Moth Smoke

by Mohsin Hamid

  The entire city is uneasy. Sometimes, when monsoon lightning slips a bright explosion under the clouds, there is a pause in conversations. Teacups halt, steaming, in front of extended lips. Lightning’s echo comes as thunder. And the city waits for thunder’s echo, for a wall of heat that burns Lahore with the energy of a thousand summers, a million partitions, a billion atomic souls split in half.

  Only after light’s echo has come as sound, after it is clear sound’s echo will fail to come as heat, do lips and teacups make contact, and even then minds and taste buds remain far apart.

  It is, after all, our first nuclear monsoon. And I’m looking for a fat man.

  I follow Ferozepur Road as it curves past Ichra, hoping as the water gets deeper that my car won’t stall. But soon I reach a point where most of the traffic is turning around and only the Bedford trucks and four-wheel drives are continuing on. Ahead, a few cars have foundered, their exhaust pipes submerged, and I doubt mine will do any better, so I park my car beside the road on a raised slope in front of a shop that sells toilet seats and bathroom tiles. With my shoes tied together by the laces and hanging from my neck, and my jeans rolled up to my knees, I head out on foot.

  It takes me the better part of an hour to wade the mile or so to Murad Badshah’s workshop. He’s chatting with a mechanic, and their hands are stained with motor oil. ‘Hullo, old chap,’ he booms when he sees me. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’

  ‘I thought we had an appointment,’ I reply, shaking his hand.

  ‘Yes, but I assumed it was canceled, force majeure and all that.’ He gestures in the direction of the street. ‘How did you make it here, by ship? I’m losing money every hour because this damned water has two of my rickshaws stranded.’ He tells the mechanic to take a break and offers me a stool next to a rickshaw lying on its side. ‘I tried to call you from the shop next door to tell you not to come, old boy, but no one answered at your end.’

  ‘My phone is dead,’ I tell him. ‘It must be the rains.’ Either that or I’ve finally been disconnected.

  He smiles and strokes his chin, his stained fingers leaving streaks. ‘No job, no electricity, no telephone. Perhaps you ought to reconsider joining me in the entrepreneurial venture I mentioned before.’

  I have reconsidered. That’s why I’m here. I only hope I’m not about to be disappointed. ‘I’m in no mood to be laughed at,’ I warn him.

  His puffy eyes open wide. ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Murad Badshah lights a cigarette and leans back on his stool like a child on a wooden horse. ‘A mechanic in my employ has a dimwitted cousin who managed to secure a position as a guard at a storage depot on Raiwind Road. In April of last year, during the flour shortage, a hungry mob attacked the depot. The guards shot three people dead. People were dying for their hunger, old boy, dying for their hunger. But there was no need for them to go hungry. My mechanic’s cousin told me, and I heard this with my own ears, mind you, that there was over a hundred tons of flour in that warehouse alone. Stockpiled, hoarded to keep up the prices.’

  ‘May I have a cigarette?’ I ask. ‘Mine seem to be soaked.’

  ‘There you are.’ He offers his pack and lights one for me.

  ‘So what does all this have to do with your plan?’

  ‘Just laying the intellectual foundation, old boy,’ Murad Badshah tells me. ‘This is how I see things. People are fed up with subsisting on the droppings of the rich. The time is ripe for a revolution. The rich use Kalashnikovs to persuade tenant farmers and factory laborers and the rest of us to stay in line.’ He reaches under his kurta and pulls out the revolver I’ve seen once before. ‘But we, too, can be persuasive.’

  ‘Let me see it,’ I say, and he hands it to me. It feels cool against my cheek, soothing, like a wet compress on a feverish forehead. I sight along the barrel, pleased that I hold it rock steady, without the slightest trembling. ‘What’s your plan?’

  He takes the gun back from me and tucks it away. ‘Boutiques. I want to rob high-end, high-fashion, exclusive boutiques.’

  Is he mocking me? ‘Why boutiques?’

