Of Smokeless Fire

by A. A. Jafri

Joseph held on to his mother’s hand tightly, pulling her up as they waded through the turgid water and made their way towards higher ground, the rain drenching them all over. Once they reached safety, Pyaro turned around to see what she had left behind—a hope, a promise—but all she saw was the raging flash flood. Then suddenly, Pyaro saw the body of what appeared to be a dead child floating right past them, arms spread out. ‘Joseph!’ she screamed, and Joseph pushed her face away from the horrific scene with his steady hand. Pyaro’s eyes kept returning to the place where she had spotted the child’s body, but now she only saw the dead branch of a tree, swept away by the strong current.

  Joseph wanted to cross the railway line that lay up ahead of them, but then he saw a concrete shed nearby whose open door kept banging in the wind, as if inviting them to enter. They quickly went inside the shed and were knocked out by the musty metallic stench that hit them immediately. Bunged up with rusted iron bars, hooks and heavy chains, the dank railway shed was, nevertheless, a gift from heaven. Joseph examined the shelter and saw a narrow bench in the centre, laden with heavy paint cans. He cleared them one at a time and then asked his mother to sit there.

  Pyaro, instead of sitting, kneeled on the floor, made a cross and prayed, ‘Thank you, Jesus Christ, for providing us with this temporary abode. Please, Lord, don’t abandon us. You did not abandon us when our cattle died, you did not abandon us when Joseph’s Babuji died. Don’t abandon us now.’ Choking with sobs of anguish, she repeated the same prayer again and again even as Joseph clasped his strong arms around her shoulders and tried to comfort her.

  They spent the whole night in that shed, shivering and huddling together, inhaling the noxious air. But at that moment, when their world had sunk deep underwater, the dank smell of rusted iron felt better than the fragrance of attar. Pyaro prayed all night, and in between remembered her dead husband, Samson.

  She remembered the day when he had smoked his hookah for the last time. It had been his after-dinner routine ever since he earned his first rupee, cleaning other people’s toilets. He had asked her to prepare the hookah, and Pyaro remembered filling the tube with water and the container with cheap tobacco. She had almost burnt her hand, putting the red-hot charcoal on the bowl above it. When the hookah was ready to be used, she had taken it to Samson. The water inside the pipe had gurgled as he took that first deep drag, but when the smoke began to fill his lungs, he started to hack uncontrollably. He continued to cough while pounding his chest and fighting to breathe. It was probably hours before his coughing subsided. And all this time, Pyaro and Joseph sat there, feeling helpless and petrified. The next day, Samson contracted a cold. After that, his condition got worse with each passing day. And then he began vomiting blood. Samson coughed up so much blood that his shirt got soaked. Pyaro became concerned now. They took him to the local hospital, but the doctors there would not touch him, giving them every excuse they could think of to turn them away. Pyaro went from doctor to doctor, and every single one refused to even look at Samson.

  At last, she found a young physician who was kind enough to examine him. But the prognosis was gloomy. Samson had advanced tuberculosis, and since he had received no treatment for a long time, it was highly unlikely that he would get better.

  Samson died two days later when, in a fit of coughing, he fell and banged his head on the floor of their shack. He died of massive internal haemorrhaging.

  In the days that followed his death, Pyaro felt that her world had crashed. How would she take care of her son all alone? How would she send money to her mother, who lived with her widowed sister in Sialkot, Punjab? Would Samson’s ugly sister blame her for his early death? She had a job, no doubt, cleaning people’s toilets, but one income alone would not sustain her and Joseph. The responsibility of caring for her young son and her mother seemed all too oppressive to Pyaro. But as the gods took her husband away, they also provided her with a break—something that would change her son’s life.

  Her friend Mavis, who worked as a sweeper at the Kashana, suddenly decided to go back home permanently to take care of her elderly mother in Punjab, who had fallen seriously ill. Farhat had asked her if she could find a replacement. Mavis recommended Pyaro. When Farhat heard about Pyaro’s predicament, she pitied the woman and hired her as Mavis’s replacement; and when Noor heard Pyaro’s story, he quietly gave her five hundred rupees.

