The Mountain Shadow (49 page)

He took one step, but then turned quickly to speak to Tarun, who’d been following us.

‘You can wait here, Tarun,’ Khaled said. ‘In fact, take a break. Get yourself a biscuit.’

Crushed, Tarun ambled away. Khaled watched him leave, suspicion squinting in his eyes.

The old Khaled could’ve taken the steps three at a time, and beaten any man in Bombay to the top floor. The new Khaled paused twice on the first flight.

‘This floor,’ he puffed, as we reached the first floor, ‘has all of our main meditation and yoga halls.’

‘Do a lot of yoga, then?’ I asked, channelling the impish spirit of Gemini George for a moment.

‘No, no!’ Khaled replied seriously. ‘I’m much too fat and unfit for that. I was always a boxing and karate man, anyway. You remember that, Lin.’

I remembered. I remembered when Khaled could fight any man in the city but Abdullah into the ground, and still have energy to spare.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But yoga is very popular, with my people. They’re at it all the time. They’d do it all night, if I let them. I practically have to hose them down to make them stop.’

Through the nearest door in the corridor, we could see a class of a dozen people, sitting on mats. Flute music came from speakers fixed to the walls.

Regaining his breath, Khaled led us to the second floor.

The corridor at that level showed many closed doors, running the length of the building.

‘Dormitories,’ Khaled wheezed. ‘And single rooms.’

He gently eased open the door to the nearest room. We saw several girls, sleeping on single beds under tent-pole mosquito nets. The girls were naked.

‘My most devoted students,’ Khaled said, in that same bewilderingly flat tone.

‘What the fuck, Khaled?’ I snapped, but he put his finger to his lips, silencing me.

‘Please, Lin, be quiet! We won’t get a minute’s peace, if you wake them up.’

‘Okay, bye, Khaled,’ I said, leaving.

‘What are you doing?’ Khaled asked, a puzzle stamped on his forehead.

‘Well, I’m gonna keep on walking until I’m not here. That’s what goodbye means.’

‘No, Lin, what’s the matter?’ he asked, pulling the door closed gently.

‘The matter?’ I said, stopping at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s that in there, a harem? Have you gone nuts, Khaled? Who do you think you are?’

‘Everyone here is free to leave, Lin,’ he said flatly, his frown darkening at the edges. ‘Including you.’

‘What a coincidence,’ I sighed, turning to go. ‘I was just leaving.’

‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ he said, rushing forward and putting a hand on my shoulder to stop me. ‘There’s something you have to see! Something I must show you! It’s a secret. A secret I want to share with you.’

‘I’ve had enough secrets for one day, Khaled. Call me, when you come down off the mountain.’

‘But Abdullah hasn’t seen the secret yet. You can’t deprive
him
, as well, can you? That would be cruel. Abdullah, wouldn’t you like to know the secret?’

‘I
would
, Khaled,’ Abdullah replied, all fascinated innocence.

‘Then, tell Lin. Convince him to stay. Whatever the case, I’m going up to see the secret, and you’re welcome to come along, if you want, my brothers.’

He released his grip on my shoulder, braced himself with a deep breath for the climb to the third floor, and then trudged up the stairs.

I held Abdullah back.

‘What are we doin’ here, Abdullah?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A room full of naked girls? What’s the matter with him? There’s plenty of girls. The world’s full of girls. Having your own roomful of girls is what gives creepy a bad name. Come on, brother. Let’s go.’

‘But, Lin,’ Abdullah whispered. ‘What about the secret?’

‘Are you kidding?’

‘It is a secret. A real secret.’

‘I don’t like the secret I heard already, Abdullah.’

‘How can you
not
want to know?’

‘Let’s just say I’ve got psychic asthma, and right now, I need fresh air. It’s medicinal. Let’s go.’

‘Please stay with me, Lin, just until the secret is unveiled.’

I sighed.

‘Are you guys coming?’ Khaled called out from his resting place, halfway up the flight of stairs. ‘These stairs are killing me. I’m getting an elevator installed next week.’

Abdullah gave me his pleading frown.

‘Okay, okay,’ I called back, heading up the stairs.

Plodding wearily, Khaled followed the elbow turn of the stairs and finally came to a closed door. Fetching a key from the folds of his kaftan, he opened the door, and ushered us inside.

It was dark. The light from the stairwell revealed an attic room, with the folded arms of roof beams above our heads. Khaled closed the door, locked it, and clicked on a suspended light bulb.

It was a hoard of objects in gold and silver: jewelled necklaces and chains, spilling from little wooden chests, scattered across several tables.

There were candlesticks and mirrors, picture frames, hairbrushes, strings of pearls, jewelled bracelets, watches, necklaces, brooches, rings, earrings, nose-rings, toe rings and even several black and gold wedding necklaces.

And there was money. A lot of money.

‘No matter how I tried to explain this,’ Khaled said, breathing through his open mouth, ‘nothing could ever be clearer than seeing it for yourself,
na
? This is the power of the bended knee. Do you see? Do you
see
?’

There was a softly breathing silence. Pigeons brooded in a distant corner of the roofline, their warbled comments echoing in the long, closed room.

Finally, Khaled spoke again.

‘Tax free,’ he wheezed.

He looked from Abdullah, to me, and back again.

‘Well? What do you think?’

‘You need more security,’ Abdullah observed.

‘Ha!’ Khaled laughed, clapping the tall Iranian on the back. ‘Are you volunteering for the job, my old friend?’

‘I
have
a job,’ he replied, even more seriously.

‘Yes, yes, of course you do, but –’

‘Your students gave you all this stuff?’ I asked.

