I’d been a friend, a close friend, but I’d heard nothing of Khaled’s return to the city, or anything about an ashram.
‘An ashram?’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed.
Her face and manner had changed. She seemed to be bored.
‘What kind of ashram?’
‘The profitable kind,’ she said. ‘It has a majestic menu. That, you’ve got to give him. Meditation rooms, yoga, massage, aromatherapies and chanting. They chant a lot. It’s like they never heard of funk.’
‘And it’s at the base of this mountain?’
‘At the start of the valley, on the west side.’
She frowned a yawn at me.
‘Abdullah goes there all the time,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he talk to you about it?’
Something staggered inside me. I was glad to know that Khaled was alive and well, but the cherished friendship felt betrayed, and my heart stumbled.
‘It can’t be true.’
‘The truth comes in two kinds,’ she laughed gently. ‘The one you want to hear, and the one you should.’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sucker punch. Couldn’t resist it.’
I was suddenly angry. Maybe it was that sense of betrayal. Maybe it was old crying, finally forcing its way past the shield of softness, gleaming in her kinder eye.
‘Do you love Ranjit?’
She looked at me, both eyes, soft and hard, staring into mine.
‘I thought I admired him, once upon a time,’ she said, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’
‘And you don’t admire me?’
‘Why would you ask that?’
‘Are you afraid to tell me what you think?’
‘Of course not,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m wondering why you don’t already know what I think of you.’
‘I don’t know what that means, so how about you just answer my question?’
‘Mine first. Why do you want to know? Is it disappointment in yourself, or jealousy of him?’
‘You know, the thing about disappointment, Karla, is that it never lets you down. But it’s not about that. I want to know what you think, because it matters to me.’
‘Okay, you asked for it. No, I don’t admire you. Not today.’
We were silent for a while.
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ she said at last.
‘I don’t, actually.’
I frowned again and she laughed: the little laugh that bubbles up from an in-joke.
‘Look at your face,’ she said. ‘What happened to you? Fell off your pride again, right?’
‘Happily, the fall’s not too far.’
She laughed again, but it quickly became a frown.
‘Can you even explain it? Why you’ve been fighting? Why a fight always finds you?’
Of course I couldn’t. Being kidnapped and strapped to a banana lounge by the Scorpion gang: how could I explain that? I didn’t understand it myself, not any of it, not even Concannon. Especially not Concannon. I didn’t know, then, that I was standing on a tattered corner of a bloody carpet that would soon cover most of the world.
‘Who says I have to explain it?’
‘Can you?’ she repeated.
‘Can you explain the things you did to us back then, Karla?’
She flinched.
‘Don’t hold back, Karla.’
‘Maybe I should chase to the cut, so to speak, and tell you the answer.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Sure you’ve got the stomach for it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay then, the –’
‘No, wait!’
‘Wait what?’
‘My conversation sub-routine is crying out for that coffee.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, I’m grievously coffee-deprived. That’s how you kicked my ass.’
‘So I did win?’
‘You won. Can I have the coffee now?’
I used my sleeve to snatch the pot from the fire and pour some coffee into a chipped mug. I offered it to Karla, but she wrinkled her lip in a proscenium arch of disgust.
‘I’m reading a no,’ I guessed.
‘How’s that magic act workin’ out? Drink the damn coffee, yaar.’
I sipped at the coffee. It was too strong and too sweet and too bitter, all at the same time. Perfect.
‘Okay, good,’ I croaked, coffee shivering hello. ‘I’m good.’
‘The –’
‘No, wait!’
I found a joint.
‘Okay,’ I said, puffing it alight. ‘I’m good. Lemme have it.’
‘Sure you don’t need a manicure, or a massage?’ Karla growled.
‘I’m so good, now. Smack me around all you like, Karla.’
‘Okay, here goes. The marks on your face, and all the scars on your body, are like graffiti, scrawled by your own delinquent talent.’
‘Not bad.’
‘I’m not finished. Your heart’s a tenant, in the broken-down tenement of your life.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The slumlord’s coming to collect the rent, Lin,’ she said, a little more softly. ‘Soon.’
I knew her well enough to know that she’d written and rehearsed those lines. I’d seen her journals, filled with notes for the clever things she said. Rehearsed or not, she was right.
‘Karla, look –’
‘You’re playing Russian roulette with Fate,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
‘And your money’s on Fate? Is that what this is about?’
‘Fate loads the gun. Fate loads every gun in the world.’
‘Anything else?’
‘While you do this,’ she said, even more softly, ‘you’re only breaking things.’
It was just true enough to hurt, no matter how softly she said it.
‘You know, if you keep coming on to me like this . . . ’
‘You got funnier,’ she said, laughing a little.
‘I’m still what I used to be.’
We stared at one another for a few moments.
‘Look, Karla, I don’t know what it is with Ranjit, and I don’t know how it’s two whole years since I looked at you and heard your voice. I just know that when I’m with you, it’s wild horse right. I love you, and I’ll always be there for you.’
