Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘An ashram?’

‘Yeah,’ she sighed.

Her face and manner had changed. She seemed to be bored.

‘What kind of ashram?’

‘The profitable kind,’ she said. ‘It has a majestic menu. That , you’ve got to give him. Meditation rooms, yoga, massage, aromatherapies and chanting. They chant a lot. It’s like they never heard of funk.’

‘And it’s at the base of this mountain?’

‘At the start of the valley, on the west side.’

She frowned a yawn at me.

‘Abdullah goes there all the time,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he talk to you about it?’

Something staggered inside me. I was glad to know that Khaled was alive and well, but the cherished friendship felt betrayed, and my heart stumbled.

‘It can’t be true.’

‘The truth comes in two kinds,’ she laughed gently. ‘The one you want to hear, and the one you should.’

‘Don’t start that again.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sucker punch. Couldn’t resist it.’

I was suddenly angry. Maybe it was that sense of betrayal. Maybe it was old crying, finally forcing its way past the shield of softness, gleaming in her kinder eye.

‘Do you love Ranjit?’

She looked at me, both eyes, soft and hard, staring into mine.

‘I thought I admired him, once upon a time,’ she said, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’

‘And you don’t admire me?’

‘Why would you ask that?’

‘Are you afraid to tell me what you think?’

‘Of course not,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m wondering why you don’t already know what I think of you.’

‘I don’t know what that means, so how about you just answer my question?’

‘Mine first. Why do you want to know? Is it disappointment in yourself, or jealousy of him?’

‘You know, the thing about disappointment, Karla, is that it never lets you down. But it’s not about that. I want to know what you think, because it matters to me.’

‘Okay, you asked for it. No, I don’t admire you. Not today.’

We were silent for a while.

‘You know what I’m talking about,’ she said at last.

‘I don’t, actually.’

I frowned again and she laughed: the little laugh that bubbles up from an in-joke.

‘Look at your face,’ she said. ‘What happened to you? Fell off your pride again, right?’

‘Happily, the fall’s not too far.’

She laughed again, but it quickly became a frown.

‘Can you even explain it? Why you’ve been fighting? Why a fight always finds you?’

Of course I couldn’t. Being kidnapped and strapped to a banana lounge by the Scorpion gang: how could I explain that? I didn’t understand it myself, not any of it, not even Concannon. Especially not Concannon. I didn’t know, then, that I was standing on a tattered corner of a bloody carpet that would soon cover most of the world.

‘Who says I have to explain it?’

‘Can you?’ she repeated.

‘Can you explain the things you did to us back then, Karla?’

She flinched.

‘Don’t hold back, Karla.’

‘Maybe I should chase to the cut, so to speak, and tell you the answer.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘Sure you’ve got the stomach for it?’

‘Sure.’

‘Okay then, the -’

‘No, wait!’

‘Wait what?’

‘My conversation sub-routine is crying out for that coffee.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘No, I’m grievously coffee-deprived. That’s how you kicked my ass.’

‘So I did win?’

‘You won. Can I have the coffee now?’

I used my sleeve to snatch the pot from the fire and pour some coffee into a chipped mug. I offered it to Karla, but she wrinkled her lip in a proscenium arch of disgust.

‘I’m reading a no ,’ I guessed.

‘How’s that magic act workin’ out? Drink the damn coffee, yaar.’

I sipped at the coffee. It was too strong and too sweet and too bitter, all at the same time. Perfect.

‘Okay, good,’ I croaked, coffee shivering hello. ‘I’m good.’

‘The -’

‘No, wait!’

I found a joint.

‘Okay,’ I said, puffing it alight. ‘I’m good. Lemme have it.’

‘Sure you don’t need a manicure, or a massage?’ Karla growled.

‘I’m so good, now. Smack me around all you like, Karla.’

‘Okay, here goes. The marks on your face, and all the scars on your body, are like graffiti, scrawled by your own delinquent talent.’

‘Not bad.’

‘I’m not finished. Your heart’s a tenant, in the broken-down tenement of your life.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The slumlord’s coming to collect the rent, Lin,’ she said, a little more softly. ‘Soon.’

I knew her well enough to know that she’d written and rehearsed those lines. I’d seen her journals, filled with notes for the clever things she said. Rehearsed or not, she was right.

‘Karla, look -’

‘You’re playing Russian roulette with Fate,’ she said. ‘You know that.’

‘And your money’s on Fate? Is that what this is about?’

‘Fate loads the gun. Fate loads every gun in the world.’

‘Anything else?’

‘While you do this,’ she said, even more softly, ‘you’re only breaking things.’

It was just true enough to hurt, no matter how softly she said it.

‘You know, if you keep coming on to me like this… ’

‘You got funnier,’ she said, laughing a little.

‘I’m still what I used to be.’

We stared at one another for a few moments.

‘Look, Karla, I don’t know what it is with Ranjit, and I don’t know how it’s two whole years since I looked at you and heard your voice. I just know that when I’m with you, it’s wild horse right. I love you, and I’ll always be there for you.’

Emotions were leaves in a storm on her face. There were too many different feelings for me to read. I hadn’t seen her. I hadn’t been with her. She looked happy and angry, satisfied and sad, all at the same time. And she didn’t speak. Karla, lost for words. It hurt her, in some way, and I had to break the mood.

‘ Sure you don’t want to try that coffee?’

She raised a rattlesnake eyebrow, and was about to fang me, but sounds from the caves alerted us to the presence of others, waking with the dawn.

We breakfasted with the happy devotees and were drinking our second mug of chai, when a young student appeared at the ridge of the camp where the steep climb from the forest ended. He accepted a chai gratefully, and announced that the master wouldn’t be joining us until after lunch.

‘That’s it,’ Karla muttered, moving to the open kitchen, where she rinsed out her cup and set it on a stand to dry.

‘That’s what?’ I asked, joining her at the sink.

‘I’ve got time to go down, visit Khaled, and be back before Idriss gets here.’

‘I’m coming with,’ I said quickly.

‘Wait a minute. Call off the myrmidons. Why are you coming?’

It wasn’t an idle question. Karla didn’t idle.

‘ Why? Because Khaled’s my friend. And I haven’t seen him since he walked into the snow, nearly three years ago.’

‘A good friend would leave him the hell alone, right now,’ she said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She fixed me with that look: hunger burning in a tiger’s eyes, staring at prey. I loved it.

‘He’s happy,’ she said quietly.

‘And?’

She glanced at Abdullah, who’d come up to stand beside me.

‘Happy’s hard to find,’ she said at last.

‘I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Happiness has a sign on it,’ she said. ‘It says Do Not Disturb , but everybody does.’