  Murad Badshah starts rocking back and forth with excitement as he ticks off the reasons on his fingers. ‘Built on main roads with easy access, rarely more than one guard, good cash-to-patron ratio, small size, risk-averse clientele, high-profile hostage possibilities, little competition. And, as an added bonus, symbolism: they represent the soft underbelly of the upper crust, the ultimate hypocrisy in a country with flour shortages. Boutiques are, in a word, perfect.’

  ‘It can’t be that easy or someone else would be doing it.’

  Murad Badshah smiles. ‘Entrepreneurs tend to ignore that argument.’

  I look at him, at his good-natured face, his chin streaked with motor oil. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you know what you’re talking about? Have you done this sort of thing before?’

  He looks offended. ‘You doubt my qualifications?’

  ‘It’s a reasonable question. Don’t look at me like I’ve demanded a copy of your c.v.’

  He pulls up his kurta, revealing the long, slow roll of his belly. Dead center, a scar the size and shape of a large bird dropping on a car window.

  ‘Polio vaccination?’ I ask.

  He turns around and bends forward, revealing another, larger scar. ‘Polio vaccinations don’t leave exit wounds.’

  I’m relieved. Impressed, even. Exaggerated or not, there’s obviously some truth behind his stories. But one thing still bothers me. Why does Murad Badshah need me if his plan is so good? ‘I don’t know anything about robbing boutiques. I don’t even know how to use a gun.’

  ‘You can walk into a boutique without arousing suspicion,’ Murad Badshah says. ‘If someone like my mechanics, or my drivers, or even myself showed up, the guard would watch him like a hawk. No offense, but you blend in with those boutique-going types. When you walk in and act like a customer, no one will look at you twice. Then you put a gun against the guard’s head, I come in, we generate some revenue and implement our exit strategy. No violence, no profanity, suitable for viewing by young children, and potentially extremely lucrative.’

  ‘Let’s do it,’ I say, extending my hand.

  We shake. Surprisingly, I don’t feel the slightest tremor of doubt or worry. Must be the hairy. Which reminds me. ‘Do you have any more heroin?’

  He’s quiet for a moment, looking at the rickshaw lying on its side. ‘My supplies have been cut off by the rain. The Jamrod-Lahore trucking circuit has been disrupted.’

  Just my luck. ‘That’s bad news. I’m completely out.’

  ‘Don’t do any more. I’m being very serious now, old chap.’

  ‘How do you know I’ve done any?’

  ‘You look awful. Besides, I can see you’re on it right now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your eyes. And you keep scratching yourself.’

  I have to remember not to do that. ‘Are you sure you don’t have any?’

  ‘I have a little. But I’m not going to give it to you.’

  ‘I don’t need your protection.’

  He looks at me, surprised at the tone in my voice. Then he shakes his head.

  As I wade back to my car, excitement builds inside me. I’m finally taking control of my life. I keep waiting for the fear to come, but it doesn’t. In fact, I’m walking taller, grinning, empowered by the knowledge that I’ve become dangerous, that I can do anything I want.

  I get behind the wheel and point my finger at a passing Pajero.

  Bang bang.

  In the morning, the smell of something burning brings me out of the house and onto the street in search of its source. Neat mounds of rubbish in front of the neighbors’ houses smolder, trash smoke rising only to be beaten down by the rain.

  I walk closer.

  Definitely an odd smell. Maybe there’
s plastic in the heaps. Or maybe the rain does something to the way they burn.

  I kick one. Sodden refuse, half-burnt, flies off. Underneath it’s more dry, but I see no fire, no embers even. Just smoke coming out of fissures in the black heart of a trash pile, like steam from the cooled crust of lava.

  The stench released is unbearable.

  Like burning skin.

  I walk inside. But the smell stays with me. On my shoes maybe, on my clothes. It lingers even after I shower.

  Even after I dump my clothes in a tub of soapy water.

  It clings to me. Wafts over the wall. Makes me want to retch.

  I wish Murad Badshah would give me some more hairy. But we’re partners now, and I need him, so I never ask him for any when he comes by. Wouldn’t want to worry the old boy. Instead, we discuss strategy: the boutiques he’s scoped out, the gun he’s going to buy for me (the cost will be deducted from my share of our eventual take), when we’re going to do target practice, et cetera. I want to get on with it, but he keeps telling me to be patient, saying that planning is nine-tenths of the work.

