‘And then he made me spill my blood, with my own knife, and swear on that flowing blood to watch his nephew, Tariq, as a protector, offering my life, if necessary, for as long as I or the boy should live.’
‘He was a master of the devil’s compact.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Abdullah said quietly, as we sat up and turned to face one another. ‘But that is why I cannot simply walk away from what Sanjay is doing. There are things you do not understand. Things I cannot tell you. But Sanjay is bringing fire on our heads, maybe even on the city itself. Terrible fire. The boy, Tariq, is in danger, and I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe.’
We stared at one another for a while, not smiling but at peace, somehow. At last he stood up, and slapped me on the shoulder.
‘You will need more guns,’ he said.
‘I’ve got two guns.’
‘Exactly. You need more guns. Leave it to me.’
‘I have enough guns,’ I said, starting to catch up.
‘Leave it to me.’
‘I don’t need new guns.’
‘Everybody needs new guns. Even armies need new guns, and armies have many guns. Leave it to me.’
‘Tell you what. If you can find a gun that makes people go to sleep for a couple of days without hurting them, get me one, and a lot of ammunition.’
Abdullah stopped, and drew me close to whisper.
‘This will be bad, before it is good, Lin. It is not a joke. Please know that I value your silence very highly, the silence of friendship, because I know that you are risking your life, should Sanjay come to know of it. Be prepared for war, the more so if you despise war.’
‘Okay, Abdullah, okay.’
‘Let us go to Khaled,’ he said, walking away.
‘Oh, so now it’s okay to disturb his little happiness, huh?’ I said, following him.
‘You are not family now, Lin brother,’ he said quietly, as I drew alongside him at the edge of the mesa. ‘Your opinion no longer has influence.’
I stared into his eyes, and it was there: the blur of indifference, the diminishment of love’s light and friendship’s bright trust, the subtle change in the aura of affections when one still inside the fold looks into the eyes of what lives outside.
I’d found a home, a broken home, in the Sanjay Company, but the gates were closed there forever. I loved Abdullah, but love is a loyalty of one, and he was still in a band of brothers, loyal to all. That’s why I’d waited to tell him: why I’d let myself drift inside the other tides of Karla’s soft-eyed cleverness and Concannon’s martial madness.
I was losing Abdullah. I struck the tree-inside, what we were together in the Company, with the axe of separation. And my friend, his eyes drifting on stranger currents, led us over the mesa on the downward path, as thunder tumbled in that threatening sea, the drowning sky.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At the base of the mountain Abdullah led me away behind the valley of the sandstone Buddhas and its well-cleared paths. We followed a jungle track through thick forest for a few minutes, and then entered a tree-lined approach, rising on a gentle slope to meet a concrete and hardwood house, three storeys tall.
Before we reached the steps leading up to the wide ground-floor veranda, Khaled walked out of the vestibule to greet us.
Dressed in a voluminous yellow silk robe, and with garlands of red and yellow flowers around his neck, he stood with his fists locked onto his hips.
‘Shantaram!’ he shouted. ‘Welcome to Shangri-La!’
He’d changed. He’d changed so much in the years since I’d seen him. His hair had thinned to the point that he was almost bald. The fighter’s frame had expanded until his hips and belly were wider than his shoulders. The handsome face that had frowned its rage and recrimination at the world was swollen, from temple to vanishing jaw, and his smile all but concealed his golden-brown eyes.
It was Khaled, my friend. I rushed the steps to greet him.
He extended his hands, holding me two steps below. A young man in a yellow kurta took a photograph of us, let the camera fall to a strap around his neck, and pulled a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.
‘Don’t mind Tarun,’ Khaled said, nodding his head toward the young man. ‘He keeps a record of everyone I meet, and everything I do and say. I’ve told him not to do it, but the naughty lad won’t listen. And hey, people always do what their hearts tell them to do, isn’t it so?’
‘Well –’
‘I got fat,’ he said.
