The Mountain Shadow

‘Thirty-five million dollars, actually,’ Divya replied. ‘And it’s Diva, remember? I swear, if you call me Divya again, I’ll punch you straight in the balls. And I’m short enough and mean enough to do it.’

‘That’s not hyperbole,’ Naveen averred.

‘Okay. You’re Diva, from now on.’

I looked down at her proud, pretty face. She was a short girl, who wore high-heeled shoes so often that it gave her a slightly forward-leaning stance, on the balls of her feet: a leopard-footed posture that made her look as if she was stalking prey. I liked it, and liked her, but just wanted to go home.

The doors opened on the lobby, and I stepped out quickly.

‘Sure we can’t tempt you?’ Naveen asked.

‘Not tonight.’

I pulled him close enough to whisper.

‘That thing at Leopold’s,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m glad you were there, Naveen.’

‘When there’s a reckoning,’ he said, just as quietly, ‘count me in.’

‘I will. Listen, if Didier asks you for any help, do me a good. He’s watching Lisa, while I’m away.’

‘Away?’

‘A week or so. I’ll check in with you, when I get back.’

‘Thik.’

‘And, hey, Scorpio,’ I said, in a louder voice, as Naveen rejoined Diva. ‘Be careful with the girl.’

‘The blonde, with brown eyes?’

‘Any girl,’ I said.

The doors closed, and the lift carried them back to the penthouse party.

I made my way to the bike, paid a tip to the security guards, and rode out into the coursing rain.

Soothing cleansing showers, cold so close to the sea, rolled with me as I rode the length of Marine Drive twice, before turning again and making my way home.

I didn’t know it then, but that fall of purging rain, drops as big as flowers, was the last heavy fall of the Bombay season. The torrents that had swamped the streets of the Island City, and left every patch of dusty earth lush with weeds, was drifting south toward Madras, before riding the sea lane up-drift to Sri Lanka, and the great oceans that had birthed them.

I took the steps two at a time, and rushed into the apartment, spilling water onto the silver-flecked marble of the hallway floor. Lisa wasn’t there.

I stripped off my sodden boots and clothes, scrubbed the cuts on my face clean with disinfectant, and stood in the shower, letting the cold water run on my back, the suburban penitent’s scourge.

I dressed, and was just about to make a pot of coffee, when Lisa walked in.

‘Lin! Where the hell have you been? Are you okay? Oh, God, let me look at your face.’

‘I’m fine. How are you? Has everything been quiet here?’

‘Are you proud of yourself?’

‘What?’

She shoved me, two hands on my chest, then picked up a metal vase, and threw it at me. I ducked, and it crashed into a wall unit, sending things clattering to the floor.

‘Coming home, all beat up like that!’

‘I –’

‘Gang wars in the street! Grow up, for God’s sake!’

‘It wasn’t –’

‘Shooting people at Leopold’s! Are you a complete asshole?’

‘I didn’t shoot any –’

‘Running off to the mountain with Karla.’

‘Okay, okay, so that’s what this is about.’

‘Of course it is!’ she shouted, throwing an ashtray at the wall unit.

She suddenly cried, then suddenly stopped crying and sat down on the couch, her hands folded in her lap.

‘I’m calm now,’ she said.

‘Okay . . . ’

‘I am.’

‘Okay.’

‘It’s not about you,’ she said.

‘Fair enough.’

‘No, really.’

‘Lisa, I didn’t even know she was there. But since you mention Karla, there’s something –’

‘Oh, Lin!’ she cried, pointing at the things that had fallen from the wall unit. ‘Look what happened to the sword! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that to happen.’

One of the things that had fallen from the cabinet was Khaderbhai’s sword: the sword that should’ve been willed to Tariq, the boy king, Khaderbhai’s nephew and heir. The sword was broken. The hilt had snapped completely free from the shaft of the sword. It lay in two pieces beside the scabbard.

I picked them up, wondering at the strange frailty of a weapon that had survived battles in the Afghan wars against the British.

‘Can you get it fixed?’ she asked anxiously.

‘I’ll do it when I get back,’ I said flatly, putting the pieces of the sword into the cabinet. ‘I’m going to Sri Lanka tomorrow, Lisa.’

‘Lin . . . no.’

I went to the bathroom, and showered again to cool down. Lisa showered, and joined me as I was drying off. I leaned into the mirror, and put a plaster on the ugly cut that Concannon’s lead sap had left on my cheek.

She talked, warning me about the dangers of going to Sri Lanka, telling me what she’d read in the newspaper, Ranjit’s newspaper, explaining to me that I had no obligation to go, and that I owed the Sanjay Council nothing, nothing, nothing.

When she finished, I pleaded with her to leave Bombay for a while, told her everything I knew about the Leopold’s incident, and warned her that things wouldn’t get better, until I reached some kind of an understanding with Concannon.

‘Enough horrible stuff,’ she said at last. ‘Is it my turn, now?’

I lay back against a stack of pillows on the bed. She was leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded across her waist.