  ‘I’m running out of things to sell,’ I tell him. ‘Yesterday someone bought my television.’

  He adjusts himself inside the folds of his shalwar. ‘I wish I could help, old chap, but the rickshaw business has been dead since the tests. My customers are worried about food prices. They prefer to walk.’

  Luckily, I have another idea where I can get some hairy. I’ve seen fellow aficionados chilling out in the old city near Badshahi Mosque.

  I wait until late at night. The last prayer of the day has been prayed, and there isn’t much traffic in the area except for revelers and diners on their way to Heera Mandi. I park my car and walk down the street, the walls and minarets of the mosque towering up to my left. Scattered beneath them, sitting or staggering about in their moon shadows, are the very people I was hoping to meet: junkies.

  I know I’m in the right place by the smell, and by the faces floating in the great womb of the drug, content to stay there until they die. Which shouldn’t be long, by the looks of some of them.

  I hunt for someone to buy from, but he finds me before I find him.

  ‘Heroin?’ he asks from behind me.

  I turn. He has awful teeth, a rotting smile. But he’s clean, unlike the addicts. Without waiting for an answer he puts out his hand and says, ‘One hundred.’

  I give it to him, and he passes me something that I slip into my pocket.

  ‘How do you know I’m not a policeman?’ I ask him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you are. Same price, same price.’

  I grin, but he seems to find nothing funny in what he’s said and wanders off, prowling around the addicts like a shepherd tending to his flock.

  At home I’m apprehensive until I try the stuff, wondering if he’s sold me rat poison, but it turns out to be fine. I spend much of the night smoking and wake up exhausted the next evening. The curtains are wide open. A murder of crows flaps around the gray sky, coming to land one by one on power lines across the street. Somewhere a dog offers up a token bark, but they ignore him and go about their business in silence.

  I know I need a meal, even if my stomach isn’t bothering to say it’s hungry, so I fry myself a couple of eggs and toast some bread over the gas flame. Sometimes hairy kills my appetite.

  The other thing hairy kills is time, and that’s good, because when Murad Badshah isn’t visiting, which is most of the day, I have nothing to do. My only fear is that some relative or unwanted visitor will drop by and see me and my house in the state we’re in, which is filthy. So I keep the gate locked and don’t answer unless I hear the right open sesame: beep beep bee-bee-beep.

  I’m getting good at moth badminton. I now play sitting down, and I try to be unpredictable so the moths will never know when it’s safe. Sometimes they whir by my face or even land on me and I leave them alone. At other times they fly at full velocity several feet away and I slam them with an extended forehand.

  Here are my rules. I play left hand versus right hand, squash-style. That is, I switch hands whenever I try to hit a moth and fail to connect. At first, I gave a hand a point just for hitting a moth. Then I made it more difficult by adding the ‘ping’ test. According to the ‘ping’ test, a hand scores only when the moth makes a ‘ping’ as it’s struck by the racquet. If I hit a moth but there’s no ‘ping,’ it’s a let and the hand must ‘ping’ a moth on its next attempt, or the racquet switches to the opposing hand. Three factors come into play here: moth size (small moths rarely ‘ping’), stroke speed (only delicate swings produce ‘pings’), and racquet position (most ‘pings’ come from the racquet’s sweet spot). My racquet is made of wood, and I’ve managed to misplace its racquet press, so it’s beginning to warp in the humid monsoon air. As a result, finding the sweet spot and successfully ‘pinging’ becomes increasingly difficult. Scores drop rapidly, until a good evening ends with a tally of left four versus right two, or something like that. I’m right-handed, but my left seems to win more often than not, which pleases me, because I tend to sympathize with underdogs.

  I often find myself smiling when I’m playing moth badminton. What amuses me is the power I’ve discovered in myself, the power to kill moths when I feel like it, the power to walk up to someone and take their money and still put a bullet in them, anyway, just for the hell of it, if that’s what I want to do. And I’m amazed that it took me so long to come to this realization, that I spent all this time feeling helpless. Self-pity is pathetic. Hear that, little moth? Ping!

