2008 - A Case of Exploding Mangoes (40 page)

Three minutes later the desert receives another shower: twenty thousand litres of A-grade aviation fuel splashes in the air, combusts itself and comes back to the desert. It’s a monsoon from hell.

And the flesh; all kinds of flesh: brown melting into white, ligaments, cartilages, flesh ripped from bones, parched flesh, charred flesh; body parts strewn around like discarded dishes at a cannibals’ feast.

The charred pages of a slim book, a hand gripping the spine, a thumb with a half-grown nail inserted firmly into the last page.

When Pakistan National Television abruptly interrupts an early-evening soap opera and starts to play a recitation from the Quran, the First Lady waits for a few minutes. This is usually a preamble to breaking news. But the mullah doing the recitation has chosen the longest surah from the Quran and the First Lady knows that he will go on for a couple of hours. The First Lady curses the Information Minister and decides to do some house chores. Her first stop is her husband’s bedroom. She picks up the glass of milk from the side table, then puts it back when she notices a black spot on the bed sheet. She looks at it closely and curls her nose at the spot of blood. “Poor man is sick.” The First Lady feels a pang of guilt which turns into anger and then utter hopelessness. “He is getting old. He should retire on health grounds if nothing else.” But she has known him for too long to harbour any hopes of a serene retirement life. The First Lady picks up the new issue of
Reader’s Digest
from the side table. There is a cover story about how to put your life back together after your husband has cheated on you. Marriage therapy? she wonders.

Not for me, she thinks, throwing the bloodstained sheet into the laundry basket.

Our Cessna circles the ball of orange fire. My eyes scan the horizon for a parachute, then the desert for a lonely figure walking away from the fire and smoke. The sky is clear blue and the desert around the ball of fire and flying debris is empty and indifferent; no one is walking out of this inferno. The pilot doesn’t have to wait long for his instructions. “It doesn’t look good. There is no point landing here.” General Beg has made up his mind. “We need to get back to Islamabad.”

He ignores my head banging at the back of his seat. “No, we cannot keep going in circles and have one more look. No, young man, we are not dropping you off here. There is nothing to look for. Come on, chin up. Behave like a soldier. We have a country to run.”

The last phase of Code Red kicks into action and the desert is assaulted by emergency vehicles of every possible size and description. Trucks full of ordinary soldiers with mission unknown, armoured cars with machine guns cocked, ambulances with oxygen cylinders at the ready, commandos in open-topped jeeps, fire engines with red helmets hanging out the doors, buses full of aircraft technicians as if Pak One has suffered a minor mechanical failure. Barricades are set up, emergency communication systems start crackling with eager voices, miles of red tape are strung around the scene of the crash.

A catering van pulls up as if the dead might feel hungry and ask for an afternoon snack.

A soldier wearing a white mask walks through the rubble carefully, trying to avoid trampling the body parts, picking his way through the pieces of smouldering metal and documents stamped secret, his eyes searching for a sign that would confirm what people in Islamabad want him to confirm. He wonders why anyone would need a confirmation from a scene as hopeless as this. But Pakistan National Television will keep playing the recitation from Quran, the flag will stay at full mast, the rumours will spread across the country but not be confirmed until the evidence is found. The First Lady will not be informed until they have definite proof.

The soldier trips on a decapitated head with glistening hair parted in the middle and finds what he was looking for.

A strange way to get killed, he thinks. It seems like he died many times over. A face broken off just above the nose, moustache half burnt but still twirled, lips and chin melted away to reveal a set of shiny white teeth, frozen in an eternal mocking grin.

As he bends down to pick up his piece of evidence, he notices a copy of the Quran, open in the middle and intact. Not a scratch on it, not a lick of fire or smoke. Before he kisses the Quran and closes it carefully he reads the verse on the page that is open in front of him and tries to recall a half-remembered story about an ancient prophet.

EOF