The Mountain Shadow

He went through his logbook, and gave me the number.

‘I’m so sorry, sir. I should have –’

‘Your job is to guard the gate, not the apartments. It’s not your fault. She liked you. Very much. And I know you would’ve saved her, if you could, just like I would’ve done. It’s okay.’

I gave him a chunk of money, asked him to keep his eyes open for the cops, and climbed the steps to my apartment.

I opened the door, walked through the living room and stepped into the bedroom. That place of quarrel and love, for us, had become a tomb for Lisa, alone.

The mattress she’d bought because she liked the seahorse pattern on the cover was stripped bare, but for two pillows at the head, and a pair of Lisa’s well-worn, well-loved hemp sandals at the base.

After a minute, I stopped staring at the place where Lisa’s breath had faded, and ceased, and stopped, and died, and I moved my eyes away.

The room was clean, and empty. Everything of hers was gone. I looked at the few things of mine that remained.

The red movie poster, Antonioni’s Blow Up, art and abandon becoming death and desire, and the wooden horse head on the window sill, my belts, strung on a suit stand in the corner, the sword, in two pieces in the wall unit, and a few books.

And it was all: all there was of me in the apartment. Without Lisa’s flowers and paintings and coloured sarongs, the place we’d called home was cold, and alone. What is civilisation? Idriss once remarked. It’s a woman, free to live as she wants.

‘There is a picture of her, in death, on that bed,’ Didier said, standing in the doorway. ‘It is in the police report. Do you want to see it?’

‘No. No. Thanks.’

‘I thought it might console you,’ he said. ‘She looked very, very peaceful. As if she simply went to sleep, forever.’

We listened to the silence, echoing off the walls in our hearts. Just the thought of that picture, of her dead sleep, made my stomach churn with dread.

‘You are not safe, I am afraid, Lin,’ Didier said. ‘The police are very hot for you. If they come to know that you have returned to Bombay, they will come here, looking for you.’

He was right: right enough to shake me awake.

‘Give me a hand,’ I said, beginning to wrestle the heavy chest of drawers away from the wall.

We pushed the chest wide enough to expose the false back panel. It looked untouched. I released the cover.

‘Have you got a man you can trust to hold my guns, a lot of money, some passports and half a key of the best Kashmiri that ever rolled down the Himalayas?’

‘Yes, for ten per cent.’

‘Of the money only?’

‘Of the money.’

‘Done. Call him here.’

‘I must insist that he brings something to drink with him, Lin. Do you know how many hours it has been, since I last made contact with alcohol?’

‘You drank from your flask three minutes ago.’

‘The flask,’ he sighed, genius to child, ‘does not count. Shall I tell him to bring food, as well?’

‘I don’t want any food.’

‘Good. Food is for people who don’t have the courage to take drugs. And food kills half of the alcohol effect. There was a test done on a drunken mouse, once, or perhaps it was a drunken rat –’

‘Just call him, Didier.’

I stuffed a few bundles of rupees in one inside pocket of my denim vest, and a bundle of US dollars in the other. I cut a piece off the Kashmiri key, and put the rest back in the compartment. I strapped on my knives in their scabbards.

After snapping the cover in place, I shoved the chest against the wall again, in case someone other than Didier’s man entered the apartment.

Didier was in the open kitchen, searching through the cupboards.

‘Not even cooking sherry,’ he muttered, and then he saw me and smiled. ‘My man, Tito, will be here in half an hour. How are you, my friend?’

‘Not-good-okay,’ I said absently.

I was looking at the refrigerator. The photographs that Lisa had taped to the door, photographs of her that she’d asked me to take, were gone. Strips of clear tape remained, framing empty spaces.

She’d insisted on tape, instead of magnets. I hate magnets, she said. They’re such treacherous things.

‘Her parents,’ Didier said, ‘gathered everything that was hers, and took it with them. There were many tears.’

I went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. It didn’t work. I fell forward on my knees at the toilet, and emptied every dark, acid thing that was inside me.

Didier found me, and did the right guy thing. He backed away, and left me in pieces.

I washed up again, and looked into the mirror.

A photo that Lisa had pushed in the top of the mirror frame had been torn away. Lisa’s face had been ripped from the picture, and only my foolish, smiling face remained. I took it down, tore it up and threw it in the bin.

Sitting in the living room, Didier and I drank strong, black coffee, and smoked strong, black Kashmiri. It was Lisa’s stash: her perfect, heavenly high, only for the most special occasions, which was why I’d had to hide it with my things.