It wasn’t regretful or ironic. It was a flat statement of fact.
‘Well –’
‘But you look very fit. What have you been doing, to get all those bruises? Boxing with Abdullah? Looks like he got the better of you. No surprise, eh? Certainly, you both look fit enough to make that climb up my mountain, to see Idriss.’
‘Your mountain?’
‘Well . . . this part of it is mine, na? It’s actually Idriss who thinks he owns the whole mountain. He’s such a chudh. Anyway, come here, let me give you a hug, and then we’ll take a look around.’
I climbed the last two steps, and fell into a fleshy cloud. Tarun flashed a photograph. When Khaled released me he shook hands with Abdullah, and led the way inside.
‘Where’s Karla?’ I asked, a step behind him.
‘She said that she will meet you again on the path,’ Khaled replied breezily. ‘She is jogging, I think, to clear her mind. I am not sure whether it is you or me that disturbs her peace, but my money is on you, old friend.’
The entrance to the huge old house opened into a wide vestibule, with staircases left and right, and archways leading to the main rooms of the ground floor.
‘This was a Britisher’s monsoon retreat,’ Khaled announced, as we moved beyond the vestibule to a sitting room featuring walls of books, two writing desks, and several comfortable leather chairs. ‘It passed to a businessman, but when the national park was established here, he was forced to sell it to the city. A rich friend of mine, one of my students, has rented it from the city for some years, and he gave it to me, to use.’
‘Your students?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Oh, I see. Is this where you learn how not to contact your friends, when you come back from the dead?’
‘Very funny, Lin,’ he replied, in that flat tone he’d used when he’d described himself as fat. ‘But I think you’ll understand my need for discretion.’
‘Fuck discretion. You’re not dead, Khaled, and I want to know why I didn’t know that.’
‘Things are not as simple as you think, Lin. And anyway, what I teach people here has nothing to do with the outside world. I teach love. Specifically, I teach people how to love themselves. I think you’re not surprised that for some people, that’s not easy.’
We walked through the sitting room, opened the louvred French doors and entered a wide sunroom, running the whole width of the house. There were many wicker armchairs, with glass-topped tables between them.
Softly whirring overhead fans disturbed the slender leaves of potted palms. A wall of glass panels looked out into an English-style garden of rosebushes, and neatly clipped hedges.
Two pretty young Western girls dressed in tunics approached us, bowing to Khaled, their palms pressed together.
‘Please, take a seat,’ Khaled invited, pointing toward two of the wicker chairs. ‘What will you have, hot drinks, or cold?’
‘Cold,’ Abdullah answered.
‘The same.’
Khaled nodded at the girls. They backed up a few steps, before walking away out of sight. Khaled watched them leave.
‘Good help is so easy to find these days,’ he sighed contentedly, as he lowered himself into a chair.
Tarun made notes.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘What . . . happened?’ Khaled r
epeated, mystified.
‘The last time I saw you there was a dead lunatic on the ground, and you walked into a snow storm, without a gun. Now you’re here. What happened?’
‘Oh,’ he smiled. ‘I see. We’re back to that.’
‘Yeah. We’re back to that.’
‘You know, Lin, you got harder, since I saw you last.’
‘Maybe I did, Khaled. Maybe I just like the truth, when I can get it.’
‘The truth,’ he mused.
He glanced up at Tarun, who was still making notes. The assistant stopped, caught Khaled’s eye, sighed, and put his notebook away.
‘Well,’ Khaled continued, ‘I walked from Afghanistan. And I walked. And I walked. It’s surprising, really, how far you can walk, when you don’t care if you live, or if you die. To be precise, when you don’t love yourself.’
‘You walked where, exactly?’
‘I walked to Pakistan.’
Tell me about Pakistan, a voice said in my head.
‘And after Pakistan?’
