The Mountain Shadow

‘Okay, here goes. The marks on your face, and all the scars on your body, are like graffiti, scrawled by your own delinquent talent.’

‘Not bad.’

‘I’m not finished. Your heart’s a tenant, in the broken-down tenement of your life.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The slumlord’s coming to collect the rent, Lin,’ she said, a little more softly. ‘Soon.’

I knew her well enough to know that she’d written and rehearsed those lines. I’d seen her journals, filled with notes for the clever things she said. Rehearsed or not, she was right.

‘Karla, look –’

‘You’re playing Russian roulette with Fate,’ she said. ‘You know that.’

‘And your money’s on Fate? Is that what this is about?’

‘Fate loads the gun. Fate loads every gun in the world.’

‘Anything else?’

‘While you do this,’ she said, even more softly, ‘you’re only breaking things.’

It was just true enough to hurt, no matter how softly she said it.

‘You know, if you keep coming on to me like this . . . ’

‘You got funnier,’ she said, laughing a little.

‘I’m still what I used to be.’

We stared at one another for a few moments.

‘Look, Karla, I don’t know what it is with Ranjit, and I don’t know how it’s two whole years since I looked at you and heard your voice. I just know that when I’m with you, it’s wild horse right. I love you, and I’ll always be there for you.’

Emotions were leaves in a storm on her face. There were too many different feelings for me to read. I hadn’t seen her. I hadn’t been with her. She looked happy and angry, satisfied and sad, all at the same time. And she didn’t speak. Karla, lost for words. It hurt her, in some way, and I had to break the mood.

‘Sure you don’t want to try that coffee?’

She raised a rattlesnake eyebrow, and was about to fang me, but sounds from the caves alerted us to the presence of others, waking with the dawn.

We breakfasted with the happy devotees and were drinking our second mug of chai, when a young student appeared at the ridge of the camp where the steep climb from the forest ended. He accepted a chai gratefully, and announced that the master wouldn’t be joining us until after lunch.

‘That’s it,’ Karla muttered, moving to the open kitchen, where she rinsed out her cup and set it on a stand to dry.

‘That’s what?’ I asked, joining her at the sink.

‘I’ve got time to go down, visit Khaled, and be back before Idriss gets here.’

‘I’m coming with,’ I said quickly.

‘Wait a minute. Call off the myrmidons. Why are you coming?’

It wasn’t an idle question. Karla didn’t idle.

‘Why? Because Khaled’s my friend. And I haven’t seen him since he walked into the snow, nearly three years ago.’

‘A good friend would leave him the hell alone, right now,’ she said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She fixed me with that look: hunger burning in a tiger’s eyes, staring at prey. I loved it.

‘He’s happy,’ she said quietly.

‘And?’

She glanced at Abdullah, who’d come up to stand beside me.

‘Happy’s hard to find,’ she said at last.

‘I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Happiness has a sign on it,’ she said. ‘It says Do Not Disturb, but everybody does.’

‘Interfering is what we do,’ I insisted, ‘if we care about someone. Weren’t you interfering, when you ripped some skin off me just now?’

‘And were you interfering, between Ranjit and me?’

‘How?’

‘When you asked me if I love him.’

Abdullah coughed politely.

‘Perhaps I should leave you for some time,’ he suggested.

‘No secrets from you, Abdullah,’ Karla said.

‘But you keep plenty of your own, brother,’ I said. ‘Not telling me that Khaled is here?’

‘Fire away at Abdullah, Lin,’ Karla interjected. ‘But answer my question first.’

‘When you know where we are in this conversation, come get me.’

‘You were answering a question.’

‘What question?’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why do you love me?’

‘Dammit, Karla! You’re the most indiscernible woman who ever spoke a common language.’

‘Give me a ten-minute head start,’ she laughed. ‘No, make it fifteen.’

‘What are you planning?’

She laughed again, and pretty hard.

‘I want to warn Khaled that you’re coming, and give him a chance to escape. You know how important that is, don’t you? A chance to escape?’

She walked to the edge of the mesa, then slipped out of sight on the steep path. I waited for the essential fifteen minutes to pass. Abdullah was looking at me. I didn’t bite. I didn’t want to know.

‘Perhaps . . . she is right in this,’ he said, at last.

‘Not you, too?’

‘If Khaled looks at what he has through your eyes, instead of his own eyes, he may believe in himself less than he does now. And I need him to be strong.’

‘Is that why you never told me Khaled was here in Bombay?’

‘Yes, that was a part of it. To protect his little happiness. He was never a very happy man. You remember that, I am certain.’