Chapter Twenty-Seven
Everyone has one eye that’s softer and sadder, and one that’s hard and bright. Karla’s left eye was softer and sadder than her right, and maybe it was because I could only see that soft light, greener than new leaves, that I had no resistance to her. I couldn’t do anything but listen, and smile, and try to be funny now and then.
But it was alright. It was okay. It was a renegade peace, in those moments on the morning after the mountain brought her back to me; the morning of that softer, sadder eye.
We’d spent the night in separate caves. There were three other women on the mountain-top mesa, all of them young Indian students of the wise man, Idriss. The women’s cave was smaller, but cleaner and better appointed.
There were rope beds and mattresses, where we’d slept on blankets stretched over the bare ground, and there were several metal cupboards, suspended on blocks of stone to keep out rats and crawling insects. We’d made do with a few rusted hooks to keep our belongings off the dusty floor.
I hadn’t slept well. I’d only spoken to Karla for a few minutes after that first hug, that first sight of her for almost two years. And then she was gone, again.
Abdullah, bowing gallantly to Karla, had drawn me away to join the other men, gathered for a meal at the entrance to the men’s cave.
I was walking backwards, looking at her, and she was already laughing at me, two minutes after we re-met. Two years, in two minutes.
During the meal, we met six young devotees and students, who exchanged stories of what it was that had brought them to the top of the mountain. Abdullah and I listened, without comment.
By the time we’d finished eating the modest meal of daal and rice, it was late. We cleaned our teeth, washed our faces, and settled down to sleep. But my little sleep drowned in a nightmare that choked me awake before dawn.
I decided to beat the early risers to the simple bathroom. I used the long-drop toilet, then took a small pot of water and a piece of soap, and washed myself with half a bucket of water, standing on the pallet floor of the canvas-screen bathroom.
Dried and dressed and cold awake, I made my way through the dark camp to sit by the guttering fire. I’d just built the embers into a flame with twigs of kindling around a battered coffee pot, when Karla came to stand beside me.
‘What are you doing here?’ Karla purred.
‘If I don’t get coffee soon, I’m gonna bite a tree.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Oh, you mean, on the mountain? I could ask you the same thing.’
‘I asked you first.’
I laughed gently.
‘You’re better than that, Karla.’
‘Maybe I’m not what I used to be.’
‘We’re all what we used to be, even when we’re not.’
‘That’s not telling me what you’re doing here,’ she said.
‘What we tell, is rarely what we do.’
‘I’m not doing an aphorism contest,’ she said, frowning a smile and sitting down beside me.
‘We are the art, that sees us as art.’
‘No way,’ she said. ‘Keep your lines to yourself.’
‘Fanaticism means that if you’re not against me, you’re against me.’
‘I could report you for aphorism harassment, do you know that?’
‘Honour is the art of being humble,’ I replied, deadpan.
We were speaking softly, but our eyes were sharp.
‘Okay,’ she whispered, ‘you’re on. My turn?’
‘Of course it’s your turn. I’m already three up on you.’
‘Every goodbye is a dress rehearsal for the last goodbye,’ she said.
‘Not bad. Hello can lie, sometimes, but goodbye always tells the truth.’
‘Fiction is fact, made stranger. The truth about anything is a lie about something else. Come on, step it up, Shantaram.’
‘What’s the rush? There’s plenty more where they came from.’
‘You got somethin’ or not?’
‘Oh, I see, it’s to throw me off, and put me off my game. Okay, tough girl, here we go. Inspiration is the grace of peace. Truth is the warden in the prison of the soul. Slavery can’t be unchained from the system: slavery is the system.’
‘Truth is the shovel,’ she fired back. ‘Your mission is the hole.’
I laughed.
‘Every fragment is the whole entire,’ Karla said, firing at will.
‘The whole cannot be divided,’ I said, ‘without a tyranny of parts.’
‘Tyranny is privilege, unrestrained.’
‘We’re privileged by Fate,’ I said, ‘because we’re damned by Fate.’
‘Fate,’ she grinned. ‘One of my favourites. Fate plays poker, and only wins by bluffing. Fate is the magician, and Time is the trick. Fate is the spider, and Time is the web. Shall I go on?’
