Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

Naveen walked out after him to help. I walked over to Karla, pushed her back on the carpet, lay down beside her, and kissed her.

‘See how tricky I am?’ I said, when our lips parted.

‘I know exactly how tricky you are,’ she laughed, ‘because I’m trickier.’

Kisses without consequence or expectation: kisses as gifts, feeding her, feeding me with love.

There was a knock on the open door. It was Jaswant, and Jaswant wasn’t a go-away guy.

‘Yes, Jaswant?’ I said, leaning away from Karla to look at him, framing the doorway.

‘There are some people to see you,’ he whispered. ‘Hello, Miss Karla.’

‘Hello, Jaswant,’ she said. ‘Have you lost weight? You look so fit.’

‘Well, I try to keep -’

‘What people, Jaswant?’ I asked.

‘People. To see you. Scary people. At least, the woman is scary.’

Madame Zhou, I thought. Karla and I were on our feet at the same time. I was reaching for weapons. Karla was putting on lipstick.

‘Lipstick?’

‘If you think I’ll see that woman without lipstick,’ she said, ruffling her hair in the mirror, ‘you just don’t get it.’

‘You’re so… right. I don’t get it.’

‘I have to kill her, before I kill her,’ she said, turning to me. ‘So, let’s go kill her, twice.’

We slipped from her rooms to Jaswant’s foyer, Karla beside me.

Acid. Karla. Acid. Karla .

I had my knife in my hand. Karla had a gun, and knew how to use it. We edged around the partition wall to see the desk area clearly, and saw two people standing in front of Jaswant’s desk. Jaswant looked worried.

I edged around further. I couldn’t see the man, but the woman was short, thirty and chunky. She was wearing a menacing stare and a blue hijab.

‘It’s okay,’ I said to Karla, walking into view. ‘We’re old friends.’

‘That’s stretching it,’ Blue Hijab said, still menacing Jaswant into his swanky chair.

‘Identity approved,’ Jaswant said. ‘Please go through, Madame.’

She was with Ankit, the concierge of the hotel in Sri Lanka. He smiled and saluted, two fingers against his brow.

I waved back. Blue Hijab had her arms folded. She kept them folded as she scowled Jaswant deeper into his seat, then came to greet me. Ankit was a step behind.

‘ Salaam aleikum , soldier,’ I said.

‘ Wa aleikum salaam ,’ she said, unfolding her arms to show the very small automatic pistol she had in her hand. ‘We have unfinished business.’

‘ Salaam aleikum ,’ Karla said. ‘And that’s my boyfriend you’re talking to with a gun in your hand.’

‘ Wa aleikum salaam ,’ Blue Hijab said, staring back at the queens. ‘The gun is a gift. And it’s still loaded.’

‘Just like mine,’ Karla smiled, and Blue Hijab smiled back.

‘Blue Hijab,’ I said, ‘meet Karla. Karla, meet Blue Hijab.’

The women stared at one another, saying nothing.

‘And this is Ankit,’ I added.

‘A distinct privilege to meet you, Miss Karla,’ Ankit said.

‘Hi, Ankit,’ Karla said, her eyes on Blue Hijab.

‘Ankit makes a drink that’s gonna make Randall absinthe with envy. It’s like a liquid portal between dimensions. You’ve gotta try it.’

‘Always a pleasure to prepare the portal for you, sir.’

‘You girls have got so much in common,’ I said, and thought to say more, but Blue Hijab and Karla looked at me in exactly the same not very flattering way, and I unthought it.

‘You marry them,’ Blue Hijab said, ‘hoping they’ll change, and grow. And they marry us, hoping that we won’t.’

‘The connubial Catch 22,’ Karla said, taking Blue Hijab by the arm and leading her back to the Bedouin tent. ‘Come with me, you poor girl, and freshen up. You look very tired. How far have you come today?’

‘Not so far, today, but twenty-one hours yesterday, and the day before that,’ Blue Hijab said before her voice faded, and Karla shut the door.

Jaswant, Ankit and I were staring at the closed door.

‘That’s one very scary woman,’ Jaswant said, wiping sweat from his neck. ‘I thought Miss Karla was scary, no offence, baba, but I swear, if I’d seen that woman in the blue hijab coming up the stairs in time, I’d have been in the tunnel.’

‘She’s okay,’ I said. ‘She’s more than okay, in fact. She’s damn cool.’

‘I noticed a liquor store not far from here on our arrival, sir,’ Ankit said. ‘Might I presume to buy the ingredients for your special cocktail, and prepare a portal or two for you, while we await the ladies?’

‘Buy?’ Jaswant said, throwing the switch and opening the panel to his survival store.

He threw the next switch, and the lights began to flash. His finger hovered over the third switch.

‘You know, Jaswant -’ I tried, but I was too late.

The stomp and shake jive music of Bhangra banged from the desk speakers.

I looked at Ankit as he inspected the goods in Jaswant’s secret store. His grey hair had been cut to Cary Grant sleekness, and he’d grown a thin moustache. A thigh-length, navy blue tunic with high collars and matching serge trousers replaced his hotel service uniform.

He looked over Jaswant’s goods with a scholarly eye: a debonair affair examining baubles in adultery’s window.

‘I think we can work with this,’ he said.

Then the Bhangra got to Ankit, and he backed away from the coloured window and started to dance. He wasn’t bad: good enough to get Jaswant out of the chair and dancing with him until the end of the song.

‘Want to hear it again?’ Jaswant puffed, his finger over the switch.

‘Yes!’ Ankit said.

‘Business before pleasure,’ I essayed.

‘That’s true,’ Jaswant conceded, coming around to the secret window. ‘Let me know what you want.’

‘I need to do a little chemistry,’ Ankit said. ‘And I believe that you have all the right chemicals.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Let’s get these drinks under way. We’re in for the night. Karla and I have nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Do your stuff, Ankit.’

Bottles poured, lime juice filled a beaker, coconut dessicated, bitter chocolate was grated into powdered flakes, glasses appeared, and we three men were just about to test the first batch of Ankit’s alchemy when Karla called out to me.

‘Start without me, guys,’ I said, putting my glass down.

‘You’re leaving the cocktail party before it starts?’ Jaswant objected.

‘Save my glass,’ I said. ‘If you hear gunplay while I’m in there, come and rescue me.’

I found Blue Hijab and Karla sitting cross-legged on the floor near the balcony, the carpets around them a pond of knotted meditations. There was a silver tray with rose and mint flavoured almonds, slivers of dark chocolate and chips of glazed ginger, beside half-drunk glasses of lime juice. Red and yellow lights flashing at the signals below blushed their faces softly in the darkened room. The slow overhead fan fretted incense smoke into scrolls, and a slow breeze reminded us that the night, outside, was vast.

‘Sit here, Shantaram,’ Karla said, pulling me down beside her. ‘Blue Hijab has to go soon. But before she does, she’s got some good news, and some not so good news.’

‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, Alhamdulillah . Do you want the good first, or the not so good?’

‘Let’s have the not so good,’ I said.

‘Madame Zhou is still alive,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘And still free.’

‘And the good news?’

‘Her acid throwers are finished, and the twins are dead.’