2008 - A Case of Exploding Mangoes (30 page)

Corporal Lessard was challenged by the Subedar Major from the back of the truck where the Pakistani soldiers were relaxing after security checking the last guests. The Subedar Major aimed his Kalashnikov at Corporal Lessard’s forehead and ordered him to halt.

The marine raised his tray above his head, the aluminium foil covering it reflecting the searchlight held by one of the soldiers on the truck. “I brought some chow. For you brave men.”

The Subedar Major lowered his rifle and climbed down from the truck. Two rows of soldiers peered down at the swaying American trying to balance the tray on his head.

The Subedar Major and the marine squared off in a circle of light marked by the searchlight.

“Hot dogs,” Corporal Lessard said, pushing the tray towards the Subedar Major.

General Akhtar shifted his glass from his right hand to his left and cleared his throat. Then on second thoughts he brought his hand up and mimed General Zia’s moustache, a universal sign used in Islamabad’s drawing rooms when people didn’t want to say the dreaded name. General Akhtar’s right thumb and forefinger twirled invisible hair on his upper lip: “…has been having dreams,” General Akhtar said, looking into Coogan’s eyes.

Coogan, his heart running with the quarterback who had just set off for a fifty-six-yard dash, smiled and said, “He is a visionary. Always has been. They don’t change. I am sure TM’s free fall didn’t help. By the way, nice line, Akhtar:
A professional who didn’t miss his target even in his death
. If your boss had half your sense of humour, this Pakiland of yours would be a much livelier place.” Coogan winked and turned towards the TV General Akhtar felt a bit nervous. He had played these games long enough to know that he was not going to get a written contract to topple General Zia. Hell, he wasn’t even likely to get a verbal assurance. But surely they knew him and trusted him well enough to give him a nod. “He won’t stop the war until you give him the peace prize.” General Akhtar decided to press his case. He had looked around and realised nobody was remotely interested in their conversation.

“What prize?” Coogan shouted above the chorus. “Lock him up, Jack, lock him up.”

“Nobel Peace Prize. For liberating Afghanistan.”

“That is a Swedish thing. We don’t do that kind of thing. And you don’t know those snooty Swedes. They would never give it to anybody with…” Coogan mimed General Zia’s moustache and turned towards the television again, laughing.

General Akhtar could feel an utter lack of interest on Coogan’s part in the matter at hand. He had won his war and he wanted to celebrate. General Akhtar knew what a short attention span the Americans had. He knew that in the subtle art of spycraft this non-commitment was also a kind of commitment. But General Akhtar wanted a sign clearer than that. He suddenly smelled the acrid smell of hashish in the room and looked around in panic. Nobody else seemed to be bothered. They were still busy urging Jack to lock them up and feed them dirt. General Akhtar noticed that the man who had poured him a drink was standing behind Coogan puffing on a joint. “Meet Lieutenant Bannon,” Coogan winked at General Akhtar. “He has been teaching your boys the silent drill. Our main man.”

General Akhtar turned round and gave him a faint yellow smile.

“I am aware of all the good work he has been doing. I think his boys are ready for the real thing,” General Akhtar said, looking at the joint in Bannon’s hand.

OBL found himself strolling on the empty lawns amid discarded paper plates, half-eaten hot dogs and chewed-up bones. He suddenly remembered that he had not as yet eaten. He went towards the tent from where he had smelled the lamb’s fat burning. Inside the Kabul tent the Afghan chef minutely inspected the leftover of his culinary creation. Eight skeletons hung over the smouldering ashes of the barbecue fire. He was hoping to take some home for his family but even his small knife couldn’t salvage any bits of meat from the bones. “God,” he muttered, packing his carving knives, “these Americans eat like pigs.”

Coogan’s attention was divided between the misery that the Redskins were going through and this General who had been sitting there with his glass in his hands for ages without taking a sip. Coogan raised his glass to General Akhtar’s, one eye fixed on the Redskins’ quarterback who was demolishing the Buccaneers’ defence and the other winking at the General. Coogan shouted, “Go get him.”

