I felt the cobra rising within me. A letter. I didn’t want it. I don’t like letters. Any dark past is a vampire, feeding on the blood of the living moment, and letters are the bats.
‘We began to read it,’ Tariq said, ‘not knowing that it was addressed to you. It was not until halfway through it that we realised it was his last letter to you. We stopped reading immediately. We did not finish the letter. We do not know how it ends. But we know that it begins with Sri Lanka.’
Sometimes the river of life takes you to the rocks. The letter, the sword, the decisions made at the Council meeting, Don’t mistake your usefulness for your value, the Cycle Killers, guns from Goa, Sri Lanka: streams of coincidence and consequence. And when you see the rocks coming, you’ve got two choices: stay in the boat, or jump.
Nazeer handed Tariq the silver envelope. Tariq tapped it against his open palm.
‘My uncle’s gifts,’ he said, even more softly, ‘were always given with conditions, and never accepted without –’
‘Consequences,’ I finished for him.
‘I was going to say submission. This house was a gift in Khaderbhai’s will, but it was given to me on the condition that I never leave it, even for a minute, until I reach the age of eighteen years.’
I didn’t hide my shock. I wasn’t sensitive to what he was going through, and becoming.
‘What?’
‘It is not so bad,’ Tariq said, setting his jaw against my indignation. ‘All of my tutors come here, to me. I am learning everything. English, science, Islamic studies, economics, and the fighting arts. And Nazeer is always with me, and all of the household servants.’
‘But you’re fourteen years old, Tariq. You’ve got four more years of this? Do you ever meet any other kids?’
‘Men in my family fight and lead at fifteen years old,’ Tariq declared, glaring at me. ‘And even at this age, I am already living my destiny. Can you say the same of your life?’
Young determination is the strongest energy we ever have, alone. I didn’t want to criticise his commitment: I just wanted to be sure that he was aware of alternatives.
‘Tariq,’ I sighed. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I will not simply follow in the footsteps of my uncle,’ he said slowly, as if I was the child, ‘I will become Khaderbhai, one day, and I will lead all of these men who were here today. Including you, Lin. I will be your leader. If you are still with us.’
I looked once more at Nazeer, who gazed back at me, a softly burning diamond of pride in his eyes. I began to walk away.
‘The letter!’ Tariq said quickly.
Suddenly angry, I spun round to face him again. I was about to speak, but Tariq raised the letter in his hand.
‘It begins with a mention of Sri Lanka,’ Tariq said, offering me the silver envelope. ‘I know that it was his wish. You gave your word to go there, isn’t it so?’
‘I did,’ I said, taking the letter from his slender fingers.
‘Our agents in Trincomalee tell us that the time will soon be right for you to fulfil your promise.’
‘When?’ I asked, holding the twin legacies, letter and sword.
‘Soon,’ Tariq said, glancing at Nazeer. ‘Abdullah will let you know. But be ready, at any time. It will be soon.’
The interview was over. A cold courtesy kept the boy in his seat, but I knew that he was anxious to leave: even more anxious, perhaps, for me to leave him.
I walked toward the door leading to the courtyard. Nazeer accompanied me. At the door, I looked back to see the tall boy still sitting in the emperor chair, his face supported by his hand. His thumb extended downwards against his dimpled cheek, and the fingers fanned out across his forehead. It was exactly the gesture I’d seen when Khaderbhai was lost in thought.
At the street door of the mansion, Nazeer retrieved a calico pouch, complete with a shoulder strap. The sword fitted neatly inside, concealed by the cloth, and could be worn across my back as I rode my bike.
Slipping the pouch over my shoulder, Nazeer adjusted the sword fussily until it hung to just the right aesthetic angle. He hugged me quickly, furtively and fiercely, crunching my ribs in the hoop of his arms.
He walked away without a word or a backward glance. His bowed legs waddled at his fastest pace, hurrying him back to the boy, the young man who was his master and his only love: Khaderbhai, come back to life, so that Nazeer might serve him again.
Watching him leave, I remembered another time when the mansion had been filled with plants and the music of falling water, and tame pigeons had followed Nazeer’s every step through the huge house. They loved him, those birds.
But there were no birds in the mansion, and the only sound I heard was a metal-to-metal stutter, like teeth chattering in a freezing wind: cartridges, being inserted into the magazine of a Kalashnikov, one brass burial chamber at a time.
Chapter Eight
Outside on the street early evening glowed on every face, as if the whole world was blushing to think what the night would bring. Abdullah was waiting for me, his bike parked beside mine. He gave a few rupees to the kids who’d stood guard over our bikes. They shouted their delight, and ran to the sweet shops on the corner to buy cigarettes.
Abdullah swung out beside me into the traffic. At a red light, I spoke for the first time.
‘I’m picking up Lisa, at the Mahesh. Wanna come?’
‘I’ll ride with you that far,’ he replied solemnly, ‘but I will not join you. I have some work.’
We rode in silence along the shopping boulevard of Mohammed Ali Road. The allure of the perfume bazaars gave way to the sugared scents of firni, rabri, and falooda sweet shops. The glittering splendour of bangle and bracelet shops surrendered to the gorgeous fractals of Persian carpets, displayed side to side for a city block.
