2008 - A Case of Exploding Mangoes

by Mohammed Hanif

  General Zia, meanwhile, changed into his safari suit with some difficulty. His stomach stuck out like a football and his safari shirt could barely contain it. He mumbled something about meeting an important Texan senator, picked up his briefcase and went to another room on the same floor, bearing a sign that said ‘Presidential Office’. He did feel that the hotel was beneath his status. He himself was a humble man who needed only a cot and a prayer mat, but heads of state needed to stay in proper presidential hotels in order not to lose their sense of purpose. He needed to maintain the honour of his country, but he could hardly bring up this hotel business with Joanne after all she had done for his country and the Afghan cause.

  He put his briefcase on the desk, picked up the hotel stationery pad and tried to calm his pounding heart by scribbling on the paper. His host, his comrade in struggle, Joanne, would be here shortly and just thinking about what she might be wearing, what she would smell like, made him nervous. A stream of perspiration ran down his spine. To distract himself, he tried to make notes for his speech at the charity ball:

  Joke comparing Islamabad and Lufkin. (Half the size and twice as dead?)

  Islam, Christianity…forces of good, communism evil (use the word godless).

  America superpower but Texas the real superpower? And Lufkin soul of the real superpower? (Ask Joanne for a cowboy saying?)

  Someone knocked on the door. He jumped from his seat and stood up in anticipation. Should he leave his desk, receive her at the door? Handshake? Hug? Kiss on the cheek?

  General Zia knew how to greet men. No one who ever met him forgot his double handshake. Even cynical diplomats couldn’t deny the genuine warmth of his hugs. Politicians got converted to his cause with his understanding hand on their knee and a friendly slap on their back. It had taken him some time to figure out how to deal with women, though, especially foreigners. He had invented, then perfected, his own style; when he reached a woman in a reception line, he put his right hand on his heart, and bent his head as a gesture of respect. The women who had done their homework kept their hands to themselves and nodded in appreciation. Those intent on testing the limits of his piety extended their hands, got a four-finger, limp handshake and a refusal to look into their eyes.

  But Joanne was different. When she had come to interview him for the first time at the Army House, she had ignored his hand on his heart, his nodding head, even his attempt at a handshake and had kissed him on both his cheeks, forcing Brigadier TM to look in the other direction. He had realised at their first meeting that he was dealing with a special person, a person to whom he could not apply his social rules about women. Weren’t there women warriors who had fought shoulder to shoulder with men in the first Muslim war? Wasn’t she an ally in his jihad against the godless communists? Hadn’t she promised to do more than the whole of the State Department? Couldn’t she be considered an honorary man? A mujahid even? At this point his logic usually broke down as he remembered her golden, blow-dried hair, the heart-shaped diamond necklace that nestled between her breasts, her voluptuous red lips and the breathy whispers in his ears that made the most ordinary exchange seem like a secret plan.

  Allah tests only those He really likes, he told himself for the umpteenth time and sat down on the seat with a very firm resolve. “Yes, come in,” he said.

  The door opened and a swirl of sandalwood perfume, peach-coloured silk and mauve lipstick came at him, cooing, “Your Excellency. Welcome to the fine city of Lufkin.” General Zia stood up, still not sure whether he should leave the desk, still uncertain whether to kiss or hug or extend his hand from behind the safety of the desk. Then as Joanne lunged towards him, the self-control that had helped him survive three wars, one coup and two elections vanished. He left the table that was to be his defence against temptation and moved towards her with extended arms, unable to focus on her face or her features. In her embrace he noted with satisfaction that she wasn’t wearing her high heels, which made her a head taller than he was. They were the same height without her heels. Her left breast pressed lightly against the strain of his safari suit and General Zia closed his eyes, his chin resting on the satin bra strap on her shoulder. For a moment the First Lady’s face flashed in front of his eyes. He tried to think of other things: moments from his glorious career; his first handshake with Ronald Reagan; his speech at the UN; Khomeini telling him to take it easy. The dream ended abruptly as she wriggled out of his arms, held his face in her hands and planted a kiss on both his cheeks. “Your Excellency, you need a trim.”

