Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘I hope you do not object, Lin,’ Didier said, drinking my zombie rations. ‘Since we are all stuck here for the Devil knows how long, it seemed like the only viable solution, to move the mattress here.’

‘Jaswant!’ I called out to the manager. ‘I have more guests. I’ll take everything you’ve got!’

‘That’s not how it’s done , baba,’ he called back. ‘You know that.’

‘Jaswant, it’s either me, or I’m sending Didier out there to negotiate.’

‘Apology accepted,’ he said. ‘The stuff is yours.’

He brought cardboard boxes into the room, and cases of bottled water. He returned with a gas bottle and a two-burner stove.

He shoved my journals and notes to the side, and installed the stove, lighting it with a battery-powered sparker shaped like a pistol. He turned the gas high and low and high again, as if releasing fireflies from a bottle.

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

Jaswant bowed.

‘Restaurants are closed,’ he said, ‘and there’s no take-out, no deliveries, and nothing but what you cook yourselves, for who knows how long.’

‘We’re gonna need more to smoke,’ I said, at the door to my room.

‘That can be arranged, but it won’t be cheap, with this lockdown.’

‘I’ll take it all.’

‘There you go again. Haven’t you learned anything? You’re a menace to honest business.’

‘Didier!’

‘Apology accepted. I’ll bring the stuff along later. It’s in the tunnel.’

‘The tunnel ?’

‘Yes.’

‘There’s a tunnel, underneath this hotel?’

‘Of course there’s a tunnel. That’s why I bought it. Sikhs, surviving World War Three, remember?’

‘Can I see it?’

His eyes narrowed.

‘I’m afraid… that’s above your pay grade,’ he said.

‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

‘Unless -’

‘Fuck you, Jaswant.’

‘Unless,’ he persisted, ‘the zombies break through, and it’s our final option. If I had that phaser pistol, we’d be on easy street.’

‘ Enough with the zombies.’

‘You’re no fun at all,’ he said, walking back to his desk. ‘The stove is a rental. I’ve put it on your bill.’

I took a look at the barricade, thinking of Karla, waiting for the time to search again, and glanced back at the people in my room.

Oleg was going through the boxes. He pulled out some pots and pans.

‘Very useful,’ he said.

‘If only we’d saved a servant,’ Pari said.

Diva lost it, laughing so hard that she pulled her knees up to her chest and rolled herself into a very tight in-joke.

‘No need for servants,’ Oleg smiled. ‘Have you ever tried Russian food? You’ll go mad for it, I promise you.’

‘Wow,’ Charu and Pari said.

Oleg had sent the T-shirts to Moscow, one to each non-identical twin, and by Didier’s rules he was free to get re-scented while he waited for Irina, his pheromone pilgrim, to respond.

The Diva girls liked him. Everybody liked him. Hell, I liked him. But all I could think of was Karla, out there, stuck in a building somewhere, with no security but her own.

‘Can I help with the cooking?’ Vinson chimed in as he drunk-shuffled out of the bathroom.

‘Inadvisable, Mr Vinson,’ Randall intoned. ‘I suspect that Mr Oleg’s culinary skills are a spectator sport, not a blood sport.’

‘Who are you again?’ Diva asked, leaning against Didier on the mattress.

‘He’s Randall,’ Didier said. ‘I told you about him. He’s a mystery, explained in clever phrases.’

‘I’m Randall, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘And honoured to make your re-acquaintance.’

‘Please, come and sit with us, Randall,’ she said, patting the bed.

‘May I respectfully request, Miss Diva, that Mr Vinson be permitted to join me? He seems to have been left in my charge, and I think he should gently recline.’

‘Of course,’ Diva said, patting the mattress. ‘Put it here, Vinson.’

‘Thank you so much,’ Vinson said, as Randall eased him into a semi-slump on my mattress, one of my pillows behind his head. ‘My girlfriend is in an ashram, you know. I’m afraid I got a little tight, tonight, and actually even yesternight, because she’s in an ashram, you know, and that means, like, God is her boyfriend now or something, and how can I fight that? How can anyone fight God? And, like, if He’s so powerful, why doesn’t He get His own girl? It’s got me beat. It really has.’

‘It’s got you bad, baby,’ Diva said.

‘It’s got everybody bad, if you’ll pardon me, Miss Diva,’ Randall said. ‘It’s the fight or flight of affection.’

Diva reached across Didier to put her hand on Randall’s arm.

‘If I said I’d double what Karla is paying you, would you jump ship, Randall?’

‘Working for Miss Karla is beyond price,’ Randall smiled. ‘It is a privilege, so, with respect, I will remain on board, and help Miss Karla man a lifeboat, if required.’

Diva sized him up, wandering through his smile.

‘We’re going to get to know one another considerably better,’ she said, ‘if we stay locked up here all night.’

‘Every minute in your company is an honour, Miss Diva.’

I left that minute with them, honoured to be alone for a minute in my bedroom, but Diva quickly followed me, spun me around, and grabbed the lapels of my vest.

‘Is there something between Randall and Karla?’ she whispered.

‘What?’

‘If there is, I wouldn’t poach on her territory. I like Karla.’

‘Poach?’

‘But if there isn’t, I tell you, Lin, this guy is so hot. He’s like melting fucking hot , yaar.’

Places in our beautiful Bombay are burning , I thought. Places are gone. People are gone .

‘Right,’ I said, staring at her, not understanding why she wasn’t preparing for a lockdown of the city that could last for days, but glad to see a tiger-growl of the old Diva.

‘So, it’s cool, then?’

She was searching my eyes innocently.

‘Yeah.’

‘And there’s absolutely nothing between Karla and Randall? Because, I mean, he’s so hot, it’s like pretty hard to believe, you know?’

Worlds aren’t meant to change so quickly, so strangely, but they always do. I couldn’t understand any of it. Karla riding with Benicia, Naveen riding with Kavita, Diva dancing with Randall, my room filled with people riding out the storm. I only had one rope in that storm: Karla, maybe stuck somewhere, waiting for me to come.

‘You’re cool, Diva. It’s okay.’

She skipped from the bedroom, and I shut the door behind her, leaning against it without locking it. I didn’t want them to hear the sound of the lock turning, and feel unwelcome. They were welcome to stay for a month, as far as I was concerned. I pushed against the door with my back, expecting someone to open it at any minute, but needing a minute to myself.

Kavita was right. Karla never moved from the altar inside, even while I lit candles of devotion with Lisa. Karla was the altar inside, from the first second that I saw her.

Is it a sin to give your love to someone, when you can’t give your heart? Did we die inside, for a while, or did we keep love alive? Did she cut her wings, that dove, when she threw the window open? Was the happy life I thought we had, just the happy life I thought I had? Did I live a lie with Lisa, or lie a life?

Laughter rollicked in the rollicking room next door: a lifeboat, adrift on irresistibility. And for some peaceful minute of unwelcome truth, the door against my back was the wall of a confessional, and all my sins of omission and commission tumbled through my heart: Nazeer and Tariq, neglected friends burned and shot, and Lisa, neglected love lost forever. Remorse for my selfishness crawled across my skin. And I begged the dead to forgive me.