‘After Pakistan, I walked to India. Then I walked through India, to Varanasi. By the time I got there, word had spread about me. A lot of people were talking about the Silent Walking Baba, who never spoke a word to anyone. It took me a while to realise they were talking about me. I didn’t speak, because by then I actually couldn’t speak. Physically, I mean. I was quite sick, from malnutrition. Almost died from it. The hunger, for so many starving months, caused my hair to fall out, and many of my teeth. My mouth was swollen with ulcers. I couldn’t say a word, to save my life.’
He laughed softly, chuckling motes in a sunbeam of memory.
‘But people took my silence for wisdom, you see? Less really is more, sometimes. And in Varanasi, I met an Englishman, Lord Bob, who claimed me as his guru. As it happens, he was very rich. A lot of my students have been rich, in fact, which is funny, when you think about it.’
He paused, staring out into the English garden, a smile of wonderment pulling at the edges of his mouth.
‘Lord Bob . . . ’ I prompted.
‘Oh, yes. Lord Bob. He was such a kind and caring man, but he was in need of something. Desperately in need. He spent his whole life searching in vain for the one thing that would give his life meaning, and then he finally came to me for an answer.’
‘What was it?’ I asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Khaled replied. ‘I had no idea what he was searching for, frankly. Not a clue. He was stinking rich, after all. What could he possibly want? But I don’t think it mattered much to Lord Bob that I couldn’t help him, because he left me everything, when he died.’
The girls returned with two trays, and set them down on tables near us. There were drinks in long glasses, and several dishes of dried papaya, pineapple and mango, and three varieties of shelled nuts.
Bowing deeply to Khaled, their hands pressed together reverently, the girls backed away and then turned, gliding across the tiled veranda on bare feet.
I watched the girls out of sight, and turned to see Khaled, staring dreamily at the garden, and Abdullah staring fixedly at Khaled.
‘I was there, in Varanasi, for nearly two years,’ Khaled reflected. ‘And I miss it, sometimes.’
He looked around then, and picked up one of the glasses. He handed it to me, passed another to Abdullah, and took a long sip himself.
‘They were good years,’ he said. ‘I learned a lot from Lord Bob’s willingness to subjugate himself, and surrender to me.’
He chuckled. I glanced at Abdullah. Did he say subjugate? Did he say surrender? It was a strange moment, in an already strange hour. We sipped our drinks.
‘And he wasn’t the only one, of course,’ Khaled continued. ‘There were many others, even elderly sadhus, all of them too happy to kneel and touch my feet, even though I said nothing at all. And that’s when I understood the power that comes into us when another man, even if it’s only one other, bends his knee in devotion. I understood that men sell the power of that dream to women, every time they propose.’
He laughed. I stared at my drink, at the lines of moisture that zigzagged through the silver filigree design on the surface of the ruby-red glass. I was becoming increasingly uneasy. The Khaled who spoke so complacently about others kneeling before him wasn’t the friend I’d loved.
Khaled turned to Abdullah.
‘I think our brother, Lin, is rather surprised that while my English has improved, in the years with Lord Bob, my American sensibility has declined, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Every man is responsible for his own actions,’ Abdullah replied. ‘That law applies to you, and to those who choose to kneel before you, as it does to Lin, and to me.’
‘Well said, old friend!’ Khaled cried.
He placed his glass on the table, and lifted himself with some grunting effort from the chair.
‘Come! I want to show you something.’
We followed him back into the house and through to the staircases flanking the entrance vestibule. Khaled paused at the foot of the stairs for a moment, his hand resting on the turned wooden pommel.
‘I hope you liked the juice,’ he asked earnestly.
‘Sure.’
‘It’s the drop of maple syrup that makes the difference,’ he pressed.
There was a pause. I understood, at last, that he wanted a reply.
‘The juice was fine, Khaled,’ I said.
‘Good juice,’ Abdullah echoed.
‘I’m so glad,’ Khaled said flatly. ‘You’ve got no idea how long it took me to train the kitchen staff on the juices. I had to flog one of them with a spatula. And the drama I had with the desserts, don’t let me go there.’
