Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘I’ll escort the lady myself,’ Jaswant said, cocktailed enough not to be scared of Blue Hijab. ‘I need to take a walk to get my head clear.’

‘Would you like us to come with you, Blue Hijab?’ Karla asked.

‘No, please, it’s better when I’m alone. I’m safer when I only have to fight for me, Alhamdulillah .’

‘Until you join your husband,’ Karla said. ‘And then you’ll be together, and maybe you’ll do something happier, like marriage counselling. Have you got money?’

‘All I need, Alhamdulillah ,’ she said. ‘I will see you again, Karla, Inshallah .’

‘ Inshallah ,’ Karla smiled, hugging her.

Blue Hijab faced me, a smile glowering in a frown.

‘I cried for my Mehmu and me, that day in the car,’ she said. ‘But I also cried for you. I’m sorry that the girl died while you were away, and I couldn’t tell you. I liked you. I still do. And I’m happy for you. Allah hafiz .’

‘ Allah hafiz ,’ I replied. ‘Take care, Jaswant, okay? Look sharp. You’re three sheets to the wind, man.’

‘No problem,’ he smiled back. ‘Security guaranteed. I’ll put it on your bill.’

When we were alone, Karla sat behind Jaswant’s desk. Her finger hovered over the third button.

‘You wouldn’t,’ I said.

‘You so know I would,’ she laughed, throwing the switch.

Bhangra rumbled from the speakers, shoulder-shaking loud.

‘Jaswant’s gonna hear that, and charge me for it,’ I shouted.

‘I hope so,’ she shouted back.

‘Okay, you asked for it,’ I said, pulling her up from Jaswant’s chair. ‘Time to dance, Karla.’

She eased up out of the chair, but leaned against me.

‘You know bad girls don’t dance,’ she said. ‘You don’t wanna make me dance, Shantaram.’

‘You don’t have to dance,’ I shouted over the music, dancing away from her a few steps. ‘That’s okay. That’s fine. But I’m dancing, right over here , and you can join me, any time you get the urge .’

She smiled at me and watched for a while, but then she began to move, and she let it loose.

Her hands and arms were seaweed, surfing waves made by hips. She danced over to me and around me in circles of temptation, then the wave lapped against me, and she was all black cats and green fire.

Bad girls do dance, just like bad guys.

She was dreaming the music at me, and I was thinking that I definitely had to get this music from Jaswant, and maybe his sound system as well, when I danced into a postman, standing in the doorway.

Karla threw the switch and the music stopped, leaving us with the hissing echo of sudden silence.

‘Letter, sir,’ the postman said, offering me his clipboard to sign.

It was still night-dark, and wasn’t far from dawn, but it was India.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘A letter for me, is it?’

‘You are Mr Shantaram, and this is for Mr Shantaram,’ he said patiently. ‘So, yes, sir, this is for you.’

‘Okay,’ I said, signing for the letter. ‘Kinda late to be on your rounds, isn’t it?’

‘Or, very early,’ Karla said, standing next to me and leaning against my shoulder. ‘What brings you out at this time of not-working, postman- ji ?’

‘It is my penance, Madame,’ the postman said, stowing the clipboard in his shoulder sack.

‘Penance,’ Karla smiled. ‘The innocence of adults. What’s your name, postman- ji ?’

‘Hitesh, Madame,’ he said.

‘A Good Person ,’ she said, translating the name.

‘Unfortunately not, Madame,’ he replied, handing me the letter.

I stuffed it into my pocket.

‘Why are you doing penance, may I ask?’ Karla asked.

‘I became a drunkard, Madame.’

‘But you’re not a drunkard now.’

‘No, Madame, I am not. But I was, and I neglected my duty.’

‘How?’

‘I was so drunk, sometimes,’ he said, speaking quietly, ‘that I hid a few sacks of letters, because I could not deliver them. The postal department made me enter a program, and after I completed it, they offered me my job back if I deliver all of the undelivered letters on my own time, and with an apology to the people I betrayed.’

‘And that brings you here,’ she said.

‘Yes, Madame. I start with the hotels, because they are open at this hour. So, please accept my apology, Mr Shantaram, for delivering your letter so late.’

‘Apology accepted, Hitesh,’ we said, at the same time.

‘Thank you. Good night and good morning to you,’ he said, a sombre look pulling him down the stairs to his next appointment.

‘India,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I love you.’

‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Karla asked. ‘A letter delivered by Fate, in the person of a reformed man?’

‘You mean, aren’t you going to read it, right?’

‘Curiosity is its own reward,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to read it.’

‘Why not?’

‘A letter is just Fate, nagging. I don’t have great luck with letters.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You wrote me two letters, and they’re the two best letters I ever got.’

‘I don’t mind writing them, now and then, but I don’t like getting them. One of my ideas of hell is a world where you don’t just get a letter every week or so, but you get one every minute, of every day, forever. It’s the stuff of nightmares.’

She looked at me, and then at the corner of the letter, poking from my pocket, and back at me.

‘ You can read it, Karla, if you want to,’ I said, giving her the letter. ‘Please do. If there’s anything I need to know, you’ll tell me. If there’s not, tear it up.’

‘You don’t even know who sent it,’ she said, reading the envelope.

‘I don’t care who it’s from. I have bad luck with letters. Just tell me if there’s something I should know.’

She tapped the envelope against her cheek thoughtfully.

‘It’s already out of date, so I think I’ll read this later,’ she said, sliding it inside her shirt. ‘After we find Ankit, and make sure he’s okay.’

‘Ankit’s fine. He can take care of himself. He’s a dangerous communist, trained by Palestinians in Libya. I’d rather go into your tent, and make sure everything’s okay up here.’

‘Let’s go down there first,’ she smiled, ‘before we come up here.’

We went down, thinking of up, and heard Randall and Ankit laughing before we turned into the archway, behind the façade of the hotel.

When we reached the converted limousine, parked against the wall, we found Randall and Ankit stretched out in the back, Vinson sitting on the mattress between them, and Naveen in the driver’s cabin with Didier.

‘Nice,’ Karla said, smiling wide. ‘How you doin’, guys?’

‘Karla!’ Didier shouted. ‘You must come and join us!’

‘Hi, Karla!’ other voices called.

‘What’s the occasion?’ Karla asked, leaning on the open rear door of the car.

‘We are commiserating,’ Didier said. ‘We are all abandoned men, or tragically separated men, and you will enjoy our masculine misery immensely.’

‘Abandoned?’ Karla scoffed. ‘ Et tu , Didier?’

‘Taj broke it off with me, tonight,’ he sobbed.

‘Imagine,’ Karla replied. ‘Chiselled out of love by a sculptor.’

‘Miss Diva broke it off with me, too,’ Randall added.

‘And with me,’ Naveen said. ‘Strictly friends, from now on, she told me.’

‘I have never found love,’ Ankit said. ‘My search has not yet ended, but I have been alone in it for a very long time, and have my own bubbles of sorrow in the glass we raise.’