The Mountain Shadow (12 page)

‘I never expected to be mentioned.’

‘You did not expect to be remembered?’ he insisted, inclining his head to emphasise his doubt.

It was exactly the same gesture that Khaderbhai had used when he was teasing me in philosophical discussions.

‘Even though you were so close to him? Even though he acknowledged you, more than once, as a favourite? Even though you, and Nazeer, were with him in the mission that cost him his life?’

‘Your English is getting damn good,’ I observed, trying to change the direction of the conversation. ‘This new tutor’s doing a great job.’

‘I like her,’ Tariq replied, but then his eyes flickered nervously, and he amended his hasty reply. ‘I mean, I
respect
my teacher. She is an excellent tutor. Rather better, I might say, than you were yourself, Lin.’

There was a little pause. I put the palms of my hands on my knees, signalling that I was ready to leave.

‘Well –’

‘Wait!’ he said quickly.

I frowned, looking hard at the boy, but relented when I saw the pleading crouched in his eyes. I sat back once more, and crossed my arms.

‘This . . . this week,’ he began again, ‘we discovered some new papers of my uncle. Those papers had been lost in his copy of the Koran. Or not
lost
, but simply not found, until this week. My uncle placed them there, just before he went to Afghanistan.’

The boy paused, and I glanced back at the brawny bodyguard, my friend Nazeer.

‘He left you a gift,’ Tariq said suddenly. ‘It is a sword. His own sword, that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and that twice has been used in battle against the British.’

‘There must be some mistake.’

‘The papers are quite specific,’ Tariq said stiffly. ‘In the event of his death, the sword was to go to you. Not as a bequest, but as a gift, from my hands, directly to yours. You will honour me now, by accepting it.’

Nazeer brought the sword. He unwrapped layers of silk cloth protection, and presented the sword to me in his upturned palms.

The long sword was in a wide silver scabbard, chiselled to show a flight of hawks in relief. The apical portion of the scabbard showed an inscription from the Koran. The hilt was made of lapis, inlaid with turquoise to cover the fixing rivets. A hand guard of beaten silver swept in a graceful curve from the pommel to the cross guard.

‘It’s a mistake,’ I repeated, staring at the heirloom weapon. ‘It should be yours. It
must
be yours.’

The boy smiled, grateful and wistful in equal measure.

‘You are quite right, it should be mine,’ he said. ‘But the papers, written in Khaderbhai’s own hand, are very specific. The sword is yours, Lin. And don’t think to refuse it. I know your heart. If you try to give it back to me, I will be offended.’

‘There’s another consideration,’ I said, still staring at the sword. ‘You know that I escaped from prison in my country. I could be arrested and sent back there at any time. If that happens, the sword could be lost.’

‘You will never have trouble with the police in Bombay,’ Tariq insisted. ‘You are with us. No harm can come to you here. And if you leave the city for some long time, you can give the sword to Nazeer, who will protect it until you return.’

He nodded to Nazeer, who leaned in closer, urging me to take the weapon from his hands. I looked into his eyes. Nazeer’s mouth tightened in a willow-droop smile.

‘Take the sword,’ he said in Urdu. ‘And draw the sword.’

The sword was lighter than I’d expected it to be. I let it rest on my knees for a time.

In that silent minute in the neglected mansion I hesitated, thinking that if I drew the sword from its scabbard, memories would bleed out from the sheath of forgetfulness, where some of the time, enough of the time, they were hidden. But tradition demanded that I draw the sword, as a sign of accepting it.

I drew the blade into the light and stood, holding the naked sword at my side, the point of the blade only a finger’s breadth from the marble floor. And it was true. I felt it: the power in a thing to swell a tide of memory.

I sheathed the sword again, and faced Tariq. The boy indicated the chair beside him with a nod of his head. I sat once more, the sword balanced across my knees.

‘The text on the sword,’ I said. ‘I can’t read the Arabic.’

‘
Inna Lillahi wa inna
 –’ Tariq began in the poetry of the Koran.

‘– 
ilayhi raji’un
,’ I finished for him.

I knew the quote.
We belong to God, and unto God do we return.
Every Muslim gangster said it on the way into battle. We all said it, even if we weren’t Muslim, just in case.

The fact that I couldn’t even read the Arabic inscription on the ancestor-sword Khaderbhai had left to me was a bitter pinch on Tariq’s face. I sympathised with him: I agreed with him, in fact, that I didn’t deserve the sword, and couldn’t know the blood significance that the heirloom had for Tariq.

‘There was a letter among those papers we found in the Holy Book,’ he said, controlling every breath and word. ‘It was a letter to you.’

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

O
UTSIDE 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.