Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Can we back this up? How come you know about Madame Zhou? And how come you’re here?’

‘I didn’t know about Madame Zhou,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t interested in her. I wanted the acid throwers. We’ve been hunting them for a year.’

‘They burned someone you know,’ I realised. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘She was a good fighter, and she’s still a good comrade and a good friend. She was on leave in India, from the war. Somebody hired those two acid throwers, and they made her face into a mask. A protest mask, I suppose you could say.’

‘Is she still alive?’ Karla asked.

‘She is.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘I don’t think so, Karla,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘Unless you’d like to help her punish the acid throwers, which she’s doing now, as we speak. It will go on for some time, yet.’

‘You caught the acid throwers?’ Karla asked. ‘Did anyone get burned?’

‘We threw blankets on them, and kicked them until they shoved their acid bottles out from under the blankets, and then we dragged them away.’

‘And the twins jumped in to help them,’ I said, ‘thinking you were a threat to Madame Zhou.’

‘They did. We didn’t realise they were protecting Madame Zhou. We didn’t care. We wanted the acid throwers. Madame Zhou ran away, and we let her run. We stopped the twins, and grabbed the acid throwers.’

‘You stopped the twins for good?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do with them?’

‘We left them there. That’s why I have to leave soon, Inshallah .’

‘Whatever you need, it’s yours,’ I said. ‘How did you think to tell me about this?’

‘We took the acid throwers to a slum. Four brothers and twenty-four cousins of the girl they burned are all living there. And the girl is living there, with a lot of other people who love her. We questioned the acid throwers. We wanted a list of every girl they’ve ever burned.’

‘Why?’

‘So we could visit the families, later, one by one, and tell that them those men are dead, and will never do it to another girl. And then to visit every one of the clients who paid them to burn girls, and make them pay in cash for the hell they spat on them, and give the money to the girls they ordered burned, Inshallah .’

‘Blue Hijab,’ Karla said, ‘I know we only just met, but I love you.’

She put her hand on Karla’s wrist.

‘When the acid throwers started talking,’ she said, turning to me, ‘we heard your name on their list. They told me they’d been following you for the Madame, that woman in black who ran away. I got the acid throwers to tell me where you live, and I came to warn you about the woman.’

It was a shock, a lot of shocks, and one of them was the thought of the acid throwers, being tortured to death by people they’d tortured. It was too much to think about.

‘Thanks for the heads-up, Blue Hijab,’ I said. ‘You’re leaving tonight. How can we help you?’

‘I have everything I need for myself,’ Blue Hijab said, ‘but I must be far away from here, by morning. My problem is Ankit. I can’t go on with him, because the sudden change in plans allows for only one of us to be smuggled at a time. I know he will insist on staying, and letting me go on, and that is what I have to do, but I’m afraid to leave him.’

‘No-one will harm him if he stays here with us,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid to leave him, because he’s so violent.’

I thought of the amiable night porter with the delicate anticipation of others’ needs, the debonair moustache and the perfect cocktail, and I couldn’t put it together.

‘Ankit?’

‘He’s a very capable agent,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘One of the best, and most dangerous. Not many made it to grey hair in this war. But it’s time for him to retire. His last assignment was almost three years as the night porter in a hotel, where every journalist enjoyed a drink, and liked to talk. But he’s too well known now. That was his last assignment. I was supposed to take him to contacts in Delhi, where he can find a new life, but shooting the twins changed the plan.’

‘Is he wanted?’ I asked. ‘Should we hide him?’

‘No,’ she frowned. ‘Why would he be wanted?’

‘Two dead twins come to mind.’

‘My comrades and I shot the twins. He’s not involved at all.’

‘The twins were hard men to stop. You shot them with that little gun?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, taking the small automatic from the pocket of her skirt and holding it in her palm. ‘I only shoot my husband with this gun. That’s why he stole it from me.’

‘But you had it in your hand when you said hello,’ I smiled.

‘For a different reason,’ she said, her thoughts dreaming into the pistol in her hand.

‘Can I see it?’ Karla asked.

Blue Hijab passed the small pistol to her. Karla looked it over, finding the place in her palm where lines of intent meet the power of consequence. She allowed her eyes to drift slowly upward until they met mine.

‘Nice,’ she said, passing the gun back to Blue Hijab. ‘Wanna see mine?’

‘Of course,’ Blue Hijab replied. ‘But I want you to keep this pistol. I’m going to meet my Mehmu soon, Inshallah , and I know I won’t need it this time, or ever again. We’ve been talking, and things are very good now, Alhamdulillah .’

‘You want me to have it?’ Karla asked, taking the small automatic back.

‘Yes, I was planning to give it to Shantaram, but now that I met you, I think it should go to you. Do you accept my gift?’

‘I do.’

‘Good. Then I would like to see your gun.’

Karla had a matt black snub-nosed five-shot.38 revolver. She took it from beneath a flap of carpet beside her, flipped the chamber open, let the cartridges fall into her lap, and snapped the empty chamber back in place.

‘No offence,’ she said, handing the gun to Blue Hijab. ‘Hair trigger.’

Blue Hijab examined the small, deadly weapon expertly, and handed it back. She felt the heft of her own gun again reassuringly, closing palm to fingers, while Karla reloaded the snub-nosed pistol.

For a few seconds they both looked up at me, guns in hand, their expressions thoughtful, but strangely blank at the same time. For me, it was a wall of womanness in their eyes, and I had no idea what was going on. I was just glad to be a witness; to see two wild, strong-minded women meet.

‘Blue Hijab,’ Karla said, after a while, ‘please let me give you a gift in return.’

She pulled the long spike from the curl at the back of her head, shaking panther-paws of black hair free to prowl.

‘For when you’re not wearing a hijab,’ she said, offering the hairpin. ‘Be very careful. Only ever hold it by the jewel, as I am. Hair trigger.’

It was a blowpipe dart. There was a small ruby fixed into a brass collar at the blunt end.

Karla stood up quickly, skipped to her bedroom, and returned with a long, thin bottle in red glass. There was a Mayan design set into the screw cap.

‘Curare,’ she said. ‘I won the dart and the bottle in a word game with an anthropologist.’

‘You won this playing Scrabble?’ Blue Hijab asked, holding the bottle in one hand and the dart in the other.

‘Something like that,’ Karla replied. ‘You leave the dart soaking in the Curare overnight, once every full moon. And hey, wear it carefully, I scratched myself once and had wide-awake dreams for a couple of hours.’

‘Wonderful,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘Is it so fast acting?’

‘Jab it into a man’s neck and he’ll only follow you six or seven steps. Overcomes the disadvantage of high heels.’