A Case of Exploding Mangoes

by Mohammed Hanif

  It is at this point, taking his first step on the red carpet and chaperoning a dozen confused generals towards Pak One that General Zia feels the first pang of an intense, dry pain in his lower abdomen.

  The army of tapeworms, sensing a sudden surge in his blood circulation, begins to wake from their slumber. The tapeworms feel ravenous. A tapeworm’s average age is seven years and it spends its entire life searching for and consuming food. The life cycle of this generation begins on a very lucky note. Climbing up from his rectum, they attack the liver first. They find it healthy and clean, the liver of a man who has not touched a drop of alcohol in twenty years and has quit smoking nine years earlier. His innards taste like the innards of a man who has had food tasters taste every morsel that he ate for an entire decade. Having worked through his liver, the army starts to make a tunnel in his oesophagus and keeps moving up and up.

  Their seven-year life cycle would be cut down to twenty minutes, but while they were alive, they would eat well.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  PAK ONE IS a palace compared to the C130 that flew us here. It’s got air conditioning. The floor smells of lemony disinfectants. We are sitting behind the VIP pod, in proper seats with armrests. There is even a waiter in a white turban offering us iced Coca-Cola in plastic glasses. This is the good life, I tell myself. I am poking Obaid in his ribs with my elbow, trying to point towards the cargo lift that’s depositing a stack of crates through the plane’s ramp. Obaid has got his nose buried in the book. He doesn’t even glance towards me. Warrant Officer Fayyaz’s bald head appears from behind the stack of wooden crates. Elaborate messages have been stencilled in blue ink on the crates. ‘The mangoes that we present you are not just seasonal fruits, they are tokens of our love, a sign of our devotion.’ All Pakistan Mango Farmers Cooperative is stencilled in bold letters on all the crates. Secretary General’s fellow travellers are still playing their double game. Warrant Officer Fayyaz secures the crates to the floor of the plane with a plastic belt and gives the belt a forceful shake to see if it is secure. It is.

  As the ramp door on the aircraft comes up and creaks shut, the cabin is suddenly full of the overwhelming smell of mangoes. One mango’s smell is nice, the smell of a tonne of them can induce nausea. Fayyaz looks through me as if he had never tried to molest me. Major Kiyani is standing with his back reclined against the VIP pod as if he expects to be invited in at any time. He seems straitjacketed in a uniform a size too small. I give Obaid another nudge in the ribs. ‘Look at his feet.’ Obaid glances at him impatiently. ‘He is wearing slippers. So? At least he has started wearing a uniform. One thing at a time.’ He buries his nose in his book again. Major Kiyani comes towards me and stares at my face as if he has suddenly remembered that he has seen me somewhere but doesn’t quite know what to say to me. I vacate my seat. ‘Sir, why don’t you sit here?’ He almost falls into the seat as if his knees have refused to carry his weight. Warrant Officer Fayyaz shouts from behind the mango crates. ‘I’ll have to offload you, Under Officer. We are not allowed to carry standing passengers on Pak One.’ I have half a mind to squash his head with a mango crate, but two bearded commandos manning the C130 door are already looking at me suspiciously. ‘Let’s go, Obaid,’ I say, moving towards the door without looking at him, feeling as if I have been ejected from my ringside seat at General Zia’s deathbed. From the door I look back and Obaid waves his book towards me and at the same time mouths what to me sounds like: ‘I am about to finish.’

  I give him a scornful look, nod towards Major Kiyani who has slumped in his chair with his eyes closed, tip my peaked cap to the commandos on the door and shout, ‘Enjoy your VVIP flight.’

  ‘Brother Raphel, you have not had lunch with us,’ General Zia says in a complaining voice and takes Arnold Raphel’s hand in both his hands and starts walking towards Pak One. ‘I know you were taking a siesta with Jesus and Mary.’ General Zia puts an arm around his waist and lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘Now we must put our heads together and suck national security.’ Arnold Raphel, still reeling from his spiritual encounter with the Carmelite sisters and their singing orphans, thinks General Zia is cracking a joke.

  Arnold Raphel looks towards his Cessna, his mind races through a list of excuses, but by the time he reaches something starting with Nancy, General Zia’s arm is around his waist and he is marching him up the ladder into Pak One.

