Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

A kerosene lantern rested on that cabinet. The low light seemed to hover on faces and in corners. Apart from a decorative swirl of artificial flowers, hanging from one of the bamboo support poles, there was nothing else in the hut.

The walls were made from woven reed matting, the gaps and chinks stuffed with sheets of newspaper. The roof was a bare plastic sheet, draped over the bamboo framework of the hut.

The black plastic roof was so low that I had to stoop a little. I’d spent a lot of time in the humid swelter of a hut just like hers. I knew that an unpleasantly hot day on the city’s streets became an inferno in a small hut, each breath a struggle, and sweat dripping like rain from drooping leaves.

I looked at her, the Bombay Diva, sitting on the patchwork blankets and talking with the girls.

I hadn’t lied: it did get better, when I lived in the slum, but only after it got so bad that I thought I couldn’t stand another minute of teeming crowds, constant noise, lack of water, roaming cohorts of rats, and the constant background hum of hunger and fatally wounded hope.

I couldn’t tell her that the better days only ever began after the worst day. And I couldn’t know that the worst day, for Diva, was only twenty-four hours away.

‘I brought you some supplies,’ I said, leaning over to hand her the little pile of rolled joints, and a quarter-bottle of local rum.

‘A man of taste and distinction,’ she smiled, accepting the gifts. ‘Sit down, Shantaram, and join us. The girls were just about to explain whose ass you have to kiss, just to take a shit around here.’

‘I’ll take a raincheck, Diva,’ I smiled, ‘but I’m gonna stick around for a bit with Naveen and Didier, until you sleep, so I won’t be far. Is there anything else I can get you?’

‘No, man,’ she said. ‘Not unless you can bring my dad here.’

‘That would be kinda defeating the purpose,’ I smiled again. ‘But as soon as this situation with your dad settles down, I’m sure Naveen will put you together again.’

‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘When I first looked at these skinny girls, I thought they could sell their slimming diet for millions, to my friends alone. But then I realised that they’re hungry. What the hell is going on here?’

‘Welcome to the other side.’

‘Well, if I stay here for a week, that’s more than enough time to change all that,’ Diva said.

One of the girls translated her English words into Hindi, as she spoke. The girls all applauded and cheered. Diva was triumphant.

‘You see? The revolution has already started.’

The impish rebel fire was still in her eyes, but her face couldn’t hide the fear that crouched in her heart.

She was an intelligent girl. She knew that Naveen, Didier and I wouldn’t insist on something as drastic as a week in the slum, if we didn’t fear something more drastic on the open street.

I was sure she missed the cosseting luxury of the family mansion, the only home she’d ever known. Naveen said it was always well stocked with friends, food, drink, entertainment and servants. And maybe, in part, she felt that her father had deserted her, by banishing her to Naveen’s care.

I watched her smiling that stiff, unflinching smile, and talking with the girls. She was afraid for her father, that much was clear: perhaps more than for herself. And she was alone, and in a different world: a foreign tourist in the city where she was born.

I went to the hut next door, and settled down on a well-worn blue carpet beside Didier and Naveen. They were playing poker.

‘Will you play a hand, Lin?’ Didier asked.

‘I don’t think so, Didier. I’m kind of scattered tonight. Can’t think straight enough to play in your class.’

‘Very well,’ Didier smiled good-naturedly. ‘Then I shall continue the lesson. I am teaching Naveen how to cheat with honour.’

‘Honourable cheating?’

‘Cheating honourably,’ Didier corrected.

‘How to spot a cheat, as well,’ Naveen added. ‘Did you know there’s exactly one hundred and four ways to cheat? Two for every card in the deck. It’s fascinating stuff. Didier could teach a university course in this.’

‘Cheating at cards is simply magic,’ Didier said modestly. ‘And magic is simply cheating at cards.’

I let them play, sitting beside them and sipping one of Didier’s emergency flasks. It was a difficult night for me, too, although not the mind-shock that it was for Diva.

I felt the dome of the slum community beginning to close over me with sounds, smells and a swirl of defiant memories. I was back in the womb of mankind. I heard a cough nearby, a man crying out in sleep, a child waking, and a husband talking softly to his wife about their debts in Marathi. I could smell incense, burning in a dozen houses around us.

My heartbeat was trying to find its synchrony with twenty-five thousand others, fireflies, uneven until they learn to flash and fade in the same waves of light. But I couldn’t connect. Something in my life or my heart had changed. The part of me that had settled so willingly in the lake of consciousness that was the slum, years before, was missing.

When I escaped from prison I searched for a home, wandering from country to city, hoping that I’d recognise it when I found it. When I met Karla, I found love, instead. I didn’t know then that the search for one always leads to the other.

I said goodnight to Didier and Naveen, checked on Diva, already asleep in the arms of new Diva girls, and walked those lanes feeling sadder than I could understand.

A small pariah dog joined me, skipping ahead and then running back to collide with my legs. When I left the slum and started my bike, she joined a pack of street dogs, howling provocatively.

I headed to the Amritsar hotel to do some writing. As I cruised along the empty causeway I noticed Arshan, Farzad’s father, the nominal head of the three families that were looking for treasure.

Arshan wasn’t treasure hunting: he was staring fixedly at the Colaba police station, across the road from where he stood. I wheeled the bike around in a circle, and pulled up beside him.

‘Hi, Arshan. How’s it going?’

‘Oh, fine, fine,’ he said absently.

‘It’s kinda late,’ I observed. ‘And this is a rough neighbourhood. There’s a bank, a police station and a fashion brand store, all within twenty metres.’

He smiled softly, but his eyes never wavered from the police station.

‘I’m… I’m waiting for someone,’ he said vaguely.

‘Maybe he isn’t coming. Can I offer you a lift home?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said again. ‘I’m fine, Lin. You go on.’

He was so distracted that his hands were twitching, reflexes driven by violent thoughts, and his expression had unconsciously settled into a grimace of pain.

‘I’m gonna have to insist, Arshan,’ I said. ‘You don’t look good, man.’

He gradually brought himself back to the moment, shook his head, blinked the stare from his eyes, and accepted the ride.

He didn’t say a word on the way home, and only muttered thanks and farewell abstractedly, as he walked toward the door of his home.

Farzad opened for us, gasping in concern for his dad.

‘What is it, Pop? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, boy,’ he replied, resting on his son’s shoulder.

‘Lin, will you come in?’ Farzad asked.

It was a brave offer, because the kid was still in the Company, and we both knew Sanjay wouldn’t approve of him hosting me.

‘I’m good, Farzad,’ I said. ‘Let’s catch up, one of these days.’

At the Amritsar I threw everything off and took a long shower. Diva, who must’ve enjoyed baths foaming with scented oils in her father’s mansion, would have to wash in a small dish of water in the slum, and like the other girls, she’d have to wash fully clothed.