The Mountain Shadow

‘I am very happy that you and Karla are here,’ he said. ‘And I want you to understand that you’re welcome to stay, for as long as it pleases you to remain.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Karla woke beside me, and saw Idriss.

‘Idriss,’ she said, sitting up. ‘Please, sit and be comfortable.’

‘I am always comfortable, Karla, wherever I am,’ he said cheerfully, still not turning to face us. ‘And, I suspect that this is true for both of you as well, isn’t it?’

‘Can we offer you something?’ Karla asked, rubbing her eyes awake. ‘Some water or juice?’

‘In offering something to me with those words,’ Idriss said, ‘I am nourished already.’

‘We’ll get dressed, and join you,’ I suggested. ‘I can make you a cup of tea by the fire.’

‘I will leave, in a minute or two,’ he replied. ‘But there is something that I must tell you both, and my mind will not allow me to ignore it, so I must apologise for the intrusion.’

‘We’re the intruders,’ Karla said.

He laughed again.

‘Did you wish that you were beside me today, Karla,’ he said, ‘when I was facing the inquisitors?’

‘I did, Idriss,’ she laughed. ‘Pencil me in, next time.’

‘Done,’ he replied, already leaving us in his mind. ‘Are you two ready to receive my instruction?’

‘Yes,’ Karla whispered uncertainly.

‘You must renounce violence, both of you, and do whatever it takes to live peacefully.’

‘It’s hard to be non-violent in a violent world, Idriss,’ Karla said.

‘Violence, tyranny, oppression, injustice, these are all mountains on the topography of life’s journey,’ Idriss said. ‘Life is an encounter with those mountains. The safest way to pass beyond the mountain is to walk around it. But if you choose that path it becomes the whole of your life, because walking around becomes a circle that never stops, and one of those mountains becomes your destiny. The only way onwards, to something else beyond the circle, and to see clearly enough to avoid new mountains, is to climb the mountain and cross it from the peak. But the thing about a mountain is that no part of the climb is less dangerous than the part you just completed.’

‘Which means?’ I asked.

‘I worry about you both,’ he said. ‘I worry about you often. The view from the top, after the dangerous climb, is something you can’t have if you take the safer path within the circle, but it has great risks. And you must rely on each other and help each other more than ever before. You are already climbing through the mountain shadow, both of you.’

‘Have you climbed all your mountains, Idriss?’ Karla asked.

‘I was married once,’ he said softly and slowly. ‘A long time ago. And my wife, may her soul know happiness, was a constant companion in the spiritual search, as you are for one another. I would be nothing, without all the many things we learned together. And now I climb through the mountain shadow alone.’

‘You’re never alone, Idriss,’ Karla said. ‘Everyone who knows you carries you inside.’

He laughed softly.

‘You remind me of her, Karla. And you remind me of myself, Lin, in another life. I was not always the peaceful man you know. Never give up on the love you feel for one another. Never stop searching for peace, within yourselves.’

He turned silently, and walked back toward the camp.

Night noises returned, and a bell tolled at a railway signal somewhere far away. Karla was silent, staring at the leaf shadows where Idriss had vanished.

‘We’ve got some stuff to work out, you and me, if we’re gonna get this right,’ she said, looking back at me, her eyes green moonlight. ‘And I want to get this right, for once, with you.’

‘I thought we already had it pretty right.’

‘We just got started,’ she smiled, stretching sleepily, and snuggling in beside me. ‘Couple of months up here, like this, we’ll work all the kinks in just right.’

She pulled away from me suddenly, and fetched around among her things until she found the letter she’d been holding for me.

‘This is the right time for a mountain shadow letter, if ever there was,’ she said, giving me the letter and cuddling in beside me again.

She yawned, gorgeously, closed her eyes, and slept. I opened the single-page letter. It was from Gemini George. I read it by the light of the torch.

Hey, mate, Gemini here, letting you know that me and Scorpio haven’t found the guru that cursed him yet, but we’re still on the trail. We was in Karnataka, on a mountain, then Bengal, and somewhere in between I got sick, mate, and I’m not feeling too good, but I can’t let Scorpio down, so we’ll keep on searching. I just wanted someone who cares about me to know that I don’t have no regrets, if I don’t come back, because I love my life, and I love my friend Scorpio.

Yours sincerely,

Gemini

I put the letter away, and held Karla close until she slept deeply in my arms, but it took me a while to find sleep.

I was thinking of the men sitting together by the fire, Ankit and Vinson, Didier and Randall, separated from love but finding it again in shared stories, thrown into the fire one wooden tribute at a time.