The Mountain Shadow (22 page)

‘I haven’t been here lately, Lisa, so I didn’t know. How much time have you been spending with Ranjit?’

‘He’s been damn helpful with the publicity for the shows. We’ve had lots more people coming through the doors since he got on board. But there’s absolutely nothing going on between us.’

‘O . . . kay. What?’

‘So, how often do you really think about Karla?’

‘Are we doing this
now
?’ I asked, turning over to face her.

She raised herself on an elbow, her head tilted to her shoulder.

‘I saw her yesterday,’ she said, watching me closely, her blue eyes innocent as flowers.

I frowned silence at her.

‘I ran into her at my dress shop. The one on Brady’s Lane. I thought it was a secret, my secret, and then I turned around and saw Karla, standing right beside me.’

‘What did she say?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, what did she say to you?’

‘That’s . . . kinda bizarre,’ she said, frowning at me.

‘Whaddaya mean, bizarre?’

‘You didn’t ask how she
looks
, or how she’s
feeling
 – you asked what she
said
.’

‘And?’

‘So . . . you haven’t seen her for almost two years, and the first thing you ask me about is what she
said
. I don’t know what’s more freaky, that you
said
that, or that I kinda understand it, because it’s about Karla.’

‘So . . . you
do
understand.’

‘Of course I do.’

‘So . . . it’s
not
bizarre.’

‘The bizarre part is what it tells me about you and her.’

‘What are we talking about, again?’

‘Karla. Do you want to know what she said, or not?’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘No.’

‘Of course you do. First, let me say she looked great. Really great. And she seems fine. We had a coffee at Madras Café, and I laughed myself silly. She’s on a thing about religion at the moment. She said – no, wait, let me get it right – oh yeah, she said
Religion is just a long competition to see who can design the silliest hat
. She’s so funny. It must be damn hard.’

‘Being funny?’

‘No, always being the smartest person in the room.’

‘You’re smart,’ I said, turning onto my back, and putting my hands behind my head. ‘You’re one of the smartest people I know.’

‘
Me?
’ she laughed.

‘Damn right.’

She kissed my chest, and then nestled in beside me.

‘I’ve offered Karla a place with me in the art studio,’ she declared, her feet wriggling in time to the words.

‘That’s not the best idea I’ve heard this week.’

‘You just said I was smart.’

‘I said you were smart,’ I teased her. ‘I didn’t say you were wise.’

She punched me in the side.

‘I’m serious,’ I laughed. ‘I . . . I don’t . . . I mean, I’m not sure I want Karla walking back into the apartment of my life. The rooms where she used to live are boarded up now. I’d kinda like to keep it that way, for a while longer.’

‘She’s a ghost in
my
mansion, too,’ she said wistfully.

‘Oh, I see. I’ve got an imaginary apartment, and you’ve got an imaginary mansion?’

‘Of course. Everybody’s got a mansion inside. Everyone except people with self-esteem issues, like you.’

‘I don’t have self-esteem issues. I’m a realist.’

She laughed. She laughed for quite a while: long enough to make me wonder what it was that I’d said.

‘Be serious,’ she said when she settled down. ‘That was the first time I’ve seen Karla in almost ten months, and I . . . I looked at her . . . and . . . I realised how much I love her. It’s a funny thing, don’t you think, to remember how much you love somebody?’

‘I’m just saying –’

‘I know,’ she murmured, leaning across to kiss me. ‘I know.’

‘What do you know?’

‘I know it’s not forever,’ she whispered, her face close, her lips still touching mine, and those blue eyes challenging the morning sky.

‘Every time you answer a question, Lisa, I get more confused.’

‘I don’t even
believe
in forever,’ she said, tossing eternity away with a flash of blonde curls. ‘I never did.’

‘Am I going to like what we’re talking about, Leese, when I know what it is?’

‘I’m kind of a
now
fanatic, if you know what I mean. Kind of a
now fundamentalist
, you could say.’

She began to kiss me, but she began speaking again, her lips bubbling the words into my mouth.

‘You’re never gonna tell me about that fight you had, are you?’

‘It wasn’t much of a fight. It wasn’t really a fight at
all
, if you wanna get technical.’

‘I
do
wanna get technical. What happened?’

‘Happened?’ I said, still kissing her.

She pulled herself away from me, and sat up on the bed, her legs crossed.

‘You’ve gotta stop doing this,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ I sighed, sitting up and resting my back against a stack of pillows. ‘Let’s have it.’

‘The Company,’ she said flatly. ‘The passport factory. The Sanjay Company.’

‘Come on, Lisa. We’ve been through this before.’

‘Not for a while.’

‘Seems like yesterday to me. Lisa –’

‘You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to be that.’

‘Yes, I do, for a little while longer.’

‘No, you don’t.’

‘Sure. And I’ll make money, as a fugitive, with a price on my head, working in a bank.’

‘We don’t live big. We’ll be okay on what I’ll make. The art market is starting to take off here.’

‘I was doing this before we got together –’

‘I know, I know –’

‘And you accepted it. You –’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling,’ she said bluntly.

I smiled, and put the palm of my hand against her face.

‘I can’t shake it off,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got this really bad feeling.’

I took her hands in mine. Our feet were touching, and her toes closed around mine, grasping with surprising force. Dawn began to burn gaps in the wooden shutters.

