Moth Smoke

by Mohsin Hamid

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks, concern mixed with the gravel of her voice.

  ‘I’m not feeling well.’

  She smiles sympathetically. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Upset stomach.’

  ‘Have some Imodium and let’s go,’ Ozi says.

  ‘I’m not going,’ I say.

  ‘Come on, yaar,’ Ozi says, turning his hands palm up and tilting his head.

  ‘I’m feeling really bad.’

  ‘That’s how we’ll all be feeling in the morning. You just have a head start.’

  ‘I’m sorry, yaar. I’m not going.’

  ‘Yes, you are. I insist.’

  ‘Look at me: I’m not dressed and I look horrible.’

  ‘You always look horrible. Throw on some clothes and let’s go. We’ll wait in the car.’

  In a daze, I put on a pair of black jeans, with a black T-shirt, black belt, and black loafers, slip some hash into a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and head out.

  ‘You two match,’ Ozi says, meaning Mumtaz and me.

  I sit in the back of Ozi’s Pajero. I’ve never been in a Pajero before. Costs more than my house and moves like a bull, powerful and single-minded. Ozi drives by pointing it in one direction and stepping on the gas, trusting that everyone will get out of our way. Occasionally, when he cuts things too close and has to swerve to avoid crushing someone, the Pajero’s engine grumbles with disappointment and Ozi swears.

  ‘Stupid bastard.’

  ‘It was a red light,’ Mumtaz points out.

  ‘So? He could see me coming.’

  ‘There are rules, you know.’

  ‘And the first is, bigger cars have the right of way.’

  A favorite line. One I haven’t heard in a long, long time. I remember speeding around the city with Ozi in his ’82 Corolla, feet sweating sockless in battered boat shoes, following cute girls up and down the Boulevard, memorizing their number plates and avoiding cops because neither of us had a license. Hair chopped in senior school crew cuts. Eyes pot-red behind his wayfarers and my aviators. Stickers of universities I would never attend on the back windshield. Poondi, in the days of cheap petrol and skipping class and heavy-metal cassettes recorded with too much bass and even more treble. We had some good times, Ozi and I, before he left.

  I would have reached out and clapped him on the shoulder then, grinned at him in the rearview, but I don’t do it now. I’m too tired.

  We arrive at the party. A mostly male mob is gathered outside the gate, hoping to get in. It’s summertime, after all, and parties are few and far between.

  Ozi pulls up and honks, and we get some glares.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I can’t open the gate,’ says a security guard.

  ‘You’ll have to. I’m parking inside,’ says Ozi.

  The Pajero must give Ozi’s words added authority, because instead of laughing in his face, the guard says, ‘But how will we keep these people outside?’

  ‘That’s your problem. If anyone tries to get in, hit them one.’

  The guard disappears. Ozi inches the car forward, pushing the crowd out of his way. I hear people swearing. Suddenly the gate opens and we drive in, leaving two security guards and some servants to scuffle with the crowd.

  Ozi and Mumtaz head indoors, toward the music, and I’m about to follow them when someone grabs my arm. It’s Raider, taut with nervous energy. ‘Shit, yaar,’ he says.

  ‘Let’s not talk about it.’ The last thing I want to do just now is think about what happened today. Besides, the pity in Raider’s face is making me feel unwell.

  He nods and raises his hands in accommodation. ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘To hell with those bastards. I can’t believe –’

  ‘Leave it.’

  Raider shifts from foot to foot, an intensely vacant look in his eyes, and grins at me. ‘You’re a killer, yaar. A killer. I like your style, partying tonight. I’d be a complete wreck.’

  I take hold of his shoulders. ‘Please, shut up.’

  He ducks his head. ‘Sorry.’ Then he starts grinning again. ‘But I’ve got the perfect thing for you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ex.’

  I should have guessed he was on something. ‘Here?’

  He nods. ‘Great stuff, yaar. Very peppy.’

