I sighed.
‘Are you guys coming?’ Khaled called out from his resting place, halfway up the flight of stairs. ‘These stairs are killing me. I’m getting an elevator installed next week.’
Abdullah gave me his pleading frown.
‘Okay, okay,’ I called back, heading up the stairs.
Plodding wearily, Khaled followed the elbow turn of the stairs and finally came to a closed door. Fetching a key from the folds of his kaftan, he opened the door, and ushered us inside.
It was dark. The light from the stairwell revealed an attic room, with the folded arms of roof beams above our heads. Khaled closed the door, locked it, and clicked on a suspended light bulb.
It was a hoard of objects in gold and silver: jewelled necklaces and chains, spilling from little wooden chests, scattered across several tables.
There were candlesticks and mirrors, picture frames, hairbrushes, strings of pearls, jewelled bracelets, watches, necklaces, brooches, rings, earrings, nose-rings, toe rings and even several black and gold wedding necklaces.
And there was money. A lot of money.
‘No matter how I tried to explain this,’ Khaled said, breathing through his open mouth, ‘nothing could ever be clearer than seeing it for yourself, na? This is the power of the bended knee. Do you see? Do you see?’
There was a softly breathing silence. Pigeons brooded in a distant corner of the roofline, their warbled comments echoing in the long, closed room.
Finally, Khaled spoke again.
‘Tax free,’ he wheezed.
He looked from Abdullah, to me, and back again.
‘Well? What do you think?’
‘You need more security,’ Abdullah observed.
‘Ha!’ Khaled laughed, clapping the tall Iranian on the back. ‘Are you volunteering for the job, my old friend?’
‘I have a job,’ he replied, even more seriously.
‘Yes, yes, of course you do, but –’
‘Your students gave you all this stuff?’ I asked.
‘Actually, I call them students, but they refer to themselves as devotees,’ Khaled said, staring at the hoard. ‘There was even more than this.’
‘More than this?’
‘Oh, yes. A lot of other gifts from my devotees in Varanasi. But I had to leave there rather quickly, and I lost everything.’
‘Lost it how?’
‘To the police, as a bribe,’ Khaled replied. ‘That’s why Lord Bob set me up here, in this house, just before he died.’
‘Why did you have to leave Varanasi so quickly?’
‘Why do you want to know, Lin, my old friend?’
The jewels from the treasure were glittering in his eyes.
‘You brought it up, man.’
He stared at me for a while, hesitating on the glacial edge of cold-hearted truth. He decided to trust me, I guess.
‘There was a girl,’ he said. ‘A devotee, a very sincere devotee, who came from a prominent Brahmin family. She was beautiful, and ultimately devoted to me, body and soul. I didn’t know she was below the age.’
‘Come on, Khaled.’
‘I couldn’t know. You live here, Lin, you know how precocious these young Indian girls can be. She looked eighteen, I swear. Her breasts were swollen like ripe mangoes. And the sex was fully mature. But, alas, she was only fourteen.’
‘Khaled, you just officially freaked me out.’
‘No, Lin, understand me –’
‘Understand sex with kids? You want me to see it your way? Is that it, Khaled?’
‘But it won’t happen again.’
‘Again?’
‘It can’t happen again. I’ve taken measures.’
‘You’re making this worse every time you open your mouth, Khaled.’
‘Listen to me! I make every one of them show me a birth certificate now, especially the younger ones. I’m protected, now.’
‘You’re protected?’
‘Let’s stop all this serious talk, yaar. We all have things in the past that we regret, no? We have a saying, in Arabic. Take counsel from he who makes you weep, not from he who makes you laugh. I haven’t made you laugh today, Lin, but that doesn’t mean my counsel is worthless.’
‘Khaled –’
‘I want you to know that you, and Abdullah, my only remaining brothers, will always be safe, now. This power, this money and my inheritance, it’s all ours.’
‘What are you talking about, Khaled?’