  ‘Maybe things would have been different if he were alive. Your Babuji had talked about building us a concrete house just past the railway line, closer to the city,’ Pyaro said, recovering from the memory of her husband’s death.

  ‘Babuji was all talk; he did not do anything for us,’ Joseph said.

  Hearing him mock her husband, Pyaro stood up and slapped him so hard that he staggered.

  ‘What was that for?’ he asked, stunned.

  ‘Never disrespect your father. He was a good man.’

  Cupping her face with her trembling hands, she began to cry uncontrollably.

  ‘Ma, calm down. I am sorry. I’ll take care of you.’ Joseph hugged her tightly in an attempt to comfort her. It took a long while before Pyaro calmed down. Wiping her nose with her sleeves, she said, ‘I’ll visit Father Youhana tomorrow, maybe he’ll help us.’

  ‘Good luck, Ma . . .’

  ‘What do you mean by “good luck”?’

  ‘Ma, did he help you when Babuji died?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t really ask him to.’

  ‘So? We didn’t ask Barrister Sahib or Farhat Begum either, but she hired you and Barrister Sahib gave you five hundred rupees, that too without asking you any questions. Ma, leave it to me, I have a plan.’

  ‘What is your plan? What are you going to do? Rob?’

  ‘Trust me, Ma.’

  ‘Tell me, Joseph, what are you going to do?’

  ‘Tomorrow, we will visit Barrister Sahib and you will tell him about our plight. I know he’ll help us.’

  ‘I don’t know, son . . . I don’t think Barrister Sahib is going to help us again.’

  ‘Well, if he doesn’t help us, then you go to Father Youhana and beg.’

  Pyaro began thinking about what she should tell the Barrister Sahib while Joseph started fantasizing about playing the lead role in a Punjabi film. The rain, meanwhile, continued to wreak havoc outside.

  Seven

  Mansoor saw his father at the breakfast table the next day. Dressed in a starched white shirt and the lawyer’s band tied around his collar, Noor sat absorbed in the inside pages of the Morning Gazette. His wearing the lawyer’s band indicated that a critical case was to be argued at the high court. And whenever that happened, he stayed back late in his office and prepared for it. Mansoor was relieved that his fear from the night before was baseless, but the thunderstorm and the nightmare still shook him.

  The headlines of the Gazette screamed at Mansoor:

  Flood kills thousands. Hundreds of homes destroyed. President closes schools.

  Farhat had already told Mansoor about the school’s closure, which was why he had not put on his school uniform and was wearing his kurta-pyjama instead. But as he read the glaring headline, Mansoor gasped and asked his father: ‘Do you think Mehrun and Joseph are okay, Abba?’

  Noor lowered the newspaper and replied, ‘I hope so, beta, but I’m not sure if their houses can withstand such heavy rains. The paper says that many houses have been destroyed.’

  ‘I am glad that they have closed all schools,’ and after a pause Mansoor continued, ‘how come your office is open today, Abba?’

  ‘I have an important case at the high court, and they haven’t closed the courts today. So, I have to make my appearance,’ Noor replied, and as an afterthought asked his son, ‘So, what are your plans for today, mister, now that your school is closed?’

  Mansoor noted the sarcasm in the word ‘mister’, it was as if the school’s closing was his fault.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, shrugging his shoulders.

  ‘I want you to read a book, ra
ther than waste your time.’

  Sikander came inside just then, took the lawyer’s briefcase from his study, and exited without saying a word. Noor followed him out briskly. But an hour later, they both returned. Noor held the black coat over his shoulder while his soaking white trousers clung to his legs. Sikander, equally drenched, followed him obsequiously with the briefcase.

  ‘Already back?’ Farhat asked.

  ‘The car got stuck in the standing waters outside, so we had to wade back home through that muddy river of filth that is flowing through the streets. A policeman told us that all the roads are closed. I guess they will have to wait for me at the high court until the water clears.’

