Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘The Divine speaks?’

‘Every day, to everyone, through the soul.’

‘O… kay,’ I said, more confused than when I’d asked the question. ‘Maybe I’ll put that one in the later file. I’m sorry for the intrusion.’

‘Stop apologising. I asked you to define complexity.’

‘Well, Khaderbhai never let me pin him down on that. I asked him, a few times, but he always slipped away.’

‘What are your thoughts?’

My thoughts? I wanted to be with Karla. I wanted to know that she was safe. And if I had to be on the mountain, I wanted to listen to the teacher, rather than talk. But I’d learned, after three days of discussion, that there was no escape from the fortress of his mind.

I took a sip of water, put the glass back on the table beside us carefully, and threw my hat in the psychic ring.

‘At first, I started thinking of complexity as being about complicated things. The more complicated things are, the more complexity. A brain is more complex than a tree, and a tree is more complex than a stone, and a stone is more complex than space. Like that. But… ’

‘But?’

‘But the more I think about complexity, the longer I stay with two things. Life, and will.’

‘How did you get there?’

‘I thought about a much more evolved and advanced alien species, travelling through space. I asked myself what they might be looking for. Wherever there’s life, I think they’d be very interested. Wherever there’s fully evolved will, I think they’d be fascinated.’

‘That’s pretty good,’ Idriss said. ‘I’m going to enjoy telling you more about this. Make me another chillum. Hey, Silvano!’

The holy man’s constant companion, Silvano, crossed the white-stone space to join us.

‘ Ji? ’

‘Keep everyone away, for a while, please. And eat some food. You skipped lunch, again. What’s that, man? Next, you’ll be shaving your head. Don’t be holier than the fucking holy man, okay?’

‘ Ji ,’ Silvano laughed, backing away, and catching my eye.

Since I’d returned to the mountain, Silvano had been an almost constant companion. He was always ready to help, and always good-humoured.

The fierce scowl was only and ever the fruit of his protective love for Idriss. In every other hour of morning or evening he was a kind, happy soul, in a place that was home.

‘Complexity,’ Idriss began again, when Silvano left, ‘is the measure of sophistication in the expression of the set of positive characteristics.’

‘Can you run that by me again, please?’

‘A thing is complex, to the degree that it expresses the set of positive characteristics,’ he replied.

‘The positive characteristics?’

‘The set of positive characteristics includes Life, Consciousness, Freedom, Affinity, Creativity, Fairness and many others.’

‘Where does this set of positive characteristics come from? Who made the list?’

‘They are universally recognised, and would be recognised by your more evolved and advanced alien species, I am sure. If you look at their opposites, you’ll see why they are positive characteristics – Death, Unconsciousness, Slavery, Enmity, Destruction, and Iniquity. You do see what I am saying, don’t you? These positive characteristics are universal.’

‘Okay, if we accept the set of positive characteristics, how do we measure it? Who gets to measure it? How do we decide what’s more positive, and less positive, Idriss?’

A black cat came to stand near us, arching its back.

Hello, Midnight. How did you get here?

The cat jumped into my lap, tested or punished my patience with claws, and sat down to sleep.

‘There are two ways of looking at us,’ Idriss said, glancing out at the trees, throbbing with birds. ‘One says that we are just a cosmic accident, a fluke, and the lucky survivors of the real masters of the earth, the dinosaurs, after the fall of the Jurassic. That view says we’re all alone, because a fluke like this is unlikely anywhere else. And that we live in a universe that has us, and billions of planets with nothing more than microbes, meek little methanogens, archaea and bacteria, inheriting alkaline seas.’

A dragonfly buzzed around him for a while. He coaxed it with an extended hand, muttering to himself. He pointed his finger at the forest, and the dragonfly flew away.

‘The other view,’ Idriss said, turning to me again, ‘says that we’re everywhere, in every galaxy, and here in this galaxy, in our solar system, about two-thirds of the way out from all the action at the Milky Way’s hub, we’re the lucky ones, where evolution happened to achieve it locally. Which explanation is more plausible, do you think?’

What did I think? I dragged myself back to the bridge of ideas.

‘My money’s on the latter. If it happened here, it’s likely to be somewhere else, as well.’

‘Precisely. It’s likely that we’re not alone. And if the universe produces us, and creatures like us, when the soup is cooked just right, then the set of positive characteristics becomes tremendously significant.’

‘For us?’

‘For us, and in themselves.’

‘Are we talking about essential and contingent distinctions?’

He laughed.

‘Where did you study?’ he asked, looking me over, as if for the first time.

‘Here, at the moment.’

‘Good,’ he smiled. ‘Good. There is no distinction between the two. Everything is contingent, and essential, at the same time.’

‘I don’t follow you, I’m sorry.’

‘Let’s take a short cut,’ he said, leaning in close again, ‘because I’m dispensing with the Socratic-Freudian-question-with-a-question-bullshit. Khaderbhai loved that, may he be at peace, but I prefer to get it off my chest, and argue it out afterwards. Is that okay with you?’

‘Ah… yes. Sure. Please, go ahead.’

‘Very well, here it is. I believe that every atom in existence has a set of characteristics, given to it by light at the instant of the Big Bang. Among those characteristics is the set of positive characteristics. Everything that exists, in the form of atoms, has the set of positive characteristics.’

‘Everything?’

‘Why do you say such a doubtful thing?’

‘Doubtful, or doubting, Idriss?’

He leaned forward in his chair, and reached for the chillum.

‘Do you doubt yourself , as well?’

Did I? Of course, I did. I’d fallen: I was one of the fallen.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘At the moment, because I’m not paying for something I did.’

‘And that troubles you?’

‘Very much. I only made a down payment so far. I’ll have to pay the rest sooner or later, one way or another, and probably with interest.’

‘Maybe you’re already paying for it now, and you don’t know it.’

He was smiling, and sending gentle calm toward me.

‘Maybe I am,’ I said. ‘But not enough, I think.’

‘Fascinating,’ he said, holding out the chillum for me to light. ‘How do you get on with your father?’

‘I love my stepfather. He’s kind, and brilliant. He’s one of the finest human beings I’ve ever known. I’ve betrayed him, with my life. I’ve betrayed his integrity with what I’ve become.’

I didn’t know why I’d said it, or how the words had spilled from an urn of shame. I’d closed a steel door on the hurt I’d caused that fine man. Some things we do to others kneel so long in our hearts that bone becomes stone: a scarecrow in a chapel.

‘Sorry, Idriss. I got emotional.’

‘Excellent,’ Idriss said softly. ‘Have a smoke.’

He passed me the chillum. I smoked, and settled down.

‘Okay,’ Idriss said, leaning back and tucking his feet under his calves, ‘let’s wrap this up before some nice, sweet fellow comes along, with some girlfriend problem that I have to listen to. What’s the matter with these young people? Don’t they know it’s supposed to be problematic? Are you ready?’