The major was on his feet. “Look here! You can’t talk like that. I have served in this army for eleven years. I will not let anyone speak about the country in that fashion!”
Akbar waved him away. “Please, save it for some stupid chutiya straight out of the Training College, Major sahib. I’m not some child still suckling at his mother’s breast! I know how your people work and how long they’ve been raping the ‘nation’s honor’ as if it were some two-bit randi standing at the street corner. You people use words like ‘honor’ and ‘country’ to get people to do what you want them to do, then throw them away like a used condom! I’m one of your condoms too! Tell Tarkeen I haven’t forgotten that!”
“I . . . I don’t understand,” stuttered the major.
“What don’t you understand? What did you expect? That you would walk in here and give me your bullshit sermon, and I would roll over and kiss your boots and thank you and say that just getting the opportunity to serve my country was enough for me? What do you have to offer me in return, Major sahib? You’ll have to barter with me if you want my help because, I’m sorry, but I have just about exhausted my stock of patriotism.”
“But I’m not authorized to negotiate any terms.”
“If you’re not authorized to negotiate, you’re not authorized to do anything, Major sahib. What can you do? ‘Interrogate’ me? I don’t think so. I’m already in prison. I’m afraid we must conclude this meeting, Major sahib. I have to return to my recitations, and you must go back and pray that they don’t find the body of a dead American in some gutter on Christmas day. Khuda Hafiz.” With that, he turned around, picked up his book and started to read from it.
The major looked at Constantine for help. “Akbar, I know how you feel, but please think about it. Maybe Major Rommel can come back tomorrow after you’ve had some time to think it over?”
“I look forward to future visits from Major sahib, Consendine, but it is they who must do the thinking.”
The major and Constantine got up and started walking towards the door. Just as they were about to open the door, Akbar called out to them.
“By the way, thank you for the cigarette, Major sahib. Because you are a nice man, I will tell you one thing. You needn’t worry about sending search parties all over the country. Your songbird is still in Karachi, and he is still alive. Tell Colonel sahib he can confirm it from his special source, the one I introduced him to in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel eight years ago.”
Constantine guided the major back to his office. The younger man was quiet, as if suffering from shell shock. Constantine had also been astonished by Akbar’s disclosure and was curious about how he had obtained his information, but he preferred to keep his own counsel till he found out more.
“Come sir, you’ve had a difficult morning, let’s have a cup of tea.” Constantine rang a bell on his desk to call his orderly. The tea arrived five minutes later, but the major didn’t say a single word in the intervening time, absentmindedly staring at Akbar’s file in his hand. Just like Tarkeen to send this poor green bastard for this kind of assignment, thought Constantine.
“He seemed to know you. From before, I mean.”
“Yes, sir. We started out together, on the force. We were junior assistant sub-inspectors in Preedy Police Station. We served together for a number of years, in some tough times.”
The major cupped his hands in front of his face and leaned forward in his chair. “Who is this man? I have never met anyone like him. Why does Colonel Tarkeen think he is so important?”
“He is perhaps the best police officer in the Karachi Police. At least in my years of service, I haven’t seen a better one. You see, sir, to be a good police officer in this city, you need to have two qualities. First, very good sources of information, so that you can work out crimes, trace cases, catch the big criminals. And second, you need to have a lot of courage—courage to do what others are unwilling or unable to do. You need a very big heart, sir. Akbar had both qualities in abundance. At the height of his power, he had a steady stream of informants from all over the city, and from all walks of life. And courage? I have never seen a more courageous man than Akbar. Colonel sahib is not a fool. He knows the value of men very well, sir. And he certainly knows how valuable Akbar is.”
“What did he do that was so valuable?”
“You are new in Karachi, sahib. It’s your first posting here? Yes, you wouldn’t know the times we went through. Back when Akbar and I started out, policing was very simple. Burglars, pickpockets, the odd phadda at the university. Simple criminals for a simple time. We were junior officers, and when our station in-charge sent us out into the field, we would round up a few miscreants, slap them around, and that was the end of it. The only weapons they had were knives and knuckledusters. The kid who had a revolver was considered a real terror. No one challenged the authority of the police. All the big badmashes of Karachi were tough guys in front of ordinary people, but when the lowliest head constable summoned them to the thana, they meekly obeyed. Things changed when the United Front came onto the scene and brought a new brand of goonda politics. Their leader, the Don, had started out as a student activist at the university. He created the system of the UF’s wards and ward bosses. The wards were crews of young men who were supposed to create a party structure at the very basic neighborhood level. But in reality they created a parallel government where they had the power of taxation, dispute resolution, punishment, even life and death, over the citizens of the city. That’s when the terror began. Kalashnikovs started coming into the city from Afghanistan, brought by Pathan truck drivers who sold them to their own people as well as their enemies. Then the campus violence began between the UF boys and everyone else. Things got nastier after that—massacres on buses, firing between rival groups, targeted killings. We didn’t know how to confront these new criminals. That’s when all our lives got truly fucked up, sahib.” Constantine slowly shook his head, as if troubled by bitter memories. “Such a terrible time.”
“How? I mean, how did things go wrong?” Rommel looked mesmerized by Constantine’s account.