  General Akhtar buries his face in his hands and looks down through his fingers at the fluffy white carpet on the floor of the VIP pod. He notices a thin streak of blood crawling towards him. He traces it to its source and sees that General Zia’s shiny oxfords are oozing blackish red blood. He panics and looks at his own shoes. They are spotless. Suddenly a ray of hope, faint but a ray of hope nonetheless, penetrates the doom engulfing his soul. Maybe the Shigri boy has inflicted an inner wound and Zia is bleeding to death. Maybe the plane will get to Islamabad safely. Maybe he’ll have to rewrite his speech, just changing the lines about an unfortunate accident to President’s sudden demise. Would he be ready to take over the country if the plane makes it to Islamabad? General Akhtar suddenly remembers a long-forgotten prayer from his childhood and starts to mutter it. Then halfway through his prayer, he changes his mind and lunges towards the VIP pod’s door. ‘Major Kiyani, tell the crew to keep the air conditoning off, the President is not feeling too well.’

  ‘By jingo, I am dandy,’ General Zia protests, then looks down at the puddle of blood around his shoes on the carpet, but like a junkie in denial, he refuses to make a connection between the grinding pain in his abdomen, the fluid trickling down his pants and the streak of blackish-red blood on the carpet. He decides he needs to change the subject. He wants to take the conversation to a higher level so that nobody would notice the blood on the floor. He knows that the only person he can rely on is Arnold Raphel.

  The C130’s doors secured, the pilot move his throttles forward and the four propellers start picking up speed. General Zia looks towards Arnold Raphel and says to him in a pleading voice, ‘We’ll buy those tanks. What a sensitive machine have you built. But first, tell me how will history remember me.’ The voices in the VIP pod are being drowned out by the din of the aeroplane. Arnold Raphel thinks General Zia is asking him about the target sensors on the Abram One tank. Arnold Raphel, Carmelite orphans’ hymns still ringing in his head, loses his cool for a moment and gives the first and the last undiplomatic statement of his life. ‘No, Mr President, they are as useless as tits on a boar.’

  General Zia can’t believe what Arnold Raphel just said: the world would remember him as a bit of a bore.

  In a moment of panic General Zia feels that he must rectify this historical misconception. There is no way he was going to go down in the textbooks as the President who ruled this country of one hundred and thirty million people for eleven years, laid the foundations of the first modern Islamic state, brought about the end of communism but was a bit of a bore. He must tell them a joke, he decides. Hundreds of hilarious one-liners that he has tested in his cabinet meetings run through his mind and blur into one endless cosmic joke. He rehearses one in his head. He knows that jokes are all about timing. ‘What did the seventy houris say when they were told that they would spend the eternity with General Zia in paradise?’ He can’t remember the houris’ exact words. There was something about being condemned to hell for eternity but it’s dangerous to tell a joke if you can’t get your punchline right. Then a flash of genius. He must tell a family joke. He wants to be remembered as a witty man. But he also wants to be remembered as a family man.

  ‘Because the First Lady thinks he is too busy screwing the nation,’ he says jumping in his seat. It is only when nobody around him laughs that he realises he has blurted out the punchline and now can’t remember the rest of the joke. He yearns for a moment of lucidity, a flash of clarity that would cut through the muddle that is his mind. He looks around at the wretched faces, and realises that he will not remember this joke. Ever.

  He
turns to General Akhtar in an attempt to preserve his legacy and keep the conversation going. ‘How do you think, Brother Akhtar, history will remember me?’ General Akhtar is pale as death. His thin lips are muttering all the prayers he can remember, his heart has long stopped beating and his underpants are soaked in cold sweat. Most people faced with certain death can probably say a thing or two they have always wanted to say, but not General Akhtar. A lifetime of military discipline and his natural instinct for sucking up to his superiors overcome the fear of death and with shivering hands and quivering lips General Akhtar tells the last lie of his life. ‘As a good Muslim and a great leader,’ he says, then takes out a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket and covers his nose.

  As I watch them gather on the red carpet near the ladder up to the C130, I begin to wonder if I should have trusted Uncle Starchy’s folksy pharmacology. General Zia is still standing on his feet with his one arm around General Akhtar’s waist. They look like lovers who don’t want to let go of each other. Maybe I should have thrust the blade in the back of his neck when I had him at the tip of my sword. Too late now. I am already strapped in a seat in General Beg’s plane. He offered me a lift after I was offloaded from Pak One. Our Cessna – his Cessna – waits on the tarmac for Pak One to take off. Protocol demands that Pak One should leave the runway first.

