It was still night-dark, and wasn’t far from dawn, but it was India.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘A letter for me, is it?’
‘You are Mr Shantaram, and this is for Mr Shantaram,’ he said patiently. ‘So, yes, sir, this is for you.’
‘Okay,’ I said, signing for the letter. ‘Kinda late to be on your rounds, isn’t it?’
‘Or, very early,’ Karla said, standing next to me and leaning against my shoulder. ‘What brings you out at this time of not-working, postman-ji?’
‘It is my penance, Madame,’ the postman said, stowing the clipboard in his shoulder sack.
‘Penance,’ Karla smiled. ‘The innocence of adults. What’s your name, postman-ji?’
‘Hitesh, Madame,’ he said.
‘A Good Person,’ she said, translating the name.
‘Unfortunately not, Madame,’ he replied, handing me the letter.
I stuffed it into my pocket.
‘Why are you doing penance, may I ask?’ Karla asked.
‘I became a drunkard, Madame.’
‘But you’re not a drunkard now.’
‘No, Madame, I am not. But I was, and I neglected my duty.’
‘How?’
‘I was so drunk, sometimes,’ he said, speaking quietly, ‘that I hid a few sacks of letters, because I could not deliver them. The postal department made me enter a program, and after I completed it, they offered me my job back if I deliver all of the undelivered letters on my own time, and with an apology to the people I betrayed.’
‘And that brings you here,’ she said.
‘Yes, Madame. I start with the hotels, because they are open at this hour. So, please accept my apology, Mr Shantaram, for delivering your letter so late.’
‘Apology accepted, Hitesh,’ we said, at the same time.
‘Thank you. Good night and good morning to you,’ he said, a sombre look pulling him down the stairs to his next appointment.
‘India,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I love you.’
‘Aren’t you going to read it?’ Karla asked. ‘A letter delivered by Fate, in the person of a reformed man?’
‘You mean, aren’t you going to read it, right?’
‘Curiosity is its own reward,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to read it.’
‘Why not?’
‘A letter is just Fate, nagging. I don’t have great luck with letters.’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You wrote me two letters, and they’re the two best letters I ever got.’
‘I don’t mind writing them, now and then, but I don’t like getting them. One of my ideas of hell is a world where you don’t just get a letter every week or so, but you get one every minute, of every day, forever. It’s the stuff of nightmares.’
She looked at me, and then at the corner of the letter, poking from my pocket, and back at me.
‘You can read it, Karla, if you want to,’ I said, giving her the letter. ‘Please do. If there’s anything I need to know, you’ll tell me. If there’s not, tear it up.’
‘You don’t even know who sent it,’ she said, reading the envelope.
‘I don’t care who it’s from. I have bad luck with letters. Just tell me if there’s something I should know.’
She tapped the envelope against her cheek thoughtfully.
‘It’s already out of date, so I think I’ll read this later,’ she said, sliding it inside her shirt. ‘After we find Ankit, and make sure he’s okay.’
‘Ankit’s fine. He can take care of himself. He’s a dangerous communist, trained by Palestinians in Libya. I’d rather go into your tent, and make sure everything’s okay up here.’
‘Let’s go down there first,’ she smiled, ‘before we come up here.’
Chapter Seventy-Seven
We went down, thinking of up, and heard Randall and Ankit laughing before we turned into the archway, behind the façade of the hotel.
When we reached the converted limousine, parked against the wall, we found Randall and Ankit stretched out in the back, Vinson sitting on the mattress between them, and Naveen in the driver’s cabin with Didier.
‘Nice,’ Karla said, smiling wide. ‘How you doin’, guys?’
‘Karla!’ Didier shouted. ‘You must come and join us!’
‘Hi, Karla!’ other voices called.
‘What’s the occasion?’ Karla asked, leaning on the open rear door of the car.
‘We are commiserating,’ Didier said. ‘We are all abandoned men, or tragically separated men, and you will enjoy our masculine misery immensely.’
‘Abandoned?’ Karla scoffed. ‘Et tu, Didier?’
‘Taj broke it off with me, tonight,’ he sobbed.
‘Imagine,’ Karla replied. ‘Chiselled out of love by a sculptor.’
‘Miss Diva broke it off with me, too,’ Randall added.
‘And with me,’ Naveen said. ‘Strictly friends, from now on, she told me.’
‘I have never found love,’ Ankit said. ‘My search has not yet ended, but I have been alone in it for a very long time, and have my own bubbles of sorrow in the glass we raise.’
‘Rannveig kicked me out of the ashram,’ Vinson said. ‘I found her, and I lost her again. She said I had to stay there with her for like another month. A whole month. My business would go to hell, man, if I did that. She didn’t get it. She kicked me out. Lucky I found these guys.’
They were drinking Ankit’s anaesthetic in cocktail glasses. Vinson was loading the bowl of a bong. The glass reservoir was shaped like a skull. A small mother-of-pearl snake emblem was swimming in it.
He offered it to me, but I deflected it to Karla.
‘If I’m gonna do that, and try Ankit’s famous cocktails,’ she said, waving it away, ‘I’ve gotta sit inside that car, guys.’
‘Sit here between us, Karla,’ Didier pleaded.
‘Come on, Lin,’ she asked me. ‘Where do you want to sit?’
‘I’m gonna wipe the bike down,’ I said, knowing that she’d find the limousine full of masculine lament finer entertainment than I would. ‘You go ahead, and I’ll join you guys later.’
She kissed me. Naveen got out of the car and held the door for her. She crawled into the front seat beside Didier, but backwards. She propped a cushion against the dashboard and sat comfortably, looking into the back of the car, her legs crossed on the seat.
