The Mountain Shadow

I rode past houses and shopping complexes that were half-built and already sold, as if hope itself had finally found a price. And long lines of crawling traffic stitched those patches of aspiration to acres of ambition: streets of cars that ran like scars on the face and forehead of the thing we made of the Earth.

The Tuareg’s house was large and modern: a Moroccan palazzo. The dark man dressed in black, who opened the front door, looked like a bearded professor: a scholar, searching absent-mindedly for the spectacles propped on his head.

‘Salaam aleikum, Tuareg.’

‘Wa aleikum salaam, Shantaram,’ he replied, pulling at my sleeveless vest. ‘Did you have to come on your motorcycle? Come inside. You’re scaring my neighbours.’

He led me through his house, constructed with archways everywhere, as if the home was a hive, and we were the bees.

‘I hope you understand – I have to run you past my wife, first, to see if she approves of you being here.’

‘I . . . see.’

We walked through several archways to a space where the second floor of the house vanished in a high ceiling.

There was a woman in the centre of that room, standing on a platform three steps high. She was dressed in a glittering black burkha, studded with black jewels. There was a net of lace covering her face: her eyes could examine mine, but I couldn’t examine hers.

I didn’t know if I was supposed to say anything. The Tuareg had sent a message, and I’d responded. I had no idea what to expect, facing the woman covered in black stars.

From the tilt of her head I saw that she was looking me up and down a couple of times. I don’t think she liked what she saw. Her head cocked to the other side, considering the matter.

‘One hour,’ she said, her head still on the side as she twirled away through an archway, that led to an archway, that led to an archway.

The Tuareg led me through archways to a majlis room, with heavy carpets on the floor and soft cushions against the walls. Young men from his family served us with coconut juice and bitter lime hummus dip with asparagus spines, as we sat together on the floor.

By the time we’d eaten the snacks, the young men were ready with hot tea, served from a long-necked samovar. We washed our hands in spouts of warm, tangerine-scented water, poured by nephews and cousins, and then sipped at the tea through sugar cubes.

‘I’m honoured by your hospitality, Tuareg,’ I said, when we were alone, and sharing a hookah pipe of Turkish tobacco, Kerala grass and Himalayan hashish.

‘I am honoured,’ he said, ‘that you responded to my call.’

I knew what he meant: my quick response to his call wasn’t something he could expect from anyone else in the Company, or formerly in the Company. While he was a secret member of the Council, he was distantly respected: when he retired, he was shunned.

I didn’t understand it. They’d all benefited from his work, and could’ve pulled out at any time, but they didn’t. I worked in passports for the Company, and the Tuareg’s services were never required. But it was the same Company that protected me for years, in Bombay, so who was I to judge anyone else?

Did I like what he did? No. But what a man does isn’t always what a man is, and I’d learned that the hard way.

‘Do you know,’ he remarked, puffing contentedly, ‘you are one of only four men who shook my hand, in all the years that I worked with the Company. Do you want to know the other three?’

‘Khaderbhai, Mahmoud Melbaaf, and Abdullah Taheri,’ I suggested.

He laughed.

‘Correct. My father used to say, put a Viking in front as you go into battle, and a Persian behind you. If the Viking doesn’t win, you’ll never die alone, because the Persian won’t let you die without him.’

‘I think we’ve all got enough fight in us when we need it, Tuareg.’

‘Are you getting philosophical with me, Shantaram?’

Actually, I was getting pretty high. The bowl of the hookah pipe was as big as a sunflower, and I had a long ride home. I had to straighten up. From the few times I’d spoken to him, I’d learned that the Tuareg was always in character.

‘I mean, when something we love is at stake, we fight. It doesn’t matter who we are, or where we come from. Nobody has a franchise on that.’

He laughed again.

‘I wish we’d had more talks like this,’ he said, ‘and that it were possible to have them again. After this day, you will not return to my house unless your life or my own depends upon it. This is a special occasion, with special reasons. But I value my privacy very highly. Are we clear?’

The second hit of the hookah pipe was kicking in: Time yawned, and took a nap. The Tuareg’s face blurred, suddenly fierce, suddenly kind, but he wasn’t moving at all.

It’s okay, I calmed myself. It’s not the torturer you’ve gotta worry about, it’s the psychiatrist.

‘I see that,’ I said, hoping that my voice didn’t sound as squeaky in the room as it did in my head.