  I shake my head. ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Especially tonight. I know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two thousand.’

  ‘I can’t, yaar. It’s too much.’

  Raider smiles. ‘Just take it, then. A gift.’

  That’s the problem with Raider, why he’ll never make it to Wall Street or probably even to Karachi, for that matter: he’s too generous. He’s the last person you want on your side in a negotiation.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I can’t. Another time.’

  ‘Just call,’ Raider says, suddenly sad. ‘The bank will be boring without you. All worker bees and no wasps.’

  I pat him on the back and walk off.

  Then I’m inside. I see the familiar faces of Lahore’s party crowd, and soon I’m caught up in the whole hugging, handshaking, cheek-kissing scene. Tonight’s venue is a mansion with marble floors and twenty-foot ceilings. Rumor has it that the owner made his fortune as a smuggler, which is probably true but could also be social retribution for his recent ascent to wealth.

  The dance floor is packed. Ozi and Mumtaz are shaking it down to ‘Stayin’ Alive.’ They make a sexy pair, a welcome new addition to the scene, and I overhear the update passing like a Reuters report: ‘Aurangzeb and Mumtaz, back from New York, very cool.’ Information is key at these things: no one wants to be caught holding social stock that’s about to crash.

  I see Nadira glaring in my direction as she dances with some guy whose wet shirt sticks to his back. Keeping her eyes fixed on mine, she pulls closer to him and grinds her body against his, running her hands up his thighs. I’ve never understood why she does this to me, since she’s the one who ended it. As usual, I try to ignore her.

  I’m in no mood to dance and there are too many people at the bar, so I wander through the house and out to the back lawn. Finding a wrought-iron bench, I sit down to watch the party out of the darkness.

  As I roll a joint, couples argue and kiss, unable to see me seeing them. Two guys are pacing about. One seems to be calming the other down, but I’m too far away to hear their words. Several people chat on their mobiles.

  Then a woman walks in my direction.

  ‘Daru?’ she says.

  ‘Here, Mumtaz.’

  She comes over and sits down, her body as far from mine as this narrow bench will allow.

  ‘How did you find me?’ I ask.

  ‘I watched you go outside. What are you doing?’

  ‘Just enjoying the night air.’

  She smiles and says conspiratorially, ‘It looks like you’re rolling a jay.’

  ‘I suppose it does look like that.’

  ‘Can I have some?’

  I look down. ‘Where’s Ozi? We should all share it.’

  She points to the house with her chin. ‘He’s inside, chatting it up with some old school buddies. Besides, he’s stopped smoking pot.’

  ‘I can see I’m going to have to be firm with him,’ I say. ‘He’s forgotten his roots.’

  ‘We used to smoke together before. I was stoned when we first met. He was dancing. Ozi’s a great dancer, you know.’

  ‘I know. He’s a charmer. Women love him.’ I finish rolling the joint. ‘Do you want me to go and get him?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, let him enjoy himself.’

  I light up. We share it. She takes one hit and starts coughing, but she takes another before handing it back. I don’t say anything, shutting my eyes and smoking slowly as we keep passing the joint. When it’s done, I flick it into a
hedge.

  Both of us are silent. I stare straight ahead.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Mumtaz.

  ‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘I’m sorry if Ozi forced you.’

  ‘It’s not that. I had a bad day.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asks.

  The joint has made my throat burn and my eyes water. ‘I got fired.’

  Mumtaz brushes my face with her fingers. They come away wet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

  My stomach constricts. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I shut my eyes and bend over, coughing through my nose.

  Mumtaz puts her arm around me. ‘It’ll be okay,’ she says gently. ‘Don’t be scared.’

  I stay bent over like that for a long time, until the coughing stops, and I wipe my face on my jeans before I sit back up. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘Please go in to Ozi.’

  ‘I’d rather stay outside with you for a little bit. If you don’t mind.’

