Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Thanks, Karla,’ Diva said. ‘I’m a free woman, as of this minute. If the sun was down, I’d be drinking champagne. I can drink cocktails all day, but when I start on champagne my IQ drops twenty points, and that’s a stupidity I’m keeping in reserve, for later tonight. Meanwhile, to freedom for women!’

‘Freedom for women!’ Karla toasted.

Diva was silent for a while. Karla brought her back.

‘How bad was it?’

‘They all wanted control,’ Diva said, turning her drink in her hands. ‘They couldn’t bear to see it, a woman in control, when they’d all happily licked a man’s boot.’

‘They let you know?’ Karla asked.

‘I saw it in their eyes, at every meeting. And the whispering always came back to me, from men who betrayed men. Power, in my hands, was a declaration of war to them. These parasites that my father let infest the companies, these men who looked the other way when black money almost ruined us, they started getting nasty. Even threatening. You know what I mean, Karla?’

‘Men like that you crush, or you leave behind,’ Karla said. ‘You could’ve crushed them, Diva, because your father left you the power to do it. Why are you walking away?’

‘My dad was into energy stocks in a big way. That’s all we’ve got left, while the construction business pays off debts, and those stocks are still paying well. I wouldn’t have made those bets on oil and coal, but he did, and he locked me onto a wheel that thousands of people are running on. I can’t just turn it off.’

‘So you’re still in the game?’ Karla asked.

‘I’m stepping out, but I told the new managers that for every year they get cleaner, and better at what they do, they get a tranche of their shares back.’

‘What are your plans?’ I asked.

‘I kept one company, and quarantined it from the sale. I kept the combined modelling agency and bridal boutique, the one I told you about. I added a wedding advice service, and I’ve renamed it. I’m going to run it.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘so the girls you’ve got here are models, waiting for assignments.’

‘You could say that,’ Diva replied, turning to Karla. ‘I know it’s a while since we talked about this, Karla, but I was hoping you’re still interested. I’d love to have your ideas in this. What do you think?’

‘I liked it when it was just an idea,’ she said. ‘And I’m happy to see you make it real. Count us in, for as long as we’re here in town. Let’s talk about it next week, over dinner at our place, okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Diva said vaguely, her eyes drifting to the garlanded photograph of her father.

We let her have some time, both of us content to wait until her trance ended.

‘You know why I insisted that everyone call me Diva?’ she asked after a while, still staring at the photograph. ‘I was in the bathroom, at a party, and I heard what my own friends called me, behind my back. Trivia Divya , they said. Trivia Divya. And you know what? They were right. I was. I was trivial. So I changed my name to Diva, that night, and made everybody call me that. But this is the first time that I’ve felt untrivial, if there’s such a word.’

‘ Essential is the word, Diva,’ Karla said.

The young heiress turned her face to Karla’s and smiled, laughing softly.

‘It’s all good,’ she said, standing from her chair with a stretch and a yawn.

We stood with her, and she walked us to the tall doors of her office.

‘So glad you’re free,’ Karla said, hugging her as we left. ‘Fly high, baby bird.’

We roamed free on the bike, at slow speed, thinking different thoughts. I was thinking of the poor little rich girl, who’d lived in a slum and given away a fortune. Karla was thinking something else.

‘They’re all very classy ex-callgirls,’ she said over my shoulder.

‘What?’

‘They’re all ex-callgirls.’

‘Who?’

‘The pretty girls back at the office, who were doing nothing, very prettily. They’re all ex-callgirls. Dominatrices, actually. Experts in fetish. Diva hired them for the fetish party, but after the party, offered them jobs. They all came. They’re not modelling for Diva. They’re running the marriage and wedding agency.’

‘They should do fine,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, when I brought it up?’

‘Stop the bike,’ she said, leaning away from me.

I pulled into the exit lane, near a bus stop.

‘Are you seriously asking me,’ she asked, her breath on my neck, ‘why I didn’t tell you that we were going to a carnival of ex-callgirls?’

‘Well… ’

I swung back into the traffic and rode for a while, but then stopped again, because Oleg was sitting in the middle of the road divider, playing the guitar. We pulled up beside him.

‘What are you doing, Olezhka?’ Karla asked, smiling a handful of queens.

‘Playing guitar, Karla,’ he grinned back, Russianly.

‘See you round, Oleg,’ I said, revving the engine.

Karla pressed a finger gently on my shoulder, and the engine cooled down.

‘Why here?’ Karla asked.

‘The acoustics are perfect,’ he said, smiling, deliberately. ‘The sea behind me, and the buildings -’

‘What are you playing?’ Karla asked.

‘It’s a song called “Let the Day Begin”, by The Call. This guy, Michael Been, he’s like a saint of rock and roll. I love him. Can I play it for you?’

‘See you round, Olezhka,’ I said, revving again.

‘Why don’t you hop on board,’ Karla said.

‘Really?’ Oleg and I said at the same time.

‘We’ll drop you at home,’ she said. ‘We’re on our way to Dongri.’

Oleg climbed up behind Karla. We rode with her legs wrapped around me on the petrol tank. She was leaning against Oleg, who had his guitar strung on his back.

We cruised past a group of traffic cops, waiting at a crossing to bring down a zebra or two in the jungle street.

‘ Vicaru naka ,’ I said in Marathi. Don’t ask .

Karla hadn’t visited the perfume bazaar in Dongri, or

anywhere in the area, since the fire at Khaderbhai’s mansion. But she mixed her own perfume, and needed her special fragrances. When she finally felt ready to face a page she’d turned without reading, we became a thread in the tightly woven carpet of traffic to visit her favourite shop, just off Mohammed Ali Road.

Great Ali, one of three cousin-brothers named Ali in his family, the others being Sad Ali and Considerate Ali, welcomed us into his shop, settling us on cushions.

‘I’ll pour some tea, Karla Madame,’ Considerate Ali said.

‘It has been so long,’ Sad Ali said. ‘We’ve missed you.’

‘I have your private selection ready for you, Karla Madame,’ Great Ali said.

We drank tea, while Karla examined her special essences and listened to a story about a rare perfume, carried from a rare corner of the rarefied world.

As we were leaving, the large elderly merchant, dressed in white, asked if he could inhale Karla’s own perfume, but once. Karla obliged, extending the frond of her slender wrist, the palm of her hand falling like a leaf in the rain.

The perfume traders all inhaled several times professionally, and then shook their heads doubtfully.

‘One of these days,’ Great Ali said, as we left, ‘I will discover the secret of your bouquet.’

‘Never say die,’ Karla replied.

We walked the street again, on the way back to the bike, Karla’s small vials of precious scents and oils jingling softly in a black velvet bag. After a few steps, we saw two men we knew well from the old days of the Khaderbhai Company. They crossed to the footpath near us.