Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

Sri Lanka, cargo ship, instructions: I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

‘Sri Lanka?’

‘You gave your word, that you would do it.’

‘I did, and I regret it.’

‘After this mission, you will be free. It is a clean way out. I think it is wise for you to agree. I will not be able to remove Sanjay for some time, and this way, you will be safe.’

‘Okay. Okay. Okay, Inshallah . Let’s ride.’

‘Wait,’ he said, leaning in close. ‘In the next weeks of your life, my brother, you must walk and talk very carefully.’

‘You know me,’ I smiled.

‘I do know you,’ he said solemnly. ‘And I know the demon inside you.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘There are demons in all of us. Some of them do not mean us any harm. They just want to live inside us. Some of them want more. They want to eat the souls that hold them.’

‘You know, Abdullah, I’m not really same-page with you on the demon thing.’

He looked at me for a while, wind-worried leaves drifting in his amber eyes.

‘Hey, it’s okay -’ I began, but he cut me off.

‘I have heard you say that there are no bad or good men. That the deeds we do are good and bad, not the people who do them.’

‘It was Khaderbhai who said that,’ I replied, looking away.

‘Because he heard it from Idriss,’ Abdullah said quickly, and I looked back at him. ‘Every wise thing Khaderbhai said, was first said by Idriss. But in this, I do not agree with Idriss or Khaderbhai or you. There are bad men in this world, Shantaram brother. And in the end, there is only one way to deal with them.’

He started his bike and rode away slowly, knowing I’d catch him.

Karla joined me, and I kicked the bike to life. She got up behind me. That perfume: cinnamon, and pure oud . For a satin second her hair was against my neck.

The engine rumbled, warming. She leaned close, one arm over my right shoulder, and one under my left. Her word-tattoo hand was on my chest.

I heard the music, inside. Home. Home is the heart you’re born to love.

We rode gentle curves and slopes, as the shadow of the mountain that brought us together vanished in the praying hands of trees. I had to brake hard on the dark road to avoid a fallen branch. She fell into me softly and held me. I didn’t know where her body ended, and I began. I didn’t want to know.

I pulled away at speed to make the steep climb over the next hill. She braced herself, her hands hard on me. At exactly the right moment her palms and fingers slid across my ribs to find my heart, and held me as we crested the last dome of trees.

When we reached the main road I swung shakily, love-clumsy, into fast clever traffic. A prodigal wind kissed her hair around my neck. And she clove to me, her starfish hand on my chest, as we rode through splashes of light streamed from desire, dying on billboards along the stingray tail highway home.

‘That was a long goodbye,’ Karla said, watching Abdullah ride away from the wide space in front of the Mahesh hotel.

‘It was a long ride,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but, Abdullah, emotional. That’s not something you see every day.’

‘What can I tell you, Karla?’

‘What you can tell me is what you’re not telling me.’

Khaled’s money will buy many guns , Abdullah had whispered to me in goodbye. It wasn’t especially emotional.

‘It’s complicated,’ I said.

‘Still not telling me.’

She was still sitting behind me on the bike. In one hand she held the bag that Abdullah had carried for her on his bike. The other hand was on my hip. For once, I was glad to be on the other hand.

‘You know,’ I said happily, ‘I like this.’

‘Still not telling me.’

‘But I really do like this.’

‘What?’

‘Sitting here, on the bike, and having a conversation with you like this.’

‘We’re not having a conversation.’

‘Technically, I think we are.’

‘ Not telling me something doesn’t qualify as any kind of conversation, technically or otherwise.’

‘Maybe it’s a reverse conversation.’

‘There’s a forward step.’

There was a little pause. The space around us was clear and free. The storm had passed, and fresh monsoon winds cooled the coast behind us.

‘You know, it really is damn nice, talking to you like this, I gotta say.’

‘Since you gotta say it, does the bike have to be a part of the conversation?’

I turned the bike off.

‘So, what is it about this you like so much?’ she asked. ‘That we’re sitting so close, or that I can’t see your face?’

‘It’s because I can’t see your face. And… because we’re sitting so close.’

‘I thought so. Hey, wait a minute. My face is the problem?’

‘Your eyes, actually,’ I said, watching people, cars and horse-drawn carriages passing back and forth in front of the hotel.

‘My eyes, huh?’

I felt her voice everywhere that her body touched mine.

‘If I can’t see your eyes, it’s like we’re playing chess, and you just lost your queen.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘And I’m powerless and defenceless?’

‘Not defenceless. But there’s definitely some lessness here.’

‘Lessness?’

‘The opposite of moreness.’

‘And that turns you on?’

‘Kinda.’

‘Because you like lessness in a woman?’

‘Of course not. It’s because looking at you is like we’re playing chess, and I’ve got one queen, and you’ve got four queens, eight queens, sixteen queens -’

‘I’ve got sixteen queens in the game?’

‘Oh yeah. All green. Sixteen green queens. And I can’t see any of them right now, in this bike-talk. And I love it. It’s liberating.’

There was a pause. It didn’t last long.

‘ This is the quality of your motorcycle conversation?’

‘It’s just a fact. A recently discovered fact, in fact. For now, sitting here like this, all your queens are locked in a box, Karla, and I’m loving it.’

‘You’re messed up, you know that?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘My eyes are nothing,’ she said after a while, some puzzle in her voice.

‘Well, your eyes, and the heart behind them, are everything to me.’

She thought about it, maybe.

‘No, my will is everything.’

She repeated the last word, as if pushing it from her body.

‘Everything.’

‘I’m with you and Idriss on will, but it’s the direction it takes that interests me.’

She rested her forearms on my back.

‘When you were in prison,’ she asked slowly, ‘did you ever lose your will?’

‘Does getting chained to a wall and kicked unconscious count?’

‘Maybe. But when it happened, did you ever lose your will? Did they ever take your will from you?’

I thought about it for a while. Once again, I wasn’t sure where she was leading the conversation, or whether I’d like it when we got there. But her big question had a small answer.

‘Yeah. You could say that. For a while.’

‘I had my will taken from me, too,’ she said. ‘I’d rather kill, than let that happen again. I killed the man who did it to stop it from happening to some other me, somewhere else. I’ll never let anyone take my will again.’

The rebel yell: you’ll never take me alive.

‘I love you, Karla.’

She was silent, even her breathing soundless.

‘Did that freak you out?’ I asked after a while, staring ahead at the moving street.

‘Of course not. Honesty is my only addiction.’

She moved away from me, resting on her hands, and was silent again.