‘Dark funny,’ I said, happier than I’d been in a while. ‘Nice. Try this – all men become their fathers, but only when they’re not looking.’
She laughed. I don’t know where Karla was, but I was with her, at last, in a thing we both loved, and she was my heaven.
‘The truth is a bully we all pretend to like.’
‘That’s on old one!’ I protested.
‘But a good one, and worth a second run. Whaddaya got?’
‘Fear is the friend who warns you,’ I offered.
‘Loneliness is the friend who tells you to get out more,’ she countered. ‘Come on, let’s move it along here.’
‘There’s no country too unjust, too corrupt, or too inept to afford itself a stirring national anthem.’
‘Big political,’ she smiled. ‘I like it. Try this on for size – tyranny is fear, in human form.’
I laughed.
‘Music is death, made sublime.’
‘Grief is ghost empathy,’ she hit back quickly.
‘Damn!’
‘You give up?’
‘No way. The way to love, is to love the way.’
‘Koans,’ she said. ‘Grasping at straws, Shantaram. No problem. I’m always ready to give love a kick in the ass. How about this – love is a mountain that kills you, every time you climb it.’
‘Courage –’
‘Courage defines us. Anyone who doesn’t give up, and that’s just about everybody, is a man or woman of courage. Stop with the courage, already.’
‘Happiness is –’
‘Happiness is the hyperactive child of contentment.’
‘Justice means –’
‘Justice, like love and power, is measured in mercies.’
‘War –’
‘All wars are culture wars, and all cultures are written on the bodies of women.’
‘Life –’
‘If you’re not living for something, you’re dying for nothing!’ she parried, her forefinger on my chest.
‘Damn.’
‘Damn, what?’
‘Damn . . . you got . . . better, girl.’
‘So, you’re saying I won?’
‘I’m saying . . . you got . . . a lot better.’
‘And I won, right? Because I can do this all day long, you know.’
She was serious, her eyes filled with tiger-light.
‘I love you,’ I said.
She looked away. After a time she spoke to the fire.
‘You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?’
We’d been husky-whispering in the contest, trying not to wake the others. The sky was dark, but a ridge of dawn the colour of faded leaves hovered over the distant, cloudy horizon.
‘Oh, wait a minute,’ I frowned, realising at last. ‘You think I came up here, because you’re here? You think I set this up?’
‘Did you?’
‘Would you want me to?’
She turned the half-profile on me, that sadder, softer eye searching my face as if she was reading a map. Red-yellow fire shadows played with her features: firelight writing faith and hope on her face, as fire does on every human face, because we’re creatures of fire.
I looked away.
‘I had no idea you were here,’ I said. ‘It was Abdullah’s idea.’
She laughed softly. Was she disappointed, or relieved? I couldn’t tell.
‘What about you?’ I asked, throwing a few sticks on the fire. ‘You didn’t suddenly get religion. Say it ain’t so.’
‘I bring Idriss hash,’ she said. ‘He’s got a taste for Kashmiri.’
It was my turn to laugh.
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘About . . . a year.’
She was dreaming something, looking out at the dawning forest.
‘What’s he like?’
She looked at me again.
‘He’s . . . authentic. You’ll meet him later.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘I didn’t come up here to meet him. I came to meet Khaled. He’s the one who told me that Idriss was here.’
‘Khaled? Which Khaled?’
‘Your Khaled,’ she said softly. ‘Our Khaled.’
‘He’s alive?’
‘Very much so.’
‘Alhamdulillah. And he’s up here?’
‘I’d pay good money to see Khaled up here. No, he’s got an ashram, down in the valley.’
The hard-fisted, uncompromising Palestinian had been a member of the Khader Council. He’d been with us on the smuggling run into Afghanistan. He killed a man, a close friend, because the friend endangered us all, and then he walked alone and unarmed into the snow.
I’d been a friend, a close friend, but I’d heard nothing of Khaled’s return to the city, or anything about an ashram.
‘An ashram?’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed.
Her face and manner had changed. She seemed to be bored.
‘What kind of ashram?’
‘The profitable kind,’ she said. ‘It has a majestic menu. That, you’ve got to give him. Meditation rooms, yoga, massage, aromatherapies and chanting. They chant a lot. It’s like they never heard of funk.’
‘And it’s at the base of this mountain?’
