The Mountain Shadow

Chapter Twenty-Eight

At the base of the mountain Abdullah led me away behind the valley of the sandstone Buddhas and its well-cleared paths. We followed a jungle track through thick forest for a few minutes, and then entered a tree-lined approach, rising on a gentle slope to meet a concrete and hardwood house, three storeys tall.

Before we reached the steps leading up to the wide ground-floor veranda, Khaled walked out of the vestibule to greet us.

Dressed in a voluminous yellow silk robe, and with garlands of red and yellow flowers around his neck, he stood with his fists locked onto his hips.

‘Shantaram!’ he shouted. ‘Welcome to Shangri-La!’

He’d changed. He’d changed so much in the years since I’d seen him. His hair had thinned to the point that he was almost bald. The fighter’s frame had expanded until his hips and belly were wider than his shoulders. The handsome face that had frowned its rage and recrimination at the world was swollen, from temple to vanishing jaw, and his smile all but concealed his golden-brown eyes.

It was Khaled, my friend. I rushed the steps to greet him.

He extended his hands, holding me two steps below. A young man in a yellow kurta took a photograph of us, let the camera fall to a strap around his neck, and pulled a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.

‘Don’t mind Tarun,’ Khaled said, nodding his head toward the young man. ‘He keeps a record of everyone I meet, and everything I do and say. I’ve told him not to do it, but the naughty lad won’t listen. And hey, people always do what their hearts tell them to do, isn’t it so?’

‘Well –’

‘I got fat,’ he said.

It wasn’t regretful or ironic. It was a flat statement of fact.

‘Well –’

‘But you look very fit. What have you been doing, to get all those bruises? Boxing with Abdullah? Looks like he got the better of you. No surprise, eh? Certainly, you both look fit enough to make that climb up my mountain, to see Idriss.’

‘Your mountain?’

‘Well . . . this part of it is mine, na? It’s actually Idriss who thinks he owns the whole mountain. He’s such a chudh. Anyway, come here, let me give you a hug, and then we’ll take a look around.’

I climbed the last two steps, and fell into a fleshy cloud. Tarun flashed a photograph. When Khaled released me he shook hands with Abdullah, and led the way inside.

‘Where’s Karla?’ I asked, a step behind him.

‘She said that she will meet you again on the path,’ Khaled replied breezily. ‘She is jogging, I think, to clear her mind. I am not sure whether it is you or me that disturbs her peace, but my money is on you, old friend.’

The entrance to the huge old house opened into a wide vestibule, with staircases left and right, and archways leading to the main rooms of the ground floor.

‘This was a Britisher’s monsoon retreat,’ Khaled announced, as we moved beyond the vestibule to a sitting room featuring walls of books, two writing desks, and several comfortable leather chairs. ‘It passed to a businessman, but when the national park was established here, he was forced to sell it to the city. A rich friend of mine, one of my students, has rented it from the city for some years, and he gave it to me, to use.’

‘Your students?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Oh, I see. Is this where you learn how not to contact your friends, when you come back from the dead?’

‘Very funny, Lin,’ he replied, in that flat tone he’d used when he’d described himself as fat. ‘But I think you’ll understand my need for discretion.’

‘Fuck discretion. You’re not dead, Khaled, and I want to know why I didn’t know that.’

‘Things are not as simple as you think, Lin. And anyway, what I teach people here has nothing to do with the outside world. I teach love. Specifically, I teach people how to love themselves. I think you’re not surprised that for some people, that’s not easy.’

We walked through the sitting room, opened the louvred French doors and entered a wide sunroom, running the whole width of the house. There were many wicker armchairs, with glass-topped tables between them.

Softly whirring overhead fans disturbed the slender leaves of potted palms. A wall of glass panels looked out into an English-style garden of rosebushes, and neatly clipped hedges.

Two pretty young Western girls dressed in tunics approached us, bowing to Khaled, their palms pressed together.

‘Please, take a seat,’ Khaled invited, pointing toward two of the wicker chairs. ‘What will you have, hot drinks, or cold?’

‘Cold,’ Abdullah answered.

‘The same.’

Khaled nodded at the girls. They backed up a few steps, before walking away out of sight. Khaled watched them leave.

‘Good help is so easy to find these days,’ he sighed contentedly, as he lowered himself into a chair.

Tarun made notes.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘What . . . happened?’ Khaled repeated, mystified.

‘The last time I saw you there was a dead lunatic on the ground, and you walked into a snow storm, without a gun. Now you’re here. What happened?’

‘Oh,’ he smiled. ‘I see. We’re back to that.’

‘Yeah. We’re back to that.’