Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Your students?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Oh, I see. Is this where you learn how not to contact your friends, when you come back from the dead?’

‘Very funny, Lin,’ he replied, in that flat tone he’d used when he’d described himself as fat. ‘But I think you’ll understand my need for discretion.’

‘Fuck discretion. You’re not dead, Khaled, and I want to know why I didn’t know that.’

‘Things are not as simple as you think, Lin. And anyway, what I teach people here has nothing to do with the outside world. I teach love. Specifically, I teach people how to love themselves. I think you’re not surprised that for some people, that’s not easy.’

We walked through the sitting room, opened the louvred French doors and entered a wide sunroom, running the whole width of the house. There were many wicker armchairs, with glass-topped tables between them.

Softly whirring overhead fans disturbed the slender leaves of potted palms. A wall of glass panels looked out into an English-style garden of rosebushes, and neatly clipped hedges.

Two pretty young Western girls dressed in tunics approached us, bowing to Khaled, their palms pressed together.

‘Please, take a seat,’ Khaled invited, pointing toward two of the wicker chairs. ‘What will you have, hot drinks, or cold?’

‘Cold,’ Abdullah answered.

‘The same.’

Khaled nodded at the girls. They backed up a few steps, before walking away out of sight. Khaled watched them leave.

‘Good help is so easy to find these days,’ he sighed contentedly, as he lowered himself into a chair.

Tarun made notes.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘What… happened ?’ Khaled repeated, mystified.

‘The last time I saw you there was a dead lunatic on the ground, and you walked into a snow storm, without a gun. Now you’re here. What happened?’

‘Oh,’ he smiled. ‘I see. We’re back to that.’

‘Yeah. We’re back to that.’

‘You know, Lin, you got harder, since I saw you last.’

‘Maybe I did, Khaled. Maybe I just like the truth, when I can get it.’

‘The truth,’ he mused.

He glanced up at Tarun, who was still making notes. The assistant stopped, caught Khaled’s eye, sighed, and put his notebook away.

‘Well,’ Khaled continued, ‘I walked from Afghanistan. And I walked. And I walked. It’s surprising, really, how far you can walk, when you don’t care if you live, or if you die. To be precise, when you don’t love yourself .’

‘You walked where , exactly?’

‘I walked to Pakistan.’

Tell me about Pakistan , a voice said in my head.

‘And after Pakistan?’

‘After Pakistan, I walked to India. Then I walked through India, to Varanasi. By the time I got there, word had spread about me. A lot of people were talking about the Silent Walking Baba , who never spoke a word to anyone. It took me a while to realise they were talking about me. I didn’t speak, because by then I actually couldn’t speak. Physically, I mean. I was quite sick, from malnutrition. Almost died from it. The hunger, for so many starving months, caused my hair to fall out, and many of my teeth. My mouth was swollen with ulcers. I couldn’t say a word, to save my life.’

He laughed softly, chuckling motes in a sunbeam of memory.

‘But people took my silence for wisdom, you see? Less really is more, sometimes. And in Varanasi, I met an Englishman, Lord Bob, who claimed me as his guru. As it happens, he was very rich. A lot of my students have been rich, in fact, which is funny, when you think about it.’

He paused, staring out into the English garden, a smile of wonderment pulling at the edges of his mouth.

‘Lord Bob… ’ I prompted.

‘Oh, yes. Lord Bob. He was such a kind and caring man, but he was in need of something. Desperately in need. He spent his whole life searching in vain for the one thing that would give his life meaning, and then he finally came to me for an answer.’

‘What was it?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Khaled replied. ‘I had no idea what he was searching for, frankly. Not a clue. He was stinking rich, after all. What could he possibly want? But I don’t think it mattered much to Lord Bob that I couldn’t help him, because he left me everything, when he died.’

The girls returned with two trays, and set them down on tables near us. There were drinks in long glasses, and several dishes of dried papaya, pineapple and mango, and three varieties of shelled nuts.

Bowing deeply to Khaled, their hands pressed together reverently, the girls backed away and then turned, gliding across the tiled veranda on bare feet.

I watched the girls out of sight, and turned to see Khaled, staring dreamily at the garden, and Abdullah staring fixedly at Khaled.

‘I was there, in Varanasi, for nearly two years,’ Khaled reflected. ‘And I miss it, sometimes.’

He looked around then, and picked up one of the glasses. He handed it to me, passed another to Abdullah, and took a long sip himself.

‘They were good years,’ he said. ‘I learned a lot from Lord Bob’s willingness to subjugate himself, and surrender to me.’

He chuckled. I glanced at Abdullah. Did he say subjugate? Did he say surrender? It was a strange moment, in an already strange hour. We sipped our drinks.

‘And he wasn’t the only one, of course,’ Khaled continued. ‘There were many others, even elderly sadhus, all of them too happy to kneel and touch my feet, even though I said nothing at all. And that’s when I understood the power that comes into us when another man, even if it’s only one other, bends his knee in devotion. I understood that men sell the power of that dream to women, every time they propose.’

He laughed. I stared at my drink, at the lines of moisture that zigzagged through the silver filigree design on the surface of the ruby-red glass. I was becoming increasingly uneasy. The Khaled who spoke so complacently about others kneeling before him wasn’t the friend I’d loved.

Khaled turned to Abdullah.

‘I think our brother, Lin, is rather surprised that while my English has improved, in the years with Lord Bob, my American sensibility has declined, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Every man is responsible for his own actions,’ Abdullah replied. ‘That law applies to you, and to those who choose to kneel before you, as it does to Lin, and to me.’

‘Well said, old friend!’ Khaled cried.

He placed his glass on the table, and lifted himself with some grunting effort from the chair.

‘Come! I want to show you something.’

We followed him back into the house and through to the staircases flanking the entrance vestibule. Khaled paused at the foot of the stairs for a moment, his hand resting on the turned wooden pommel.

‘I hope you liked the juice,’ he asked earnestly.

‘Sure.’

‘It’s the drop of maple syrup that makes the difference,’ he pressed.

There was a pause. I understood, at last, that he wanted a reply.

‘The juice was fine, Khaled,’ I said.

‘Good juice,’ Abdullah echoed.

‘I’m so glad,’ Khaled said flatly. ‘You’ve got no idea how long it took me to train the kitchen staff on the juices. I had to flog one of them with a spatula. And the drama I had with the desserts, don’t let me go there.’

‘You have my word,’ I said.

He took one step, but then turned quickly to speak to Tarun, who’d been following us.

‘You can wait here, Tarun,’ Khaled said. ‘In fact, take a break. Get yourself a biscuit.’

Crushed, Tarun ambled away. Khaled watched him leave, suspicion squinting in his eyes.

The old Khaled could’ve taken the steps three at a time, and beaten any man in Bombay to the top floor. The new Khaled paused twice on the first flight.