Emotions were leaves in a storm on her face. There were too many different feelings for me to read. I hadn’t seen her. I hadn’t been with her. She looked happy and angry, satisfied and sad, all at the same time. And she didn’t speak. Karla, lost for words. It hurt her, in some way, and I had to break the mood.
‘Sure you don’t want to try that coffee?’
She raised a rattlesnake eyebrow, and was about to fang me, but sounds from the caves alerted us to the presence of others, waking with the dawn.
We breakfasted with the happy devotees and were drinking our second mug of chai, when a young student appeared at the ridge of the camp where the steep climb from the forest ended. He accepted a chai gratefully, and announced that the master wouldn’t be joining us until after lunch.
‘That’s it,’ Karla muttered, moving to the open kitchen, where she rinsed out her cup and set it on a stand to dry.
‘That’s what?’ I asked, joining her at the sink.
‘I’ve got time to go down, visit Khaled, and be back before Idriss gets here.’
‘I’m coming with,’ I said quickly.
‘Wait a minute. Call off the myrmidons. Why are you coming?’
It wasn’t an idle question. Karla didn’t idle.
‘Why? Because Khaled’s my friend. And I haven’t seen him since he walked into the snow, nearly three years ago.’
‘A go
od friend would leave him the hell alone, right now,’ she said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She fixed me with that look: hunger burning in a tiger’s eyes, staring at prey. I loved it.
‘He’s happy,’ she said quietly.
‘And?’
She glanced at Abdullah, who’d come up to stand beside me.
‘Happy’s hard to find,’ she said at last.
‘I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Happiness has a sign on it,’ she said. ‘It says Do Not Disturb, but everybody does.’
‘Interfering is what we do,’ I insisted, ‘if we care about someone. Weren’t you interfering, when you ripped some skin off me just now?’
‘And were you interfering, between Ranjit and me?’
‘How?’
‘When you asked me if I love him.’
Abdullah coughed politely.
‘Perhaps I should leave you for some time,’ he suggested.
‘No secrets from you, Abdullah,’ Karla said.
‘But you keep plenty of your own, brother,’ I said. ‘Not telling me that Khaled is here?’
‘Fire away at Abdullah, Lin,’ Karla interjected. ‘But answer my question first.’
‘When you know where we are in this conversation, come get me.’
‘You were answering a question.’
‘What question?’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you love me?’
‘Dammit, Karla! You’re the most indiscernible woman who ever spoke a common language.’
‘Give me a ten-minute head start,’ she laughed. ‘No, make it fifteen.’
‘What are you planning?’
She laughed again, and pretty hard.
‘I want to warn Khaled that you’re coming, and give him a chance to escape. You know how important that is, don’t you? A chance to escape?’
She walked to the edge of the mesa, then slipped out of sight on the steep path. I waited for the essential fifteen minutes to pass. Abdullah was looking at me. I didn’t bite. I didn’t want to know.
‘Perhaps . . . she is right in this,’ he said, at last.
‘Not you, too?’
‘If Khaled looks at what he has through your eyes, instead of his own eyes, he may believe in himself less than he does now. And I need him to be strong.’
‘Is that why you never told me Khaled was here in Bombay?’
‘Yes, that was a part of it. To protect his little happiness. He was never a very happy man. You remember that, I am certain.’
He was, in fact, the most dour and stern man I’d ever known. Every member of his family had been killed in the wars and purges that pursued the Palestinian diaspora into Lebanon. He was so callused by hatred and sorrow that the most vicious insult in his Hindi vocabulary was the word Kshama, meaning forgiveness.
‘I still don’t get it, Abdullah.’
‘You have an influence over our brother Khaled,’ he said solemnly.
‘What influence?’
‘Your opinion matters very much to him. It always did. And your opinion of him will change, when you come to know of his life now.’
‘Why don’t we cross that bridge, before we blow it up?’
‘But another part,’ Abdullah said, his hand on my arm, ‘the biggest part, was to protect him from harm.’
‘What do you mean? He was a Council member. That’s for life. No-one can touch him.’
‘Yes, but Khaled is the only man who has the authority to challenge Sanjay for the leadership of the Council. That can make some resent him, or fear him.’
‘Only if he challenged Sanjay.’
‘In fact, I have asked him to do just that.’
Abdullah, the most loyal man I knew, was planning a coup. Men would die. Friends would die.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘We need Khaled, perhaps more than you know. He has refused, but I will ask him again, and keep on asking him, until he agrees. For now, please keep his presence here a secret, just as I have done.’
It was a long speech for the taciturn Iranian.
‘Abdullah, none of this applies to me any more. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve been trying to find a way to bring this up with you since we got here.’
‘Is it too much to ask of you?’
‘No, brother,’ I replied, moving half a step away from him. ‘It’s not too much to ask, but it has nothing to do with me any more. I made a decision, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to tell you. It’s such a big thing that I’ve pushed it away, after Concannon and the Scorpions, and then seeing Karla up here, after so long. I guess . . . now is the right time to face it, and get it out there.’