As the long road ended in a thatch-work confusion of handcarts, near the vast Crawford Market complex, we took a short cut, riding the wrong way into streams of traffic, threading through the wide eye of another junction.
Back in the right flow of traffic again, we paused for the long signal at Metro theatre junction. A movie poster covered the first floor of the cinema. Bad Guy and Good Guy faces, drenched in green, yellow and purple, told their story of love and anguish from behind a thorny hedge of guns and swords.
Families jammed into cars and taxis stared up at the movie poster. A young boy in a car near to me waved, pointed at the poster, and made his hand into a gun, to fire at me. He pulled the trigger. I pretended that a bullet had struck my arm, and the boy laughed. His family laughed. People in other cars laughed.
The boy’s kindly faced Mother urged the boy to shoot me again. The boy pointed his finger-gun, aimed with a squinting eye, and fired. I did the-Bad-Guy-coming-to-a-bad-end, and sprawled out on the tank of my bike.
When I sat up again everyone in the cars clapped or waved or laughed.
I took a bow, and turned to see Abdullah’s ashen mortification.
We are Company men, I heard him thinking. Respect and fear. One or the other, and nothing else. Respect and fear.
Only the sea on the coast ride to the Mahesh hotel finally softened his stern expression. He rode slowly, one hand on the throttle, one hand on his hip. I rode up close beside him, resting my left hand on his shoulder.
When we shook hands goodbye, I asked one of the questions that had been on my mind throughout the ride.
‘Did you know about the sword?’
‘Everyone knows about it, Lin, my brother.’
Our hands parted, but he held my eyes.
‘Some of them,’ he said carefully, ‘they are jealous that Khaderbhai left the sword to you.’
‘Andrew.’
‘He is one. But he is not the only one.’
I was silent, my lips tight on the curse that was staining the i
nside of my mouth. Sanjay’s words, Don’t mistake your usefulness for your value, had forked through my heart like summer lightning, and a voice was calling me to go, to run, anywhere else, before it ended in bad blood. And then there was Sri Lanka.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Inshallah,’ I said, standing to park my bike.
‘Tomorrow, Inshallah,’ he replied, stepping his bike into gear and pulling away from the kerb.
Without looking back, he called out to me. ‘Allah hafiz!’ May Allah be your guardian!
‘Allah hafiz,’ I replied, to myself.
The Sikh security guards at the door of the Mahesh hotel looked with some interest at the sword-shaped parcel strapped to my back, but let me pass with a nod and a smile. They knew me well.
Passports, abandoned by guests who skipped out of the hotel without paying their bills, found their way to me through the security teams or desk managers at most of the hotels in the city.
It was a steady stream of books, as illegal passports were known, running to fifteen or more a month in the skip season. And they were the best kind of books: the kind that people who lose them don’t report.
Every security office in every five-star hotel in the world has a wall of pictures of people who skipped out on a hotel bill, some of them leaving their passports behind. Most people looked at that wall to identify criminals. For me, it was shopping.
In the lobby of the hotel, I scanned the open-plan coffee lounge and saw Lisa, still at a meeting with friends beside the wide, tall windows that looked at the sea.
I decided to wash some of the street dirt off my face and hands before greeting her, and made my way toward the men’s room. As I reached the door I heard a voice, speaking from behind me.
‘Is that a sword on your back, or are you just furious to see me?’
I turned to see Ranjit, the budding media tycoon, the handsome athlete and political activist: the man that Karla, my Karla, had married. He was smiling.
‘I’m always furious to see you, Ranjit. Goodbye.’
He smiled again. It looked like an honest, earnest smile. I didn’t look close enough to find out, because the man smiling at me was married to Karla.
‘Goodbye, Ranjit.’
‘What? No, wait!’ he said quickly. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘We just did. Goodbye, Ranjit.’
‘No, really!’ he said, dodging in front of me, his smile almost intact. ‘I’ve just finished a meeting, and I was on my way out, but I’m damn glad that I ran into you.’
‘Run into someone else, Ranjit.’
‘Please. Please. That’s . . . that’s not a word I use every day.’
‘What do you want?’
‘There’s . . . there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.’
I glanced around toward Lisa, sitting with her friends. She looked up and caught my eye. I nodded. She understood, and nodded back, before returning her attention back to her friends.
‘What’s on your mind?’ I asked.
A ripple of surprise scudded across the flawless landscape of his fine features.
‘If it’s a bad time –’
‘We don’t have a good time, Ranjit. Get to the point.’
‘Lin . . . I’m sure we could be friends, if we just –’
‘Don’t make this about you and me, Ranjit. There is no you and me. I’d know it, if there was.’
‘You speak as if you don’t like me,’ Ranjit said. ‘But you don’t know me at all.’
‘I don’t like you. And that’s just already. If I know you better, it’s sure to get worse.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why don’t you like me?’
‘You know, if you stand in the lobby stopping everyone who doesn’t like you, and asking them why, you better get a room, because you’ll be here all night.’
