Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Well, I guess you can say it’s better than the old look. They wear white slacks, and peppermint-coloured shirts.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yeah. They’re heroes, now.’

‘Heroes?’ I doubted.

‘I’m not kidding. People love those guys. Even my girlfriend bought me a peppermint shirt.’

‘Cycle Killers in Jeeps, huh?’

‘In Jeeps, with chrome bicycles attached on the roll bars.’

‘And they don’t kill people any more?’

‘No. They’re called No Problem now.’

‘No Problem?’ Karla asked, intrigued.

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s like calling yourself Okay ,’ I said. ‘Everybody says no problem every three minutes, in India. People say no problem even when there is a problem.’

‘Exactly,’ Jagat replied. ‘It’s brilliant. No problem too big, or too small. No Problem.’

‘You’re kidding me, Jagat.’

‘No way, baba-dude,’ he insisted. ‘I swear. And it’s working. People are asking them to negotiate for the release of kidnap victims, and such. They got a kidnapped millionaire free last week, and the only fingers he had left were on his left hand. Those fingers were on the line, too, until No Problem got on the case. People are asking them to fix building and construction problems that have tied up crores of rupees for years, man. They’re working shit out, for anyone who pays them.’

‘Nice,’ Karla said.

‘Uh-huh,’ I said, not easy with what I’d heard.

Back Street, Main Street and Wall Street are the three big streets in every city, and none of them play well together on the shallower edges of tangled banks.

The streets are apart, and false distinctions keep them apart, because whenever they intersect eyes find love, and minds see injustice, and the truth sets them free. Power, in any street, has a lot to lose from free minds and hearts, because power is the opposite of freedom. As one of the powerless, I prefer the Back Street guys to stay out of Main Street, the cops to fund their own movies, and the Wall Street guys to stay out of everything, until all the streets become One Street.

I had to pull my thoughts away: I knew that every hour Jagat spent with us added traffic to his ride back to the city. Karla, thinking with me perhaps, brought me back.

‘Have you been checking on Didier for us?’ Karla asked the young Ronin.

‘ Jarur ,’ the young street soldier said, spitting. ‘He still hangs out at Leopold’s, and he’s fine.

‘Hey, those Zodiac guys,’ he said, ‘the millionaires, they’re back in town.’

‘Where?’

‘The Mahesh, man,’ he said. ‘I can’t check on anyone inside that place. Not born with the right barcode to get past that scanner, you know.’

‘If you find anything out, let me know.’

‘Sure. Hey, you know why people looked after those two foreigners so much when they lived on the street?’ he asked thoughtfully.

‘They’re very nice guys?’ I suggested.

‘Apart from that,’ he said, his foot making a pattern of swirls in the dust at our feet.

‘Please, tell us,’ Karla urged, always drawn to the sun inside.

‘They were called the Zodiac Georges,’ he said. ‘That’s why. In India, I mean, it’s like a really big deal, you know? It’s like calling yourself Karma, or something. Everywhere they went, they carried the Zodiac with them, in their names. When you fed them, you fed the Zodiac. When you offered them a safe place, you offered safety

to the Zodiac. When you protected them from bullies, you protected the Zodiac from negative energies. And making offerings to the planets that guide us and mess us up is, like, really important. There’s a lotta people out there, baba-dude, who miss the chance to offer something to the Zodiac guys, now that they’re so rich they don’t need it.’

India. Time measured in coincidence, and the logic of contradiction. Jagat pushed me off a perch of equilibrium I thought I’d claimed in India. But that shock happened almost every day, and shook the branch every time. The world I was living in, and not born into, rained strange flowers from every tree that gave me shelter.

‘That’s a lovely story, Jagat,’ Karla said.

‘It is?’ he asked, shyness hiding in a frown.

‘Yes. Thank you for sharing it.’

Jagat, whose name means The World , blushed and looked away, instinctively reaching for the handle of the knife in his belt.

‘Hey, listen, man,’ he said, turning back to me, his scarred young face telling the same stories every time someone looked at him. ‘I don’t feel right, taking all the money from your operation.’

‘You’re doing all the work,’ I said. ‘Why shouldn’t you take all the money? I’m the one who’s in your debt, for keeping it running. I owe you significant on this, Jagat-dude.’

‘Fuck you, man,’ he laughed. ‘I’m putting twenty-five per cent aside for you, every week, whether you like it or not, okay?’

‘Cool, jawan ,’ I said, using the Hindi word for soldier . ‘I accept.’

‘When you get back from this spooky place full of tigers and holy men, there’ll be something there for you.’

‘When I get back to your spooky place full of businessmen and cops,’ I said. ‘I’ll be damn glad to get it.’

‘Let’s ride with Jagat to the highway and back,’ Karla suggested.

‘Good idea. Want some company, Jagat, or you wanna go fast?’

‘Let’s glide all the way down, baba-dude.’

‘ Kruto! ’ Karla said.

‘What’s this? Has Oleg been teaching you Russian?’ I asked, taking my bike off the stand.

‘ Sprosite yego ,’ she laughed.

‘Which means?’

‘Ask him.’

‘I will,’ I said, and she laughed harder.

A motorcycle is jealous metal. A motorcycle that loves you always knows when you even think about another motorcycle. And when she knows, she won’t start. And because I’d looked at Jagat’s bike, my bike didn’t start for me, even after three kicks.

Jagat thumped his bike into slow staccato motorcycle music, the 350cc single-piston engine like a drum that gets you from place to place, so long as you let it play its own tune.

I tried the kick-starter again, but all I got was a derisory cough.

Karla leaned over, hugging the tank of my bike, her arms around one of the handlebars.

‘A trip down the mountain and back again will be so good for you, baby,’ she said to the bike. ‘Let’s go for a ride.’

I kicked, and she started, jamming the throttle for a second, showing off.

We rode with Jagat, coasting downhill side by side on the deserted forest road, to the beginning of the fiercely determined highway. We waved him away, and turned back.

We rode through an evening forest, shifting from daytime daring to nighttime cunning. Birds were returning to roosts, insects were rising from slumber and bats as wide as eagles were waking for the feast.

We rode the long road to the caves as slowly as the bike would allow. We rode through soft wind in shadows, hiding and revealing the sky. The young night was clear. The first stars woke, rubbing their eyes. A leaf-fire somewhere sent earth perfumes into the air. And we were two happy fugitives, together and free.

We reached the summit car park, happy and free, and found Concannon waiting for us. He was sitting on the trunk of the red Pontiac Laurentian, and wearing a white shirt. I wanted it to match the car.

‘Hold on, baby,’ I said to Karla, sloping the bike to a stop.

I spun the bike around, and sped down the hill a few hundred metres before stopping again.

‘What are you doing?’