  ‘Good to see you, young man.’ He waves his peaked cap at me. He opens a fat book with a fat man on its cover and starts flicking through the pages. Iacocca: An Autobiography reads the title. ‘Lots of work to do.’ He nods towards the pilot.

  What’s with books and soldiers? I wonder. The whole bloody army is turning into pansy intellectuals.

  I look out of the window as the American Ambassador walks up to General Zia; double handshakes, hugs as if the General is not meeting the ambassador after two hours but has found his long-lost sibling. General Zia’s grin widens, his teeth flash and his other arm wraps itself around the ambassador’s waist. Bannon is in his suit, standing behind them, puffing nervously on a cigarette. There is an air of important men sharing a joke, spreading goodwill. It’s only when they start climbing the stairs that I realise that General Zia is dragging his feet. He is almost hanging onto the shoulders of the two men flanking him. ‘The elephant will dance, the elephant will drag his feet, the elephant will drop dead.’ Uncle Starchy had given me a step-by-step guide to the effects of his nectar.

  If I hadn’t been sitting on that plane I would have flung my peaked cap in the air and shouted three cheers for Uncle Starchy.

  General Beg notices the grin on my face and wants to take the credit. ‘You have come a long way, my boy. From that horrible Fortress to my plane; imagine the journey. Managing an army is not very different from managing a corporation.’ He caresses fat Iacocca’s face. ‘Treat your people well, kill the competition and motivate, motivate, motivate.’ He pauses for a moment, savouring his own eloquence. ‘My plane will take us to Islamabad.’ He turns towards the pilot. ‘My plane could drop you at the Academy but I think it’s better that you take a jeep from there. I have to attend to some important business in Islamabad. I need to be in Islamabad.’ He taps the pilot’s shoulder. ‘When will my plane reach Islamabad?’

  If Uncle Starchy’s nectar works as he promised, by tonight this man will become the chief of what Reader’s Digest has described as the largest and the most professional Muslim army in the entire world, and with some creative interpretation of the constitution, may even be the President of the country.

  Pity the nation.

  Pak One begins to taxi and General Zia puts both his thumbs in his safety belt and surveys his companions. His pain has subsided for the moment. He is satisfied by what he sees. He has got them all here. All his top generals are here except the one with the sunglasses who got away. His heart skips a beat when he remembers the look in General Beg’s eyes. Shifty bastard, must be taught a lesson. Maybe I should make him an ambassador to Moscow and see how he wears his sunglasses there. He takes another look around and reassures himself that everyone who matters is here, even Brother Akhtar who seems to be sweating yellow sweat. And most important of all, Arnold Raphel and the CIA type who hangs around with the ambassador. Who in their right mind would think of killing the US Ambassador? Good, he thinks. All my friends are here. I have got them all. There is strength in numbers. If someone wants to kill me, he must be here too. We will all go down together.

  But why would anyone want to kill me? All I am doing is having a little mango party on the plane. Is that a sin? No. It’s not a sin. Did Allah ever forbid us from sucking national security? No. But let’s say a prayer anyway. He starts to recite Jonah’s prayer but does not recognise the words that come out: ‘My dear countrymen, you are cursed, you have worms …’ He has practised the prayer every night. A prayer and you are absolved. One moment you are in a whale’s belly, in the depth of darkness, and the next moment you are thrown into the world, alive. Like being born again. He tries again; he opens his mouth and a guttural noise comes out. He looks around in panic and wonders if they can tell that he has forgotten all his prayers. He wants to shout and correct them because he has not forgotten any prayers, he remembers them all; it’s just this terrible pain in his guts that is wiping out his memory. He thinks maybe he should pray for the others. Allah likes it when you pray for the others. In fact, it is better than praying for yourself. He surveys the faces in the VIP pod and lifts his hands to pray for them.

  ‘Motherfuckers,’ he shouts.

  They all look at him as if he is an irritating child and the only way to deal with him is to ignore him.

