The Mountain Shadow (19 page)

It was an honorary position, with no authority beyond that contained within the character of the man who held it. After almost two years in the job, Johnny had proven himself to be wise in the settlement of disputes, and strong enough to inspire that ancient instinct: the urge to follow a positive direction.

For his part, Johnny enjoyed the leadership role, and when all else failed to resolve a dispute, he went with his heart, declared a holiday in the slum, and threw a party.

His system worked, and was popular. There were people who’d moved into that slum because there was a pretty good party every other week to settle a dispute peacefully. People brought disputes from other slums, to have them resolved by Johnny. And little by little, the boy born on the pavement was Solomon to his people.

‘Arun! Get down to the mangrove line with Deepak!’ he shouted. ‘That flood wall collapsed yesterday. Get it up again, fast! Raju! Take the boys to Bapu’s house. The old ladies in his lane have no plastic on the roof. Those fucking cats pulled it off. Bapu has the sheets. Help him get them up. The rest of you, keep clearing those drains!
Jaldi!
’
Fast!

The tea arrived, and Johnny sat down to drink with me.

‘Cats,’ he sighed. ‘Can you explain to me why there are cat people in this world?’

‘In a word? Mice. Cats are handy little devils.’

‘I guess so. You just missed Lisa and Vikram. Has she seen your face like this?’

‘No.’

‘Hell, man, she’s gonna have a fit, yaar. You look like somebody ran over you.’

‘Thanks, Johnny.’

‘Don’t mention,’ he replied. ‘Hey, that Vikram, he doesn’t look too good either. He’s not sleeping well, I think.’

I knew why Vikram didn’t look too good. I didn’t want to talk about it.

‘When do you think?’ I asked, looking at the black, heaving clouds.

The smell of rain that should-but-wouldn’t fall was everywhere in my eyes, in my sweat, in my hair: first rain, the perfect child of monsoon.

‘I thought it would be today,’ he replied, sipping at his tea. ‘I was sure.’

I sipped my tea. It was very sweet, laced with ginger to defeat the heat that pressed down on every heart in the last days of the summer. The ginger soothed the cuts on the inside of my mouth, and I sighed with pleasure.

‘Good chai, Johnny,’ I said.

‘Good chai,’ he replied.

‘Indian penicillin,’ I said.

‘There is . . . there is no penicillin in this chai, baba,’ Johnny said.

‘No, I mean –’

‘We never put penicillin in our tea,’ he declared.

He seemed offended.

‘No, no,’ I reassured him, knowing that I was heading down a dead-end street. ‘It’s a reference to an old joke, a joke about chicken soup, a joke about chicken soup being called Jewish penicillin.’

Johnny sniffed at his tea charily.

‘You . . . you smell
chickens
in the tea?’

‘No, no, it’s a joke. I grew up in the Jewish part of my town, Little Israel. And, you know, it’s a joke everybody tells, because Jewish people are supposed to offer you chicken soup, no matter what’s wrong with you. You’ve got an upset stomach,
have a little chicken soup
. You’ve got a headache,
have a little chicken soup
. You’ve just been shot,
have a little chicken soup
. And in India,
tea
is like chicken soup for Jewish people, see? No matter what’s wrong, a strong glass of chai will fix you up. Geddit?’

His puzzled frown cleared in a half-smile.

‘There’s a Jewish person not far from here,’ he said. ‘He stays in the Parsi colony at Cuffe Parade, even though he’s not a Parsi. His name is Isaac, I believe. Shall I bring him here?’

‘Yes!’ I replied excitedly. ‘Get the Jewish person, and bring him here!’

Johnny rose from his stool.

‘You’ll wait for me here?’ he asked, preparing to leave.

‘No!’ I said, exasperated. ‘I was joking, Johnny. It was a
joke
! Of
course
I don’t want you to bring the Jewish person here.’

‘It’s really no trouble,’ he said.

He stared at me, bewildered, trapped a half-step away, uncertain whether he should fetch Isaac-the-Jewish-person or not.

‘So . . . ’ I said at last, looking at the sky for an escape from the conversational cul-de-sac, ‘when do you think?’

He relaxed, and scanned the clouds churning in from the sea.

‘I thought it would be today,’ he replied. ‘I was sure.’

‘Well,’ I sighed, ‘if not today, tomorrow. Okay, can we do this now, Johnny?’

‘
Jarur
,’ he replied, moving toward the low doorway of his hut.

I joined him inside, closing the flimsy plywood door behind me. The hut, made of thin, tatami-style matting strung to bare bamboo poles, was paved on the bare earth with extravagantly detailed and coloured tiles. They formed a mosaic image of a peacock, with its tail fanned out against a background of trees and flowers.

The cupboards were filled with food. The large, metal, rat-proof wardrobe was an expensive and much-prized item of furniture in the slum. A battery-powered music system occupied a corner of a metal dresser. Pride of place went to a three-dimensional illustration of the flogged and crucified Christ. New floral-print mattresses were rolled up in a corner.

The traces of relative luxury attested to Johnny’s status and commercial success. I’d given him the money as a wedding present, to buy a small, legal apartment in the neighbouring Navy Nagar district. The gift was intended to allow him to escape the uncertainty and hardship of life in the illegal slum.

Aided by the enterprising spirit of his wife Sita, the daughter of a prosperous chai shop owner, Johnny used the apartment as collateral for a loan, and then rented it out at a premium. He used the loan to buy three slum huts, rented the three illegal huts at market rates, and was living in exactly the same slum lane where I’d first met him.

Moving a few things aside, Johnny made a place for me to sit. I stopped him.

‘Thanks, brother. Thanks. I don’t have time. I have to find Lisa. I’ve been one step behind her all day long.’

