The Mountain Shadow

‘Then, do you attest my identification, and will you inform Ranjit’s family?’

‘I attest it, Madame,’ the officer said, saluting. ‘And I will perform that duty.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Karla said, shaking his hand. ‘You no doubt have questions you would like to ask me. I’ll visit your office at any time that you require me.’

‘Yes, Madame. Please, take my card. And may I express my sorrow, for your loss.’

‘Thank you again, sir,’ Karla said.

When we left the cordon of cops to walk back to the bike, some photographers tried to take Karla’s picture. Randall held them back, and paid them to stop shouting for the freedom of the press.

We rode back to the south, and she cried, her cheek pressed against my back. When we stopped at a traffic light, Randall jumped from the car and offered her tissues from a red ceramic box. Karla accepted them, before the signal changed. And I think that little, thoughtful act saved her, because she stopped crying after that, and simply clung to me, and never cried for Ranjit again.

Chapter Seventy-Four

I took her back to the Amritsar hotel, and the Bedouin tent. She let me undress her and put her to bed: one of a lover’s treasures. And she slept through dawn and daylight, and violet evening, and woke under an exile moon.

She stretched, saw me, and looked around her.

‘How long have I been out?’

‘A day,’ I said. ‘It’s nearly midnight. You missed tomorrow.’

She sat upright quickly, messing her hair perfect.

‘Midnight?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Were you watching me, while I slept?’

‘I was too busy. I wrote out a pretty eloquent statement for the cops, and signed it for you, and delivered it. They liked it. You don’t have to go back.’

‘You did all that?’

‘How you feeling?’ I smiled.

‘I’m good,’ she said, wriggling off the bed. ‘I’m good. And I gotta pee.’

She came back showered, in a white silk robe, and I was trying to think of a way to let her talk about Ranjit, dead Ranjit, and what it felt like, seeing his body, when there was a knock on the door.

‘That’s Naveen’s knock,’ Karla said. ‘You wanna let him in?’

‘You know his knock?’

I opened the door and welcomed the young detective into the tent.

‘What’s up, kid?’ I asked.

‘I’m so sorry about Ranjit, Karla,’ he said.

‘Someone had to kill him,’ Karla replied, lighting a small joint. ‘I’m just glad it wasn’t me. It’s okay, Naveen. I slept it off, and I’m okay.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Glad to see you’re still punching.’

He stared at me, then at Karla, then at me again.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just getting my head around the two of you being together all the time.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘There’s a hotel pool, you know,’ he said happily, ‘on how long Oleg gets to keep your rooms. Oleg picked three –’

‘Any other news, Naveen?’ I asked, pulling on jeans.

‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘Dennis is ending his trance, tonight. There’s gonna be a lot of people there. I thought . . . maybe . . . you need to get out in the air, Karla.’

Karla looked interested in seeing Dennis rise from his two-year sleep, but I wasn’t sure if she was ready for distraction. I wasn’t sure I was ready for it myself. I’d stayed up most of the night and day, watching over Karla and paying the cops to leave her alone. And the whole time I’d asked myself again and again the questions about Ranjit and Lisa, that only Ranjit, dead Ranjit, could answer.

‘You wanna go out, or stay in, girl?’

‘And miss a resurrection? I’ll be ready in five,’ she said.

‘Okay, I’m in,’ I said, pulling on a shirt. ‘It’s not every day someone rises from the dead.’

We walked down to the arch beneath the hotel and found Randall sitting in the back of the car. He was reading a copy of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the interior lights a blue-white blush on his face.

Karla had given him the car, because he refused to stop following her while she rode with me, just in case she needed him. He’d accepted the gift, and transformed the capacious rear seats into a sleeping lounge, complete with a small refrigerator running on battery power, and a sound system that was better than mine.

He was barefoot, in black trousers and a white, open-necked shirt. His bronze, Goan eyes, faded by generations of sun and sea, were filled with happy light. He stepped from the car, and slipped into his sandals.

He was handsome, tall, smart and brave. As he came to greet Karla, smiling teeth at her like shells on a perfect shore, I could see why Diva liked him so much.

‘How are you, Miss Karla?’ Randall asked, taking her hand for a moment.

‘I’m fine, Randall,’ she said. ‘Got a nip you can give me, from your well-stocked bar? I had a bad dream last night, and I’m thirsty.’

‘Coming up,’ Randall replied, opening the door of the car and fetching a small bottle of vodka.

‘To the spirits of the departed,’ Karla said, throwing it back in two gulps. ‘Now, let’s go raise the dead.’

‘Would this be the rise of Dennis the Sleeping Baba, Miss Karla?’

‘Indeed it is, Randall,’ she replied wistfully. ‘Instead of a wake, let’s have an awake, shall we?’