‘You have my word,’ I said.
He took one step, but then turned quickly to speak to Tarun, who’d been following us.
‘You can wait here, Tarun,’ Khaled said. ‘In fact, take a break. Get yourself a biscuit.’
Crushed, Tarun ambled away. Khaled watched him leave, suspicion squinting in his eyes.
The old Khaled could’ve taken the steps three at a time, and beaten any man in Bombay to the top floor. The new Khaled paused twice on the first flight.
‘This floor,’ he puffed, as we reached the first floor, ‘has all of our main meditation and yoga halls.’
‘Do a lot of yoga, then?’ I asked, channelling the impish spirit of Gemini George for a moment.
‘No, no!’ Khaled replied seriously. ‘I’m much too fat and unfit for that. I was always a boxing and karate man, anyway. You remember that, Lin.’
I remembered. I remembered when Khaled could fight any man in the city but Abdullah into the ground, and still have energy to spare.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But yoga is very popular, with my people. They’re at it all the time. They’d do it all night, if I let them. I practically have to hose them down to make them stop.’
Through the nearest door in the corridor, we could see a class of a dozen people, sitting on mats. Flute music came from speakers fixed to the walls.
Regaining his breath, Khaled led us to the second floor.
The corridor at that level showed many closed doors, running the length of the building.
‘Dormitories,’ Khaled wheezed. ‘And single rooms.’
He gently eased open the door to the nearest room. We saw several girls, sleeping on single beds under tent-pole mosquito nets. The girls were naked.
‘My most devoted students,’ Khaled said, in that same bewilderingly flat tone.
‘What the fuck, Khaled?’ I snapped, but he put his finger to his lips, silencing me.
‘Please, Lin, be quiet! We won’t get a minute’s peace, if you wake them up.’
‘Okay, bye, Khaled,’ I said, leaving.
‘What are you doing?’ Khaled asked, a puzzle stamped on his f
orehead.
‘Well, I’m gonna keep on walking until I’m not here. That’s what goodbye means.’
‘No, Lin, what’s the matter?’ he asked, pulling the door closed gently.
‘The matter?’ I said, stopping at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s that in there, a harem? Have you gone nuts, Khaled? Who do you think you are?’
‘Everyone here is free to leave, Lin,’ he said flatly, his frown darkening at the edges. ‘Including you.’
‘What a coincidence,’ I sighed, turning to go. ‘I was just leaving.’
‘No, no, I’m sorry,’ he said, rushing forward and putting a hand on my shoulder to stop me. ‘There’s something you have to see! Something I must show you! It’s a secret. A secret I want to share with you.’
‘I’ve had enough secrets for one day, Khaled. Call me, when you come down off the mountain.’
‘But Abdullah hasn’t seen the secret yet. You can’t deprive him, as well, can you? That would be cruel. Abdullah, wouldn’t you like to know the secret?’
‘I would, Khaled,’ Abdullah replied, all fascinated innocence.
‘Then, tell Lin. Convince him to stay. Whatever the case, I’m going up to see the secret, and you’re welcome to come along, if you want, my brothers.’
He released his grip on my shoulder, braced himself with a deep breath for the climb to the third floor, and then trudged up the stairs.
I held Abdullah back.
‘What are we doin’ here, Abdullah?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A room full of naked girls? What’s the matter with him? There’s plenty of girls. The world’s full of girls. Having your own roomful of girls is what gives creepy a bad name. Come on, brother. Let’s go.’
‘But, Lin,’ Abdullah whispered. ‘What about the secret?’
‘Are you kidding?’
‘It is a secret. A real secret.’
‘I don’t like the secret I heard already, Abdullah.’
‘How can you not want to know?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve got psychic asthma, and right now, I need fresh air. It’s medicinal. Let’s go.’
‘Please stay with me, Lin, just until the secret is unveiled.’