‘Lin brother, you’ll always be one step behind that girl.’

‘I think you’re right. Here, take this.’

I gave him the bag of medicines that Lisa had given me, and pulled a wad of money bound with tight elastic bands from my pocket. It was enough to pay two months’ wages for the two young men who worked as first aid attendants in the free clinic. There was also a surplus to cover the purchase of new bandages and medicines.

‘Is there anything special?’

‘Well . . . ’ he said, reluctantly.

‘Tell me.’

‘Anjali – Bhagat’s daughter – she went for the exams.’

‘How’d she do?’

‘She came top. And not just top of her class, mind you, but top of the whole Maharashtra State.’

‘Smart kid.’

I remembered the little girl she was, years ago, when she’d helped me from time to time in the free clinic. The twelve-year-old kept the names of all the patients in the slum in her head, hundreds of names, and became a friend to every one of them. In visits to the clinic in the years since, I’d watched her learn and grow.

‘But smart is not enough in this, our India,’ Johnny sighed. ‘The Registrar of the university, he is demanding a
baksheesh
of twenty thousand rupees.’

He said it flatly, without rancour. It was a fact of life, like the diminishing numbers of fish in fishermen’s nets, and the daily increase of cars, trucks and motorcycles on the roads of the once genteel Island City.

‘How much have you got?’

‘Fifteen thousand,’ he replied. ‘We collected the money from everyone here, from all castes and religions. I put in five thousand myself.’

It was a significant commitment. I knew Johnny wouldn’t see that money repaid in anything less than three years.

I pulled a roll of American dollars from my pocket. In those days of the rabid demand for black market money, I always carried at least five currencies with me at any one time: deutschmarks, pounds sterling, Swiss francs, dollars and riyals. I had about three hundred and fifty dollars in notes. At black market rates it was enough to cover the shortfall in Anjali’s education bribe.

‘Lin, don’t you think . . . ’ Johnny said, tapping the money against his palm.

‘No.’

‘I know, Linbaba, but it’s not a good thing that you give money without telling the people. They should know this thing. I understand that if we give without praise, anonymously, it is a ten-fold gift in the eyes of God. But God, if He’ll forgive me for speaking my humble mind, can be very slow in passing out praise.’

He was almost exactly my own height and weight, and he carried himself with the slightly pugnacious shoulder and elbow swing of a man who made fools suffer well, and fairly often.

His long face had aged a little faster than his thirty-five years, and the stubble that covered his chin was peppered with grey-white. The sand-coloured eyes were alert, wary, and thoughtful.

He was a reader, who consumed at least one new self-help book every week, and then unhelpfully nagged his friends and neighbours into reading them.

I admired him. He was the kind of man, the kind of friend, who made you feel like a better human being, just for knowing him. Strangely, stupidly, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that. I wanted to do it. I started to do it a few times, but wouldn’t let myself speak the words.

My exile heart at that time was all doubt and reluctance and scepticism. I gave my heart to Khaderbhai, and he used me as a pawn. I gave my heart to Karla, the only woman I’ve ever been in love with, and she used me to serve the same man, the man we both called father, Khaderbhai. Since then I’d been on the streets for two years, and I’d seen the town come to the circus, the rich beg paupers, and the crime fit the punishment. I was older than I should’ve been, and too far from people who loved me. I let a few, not many, come close, but I never reached out to them as they did to me. I wouldn’t commit, as they did, because I knew that sooner or later I’d have to let go.

‘Let it go, Johnny,’ I said softly.

He sighed again, pocketed the money, and led the way outside the hut.

‘Why are Jewish people putting penicillin in their chickens?’ he asked me as we gazed at the lowering sky.

‘It was a joke, Johnny.’

‘No, but those Jewish people are pretty smart, yaar. If they’re putting penicillin in their chickens, they must have a damn good –’

‘Johnny,’ I interrupted, with a raised hand, ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too, man,’ he grinned.

He wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug that woke every one of the wounds and bruises on my arms and shoulders.

I could still feel the strength of him; still smell the coconut oil in his hair as I walked away through the slum. The smothering clouds threw early evening shadows on the weary faces of fishermen and washerwomen, returning home from the busy shoreline. But the whites of their tired eyes glowed with auburn and rose-gold as they smiled at me. And they all smiled, every one of them, as they passed, crowns gleaming on their sweated brows.

Chapter Thirteen

W
HEN
I
STEPPED INTO THE LAUGHING BROIL
of Leopold’s, I scanned the tables for Lisa and Vikram. I couldn’t see them, but my eyes met those of my friend Didier. He was sitting with Kavita Singh and Naveen Adair.

‘A jealous husband!’ Didier cried, admiring my battered face. ‘Lin! I’m so
proud
of you!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I shrugged, reaching out to shake hands with him and Naveen. ‘Slipped in the shower.’

‘Looks like the shower fought back,’ Naveen said.

‘What are you, a plumbing detective now?’

‘Whatever the cause, I am delighted to see sin on your face, Lin!’ Didier declared, waving to the waiter. ‘This calls for a celebration.’

‘I hereby call this meeting of Sinners Anonymous to order!’ Kavita announced.

‘Hi, my name’s Naveen,’ the young detective said, buying in, ‘and I’m a sinner.’

‘Hi, Naveen,’ we all replied.

‘Where to begin . . . ’ Naveen laughed.

‘Any sin will do,’ Didier prompted.

Naveen decided to think about it for a while.

‘It suits you, this new look,’ Kavita Singh said to me as we sat down.

‘I’ll bet you say that to all the bruises.’

‘Only the ones I put there myself.’

Kavita, a beautiful, intelligent journalist, had a preference for other girls, and was one of the few women in the city who was unafraid to declare it.