‘At the start of the valley, on the west side.’
She frowned a yawn at me.
‘Abdullah goes there all the time,’ she said. ‘Didn’t he talk to you about it?’
Something staggered inside me. I was glad to know that Khaled was alive and well, but the cherished friendship felt betrayed, and my heart stumbled.
‘It can’t be true.’
‘The truth comes in two kinds,’ she laughed gently. ‘The one you want to hear, and the one you should.’
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sucker punch. Couldn’t resist it.’
I was suddenly angry. Maybe it was that sense of betrayal. Maybe it was old crying, finally forcing its way past the shield of softness, gleaming in her kinder eye.
‘Do you love Ranjit?’
She looked at me, both eyes, soft and hard, staring into mine.
‘I thought I admired him, once upon a time,’ she said, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’
‘And you don’t admire me?’
‘Why would you ask that?’
‘Are you afraid to tell me what you think?’
‘Of course not,’ she said evenly. ‘I’m wondering why you don’t already know what I think of you.’
‘I don’t know what that means, so how about you just answer my question?’
‘Mine first. Why do you want to know? Is it disappointment in yourself, or jealousy of him?’
‘You know, the thing about disappointment, Karla, is that it never lets you down. But it’s not about that. I want to know what you think, because it matters to me.’
‘Okay, you asked for it. No, I don’t admire you. Not today.’
We were silent for a while.
‘You know what I’m talking about,’ she said at last.
‘I don’t, actually.’
I frowned again and she laughed: the little laugh that bubbles up from an in-joke.
‘Look at your face,’ she said. ‘What happened to you? Fell off your pride again, right?’
‘Happily, the fall’s not too far.’
She laughed again, but it quickly became a frown.
‘Can you even explain it? Why you’ve been fighting? Why a fight always finds you?’
Of course I couldn’t. Being kidnapped and strapped to a banana lounge by the Scorpion gang: how could I explain that? I didn’t understand it myself, not any of it, not even Concannon. Especially not Concannon. I didn’t know, then, that I was standing on a tattered corner of a bloody carpet that would soon cover most of the world.
‘Who says I have to explain it?’
‘Can you?’ she repeated.
‘Can you explain the things you did to us back then, Karla?’
She flinched.
‘Don’t hold back, Karla.’
‘Maybe I should chase to the cut, so to speak, and tell you the answer.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Sure you’ve got the stomach for it?’
‘Sure.’
‘Okay then, the –’
‘No, wait!’
‘Wait what?’
‘My conversation sub-routine is crying out for that coffee.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, I’m grievously coffee-deprived. That’s how you kicked my ass.’
‘So I did win?’
‘You won. Can I have the coffee now?’
I used my sleeve to snatch the pot from the fire and pour some coffee into a chipped mug. I offered it to Karla, but she wrinkled her lip in a proscenium arch of disgust.
‘I’m reading a no,’ I guessed.
‘How’s that magic act workin’ out? Drink the damn coffee, yaar.’
I sipped at the coffee. It was too strong and too sweet and too bitter, all at the same time. Perfect.
‘Okay, good,’ I croaked, coffee shivering hello. ‘I’m good.’
‘The –’
‘No, wait!’
I found a joint.
‘Okay,’ I said, puffing it alight. ‘I’m good. Lemme have it.’
‘Sure you don’t need a manicure, or a massage?’ Karla growled.
‘I’m so good, now. Smack me around all you like, Karla.’
‘Okay, here goes. The marks on your face, and all the scars on your body, are like graffiti, scrawled by your own delinquent talent.’
‘Not bad.’
‘I’m not finished. Your heart’s a tenant, in the broken-down tenement of your life.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The slumlord’s coming to collect the rent, Lin,’ she said, a little more softly. ‘Soon.’
I knew her well enough to know that she’d written and rehearsed those lines. I’d seen her journals, filled with notes for the clever things she said. Rehearsed or not, she was right.
‘Karla, look –’
‘You’re playing Russian roulette with Fate,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
‘And your money’s on Fate? Is that what this is about?’
‘Fate loads the gun. Fate loads every gun in the world.’
‘Anything else?’
‘While you do this,’ she said, even more softly, ‘you’re only breaking things.’
It was just true enough to hurt, no matter how softly she said it.
