Of Smokeless Fire

by A. A. Jafri

  As the conversation turned clumsier, Mansoor felt increasingly embarrassed, his body heat rising to his ears. He wanted to think of something else; Mehrun perhaps. He was hurt that she had not invited him to the wedding. A day before she was to leave for Dubai, she had made another brief call from her office to tell him about it. The shock that she had gone ahead and married Alvi was not as deep as the shock he’d received when she first informed him of her intention. It had made him react in the most unnatural way when he had congratulated her. And now Mansoor was saddened that she, too, was leaving for another country.

  He heard his father clear his throat again, louder than before, and say, ‘I don’t mind if you marry a white woman, but . . . don’t marry before you finish your studies. Marriage is a responsibility, and you should not take it lightly. However,’ he paused here and took a sip of the whisky, ‘however, I can tell you this; your mother would be deeply hurt if you do marry a white woman.’

  Was his father hiding his prejudices behind his poor mother? How would Noor feel if he married a black woman? And why was he talking about sex and marriage at this late hour? Noor was about to give more advice to Mansoor when the telephone rang in the study. Mansoor looked at the clock. It was 11.25 p.m. Who could be calling at this hour? He ran to the study and picked up the telephone. It was a long-distance call from Anna, Sadiq’s daughter. She was calling from Paris, and she was hysterical.

  ‘Is everything all right, Anna Apa? Why are you in Paris?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Mansoor. Nothing’s right. They killed Abba, and Ammi is missing. They murdered him, Mansoor. They . . .’ Suddenly, the line got disconnected before Anna could say anything more.

  Mansoor stood there, stunned, his heart thumping wildly, the black telephone handset still in his hand. He did not know what to do. He couldn’t tell his father, not in his inebriated condition, not at this hour. Putting the phone in its cradle, he went back to his parents’ bedroom and lied to Noor that it was a wrong number. Excusing himself, he returned to his room. This news will kill my father, he thought. He stayed awake for a long time that night, thinking about how he would break it to his father.

  *

  The next morning, Mansoor woke up with a headache. After gulping two Optalidon pills, he rushed to the bathroom, where he reflected on how to talk to his father. As Mansoor approached the men’s quarter a few minutes later, he heard the sound of voices and sobs from within. Inside, he saw that his father, tears streaming down his cheeks, had his arms around Zakir’s shoulders and was trying to comfort him. Zakir was weeping uncontrollably, while Haider sat on the sofa, looking visibly shaken. When he saw Mansoor, his father told him the news, which he already knew but pretended otherwise. Haider filled him in with the details.

  He told him about the harassment and the death threats that Sadiq had been receiving, especially after the passage of the Second Amendment declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslim. Scared of the intimidations, Sadiq, his wife and Anna’s family went into hiding. Sadiq had withdrawn all his savings from the bank and bought tickets for Anna and her family and persuaded them to leave for Paris, where her younger sister Sarah lived. He and Talat then took the train to the city of Rabwah, in Punjab, where the majority of Ahmadis lived. Even though they were not Punjabis, they felt that this would be the only place where they would be safe. They had decided to stay there until the madness against their community calmed down. One station before Rabwah, when the train stopped, a group of madmen got in and dragged Sadiq off the train. They killed him on the platform of the railway station, right outside the train, in broad daylight. When Talat tried to intervene, they knocked her senseless. Anna had trunk-called Haider, who called her back using his office phone and got the details.

  *

  Noor, Haider and Zakir went to Rabwah and found Talat lying in a coma in a local hospital. They arranged to fly her back to Karachi, where the hospital facilities were much better, but a day after their arrival, she succumbed to her injuries. They could never find Sadiq Mirza’s body.

  The seekers of Paradise were determined to create hell for anyone who competed with their cartelized truth. Their image of heaven, paved with the blood of heretics, included only their narrower sects, rejecting the rest of humanity. The god of their inheritance demanded blood, exacted revenge and promoted hate. It was a weak god with a small heart and a shrill voice.

