Of Smokeless Fire

by A. A. Jafri

  ‘I want you to buy a ticket for the next flight to Pakistan.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ Mansoor became concerned now. By this time, Lisa was also partly awake.

  ‘Your mother had a big fight with me, and she has gone to her sister’s house. You are the only one who can—’ Before Noor could finish the sentence, the line got disconnected.

  Mansoor tried to call him back, but he could not get connected.

  The telephone call had shaken him; he wanted to get up. But with Lisa still in his embrace, he couldn’t, so he stayed still and looked at her face in the darkness.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Lisa asked in a raspy voice, her eyes still heavy with sleep.

  ‘My father wants me to come home immediately, my mother . . . my mother is . . . sick.’

  Lisa raised her head and asked, ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘I don’t know; the line got disconnected.’

  No sooner had he said this than the telephone rang again. He quickly picked up the receiver, thinking it was his father, but much to his surprise, it was Joseph, and he was drunk.

  ‘Mansoor Babu, did you hoist the flag? Did you use your weapon?’ Joseph had this habit of calling him at odd hours, but his uncanny, vulgar telepathy struck Mansoor now. How did he even know that he had just made love?

  ‘Are you in an insane asylum?’ Mansoor asked.

  ‘Yes, I am in Houston!’ Joseph replied, laughing convulsively.

  Irritated with his friend, Mansoor hung up the phone. Lisa turned around and went back to sleep, snoring softly again. He got up and tried calling home but could not get a connection.

  The next day, Mansoor called a Pakistani travel agent in Chicago and reserved a seat on the next Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight to Karachi. With his ticket confirmed, he sent a telegram to his father informing him about the day and time of his arrival in Karachi. On his day of departure, he received a five-page letter from his father, posted three weeks ago, pleading with him to come home immediately. It was a rambling, disturbing missive about the crisis in his family and Zakir Hassan’s role in all of this. He read it hastily and put the letter in his jacket pocket, thinking that he would reread it on the airplane.

  *

  Mansoor was acutely aware of the dominance–dependence relationship between his father and mother. Though he never physically abused her, Noor was often rude to her, sometimes even in front of the servants. Most of the time, however, he ignored her. Farhat existed like a docile, permanent fixture in his bedroom setting. Her lack of formal education was a sore point for Noor. Many of his corporate clients, especially those from the younger generation, had wives who were all well-educated, who spoke fluent English and talked to men with confidence. Farhat had none of those ‘qualities’. She, in turn, despised his ‘over-education’, his penchant to talk in English, especially with their son, his boozing and his ‘grievous beliefs’ about her country and religion. Where she found refuge in faith, he glued himself to his work. As the chasm between them widened, their relationship unravelled. But the breakdown, when it came, came rapidly after Mansoor left for America.

  The patchy telephone conversation with his father and the long-winded letter had unsettled him. The night before he left, Mansoor tried calling home again, but the old-fangled telephone system made that impossible. So he dispatched another telegram to his father, confirming his arrival. He had too many things to do in too short a time, so he hastily packed a few items for his trip just a few hours before he was to leave for the airport. Lisa had introduced him to Herbert Marcuse and had given him a copy of Eros and Civilization for his birthday. He stuffed it into his hand luggage. Mansoor had lived in a culture whose mores had taught him to repress his sexual desire, but its gratification, of late, had made him a man who was sure of himself, who was confident in his own skin. Lisa showed him a reality that he never knew existed.

  He was thinking about Lisa when she came to say goodbye and reminded him to send her a note as soon as he reached home. Mansoor kissed her and said thank you, much to her puzzlement. He told her that he would explain that thank you when he wrote to her from Pakistan.

  ‘Aren’t you coming back?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘The way you thanked me, it seemed as if you were going back home for good.’

  ‘I shall return,’ he promised.

  ‘Mansoor, I . . . I think I . . .’ she paused and then said, ‘Never mind, it’s not important.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing. I will tell you when you return.’

  Before he could press her more, he saw his airport shuttle approaching. He kissed Lisa again and quickly boarded it. As the shuttle pulled away from the apartment building, he turned around and saw Lisa wiping her tears.

