Of Smokeless Fire

by A. A. Jafri

  *

  Joseph delayed his return to Pakistan by six months. And when he eventually came, it was because he had been cashiered. But he did not tell anyone about this. The signs of a revolution in Iran had begun appearing early on, and the Shah of Iran dealt with the agitators harshly—first it was the subversives and then it was the foreigners, especially those with darker skins. And Joseph became an unfortunate casualty to this reprisal. But before he departed, he went to see his American friend, Peter Dawber, and dramatized his sob story. Dawber, a senior executive at the oil company, felt sorry for Joseph and promised to find him a job in the company in Texas when he returned to America. Joseph gave him the Kashana’s address, care of Mansoor ul Haq.

  When he returned to Karachi, Joseph went straight to the Kashana and pleaded with Noor to let him stay there once again for a few months, till he got his call from America. Noor doubted his story but allowed him to stay for two months in the servants’ quarters where Jumman had moved in. When Noor asked him why he did not go to his mother’s house in Punjab, he replied, ‘Sahib, my mother got married to my father’s worst enemy. I have cut all ties with her.’

  Jumman, however, was reluctant to share his quarters with a bhangi, albeit a vilayat-palat, a foreign-returned bhangi.

  ‘But Jumman Chacha, I am not a bhangi any more!’ Joseph protested.

  Joseph had called him chacha many times before, and Jumman had never cared about it. After all, everyone else in his old neighbourhood had started calling him chacha after his beard turned prematurely white.

  ‘Abey harami, bloody harami, even if you bathe in the Ganga a thousand and one times, you will still remain a bhangi. Your grandfather was a bhangi, your father was a bhangi and you are a bhangi. You will always remain a bhangi, saley,’ replied Jumman.

  ‘But, Chacha, I have become a Muslim,’ Joseph deflected Jumman’s insults and tried to hide the blot of his being a bhangi by lying about his conversion to Islam. But that did not work either. So Joseph tried the only fail-proof strategy he could think of: bribery. He offered to pay Jumman a rent of twenty-five rupees a month, which Jumman gladly accepted. And with the stigma of untouchability thus laundered by lucre, Joseph became a sub-tenant of Jumman, unbeknownst to Noor or Farhat.

  Every day, Joseph waited impatiently for the postman, but the letter from Peter Dawber remained elusive. The money he had saved from working in the oil refinery would sustain him for a few months. He had faith that Dawber would eventually come through with his promise. And soon enough, just like old times, he began his weekly pilgrimage to Sona Mandi and the cinema halls. Jumman and Budhoo were puzzled about his sudden interest in English movies, but Joseph convinced them that it was purely educational.

  ‘I want to talk like a motherfucking firangi, like a foreigner,’ he declared.

  Of course, it was not his love of the English language alone that drove him to those tantalizing cinema halls. His disorderly hormones shoved him equally hard. Deprived of sex and porn flicks since his return from Iran, Joseph checked out his former purlieu, Premier Talkies, where the movie Samson and Delilah was doing roaring business with a sell-out crowd. Before he left for Iran, he had become good friends with one of the ticket clerks, who, for two rupees, would reveal to Joseph the days when they were going to embed longer pornographic clips in the featured film.

  Although he had seen the movie three times already, Joseph went again. The last two times, the management had inserted bits of hardcore pornography between the scenes, and Joseph was sure of scoring a hat-trick this time. But it did not happen. For some reason, the cinema hall bosses did not play any pornographic scenes that day, thus disappointing Joseph severely. Not only did they not include the totay, but as if to send Joseph’s hormones into a complete tailspin, they also censored the kissing scenes that were there in the movie. Joseph seethed in anger.

  ‘These haramis did not even show a single kiss!’ he vented his rage to the guy next to him and continued, ‘What do they expect me to do with this?’ he pointed towards his crotch. ‘Cut it off and throw it in the fucking gutter?’ His neighbour was equally disappointed. ‘I wasted five rupees on this motherfucking movie for nothing!’ But he suggested another cinema hall to Joseph where they showed doctored movies with nude clips of a flop Pakistani actress. That seemed to pacify Joseph and he decided to try his luck there the next day.