  Noor went to his bedroom to change into something dry, while Mansoor tiptoed to his father’s library to quickly hunt for a book that he could pretend to be reading. The floods meant that Budhoo wouldn’t return from his day off. Farhat did not expect Kaneez to show up either, but she knew that Jumman would definitely come, and so she decided that she would ask him to prepare their meals. Farhat knew how to cook, but she hadn’t done so lately and was not in the mood to do so now, especially not on so miserable a day. When neither Jumman nor Kaneez showed up, she dragged herself to the kitchen and opened the big white Philips refrigerator that Noor had recently bought from London. Taking out a packet of frozen mutton, Farhat braced herself at the thought of cooking again, hoping that she still had her skills intact. But then the sobbing figure of Pyaro entered the kitchen, followed by Joseph.

  ‘Begum Sahiba! We lost everything, we lost everything!’ she bawled in her accented Urdu.

  The rotting smell of sewage from their soaking clothes choked the kitchen air. Clamping her nose shut with her thumb and index finger, Farhat asked, ‘What happened? You two stink like gobar, like cow dung.’

  Pyaro stepped back and recounted the whole story in between sobs, while Joseph stood solemnly behind her, his hands in his pockets, his face hanging down, his drenched shirt revealing his hairy chest. Noor, who had just changed into dry clothes, heard the bawling and came to the kitchen. Mansoor also came running from the library. When she saw Noor, Pyaro turned towards him, prostrated, and started to wail again.

  ‘Stand up, Pyaro, and tell me, slowly, what happened,’ Noor said.

  Pyaro got up and narrated the whole story again, and Farhat saw her husband listening attentively. After hearing her tale, Noor asked her to calm down and added, ‘You can stay at the empty quarter near Budhoo’s till you get back on your feet.’

  ‘Thank you, Barrister Sahib . . . thank you. May Yesu Masih grant you a long life and happiness,’ she said, drying her tears with her damp chador.

  Noor left the kitchen abruptly, but Mansoor stayed on. A sudden chill fell over the room as Farhat saw the need to re-establish her authority. She did not appreciate her husband’s hospitality. It was one thing to have given Pyaro a job as a sweeper, it was quite another to provide them with a place to stay in the servants’ quarters. These were unclean people. How could Noor make such an offer without even consulting her, as if she weren’t even there? And how dare these two impose themselves on her house, and that too without her permission? If she had her way, she would have told them to find shelter in their own community. Powerless to rescind her husband’s orders, yet desiring to assert herself, she laid fresh conditions.

  ‘This doesn’t mean you can live here forever; do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Begum Sahiba, we are not going to stay one more day than is necessary,’ Joseph interjected.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Farhat snapped back at him with the imperial air that she assumed whenever she was addressing the servants.

  ‘No, Begum Sahiba, we understand perfectly,’ Pyaro hastened to assure her.

  ‘And keep your lafanga son in reins.’

  ‘The lafanga will be reined,’ Joseph replied under his breath.

  ‘If you talk rubbish, I will pull your tongue out from your mouth,’ Farhat threatened Joseph.

  ‘Shut up, Joseph!’ his mother scolded him.

  As they turned to leave, Joseph winked at Mansoor, who smiled back. Farhat saw that little exchange and gave Mansoor a dirty look.

  A light breeze dispersed the insufferable smell from Pyaro and Joseph’s clothes that had lingered on in the kitchen.

  *

  Pyaro and Joseph became a permanent fixture at the Kashana, but to Farhat, they were more like a scandalous stain on her landscape than mere interlopers. She felt ashamed to see them living in her servants’ quarters, these low-life people. As if that churail was not enough, now there were two more who had installed themselves in her home to bring bad luck and cast an evil shadow over the Kashana. She felt like screaming at her husband. Why do you always want to torment me? The regret of having hired Pyaro in the first place permeated her mind, as her anger turned into a painful acceptance of this new reality, this new arrangement.

  *

  The floodwaters receded and the hot October sun began fracturing the earth again. Life returned to its ordinariness. One significant change that happened at the Kashana, at least in Farhat’s eyes, was that Noor cut down on his visits to the Sindh Club. Most nights, he returned home relatively early, and after a light supper, drank his whisky and lectured his son before going to sleep. To Farhat, this was a sign that her prayers were finally being answered, and it was only a matter of time before Noor would see the light, give up alcohol altogether and revert to piety. So, she began to pray more fervently for that auspicious day.