  My coughing seems to have loosened the tightness wrapped around my chest. I take a deep breath, my lungs raw like I’ve been for a long run. ‘This bastard told my boss I was rude.’ I start to laugh. ‘I wish I’d known I was going to get fired. There are a few more things I’d have liked to say.’

  Mumtaz laughs with me. ‘I can imagine.’

  I love her voice. It has the soul of a whisper, meant only for the person she’s speaking to, even when she isn’t speaking softly. ‘Are you stoned?’

  ‘You know, I’m really stoned.’

  I nod. ‘This is good hash. Courtesy of a friend of mine, Murad Badshah.’

  ‘Murad? Did he go to school with you and Ozi?’

  I smile. ‘No. I met him while I was at Punjab University, when Ozi was off studying in the States.’

  ‘Well, his hash has certainly given me a buzz.’ She moves her arm back and rests both of her hands in her lap. I find my mind tracing the line her skin touched as it curved around me.

  ‘I’m pretty stoned myself,’ I say.

  ‘You look less unhappy.’

  ‘I feel completely empty.’

  ‘You’ll find something to fill you.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find something.’

  I light a cigarette.

  ‘May I have one?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

  I light it for her.

  A bird passes overhead, invisible, the sound of agitated air.

  ‘Did you ever study with Professor Julius Superb?’ she asks me.

  I grin. ‘Do you know where his name comes from?’

  She laughs. ‘No, but it’s fabulous.’

  ‘His great-grandfather was the batman of a Scottish officer who tried for years to get him to convert. When the Indian Mutiny broke out, the old Scot wound up with a knife in his chest. Julius’s great-grandfather came to him on his deathbed and said he’d decided to become a Christian. And the last thing the Scot could croak before he died was: Superb. Julius is the fourth generation of the line.’

  Mumtaz is laughing so hard she has to hold her sides. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she gasps.

  ‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘Professor S. told us himself.’

  ‘No.’ She’s smiling at me and shaking her head.

  ‘Seriously.’ I smile back. ‘But how do you know him?’

  ‘I came across an article of his today. It’s called “The Phoenix and the Flame.” Have you read it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let me read a piece of it to you.’

  ‘You have it with you?’

  ‘Just one page that I tore out. Do you think that’s odd?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is odd, isn’t it? Whenever I read something interesting, I tear out a piece and keep it as a talisman until I find something new to replace it with. It’s a sort of superstition. I did it once and it helped me break out of writer’s block, so I’ve done it ever since. Librarians must hate me.’

  I look at her, surprised. ‘What do you write?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  I shake my head. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m teasing. I used to write for some magazines in New York.’

  ‘That must have been fantastic.’

  ‘Not really. I wrote boring stuff.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I’ll read you this article.’ She opens a little bag and takes out a folded piece of paper. ‘Could you keep your lighter lit so I can read this? Thanks. Here’s what it says: “My father liked to wonder aloud whether the phoenix was re-created by the fire of its funeral pyre or transformed so that what emerged was a soulless shadow of its former being, identical in appearance but without the joy in life its predecessor had had. He wondered alternatively whether the fire might be purificatory, a redemptive, rejuvenating blaze that destroyed the withered shell of the old phoenix and allowed the creature’s essence to emerge stronger than it was before in a young, new body. Or, he would ask, was the fire a manifestation of entropy, slowly sapping the life-energy of the phoenix over the eons, a little death in a life that could know no beginning and no end but which could nonetheless be subject to an ever-decreasing magnitude? He asked me once if I thought the fires in our lives, the traumas, increased our fulfillment by setting up contrasts that illuminated more clearly our everyday joys; or perhaps I viewed them instead as tests that made us stronger by teaching us to endure; or did I believe, rather, that they simply amplified what we already were, in the end making the strong stronger, the weak weaker, and the dangerous deadly?” That’s it.’

  The gas coming from my lighter hisses, suddenly audible, until I relax my thumb and extinguish the flame. Back in my pocket, the metal radiates heat into the skin below my hipbone.