  As he came out of the cinema hall, he noticed a motley crowd demonstrating and yelling slogans outside. Within seconds, even as he stood there watching the scene, the angry mob began pelting stones at the theatre. The demonstrators shattered the newly installed windows of the cinema. At first, Joseph thought that they, too, were protesting against the management for not showing any pornographic bits, but he soon realized that they were inveighing against Samson and Delilah. With the possibility of a riot looming large, he quickly turned around and sneaked out of the back door, but his curiosity brought him back to the crowd. He came and stood next to a man with a placard that said, ‘Don’t Ensult Our Riligion! No Samsung No Dilaala!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Joseph asked.

  ‘They have not only shown one of our prophets; they have also shown him kissing!’

  ‘Which prophet is that?’

  ‘Hazrat Shamoon, peace be upon him.’

  ‘But there is no Hazrat Shamoon in the movie!’

  ‘You idiot, Samsung is Hazrat Shamoon. I have seen the movie, but I didn’t know it then,’ the man said.

  After hundreds of showings of the movie going unnoticed, somebody had informed the public that the hero of the story was not just a Judea-Christian prophet, but also an Islamic prophet mentioned in the Qur’an. And that incensed the public since it was a grave sin to show images of prophets, kissing prophets no less.

  Having had his curiosity satisfied, Joseph left the scene in a hurry on a motor rickshaw, knowing that it would get ugly there, and he was right. A little after he left, the angry crowd beat up the staff and the manager and then torched the cinema hall. The G.O.D.s exploited the situation and tried to destabilize the government, which, in turn, promptly banned the movie. The movie that had been shown hundreds of times was now declared insulting to religion.

  *

  Two and a half months passed by, but Joseph heard nothing from Dawber. Idleness and boredom made him a pest, and he began getting on everybody’s nerves. In the meantime, Farhat made his life difficult by constantly encouraging him to move out of the servants’ quarters. Just as Noor had done the last time, he had not consulted her again about letting Joseph stay, and she felt slighted.

  ‘Why can’t he stay with his relatives in Bhangi Para?’ she asked Jumman.

  ‘Begum Sahiba, he says all his relatives are dead and rotting in hell, and he doesn’t want to go there.’

  ‘He is a liar, and he is lazy. Tell him to find a job and move out of here by the end of this month.’

  When Jumman announced this new deadline to Joseph, he became angry with Farhat and cursed her under his breath. He decided that if he did not get the letter soon, he would move to Lahore and try to find a job there, may be in the movies. But the long-awaited letter finally arrived, just five days before Farhat’s deadline. Joseph was ecstatic. Dawber apologized for not writing sooner. He was waiting for everything to get confirmed before sending him the letter.

  Along with the personal note, Dawber sent an official letter of employment not from the oil company, but from himself. It appeared that he had recently opened a Pakistani-Indian restaurant and he wanted to hire Joseph as his head chef for an annual salary of $10,000. This was news to Joseph, but then who was he to argue when so much money was at stake? Dawber had often suggested that he should open a Pakistani restaurant in Iran, but he had never hinted at his plans to open one himself, and that too in Houston, Texas. It did not matter to Joseph what the job was as long as he could go to America. After watching countless Hollywood flicks, America had become his latest fixation.

  With the letter in his hand and
a Rajesh Khanna song on his lips, he set off to the American consulate, where he was told that there was no possibility of an interview for at least another month. Disappointed, he went to see Noor, but Noor had no contacts at the consulate. He, however, directed Joseph to Zakir. While all of this was going on, Joseph got a telegram from Dawber, asking him to hold off on everything and not come to America till he sent another telegram. Joseph tore the telegram up and went to see Zakir anyway. He showed him Dawber’s letter. At first, Zakir was reluctant to help him, not because of Joseph’s lineage but because the authenticity of that piece of correspondence looked suspicious to him. But Joseph convinced him, and among many other canards, told him that he had converted to Islam, while in Iran.

  ‘By the grace of Allah, I am a Muslim now and no longer a bhangi.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Recite the kalimah for me.’