Naveen gave me a smile as he got in the car, and shut the door. Randall switched on some flashing Jaswant survival store lights, and passed Karla one of Ankit’s cocktails. She raised the glass.
‘Gentlemen!’ She said. ‘To the Lost Love Bureau!’
‘The Lost Love Bureau!’ they shouted.
On cue, Oleg strolled into the alley, his perpetual smile struggling a little. He brightened when he saw the party in the car.
‘Kruto! So glad to see you, Lin.’
‘Where have you been, man?’
‘Those girls,’ he said. ‘Those Divas. They wrung me out like a wrestler’s towel, man, then they threw me out. I’m feeling totally –’
‘Razbit?’ I offered.
‘Razbit,’ he repeated. ‘What’s the party about?’
‘It’s the annual meeting for lost lovers, and it started without you. Get in there, man.’
They shouted and hooted and dragged Oleg into the lounge in the back, where he lounged beside Randall, cocktail in hand.
Waiting for my love, I walked to my bike, parked near the best exit from the alleyway. I took cleaning rags from under the seat, and wiped her down tenderly.
While Karla roared and Didier shrieked with laughter, I talked to my bike and reassured her that she wasn’t alone.
I was worried about Madame Zhou. I didn’t know her well enough to know if she loved the twins, or loved anything at all. But s
he’d been inseparable from them for many years. She was already deranged, and prone to revenge. I wanted to know if she was angry and defeated, or just angry.
And the shadow that she seemed to prefer materialising from, every now and then, was the shadow in the archway under our hotel, where Karla was having so much fun.
Dawn was an hour away, and that sacred sun would sear the vampire, I hoped. I sat on the polished bike and smoked a joint, watching both entrances to the alley, and turning at every footstep, or sound of a vehicle.
Some thinking and worrying time later, the front door of the car laughed open. A tipsy Naveen shuffled out of the car, holding the door with exaggerated chivalry.
Karla stepped out quickly, and strolled to join me, doing very good languid.
Naveen called farewell, and the boys in the stretch-bed car shouted goodnight. Randall lowered the shutters on the windows of the car, preparing for daybreak.
‘Do you mind if we sit here, until dawn is up and running?’ I asked.
‘Not at all,’ she said, sitting beside me on the bike. ‘You’re on guard duty, aren’t you?’
‘Madame Zhou gives me the creeps. And she was attached to those twins.’
‘She’ll get hers,’ she said. ‘She already got some, from Blue Hijab. Karma’s a hammer, not a feather.’
‘I love you,’ I said, watching dawn’s pale shadows light her face, wanting to kiss her, but enjoying the thought of it so much that I didn’t kiss her. ‘How was it in the car?’
‘Damn good,’ she said. ‘I’ve got so much stuff to work with, in the next aphorism contest. It was like an acupuncture map of male insecurity.’
‘Give me one,’ I said.
‘No way,’ she laughed. ‘It’s not refined yet.’
‘Just one,’ I begged.
‘No.’
‘Just one,’ I double-begged.
‘Okay, okay,’ she surrendered. ‘Here’s one. Men are wishes wrapped in secrets, and women are secrets wrapped in wishes.’
‘Damn nice.’
‘You like it?’
‘I do.’
‘It was fun seeing the men unwrapped, so to speak. It was Didier, of course. None of them would’ve been so open, without him letting them do it.’
‘Did you tell Ankit about Blue Hijab?’
‘Yeah,’ she smiled. ‘I managed to slip it into the general consternation. He took it well.’
‘Good.’
‘And I offered him a job. He took that well, too.’
‘Smart man. And fast work, on your part. What else do you do fast, Karla Madame?’
The morning was awake enough to leave the boys to themselves, and I wanted to go back to the tent. I took a step to walk us away, but Karla stopped me.
‘Will you do something with me?’ she asked.
‘Now you’re talking,’ I smiled. ‘That’s just what I had in mind.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I mean, will you go somewhere with me?’
‘Is it upstairs, to your tent?’
‘After the tent.’
‘Sure,’ I laughed, just as laughter cackled from the men in the darkened limousine. ‘But only if you stop stealing my characters.’
‘Your characters?’
‘Ankit, and Randall, and Naveen,’ I smiled, knowing that she’d understand.
She laughed.
‘You’re one of my characters,’ she said. ‘And don’t ever forget it.’
‘Well, since you’re writing it, where do I want to go with you?’
‘To the mountain,’ she said. ‘To see Idriss.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘We can make a long weekend of it.’
‘I was thinking longer than that,’ she said.
‘How much longer?’
‘Until the rain starts,’ she said softly. ‘And maybe until it stops.’
Two months?
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.
The pagoda provided a wide area of shade in the centre of the courtyard, which had been covered with fine carpets. Four wide, comfortable cushions were arranged in a semicircle around a small, fist-high wooden stage.
Beyond the pagoda, students were busy preparing for a significant event.
‘Is it always like this?’ Randall asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It must be some special occasion. I hope we’re not intruding.’
‘I hope they have a bar,’ Didier said.
I caught Karla’s eye.
‘You’re wondering who brought those carpets and bamboo poles up here, aren’t you?’ Karla asked me quietly, as our crew of city sinners took in the scene.
‘Someone had to drag that beauty up here for big shots to sit on,’ I smiled. ‘Even on the easy path, that’s either a lot of deference, or a lot of respect. I’m wondering which.’
Silvano came through the groups of people who were setting out decorations and preparing food on trays.
‘Come va, ragazzo pazzo?’ he asked me, as he approached. How you doing, crazy guy?