  ‘That’s vintage Superb,’ I tell her, a little wistfully. ‘He teaches economics, but basically he’s a freelance thinker.’

  ‘I like the image his article brought to my mind, of this old Punjab University fuddy-duddy hard at work in his office.’

  ‘He’s a comrade.’

  ‘Comrade?’

  ‘Communist.’

  ‘Are there many?’

  ‘Not anymore. The unshaven boys are the new populists. But they leave Professor S. alone. I think they’ve decided he’s harmless. Or irrelevant.’

  ‘What about the other Communists?’

  ‘Most of them have become experts at couching their beliefs in religiously acceptable terms. The academic version of Sufi poets, you might call them.’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘Some professors were roughed up. They left.’

  ‘How sad.’

  I shrug. ‘Good old Professor S. is still writing away. Which brings me back to you. You haven’t told me what you’re writing now.’

  ‘I have a question for you first.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell me about boxing.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything. What’s it like? How did you get into it?’

  ‘Family tradition. I was an out-of-shape little kid. Very soft. One day my uncle took me aside and said, “The time has come,” or something like that. He trained me in the evenings: jump rope, speed bag, heavy bag. He was pretty lazy, so he usually sat on a chair and smoked while I pounded away, but every so often he put on his gloves and knocked me around so I’d learn not to be scared. I boxed until the end of college.’

  ‘You said you never won a championship.’

  ‘No. But I made it to a couple. And I won more fights than I lost.’

  ‘Did your mother approve?’

  ‘No, but she always came to watch when I asked her. She hid her face behind her hands, but she came.’

  ‘I’m sure she was terrified.’

  I lean back on the bench and look up at the sky.
Two stars, a low-riding moon, dusty haze. Cloudless but not clear. Not very dark but dark enough. Impossible to see anything falling.

  I think of my mother on a rooftop, of waking beside her, early, at first light on an almost-quiet summer morning. The flies would come later, swinging up over the walls with the rising sun, buzzing and ripe like honeybees.

  Someone calls our names. It’s Ozi.

  ‘There you two are,’ he says. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Talking,’ Mumtaz says. ‘I like this friend of yours.’

  Ozi smiles and puts his arm around me. ‘You’ll get over it soon enough,’ he tells her.

  We walk inside, Mumtaz and I on opposite sides of Ozi, and the pounding of the music gets louder as we approach, the lights from the dance floor reflecting off the walls so that colors start to blur and change, again and again and again.

  The police don’t stop us on our drive home. We are in a Pajero, after all.

  4

  opening the purple box: an interview with professor julius superb

  ZULFIKAR MANTO: Good to meet you, Professor. I’ve read some of your work. None of the academic materials, I’m afraid. Econometrics scares the hell out of me and I can hardly even pronounce heteroscedasticity. But I enjoyed that piece you wrote a few months ago about the phoenix myth. Very witty.

  JULIUS SUPERB: Yes, ah, likewise.

  ZM: Your students speak highly of you. They say you’re a brave man.

  JS: They say I’m, ah, a man. A brave man. Do they?

  ZM: Is something wrong?

  JS: Wrong? No, no, of course not. Please excuse me. Never having met, you see. I was somewhat unprepared. But that’s your business. I don’t mean to presume. I’ve read all your articles. That is to say, all that I’ve come across. And they are top-notch. Really first-class journalism. Commendable. Ah, I’ve lost my train of thought. What was the question?

  ZM: Actually, I asked if something was wrong. But let’s begin at the beginning. How did you first meet Darashikoh Shezad?

  JS: He was a student of mine. He distinguished himself by attending my lectures and taking notes. It was this second characteristic, note-taking, that really caught my eye. So one day I said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ To which he replied, ‘I’m sorry, Professor?’ And I responded, ‘No, you’re not. You’ve been doing it for weeks. You’re taking notes.’