Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘I’d prefer it didn’t come to my subcontinent. Why war, Abdullah? Walk away, man. I’ll stand with you, out here, outside the Company, no matter what they throw at us. A war will kill our friends, as well as our enemies. Is anything worth that?’

He leaned back against the squared stone beside me, his shoulder touching mine. We both looked out over the forest canopy, and then he rested his head on the stone to look into the troubled sky.

I lay back against the stone, lifting my face to fields of cloud, ploughed by the storm.

‘I cannot leave, Lin,’ he sighed. ‘We would be good partners, it is true, but I cannot leave.’

‘The boy, Tariq.’

‘Yes. He is Khaderbhai’s nephew, and my responsibility.’

‘Why? You never told me.’

His face softened in the sad smile we reserve for the memory of a bitter failure that brought eventual success.

‘Khaderbhai saved my life,’ he said at last. ‘I was young, an Iranian soldier running away from the war with Iraq. I got into bad trouble, here in Bombay. Khaderbhai intervened. I could not understand why a mighty don would reach out to save me, from a death that my pride and my temper had earned.’

His head was close to mine, but his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else, somewhere beyond the great stones at our backs.

‘When he granted me an audience, and told me the matter was resolved, assuring me that I was safe from harm, I asked him how I could repay him,’ Abdullah continued. ‘Khaderbhai smiled at me for a long time. You know that smile so well, Lin brother.’

‘I do. Still feel it, sometimes.’

‘And then he made me spill my blood, with my own knife, and swear on that flowing blood to watch his nephew, Tariq, as a protector, offering my life, if necessary, for as long as I or the boy should live.’

‘He was a master of the devil’s compact.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Abdullah said quietly, as we sat up and turned to face one another. ‘But that is why I cannot simply walk away from what Sanjay is doing. There are things you do not understand. Things I cannot tell you. But Sanjay is bringing fire on our heads, maybe even on the city itself. Terrible fire. The boy, Tariq, is in danger, and I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe.’

We stared at one another for a while, not smiling but at peace, somehow. At last he stood up, and slapped me on the shoulder.

‘You will need more guns,’ he said.

‘I’ve got two guns.’

‘Exactly. You need more guns. Leave it to me.’

‘I have enough guns,’ I said, starting to catch up.

‘Leave it to me.’

‘I don’t need new guns.’

‘Everybody needs new guns. Even armies need new guns, and armies have many guns. Leave it to me.’

‘Tell you what. If you can find a gun that makes people go to sleep for a couple of days without hurting them, get me one, and a lot of ammunition.’

Abdullah stopped, and drew me close to whisper.

‘This will be bad, before it is good, Lin. It is not a joke. Please know that I value your silence very highly, the silence of friendship, because I know that you are risking your life, should Sanjay come to know of it. Be prepared for war, the more so if you despise war.’

‘Okay, Abdullah, okay.’

‘Let us go to Khaled,’ he said, walking away.

‘Oh, so now it’s okay to disturb his little happiness , huh?’ I said, following him.

‘You are not family now, Lin brother,’ he said quietly, as I drew alongside him at the edge of the mesa. ‘Your opinion no longer has influence.’

I stared into his eyes, and it was there: the blur of indifference, the diminishment of love’s light and friendship’s bright trust, the subtle change in the aura of affections when one still inside the fold looks into the eyes of what lives outside.

I’d found a home, a broken home, in the Sanjay Company, but the gates were closed there forever. I loved Abdullah, but love is a loyalty of one, and he was still in a band of brothers, loyal to all. That’s why I’d waited to tell him: why I’d let myself drift inside the other tides of Karla’s soft-eyed cleverness and Concannon’s martial madness.

I was losing Abdullah. I struck the tree-inside, what we were together in the Company, with the axe of separation. And my friend, his eyes drifting on stranger currents, led us over the mesa on the downward path, as thunder tumbled in that threatening sea, the drowning sky.

At the base of the mountain Abdullah led me away behind the valley of the sandstone Buddhas and its well-cleared paths. We followed a jungle track through thick forest for a few minutes, and then entered a tree-lined approach, rising on a gentle slope to meet a concrete and hardwood house, three storeys tall.

Before we reached the steps leading up to the wide ground-floor veranda, Khaled walked out of the vestibule to greet us.

Dressed in a voluminous yellow silk robe, and with garlands of red and yellow flowers around his neck, he stood with his fists locked onto his hips.

‘Shantaram!’ he shouted. ‘Welcome to Shangri-La!’

He’d changed. He’d changed so much in the years since I’d seen him. His hair had thinned to the point that he was almost bald. The fighter’s frame had expanded until his hips and belly were wider than his shoulders. The handsome face that had frowned its rage and recrimination at the world was swollen, from temple to vanishing jaw, and his smile all but concealed his golden-brown eyes.

It was Khaled, my friend. I rushed the steps to greet him.

He extended his hands, holding me two steps below. A young man in a yellow kurta took a photograph of us, let the camera fall to a strap around his neck, and pulled a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.

‘Don’t mind Tarun,’ Khaled said, nodding his head toward the young man. ‘He keeps a record of everyone I meet, and everything I do and say. I’ve told him not to do it, but the naughty lad won’t listen. And hey, people always do what their hearts tell them to do, isn’t it so?’

‘Well -’

‘I got fat,’ he said.

It wasn’t regretful or ironic. It was a flat statement of fact.

‘Well -’

‘But you look very fit. What have you been doing, to get all those bruises? Boxing with Abdullah? Looks like he got the better of you. No surprise, eh? Certainly, you both look fit enough to make that climb up my mountain, to see Idriss.’

‘Your mountain?’

‘Well… this part of it is mine, na ? It’s actually Idriss who thinks he owns the whole mountain. He’s such a chudh . Anyway, come here, let me give you a hug, and then we’ll take a look around.’

I climbed the last two steps, and fell into a fleshy cloud. Tarun flashed a photograph. When Khaled released me he shook hands with Abdullah, and led the way inside.

‘Where’s Karla?’ I asked, a step behind him.

‘She said that she will meet you again on the path,’ Khaled replied breezily. ‘She is jogging, I think, to clear her mind. I am not sure whether it is you or me that disturbs her peace, but my money is on you, old friend.’

The entrance to the huge old house opened into a wide vestibule, with staircases left and right, and archways leading to the main rooms of the ground floor.

‘This was a Britisher’s monsoon retreat,’ Khaled announced, as we moved beyond the vestibule to a sitting room featuring walls of books, two writing desks, and several comfortable leather chairs. ‘It passed to a businessman, but when the national park was established here, he was forced to sell it to the city. A rich friend of mine, one of my students, has rented it from the city for some years, and he gave it to me, to use.’