  Pak One lines up in the middle of the runway and the propellers begin to pick up speed. The pilots, already beginning to sweat and fanning themselves with their folded maps, go through the final checks. The air traffic controller respectfully gives clearance for take off. Outside the VIP pod, in the back of the plane, Major Kiyani opens another button on his trousers and starts to breathe easy. It’s all going to be OK, he tells himself. General Akhtar always has a plan B and plan C. He has carried out his orders. The air conditioning will not be turned on. ‘General Akhtar’s orders,’ he has told the pilots. He is already feeling better. General Akhtar knows how this world works. General Akhtar also knows at what temperature the world works best. Warrant Officer Fayyaz sits down with the cadet absorbed in reading a book and rubs his thigh with his own; the cadet doesn’t even notice.

  Inside the VIP pod General Akhtar shifts in his seat and tells himself that all his life he has waited for this moment and even now, if he can find a good enough excuse to get off the plane, he can fulfil his destiny. The man who has spent a decade creating epic lies and having a nation of one hundred and thirty million people believe them, the man who has waged epic psychological battles against countries much bigger, the man who credits himself for bringing the Kremlin down on its knees, is stuck for an idea. He knows the air conditioning is off but does anyone really know how an air freshener works?

  He thinks hard, raises his hand in the air and says, ‘I need to go to the loo.’ And Bannon, of all people, a lowly lieutenant, puts his hand on his thigh and says, ‘General, maybe you should wait for this bird to take off.’

  Ambassador Raphel thinks that he’ll put in a request for transfer to a South American country and start a family.

  * * *

  One and a half miles away, in a sleepy mango orchard, perched behind the dust-covered dark green leaves, the crow flutters its wings and starts flying towards the roaring noise generated by the four fifteen-hundred horsepower engines of Pak One which is leaving the runway, never to touch down again.

  Our Cessna starts to taxi towards the runway as soon as the presidential plane gets airborne. The climb is steep for an aircraft of this size. Pak One seems to struggle against gravity but its four engines roar and it lifts off, like a whale going up for air. It climbs sluggishly but clears the runway and turns right, still climbing.

  Our own take-off is noisy but smooth.
The Cessna leaves the runway lightly and takes to the air as if it were its natural habitat. General Beg is absorbed in reading his book with his Ray-Bans perched on the tip of his nose. The pilot notices that I am plugging my ears with my fingers and passes me a set of headphones and forgets to unplug them. I can listen in on his conversation with the tower as well as the tower’s calls to Pak One.

  ‘Pak One setting course for Islamabad.’

  ‘Roger,’ the air traffic controller says.

  ‘Clearing runway. Turning right.’

  ‘Allah hafiz. Happy landings.’

  So absorbed am I in their inane exchange that I get a real jolt when our Cessna drops suddenly. It recovers quickly and starts climbing again. General Beg’s hands are in the air. ‘A bloody crow. It came at my plane. Did you see it? Can you imagine there are crows flying around when we have cleared the whole area of all possible hazards. Crows in the Code Red Zone. Whoever heard of that? It’s thanks to my pilot here that we are still alive.’ The pilot gives us a thumbs-up sign without looking back.

  ‘Bird shooters,’ says General Beg as if the apple has just fallen on his head. ‘This is what this place needs: bird shooters.’ He starts scribbling in a file and misses one of the rarest manoeuvres in the history of aviation.

  Pak One’s nose dips, it goes into a steep dive, then the nose rises up and the plane starts to climb again. Like an airborne roller coaster, Pak One is treading an invisible wave in the hot August air. Up and down and then up again.

  The phenomenon is called phugoid.

  Flying sluggishly, the crow surfs the hot air currents. Having eaten his own weight in mangoes, the crow can barely move his wings. His beak droops, his eyes half close, his wings flap in slow motion. The crow is wondering why he has left his sanctuary in the mango orchard. He thinks of turning back and spending the rest of the day in the orchard. He tucks his right wing under his body and goes into a lazy circle to turn back. Suddenly the crow finds himself somersaulting through the air, hurtling towards a giant metal whale that is sucking in all the air in the world. The crow has a very lucky escape when he dips below the propeller that is slicing air at a speed of fifteen hundred revolutions per minute. But that will prove to be his last stroke of luck. The crow hurtles through the engine, spins with the intake cycle and is sucked into a side duct; his tiny shriek is drowned out by the roar of the engine.