  *

  Mansoor delayed his departure by a week, and Noor, upon his return from Rabwah, came back angrier and full of hate. He would have liked to find the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice. But justice in a poor country is subservient to the rich and powerful, and Barrister Noor ul Haq was well aware of that. Although he had fought and won many battles in the court of law, he knew that the odds of getting justice for Sadiq were almost zero. Even if the murderers confessed, no judge who feared the fanatics more than he feared his gods, would allow a conviction to happen.

  With his father’s rage rising each day, Mansoor worried about how his mother would cope while he was away in America. How would his father muddle through? In Sadiq Mirza, Noor had found intellectual compatibility, despite his peccadilloes; it had always been a treat to hear him speak of Joyce and Woolf, Ghalib and Faiz. Away from the infuriating inanities of Pakistani politics, their discussions had always remained fascinating to Mansoor. Now his father’s future without his friend seemed intellectually barren. How would he be diminished by Sadiq’s death? Would he rage against his own survival? Would his death precipitate a crisis in him? Mansoor thought about all these questions with anxiety.

  Just to be with his father for a little while longer, Mansoor delayed his departure by two more weeks. But that didn’t really make much of a difference. Noor had become more detached from his country. His sense of dislocation grew. More than ever, Noor now felt like he was living in a parallel universe, estranged from everything and anything. There were so many wrongs in his father’s life that a right could no longer be conceptualized. And then Mansoor began to feel sorry for both his parents. They were both alone in their disengaged worlds, fighting their lonely battles, clinging to their personal crutches. It was only recently that Farhat had found a soulmate in Talat. They shared their marital difficulties, revealed their hates and hurts and confided about their squabbles and sensitivities. Talat had, in a short time, become more of a sister to Farhat than Sarwat ever was. But now, her new friend was also dead.

  *

  Noor’s denunciations of the politics of the corrupt did not bother Mansoor as much as his inability to show his softer side. He had been listening to these denunciations ever since he could remember. It was as if his father’s relentless resort to logic had atrophied his heart muscles. Did he have his own emotional ethos where rage and disgust were attached effortlessly but love and empathy remained strenuously aloof?

  On the day of Mansoor’s departure, Noor was like that fluorescent light in their garage which, when turned on, flickered for a moment and then dimmed out. With a poker face and stony eyes, he bade his son goodbye, and that was all. No hugs, no handshakes, no tears. Farhat, on the other hand, was an emotional wreck. She cried all day, hugging Mansoor tightly and slobbering him with kisses, while Noor rebuked her for making a scene. Neither came to see him off at the airport. It was Sikander who dropped him off at the terminal, gave him a hug and cried irrepressibly.

  As Mansoor sat on the airplane, he bade farewell to a life that had come to a close. Going on an epistemic journey of loneliness, to a world different in age and temperament, where he knew not a soul, his heart sank as the airplane ascended into the dark sky. Mansoor remembered when the travel agent had asked him if he wanted a one-way ticket or a return. Of course, he could not buy his return ticket now since he did not know anything about his return trip. He did not know when he would return home. But does one ever return home? Aren’t all of us on a one-way ticket, going to a place of no return? What was the point of returning home, anyway? To recondition our past? To complete the miserab
le circle of our miserable lives? Odysseus returned to Ithaca after ten years, but he never came home. Getting depressed, Mansoor closed his eyes and thought about Mehrun.

  Twenty

  It was not until after Mehrun had arrived in Dubai that the reality of her sham marriage kicked in. The first week, they stayed at the Hotel InterContinental in a room with two double beds; she slept on one and he on the other. And the first night, when she tried to crawl into his bed, he rudely sent her back. His apathy towards intimacy had shocked her. She felt cheap and used. Was it her? Was she unappealing? Or was it him? Was he jet-lagged? Was he impotent? The whole night she racked her brain but couldn’t come up with an answer. So, the next day, before he left for some meetings, she confronted him.

  ‘I had always heard that the first night is the most romantic night,’ she said.