  General Zia sucked his stomach in. She twirled his moustache gently with her fingers and said, “Texans are big-hearted people, but when it comes to facial hair they are very small-minded. Now if you’ll ask that handsome hulk outside your door to let my man in, we can take care of this.”

  For the first time in his life, General Zia shouted an order at Brigadier TM. “Let the man in, TM.”

  Lufkin’s only businessman without an invitation to the charity ball entered the room, an old black man with a barber’s leather bag. “Salaam alaikum,” he said. “You folks call it mooch, I know. I am gonna make this mooch sharp, Your Highness.” Before General Zia could say anything he had tucked a white towel around his neck and was clipping away at his moustache, still talking. “You gonna meet old Ronnie? Can I give you an important message? Tell him he ain’t no John Wayne. Stop tryin’. Lufkin is a fine ol’ city but some folks is still racialist. They say there is a nigga in the woods when their kids don’t eat. I tell them nigga has seen woods in Korea, nigga has seen woods in Nam. Now this nigga ain’t in the woods, nigga is here and he got a razor on your neck, so be careful ‘bout what you say.” He held a silver-framed mirror in front of him. General Zia’s burly thick moustache had been trimmed to a thin line. It was sharp, all right. “That’s gonna make your lady’s tater fry.”

  It didn’t make the First Lady’s tater fry, in fact it barely got a sarcastic glance from her. “I am just trying to please my hosts. All for a good cause,” General Zia had muttered as the First Lady switched channels on the television.

  “Hostess, you mean,” she had said, settling on a rerun of Dallas.

  The First Lady wasn’t given to acts of rashness and her first impulse was to tear the newspaper apart, throw it away and try to forget the whole incident. He would see it and realise what a fool he was making of himself. At the age of sixty-three, with five titles before his name and a nation of one hundred and thirty million people to answer to, he was flying over floozies from Texas and then sitting there ogling their tits.

  Then it suddenly occurred to her that there were thousands more out there looking at this picture: what might they be thinking? Nobody of course would be bothered about the famous foreign reporter, she guessed. She was a professional, she was an American, she could wear what she liked. If she had to wear push-up bras and low-cut dresses to get interviews with presidents, well, she was getting paid to do it. And as for him? She didn’t really know what the masses thought of him, but he was surrounded by people who’d tell him that it was all a conspiracy on the part of the newspaper, that the picture had been doctored and the editor should be put on trial in a military court for publishing obscene material.

  But even if they believed what they saw in the picture, what then? He is only a mere mortal like us, people would say. Under all that talk of piety and purdah, there is a red-blooded man who can’t resist a bit of a peek. And then it occurred to her that there was another person, not in the picture, not named in the caption, who would be the real object of the nation’s ridicule. She could hear the giggles in cabinet meetings: We never knew the President likes them big and white. She could hear the sniggers in the National Command bunker: The old soldier is still homing in on the targets. Fine pair of anti-ballistics, sir. And what about those high-society begums: Poor man. Can you blame him? Have you seen his wife? She looks as if she just walked out of her village after spending the whole day in front of the stove.

  The First Lady
felt as if the nation of one hundred and thirty million people was, at this moment, looking at this picture, pitying her, making fun of her. She heard howls of laughter going up from the beaches of the Arabian Sea to the peaks of the Himalayas.

  “I’ll gouge these eyes out,” she hissed, looking at the picture. “I’ll make mincemeat out of your old prick, you bastard.”

  The duty waiter came running from the kitchen. “I am going for a walk. Tell TM’s men not to follow me,” the First Lady said, rolling the newspaper into a tight baton.