  Murad Badshah drops by at night. I try to interest him in some moth badminton, without success. He’s decided on a boutique, a shop in Defense near LUMS.

  The thing is getting serious. For two days we take turns staking out the boutique, recording what time police patrols pass and guards change. Sometimes I smoke hairy and doze off on my shifts, napping in my car right in front of the place we’re supposed to rob. As a result, my reports are impressionistic rather than empirically accurate.

  Even though I’ve stopped scratching myself, I can tell Murad Badshah still wonders if I’m on hairy. The doubt makes him angry. When he gets angry I can see why people might be afraid of him. But I deny it, and he never hits me. Which is good for him, and for me, too, because I don’t want to break up our partnership. Besides, he has thick bones, the kind that can hurt your hand if you aren’t wearing a glove.

  Always remember to lock, I tell myself. The gate, the front door. There isn’t much of value in the house that’s light enough to be carried away, just a powerless AC and fridge, really, so sometimes I get careless. And when Dadi comes in, waddling as she has since she broke her hip, and Fatty Chacha follows behind her, then I shut my eyes for an instant, at once desperate to disappear and furious with myself for letting this happen, before I get to my feet and greet them.

  A half-filled aitch-in-progress crumples in the fist of my left hand. A smattering of tobacco peppered with hairy falls quietly from my right. It’s dark inside and sunny out, a rare bright afternoon, and I’m hoping their eyes haven’t adjusted enough to make out what I was up to.

  ‘I’ve been trying to call you since your birthday, but there was no answer.’ Fatty Chacha’s voice trails off. Dadi is staring at me.

  ‘I’m so happy you’ve come,’ I say, gesturing to the sofa. ‘Please.’

  They don’t move. Finally, Dadi speaks. ‘What happened to you, child?’

  I force a laugh. ‘This?’ I say, raising my cast-encased forearm. ‘It’s nothing. A car accident.’

  Dadi’s eyes are watery but still keen. She touches my face. ‘You’ve been hurt badly.’ Her horrified expression makes me want to recoil. She strokes my scars, her shriveled finger remarkably soft.

  ‘But when did this happen?’ Fatty Chacha asks.

  I want to lie, but I’m afraid they won’t believe me. ‘A month ago,’ I admit.

 
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to worry.’

  ‘Foolish boy,’ Dadi says, sitting down.

  Fatty Chacha remains standing. ‘What’s happened to the house? It’s a mess.’

  ‘Manucci left.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘He walked out on me.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘He wanted more pay.’ I can see that Fatty Chacha is doubtful, and I’m about to say more when Dadi calls me over to sit beside her and pats me on the cheek.

  ‘Do you know,’ she says, trying to reassure herself, ‘your father never told me when he broke his nose at the military academy. Just like you.’

  ‘He was far away,’ Fatty Chacha points out, sitting down. ‘There was nothing we could have done to help.’

  ‘But I’m fine,’ I protest.

  ‘You don’t look fine, champ,’ Fatty Chacha says. ‘Is there some kind of infection? You seem ill.’

  ‘No infection. It was a bad accident.’

  ‘You must have lost twenty pounds.’

  I force a grin. ‘I’m back in my weight class.’

  Dadi takes a proprietary hold on my upper lip and pulls it back. ‘You’ve lost a tooth.’

  ‘So have you,’ I say cheekily.

  She chuckles, but I can see she’s still shaken. She asks how the accident happened, and I invent a story, claiming I don’t remember many details because of the shock. Dadi strokes my good hand as I speak and Fatty Chacha keeps shaking his head, whether in sympathy or out of disbelief it’s hard to say.

  To change the subject, I ask about Jamal’s business.

  ‘He’s doing well,’ Fatty Chacha says. ‘They have two new clients, with no discount this time.’

  Dadi offers to move in with me and stay until I’m better, but I manage to convince her not to. She tells me I must promise to visit her every day or she will worry. When they ask if I have tea I admit that I’m out of milk.