The Mountain Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

eye over Naveen’s tall, athletic frame. ‘I’ve heard all about you, from my journalist friend, Kavita Singh.’
    ‘She covered you, too,’ Naveen replied with a smile. ‘And may I say, it’s an honour to meet the man behind all the stories.’
    ‘I did not expect a young man of such impeccable manners,’ Didier responded quickly, gesturing toward the chairs, and signalling to Sweetie. ‘What will you have? Beers? Sweetie! Three very chilled beers, please!’
    ‘Fuck you very much,’ Sweetie mumbled, his end-of-shift slippers dragging to the kitchen.
    ‘He’s a repellent brute,’ Didier said, watching Sweetie leave. ‘But I feel myself strangely drawn to the effortlessness of his misery.’
    We were three men at the table, but we all sat in a line with our backs to the wall, facing across the scatter of tables to the wide arches, open to the street. Didier let his eyes rove around the restaurant: a castaway, scanning the horizon.
    ‘ Well ,’ he said, inclining his head toward me. ‘The adventure in Goa?’
    I took a small package of letters wrapped in blue ribbons from my pocket, and handed it across. Didier took the bundle and cradled it in his palms for a moment, as if it were an injured bird.
    ‘Did you . . . did you have to beat him for them?’ he asked me, still staring at the letters.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh,’ he sighed, looking up quickly.
    ‘Should I have?’
    ‘No, of course, not,’ Didier explained, sniffing back a tear. ‘Didier could not pay for such a thing.’
    ‘You didn’t pay me at all.’
    ‘Technically, in paying nothing , I am still paying. Am I right, Naveen?’
    ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Naveen replied. ‘So, of course, I agree with everything.’
    ‘It’s just,’ Didier sniffed, looking at the letters, ‘I rather thought he might have put up some little fight , perhaps, to keep my love letters. Some . . . some show of lingering affection.’
    I recalled the look of simian hatred on the face of Gustavo, Didier’s ex-lover, as he screamed curses on Didier’s genitals, and hurled the little bundle of letters into a rubbish pit below the back window of his bungalow.
    I had to pierce his ear with my thumbnail to make him climb into the pit, retrieve the letters, wipe them clean and hand them to me.
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘Affection has moved on.’
    ‘Well, thank you, Lin,’ Didier sighed, putting the letters in his lap as the beers arrived. ‘I would have gone down there myself to get the letters, but for that little matter of the outstanding arrest warrant in my name, in Goa.’
    ‘You’ve gotta keep track of these warrants, Didier,’ I said. ‘I can’t keep up. You could paper a room with my fake yellow slips. It’s wearing me out, clearing you of all charges.’
    ‘But there are only four outstanding arrest warrants in all of India, Lin.’
    ‘ Only four?’
    ‘At one time, it was nine. I think it must be that I am becoming . . . reformed ,’ Didier puffed, curling his lips at the distasteful word.
    ‘A slander,’ Naveen observed.
    ‘Why, thank you. You . . . are a very agreeable young man. Do you like guns?’
    ‘I’m not good with relationships,’ Naveen answered, finishing his beer and standing. ‘I can only bond with the gun in my hand.’
    ‘I can help you with that,’ Didier laughed.
    ‘I’ll bet you can,’ Naveen laughed back. ‘Lin, that guy in the suit, the one following the Zodiac Georges, I’ll look into it, and get back to you here.’
    ‘Be careful. We don’t know what this is, yet.’
    ‘It’s cool,’ he smiled, all fearless, immortal youth. ‘I’ll take my leave. Didier, it has been a pleasure and an honour. Goodbye.’
    We watched him out into the early evening haze. Didier’s brows edged together.
    ‘What?’ I asked him.
    ‘Nothing!’ he protested.
    ‘What, Didier?’
    ‘I said nothing!’
    ‘I know, but I also know that look.’
    ‘What look ?’ he demanded, as if I’d accused him of