‘What decision? Has anyone talked to you about my plan?’
I let out a heavy sigh. Straightening up, I smiled, and leaned back against a squared-off boulder.
‘No, Abdullah, nobody talked about your plan. I never heard about it, until you told me just now. I made the decision to leave after Lightning Dilip told me that three kids cancelled on the dope that DaSilva and his crew are selling.’
‘But you do not have anything to do with that, and I do not. It is not our operation. We both disagreed with Sanjay, when he started garad and girls in South Bombay. It was not our decision to make.’
‘No, it’s more than that, man,’ I said, looking out at the spirals of storm swirling over the distant city. ‘I can give you ten good reasons why I should leave, and why I have to leave, but they’re not important, because I can’t think of one good reason to stay. Bottom line is, I’m just done, that’s all. I’m out.’
The Iranian warrior frowned, his eyes searching left and right through an invisible battlefield for the Lin he knew, while his mind made war on his heart.
‘Will you permit me to persuade you?’
‘Trying to persuade isn’t just permitted, among good friends,’ I said, ‘it’s required. But please, let me spare you the kindness. I don’t want to hear you plead a lost cause for me. I know how you feel, because I feel it myself. The truth is, my mind’s made up. I’m already gone, Abdullah. I’m long gone.’
‘Sanjay won’t like it.’
‘You’re right about that,’ I laughed. ‘But I don’t have any family ties to the Company. I don’t have any family, so he doesn’t have the mafia card to play against me. And Sanjay knows I’m good with passports. I could always be useful, sometime down the line. He’s a cautious guy. He likes options. I’m guessing he won’t put fire in my way.’
‘That is a dangerous guess,’ Abdullah mused.
‘Yeah. That it is.’
‘If I kill him, your odds will improve.’
‘I don’t know why I even have to say these words, Abdullah, but here goes, Please don’t kill Sanjay, for me. Are we clear on that? It would ruin my appetite for a month, man.’
‘Granted. When I take his life, I will purge your benefit from my mind.’
‘How about not killing Sanjay at all?’ I asked. ‘For any reason. And why are we talking about killing Sanjay? How did you let this happen, Abdullah? No, no, don’t tell me. I’m out. I don’t want to know.’
Abdullah mulled it over for a while, his jaw locked, and his lips twitching with the tide of reflection.
‘What will you do?’
‘I think I’ll freelance,’ I answered him, my eyes following a shadow of thoughts across his wind-shaped face. ‘I thought I might string with Didier for a while. He’s been asking me to throw in with him for years.’
‘Very dangerous,’ he mumbled.
‘More dangerous than this?’ I asked, and when he opened his mouth to speak, I stopped him. ‘Don’t even try, brother.’
‘Have you told
anyone else about this?’
‘No.’
‘Make no mistake, Lin,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘I am starting a war, and I must win it. Your belief in Sanjay’s leadership has been lost, as has mine, and you are no longer with the Company. Very well. But I hope that your loyalty to me will ensure your silence, concerning my plans.’
‘I wish you hadn’t told me about it, Abdullah. Conspiracies contaminate, and I’m contaminated now. But you’re my brother, man, and if it’s a choice between them and you, I’ll stand with you every time. Just don’t tell me any more about the plan, okay? Didn’t anyone ever tell you, there’s no curse as cruel as another man’s plans?’
‘Thank you, Lin,’ he said, smiling softly. ‘I will do what I can to ensure that the war does not come to your door.’
‘I’d prefer it didn’t come to my subcontinent. Why war, Abdullah? Walk away, man. I’ll stand with you, out here, outside the Company, no matter what they throw at us. A war will kill our friends, as well as our enemies. Is anything worth that?’
He leaned back against the squared stone beside me, his shoulder touching mine. We both looked out over the forest canopy, and then he rested his head on the stone to look into the troubled sky.
I lay back against the stone, lifting my face to fields of cloud, ploughed by the storm.
‘I cannot leave, Lin,’ he sighed. ‘We would be good partners, it is true, but I cannot leave.’
‘The boy, Tariq.’
‘Yes. He is Khaderbhai’s nephew, and my responsibility.’
‘Why? You never told me.’
His face softened in the sad smile we reserve for the memory of a bitter failure that brought eventual success.
‘Khaderbhai saved my life,’ he said at last. ‘I was young, an Iranian soldier running away from the war with Iraq. I got into bad trouble, here in Bombay. Khaderbhai intervened. I could not understand why a mighty don would reach out to save me, from a death that my pride and my temper had earned.’
His head was close to mine, but his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else, somewhere beyond the great stones at our backs.
‘When he granted me an audience, and told me the matter was resolved, assuring me that I was safe from harm, I asked him how I could repay him,’ Abdullah continued. ‘Khaderbhai smiled at me for a long time. You know that smile so well, Lin brother.’
‘I do. Still feel it, sometimes.’