Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘You never told anyone what Lisa said, that Madame Zhou ordered the killing?’

‘I kept the secret to myself, until the time was right. Now Kavita knows, and she’ll keep Madame Zhou close, until she has the book. Then she’ll introduce Madame Zhou to her little friend, karma.’

Madame Zhou and Kavita? It seemed to me like a double-headed coin, fixed to hurt someone no matter how it landed.

‘Let me get this straight: Madame Zhou doesn’t know that Kavita is the fiancée of a guy she killed, what, four years ago?’

‘That’s right. Kavita Singh isn’t her real name. She was in London, freelancing, when her boyfriend was killed. She came back, used a byline name, and worked for Ranjit. She always hoped to find out what happened to her boyfriend one day, working as a journalist. I waited until Kavita was strong enough to confront and defeat Madame Zhou, and get away with it. I built her up, and gave her power. And then, the day she was waiting for came knocking, and I told her.’

‘So, Kavita’s watching Madame Zhou, who’s using her to shake down people in the book to get back the power she lost, and when Kavita gets the book, she’ll get rid of Madame Zhou?’

‘That’s it. Chess, played by dangerous women.’

‘How long till Kavita gets that book?’

‘Not long.’

‘Will Kavita use the book, once she gets it?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Karla laughed. ‘Making ocean-going vessels of change.’

‘I don’t know which one of them is scarier, Kavita or Madame Zhou.’

‘I told you that you misjudged Kavita,’ she said.

‘I don’t judge anyone. I want a world without stones, or people to throw them at.’

‘I know that,’ she laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Something Didier said, about you.’

‘What?’

‘Lin has a good heart, which is inexcusable.’

‘Thank you, I think.’

‘You wanna know who’s got the third office, downstairs?’

‘This is certainly a night for revelations. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘You wanna know who’s behind door number three, or don’t ya?’

‘Of course I do. I wanna see the tunnel , which I still haven’t seen.’

‘You won’t sign the non-disclosure agreement.’

‘Every time you sign a legal document, Fate takes a day off.’

‘It’s Johnny Cigar,’ she said.

‘In room number three?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When will you stop stealing my characters? You’ve got half a novel at the Amritsar, and I haven’t even written it yet.’

‘Johnny’s starting a real estate business,’ she said, ignoring me adorably. ‘He’s specialising in slum relocation.’

‘Here comes the neighbourhood.’

‘I financed him,’ she said. ‘With the last of Ranjit’s baptism money.’

I thought for a while about the multiplying ménage at the Amritsar hotel.

‘Even with Karlesha back,’ I said, ‘Oleg’s not leaving, is he?’

‘I hope not,’ she smiled. ‘And so do you. You like that guy.’

‘I do like him. And I’d like him better one degree less chirpy.’

‘Is Naveen coming tonight?’

‘He’s working on a case, for Diva. One way or another, that girl manages to keep Naveen busy, and close.’

‘You think they’ll get together?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, trying not to hope for something I wasn’t sure they wanted. ‘But I know Naveen will never give up on Diva. No matter what he says, he’s crazy about her. And if you put an Indian and an Irishman together, like him, you get a guy who can’t give up on love.’

Customers of Love & Faith gathered on the footpath, holding up T-shirts, and occasionally exchanging them.

‘What’s that about?’

‘Remember the T-shirt version of what Idriss was saying? The one that we gave Vinson?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Vinson and Rannveig used Randall’s notes, from what Idriss said, and they put his quotes on T-shirts. They’re giving them away as opening-night gifts.’

A young man, not far from us, was holding a T-shirt up to read it. I read it with him, over his shoulder.

A heart

filled with greed, pride or hateful feelings

is not free.

When I heard Idriss say it, on the mountain, I agreed with it, and I was glad to see it preserved and living, somehow, in the world, even just on a T-shirt. And I also had to admit that I’d found shares of greed and pride inside myself, and too often.

But I wasn’t alone any more. As Rannveig said, I’d reconnected.

‘What do you think?’ Karla asked me, watching people swap quotations from Idriss on their free T-shirts.

‘Teachers, like writers, never die while people still quote them.’

‘I love you, Shantaram,’ she said, cuddling in beside me.

I looked at the happy, laughing group, crammed into the narrow coffee shop. The people we’d lost, in our Island City years, would fill the same space.

Too many, too many dead who were still alive, whenever I thought of them. And almost all of them were lives that humility or generosity would’ve saved. Vikram, Nazeer, Tariq, Sanjay, Vishnu, and all the other names chanted at me, always ending in Abdullah, my brother, Abdullah, my brother.

Karla relaxed against me, her foot tapping to the music coming from Love & Faith. I tipped her face to the light until she was the light, and kissed her, and we were one.

Truth is the freedom of the soul. We’re very young, in this young universe, and we often fail, and dishonour ourselves, even if only in the caves of the mind. We fight, when we should dance. We compete, cheat and punish innocent nature.

But that isn’t what we are, it’s simply what we do in the world that we made for ourselves, and we can freely change what we do, and the world we made, every second that we live.

In all the things that really matter, we are one. Love and faith, trust and empathy, family and friendship, sunsets and songs of awe: in every wish born in our humanity we are one. Our humankind, at this moment in our destiny, is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in the child is the wonder in us, and there’s no limit to the good we can do when human hearts connect. It’s the truth of us. It’s the story of us. It’s the meaning of the word God: we are one. We are one. We are one.

This novel depicts some characters who are living self-destructive lives. Authenticity demands that they drink and smoke and take drugs. I don’t endorse drinking, smoking or drug-taking, just as I don’t endorse crime and criminality as a lifestyle choice, or violence as a valid means of conflict resolution. What I do endorse is doing our best to be fair, honest, positive and creative with ourselves and others. GDR

Gregory David Roberts (born June 1952) is an Australian author, most noted for his novel Shantaram. He was a heroin addict and convicted bank robber who escaped from Pentridge Prison and fled to India where he lived for ten years.