Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘The float.’

‘The float was filled with produce from the local farms. I was the Liberty Belle , get it?’

‘You must’ve looked damn cute.’

She smiled.

‘I had to sit on the top, while the whole mountain of fruit and potatoes and beets and all rolled along between the crowds. And I had to wave, regally, like this, all the way down Main Street.’

She waved her hand gently, palm upwards, her fingers curved around the majestic memory.

Atif cleared the table again. He looked at me, posing the question with one raised eyebrow. I held my hand over the table palm downwards, and gestured toward the table twice. It was the signal to wait for a time. He wagged his head from side to side, and checked on the neighbouring tables.

‘It was really something. Kind of a big honour, if you know what I mean. Everybody said so. Everybody kept on saying so, over and over again. You know how irritating it is, when people keep telling you how honoured you should be?’

‘I know the dishonoured version, but I get your drift.’

‘The thing was, I didn’t really feel honoured, you know? I was kinda glad, of course, when they picked me from all the other girls, some of them way prettier than me. And I didn’t even do anything to get picked. Some of the girls tried every devious trick they could think of. You don’t know how many tricks a girl can find up her sleeve, until you see a bunch of them trying to get picked to be on top of the truck in the Founders’ Day Parade.’

‘What kind of tricks?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Me, I didn’t do anything,’ she said. ‘And I was as surprised as anyone when the committee picked me. But… I didn’t really feel anything. I waved my hand, as regal as Marie Antoinette, getting a little drunk on the smell of those apples heating up in the sun, but I looked at all the faces smiling at me, and all those hands clapping me, and I didn’t feel anything at all.’

Shafts of sunlight pierced the subdued monsoon shade of Kayani’s. One ray of light crossed our table, striking her face and dividing it between the sky-blue eyes in shadow and the lips, wet with white light.

‘I just didn’t feel anything at all,’ the light-struck lips said. ‘And I never did. I never felt like I belonged there, in that town, or in that school, or even with my own family. I never did. I never have.’

‘Lisa -’

‘You don’t feel like that,’ she said flatly. ‘You and Karla. You belong where you are. I finally get it, and it took the waiter to show it to me. I finally get it.’

She looked up from the wrinkled napkin to stare into my eyes, her face emptied of expression.

‘I never do,’ she said flatly. ‘I never belong anywhere. Not even with you. I like you, Lin. I’ve had a thing for you for a long time. But I never felt anything more than that. Did you know that? I never felt anything for you.’

There’d always been a knife in my chest when I tried to love Lisa. The knife was those words, when she spoke them, because she spoke them for both of us.

‘People don’t belong to one another,’ I said softly. ‘They can’t. That’s the first rule of freedom.’

She tried to smile. She didn’t make it.

‘Why do people fall apart?’ she asked, frowning into a truth.

‘Why do people fall in?’

‘What are you, a psychiatrist now, answering a question with a question?’

‘Fair enough. Okay. If you really want me to say it, I think people fall apart when they weren’t really together in the first place.’

‘Well,’ she continued, her eyes drifting down to the table, ‘what if you’re afraid of being together with someone? Or with everyone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Lately I feel like the committee picked me for the parade all over again, and I didn’t even try. Do you see?’

‘No, Lisa.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Whatever we are, or we’re not, all I know is that you beat the curse, and got back on your feet. That’s something to be proud of, Lisa. You’re doing what you love, working with artists you respect. And I’m your friend, no matter what happens. It’s good, Lisa. You’re good.’

She looked up again. She wanted to speak. Her mouth opened. Her lips twitched, tricked into movement by flickering thoughts.

‘I gotta go,’ she said quickly, standing to leave. ‘There’s a new show. A new artist. He’s… he’s pretty good. We’re mounting it in a couple of days.’

‘Okay. We’ll -’

‘No. I’ll get a cab.’

‘I’m faster than any cab in this city,’ I smiled.

‘That you are, and cheaper too, cowboy, but I’ll get a cab.’

I paid and walked out with her, descending to the sun-streaked street. There were taxis parked opposite, and we made for the first in line. She stooped to enter the cab, but I held her back.

She met my eyes for a moment, and then threw her glance away again.

‘Don’t wait up for me tonight,’ she said. ‘This new installation we’re setting up, it’s pretty complicated. We’re gonna work around the clock for a couple days, to -’

‘A couple of days?’

‘Yeah. I… I’ll probably sleep there tonight, and tomorrow, just… just to bring the show in on time, you know?’

‘What’s happening here, Lisa?’

‘Nothing’s happening here,’ she said, and got into the cab.

It took off at once. She turned to look at me as the taxi pulled away, staring back at me until I lost her.

The rapture, born in seconds, is a frail thing. And when rapture dies, no power can restore it to a lover’s eye. Lisa and I were staring at one another from a deeper place: the place where rapture lands when it falls.

A light had dimmed, and a shadow moved across the garden of what was. I waited on the footpath for half an hour, thinking hard.

I was missing something, a conflict more fundamental than Lisa’s objection to my life on the edge of the Sanjay Company, or even her desire to be with others. Something else was happening, and I couldn’t see it right or even feel it right, of course, because it was happening to me.

The street was happily larcenous as I parked my bike outside Leopold’s beside a lounge of street touts, their salamander eyes roving for business. I looked left, slowly, and then right, taking in every threat or opportunity on the street around me. I’d begun to turn my thoughts away from that shadow, Lisa’s shadow, moving across the garden of what was, when I heard a voice.

‘Lin! This is great , man! I’ve been trying to find you.’

It was Stuart Vinson, and he was agitated. That was good. After the talk with Lisa that I didn’t understand, agitation from a man I almost never understood seemed like the right distraction.

‘Vinson. What’s up?’

‘There’s this girl. She’s… I need your help. You’ve got some pull with the Colaba cops, right?’

‘Define pull .’

‘You can get things done, man. That’s right?’

‘I know who’s first and last in line, if you’re handing out money.’

‘That’s it! That’s great! Can you come with me? Right now?’

‘I -’

‘Please, Lin. There’s this girl. She’s in a lotta trouble.’

He read my frown.

‘What? No! She hasn’t done anything wrong. Fact is, far as I can figure it, it’s just that her boyfriend’s dead. He OD’d, like, just last night, and -’

‘Wait a minute. Slow down. Who’s this girl?’

‘I… I don’t know her name.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I mean, I haven’t heard it yet. I haven’t seen her passport, either. I don’t even know where she comes from. But I know I’ve got to save her, and maybe I’m the only one who can, you know? She’s got these eyes, like, it’s too weird, man. I mean, it’s like the universe is tellin’ me to save her. It’s mystical. It’s magical. It’s fated, or something. But every time I ask the cops about her, they tell me to shut up.’