Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Can I tell you something?’

‘ Again? ’ She laughed.

‘It might get bad tonight,’ I said. ‘If you want to get far away, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’

‘Let’s go warn Idriss first,’ she smiled, starting on the path.

I chased her all the way up the slope, and we were puffing hard when we rushed onto the mesa, bright with students, talking late by the fire.

We found Silvano, and pushed him to a meeting with Idriss, in the big cave.

‘Killers,’ Idriss said, when the story told itself.

‘And pretty good at it,’ I said. ‘We’ve gotta get away from here, Idriss. At least for tonight.’

‘Of course. We must take the students to safety. I’ll give the instruction at once.’

‘I will stay and protect this place,’ Silvano said.

‘You must not,’ Idriss said. ‘You must come with us.’

‘I must disobey,’ Silvano replied.

‘You must come with us,’ Idriss repeated.

‘It’s just good sense, Silvano,’ I agreed. ‘If someone from down there tries to escape up here, and others start chasing him, nobody will be safe.’

‘I must stay, master- ji ,’ Silvano said. ‘And you must go.’

‘It is possible to be too brave, Silvano,’ Idriss said. ‘Just as it is possible to be too loyal.’

‘All of your writings are here, master- ji ,’ Silvano said. ‘More than fifty boxes of them, most of them unpacked for study. We cannot gather them together in the time we have. I will stay, and guard your work.’

I admired his dedication, but it seemed like too big a risk, to me: too high a price for the written word. Then Karla spoke.

‘We’ll stay with you, Silvano,’ she said.

‘Karla,’ I began, but she smiled true love at me, and, well, what can you do?

‘Looks like you’ve got company, Silvano,’ I sighed.

‘It is settled, then,’ Idriss said. ‘Come with me, now, and gather the students together with their valuables, as quickly as possible. We will walk the slow path to the Kali temple, where the highway begins. Send a message to us there, when all is quiet again in our sanctuary.’

‘Idriss,’ I said. ‘I feel bad that this has found its way up here. I’m sorry.’

‘Taking responsibility for the decisions and actions of others is a sin against Karma,’ Idriss said. ‘Equal, in gravity, to avoiding responsibility for your own decisions and actions. You did not cause this. It is not your karmic burden. Be safe tonight. You are blessed, all of you.’

He placed his hand on our heads, one by one, chanting mantras of protection.

The students tipped their personal belongings into shawls, tied them into bundles, and assembled at the entrance to the slow path downhill, the torches and lanterns in their hands whirling like fireflies.

Idriss joined them, turning to wave to us, and led the way, the long staff in his right hand.

Another student, named Vijay, had decided to stay with us. He was thin, tall, and dressed in white pyjama-style cotton shirt and pants. He was barefoot, and carrying a bamboo pole that reached to his shoulder.

His young face was expressionless, as he watched his teacher depart. He turned his fine features on me, eyes lit with India.

‘Are you fine?’ he asked.

I looked at his bamboo stick, remembering the men I’d fought in the last year, from Scorpions to Concannon, and thinking that it might be a good idea to tie a knife to the end of that stick.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a spare knife, if you want to tie it to that stick.’

He stood back, began to whirl the stick around, jumped while he whirled, and brought the stick down a toe away from my boot.

‘Or… maybe not,’ I said.

‘Shall we split up, and take different vantage points?’ Silvano asked.

‘No!’ Karla and I said, together.

‘Anyone who comes up here, comes onto our ground,’ I said. ‘We find a position with cover, with an escape route, where we can see the top of the climbing path. If anyone comes into the open space, we can scare them away with gunfire, and noise.’

‘And if it becomes a fight?’

‘We kill them,’ Karla said, ‘before they kill us. You’re a dead shot, Silvano, and I’m not bad. We’re okay.’

‘Or,’ I suggested, ‘we could escape, regroup, and wait it out. There are plenty of places to hide, and they can’t stay on this mountain forever.’

‘I say we fight,’ the student with the stick said.

‘I say we decide to run or to fight, when we have to decide,’ I said.

‘I agree that we should have a good place of cover,’ Silvano mused. ‘The cave nearest to the path is the best place to see them coming.’

‘No exit strategy,’ I said. ‘I always like a way out.’

‘There is a way out,’ Silvano said. ‘Let me show you.’

There was a curtain at the far end of the cave. I’d seen it, but had always thought that it hung there to cover the bare cave wall.

Silvano pushed it aside, and led us by torchlight along a narrow channel that had formed or been carved between the first cave and the last.

We emerged from the passageway into Idriss’s cave, close to the ragged edge of the jungle: only a few steps from cover.

‘I like it,’ Karla said. ‘I’d buy it, and live here, if I could.’

‘Me, too,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s get set up in the first cave. We don’t have long.’

‘I don’t know about you,’ Silvano said, rubbing his belly, ‘but I’m hungry.’

We brought cold food, water, blankets and torches to the cave. I ate the plate of food Karla passed to me before I knew what it was. But when hunger was satisfied, fear started nagging.

Karla, sitting beside me, and killers on the way: my instincts were shouting to get the hell out of hell. But she was calm, and resolute. She’d finished her food, and was cleaning her gun. She was humming. And I guess, when I look back at it, she always had enough guts for both of us.

‘Where are the boxes of Idriss’s writings?’ I asked, looking away to Silvano.

‘In the main cave,’ Silvano replied, finishing his food.

‘Then let’s keep any action away from there. A stray bullet could start a fire.’

‘Agreed.’

Vijay took Karla’s plate and stacked it with the others, outside the cave.

‘I know this forest,’ Silvano said, standing and stretching. ‘I will make a search of the area, with Vijay. And I need to visit the bathroom.’

He walked out to join Vijay quickly, and they passed from sight, moving to the right. The point where the path led onto the mesa was to our left.

So many feet had moved across the ridge that only wild grasses grew here and there. There was no moon yet, but it was a clear night, and we had a good view of the flattened space, fifty metres away.

My heart was beating fast. I slowed it down, willing it calm, but thoughts of Karla hurt or captured pulled the heartbeat back again. She looked at me, and she knew how afraid I was for her.

‘ Make a big noise, and run and hide? ’ she said, her mouth a beautiful sneer. ‘That’s your strategy?’

‘Karla -’

‘ Chee, chee! Can you keep that one to yourself at the next meeting?’

‘ I say we fight , the guy with the bamboo stick says,’ I laughed. ‘That’s a better strategy? I just don’t think it’s worth fighting for.’

‘A writer who doesn’t think written wisdom is worth fighting for?’

‘No. I’ve escaped through windows, because the cops were chasing me, and I had to leave everything behind. It’s all gone, that work, but I’m still here, and I’m still writing. No life is worth the written word.’

‘How so?’

Karla didn’t ask How so unless it was a challenge.