The Mountain Shadow (134 page)

‘I like bike-talk,’ she said. ‘Even when we’re side by side.’

‘So do I.’

‘You wanna know who Kavita Singh’s new silent partner is?’ she asked softly.

‘Will it scare me?’

‘Probably,’ she replied.

‘Good. Tell me.’

‘Madame Zhou,’ Karla said.

‘How did
that
happen?’

‘Madame Zhou wanted to blackmail her former clients, and make a comeback as a power broker in Bombay. Fate, with a little help, brought her to Kavita. Zhou has a book, with a record of every customer she ever had, and every sexual preference. I’d like to read it, actually, when they’re done with it.’

‘Why did Zhou come to Kavita for help?’

‘I put the idea in her head.’

‘How?’

‘You want all the answers, don’t you?’

‘I want all the everything, when it comes to you,’ I laughed.

‘I knew about the book, and I knew she was weakened, without the Palace, but still ambitious. I also knew the name of her most loyal patron. He’s a businessman, and I bought his business. In exchange, he suggested that the ideal person to broker the blackmail ring was Kavita Singh. That’s when Madame Zhou started getting interested in Kavita.’

‘And when the twins were killed, she went to Kavita for help.’

‘Just as I’d hoped she would. Vices live in habits, and habits make people predictable.’

‘What does Kavita get out of it?’

‘Apart from the sex?’

‘Please, Karla, don’t –’

‘I’m kidding. I told Kavita, six weeks ago, that it was Madame Zhou who killed her boyfriend. Her fiancée, actually. He objected to Madame Zhou’s bribery of officials, in his area. He was getting a following. She killed him for it.’

‘How did
you
know who did it?’

‘Do you really wanna know?’

‘Well, I . . . ’

‘It was Lisa.’

‘Okay, Lisa? How did
she
know?’

‘She was working for Madame Zhou at the time, at the Palace of Happy. It was before I got her out of there.’

‘And burned the place down.’

‘And burned the place down. Lisa couldn’t tell Kavita what she knew, so she told me.’

‘Why couldn’t Lisa tell Kavita?’

‘You know how Lisa was. She couldn’t talk to anyone she was having sex with.’

‘I’m beginning to think you knew her better than I did.’

‘No,’ she said, smiling softly. ‘But we did have an understanding about you.’

‘She said something to me about that. How she met you at Kayani’s, and talked about us.’

She laughed gently.

‘You really wanna know what happened?’

‘Again, with the really wanna know?’ I smiled.

‘I kept tabs on you, from the moment you walked away from me. At first, I was happy for you, because you seemed to be happy with Lisa. But I knew Lisa, and I knew she’d mess it up.’

‘Wait a minute. You were checking on me, for two years?’

‘Of course. I love you.’

So clear, so light: trust in a human eye.

‘How does this . . . ’ I began, recollecting myself, ‘connect to your little understanding with Lisa?’

She smiled, sadly.

‘I heard that Lisa was back to her wicked ways, and was running around on you, a lot, and that you didn’t know about it.’

‘I didn’t ask about it.’

‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But everyone was talking about it. Everyone except you.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter.’

‘It wasn’t right, because you’re better than that, and you deserve better than that. So, I walked up behind her one day, at her favourite dress shop, and tapped her on the shoulder.’

‘And what did you say to her?’

‘I told her to tell you exactly what she was doing, and let you decide if you wanted to stay, or to stop slutting around.’

‘Slutting around? That’s pretty harsh.’

‘Harsh? There wasn’t a man or a woman safe at that art gallery, including the customers. I could have cared less, except that she was doing it to you.’

‘And you made some kind of agreement with her?’

‘Not then. I gave her a chance. I loved her. You know how easy it was to love her, when you were looking at her. But she didn’t change. So I sat down with her at Kayani’s and told her that I love you, and I didn’t want her to hurt you any more.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She agreed to let you go. She wasn’t in love with you, but she was deep in like with you. She said she wanted to do it a piece at a time, and not just disappear in a cold break.’

‘You broke us up, Lisa and me?’ I asked, disturbed by a gust of truth. ‘Is that what happened?’

‘Not exactly,’ she sighed. ‘I can see her face, when I found her, on the bed. I remember what I said to her. If you don’t tell the truth, and you keep on hurting him, I’ll stop you.’

‘And you meant it? Even though you loved her?’

‘Every dinner you went to with Lisa in that last year,’ she said quietly, ‘you were dining with her lovers, husband and wife both, sometimes, and you were the only one at the table who didn’t know it. I’m sorry.’

‘She was out a lot, and I never asked her. I was away a lot, and I couldn’t tell her where I’d been, or what I’d been smuggling. She was in trouble, and I didn’t realise it.’

‘She wasn’t in trouble, she
was
trouble. When she agreed to stop messing with you that day at Kayani’s, she made a pass at me.’

‘She did?’ I laughed.

‘Hell, yeah. She was Lisa. Beautiful, crazy and popular.’

‘That she was.’

‘You know, at first I thought you were naïve. But you’re not. You’re trusting, and I love that about you. I love being trusted. Trust is the soul’s drug of choice. It meant so much to me that you didn’t give up on me. It meant more to me that we did it apart on trust, than if we’d done it together. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I think I do. But we’re in it together from now on, Karla.’

‘In it together from now on,’ she repeated, leaning against me.

‘You really watched out for me, all that time?’

‘I did. And you never left the city, as you said you might.’

‘I couldn’t. Not while you were still here.’

