The Mountain Shadow

It wasn’t a simple thing: not when your business is black.

There was a kid I knew, a young soldier named Jagat, who’d fallen through the cracks in Vishnu’s purge: he was a Hindu who didn’t agree with throwing Muslims out simply because of their religion. Vishnu couldn’t hurt him, because he was a Hindu, but he threw him out with the Muslims.

The kid was capable, still on talking terms with the 307 Company, and could keep the money changers in line if I stepped away.

It was possible to take a break, and possible that young Jagat, the Ronin cut off from his Company, could keep the business running for me.

It was also possible that I’d return from such a long break to the ruin of all I had, and the young Ronin dead, or gone.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll go anywhere with you, Karla. I can get away that long, but can you?’

‘I signed Ranjit’s proxy shares over to his unfavourite sister,’ she said, taking my arm as we walked back to the stairway. ‘I gave Taj and the gallery committee my shares in the gallery. I signed over everything I might inherit from Ranjit, after probate, to his unfavourite brother. He was the one who bribed Ranjit’s chauffeur to put the fake bomb in Ranjit’s car. It seemed fitting.’

‘Washing Ranjit’s liquid assets out of your hair.’

‘I kept some liquid,’ she said, ‘to rebaptise myself, from time to time.’

‘You really want to stay on the mountain for a couple of months?’

‘I do. I know it’s not easy up there, and you’ve got your stuff going on here, but I want us to have some fresh air, and fresh ideas, for a while. I need to scrub the ghosts off, and make a clean start with you. Do you think you could do it? For me, and for us?’

I’m a city boy, who loves nature, but I like my city comforts. It wasn’t a first choice to spend months with lots of other people in a close community, having cold showers and sleeping on a thin mattress on the ground. But she wanted it, and needed it. And the city was still tense, after the riots and the lockdown, and hadn’t fully settled into its usual semi-strange. It was as good a time as any to be somewhere else.

‘Alright,’ I said, making her smile. ‘Let’s see what the mountain does to us.’

Part Fourteen

Chapter Seventy-Eight

On the forest road to the mountain, soft leaves of new trees brushed our faces as we passed them, kissing away blue horizons with every curve in the road. Monkeys scattered to boulder perches, sitting in judgement. An omen of crows tried to worry us forward, swooping in phalanxes of feathered shields, and lizards scampered on crumbling trunks of fallen trees.

We were on the bike, Randall and the others behind us in the car. A wild tiger’s roar from the preserve, far away, shook coloured birds from trees. They flew into the open road, a cloud parting in flight around us as we reached the mountain car park.

We parked the bike and car behind the snacks and cold drinks shop, paying the attendant well to watch over them. I also told him that I’d be back every two days to check on my bike, and wouldn’t react happily if she were offended in any way while she was in his care. I didn’t worry about the car. The car was big enough to take care of itself.

We had a crew with us: Randall, Vinson, Ankit and Didier. Naveen and Oleg wanted to come, but the two lost lovers were holding down the fort at the Lost Love Bureau. When we reached the first steep climb, Didier asked if there was an alternative route.

Karla was about to tell him, I think, but I cut her off. I knew how sceptical and belligerent Didier could be in the presence of sanctity. I wanted him to sweat his way into Idriss’s camp on the summit, not stroll into it.

‘Are you saying you can’t make this climb?’ I challenged.

‘Certainly not!’ Didier snapped. ‘Show me the most difficult path. There is no mountain taller than Didier’s determination.’

We set off with Karla in the lead, me following, then Didier, Randall, Vinson and Ankit. Didier climbed well, with my hand pulling from above, and Randall pushing him from below.

Vinson clambered his way past us, enjoying the climb. I was surprised to see Ankit only a few steps behind him, vanishing above us in the seaweed smother of grass, bushes and vines.

Karla laughed at one point in the climb, and I thought of Abdullah, complimenting her by telling her that she was as agile as an ape.

‘Abdullah,’ I called out to her.

‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ she laughed.

Then we both shut down, thinking of the tall, brave, violent friend we loved. He’d vanished again, just as he’d done before. I wondered when we’d see him, and if we were ready for what we’d find, when we did.

We reached the summit in silence, joining Vinson and Ankit, who were standing with their hands on their hips, looking at the mesa, the school for the sage, Idriss.

There were strands of flowers strung from a new temporary pagoda made of bamboo poles. A canvas sheet in orange, white and green, the tricolour of the Indian flag, repeated itself in waves of wind in the canopy.