‘Actually, I
call
them students, but they refer to themselves as devotees,’ Khaled said, staring at the hoard. ‘There was even more than this.’

‘More than
this
?’

‘Oh, yes. A lot of other gifts from my devotees in Varanasi. But I had to leave there rather quickly, and I lost everything.’

‘Lost it how?’

‘To the police, as a bribe,’ Khaled replied. ‘That’s why Lord Bob set me up here, in this house, just before he died.’

‘Why did you have to leave Varanasi so quickly?’

‘Why do you want to know, Lin, my old friend?’

The jewels from the treasure were glittering in his eyes.

‘You brought it up, man.’

He stared at me for a while, hesitating on the glacial edge of cold-hearted truth. He decided to trust me, I guess.

‘There was a girl,’ he said. ‘A devotee, a very sincere devotee, who came from a prominent Brahmin family. She was beautiful, and ultimately devoted to me, body and soul. I didn’t know she was below the age.’

‘Come on, Khaled.’

‘I couldn’t know. You live here, Lin, you know how precocious these young Indian girls can be. She looked eighteen, I swear. Her breasts were swollen like ripe mangoes. And the sex was fully mature. But, alas, she was only fourteen.’

‘Khaled, you just officially freaked me out.’

‘No, Lin, understand me –’

‘Understand sex with kids? You want me to see it
your way
? Is that it, Khaled?’

‘But it won’t happen again.’

‘
Again?
’

‘It
can’t
happen again. I’ve taken measures.’

‘You’re making this worse every time you open your mouth, Khaled.’

‘Listen to me! I make every one of them show me a birth certificate now, especially the younger ones. I’m protected, now.’

‘
You’re
protected?’

‘Let’s stop all this serious talk, yaar. We all have things in the past that we regret, no? We have a saying, in Arabic.
Take counsel from he who makes you weep, not from he who makes you laugh.
I haven’t made you laugh today, Lin, but that doesn’t mean my counsel is worthless.’

‘Khaled –’

‘I want you to know that you, and Abdullah, my only remaining brothers, will always be safe, now. This power, this money and my inheritance, it’s all ours.’

‘What are you talking about, Khaled?’

‘Money, to expand the business,’ he unexplained.

‘What business?’

‘This business. The ashram. The time has come to franchise. We can run this together, and spread out through India, and eventually to America. The sky’s the limit. Literally, in fact.’

‘Khaled –’

‘That’s why I’ve waited so long to contact you. I had to accumulate this fund base. I brought you here to show you something that’s yours, as much as it is mine.’

‘You’re right about that,’ I said.

‘I’m so glad you understand.’

‘I mean that this stuff you’ve got here isn’t ours, Khaled, and it isn’t yours.’

‘What does
that
mean?’

‘It was given to something bigger than we are, and you know it.’

‘But, you don’t understand,’ he insisted. ‘I want you both in this with me. We can make millions. But the spiritual industry is a vicious business. I’ll need you, as we move on.’

‘I’ve already moved on, Khaled.’

‘But we can franchise!’ Khaled hissed, all teeth. ‘We can franchise!’

‘Khaled, I must leave the city,’ Abdullah said suddenly, urgency rasping his voice.

‘What?’ Khaled asked, shaken from a tree of plans.

‘I want to ask you, one more time, to leave this place, and these people, and come back to Bombay with me.’

‘Again, Abdullah?’ Khaled said.

‘Take your rightful place at the head of the Council that was Khaderbhai’s. We are in a time of trouble, and it will become much worse. We need you to lead us. We need you to push Sanjay aside, and lead us. If you come now, Sanjay will live. If you don’t, one of us will kill him, and then you will have to lead anyway, for the sake of the Company.’

In that new avatar, Khaled was the opposite of what I considered to be a leader of men. But Abdullah, an Iranian who’d tuned his heart to the music of Bombay’s streets, didn’t see the man who stood with us in the attic room. Abdullah saw the prestige that attached itself to Khaled’s long and intimate friendship with Khaderbhai, and the authority that bled from the many battles and gang wars Khaled had presided over, and won, for the Company.

I was done with the Sanjay Company, my mind was made up, but I knew that New Khaled’s taste for subjugation would add fire to Old Khaled’s unhesitating use of power.

Crime mixed with anything is fatal, which is why we’re fascinated by it. Crime mixed with religion redeems saviours with the sacrifice of sinners. I didn’t want Khaled to accept Abdullah’s offer.

‘Once more, I tell you that I can’t accept,’ Khaled smiled. ‘But with friendship and respect, I want you to consider my offer. It’s a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor, before the spiritual industry really takes off. We can make millions from yoga alone.’

‘You must think of the Company, Khaled,’ Abdullah pressed. ‘You must follow your destiny.’

‘It will not happen,’ Khaled responded, the little smile still on his lips. ‘But I do appreciate your kindness, in considering me again. Now, before you take a final decision, I ask you to think on all my treasures, and join me at lunch. I’m starved, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘I’m done,’ I said.

‘You’re . . . what?’

‘Khaled, I was already done when you showed me the harem. I’m leaving.’

‘Does that mean you won’t be taking any food?’ Khaled asked, locking the door.

‘It means goodbye, again, Khaled.’

‘But, it’s bad luck not to eat food that has been prepared for you!’ he warned.

‘I’ll have to risk it.’

‘But it’s Kashmiri sweets. A Kashmiri sweet chef is one of my devotees. You have no idea how hard they are to get.’

I crossed the entry hall, Khaled bustling behind me. Tarun joined us, trotting at his master’s side.

‘Oh, well,’ he puffed, walking with us onto the front veranda.