‘You know, if you keep coming on to me like this . . . ’
‘You got funnier,’ she said, laughing a little.
‘I’m still what I used to be.’
We stared at one another for a few moments.
‘Look, Karla, I don’t know what it is with Ranjit, and I don’t know how it’s two whole years since I looked at you and heard your voice. I just know that when I’m with you, it’s wild horse right. I love you, and I’ll always be there for you.’
Emotions were leaves in a storm on her face. There were too many different feelings for me to read. I hadn’t seen her. I hadn’t been with her. She looked happy and angry, satisfied and sad, all at the same time. And she didn’t speak. Karla, lost for words. It hurt her, in some way, and I had to break the mood.
‘Sure you don’t want to try that coffee?’
She raised a rattlesnake eyebrow, and was about to fang me, but sounds from the caves alerted us to the presence of others, waking with the dawn.
We breakfasted with the happy devotees and were drinking our second mug of chai, when a young student appeared at the ridge of the camp where the steep climb from the forest ended. He accepted a chai gratefully, and announced that the master wouldn’t be joining us until after lunch.
‘That’s it,’ Karla muttered, moving to the open kitchen, where she rinsed out her cup and set it on a stand to dry.
‘That’s what?’ I asked, joining her at the sink.
‘I’ve got time to go down, visit Khaled, and be back before Idriss gets here.’
‘I’m coming with,’ I said quickly.
‘Wait a minute. Call off the myrmidons. Why are you coming?’
It wasn’t an idle question. Karla didn’t idle.
‘Why? Because Khaled’s my friend. And I haven’t seen him since he walked into the snow, nearly three years ago.’
‘A good friend would leave him the hell alone, right now,’ she said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She fixed me with that look: hunger burning in a tiger’s eyes, staring at prey. I loved it.
‘He’s happy,’ she said quietly.
‘And?’
She glanced at Abdullah, who’d come up to stand beside me.
‘Happy’s hard to find,’ she said at last.
‘I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Happiness has a sign on it,’ she said. ‘It says Do Not Disturb, but everybody does.’
‘Interfering is what we do,’ I insisted, ‘if we care about someone. Weren’t you interfering, when you ripped some skin off me just now?’
‘And were you interfering, between Ranjit and me?’
‘How?’
‘When you asked me if I love him.’
Abdullah coughed politely.
‘Perhaps I should leave you for some time,’ he suggested.
‘No secrets from you, Abdullah,’ Karla said.
‘But you keep plenty of your own, brother,’ I said. ‘Not telling me that Khaled is here?’
‘Fire away at Abdullah, Lin,’ Karla interjected. ‘But answer my question first.’
‘When you know where we are in this conversation, come get me.’
‘You were answering a question.’
‘What question?’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you love me?’
‘Dammit, Karla! You’re the most indiscernible woman who ever spoke a common language.’
‘Give me a ten-minute head start,’ she laughed. ‘No, make it fifteen.’
‘What are you planning?’
She laughed again, and pretty hard.
‘I want to warn Khaled that you’re coming, and give him a chance to escape. You know how important that is, don’t you? A chance to escape?’
She walked to the edge of the mesa, then slipped out of sight on the steep path. I waited for the essential fifteen minutes to pass. Abdullah was looking at me. I didn’t bite. I didn’t want to know.
‘Perhaps . . . she is right in this,’ he said, at last.
‘Not you, too?’
‘If Khaled looks at what he has through your eyes, instead of his own eyes, he may believe in himself less than he does now. And I need him to be strong.’
‘Is that why you never told me Khaled was here in Bombay?’
‘Yes, that was a part of it. To protect his little happiness. He was never a very happy man. You remember that, I am certain.’
He was, in fact, the most dour and stern man I’d ever known. Every member of his family had been killed in the wars and purges that pursued the Palestinian diaspora into Lebanon. He was so callused by hatred and sorrow that the most vicious insult in his Hindi vocabulary was the word Kshama, meaning forgiveness.
‘I still don’t get it, Abdullah.’
‘You have an influence over our brother Khaled,’ he said solemnly.
‘What influence?’
‘Your opinion matters very much to him. It always did. And your opinion of him will change, when you come to know of his life now.’
‘Why don’t we cross that bridge, before we blow it up?’