“Arre, sahib, we were so backward back then. We didn’t know anything about weapons or tactics. I remember, the only rifles we had in the police station were World War II surplus rifles. I still remember their name—.303 Lee Enfield. Heh. But none of us was prepared for the wave of violence that swept this city over the next few years. When the UF first came to power, it was as if a mafia had taken over the city. Their rule was absolute. They crushed anyone who stood in their way. They made fake cases against their opponents and had them locked up. But all politicians do that. The UF went further than anyone else. They had hit squads to bump off their rivals. No case could be registered against their workers in any police station. If a station in-charge even talked to one of their ward bosses in a wrong tone, he would find himself demoted and posted to some godforsaken police station in the middle of the desert. Stopping their excesses was out of the question. The ward bosses extorted money, ran gambling dens, carried weapons openly, kidnapped people’s daughters . . . and we would sit in our police stations and do nothing.” His voice trailed off as if even the memory was painful. “I remember, one day I was the duty officer at Preedy Police Station and an old man came into the station, crying that his daughter had been kidnapped by the local UF ward boss because he fancied her. The old man sat in front of me on the station floor all day, crying and begging us to go with him, to try and save his daughter from getting gang-raped. We even knew which room of which building they were fucking her in. But none of us did anything because they were in power. Except for Akbar. He was the only one who stood up against them.”
The major had grown more and more absorbed by the conversation and was about to ask how all of this related to Akbar, when his mobile phone rang. From the major’s stirring it was obviously Tarkeen, and when the call finished, he got up.
“That was Colonel Tarkeen. I have to return to my office immediately. I will call and
tell you if we need to conduct another interview with Akbar.” He had walked to the door when he turned towards Constantine again. “I, uh, I would like to talk with you some more. Perhaps later, but I would like to listen. Thank you.” He hesitated for a moment and looked awkwardly at the floor, perhaps wanting to say more, and then walked out.
Constantine, seemingly lost in the past, half rose from his chair and absentmindedly grunted his goodbyes. He sat back down and picked up his teacup. He stared intently at the swirling brown liquid within the cup, as if it would give him some sign of salvation. But it did not.
3
May 1996, ten years ago
Constantine was in a shitty mood. This seemed to be a continuous state for him these days. He walked out of his quarters, leaving behind the shrill voice of his wife, hoping that being outdoors would make him feel better. But it didn’t. He felt a revulsion towards himself. He didn’t understand why, but it had been this way for months now. A glance in the mirror as he walked out had only served to worsen his mood. He could see that his waist, while by no means fat, was beginning to slip; the hockey player’s washboard stomach was no longer there. It had been ages since he had last exercised.
He had fought with his wife again: over what, he honestly couldn’t tell. He seemed to pick fights with her for no real reason. Later, he would spend the rest of the day feeling bad about it, but he couldn’t help himself. His father had forced him to get married to a nice Christian girl a year ago. Mary was a perfectly decent woman, pretty enough and dutiful to a fault. She took great pains to fit in with his family. A real homemaker. But he had never mentally adjusted to married life.
He had started to hide himself in his work. Long hours and late nights at the police station became an excuse for staying away from home. Constantine was the longest serving officer at Preedy Police Station. That in itself was quite an achievement, because Preedy was considered to be the most lucrative police station in the city and people would give an arm and a leg to be posted there even for a few months. A smart station in-charge could easily become a millionaire if he managed to eke out a half-decent tenure at Preedy. Constantine knew he would never become station in-charge because he had no influential political connections. But in his own way, because of his experience and contacts within the area, he was indispensable to those who did have the requisite contacts. After all, someone needed to actually run the station while the station in-charge conducted his business deals.
He had made some decent money over the years, nothing that would justify an early retirement but enough to support a young family’s expenses. His daughter was now two months old, and he had to think about their future. Increasingly, though, even money held no charm for him anymore. There was a sense of lost purpose that gnawed at him, the impending fear of wasted youth and the onset of dreary middle age. The job no longer held any challenges for Constantine. And after what had happened two days ago, there was no honor either.
He decided to walk the short distance from his quarters in the police lines to the station. It was hot and sticky. A sea of humanity engulfed the streets of Karachi’s city center. He walked past the electronics market where prosperous shop owners, who had just refurbished their stalls with new air conditioners and shiny tiles, tried to shoo away passersby who spat out betel juice on the freshly painted walls. Street hawkers, weighed down by their carry trays, offered every conceivable model of mobile phone accessory to passing customers. Past the electronics market, he crossed the junction where the old booksellers bazaar intersected the tire market. Metallic radial Bridgestone tires sold alongside dog-eared copies of the complete works of Jane Austen. The vibrancy of the city at this hour never failed to amaze Constantine, and he would usually take a minute out of his walk to stand there and smell the ozone fumes. It was the smell of progress, his mentor station officer used to say. Today he didn’t linger, and, as he strode into the thana to report for his shift, the officer he was about to relieve greeted him with a warm smile.
“Arre, Consendine sahib, thirty minutes early? I was expecting you to come late today. Didn’t the naika arrange a hot date for you?”