  To pass off as a Muslim in Iran, Joseph had, in fact, memorized the kalimah, the two-line profession of faith. So without any hesitation, he recited it in his accented Punjabi.

  ‘Praise to Allah. This is a momentous change, Joseph!’

  Thoroughly impressed, Zakir promised to help him, but on one condition. ‘My bhangi has run away and I want you to find me a reliable bhangi.’

  ‘Sahib, I will send you a white bhangi from Umreeka; he will be more reliable than any kaloo bhangi, Sahib.’

  ‘No, I want a kaloo bhangi, okay?’

  Joseph nodded his head, happy that his odds of going to America had just multiplied. The next day, Zakir contacted his friends at the American embassy and arranged the interview for Joseph.

  *

  With his quick wit and flattery, Joseph regaled the interviewer and obtained the most sought-after visa. Now there was only one glitch: he was short of money. Having squandered most of his money on movies and brothels, and after paying rent to Jumman, Joseph had nothing left for the trip. He needed ten thousand rupees for the airfare alone. His only hope for a bailout was Noor. So, he called the barrister’s secretary at his office and arranged a meeting. This would be his most important meeting with him. He spent the whole day enacting the scene, rehearsing the dialogues and anticipating the questions, for this was his chance to kill two birds with one stone: to give the performance of his life and to obtain the money. The next day, after eating a hearty breakfast, he went to see Noor at his office. The minute Joseph was summoned into the office, he began his act. But Noor interrupted him immediately.

  ‘Don’t start your acting. Just get to the point, Joseph,’ he frowned impatiently.

  ‘Sahib, I need ten thousand rupees. Please give it to me as a loan, Sahib. I will return it to you very soon. I have eaten your salt, Sahib; I have lived under your roof. Please don’t disappoint me, Sahib.’

  Noor pressed the button on his intercom and spoke into the machine in his clipped English, ‘Mr Siddique, please come to my office at once.’

  Convinced that he was about to be thrown out of the office, Joseph pleaded for mercy, ‘Sahib, if you can’t give me the money, I can try my luck somewhere else, but don’t throw me out!’ He began to walk back towards the door to leave the barrister’s office.

  ‘Stop, you donkey! Where do you think you are going?’ Noor thundered.

  Before Joseph could reply, the office door opened and a bespectacled man entered the room.

  ‘Siddique Sahib, go to the bank with Joseph and give him twelve thousand rupees,’ Noor told the man brusquely.

  Joseph was dumbstruck. He was so moved by the barrister’s generosity that he started to blubber and rushed to touch his feet, but Noor stopped him and said, ‘Don’t create a spectacle . . . just get the money and go.’

  *

  When he reached Houston, Joseph obviously did not expect Dawber to be at the airport, but he telephoned him nonetheless, feigning surprise at not finding him at the airport. Dawber, too, was surprised to hear Joseph calling him from the airport; he had assumed that Joseph had received his telegram.

  ‘Didn’t you get my telegram?’ he asked.

  ‘What telegram, Sahib?’

  ‘Well, I had sent you a . . . never mind, just wait at the airport. I’ll come and pick you up.’

  It took Dawber forty-five minutes to reach the airport. On their way back to his house, he told Joseph that he had been planning to start a Pakistani-Indian restaurant in Houston in partnership with a colleague from Pakistan. But when the deal fell through at the last minute, he had rushed him another telegram asking him not to come, at least not for the time being. Dawber felt terrible that Joseph had ended up coming to America for nothing and he promised to help him find a job. Feeling guilty, Dawber also let him stay at his sprawling house in the suburbs of Houston.

  Joseph hung around at Dawber’s house for a week, trying to luxuriate in his stylish splendour, getting used to the comforts that never visited him. But the longer he stayed there, the more uncomfortable he became. Opulence did not suit him.