In front of us people were laughing and joking on the footpath outside Love & Faith. I scanned the street for threats, taking in every pickpocket, drug dealer and racketeer working the edges of the herd. It was okay: illicitly quiet.

‘You never told anyone what Lisa said, that Madame Zhou ordered the killing?’

‘I kept the secret to myself, until the time was right. Now Kavita knows, and she’ll keep Madame Zhou close, until she has the book. Then she’ll introduce Madame Zhou to her little friend, karma.’

Madame Zhou and Kavita?
It seemed to me like a double-headed coin, fixed to hurt someone no matter how it landed.

‘Let me get this straight: Madame Zhou doesn’t know that Kavita is the fiancée of a guy she killed, what, four years ago?’

‘That’s right. Kavita Singh isn’t her real name. She was in London, freelancing, when her boyfriend was killed. She came back, used a byline name, and worked for Ranjit. She always hoped to find out what happened to her boyfriend one day, working as a journalist. I waited until Kavita was strong enough to confront and defeat Madame Zhou, and get away with it. I built her up, and gave her power. And then, the day she was waiting for came knocking, and I told her.’

‘So, Kavita’s watching Madame Zhou, who’s using her to shake down people in the book to get back the power she lost, and when Kavita gets the book, she’ll get rid of Madame Zhou?’

‘That’s it. Chess, played by dangerous women.’

‘How long till Kavita gets that book?’

‘Not long.’

‘Will Kavita use the book, once she gets it?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Karla laughed. ‘Making ocean-going vessels of change.’

‘I don’t know which one of them is scarier, Kavita or Madame Zhou.’

‘I told you that you misjudged Kavita,’ she said.

‘I don’t judge anyone. I want a world without stones, or people to throw them at.’

‘I know that,’ she laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Something Didier said, about you.’

‘What?’

‘Lin has a good heart, which is inexcusable.’

‘Thank you, I think.’

‘You wanna know who’s got the third office, downstairs?’

‘This is certainly a night for revelations. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘You wanna know who’s behind door number three, or don’t ya?’

‘Of course I do. I wanna see the
tunnel
, which I still haven’t seen.’

‘You won’t sign the non-disclosure agreement.’

‘Every time you sign a legal document, Fate takes a day off.’

‘It’s Johnny Cigar,’ she said.

‘In room number three?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When will you stop stealing my characters? You’ve got half a novel at the Amritsar, and I haven’t even written it yet.’

‘Johnny’s starting a real estate business,’ she said, ignoring me adorably. ‘He’s specialising in slum relocation.’

‘Here comes the neighbourhood.’

‘I financed him,’ she said. ‘With the last of Ranjit’s baptism money.’

I thought for a while about the multiplying ménage at the Amritsar hotel.

‘Even with Karlesha back,’ I said, ‘Oleg’s not leaving, is he?’

‘I hope not,’ she smiled. ‘And so do you. You like that guy.’

‘I do like him. And I’d like him better one degree less chirpy.’

‘Is Naveen coming tonight?’

‘He’s working on a case, for Diva. One way or another, that girl manages to keep Naveen busy, and close.’

‘You think they’ll get together?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, trying not to hope for something I wasn’t sure they wanted. ‘But I know Naveen will never give up on Diva. No matter what he says, he’s crazy about her. And if you put an Indian and an Irishman together, like him, you get a guy who can’t give up on love.’

Customers of Love & Faith gathered on the footpath, holding up T-shirts, and occasionally exchanging them.

‘What’s that about?’

‘Remember the T-shirt version of what Idriss was saying? The one that we gave Vinson?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Vinson and Rannveig used Randall’s notes, from what Idriss said, and they put his quotes on T-shirts. They’re giving them away as opening-night gifts.’

A young man, not far from us, was holding a T-shirt up to read it. I read it with him, over his shoulder.

A heart

filled with greed, pride or hateful feelings

is not free.

When I heard Idriss say it, on the mountain, I agreed with it, and I was glad to see it preserved and living, somehow, in the world, even just on a T-shirt. And I also had to admit that I’d found shares of greed and pride inside myself, and too often.

But I wasn’t alone any more. As Rannveig said, I’d reconnected.

‘What do you think?’ Karla asked me, watching people swap quotations from Idriss on their free T-shirts.

‘Teachers, like writers, never die while people still quote them.’

‘I love you, Shantaram,’ she said, cuddling in beside me.

I looked at the happy, laughing group, crammed into the narrow coffee shop. The people we’d lost, in our Island City years, would fill the same space.

Too many, too many dead who were still alive, whenever I thought of them. And almost all of them were lives that humility or generosity would’ve saved. Vikram, Nazeer, Tariq, Sanjay, Vishnu, and all the other names chanted at me, always ending in Abdullah, my brother, Abdullah, my brother.

Karla relaxed against me, her foot tapping to the music coming from Love & Faith. I tipped her face to the light until she was the light, and kissed her, and we were one.

Truth is the freedom of the soul. We’re very young, in this young universe, and we often fail, and dishonour ourselves, even if only in the caves of the mind. We fight, when we should dance. We compete, cheat and punish innocent nature.

But that isn’t what we are, it’s simply what we do in the world that we made for ourselves, and we can freely change what we do, and the world we made, every second that we live.

In all the things that really matter, we are one. Love and faith, trust and empathy, family and friendship, sunsets and songs of awe: in every wish born in our humanity we are one. Our humankind, at this moment in our destiny, is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in the child is the wonder in us, and there’s no limit to the good we can do when human hearts connect. It’s the truth of us. It’s the story of us. It’s the meaning of the word God: we are one. We are one. We are one.