‘But, wait . . . it’s . . . I don’t understand.’
‘Your ambition is putting Karla at risk,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t like it. I don’t like you, for doing it. Is that clear enough?’
‘It’s Karla that I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said, studying my face.
‘What about Karla?’
‘I want to be sure she’s safe, that’s all.’
‘What do you mean, safe?’
His brow furrowed into a discomfited frown. He fatigue-sighed, allowing his head to fall forward for a moment.
‘I don’t even know how to start this . . . ’
I looked around, and then directed him to a space in the wide foyer, with two empty chairs. Pulling the sword from my shoulders, I sat facing him, the calico-wrapped weapon resting on my knees.
A waiter approached us immediately, but I smiled him away. Ranjit hung his head for a time, staring at the carpet, but then shrugged himself together.
‘You know, I’ve been pretty deep in the political stuff lately. Running some important campaigns. People have been getting at me, in any press that I don’t own. I suppose you’ve heard.’
‘I heard you’ve been buying vote banks,’ I said. ‘That’s making people nervous. Back to Karla.’
‘Have you . . . have you talked to Karla?’
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘Have you?’
‘We’re done, Ranjit.’
I began to stand, but he pressed me to stay.
‘Look, let me get this out. I’ve been running a strong press campaign against the Spear of Karma.’
‘A spear that’ll hit Karla, if you don’t stop provoking people into throwing it.’
‘That’s . . . that’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. You see . . . I know that you’re still in love with her.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said, standing to leave again, but he grasped at my wrist.
I looked at his hand.
‘That’s not advised.’
He pulled his hand away.
‘Please, wait. Please, just sit down, and hear what I’ve got to say.’
I sat down. My brow was all fault lines, and it was Ranjit’s fault.
‘I know you’re going to think I’m really out of line,’ he said quickly, ‘but I think you’d want to know, if Karla was in danger.’
‘You’re the threat to her, and you should back off. Soon.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Yes. So glad we had this talk.’
We stared at one another, across the space that hovers between predator and prey: hot, imminent and driven.
Karla. My first sight of her, on my first day in Bombay, years before, had put my heart like a hunting bird on her wrist.
She’d used me. She’d loved me, until I loved her. She’d recruited me to work for Khaderbhai. When the blood was washed from floors of love, and hate, and vengeance, and the wounds had healed to a braille of scars, she’d married the handsome, smiling millionaire staring into my eyes. Karla.
I glanced around at Lisa, beautiful and bright, in the company of her artist friends. My mouth tasted sour, and my heartbeat was rising. I hadn’t spoken to Karla for two years, but I felt like a traitor to Lisa, sitting there while Ranjit talked about Karla. I looked back to Ranjit. I wasn’t happy.
‘I can see it in you,’ he said. ‘You still love her.’
‘Do you want me to slap you, Ranjit? Because if that’s it, you’re mostly there.’
‘No, of course not. I’m sure you still love her,’ he said honestly and earnestly, it seemed, ‘because, you know, if I was you, I’d still love her, even if she left me to marry another man. There’s only one Karla. There’s only one crazy way for any man to love her. We both know that.’
The best thing about a business suit is that there’s always plenty to hang on to, if need be. I grabbed at his suit, and shirt, and tie.
&nb
sp; ‘Stop talking about Karla,’ I said. ‘Quit while you’re behind.’
He opened his mouth to shout, I think, but thought better of it. He was a powerful man, peering through a political window at more power, and couldn’t make a scene.
‘Please, please, I’m not trying to upset you,’ he pleaded. ‘I want you to help Karla. If something happens to me, will you promise –’
I let him go, and he pulled away quickly, sitting back in his chair and adjusting his suit.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘There was an attempt on my life last week,’ he said sorrowfully.
‘You’re an attempt on your own life, Ranjit, every time you open your mouth.’
‘There was a bomb in my car.’
‘Tell me about the bomb.’
‘My driver was away from the car for only a few minutes, buying paan. Luckily, he noticed a trailing wire when he returned, and he found the bomb. We called the police, and they took it away. It wasn’t a real bomb, but the note said that the next one would be. I managed to keep it from the press. I have a certain amount of influence, as you know.’
‘Change your driver.’
He laughed weakly.
‘Change your driver,’ I said again.
‘My driver?’
‘He’s your weak link. Odds are, he found the bomb there, because he put it there. He was paid. It was done to scare you.’
‘I . . . you’re joking, of course. He’s been with me for three years . . . ’
‘Good. Give him a nice severance package. But get rid of him.’
‘He’s such a loyal man . . . ’
‘Does Karla know about this?’
‘No. And I don’t want her to know.’
It was my turn to laugh.
‘Karla’s a big girl. And she’s smart. You shouldn’t be keeping this from her.’
‘Still . . . ’
‘You’re wasting your best resource, if you don’t tell her. She’s smarter than you are. She’s smarter than anybody.’
‘But –’
‘Tell her.’
‘Maybe. Maybe you’re right. But I just want to try to get a handle on this thing, you know? I think it’ll be okay. I have good security. But I worry for her. That’s my only real worry.’
The Mountain Shadow Page 9