‘Money, to expand the business,’ he unexplained.
‘What business?’
‘This business. The ashram. The time has come to franchise. We can run this together, and spread out through India, and eventually to America. The sky’s the limit. Literally, in fact.’
‘Khaled –’
‘That’s why I’ve waited so long to contact you. I had to accumulate this fund base. I brought you here to show you something that’s yours, as much as it is mine.’
‘You’re right about that,’ I said.
‘I’m so glad you understand.’
‘I mean that this stuff you’ve got here isn’t ours, Khaled, and it isn’t yours.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It was given to something bigger than we are, and you know it.’
‘But, you don’t understand,’ he insisted. ‘I want you both in this with me. We can make millions. But the spiritual industry is a vicious business. I’ll need you, as we move on.’
‘I’ve already moved on, Khaled.’
‘But we can franchise!’ Khaled hissed, all teeth. ‘We can franchise!’
‘Khaled, I must leave the city,’ Abdullah said suddenly, urgency rasping his voice.
‘What?’ Khaled asked, shaken from a tree of plans.
‘I want to ask you, one more time, to leave this place, and these people, and come back to Bombay with me.’
‘Again, Abdullah?’ Khaled said.
‘Take your rightful place at the head of the Council that was Khaderbhai’s. We are in a time of trouble, and it will become much worse. We need you to lead us. We need you to push Sanjay aside, and lead us. If you come now, Sanjay will live. If you don’t, one of us will kill him, and then you will have to lead anyway, for the sake of the Company.’
In that new avatar, Khaled was the opposite of what I considered to be a leader of men. But Abdullah, an Iranian who’d tuned his heart to the music of Bombay’s streets, didn’t see the man who stood with us in the attic room. Abdullah saw the prestige that attached itself to Khaled’s long and intimate friendship with Khaderbhai, and the authority that bled from the many battles and gang wars Khaled had presided over, and won, for the Company.
I was done with the Sanjay Company, my mind was made up, but I knew that New Khaled’s taste for subjugation would add fire to Old Khaled’s unhesitating use of power.
Crime mixed with anything is fatal, which is why we’re fascinated by it. Crime mixed with religion redeems saviours with the sacrifice of sinners. I didn’t want Khaled to accept Abdullah’s offer.
‘Once more, I tell you that I can’t accept,’ Khaled smiled. ‘But with friendship and respect, I want you to consider my offer. It’s a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor, before the spiritual industry really takes off. We can make millions from yoga alone.’
‘You must think of the Company, Khaled,’ Abdullah pressed. ‘You must follow your destiny.’
‘It will not happen,’ Khaled responded, the little smile still on his lips. ‘But I do appreciate your kindness, in considering me again. Now, before you take a final decision, I ask you to think on all my treasures, and join me at lunch. I’m starved, I don’t mind telling you.’
‘I’m done,’ I said.
‘You’re . . . what?’
‘Khaled, I was
already done when you showed me the harem. I’m leaving.’
‘Does that mean you won’t be taking any food?’ Khaled asked, locking the door.
‘It means goodbye, again, Khaled.’
‘But, it’s bad luck not to eat food that has been prepared for you!’ he warned.
‘I’ll have to risk it.’
‘But it’s Kashmiri sweets. A Kashmiri sweet chef is one of my devotees. You have no idea how hard they are to get.’
I crossed the entry hall, Khaled bustling behind me. Tarun joined us, trotting at his master’s side.
‘Oh, well,’ he puffed, walking with us onto the front veranda.
He gave me a damp, spongy hug, shook hands with Abdullah, and waved as we walked the gravel path.
‘Come back any time!’ he called. ‘You’re always welcome! We show movies, on Wednesday nights! We serve ice-cold firni! And we dance, on Thursdays! I’m learning to dance. Can you believe it?’
Beside him, Tarun made new entries in his notebook.
At the first bend in the path we found Karla waiting for us. She was sitting on a fallen tree, and smoking a cigarette.