“I never went. I wasn’t in the mood for it, Ali Hasan.”
Sub-inspector Ali Hasan frowned. “Arre, sahib, this is what the English mean when they say it is looking a gift horse in the mouth. First, the naika, the chief madam and the most powerful figure in the locality, arranges the girl for you, free of cost. And then you don’t even bother going because you say you didn’t feel like it? Sahib, I have been here six months, and I am still waiting for the day the naika offers me a girl for free. I can’t even complain openly lest she gets annoyed and slams shut our monthly payment. After all, she is the guarantor of our economic prosperity. When she comes to the station to negotiate the monthly rate for the brothels, we mere mortals have to lower our eyes and say ‘Adab’ to her like Mughal courtiers. But you? You are her favorite sub-inspector. You’re exempt from all the arse-kissing. I bet she’s offered you more pussy than she has to the station in-charge.”
“That’s just because I’ve been here so long that I knew her before she even became the naika. I am sure she only does it out of pity for my pathetic career prospects.”
“Arre, sahib, leave it. Do you know how many times I had to go sit outside the ward office to get my posting here? While the rest of us run after one sifarish or the other, you have been enjoying yourself in this thana for years because everyone knows that the station in-charge won’t be able to run the area without you. Arre, sahib, the senior officers think well of you, even the party has a good impression of you. The other night I had gone to pay my respects at the ward office, and the ward boss was telling one of the UF ministers that you are a very fair man. If you would just heed my advice and come with me one day to meet him, he’ll have you posted as the SHO within the week.”
“I told you, I’m not going to go down that path. I don’t want to have anything to do with the UF or any of their ward bosses. I’m fine where I am, Ali Hasan. Now tell me, where is in-charge sahib?”
“Suit yourself, sahib. But I’ll tell you one thing. The boss is on his way out. A smart man would take advantage of that. He was called in to the ward office. Apparently the party didn’t like the disturbance that was caused when the old man came looking for his daughter a couple of days ago. Yesterday the girl committed suicide, and it’s caused a bit of a scandal. The father was screaming and abusing the Don at the funeral. I think one of the newspapers also got hold of the story and wrote about it. That’s why the ward boys were out on the streets early today, to confiscate all the copies of the paper. Anyway, they aren’t happy with the way in-charge sahib handled the situation.”
Constantine stared blankly at Ali Hasan and then broke into a cynical smile. “Why, what the hell did they expect us to do? They raped the girl to their heart’s content, we didn’t stop them. We sat here like a bunch of cockless hijras! How else would they like in-charge sahib to further improve the quality of his service? Did they want us to join in?”
“Consendine sahib, how could we intervene? They had taken her to the ward office. You know their boys are off-limits for us. Anyway, the wardias say that in-charge sahib shouldn’t have allowed the father to loiter at the station for the whole day. It just attracted attention to the situation. He should have thrown out the old man well before the evening. They say that is precisely why they had in-charge sahib posted here, to handle situations like these.”
“Oh, I see. So it was inconvenient to have the old man beg for his daughter’s life, was it? What about our job as police officers?”
“Consendine sahib, now you’re acting like a child. Power is in their hands, and we have to listen to those who are in power. You think I didn’t feel bad for that old man that day? Of course I did. We all have daughters, sisters, and wives. But we stay quiet because we don’t want what happened to his daughter to happen to our loved ones. Our duty is to obey the ruling party, not the law. And the Don and his wardias ru
le this city. Who are we to say anything to them?”
“Yes, the great Don controls this city from America but doesn’t have the balls to step inside it.”
Ali Hasan’s tone dipped to a whisper, and he looked around to ensure that he was not overheard. “I am trying to advise you for your own good, but then you keep making such loose talk. If you want to make a mess of your own career, that’s fine, but don’t drag the rest of us down. The Don doesn’t need to come back to order the killing of a stupid sub-inspector with a big mouth, or a hundred others who don’t know when to keep quiet. Now stop being foolish and take over the desk. I want to get home.”
Ali Hasan shoved the station register towards Constantine with some irritation. For the briefest moment, it occurred to Constantine that Ali Hasan would report their conversation to the ward office, but he was past caring anymore. It had brought back all the disgust and the deep sense of impotence he had been experiencing since the day the girl was abducted. He could taste the bile rising in his stomach. He looked again at Ali Hasan and saw in his face the smug self-assuredness of a man who was content in the knowledge that he was going places in life. Just as Constantine sat down, he saw the station in-charge, Inspector Deedar, cross the outgoing Ali Hasan at the station gate. The SHO had the look of a condemned man, and Constantine saw the subtle snub that Ali Hasan directed at him by not saluting him properly. He decided that, no matter what he thought of his boss, he would give him due respect even if his authority was slipping away.
“Ah good, Consendine, you’re already here. Ensure that all the pickets and patrols are sent out. I can’t deal with that right now, I’ve got too much on my plate. Oh, and send the patrolling vehicle to the house of the ward boss. His family needs to attend a wedding, and they need the escort.” He tossed a brown envelope onto the table. “Oh, and the beater has just delivered the weekly collection. Take out the station expenses and bring the rest of it in to my retiring room.”
The Prisoner Page 3