  The traffic on I-80 was sparse, so the shuttle reached the airport in good time. After Mansoor collected his boarding card, he headed straight to the departure lounge. He had a few hours to kill, so he decided to spend some time in the duty-free shops. He ended up buying a bottle of Chivas Regal for his father and a Chanel No. 5 for his mother. Feeling hungry, he then picked up a couple of slices of pizza to eat at the gate while waiting to board his flight.

  A strange feeling of misgiving gripped Mansoor when he boarded the airplane. He took out his book, but his mind was on his parents. When the air hostess came with the refreshment cart, Mansoor asked her for a gin and tonic.

  ‘Sir, we do not serve alcohol on our flights any more.’

  Mansoor noticed that the word ‘alcohol’ made the passenger seated next to him frown and mutter something under his breath.

  ‘Since when?’ Mansoor persisted.

  ‘Since about a few months ago. The government has passed a new regulation prohibiting the serving of alcohol on all PIA flights, sir.’

  Mansoor was disappointed. But before he could say something, the passenger intervened.

  ‘Young man, Pakistan is an Islamic country where there is no room for alcohol. You should be ashamed of drinking.’

  ‘And you had to interfere! I wasn’t talking to you, and what I do is none of your business,’ Mansoor replied, becoming irritated.

  ‘As your Muslim brother, I have the duty to tell you what is right and what is wrong.’

  Why did everyone seem so duty-bound, so obligated to tell right from wrong? Mansoor wondered.

  ‘Here are three things that you should know, old man. First of all, I am not your brother. Second, you have no right to tell me what is right and what is wrong. And third, what makes you think I am a Muslim?’

  ‘Well, I am sorry, but you look like a Muslim,’ the man replied.

  Mansoor did not see the need to dignify his last comment with a reply, and when the passenger got out of his seat to go to the toilet, he quietly picked up his hand luggage and moved on to an empty seat a few rows away. After settling down, he took out his father’s letter and began to read it again.

  Noor wrote that in his absence, Farhat had started going regularly to the sermons at Zakir’s house, dressed in her new hijab, which was her symbol of revolt, her flag of independence, according to him. About the hijab, he had written:

  All of sudden, I see so many young women covering their faces, wearing the burqa, chador, hijab, niqab, and all sorts of veils. My own mother fought against the whole institution of purdah back when she was a young woman. She believed that it was all about controlling women. I think it is also about sexualizing them. They would deny it, but it is true. The mullahs believe that a veil’s purpose is for women to cover themselves so they are no longer attractive. If that is not sexualization, then tell me what is? They justify it by saying that it is to prevent men from having sexual fantasies about them. These troglodyte mullahs believe that a man has nothing else on his mind except copulation. That’s an insult to a decent man’s decency. It is essentially sending the message to all good men that you are not to be trusted. You, too, are a potential sexual predator
. And do you know that these people are also forcing hijab on girls as young as six or seven? By doing this, they also see these poor innocent girls as sexual objects. Do the women embracing hijab today not understand what struggles women in the past went through to free themselves of the purdah? To be able to leave the confines of the house and receive an education, have a career, don’t they believe in that any longer? My mother gave up wearing the burqa, and now I cannot believe my wife is willingly wearing a hijab.

  Your mother doesn’t understand any of this, saying that it is only about modesty. I asked her, ‘Before you veiled yourself, were you immodest?’ Her answer was yes. Can you believe this? Here is a woman well past her prime, about to enter her seventh decade of life, and she feels that men will look at her with lust because she is sexually attractive.

  In his letter, Noor described Zakir as a religious rock star. His fame had spread to even the most neglected areas of the country. Eminent people like the legendary cricketer Lion Prince, and failed movie stars, like Salome, came to his house to be blessed by what Noor called his religious nonsense.

  I tell you, beta, his followers are a bunch of religious bargain hunters, his house a one-stop-religious mall, just like the mall you took me to in Iowa. He has started to sell his holier-than-thou-crap on cassette tapes to these gullible idiots. Zakir relishes every moment of it. You had said to me in Iowa that you couldn’t understand how he could give up a career in foreign diplomacy for this. Well, son, I think he is making more money selling these amulets than what he was ever making as a third-rate diplomat.