  Alvi remained silent, but his silence gave away his secret. He avoided any eye contact, but his unsettled eyes revealed the truth. After he left, Mehrun sat down and tried to read his unsaid messages. And then it finally dawned on her. All those veiled allusions at work, all those hints dropped here and there, the oblique and expressive snickers about him, all of which she had thought were childish, were really a reference to him being impotent. Was he really impotent? But then why did he marry her? Was there any sinister intent behind this arrangement? He seemed like a gentleman. Nothing made sense to her, nothing at all. So when he came back later that afternoon, she mustered more courage and asked him again, just for confirmation.

  ‘Tell me, why don’t we . . . I mean, we are husband and wife . . .’

  Words betrayed her; thoughts frustrated her. She was scared, ashamed and tongue-tied. A woman just did not ask those sorts of questions. But Alvi knew what was on her mind, and so, to put her mind at ease, he said, ‘Look, Mehrunnissa, if you are trying to ask me why we haven’t consummated our marriage, I think you know the answer.’

  ‘No . . . No, I don’t.’

  ‘Well, I am a bloody hum-jins parast, a homosexual. There! There, you have it. It’s all in the open now,’ he blurted out.

  In the whispering corridors, she had overheard echoes of the word ‘namard’, non-man, meaning impotent, being repeated after Alvi’s title. But never before had she heard this Urdu word, which also meant same-sex devotee. It sounded like an ersatz invented word.

  ‘I don’t even know what that word means.’

  ‘It means that I like men.’

  ‘Most men like men. What has that got to do with me?’

  ‘I am a bloody homosexual, for god’s sake,’ Alvi shouted in English.

  In one of her discussions with Sadiq about Oscar Wilde’s trial, he had expounded the word to her. She hadn’t paid much attention then. But now, when her husband confessed his homosexuality, it hit her like the punches she had received from Zaidi and Talat. A distressing stillness permeated the room as Mehrun turned into a catatonic wreck.

  ‘Say something,’ Alvi said. But Mehrun kept quiet. Over and over again, he repeated these two words, shaking her shoulders back and forth.

  ‘You knew that it had to be a marriage for the advancement of our respective careers! I thought you knew that. God knows everyone else in the bank knew about it!’

  ‘No! I did not know about it,’ Mehrun shouted as tears began to roll down her cheeks. ‘And how is this marriage going to advance my career? I gave up my career for you!’

  ‘Don’t start bawling. I needed to marry to accomplish what I want to accomplish. The rumours about me and my . . . preference kept growing and I had to silence my enemies; besides, I was sure that you knew about it.’

  ‘I am sorry I wasn’t that smart.’

  At that moment, everything began to make sense. Mehrun realized that she was to be Alvi’s front, his facade in the world of international banking and finance. To reach the position that he aspired to, he not only had to reveal his banking genius, but the financial wizard also had to show that he was a straight family man.

  ‘What if I want to have children?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said dismissively. But a few seconds later, he added, ‘Well, if you do want children, you’ll have to go somewhere else for that.’ He collapsed on his bed, and then continued, ‘Look, Mehrunnissa, you have a choice. You can stay with me and preserve my secret, and I promise to provide you with everything you want. I will make you a rich woman. I will make you acceptable in this wretched society . . . I have purchased respectability for myself, and I can do the same for you. You can do anything you want, enjoy life, be happy . . . you will have most of the freedoms that modern Pakistani women have, maybe more . . . But if you feel betrayed and you want a divorce, you can have that too. I can pay back your mehr right now and buy you a one-way ticket for the next flight home.’

  With that, Alvi pulled out his chequebook and looked at her questioningly.

  Mehrun snorted. She turned her face towards the window. So that was my bride price, a measly one hundred and twenty-five rupees, half paid at the time of marriage, half due at divorce. That is why you married me, because I could be bought dirt cheap, she thought.

  Alvi got up from his bed and came towards Mehrun. Thrusting out a minatory forefinger, he said, ‘But let me also warn you, if you ever reveal my secret to anyone, I will destroy you like I have destroyed those brilliant banking minds of Pakistan.’