  Sentiment du fer

  ELEVEN

  The man blindfolding me seems like an expert at this kind of thing. The half-moon scar on his freshly shaved left cheek, his pencil-thin moustache and his neatly pressed shalwar qameez give him the air of a reformed hoodlum. His fingers are gentle and he makes a swift little knot at the back of my head. He holds my hand and leads me out. The blindfold is loose enough for me to open my eyes but it’s tight enough that I can’t catch any stray rays of light. I wonder if you are supposed to keep your eyes open or shut behind the blindfold. As we step out of the bathroom, I breathe in large gulps of air, hoping to rid my body of the bathroom stink, but I can still taste it at the back of my throat. Not even Obaid’s collection of perfumes would be enough to kill this stench.

  The corridor is wide, the ceiling is high and the floor under my boots is made of uneven stone slabs. The sound of our boots—which fall into a parade-like rhythm after the first few unsure steps—echoes in the corridor. We stop. He salutes. I just stand, half at attention, half at ease. I assume you are not supposed to salute someone you can’t see. The room smells of rose air freshener and Dunhill smoke. Paper rustles, a cigarette lighter sparks, a file is thrown across the table.

  “Do what you need to do, but I don’t want any marks on him.” Major Kiyani’s voice is hoarse, as if his throat is reluctant to deliver this particular order. The file is picked up.

  “I am not a butcher like you guys,” an impatient voice whispers.

  “Let’s not be so touchy,” Major Kiyani says. A chair is dragged. “I am talking to my man here.”

  Don’t listen to him, I tell myself. It’s the same old good-cop, bad-cop bullshit. They are all sons of the same bitch.

  Steps move around the room. The burning end of Major Kiyani’s Dunhill is close to my face for an instant, then he is gone.

  “Sit down please.” The voice addressing me belongs to the good cop but he is obviously not looking at me. I shuffle forward and stop.

  “We need to remove that thing.”

  I stay still. Are you supposed to remove your own bloody blindfold?

  “Please uncover your eyes, Mr Shigri.”

  The Army major sitting in front of me is wearing a Medical Corps insignia on the right shoulder of his khaki uniform; on a round, red velvet badge, two black snakes are curled around each other, mouths half open as if in a censored kiss. His long grey sideburns defy the military haircut regulations. He is slowly turning the pages of a yellow-green file, the tip of his tongue under his teeth, as if he has just discovered that I am suffering from a rare condition he has never treated before.

  “I don’t work here,” he says, waving his hand to indicate the office.

  The place has leather chairs, a green leather-topped table and a sofa with velvet covers. An official portrait of General Zia adorns the wall. The picture has been touched up so generously that his lips appear to be pink under his jet-black moustache. If Major Kiyani’s uniform, with his nameplate, wasn’t hanging on the wall, I would think we were sitting in the office of a bank manager.

  I sit on the edge of the chair.

  “We need to carry out a few tests. It’s very simple. You have multiple-choice questions in the first one. Just tick the one you think is right without thinking too much. In the second part, I’ll show you some pictures and you’ll describe in a few words what you think those pictures mean to you.”

  First my loyalty to my country was suspect, now they want to probe the dark corners of my brain to find out what is causing all the turmoil in the land.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask—”

  “You can ask all you want, young man, but this is just a routine assessment. I have been sent from Islamabad and I am supposed to take back the results. I think it’s better that you spend your time with me doing this rather than with the people who are trying so hard not to leave any marks on you.”

  Like all good cops, he makes sense.

  He pushes a stack of stapled papers towards me, puts a pencil on top and removes his wristwatch.

  “There are no right or wrong answers in this,” he says, trying to reassure me. “The only thing that matters is that you finish all sixty questions in twenty-five minutes. The trick is not to think.”

  You can say that again. If I wasn’t the thinking type I would still be marching up and down the parade square commanding some respect, not sitting here trying to pass loony tests.

  I glance at the paper. The cover page just says ‘MDRS P8039’. There is no hint of what is under that cover sheet.

  “Ready?” he asks, giving me a faint, encouraging smile.

  I nod my head.

  “Go.” He places his watch on the table.