  After reading the letter, Mansoor thought about his mother’s choice of wearing a hijab. Was his father right in questioning her decision? Here was a man who believed in personal choice, denying the same to his wife. But was Amma’s decision really voluntary, or was it driven by external influences, such as Zakir Hassan or the increasing religiosity in the public sphere? Although he agreed with many of the points his father raised in that letter, why not just let Amma be happy in what she wore? If she saw it as a sign of modesty, let it be. The more he thought of his parents, the sadder he became.

  Mansoor put away the letter when the air hostess announced that dinner was about to be served. With no alcohol to drown his agony, he asked for a ginger ale to go with his dinner. The new prohibition made him anxious about the Chivas Regal in his hand luggage. The possibility of the bottle getting confiscated and leading to a brush with the new law made him nervous. After he finished the biryani they served for dinner, Mansoor tried to sleep, but sleep had deserted him. He thought of Lisa. What was it that she had wanted to say? He was yet to confront his feelings for her. Mansoor remembered how she had wiped away her tears . . . Was it love? It was too painful to think about it.

  *

  When the plane stopped for refuelling at the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, Mansoor got out and went to the transit lounge to exchange some dollars for francs. The thought of the Chivas getting seized by Pakistani customs was still on his mind, so he strolled towards the duty-free shops to look for something else for his father. But what else could this son buy for his strange father? Not sure if Noor read books any more, he walked in and out of a bookshop without buying anything. Across the long terminal, he saw rows of elegant shops and restaurants flanking the corridors. He stopped in front of the display window of a men’s wristwatch store. The watches looked too pricey. He decided to take his chances with the bottle in his bag. To hell with it! If the authorities tried to confiscate it, he would simply bribe them. It always worked.

  The terminal bustled with life as Mansoor sauntered back towards his gate, idly watching passengers dash in every direction in their business suits and flowing dresses. He saw an airline crew walk past him, the air hostesses talking about an obnoxious traveller on a flight just concluded. Inside a bistro, a child yawned, a plate of half-eaten food on the table in front of him, while his mother pestered him to hurry up. Two more hours to kill, Mansoor thought. Near his gate, he saw an empty seat and quickly occupied it. Not knowing what else to do, he took out Eros and Civilization from his hand luggage, but his Eros was already tangled, and so, reading became a struggle. His mind kept turning to what awaited him at home—uncomfortable accusations, unbearable arguments, painful conversations—and he began dreading the thought of becoming a go-between for his old parents.

  He wanted to call Lisa and open up his heart to her. But she would be in the library at this hour. Should he call Mehrun? Although she was aware of his parents’ complicated relationship, Mansoor had never actually discussed it with her. Without thinking, he took out his pocket phonebook and automatically searched for her name under M, but there was no entry there. Then he looked under A. There it was: Mehrunnissa Alvi, her married name meticulously entered in his handwriting. The public payphone from across his seat beckoned him. Taking out the francs from his pocket, he went towards the booth. He had enough money for a thirty-minute call. But what if her husband picked up the phone? He would just hang up. After inserting the coins in the coin slot, he dialled her number. It was Mehrun who answered.

  ‘Mansoor Babu! Where are you?’

  Even after all these years, she addressed him as Mansoor Babu, a reaffirmation of the master–servant relationship that had existed between them.

  He told her where he was and where he was going without telling her the reason for his trip back home.

  ‘Oh, then I will see you in Karachi. I am also going home next week,’ she said, and after a pause, she added, ‘my husband is building us a house in Defence Housing Society.’

  Mansoor remembered her shoebox-like house and wanted to joke about it, but he resisted. He knew that Defence Housing Society had become the poshest and most expensive area in Karachi, eclipsing all other neighbourhoods.

  ‘Have you chosen a name for your house?’ he asked, nervously unbuttoning and buttoning his jacket.

  ‘I am going to call it the Kashana-e-Jhoot, the Abode of Lies.’ She laughed.