General Akhtar knew he had his answer. He didn’t want to let this moment go. He raised his glass and clinked it with Coogan’s again. “By jingo. Let’s get him.” He took a generous sip from his glass and suddenly the liquid didn’t smell as horrible as it had a second ago. It was bitter but it didn’t taste as bad as all his life he had thought it would.

The Subedar Major looked at the tray, looked at the marine’s face and understood.

“Tea? Have some?” the Subedar Major asked.

“Tea?” Corporal Lessard repeated. “Don’t go all English on me. Here. Chow. Eat.”

The marine removed the aluminium foil from the tray, took a hot dog out and started chomping away.

The Subedar Maior smiled an understanding smile. “Dog? Halal?”

Corporal Lessard was running out of patience. “No. No dog meat. Beef.” He mooed and mimed a knife slicing a cow’s neck.

“Halal?” the Subedar Major asked again.

A house sparrow blundered into the floodlight and shrieked as if trying to bridge the communication gap between the two. Corporal Lessard felt: homesick.

“It’s a piece of fucking meat in a piece of fucking bread. If we can’t agree on that what the hell am I doing here?” He flung the tray on the ground and started running back towards the guardhouse.

Nancy Raphel buried her head in her pillow and waited for her husband to come to bed. “We should stick to our cocktail menu in future,” she said before falling asleep.

General Akhtar was greeted by a very disturbed major as he walked out of the gate of the ambassador’s residence.

“General Zia has gone missing,” the major whispered in his ear. “There is no trace of him anywhere.”

T
he night in the dungeon is long. In my dream, an army of Maos marches the funeral march carrying their Mao caps in their hands like beggars’ bowls. Their lips are sewn with crimson thread.

The brick in the wall scrapes.

Secretary General’s ghost is already at work, I tell myself. “Get some rest,” I shout. The brick moves again. I am not scared of ghosts; I have seen enough of them in my life. They all come back to me as if I run an orphanage for them.

I pull out the brick, put my face in the hole and shout at strength 5, “Get some sleep, Secretary General, get some sleep. Revolution can wait till the morning.”

A hand traces the contours of my face. The fingers are soft, a woman’s fingers. Sht passes me a crunched-up envelope. “I found it in my cell,” she says. “It’s not mine. I can’t read. I thought maybe it’s for you. Can you read?”

I shove the envelope into my pocket. “Nobody can read around here,” I say, trying to terminate the conversation. “This place is pitch dark. We are all bloody blind here.”

A moment’s silence. “This seems like a message from the dead man. Keep it. I think someone is about to start a journey. It’s not going to be me. You should keep yourself ready.”

G
eneral Zia decided to borrow his gardener’s bicycle in order to get out of the Army House without his bodyguards, but he needed a shawl first. He needed the shawl not because it was cold but because he wanted to disguise himself. The decision to venture out of the Army House was prompted by a verse from the Quran. To go out disguised as a common man was his friend Ceaucescu’s idea.

The plan was a happy marriage between the divine and the devious.

He had returned from Brigadier TM’s funeral and locked himself in his study, refusing to attend to even the bare minimum government work that he had been doing since ordering Code Red. He flicked through the thick file that General Akhtar had sent him on the ongoing investigation into the accident. The summary had congratulated General Akhtar for ensuring that Brigadier TM’s sad demise wasn’t broadcast live on TV. It would have been a big setback for the nation’s trust in the professionalism of the army.

General Zia cried and prayed non-stop in an attempt to stop himself from doing the inevitable, but like a relapsing junkie, he found his hands reaching for a volume of the Quran covered in green velvet. He kissed its spine thrice and opened it with trembling hands.

His knees shook with excitement when the book revealed not Jonah’s prayer as he had been dreading but a simple, more practical verse. “
Go forth into the world, ye believers
…”

His tears dissolved into a knowing smile. Even the itch in his rectum felt like a call to action; he rubbed his bottom on the edge of the chair. In his relief, he remembered the advice Nicolae Ceaucescu had given him at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit for the Non-Aligned Movement. It was one of those meetings where heads of states have nothing to discuss and which interpreters try to prolong with an elaborate, flowery translation of the pleasantries. The two leaders came from countries so far apart and so different that Ceausescu couldn’t even talk to General Zia about boosting bilateral trade as trade between Romania and Pakistan was non-existent. And General Zia couldn’t ask for his support on the Kashmir issue because Ceaucescu wasn’t likely to know where Kashmir was, let alone what the issues were. There was one fact General Zia knew about the man that did interest him though: Ceaucescu had been in power for twenty-four years, and unlike other rulers of his longevity and reputation who couldn’t get an invitation from any decent country, Ceaucescu had been welcomed by Secretary General Brezhnev and by President Nixon and had just been knighted by the Queen of Great Britain.