‘So, did you piss on his pilgrimage, Shantaram?’
‘You could’ve given me a little more warning, before I saw him,’ I said, feeling beaten by the truth. ‘What the hell happened to him?’
‘He got happy, more or less,’ she answered softly. ‘In his case, a little more than less.’
‘Are you happy to see him like this?’
They both stared at me.
‘Oh, come on!’
They continued to stare.
‘Okay, okay,’ I conceded. ‘Maybe . . . maybe I just want my friend back. Don’t you miss him?’
‘Khaled is here, Lin,’ Abdullah replied.
‘But –’
‘Save your breath for the climb,’ Karla said, heading back toward the path. ‘Do you gangsters ever shut up?’
We approached the ascent to the first caves, and she began to run at a slow jog. When we reached the steep climb she was still ahead of us.
As we struggled upwards, I couldn’t help staring at the sand-line curves of her body, contoured by the climb.
Men are dogs, Didier once said to me, without the manners.
‘Are you staring at my ass?’ she asked.
‘Afraid so.’
‘Forgive him, Karla.’ Abdullah said to cover somebody’s embarrassment. ‘He simply stares, because you are climbing like an ape.’
Karla laughed, clutching at the vines on the path to hold her place. That big, true laugh rang through domes of branches risen with the cliff. She held her free hand out to Abdullah, warning him not to say another word until the laughter rushed away from her.
‘Thank you, Abdullah,’ she said at last.
‘Don’t mention.’
And laughing, and joking, we three exiles climbed the mountain that would change everything, for each of us, forever.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When we reached the summit there was just enough time to freshen up. Karla changed into a sky-blue salwar kameez, and joined us for the last of the lunch that had been served. As we finished, an announcement was made that Idriss was on the mountain. I looked back toward the steep slope, but everyone else turned to stare at the caves.
‘There’s another way up this mountain?’ I asked Karla.
‘There’s another way up every mountain,’ she purred. ‘Everybody knows that.’
‘O . . . kay.’
Within seconds an older man I assumed to be Idriss and a younger man, both of them wearing white kurta tops and loose, sky-blue calico pants, appeared on a path that led past the women’s cave. The younger man, a foreigner, carried a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.
‘Who’s the gun?’
‘That’s Silvano,’ Karla replied.
‘What’s the rifle for?’
‘To frighten tigers away.’
‘There are tigers?’
‘Of course. On the next mountain.’
I wanted to ask how close the next mountain was, but Idriss spoke.
‘Dear friends,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘That’s quite a climb, even on the easy path. I apologise for being late. A squabble of philosophers set upon me this morning.’
His deep, gentle voice tumbled from his chest and hummed into the air. It seemed to roll around us on the mesa. It was a voice that comforts: a voice that could wake you softly from a nightmare.
‘What was their dilemma, master-ji?’ a student asked.
‘One of them,’ he replied, fishing a handkerchief from the pocket of his kurta and wiping his forehead, ‘had produced an argument to prove that happiness was the greatest of all evils. The others couldn’t defeat his argument. So, naturally, they became desperately unhappy. They wanted me to relieve them of their distress by refuting the argument.’
‘Did you do it, Idriss?’ another student asked.
‘Of course. But it took forever. Would anyone but philosophers fight so hard against the proposition that happiness is a good thing? And then, when their minds were convinced that happiness was a good thing, the sudden surge of all their pent-up happiness was too much for them. They lost control. Has anyone here seen hysterical philosophers?’
The students looked around at one another.
‘No?’ Idriss prodded. ‘Just as well. And there’s a lesson. The more slender your grip on reality, the more dangerous the world becomes. On the other hand, the more rational the world you find yourself in, the more carefully it must be questioned. But enough of that, let’s get started. Gather around, and get comfortable.’