  Mansoor detected a hint of pain mingled in her laughter.

  ‘Is your husband still travelling a lot these days? I see his name in the Pakistani newspapers all the time.’

  Mehrun replied in the affirmative and then quickly changed the subject. ‘So, how’s Umreeka?’ she asked.

  Mansoor smiled at the way she pronounced America. He told her about his life in Iowa, about his studies and about Joseph being in America.

  ‘Have you found a girlfriend?’

  Mansoor hesitated before answering her question, and when he did, he lied. He was not ready to talk about Lisa with anyone, definitely not from a payphone in a busy airport.

  ‘How are Noor Sahib and Begum Sahiba?’

  ‘They are fine,’ he lied again.

  ‘I would like to come and pay my respects to them.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Abba and Amma would be thrilled to see you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  No, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t even know what state they would be in. After he hung up, Mansoor felt a rising annoyance about the call, something disquieting, but he wasn’t sure if it was guilt, shame, or pure idiocy. When he reboarded the plane, Mansoor’s mind returned to his conversation with Mehrun. Why didn’t he say anything about Lisa? Did he believe that the truth about his relationship with Lisa would affect his friendship with Mehrun? Was he sure that his parents would be thrilled to see Mehrun, now that she was a rich woman?

  The telephone call depressed him; he didn’t know why he expected that talking to Mehrun would somehow make him feel better. Mansoor’s mind drifted to his father’s agonising letter, and that added to his despair. The final leg of his long flight should have made him excited, but it didn’t. Sitting cramped on such a long flight had made his legs ache. Mansoor got up to walk back and forth to stretch his muscles, but he sensed a heaviness in his steps. When he went back to his seat, Mansoor closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He needed to quieten his mind. He would have enough to deal with when he landed in Ka
rachi.

  Twenty-Three

  Mansoor arrived in Karachi in the early hours of the morning—the pink clouds splashed their colour across the grey-blue dawn sky as if to prevent the sunlight from breaking through. Sikander came to pick him up. Although he must have known much about what was happening between Noor and Farhat, he said little. As the car approached the gates of the Kashana, Mansoor saw the wizened old Changez Gul sitting in an aluminium armchair, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed and his head tilted backward. Wasn’t he sitting in exactly the same position when I left for America? Mansoor thought.

  Sikander drove the car right up to the gate and then honked. That startled Changez Gul, and he jumped up. When he saw that it was Mansoor inside the car, he saluted him, and Mansoor rolled down the window to greet him. Changez opened the gates, and as the car pulled up near the front porch, Mansoor noticed the weeds growing along the driveway. Withering coneflowers, their once-bright colours faded, their leaves black and brown, accentuated the neglect that appeared to have spread through the Kashana.

  ‘Does Jumman still work here?’ Mansoor asked Sikander.

  ‘Yes, Sahib, but only in name. He drinks heroine all the time.’

  ‘You mean the drug? Heroin?’

  ‘Yes, Sahib. Heroine.’

  When Mansoor entered the house, he found his father waiting for him in the corridor. As soon as Noor saw him, he walked painfully towards him, grabbed him in a big hug and began to weep. It was not the father Mansoor had known all these years. The man had never cried like this. Separation from his wife had clearly crushed his dignity. His mottled scalp, the sagging wrinkles, the bent back, all told the sad tale of a shattered man.

  ‘Where is Amma? Did you tell her that I was coming?’

  ‘She is . . . at your . . . Aunt’s house. I . . . didn’t tell her . . .you were coming.’

  Mansoor was disappointed. It was upsetting to come back to a desolate home. Without his mother, the house looked estranged. Thick layers of dust on the tables and cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling replicated the tale of shameful neglect from the front yard. Later, when Mansoor gave Noor the bottle of Chivas Regal, he smiled wistfully and told him, ‘This is . . . is . . . the cause of . . . our sep . . . sep . . . aration, beta.’ He held the bottle with both hands and sat staring at it for a while. Eventually, he said, ‘My friend in need has be . . . come my enemy ind . . . eed.’