‘But another part,’ Abdullah said, his hand on my arm, ‘the biggest part, was to protect him from harm.’
‘What do you mean? He was a Council member. That’s for life. No-one can touch him.’
‘Yes, but Khaled is the only man who has the authority to challenge Sanjay for the leadership of the Council. That can make some resent him, or fear him.’
‘Only if he challenged Sanjay.’
‘In fact, I have asked him to do just that.’
Abdullah, the most loyal man I knew, was planning a coup. Men would die. Friends would die.
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘We need Khaled, perhaps more than you know. He has refused, but I will ask him again, and keep on asking him, until he agrees. For now, please keep his presence here a secret, just as I have done.’
It was a long speech for the taciturn Iranian.
‘Abdullah, none of this applies to me any more. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve been trying to find a way to bring this up with you since we got here.’
‘Is it too much to ask of you?’
‘No, brother,’ I replied, moving half a step away from him. ‘It’s not too much to ask, but it has nothing to do with me any more. I made a decision, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to tell you. It’s such a big thing that I’ve pushed it away, after Concannon and the Scorpions, and then seeing Karla up here, after so long. I guess . . . now is the right time to face it, and get it out there.’
‘What decision? Has anyone talked to you about my plan?’
I let out a heavy sigh. Straightening up, I smiled, and leaned back against a squared-off boulder.
‘No, Abdullah, nobody talked about your plan. I never heard about it, until you told me just now. I made the decision to leave after Lightning Dilip told me that three kids cancelled on the dope that DaSilva and his crew are selling.’
‘But you do not have anything to do with that, and I do not. It is not our operation. We both disagreed with Sanjay, when he started garad and girls in South Bombay. It was not our decision to make.’
‘No, it’s more than that, man,’ I said, looking out at the spirals of storm swirling over the distant city. ‘I can give you ten good reasons why I should leave, and why I have to leave, but they’re not important, because I can’t think of one good reason to stay. Bottom line is, I’m just done, that’s all. I’m out.’
The Iranian warrior frowned, his eyes searching left and right through an invisible battlefield for the Lin he knew, while his mind made war on his heart.
‘Will you permit me to persuade you?’
‘Trying to persuade isn’t just permitted, among good friends,’ I said, ‘it’s required. But please, let me spare you the kindness. I don’t want to hear you plead a lost cause for me. I know how you feel, because I feel it myself. The truth is, my mind’s made up. I’m already gone, Abdullah. I’m long gone.’
‘Sanjay won’t like it.’
‘You’re right about that,’ I laughed. ‘But I don’t have any family ties to the Company. I don’t have any family, so he doesn’t have the mafia card to play against me. And Sanjay knows I’m good with passports. I could always be useful, sometime down the line. He’s a cautious guy. He likes options. I’m guessing he won’t put fire in my way.’
‘That is a dangerous guess,’ Abdullah mused.
‘Yeah. That it is.’
‘If I kill him, your odds will improve.’
‘I don’t know why I even have to say these words, Abdullah, but here goes, Please don’t kill Sanjay, for me. Are we clear on that? It would ruin my appetite for a month, man.’
‘Granted. When I take his life, I will purge your benefit from my mind.’
‘How about not killing Sanjay at all?’ I asked. ‘For any reason. And why are we talking about killing Sanjay? How did you let this happen, Abdullah? No, no, don’t tell me. I’m out. I don’t want to know.’
Abdullah mulled it over for a while, his jaw locked, and his lips twitching with the tide of reflection.
‘What will you do?’
‘I think I’ll freelance,’ I answered him, my eyes following a shadow of thoughts across his wind-shaped face. ‘I thought I might string with Didier for a while. He’s been asking me to throw in with him for years.’
‘Very dangerous,’ he mumbled.
‘More dangerous than this?’ I asked, and when he opened his mouth to speak, I stopped him. ‘Don’t even try, brother.’
‘Have you told anyone else about this?’
‘No.’
‘Make no mistake, Lin,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘I am starting a war, and I must win it. Your belief in Sanjay’s leadership has been lost, as has mine, and you are no longer with the Company. Very well. But I hope that your loyalty to me will ensure your silence, concerning my plans.’
