let’s go!’

The black Ambassador drove away, leaving blue smoke swirling in the fluorescent haze. I put the money inside my shirt, and heard the screaming, beginning again.

A headache said hello behind my right eye. There were bruises making themselves acquainted all along my back and shoulders.