The Mountain Shadow

He threw the next switch, and the lights began to flash. His finger hovered over the third switch.

‘You know, Jaswant –’ I tried, but I was too late.

The stomp and shake jive music of Bhangra banged from the desk speakers.

I looked at Ankit as he inspected the goods in Jaswant’s secret store. His grey hair had been cut to Cary Grant sleekness, and he’d grown a thin moustache. A thigh-length, navy blue tunic with high collars and matching serge trousers replaced his hotel service uniform.

He looked over Jaswant’s goods with a scholarly eye: a debonair affair examining baubles in adultery’s window.

‘I think we can work with this,’ he said.

Then the Bhangra got to Ankit, and he backed away from the coloured window and started to dance. He wasn’t bad: good enough to get Jaswant out of the chair and dancing with him until the end of the song.

‘Want to hear it again?’ Jaswant puffed, his finger over the switch.

‘Yes!’ Ankit said.

‘Business before pleasure,’ I essayed.

‘That’s true,’ Jaswant conceded, coming around to the secret window. ‘Let me know what you want.’

‘I need to do a little chemistry,’ Ankit said. ‘And I believe that you have all the right chemicals.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Let’s get these drinks under way. We’re in for the night. Karla and I have nowhere to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Do your stuff, Ankit.’

Bottles poured, lime juice filled a beaker, coconut dessicated, bitter chocolate was grated into powdered flakes, glasses appeared, and we three men were just about to test the first batch of Ankit’s alchemy when Karla called out to me.

‘Start without me, guys,’ I said, putting my glass down.

‘You’re leaving the cocktail party before it starts?’ Jaswant objected.

‘Save my glass,’ I said. ‘If you hear gunplay while I’m in there, come and rescue me.’

Chapter Seventy-Six

I found Blue Hijab and Karla sitting cross-legged on the floor near the balcony, the carpets around them a pond of knotted meditations. There was a silver tray with rose and mint flavoured almonds, slivers of dark chocolate and chips of glazed ginger, beside half-drunk glasses of lime juice. Red and yellow lights flashing at the signals below blushed their faces softly in the darkened room. The slow overhead fan fretted incense smoke into scrolls, and a slow breeze reminded us that the night, outside, was vast.

‘Sit here, Shantaram,’ Karla said, pulling me down beside her. ‘Blue Hijab has to go soon. But before she does, she’s got some good news, and some not so good news.’

‘How are you?’ I asked. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, Alhamdulillah. Do you want the good first, or the not so good?’

‘Let’s have the not so good,’ I said.

‘Madame Zhou is still alive,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘And still free.’

‘And the good news?’

‘Her acid throwers are finished, and the twins are dead.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Can we back this up? How come you know about Madame Zhou? And how come you’re here?’

‘I didn’t know about Madame Zhou,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t interested in her. I wanted the acid throwers. We’ve been hunting them for a year.’

‘They burned someone you know,’ I realised. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘She was a good fighter, and she’s still a good comrade and a good friend. She was on leave in India, from the war. Somebody hired those two acid throwers, and they made her face into a mask. A protest mask, I suppose you could say.’

‘Is she still alive?’ Karla asked.

‘She is.’

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘I don’t think so, Karla,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘Unless you’d like to help her punish the acid throwers, which she’s doing now, as we speak. It will go on for some time, yet.’

‘You caught the acid throwers?’ Karla asked. ‘Did anyone get burned?’

‘We threw blankets on them, and kicked them until they shoved their acid bottles out from under the blankets, and then we dragged them away.’

‘And the twins jumped in to help them,’ I said, ‘thinking you were a threat to Madame Zhou.’

‘They did. We didn’t realise they were protecting Madame Zhou. We didn’t care. We wanted the acid throwers. Madame Zhou ran away, and we let her run. We stopped the twins, and grabbed the acid throwers.’

‘You stopped the twins for good?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do with them?’

‘We left them there. That’s why I have to leave soon, Inshallah.’

‘Whatever you need, it’s yours,’ I said. ‘How did you think to tell me about this?’

‘We took the acid throwers to a slum. Four brothers and twenty-four cousins of the girl they burned are all living there. And the girl is living there, with a lot of other people who love her. We questioned the acid throwers. We wanted a list of every girl they’ve ever burned.’

‘Why?’

‘So we could visit the families, later, one by one, and tell that them those men are dead, and will never do it to another girl. And then to visit every one of the clients who paid them to burn girls, and make them pay in cash for the hell they spat on them, and give the money to the girls they ordered burned, Inshallah.’