Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

Stars wandered their dark pastures. Early dawn pressed all the shadows flat. Faint light began to wake waves in brilliant peaks: seals of candescence, playing.

I turned my head slowly, so that I could look at Karla’s profile as her heart talked to the sea.

She’d been afraid, for days. She’d discovered our sweet, dead friend, and she’d been beaten by the cops, and she’d broken up with Ranjit, permanently, for whatever reason, and she had Madame Zhou’s acid throwers looking for her, and then she’d discovered that Ranjit was the one who was with Lisa, at the end.

She was the bravest girl I ever met, and I’d been so much in my own guilt and loss that I hadn’t been beside her, where I belonged, when she needed me.

‘Karla, I -’

‘Shall we do this now?’ Didier asked, from beside the small fire. ‘We are ready.’

Didier and Naveen had tended the fire well. The residue of fine ashes, cooled by fanning them out on the ground, was enough for each of us to have a handful.

We went to a corner facing the open sea, and scattered those little ashes we had of her, in the place she would’ve chosen to scatter mine.

‘Goodbye, and hello, beautiful soul,’ Karla said, as the ashes drifted from our fingers. ‘May you return, in a longer and happier life.’

We followed the wind and ashes with thoughts of her. I was so angry at Fate that I couldn’t cry.

‘Well, we’d better get out of here,’ Naveen said, cleaning up the impromptu fireplace. ‘The cleaning staff will arrive soon.’

‘Wait, guys,’ I said. ‘Madame Zhou’s back in town, with acid throwers, and she’s asking around about Karla.’

‘Acid throwers,’ Didier said, spitting the words in a shiver of dread.

‘Who’s Madame Zhou?’ Naveen asked.

‘A loathsome woman,’ Didier said, drinking the last sip from his flask. ‘Imagine a spider, the size of a small woman, and you will be very close.’

‘We’ll keep a watch on Karla round the clock,’ I suggested, ‘until we throw Madame Zhou and her acid throwers in the sea. We -’

‘I thank you, and accept your help, Didier and Naveen,’ Karla cut me off. ‘Much appreciated. But you can’t, Lin.’

‘I can’t?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you won’t be here. You’re going away.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Goodbye, Lin,’ Didier said, rushing to hug me. ‘I never wake before the afternoon, so I fear that I will miss your departure.’

‘My departure?’

‘To the mountain,’ Karla said. ‘To stay with Idriss, for two weeks.’

‘Goodbye, Lin,’ Naveen said, hugging me. ‘See you when you get back.’

‘Wait a minute.’

They were already walking to the door. We joined them, and as the elevator doors closed, Karla sighed.

‘Every time an elevator door closes on me -’ she began.

Didier handed her a flask.

‘I thought you were out,’ she said, taking a swig.

‘It is my reserve .’

‘Will you marry me, Didier, if I can divorce Ranjit, or kill him?’

‘I’m already married to my vices, Karla dear,’ Didier replied, ‘and they’re very jealous lovers, all of them.’

‘Just my luck,’ Karla said. ‘All my guys are vices, or married to them.’

‘Which one am I?’ Naveen asked. ‘Now that I’m one of the guys.’

‘Maybe both,’ Karla said. ‘Which is why I have such high hopes for you.’

We reached Karla’s car, and Randall opened the doors. I told them that I wanted to walk back to my bike, still parked near the Scorpion house. Karla walked me to the sea wall to say goodbye.

‘Stick it out,’ she said, her palm on my chest.

Her fingers were truth, touching me.

Imagine this, every day.

‘As it happens,’ I smiled, ‘I’m a stick-it-out guy.’

She laughed. Temple bell.

‘I’d like to be beside you, when Madame Zhou pops out of the shadows.’

‘You can help me by staying two weeks up there, Lin. Let everything cool down. Let me set this in motion. Let me do what I have to do, and keep you out of it while I do it. Stay longer up there with Idriss, if you need.’

‘Longer?’

‘If you need.’

‘What about us?’

She smiled. She kissed me.

‘I’ll come and see you.’

‘When?’

‘When you least expect it,’ she said, walking back to the car.

‘What about Madame Zhou?’

‘We’ll be merciful,’ she said out the window as Randall drove away, ‘until we find her.’

I watched the car out of sight, and began to walk the sea wall promenade. Early walkers brisked elbows and ankle socks at me, too serious to look at anything but the pavement.

Morning rose behind eastern buildings, shadow-veils lifting slowly from their faces. Dogs, impatient for action, barked here and there. Flocks of pigeons tested their skills, swooping the flourish of a dancer’s dress over the path, and soaring invisible again.

I was a funeral procession of one. I could still feel the ashes on my fingers as I walked. Tiny fragments of Lisa’s life were floating across the sea, and along the promenade.

Everything leaves a mark. Every blow echoes in the forest inside. Every injustice cuts a branch, and every loss is a fallen tree. The beautiful courage of us, the hope that defines our kind, is that we go on, no matter how much life wounds us. We walk. We face the sea and the wind and the salted truth of death, and we go on.

And every step we take, every breath we spend, every wish fulfilled is a duty to those lives and loves no longer graced, as we still are, with the spark and rhythm of the Source: the soul we loved, in their eyes.

‘Let me begin our lessons by telling you where Khaderbhai was wrong in his instruction of you,’ Idriss said, when I’d been with him on the mountain for three restless, sleep-sluggish nights, and three days filled with chores.

‘But -’

‘I know, I know, you want the Big Answers, to the Big Questions. Where did we come from? What are we now? Where are we going? Is there a purpose to life? Are we free, or are we determined by a Divine plan? And we’ll get to them, irritating as they are.’

‘Irritating, Idriss, or irresolvable?’

‘The Big Questions only have small answers, and the Big Answers can only be found through small questions. But first, we need a little R and R.’

‘Rest and Recuperation?’

‘No, Repair and Rectification.’

‘Rectification?’ I asked, an eyebrow dissenting.

‘Rectification,’ he repeated. ‘It is the duty of every human being to help others toward rectification, whenever the discourse between them is private, and of a spiritual nature. You will help me in this, and I will help you.’

‘I’m not a spiritual person,’ I said.

‘You’re a spiritual person. The very fact that we’re having this conversation is the proof, although you don’t have the eyes to see it.’

‘Okay. But if the club lets me in, you should look at the membership criteria.’

We were sitting in a corner of the white-stone mesa with a view directly into the tallest trees in the valley. The kitchen was to our left. The main areas were behind us.

It was late afternoon. Small birds chittered from branch to branch, fussing and fidgeting among the leaves.

‘You seek escape in humour,’ he observed.

‘Actually, I just try to stay on my game. You know Karla, Idriss, and you know she likes to raise the bar.’

‘No, you are escaping, all the time, except for this woman. You are escaping everything, even me, except her. If she were not here, you would escape Bombay, as well. You are running, even when you are standing still. What are you afraid of?’