Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘You like it?’ she asked, leaning in beside me as we watched the sky and sea.

‘I love it. How’d you come up with it?’

‘I was here a couple weeks ago with Rish, from the gallery. He was thinking about making a full-size copy of the Air India archer for a new Bombay exhibition, and he invited me to come take a look. When we got here, he changed his mind. But I liked it so much up here that I cultivated the guard, and bribed him to let us come up here, you and me.’

‘You cultivated the guard, huh?’

‘I’m a cultivated girl.’

For a time we gazed at the rejoicing sea, far below. It was a dangerous view, irresistible, but my thoughts slithered back to that afternoon, and Concannon.

‘Did you meet a tall Irishman named Concannon, a while back?’

She thought for a moment, one of my favourite frowns curling her upper lip.

‘Fergus? Is that his name?’

‘I only know him as Concannon,’ I said. ‘But you can’t miss this guy. Tall, heavyset, but athletic, kinda rangy, a boxer, with sandy hair and a hard eye. He said he met you, at an exhibition.’

‘Yeah, Fergus, that’s his name. I only spoke to him for a while. Why?’

‘Nothing. I was just wondering why he was at the exhibition. I don’t figure him for an art lover.’

‘We had lots of men at that show,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It was our most successful show so far. The kind of show that brings people who don’t normally go to galleries.’

‘What kind of a show?’

‘It was all about the broken lives that spin out from bad or troubled relationships between fathers and sons. It was called Sons of the Fathers . There was a big piece about it in the paper. Ranjit gave us great coverage. It pulled in a crowd. I told you all about it. Don’t you remember?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been in Goa, Lisa, and you didn’t tell me about it.’

‘Really? I was sure I did. Funny, huh?’

‘Not really.’

Sons of the Fathers . Was it that phrase, those words, Sons , Fathers , glimpsed on a poster that had drawn Concannon to the exhibition? Or had he followed me, and then followed Lisa to the gallery, using the show as a pretext to meet her and talk to her?

Acid memories had burned his eyes, when he spoke to me. I had memories of my own. I woke too often still chained to a wall of the past, being tortured by the ghosts of men whose faces I’d already begun to forget.

I turned my head to look at Lisa’s gentle profile: the deep-set, hooded eyes; the fine, small nose; the sculpted flow of her long, graceful chin; the half-smile that almost always played in the stream of her lips. The wind was picking up, lifting the blonde curls of her hair into a feathered halo.

She was wearing a loose, knee-length black dress with a high, stiff collar, but no sleeves or shoulders. She’d kicked off her sandals, and her feet were bare. The only jewellery she wore was a thin necklace of irregular turquoise beads.

She read my face, frowning a little, as she made her way back into my mind.

‘Do you know what today is?’ she asked, laughing as my eyes widened with alarm. ‘It’s our anniversary.’

‘But, we got together in -’

‘I’m talking about the day I let myself love you,’ she said, her smile showing how much she was enjoying my confusion. ‘This is exactly the day, two years ago, that you stopped your bike beside me on the causeway, a week after Karla got married, when I was waiting for the rain to stop.’

‘I was hoping you forgot that. I was pretty high, that day.’

‘You were,’ she agreed, the smile filling her eyes. ‘You saw me standing with a bunch of people under the shelter of a shop. You pulled up, and asked me if I wanted a ride. But the rain was pouring down like mad -’

‘It was the start of a flood, a big one. I was worried that you might not make it home.’

‘Pouring in buckets, it was. And there’s you, sitting on your bike in the rain, soaked through to your bones, offering me, dry and comfortable, a ride home. I laughed so hard.’

‘Okay, okay -’

‘Then you got off your bike and started to dance, right there in front of the whole crowd.’

‘So stupid.’

‘Don’t say that! I loved it!’

‘So stupid,’ I repeated, shaking my head.

‘I think you should make a promise to the universe that you’ll always dance in the rain, at least once, if you’re in Bombay during monsoon.’

‘I don’t know about the universe, but I’ll make a pact with you . I hereby promise that I’ll always dance in the rain at least once, in every one of my monsoons.’

The storm was coming in fast. Lightning shocked the theatre of the sea. Heartbeats later, the first thunder smashed the clouds.

‘That’s a big storm coming in.’

‘Come here,’ she said, taking my hand.

She led me to an open space beneath the slowly turning wheel of the crimson archer. Ducking into an alcove, she fetched a basket and brought it out.

‘I paid the watchman to leave it up here for us,’ she explained, opening the basket to reveal a large blanket, a bottle of champagne, and a few glasses.

She handed me the bottle.

‘Open us up, Lin.’

While I peeled away the foil wrapper and twisted the wire tether, she spread out the blanket, holding it in place against the gathering wind with spare tiles she found on the roof.

‘You really thought this out,’ I said, popping the cork on the champagne.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ she laughed. ‘But this is a special place. When I came up here with Rish, I took a damn good look around. This is one of the only open spaces in Bombay, maybe the only space, where nobody can see you from any window, anywhere.’

She pulled her dress up over her head, and tossed it aside. She was naked. She picked up the glasses and held them out. I filled them. I put the bottle aside, and held my glass close to hers for a toast.

‘What shall we drink to?’

‘How ’bout getting your goddamn clothes off?’

‘Lisa,’ I said, as serious as the storm. ‘We’ve gotta talk.’

‘Yeah, we do,’ she said. ‘ After we drink. I’ll make the toast.’

‘Okay.’

‘To fools in love.’

‘To fools in love.’

She drank her glass down quickly, and then threw it over her shoulder. It shattered against a stone buttress.

‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ she said happily.

‘You know, we should talk about -’

‘No,’ she said.

She unfastened my clothes and pulled them off. When we were both naked she picked up another glass and refilled it.

‘One more toast,’ she said, ‘then we talk.’

‘Okay. To the rain,’ I suggested. ‘Inside and out.’

‘To the rain,’ she agreed. ‘Inside and out.’

We drank.

‘Lisa -’

‘No. One more drink.’

‘You said -’

‘The last one didn’t do it.’

‘Didn’t do what?’

‘Didn’t wake the Dutchman.’

She filled the glasses again.

‘No toast this time,’ she said, drinking half her glass. ‘Bottoms up.’

We drank. A second glass shattered in the shadows. She pushed me back onto the tethered blanket, but slipped away again, her body on the sky.

‘Do you mind if I dance while we talk,’ she said, beginning to sway, the wind happy in her hair.

‘I’ll try not to object,’ I said, lying back to watch her, my hands clasped behind my head.

‘This is another anniversary, of sorts,’ she said dreamily.

‘You know, there’s a special place in hell for people who never forget birthdays or anniversaries.’

‘This is one that starts tonight, two years after the other one started.’