Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘I’m just saying, one must be prudent, where cats are concerned. Probably even in similes.’

The whole group nodded.

After a few moments of silence, I spoke again.

‘So… cats aside, you need what, from me?’

‘Planning permits,’ Arshan said, coming back to the moment. ‘The City Council official agreed, after a lot of negotiation, to accept a bribe to let us get on with the… renovations . But he insists that we get the proper planning permit certificates, or damn good copies.’

‘To cover his arse,’ Ali said.

‘He can’t fake the permits, and he can’t steal them,’ Farzad added. ‘But if we can fake them, he promised that the investigation will end with him.’

‘If you can fake them for us, Lin,’ Arshan corrected him.

‘Yeah, if you can fake them, the inspector will sign off on them, and leave us alone to search for the treasure, like always. No problem. Count on it.’

‘So, that’s it,’ Arshan sighed, resting his elbows on the long table. ‘If you can’t help us, we’ll have to stop. If you can help us, we can go on until we find the treasure.’

‘You can make those documents yourself,’ I said to Farzad. ‘You’re pretty good. You don’t need me.’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ he grinned, ‘but there’s a couple of problems. First, I don’t have any contacts at the City Council. And second, the boys in the factory won’t take orders from me on a job like this, and they’ll probably tell Sanjay about it. But you , on the other hand… ’

‘Why am I always on the other hand?’

‘You can do it discreetly, or let me do it, because you’re the boss at the factory,’ Farzad said, pushing on. ‘With your help, it could be done without anyone coming to know about it.’

‘You might think this is a strange question,’ I said, glancing around at the expectant faces staring at me, ‘but it’s probably a lot stranger not to ask it. What makes you think I won’t help you out, and then tell Sanjay anyway?’

‘It’s a fair question,’ Arshan allowed, ‘and I hope you won’t be offended if I tell you it’s not the first time it has been raised in this room. The bottom line is that we need your help, and we believe we can trust you. Keki Uncle thought very highly of you. He told us, many times, how you were with Khaderbhai at the end, and that you are a man of honour.’

The use of the word honour struck at my chest, especially when they were asking me to conceal something from my boss, Sanjay. But I liked them. I already liked them more than I liked Sanjay. And Sanjay was rich enough. He didn’t need a piece of their treasure, if they ever found it.

‘I’ll have your paperwork this week,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Sanjay it’s a favour to a friend, which it is. I’ve done off-the-books jobs before. But I want it to end here. I don’t want this coming back to me from Sanjay, Farzad. Are we clear?’

The group of people around me burst into applause and cheering. Several of them rushed forward to pat me on the back, hug me, and shake my hand.

‘Thank you so much!’ Arshan said, smiling happily. ‘We’ve been so worried about this City Council thing. It’s the first real challenge to what we’ve been doing here. We… we’ve come to enjoy this treasure hunting of ours, and we… well… I think we’d be as lost as the treasure is, if the council shut us down.’

‘And we’re not expecting you to do this for nothing,’ Farzad added. ‘Tell him, Pop!’

‘If you’ll accept it, we want to give you one per cent of the treasure,’ Arshan said.

‘If you find it,’ I smiled.

‘ When we find it,’ several voices corrected me.

‘ When you find it,’ I agreed.

‘Now, how about some more daal roti?’ Jaya asked.

‘And some chicken pieces,’ Zaheera suggested.

‘And a nice egg and curry sandwich,’ Anahita offered, ‘with a long glass of raspberry.’

‘No, no, thank you,’ I said quickly, stepping up and away from the table. ‘I’m still completely full. Maybe next time.’

‘ Definitely next time,’ Anahita said.

‘Sure, definitely.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ Farzad said, as I made my way to the long curtain closing off the front of the house. The whole group walked with us to the door.

I said my goodbyes, shaking hands and exchanging hugs, and stepped through the vestibule to the street beyond with Farzad.

A monsoon shower had soaked the street, but the heavy clouds had passed, and bright sunshine steamed the moisture from every mirrored surface.

Somehow, that first glimpse of the street seemed strange and unfamiliar, as if the weird megacosm of catwalks and crawlspaces in the gigantic bell-chamber of Farzad’s house was the real world, and the gleaming, steaming street beyond was the illusion.

‘I… ah… I hope my mixed-up family didn’t freak you out,’ Farzad muttered.

‘Not at all.’

‘You don’t think, you know, it’s a bit… crazy , na ? What we’re doing?’

‘Everybody’s searching for something. And from what I can see, you’re all happy.’

‘We are,’ he agreed quickly.

‘What kind of crazy person doesn’t like happy?’

Impulsively, the young Parsi reached out and hugged me stiffly.

‘You know, Lin,’ he said, as we parted from the hug, ‘there is actually something else I wanted to ask you.’

‘Something else, yet?’

‘Yes. You know, if you ever get the phone number of that girl, that beautiful girl with the loveliness in her eyes, that Divya, the one we met outside the police station this morning, I -’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘Really no?’

‘No.’

‘But -’

‘No,’ I said gently, smiling at his puzzled frown.

He shook his head, turned, and walked back inside the building, the hive, the home. I faced the sun and stood for a while on the rain-scented street.

Money’s a drug too, of course, but I wasn’t worried for Farzad’s extended family. They weren’t hooked. Not yet. They’d torn their homes apart, true enough, but they’d replaced them with a common space of sharing. They’d turned their lives upside down, but it was an adventure: a voyage within themselves. They made sense of the dream they lived. It was still fun, for them, and I liked them very much for it.

I was standing, with my face in the sunlight, looking calm, very calm, and crying, somewhere inside. Sometimes the sight of what you lost, reflected in another love, is too much: too much of what was, and isn’t any more.

Family, home: little words that rise like atolls in earthquakes of the heart. Loss, loneliness: little words that flood the valleys of alone.

In the island of the present, Lisa was slipping away, and a spell had been cast by the mention of a name: Karla. Karla.

It’s a foolish thing to try to love, when the one you really love, the one you’re born to love, is lost somewhere in the same square circle of a city. It’s a desperate, foolish thing to try to love someone at all. Love doesn’t try: love is immediate, and inescapable. The mention of Karla’s name was fire, inside, and my heart wouldn’t stop reminding me.

We were castaways, Karla and I, because we were cast out, both of us. Lisa and all the other bright people we loved, or tried to love, were volunteers, sailing to the Island City on dreams. Karla and I crawled onto the sand from ships we’d sunk ourselves.

I was a broken thing. I was a lonely, broken thing. Maybe Karla was, too, in her own way.

I looked at the domed house: separate entrances on the outside, joined lives on the inside. Whether they found the treasure or not, it was already that marvel, that miracle, an answered prayer.