The devotees and students brought stools and chairs, ranging them in a semicircle around Idriss, who lowered himself gently into an easy chair. The young man with the rifle, Silvano, sat a little behind Idriss and to his right. He sat on a hard wooden stool, his back rigid and his eyes passing back and forth among us. Very often his eyes stopped on me.
Abdullah leaned in to speak to me.
‘The Italian with the rifle, Silvano, is watching you,’ he whispered, with a little flick of his head.
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention,’ he replied gravely.
‘I see that we have a new visitor to our little study group,’ Idriss said, looking at me.
I turned to see if he wasn’t staring at someone behind me.
‘It’s a pleasure to have you with us, Lin. Khaderbhai spoke of you quite often, and I’m very glad you could come.’
Everyone turned to look at me. They smiled and nodded, welcoming me. I looked back at the holy man, resisting the temptation to say that Khaderbhai, for all the many conversations on philosophy we’d shared, had never once mentioned Idriss to me.
‘Tell us, Lin,’ he asked, smiling widely, ‘are you looking for enlightenment?’
‘I didn’t know anyone lost it,’ I replied.
It wasn’t exactly rude, but it wasn’t as respectful of the famous teacher’s dignity as it should’ve been. Silvano bristled, clutching reflexively at the barrel of the rifle.
‘Please, Master,’ he said, his deep voice riffling spiky malice. ‘Allow me to enlighten him.’
‘Put the rifle down, Romeo,’ I replied, ‘and we’ll find out who sees the light first.’
Silvano had a lightly muscled, athletic frame and moved it gracefully. Square-jawed and square-shouldered, with soft brown eyes and an expressive mouth, he looked more like an Italian fashion model or movie star than a holy man’s acolyte, or so it seemed to me then.
I didn’t know why he didn’t like me. Maybe the cuts and bruises on my face made him think he had to prove something. I didn’t care: I was so angry at Khaled and Fate that any fight would do.
Silvano stood. I stood. Idriss waved his right hand gently. Silv
ano sat, and I slowly sat down again.
‘Please forgive Silvano,’ Idriss said gently. ‘Loyalty is his way of loving. I think the same might be said of you, isn’t it so?’
Loyalty. Lisa and I couldn’t find a way to be in love with each other. I was in love with Karla, a woman who was married to someone else. I’d resigned my heart from the brotherhood of the Sanjay Company, and had a conversation about murdering Sanjay in the same day. Loyalty is something you need for things you don’t love enough. When you love enough, loyalty isn’t even a question.
Everyone was staring at me.
‘Sorry, Silvano, rough decade,’ I said.
‘Good. Very good,’ Idriss said. ‘Now, I want, no, I need you two boys to be friends. So, I will ask you to come here, both of you, in front of me, and shake hands with one another. Bad vibrations will not help us move toward enlightenment, will they, boys?’
Silvano’s square jaw clenched on his reluctance, but he stood up quickly and took a step to stand before Idriss. His left hand held the rifle. His right hand was free.
A foolish impulse to resist being told what to do held me in place. The students began to murmur, their hushed voices buzzing between them. Idriss looked at me. He seemed to be suppressing a smile. His brown eyes glittered, more brilliant than the jewels in Khaled’s attic.
Silvano squirmed, anger and humiliation pressing his lips together hard. White ridges formed around his mouth.
I didn’t care, in that empty instant. The Italian had started it, by asking for permission to enlighten me. I was happy to show him some lights of my own. And I was happy to leave the mountain, the sage, Abdullah and Karla, that minute.
Karla slammed an elbow into my ribs. I stood, and shook hands with Silvano. He made a contest of it.
‘Thank you,’ Idriss said at last, and we released our knuckle-crushing grip. ‘That was . . . enlightening. Now, take your places, and let’s get started.’
I returned to my chair. Abdullah was shaking his head slowly. Karla hissed a single word at me.
‘Idiot!’
I tried to frown, but couldn’t, because she was right.
‘Okay,’ Idriss said, his eyes glittering. ‘For the benefit of our visitor, what is Rule Number One?’