The Mountain Shadow (13 page)

‘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 inside 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.

‘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.’

‘I told you before, back off,’ I said. ‘Lay off the politics, for a while. They say the fish starts to stink at the head. I say if it stinks anywhere, you’ve been there too long.’

‘I won’t stop, Lin. These guys, these fanatics, that’s how they win. They scare everybody into silence.’

‘You’re gonna teach me politics now?’

He smiled: the first smile of his that I almost liked, because it was sewn at the edges by something kinder than bright victory.

‘I . . . I think we’re on the edge of a truly big change in the way we think, and act, and maybe even the way we
dream
in this country. If better minds win, if India becomes a truly modern, secular democracy, with rights and freedoms for all, the next century will be the Indian century, and we’ll lead the world.’

He looked into my eyes and saw the scepticism. He was right about India’s future, everyone in Bombay knew it and felt it in those years, but what he’d given me was a speech, and one he’d delivered before.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘every guy on every side makes the same speech.’

He opened his mouth to protest, but I stopped him with a raised palm.

‘I don’t do politics, but I know hatred when I see it, and I know that poking hatred with a stick will get you bit.’

‘I’m glad you understand,’ he sighed, letting his shoulders sag.

‘I’m not the one who has to understand.’

His back straightened again.

‘I’m not
afraid
of them, you know?’

‘It was a bomb, Ranjit. Of course you’re afraid. I’m afraid just talking to you. I’ll prefer it when you’re far away.’

‘If I knew you’d be there for her, with your . . . your
friends
, I’d be able to face this situation with a quiet heart.’

I frowned at him, wondering if he understood all the ironies that were packed into his request. I decided to throw one back.

‘Couple weeks back, your afternoon newspaper carried a pretty rough article about the Bombay mafia. One of those
friends
of mine was mentioned by name. The article called for him to be arrested, or banned from the city. And he’s a man who hasn’t been charged with anything. What happened to innocent before guilty? What happened to journalism?’