  Q1: Would you describe your present mental condition as (a) depressed (b) mildly depressed (c) happy (d) none of the above

  My dad was found hanging from a ceiling fan. Baby O has disappeared with a whole bloody plane. I have spent the past two nights locked up in a civilian shithole. ISI is investigating me for crimes that I have clearly not committed. I have just untied a blindfold from my own eyes with my own hands. What do you think?

  There is no space to write, just little squares to tick.

  Mildly depressed, it is then.

  There are questions about my spiritual health—mildly spiritual; any suicidal thoughts—never; my sexual life—occasional wet dream. Belief in God?

  I wish they had an option saying ‘I wish’.

  I tick the square that says ‘firm believer’.

  By the time it comes down to the questions about whether I’d rescue my best friend’s kitten drowning in a river or tell myself that cats can swim, I have begun to enjoy the test, and my pencil ticks the squares with the flourish of someone celebrating their own sanity.

  The good cop picks up his wristwatch from the table and gives me an appreciative smile. He wants me to do well.

  There is that inevitable question about drugs. It doesn’t give you the option to say ‘only once’. It doesn’t ask you if you enjoyed the experience.

  Never, I tick.

  Running back from Bannon’s room, instead of following the Martyrs’ Avenue I jumped over a hedge and started walking in the shrubs that surround the parade square. A lone firefly emerged from nowhere and hovered in front of me as if leading the way. The hedge ran around the parade square like a perfectly formed wall with sharply cut edges. The grass under my boots was damp with early-evening dew. I was thinking hard, like you think when your blood absorbs Chitrali hashish and rushes to your head with urgent messages from beyond, clearing all doubts, transforming your whims into immaculate plans. The messages I was receiving were so loud and clear that I kicked the hedge just to make sure that it was all real. The hedge lit up as thousands of fireflies blinked from their slumber and launched a fated assault on the night. Bloody good, I said; time to wake up and spread the light.

  According to the Reader’s Digest’s special issue on the War on Drugs, no scientist has ever been able to map the effects of weed on the human mind. They shouldn’t even keep the Chitrali hashish in the same room as their lab rats.

  What I saw was this: a shadow flitting around the pole that flies the Pakistani flag on the dais at the edge of the parade square. The man climbed onto the dais, looked left and right then slowly unwrapped the flag from the pole where it had been hoisted down for the night.

  What fluttered through my mind was the flag draped around Dad’s coffin.
I could hear the funeral prayers in my head, louder and louder. The coffin opened and through the crescent and star on the flag I saw Dad’s face grimacing at me.

  What is a Shigri to do?

  I obeyed my orders. I went down on my elbows and knees and locked onto my target. Years of taking forbidden short cuts and climbing the walls of the Academy to watch late-night movies had prepared me for this moment. I stayed glued to the hedge and waited.

  Some sick fucker was trying to steal our flag. Some fucker was trying to rob my dad’s grave. I was thinking with the clarity that only Chitrali hashish could induce. I crawled on my knees and elbows, moving with the stealth of someone determined to save the country’s honour and his father’s medals. The fireflies swirled around my head. Wet foliage was finding its way into my boots and my uniform shirt, but my eyes were focused on the thief who was crouching on the dais now, struggling to untie the flag from the rope used to hoist it. He seemed in no hurry, but I quickened my crawl, determined to catch him red-handed. A thorn buried deep in the foliage lodged itself just behind my elbow. There was slight burning, followed by wetness on my sleeve. It didn’t slow my crawl.

  I jumped over the hedge as I closed in on the dais, and before the thief could see me I had pounced and pinned him to the ground.

  “Why are you wrestling with an old man like me?” Uncle Starchy’s voice was calm. He offered no resistance.

  I felt like somebody had caught me poking the hole in my mattress. Never smoke that stuff again, was the promise I made myself.

  “I thought somebody was messing with the flag,” I said, getting up.

  “It’s already messed up, I was taking it for a wash,” he said, searching the dais as if he had dropped something. His hand disappeared under his shirt, fumbled there for a moment, then came out holding a small, empty jute sack.