Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘You’re kidding, right?’

He looked me up and down, profoundly offended.

‘I never make jokes.’

‘You do, too,’ I laughed. ‘You just don’t know you do. You’re a funny guy, Abdullah.’

‘I am?’ he asked, grimacing.

‘You hired homicidal maniacs to protect me. You’re a funny guy, Abdullah. Lisa always laughed when she was with you, remember?’

Lisa.

He looked across the fields, the muscles in his jaw rippling, although his eyes were perfectly still. University students were playing cricket, kicking footballs, sitting in groups, doing cartwheels, and dancing for no reason.

Lisa.

‘You were her Rakhi brother,’ I said. ‘She never told me.’

‘Big changes are coming,’ Abdullah said, finding my eyes. ‘The next time you see me, perhaps it will be at my funeral. Kiss me as a brother, and pray that Allah forgives my sins.’

He kissed my cheek, whispered goodbye, and slipped gracefully into the stream of students flowing through the arch.

The fields, surrounded by the long, speared fence, seemed like a vast green net, cast by the sun to catch brilliant young minds. My eyes searched for Vinson and Rannveig, in the far corner of the park, but I couldn’t find them.

Abdullah was already gone when I reached my bike. It was high noon, and he didn’t want to explain being seen with me. I wondered when, and how, I’d ever see him again.

I rode back to the Sassoon Dock area, and Vikrant’s metal shop. I presented the renowned knife-maker with the two halves of the sword willed to me by Khaderbhai.

Vikrant’s bargaining system was to begin with the cheapest solution, sell you on it, and then expose the fatal flaw in the cheapest option. That, of course, led to the next cheapest option, the next hard sell, the next fatal flaw, and the next option, and the next fatal flaw.

I’d tried over the years to get Vikrant to cut straight to the very-expensive-option-with-zero-fatal-flaws, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

‘Do we have to do the option thing again, Vikrant? Can’t you just gimme the deluxe deal now? I really don’t give a shit how much it costs. And it’s really irritating, man.’

‘As in everything else in life,’ the knife-maker said, ‘there’s a right way, and a wrong way, to be irritating.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘Indeed. Me, for example, I’m professionally irritating. My irritating goes with the territory. But you, you’re irritating without any reason at all.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You’re irritating me now, even as we speak.’

‘Fuck you, Vikrant. Are you gonna fix the sword, or not?’

He studied the weapon for some time, trying not to smile.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But only if I can fix it my own way. The hilt has a fatal flaw. A third-rate option.’

‘Great. Go ahead.’

‘No,’ he said, holding the sword in his upturned palms. ‘You must understand. If I fix it my way, it will never break, and it will be a partner with Time, but it will not be the same sword that Khaderbhai’s ancestors carried into battle. It will look different, and it will feel different. The soul of it will be different.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you want to preserve history,’ the knife-maker asked, allowing himself a smile, ‘or do you want history to preserve you?’

‘Funny guy, Vikrant. I want the sword to last. It’s like a trust, and I can’t be sure that the next guy will have it repaired if it breaks again. Do the deluxe, Vikrant. Make her last forever, and give her a makeover, but keep her under wraps until you’re finished, okay? It makes me sad.’

‘The sword, or the trust?’

‘Both.’

‘ Thik , Shantaram.’

‘Okay. And thanks for the message you sent through Didier, about Lisa. Meant a lot.’

‘She was a nice girl,’ he sighed, waving goodbye. ‘Gone to a better place, man.’

‘A better place,’ I smiled, thinking it strange that we can think of any life as better than the life we’re living.

I avoided better places, and spent the long day and evening doing the rounds of currency dealers and touts, from the Fountain to the Point to the mangroves in Colaba Back Bay.

I listened to Chinese-whispered gangster gossip up and down the strip, made notes on all the money changers’ tallies and estimates, checked them against Didier’s notes, found out who the principal predators were, which restaurants favoured us and which banned us, how often the cops demanded money, which men could be trusted, which girls couldn’t be trusted, which shops were fronts for other businesses, and how much each square foot of black market footpath in Colaba cost.

Crime does pay, of course, otherwise nobody would do it. Crime usually pays faster, if not better, than Wall Street. But Wall Street has the cops. And the cops were my last stop before visiting the slum, to check on Diva and Naveen.

Lightning Dilip gestured toward a chair, when I walked into his office.

‘Don’t sit in the fucking chair,’ he said. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

He was looking me over, remembering the last beating he’d given me, hoping for a limp.

‘Lightning- ji ,’ I began politely. ‘I just want to know if I can still bribe you, now that I’m freelancing, or if I have to go to Sub-Inspector Patil. I’m hoping for you, because the sub-inspector can be a real pain in the ass. But if you tell him that, I’ll deny it.’

The constables laughed. Lightning Dilip glared at them.

‘Throw this motherfucker in the under barrack,’ he said to the cops, lounging in the doorway. ‘And kick his head sideways.’

They stopped laughing, and moved toward me.

‘Just kidding,’ Lightning laughed, holding up a hand to stop his men. ‘Just kidding.’

The cops laughed. I laughed, too. It was pretty funny, in its own way.

‘Five per cent,’ I said.

‘Seven and a half,’ Lightning shot back. ‘And I’ll give you a chair to sit in, next time you visit the under barrack.’

The cops laughed. I laughed, too, because I would’ve given him ten per cent.

‘Done. You drive a hard bargain, Lightning- ji . You didn’t marry a Marwari wife for nothing.’

The Marwaris are trading people from Rajasthan, in northern India. They have a reputation for shrewd business, and sharp deal making. Lightning Dilip’s Marwari wife had a reputation for spending money faster than Lightning could beat it from his victims.

He looked at me, tasting the mention of his wife without pleasure. His lip curled. Every sadist has a sadist in the shadows. When you know who it is, just the mention of the name is enough.

‘Get out of here!’

‘Thank you, Sergeant- ji ,’ I said.

I walked past the cops who’d chained and kicked me, weeks before. They smiled, and nodded good-naturedly. That was pretty funny too, in its own way.

I parked outside the slum and made my way to Johnny’s house. He wasn’t there, so I went to the adjoining huts being used by Naveen and Diva. I heard them, as usual, before I saw them.

‘Do you know what a woman has to do to take a shit around here?’ Diva demanded, as I walked into the little clear space in front of their huts.

‘Wow, that was a long conversation,’ I said. ‘Weren’t you on that last time?’

‘Do you know, Mr Kharab Dhandha Shantaram?’ she demanded, using the term for dirty business .

‘I do. I used to live here. And it ain’t right.’

‘Damn right, it’s not right,’ Diva said, turning from me to poke Naveen in the chest. ‘A woman can’t shit in the daytime, for example.’