Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘It’s not because the texts are sacred that life is important. It’s because life is sacred that the texts are important.’

She grinned happy queens at me.

‘That’s my guy. Let’s get ready.’

We piled boxes and sacks in the entrance to the cave, and stretched out with a view of the open ridge. She held my hand.

‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else on this planet, right now,’ she said.

I couldn’t reply, because we heard the first shot.

The further you are from a gunshot, the feebler the fear. The blast that deafens you, close to your ear, is a click of the fingers from far away. We heard the first shots, sounding like handclaps, and then it became volleys of applause.

Silvano and Vijay scampered back to the cave, squatting down beside us.

‘There’s an army down there,’ Silvano said, listening to the spatters of gunfire.

‘Two armies,’ I said. ‘And let’s hope they stay there.’

The fusillades finally subsided. There was silence, and then single shots snapped, one after another, a few steps apart. There were quite a lot of them.

We waited in the dark, listening hard to every broken twig or shuffle of wind. Minutes passed in threatening silence, and then we heard noises, grunting and moaning, coming from the steep path.

Silvano and Vijay were up and running before I could caution them. Karla made to leave as well, but I held her down beside me.

A man appeared at the summit of the path, crawling on hands and knees. Silvano was a shadow, standing to his right, aiming the rifle at his head. The man staggered to his feet. He had a pistol in his hand.

Vijay swung his stick, disarming the man, but the pistol fired, and a bullet hit the wall of the cave not far from where we hunkered down.

‘Good call, Shantaram,’ Karla said. ‘That bullet had my name on it, if I was standing there.’

The man hovered on wavering legs for a second and then fell, face flat to the ground. Vijay turned him over as Karla and I arrived.

The man was dead.

‘You better check there wasn’t a tail wagging on this one, Silvano,’ I said.

‘You know him?’

‘His name’s DaSilva.’

‘Which side was he on?’

‘The wrong side,’ I said. ‘Right to the end.’

Silvano and Vijay trotted away down the path to check for stragglers.

Staring at the body, I knew that I couldn’t let it be found in the camp where Idriss taught. There was no choice. I had to move it. Karla had moved two bodies in her life: two that I knew about. I’ve moved three: one in prison, one in a friend’s house, and the dead gangster who hated me, DaSilva. He was the hardest of them for both of us.

‘We can’t leave him here for the cops to find,’ I said.

‘You’re right,’ she replied. ‘This is the kind of scandal that kills cleverness.’

‘Not gonna be easy. That’s a steep climb, with a dead body.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, looking around, her hands on her hips.

We wrapped him in a student’s sari, and tied him securely. We fastened ropes for us to hold, at both ends.

We were just finished, when Silvano and Vijay arrived. Vijay’s eyes were oysters of dread.

‘A ghost?’

He was trembling, pointing at DaSilva’s wrapped body.

‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘We’re taking him down to the house. There’s no need for the cops to know he was up here.’

‘Thank you,’ Silvano said quickly. ‘Let us help you.’

‘We got this,’ Karla said. ‘They’re our friends down there. They know us, but they don’t know you, and they might start shooting if they see you. It’ll be safer if we do this without you. Stay here and guard those books.’

‘Okay,’ Silvano smiled, doubtfully. ‘Okay. If you insist.’

‘ Presto ,’ Karla said, tugging on the dead man’s rope. ‘This ghost has a way to go yet.’

We dragged DaSilva’s body to the ridge, and started down the path. I went first, taking most of the weight, while Karla held on as best she could from above.

I felt ashamed that I hadn’t protected her from that sad and criminal thing we had to do: more ashamed, in fact, than I was of doing the sad and criminal thing. I thought of Karla’s hands, and the rough rope shredding her skin, and scratches and grazes wounding her feet with every second step.

‘Stop!’ she said when we were just past halfway.

‘What is it?’

She took a few deep breaths, and shook the tension from her arms and shoulders.

‘Okay, this,’ she puffed, one hand wiping hair from her forehead, the other holding a dead man, ‘is officially the best date ever. Now, let’s get this corpse down this fucking hill.’

At the base of the mountain, I carried DaSilva’s body on my back along the path to Khaled’s mansion. The path was still lit, and the door of the mansion was open. It seemed deserted.

We climbed the stairs together, and walked into the vestibule. I slipped DaSilva’s body to the floor, and we began to untie him.

‘What are you doing?’ Khaled asked, from behind me.

I spun round to face him. He had a gun in his hand.

‘ Salaam aleikum , Khaled,’ Karla said, and she had a gun in her hand.

‘ Wa aleikum salaam ,’ he responded. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Where’s Abdullah?’ I asked.

‘He’s dead.’

‘Ah, no, no,’ I said. ‘Please, no.’

‘May Allah take his soul,’ Karla said.

‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ I asked, choking the words. ‘Where is he?’

‘There were four other dead men on top of him, when I found him. One of them was Vishnu. I knew that arrogant thug would come here in person, to gloat. Now he’s dead, and my Company will take everything he had.’

‘Where’s Abdullah’s body?’

‘With the bodies of my dead men,’ Khaled said. ‘In the dining room. And I ask you, for the last time, what are you doing here?’

‘This miscreant wandered too far,’ I said, pulling the cover back to reveal DaSilva’s face. ‘We’re wandering him back. Is he one of yours, or theirs?’

‘He’s the man we used to set up the trap,’ Khaled said. ‘I shot him myself, after he served his purpose, but he got away.’

‘He got back,’ Karla said. ‘Can we leave him here, Khaled? We want to keep Idriss out of this.’

‘Leave him. My men will be back, soon, with the trucks. I’ll put this one with the bodies we’re throwing into the sewer tomorrow.’

‘I don’t want to see Abdullah’s body, Khaled,’ I said. ‘Do you swear to me that he’s dead?’

‘ Wallah! ’ he replied.

‘ I want to see him,’ Karla said to me. ‘But you don’t have to come.’

Everywhere together, never apart: but sometimes the two of you is something that only one of you must do.

‘I’ll come,’ I said, feeling sick already. ‘I’ll come.’

Khaled led us through a drawing room to the main dining room. Four bodies were lying on the table neatly, like pavement dwellers sleeping together on the street.

I saw Abdullah at once, his long black hair trailing over the edge of the table. I wanted to turn away. I wanted to run. That beautiful face, that lion heart, that fire in the sky: I couldn’t bear to see it emptied, and cold.

But Karla went to him, put her head on his chest, and wept. I had to move. I drifted along the table, dead men’s heads a breeze against my fingers, and took Abdullah’s hand.

The face was stern, and I was comforted to see it. He was wearing white, and it showed blood everywhere. A clear line crossed his brow, where his white cap had been, but his proud face, all eyebrows, nose and beard like a king of Sumer, was speckled and blotched everywhere else.