And here he was at the Non-Aligned Movement’s meeting when his country wasn’t even a member. Observer status they had given him, but clearly the man knew how to align himself.

General Zia was genuinely impressed and intrigued by anyone who had managed to stay in office for longer than he had. He had asked a number of veterans of the world stage what their secret was but nobody had ever given him the advice he could use in Pakistan. Fidel Castro had told him to stay true to his mission and drink lots of water with his rum. Kim Il-Sung advised him not to watch depressing films. Reagan had patted Nancy’s shoulder and said, “Nice birthday cards.” King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia was more forthright than most: “How would I know? Ask my doctor.”

With Ceaufjescu, General Zia had the comfort of being a total stranger so he could afford to be direct.

The meeting had taken place in a small conference room on the forty-third floor of the Manila Hilton. The interpreter, a plump, twenty-six-year-old woman in a shoulder-padded suit, was shocked when General Zia cut the pleasantries short and said he wanted to use their scheduled ten minutes to learn about statecraft from His Highness. Ceaucescu’s Dracula smile widened, he put a hand on the interpreter’s thigh and mumbled: “
Noi voi tot learn de la each alt
.”

General Zia imagined that Ceaucescu was saying that we should all drink a pint of fresh blood every day.

“We must all learn from each other,” the interpreter interpreted.

“How have you managed to stay in office for such a long time?”

“
Cum have tu conducere la spre stay in servidu pentru such un timp indelungat?
” the interpreter asked Ceausescu, placing a leather folder on her lap.

Ceaucescu spoke for about two minutes, jabbing his fingers, opening and closing the palms of his hands and finally reaching for the interpreter’s thigh. He found himself patting the leather folder.

“Believe only ten per cent of what your intelligence agencies tell you about public opinion. The key is that they should either love you or fear you; your decline starts the day they become indifferent to you.”

“How do I know if they are becoming indifferent?”

“Find out first-hand. Surprise them, go out to restaurants, show up at sports matches. Do you have football? Go to football matches, take a walk at night. Listen to what people have to say and then believe only ten per cent of what they say because when they are with you they will also lie. But after they have met you they are bound to love you and they will tell other people who will also love you.”

General Zia nodded eagerly while Ceaucescu spoke, and then invited him to be the chief guest at the National Day Parade, knowing full well that he would never come. He was getting up to leave when Ceaucescu shouted something to the interpreter. General Zia came back towards the interpreter, who had now opened her folder and spread it on her lap.

“Before you go to football matches, make sure that your team wins.”

General Zia tried to go to some of these public gatherings, but as soon as he left the VIP area and mingled with the people he would realise that he was amid a hired crowd; their flag-waving and slogans well rehearsed. Many of them just stiffened when he walked by and he could tell that they were soldiers in civvies. Sometimes they seemed scared of him, but then he would look at Brigadier TM by his side, using his elbows to keep the crowd at bay and he would immediately know that it wasn’t him they were scared of, they just didn’t want to be noticed by Brigadier TM. He went to some cricket matches and found out that people were more interested in the game and didn’t seem too bothered about loving him or fearing him.

There was only one thing left to do now that Brigadier TM wasn’t on his side; put Comrade Ceaucescu’s advice to the test. To go out of the Army House without his bodyguards.

Instead of retiring to his study after his night prayers, he went to the bedroom where the First Lady was sitting on a chair reading a story to their youngest daughter. He kissed his daughter’s head, sat down and waited for the First Lady to finish the story. His heart was beating fast at the prospect of the impending adventure. He looked at his wife and daughter as if he was departing for a far-off battle from which he might or might not return.