  The American economy had fallen into a deep recession, and that made it difficult for Dawber to help his uninvited guest find a decent job. But Joseph, as it turned out, did not need his help since he found work flipping hamburgers at a Burger King restaurant. And once he learned the nuances of working at a fast-food place, he began searching for an apartment. Luckily, his manager owned a decrepit house, infested as it was with rats, in downtown Houston, just two blocks from his workplace. He rented it out to Joseph. But this dilapidated house—a luxury compared to his one-room mud shack in Pakistan—was all he needed. Determined to drag himself out of this situation, Joseph worked long, hard hours, reminding himself that this would be his temporary abode. When he found out that it took only a few days and little money to get a telephone, he immediately applied for one at the nearest AT&T office. After procuring the phone, the first thing he did was to call Mansoor, whose number he had acquired from Noor. His friend was pleasantly surprised to hear his loud Punjabi voice again. Talking to Mansoor regularly became Joseph’s favourite pastime.

  Twenty-One

  Mansoor did not attune well to life in Iowa. The frigid winter, the hog reports on the radio and the narrow provinciality of the ordinary Iowans made him miserable. For the first two semesters, he stayed in university housing; after that, he rented a one-bedroom apartment, a short walk from the campus. The university attracted students from all over the world, including Pakistan and India, but Mansoor did not mix with them. An introvert by nature, he made several acquaintances but no friends. The rigours of the semester system made his academic load onerous, and so he made the university library his main hang-out. His goal was to complete his degree in the shortest possible time. Overloading himself with courses, he finished the requirements in a year and a half.

  He invited his parents to his graduation ceremony, but only Noor came. Seeing his father come out of the arrivals hall of Chicago’s O’Hare Airport all alone, Mansoor became upset. He had explicitly written to his father and asked him to bring his mother as well, especially since she had never ventured out of Pakistan. Had his father ignored his request or had his mother deliberately chosen not to come? As they exited the airport, Mansoor asked him, ‘Why didn’t you bring Amma?’

  ‘She doesn’t like to travel,’ he replied.

  That was surprising since Mansoor knew that Farhat had always wanted to visit places. Her only trip outside Karachi had been the one she had taken with her sister to the historical city of Lahore, when Zahid lived there as a student. Was Noor embarrassed to bring her with him? Did he think that she would be his excess baggage?

  ‘How is she doing?’ Mansoor asked.

  ‘She is fine; she has become very religious since her illness.’

  ‘What illness?’

  The word ‘illness’ had inadvertently slipped out of Noor’s mouth. He had not told Mansoor about Farhat’s hysterectomy, and the news shocked him now. Distressed by his mother’s surgery and angered at being kept in the dark, he raised his voice at his father for the first time in his life.<
br />
  ‘Why did you hide it from me?’

  ‘I didn’t hide it from you; I just didn’t want to upset your studies.’

  His father did not say ‘upset you’ but ‘upset your studies’. His choice of words was inhibiting, the most important word, you, was clearly besides the point. Mansoor felt hurt.

  ‘I know that you didn’t want to upset me, but I am an adult and I know how to handle worrying news. You should have written to me about Amma’s surgery. She must be thinking how uncaring I am for not even writing to her about it.’ For the first time in his life, Mansoor lectured his father and it felt good.

  ‘Well, it was her wish as well . . . to not inform you.’ Noor tried to deflect the blame on to his wife.

  *

  It rained during Mansoor’s graduation ceremony. Noor sat alone, hunched and miserable, in the parents’ gallery. He should have savoured his son’s success, but the Pomp and Circumstance were not for him.

  That night, Mansoor wanted to take his father out for a nice steak dinner, but Noor turned him down, using the tedious rain as an excuse. For someone who came from a rain-starved Karachi, a little rain should have been nothing to complain about. But Noor insisted that he did not want to go out in the rain. Just a simple omelette or scrambled eggs was what he wanted. So, they stayed home.

  While Mansoor beat the eggs in his kitchen, his father looked at the rain hitting the living room window. In his right hand, he held a glass of whisky. He turned around, lowered his head and timidly apologized to Mansoor for keeping the news of Farhat’s surgery from him. For a while, Noor stayed there in the living room, not knowing what to do. He then moved to the kitchen, lost in his thoughts, and stood watching his son prepare the eggs. He opened his mouth to say something, but then said nothing, as if the moment was not right.