Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘I don’t celebrate -’

‘Your birthday, I know. You wanna know what the present is, or not?’

‘Okay.’

‘The cop that we got on the fetish tapes,’ Karla said. ‘It’s Lightning Dilip.’

Karma’s a hammer, not a feather , I remembered Karla saying.

‘Very interesting.’

‘Wanna know what his fetish was?’

‘No.’

‘It involved a lot of sandwich wrap,’ Karla said.

‘Please, stop.’

‘Leaving only his insubordinates and his mouth exposed.’

‘Okay, enough.’

‘And in one part, the girl had to swat his privates with a flyswatter.’

‘Karla.’

‘A plastic one, of course, and then -’

I put my fingers in my ears and said la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la until she stopped. It was childish, and beneath us both, and it worked.

‘Okay. Seeing as how it’s your birthday present, and we can make him do anything that we want,’ Karla asked, a wicked smile shining from insurgency, ‘what do you want to do with the Lightning Dilip film?’

‘I’m guessing you’ve already thought it through.’

‘I was thinking he should retire,’ Karla said. ‘Citing his remorse, for having mistreated prisoners. Demoted, disgraced, and without a pension.’

‘Nice.’

‘Lightning Dilip has been digging his own grave for years, one kick at a time,’ Karla said. ‘I think he’s about ready to fall into it.’

‘When?’

‘I’ll ask No Problem to deliver the message tomorrow, with a deadline for him to resign in twenty-four hours, or we go public. Sound right to you?’

‘No problem,’ I smiled, glad to be rid of him, and wondering who the next Lightning Dilip would be, and how much more we’d have to pay.

‘I was also thinking he should retire to a village somewhere, far away,’ Karla mused. ‘The one he came from might be nice. I’m pretty sure the people who watched him grow up will know what to do with him when he comes back.’

‘They’ll do it in an isolated spot, if they know him well.’

Gemini George was in a specially equipped room on the penthouse floor of the Mahesh hotel, watched over by Scorpio George and a prestige of doctors. The hotel had provided specialists through international contacts, and Scorpio hired medical expertise from the best hospitals in India.

It seemed that it might be too late for Gemini, whose thin body failed and faded day by day, but he always greeted each new expert with a joke, and a smile.

Scorpio made us suffer to see Gemini, because no-one else stayed still long enough to suffer listening to him.

‘I’ve been off my food,’ Scorpio said, as we stood outside the door to Gemini’s room. ‘And I’ve got a blister on my foot from pacing up and down, worrying about Gemini. And I deserve it, because it’s all my fault.’

‘It’s okay,’ Karla said, taking his hand. ‘No-one blames you, Scorpio.’

‘But it is my fault. If I hadn’t been searching for that holy man, Gemini wouldn’t have got dengue fever, and we’d be okay, like before.’

‘No-one loves Gemini more than you do,’ Karla replied, as she opened the door. ‘He knows that.’

Gemini was in a fully adjustable hospital bed, with tubes coming from too many places. A new plastic tent covered his bed. There were two nurses attending to him, checking data on machines arranged around the left side of the bed.

He smiled at us as we approached. He looked bad. His thin body was the colour of a cut persimmon, and his face revealed the skull beneath the smile.

‘Hello, Karla,’ he said cheerily, although the sound of his voice was weak. ‘Hello, Lin, mate. So glad you’ve come.’

‘Damn good to see you again, man,’ I said, waving at him through the plastic tent.

‘How about a game?’ Karla purred. ‘Unless you think those meds you’re on stole your edge.’

‘Can’t play cards yet, although I’d love to. I’m in this plastic tent for a few weeks, you see, and they daren’t take it off. My immune system’s down, they say. I think the machines are just for show. They’re keeping me alive with rubber bands and kindness. Me organs are shuttin’ down, one by one, like people leaving a train, you know?’

‘Are you in pain, Gemini?’ Karla asked.

He smiled, very slowly: sunlight burning shadows from a meadow.

‘I’m right as rain, love,’ he said. ‘They’ve got me on a drip. That’s when you know you’re dyin’, innit? When all the best drugs are suddenly legal, and you can have as much as you want. It’s the upside of the downside, so to speak.’

‘I’d still like to play a few hands,’ Karla smiled, ‘while we’re all on the upside.’

‘Like I said, it’s my immune system that’s up the spout. That’s why I got this tent. It’s actually you that could hurt me . Funny, innit?’

‘Gemini George, a quitter?’ Karla teased. ‘Of course you can play cards with us. We’ll deal you a hand, and I’ll hold the cards up for you without looking. You trust me, don’t you?’

Karla never cheated at any game, and Gemini knew it.

‘You’ll have to clear it with them first,’ Gemini said, nodding at the nurses. ‘They’ve got me on a pretty tight rein.’

‘Why don’t we start?’ Karla replied, winking at the nurses. ‘And if they get worried, we’ll stop. Where are the cards?’

‘In the top drawer of the cabinet, just beside you.’

I opened the drawer. There was a deck of cards, a cheap watch, a small bell from a charm bracelet, a war medal that might’ve been his father’s, a cross on a chain, and a wallet worn thin with patient penury.

Karla pulled three chairs close to the bed. I gave her the cards, and she shuffled them, spilling out hands on the spare chair. She held Gemini’s hand up to the plastic shield.

The nurses checked the hand as closely as Gemini did.

‘We’ll call your cards one-to-five, your left to your right,’ Karla said. ‘Anything you want to throw, call it by number. When you have your hand, call it by number, and I’ll rearrange it for you, okay?’

‘Got it,’ Gemini said. ‘I sit pat.’

One of the nurses made a noise, clicking her tongue against her teeth. Gemini turned to her. Both nurses were shaking their heads. Gemini turned back again.

‘On second thoughts,’ he said, ‘throw one and four, and give me two cards, please, Karla.’

The nurses nodded. Karla withdrew the unwanted cards, dealt two more into his hand, and showed them to him. They must’ve been good cards, because Gemini and the nurses poker-faced us.

‘I bet fifty,’ Gemini said. ‘Fight it out and stretch it out for me, Karla. I’ve got nowhere else to be, but in this game.’

‘I’ll see your fifty, and raise you a hundred,’ Karla said, ‘if you’ve got the stomach tubes for it.’

‘I’m out,’ I said, throwing in my cards, and leaving the duel to Karla and Gemini.

‘I’m so ready for this,’ Gemini laughed, and coughed. ‘Do your worst.’

‘I only play to win, Gemini. You know that.’

‘You remember that night,’ Gemini said, his smile a sunset in the valley of yesterday. ‘The housewarming party we threw, me and Scorpio? Remember that night?’

‘Great party,’ I said.

‘Good fun,’ Karla added.

‘That was a great party. The best ever. That was the time of my life.’

‘You’ll pull through,’ Karla said. ‘There’s plenty of pavement left in you, Gemini. Money time. Put up or shut up, street guy.’

We did the best we could for Gemini, and with a little help from his nurses he managed to cheat, for old times’ sake, every time we played.