‘We’ve been through this before,’ I repeated slowly. ‘The government of my country put a price on my head. And if they don’t kill me, trying to catch me, they’ll take me back to the same prison I escaped from, and they’ll chain me to the same wall, and go to work on me. I’m not going back, Lisa. I’m safe here, for now. That’s something. For me, if not for you.’

‘I’m not saying give yourself up. I’m saying don’t give up on yourself.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You could write.’

‘I
do
write, every day.’

‘I know, but we could really
focus
on it, you know?’

‘We?’ I laughed.

I wasn’t mocking her: it was simply the first time she’d mentioned my writing, and we’d lived together for almost two years.

‘Forget it,’ she said.

She was silent again. Her eyes drifted slowly downwards, and her toes released their fierce grip on mine. I brushed a stray curl from her eye, and ran my hand through the sea-foam of her blonde hair.

‘I owe them a promise,’ I said flatly.

‘You don’t,’ she said, but there was no force in her protest, as she lifted her eyes to meet mine. ‘You don’t owe them anything.’

‘Yes, I owe them. Everyone who knows them, owes them. That’s how it works. That’s why I don’t let you meet any of them.’

‘You’re free, Lin. You climbed the wall, and you don’t even know you’re free.’

I stared back into her eyes, a sky-reflected lake. The phone rang.

‘I’m free enough to let that phone ring,’ I said. ‘Are you?’

‘You never answer the phone,’ she snapped. ‘That doesn’t count.’

She got out of bed. Staring at me, she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. I watched sadness settle like a shawl across her shoulders as she handed me the phone.

It was one of Sanjay’s lieutenants, passing on a message.

‘I’ll get on it,’ I said. ‘Yeah. What? I told you. I’ll get on it. Twenty minutes.’

I hung up the phone, went back to the bed, and knelt beside her.

‘One of my men has been arrested. He’s at the Colaba lock-up. I gotta bribe him out.’

‘He’s not one of
your
men,’ she said, pushing me away. ‘And you’re not their man.’

‘I’m sorry, Lisa.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you did, or what you were. It doesn’t even matter what you are. It’s what you try to be that counts.’

I smiled.

‘It’s not that easy. We’re all what we were.’

‘No we’re not. We’re what we want ourselves to be. Don’t you get that yet?’

‘I’m
not free
, Lisa.’

She kissed me, but the summer wind had passed, and clouds fell across a grey field of flowers in her eyes.

‘I’ll start the shower for you,’ she said, jumping from the bed and running toward the bathroom.

‘Look, this is no big deal, getting this guy outta the lock-up,’ I said, passing her on my way into the bathroom.

‘I know,’ she said flatly.

‘You still want to meet up? Later today?’

‘Of course.’

I stepped into the bathroom and stood under the cold shower.

‘Are you gonna tell me what it’s all about?’ I called out to her. ‘Or is it still a big secret?’

‘It’s not a secret, it’s a
surprise
,’ she said softly, standing in the doorway.

‘Fair enough,’ I laughed. ‘Where do you want me for this surprise, and when?’

‘Be outside the Mahesh, on Nariman Point, at five thirty. You’re always late, so make four thirty the time in your head, and you’ll be on time at five thirty.’

‘Got it.’

‘You’ll be there, right?’

‘Don’t worry. It’s all under control.’

‘No,’ she said, her smile falling like rain from leaves. ‘It’s not. Nothing is under control.’

She was right, of course. I didn’t understand it then, as I walked beneath the high arch of the Colaba police station, but I could still see her sorrowful smile, falling like snow into a river.

I climbed the few steps leading to the wooden veranda that covered the side and rear of the administration building. The cop on duty outside the sergeant’s office knew me. He wagged his head, smiling, as he allowed me to pass. He was glad to see me. I was a good payer.

I gave a mock salute to Lightning Dilip, the daytime duty sergeant. His bloated drinker’s face was swollen with smothered outrage: he was on a double shift of bad temper. Not a good start.

Lightning Dilip was a sadist. I knew that, because I’d been his prisoner, a few years before. He’d beaten me then, feeding his sad hunger with my helplessness. And he wanted to do it again as he stared at the bruises on my face, his lips tremors of anticipation.

But things had changed in my world, if not in his. I worked for the Sanjay Company, and the group poured a lot of liquid assets into the police station. It was too much money to risk on his defective desires.

Allowing himself the semblance of a smile, he tilted his head in a little upward nod:
What’s up?

‘Is the boss in?’ I asked.

The smile showed teeth. Dilip knew that if I dealt with his boss, the sub-inspector, the trickle-down of any bribe I’d pay would barely dry his sweaty palm.

‘The sub-inspector is a very busy man. Is there something that
I
can do for you?’

‘Well . . . ’ I replied, glancing around at the cops in the office.

They were doing an unconvincing job of pretending not to listen. To be fair to them, pretending not to listen isn’t something we get a lot of practice at in India.

‘Santosh! Get us some chai!’ Dilip grunted in Marathi. ‘Make fresh, yaar! You lot! Go and check the under barrack!’

The under barrack was a ground-floor facility at the rear of the police compound. It was used to house violent prisoners, and prisoners who violently resisted being tortured. The young cops looked at one another, and then one of them spoke.