Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

What are we doing, Karla? I thought. What are you doing?

I swung the bike around and headed back to Leopold’s. I was hoping to catch up with Kavita Singh, and tell her about Madame Zhou. In the weeks since Madame Zhou rose from her wave of shadows beneath the Amritsar hotel, I’d tried several times to contact Kavita, but without success. When the cold stares of reception staff at the newspaper office became a wall of unavailability, I realised that she was avoiding me. I didn’t know why Kavita would feel that way, or what I’d done to offend her, and decided to give Fate time to bring us together again. But Madame Zhou’s mention of her name worried me, and I couldn’t shake off the sense of duty to tell her about it. It was finally one of my street contacts who mentioned that Kavita had been hanging out with Didier, between three and four every afternoon at Leopold’s.

Didier had become something of a lost love at Leopold’s himself, and his frequent absences wounded the staff. They expressed their disapproval by being scrupulously polite whenever they served him, because nothing irritated him more.

He tried insulting them, to jolt them out of their insupportable civility. He gave it his best shot, calling up a few insults he’d always kept in reserve for emergencies. But they wouldn’t relent, and their cruel courtesy pushed a small thorn into his chest with every putrid please , and unforgivable thank you .

‘Lin,’ he said, sitting with Kavita Singh at his customary table. ‘What is your favourite crime?’

‘That again?’ I said.

I bent to kiss Kavita on the cheek but she raised her glass to her lips, so I waved hello instead. I shook Didier’s hand as I took a place beside him.

‘Yes, that again,’ Kavita said, drinking half her glass.

‘I already told you – mutiny.’

‘No, this is the second round,’ Didier said, smiling a secret. ‘Kavita and I have decided to play a game. We will ask everyone to nominate a second favourite crime, and then test our theories about them against both of their answers.’

‘You guys have theories about people?’

‘Come on, Lin,’ Kavita smiled. ‘You can’t tell me you don’t have a theory about me.’

‘Actually, I don’t. What’s your theory of me?’

‘Ah,’ Didier grinned. ‘That would spoil the game. First, you have to nominate a second favourite crime, and then we can confirm our theories.’

‘Okay, my second favourite crime? Resisting arrest . What’s your second favourite, Kavita?’

‘Heresy,’ she said.

‘Heresy isn’t a crime, in India,’ I objected, smiling for help from Didier. ‘Is that allowed in the rules of your game?’

‘I am afraid so, Lin. Whatever answer that people give to the question, is the answer they give.’

‘And you, Didier? Perjury was your first favourite, am I right?’

‘Indeed you are,’ he replied happily. ‘You should be playing this game with us.’

‘Thanks, and no thanks, but I’d like to know your second choice.’

‘Adultery,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Well, because it involves love and sex, of course,’ he replied. ‘But, also, because it is the only crime that every adult human being fully understands. More than that, because we are not permitted to marry, it is one of the few crimes that a gay man cannot commit.’

‘That’s because adultery’s a sin, not a crime.’

‘You’re not going all religious on us are you, Lin, talking about sin?’ Kavita sneered.

‘No. I’m using the word in a less specific and more widely human sense.’

‘Can we know any sins, but our own?’ Kavita asked, her jaw set in a muscular challenge.

‘Heavy!’ Didier said. ‘I love it. Waiter! Another round!’

‘If people don’t think there’s any collective understanding, in anything at all, I wish them well. If you accept a common language, you can talk about sin in a meaningful, non-religious way. That’s all I mean.’

‘Then what is it?’ she demanded. ‘What is sin?’

‘Sin is anything that wounds love.’

‘Oh!’ Didier cried. ‘I love it, Lin! Come on, Kavita, let the panther prowl. Riposte, girl!’

Kavita sat back in her chair. She was dressed in a black skirt and a sleeveless black top, unzipped to new moon. Her short black hair, city-chic anywhere in the world, fell in a feathered fringe over a face bare of make-up, thirty-one years old, and pretty enough to sell anything.

‘And what if your whole life is a sin?’ She sneered. ‘What if every breath you draw wounds love?’

‘The grace of love,’ I said, ‘is that it washes away sins.’

‘Quoting Karla, are you?’ Kavita spat at me. ‘How fitting!’

She was angry, and I couldn’t understand it.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘She’s quotable.’

‘I’ll bet she is,’ she said bitterly.

There was an aggressive edge to her voice and her tone. I didn’t see it, then, for what it was.

I’d come to Leopold’s to warn her about Madame Zhou’s new obsession with her. I hadn’t given any thought to the game that she and Didier were playing, because I was just waiting for a break in the conversation to tell her what I knew. If I’d paid closer attention, I might’ve been prepared for her next remark.

‘Sin? Love? How can you even say those words, without being struck down?’

‘Whoa, Kavita, wait a minute. What do you mean?’

‘I mean that Karla was never out of your mind, not even for a minute, when you were in bed with Lisa.’

‘Where the hell is that coming from?’

Didier hustled to avert the storm.

‘Naveen’s second favourite crime was Harbouring a fugitive . It completes his profile. Would you like to hear it?’

‘Shut up, Didier!’ Kavita snapped.

‘Kavita,’ I said, ‘if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.’

‘I’d like to spit it into your face,’ she said, putting down her glass.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Lisa was leaving you for me, Lin,’ Kavita said. ‘She’d been with Rosanna, at the art gallery, for a while before me, trying things out, but we’d been lovers for months. And if she’d left you sooner, to be with me, she’d be alive today.’

Okay , I thought, so now we know . The irony of accusing me of thinking about Karla while I was with Lisa, when she was with Lisa while Lisa was with me, was obviously lost on her. Jealousy has no mirror, and resentment has a tin ear for the truth.

‘Okay, Kavita,’ I said, standing to leave. ‘I came here to tell you that I ran into an unlicensed maniac the other night, named Madame Zhou, and she warned me to stay away from you. I can see that won’t be a problem.’

I walked out of the bar.

‘Lin, please!’ Didier called.

I started the bike and rode from my money changers to the black bank, and back again. I rode to my private stashes of funds. Hours passed, and I talked to a dozen people, but my thoughts couldn’t leave Lisa. Lovely Lisa.

Love is always a lotus, no matter where you find it. If Lisa found love or even fun with Kavita Singh, a girl I’d always liked, I’d have been happy for her.

Were we so far apart, she couldn’t tell me that she was involved with Kavita?

Lisa was always surprising, and always at least a little confusing. But I’d rolled with the kisses, and I’d always supported her, no matter which direction her Aquarian mind led her. It hurt to think that we hadn’t been close enough. It hurt more to think that Kavita might be right, and that Lisa might still be alive and happy, if she’d left me sooner and made a life with Kavita: if I’d been more honest, maybe, and she’d been more willing to tell the truth.