  The reality, of course, was different. Noor had decided that he would shape his son’s mind through his nightly lectures; he believed that he could provide a liberal education that no school in Pakistan could. He thought of himself not as a scholar, but as a scholar manqué. Well-read, eclectic and with a keen analytical mind, Noor could easily dissect his opponents’ arguments in court and disarm his intellectual inferiors. Often, he would argue about contemporary literature with Sadiq and debate history with the Harvard-educated Zakir.

  After asking Mansoor a few questions about the history of the subcontinent and getting woefully shocking answers, Noor decided to take his son’s education as a personal challenge. He asked Mansoor to bring his history textbook. As he read through it, Noor realized that the book was nothing more than a handful of dogmas disguised as history. To him, it was all propaganda, interwoven into chapters of lies, a curriculum that propagated hatred, especially towards India, the putative enemy. According to Mansoor’s textbook, Pakistan’s history began with the Arab invasion, centred on the Mughals and ended with the creation of Pakistan. The Hindus, whose presence in the region long predated that of the Arabs, were a mere footnote in this hagiographic narrative.

  ‘Beta, when invaders are portrayed as liberators and when the looters of temples become our heroes, the past ceases to exist and history becomes a pack of lies. The surest way to destroy your culture and your history is to erase them from the memory of your children,’ he fulminated at the country’s educational system.

  Why was he wasting hard-earned money sending his son to the most prestigious school in the city? So they could teach him mendacities? Mansoor needed a re-schooling, a liberal edification. Noor felt compelled to take him under his tutelage. And thus began his daily lectures in the humanities and liberal arts, carefully calibrated, judiciously deliberated. Noor started ordering books from Thomas & Thomas for Mansoor. Located in Saddar, the city’s centre, it was Karachi’s oldest bookshop which had survived the mayhem of the Partition. Sadiq and Noor often went there together. While the professor would buy Turgenev and Trollope, Noor would purchase Bertrand Russell’s books. The first book he bought for Mansoor was an abridged edition of Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which he forced his son to read. Once the boy was done reading a book, Noor would then discuss it with him. This became his practice.

  Mansoor, on the other hand, noticed a sharp rise of vitriol in his father’s nightly discourses. He lashed out aga
inst the country, relentlessly berated the military rule and cursed the religious establishment. And all this time, Noor used the English language, as if to irk Farhat. But it annoyed Mansoor more than it annoyed his mother, especially when Noor kept referring to Pakistan as ‘your country’, as if he himself was just a passing critic, an alien resident—someone inside, looking from the outside. Mansoor hated his father’s attitude towards Pakistan.

  ‘Abba, why do you keep saying that it’s my country? Is this not your country, too?’ Mansoor asked one night.

  ‘It is your country! You were born here; I was not.’ Then, after a slight pause, Noor continued, ‘I can live here physically, but I don’t have to accept it mentally.’

  Noor’s estrangement with the country had deepened in 1958, after a military coup overthrew the prime minister and the President and tossed out the country’s first Constitution into the rotting trash bin of history.

  ‘Why didn’t you go back to India if you disliked Pakistan so much?’ Mansoor sighed.

  Noor pursed his lips, then sighed before continuing, ‘Because, my son, the India I grew up in has also left me.’

  ‘Isn’t there any other country where you can live?’

  ‘I am a man with no country; I am a man with no faith. I can live anywhere and nowhere at the same time.’

  The irony of his father’s statement whizzed past Mansoor, but he still nodded; and Farhat, knowing little English, remained frustrated. Occasionally, she protested; frequently, Noor reprimanded.

  ‘Why can’t you two talk in Urdu . . . after all, it is our mother tongue and the national language,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you learn English? It is an international language, after all,’ Noor replied in a mocking tone.

  Belching out a sardonic ‘huh’, she replied, ‘Who would have taught me English? If I had insisted on it, my father would have kicked me out of the house.’

  ‘Just keep quiet when you don’t know anything,’ Noor shot back, his choler rising as he heard the truth in her statement.