  What a man! So generous in the choices he gives me, she thought. He wanted her to make a decision about whether she wanted a divorce or not, then and there, without delay, just like he had wanted her to make the decision about their marriage, then and there. She could not understand how a man who was so meticulous in his professional career could be so reckless in his personal relationships. This sordid slant to his personality was new to her, and his matter-of-fact approach to their bogus marriage jolted her. Her lips still quivering and her heart still thumping, she felt vanquished by a sinking feeling. Without saying a word to him, she rushed into the bathroom, locked herself in and prostrated herself on the tiled bathroom floor in a violent paroxysm of sobbing.

  Mehrun stayed in that position until she could cry no longer. She got up and looked in the mirror, expecting to see the churail, but the churail was nowhere in sight. Wouldn’t this be a perfect time for that wretched creature to reappear and harass her? To taunt her and make fun of her life? And this time, Mehrun waited for her as if her arrival were a foregone conclusion. But the churail never came, and Mehrun felt forsaken entirely. In your time of need, she thought, it is not only your friends who betray you, but your tormentors abandon you as well. Frustrated and tired, she washed her face and dried it with the thick towel on the rack. When she came out of the bathroom. Alvi had left. She didn’t know where he had gone, and she couldn’t care less. She called the front desk and ordered a cup of tea. At that moment, she desired Mansoor’s presence, the only friend whom she could trust, but then she had left him with only a quick good-bye phone call.

  A bearer in a crisp white uniform and a red cummerbund brought her the tea tray. Pouring the tea from a silver teapot, the man ogled at her with his creepy, denuding glances, making her eyebrows twitch. After he left, she took her brew and sat on the wing chair near the window. The setting sun arched towards the horizon, bathing the earth in its glow and agonizing Mehrun. She turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows, letting in the desert air to freshen the room. With the windows open, the room became alive to the urban racket outside—horns blaring, brakes screeching, people talking and shouting. Way down below her fifth-floor window, she saw Arabs in their white flowing robes hobnobbing with Westerners in their dark suits, and people from India and Pakistan in their native dresses, roaming on the streets. The allure of oil money had mixed and matched people of all nationalities and social classes.

  This nature-neglected country, now nourished by oil, had turned into a major hub of global finance. The town, inhabited by impoverished Bedouins who braved the desert heat on their camels’ backs until a few years ago, was now p
opulated by flamboyant sheikhs who subjugated the scorching desert heat in the backseats of their chauffeur-driven Bentleys and Jaguars. It was a town that bustled with activity, where power was brokered and deals were made. It was the perfect place for a man like Ameer Abbas Alvi to rearrange the monetary order.

  As Mehrun glanced at life on the streets, she thought about her new life up here in the luxurious hotel room and how it had come to a screaming halt. She turned away from the window and returned to a rococo chair in one corner of the room. Darkness began to invade the room, but Mehrun did not feel like turning on the light. She had to get used to this new darkness, this obscure turn. And as she sat there all alone, Mehrun reached a decision. Remaining a victim was no longer an option for her. She was not going to take things lying down; she was ready to play this game on her own terms. She had no other alternative. Her life in Pakistan was finished. She could never get another job at another bank there. Going back to washing dishes and dusting rooms was no longer part of her life plan either. Besides, what was the future of a destitute divorced woman anywhere? No, she was not going to let this ‘opportunity’ go by. She would swallow her pride, confront her life and take this bull by the horns; she was going to accept her homosexual husband on her terms and then . . . and then, she did not know what her future would be beyond that. With her old confidence back, she decided to leave the past, not worry about the future and relish the present.

  That night, Alvi came back to the room slightly drunk, and Mehrun smelt the liquor on his breath. It reminded her of her father’s breath when he drank the crude, home-made spirits. Mehrun only said two things to Alvi—she did not want a divorce and that she hadn’t had dinner. And he said, ‘Good, I haven’t had any either.’

  The silent agreement thus made, the unsigned contract thus attested, he told Mehrun to change her clothes so that he could take her out for a nice dinner. She obliged him and wore her pink chiffon saree, the most beautiful one in her new wardrobe, and then, like a shy bride, went downstairs with him. The charade had begun, the curtains had been raised and Mehrun became a willing performer in the dissolving drama of her marriage to Triple-A.