‘I wish you hadn’t told me about it, Abdullah. Conspiracies contaminate, and I’m contaminated now. But you’re my brother, man, and if it’s a choice between them and you, I’ll stand with you every time. Just don’t tell me any more about the plan, okay? Didn’t anyone ever tell you, there’s no curse as cruel as another man’s plans?’
‘Thank you, Lin,’ he said, smiling softly. ‘I will do what I can to ensure that the war does not come to your door.’
‘I’d prefer it didn’t come to my subcontinent. Why war, Abdullah? Walk away, man. I’ll stand with you, out here, outside the Company, no matter what they throw at us. A war will kill our friends, as well as our enemies. Is anything worth that?’
He leaned back against the squared stone beside me, his shoulder touching mine. We both looked out over the forest canopy, and then he rested his head on the stone to look into the troubled sky.
I lay back against the stone, lifting my face to fields of cloud, ploughed by the storm.
‘I cannot leave, Lin,’ he sighed. ‘We would be good partners, it is true, but I cannot leave.’
‘The boy, Tariq.’
‘Yes. He is Khaderbhai’s nephew, and my responsibility.’
‘Why? You never told me.’
His face softened in the sad smile we reserve for the memory of a bitter failure that brought eventual success.
‘Khaderbhai saved my life,’ he said at last. ‘I was young, an Iranian soldier running away from the war with Iraq. I got into bad trouble, here in Bombay. Khaderbhai intervened. I could not understand why a mighty don would reach out to save me, from a death that my pride and my temper had earned.’
His head was close to mine, but his voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else, somewhere beyond the great stones at our backs.
‘When he granted me an audience, and told me the matter was resolved, assuring me that I was safe from harm, I asked him how I could repay him,’ Abdullah continued. ‘Khaderbhai smiled at me for a long time. You know that smile so well, Lin brother.’
‘I do. Still feel it, sometimes.’
‘And then he made me spill my blood, with my own knife, and swear on that flowing blood to watch his nephew, Tariq, as a protector, offering my life, if necessary, for as long as I or the boy should live.’
‘He was a master of the devil’s compact.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Abdullah said quietly, as we sat up and turned to face one another. ‘But that is why I cannot simply walk away from what Sanjay is doing. There are things you do not understand. Things I cannot tell you. But Sanjay is bringing fire on our heads, maybe even on the city itself. Terrible fire. The boy, Tariq, is in danger, and I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe.’
We stared at one another for a while, not smiling but at peace, somehow. At last he stood up, and slapped me on the shoulder.
‘You will need more guns,’ he said.
‘I’ve got two guns.’
‘Exactly. You need more guns. Leave it to me.’
‘I have enough guns,’ I said, starting to catch up.
‘Leave it to me.’
‘I don’t need new guns.’
‘Everybody needs new guns. Even armies need new guns, and armies have many guns. Leave it to me.’
‘Tell you what. If you can find a gun that makes people go to sleep for a couple of days without hurting them, get me one, and a lot of ammunition.’
Abdullah stopped, and drew me close to whisper.
‘This will be bad, before it is good, Lin. It is not a joke. Please know that I value your silence very highly, the silence of friendship, because I know that you are risking your life, should Sanjay come to know of it. Be prepared for war, the more so if you despise war.’
‘Okay, Abdullah, okay.’
‘Let us go to Khaled,’ he said, walking away.
‘Oh, so now it’s okay to disturb his little happiness, huh?’ I said, following him.
‘You are not family now, Lin brother,’ he said quietly, as I drew alongside him at the edge of the mesa. ‘Your opinion no longer has influence.’
I stared into his eyes, and it was there: the blur of indifference, the diminishment of love’s light and friendship’s bright trust, the subtle change in the aura of affections when one still inside the fold looks into the eyes of what lives outside.
I’d found a home, a broken home, in the Sanjay Company, but the gates were closed there forever. I loved Abdullah, but love is a loyalty of one, and he was still in a band of brothers, loyal to all. That’s why I’d waited to tell him: why I’d let myself drift inside the other tides of Karla’s soft-eyed cleverness and Concannon’s martial madness.
I was losing Abdullah. I struck the tree-inside, what we were together in the Company, with the axe of separation. And my friend, his eyes drifting on stranger currents, led us over the mesa on the downward path, as thunder tumbled in that threatening sea, the drowning sky.