Moth Smoke (15 page)

And slowly, the machhar climbs.

The patang paces back and forth far above.

Then suddenly, paper screaming in the wind, the patang dives at the machhar. The machhar makes an agile leap to one side, narrowly avoiding having its string hooked, and the patang spins and climbs again.

Mumtaz says a quiet ‘Olé.’

‘He’s in trouble,’ I say. ‘The patang’s not going to let him get high enough for it to be a fair contest.’

Having lost some altitude, the machhar begins to jerk upward again, crisscrossing the sky warily.

Again the patang dives, and again the machhar dances off, too unsteady at this height to have any real chance of winning, but this time their strings entwine and the kite fight is joined.

The patang takes string like a sprinter, streaming away.

The machhar wobbles unsteadily.

Powdered glass on each kite’s string cuts into the other’s, but the patang’s string is moving much more quickly, giving it more of a bite and less time to fray.

I follow the lines with my eyes, taut and straight from the roof, limp and curved from the driveway. The patang’s posture is solid, strengthening. The machhar twitches weakly.

And with a final tug the machhar’s string is cut, leaving it to flop onto its back and drift gracefully, more steady in
death than it was in life, until it plunges onto a lawn several houses away.

A high-pitched victory cry from the rooftop: ‘Ai-bo!’

And in the driveway the servant boy sucks his finger, cut by the glass, as he gathers what string he can save with his other hand. There isn’t much. He looks up at the patang, now a tiny dot in the distance, before trudging back to the servant quarters, defeated, kiteless.

Only then does it occur to Mumtaz and me that Allima still hasn’t returned.

‘What should we do?’ I ask her.

‘Let’s ring the bell.’

A woman answers the door, barefoot. She has beautiful feet. ‘I’m sorry, but Amma is meditating.’

‘Meditating?’ Mumtaz gives me a look. ‘But she was just reading his palm.’

The woman raises the big toe of her left foot. ‘She said she is done. You know all you need to know.’

‘But she was just beginning.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Mumtaz is ready to continue protesting, but I take her elbow with a grin and lead her back to the car. ‘Forget it,’ I say.

She shakes her head. ‘How strange.’

‘Well, you know how these mystics can be.’

She looks at me. ‘You’re happy about this, aren’t you? You thought she was a fake from the start.’

‘Amused, perhaps. And a little happy we can leave. I need a joint pretty badly.’

‘Where can we go?’

I think. I don’t want to go back to my place. It’s almost evening, not too hot now, and I’d like to be out in the open. ‘How about Jallo Park?’ I suggest.

‘I’ve never been there.’

‘They have a zoo.’

‘Really?’

‘With peacocks.’

‘Let’s go.’

We drive down the canal, cross the Mall, and head out of town. I roll. Mumtaz prefers open windows to the AC, and the rush of air makes it difficult to keep the mixed tobacco and hash in my palm. But I manage. When I’m done, I ask her if I should light it and she says yes. I slide the car’s ashtray out and hold it in my hand, underneath the joint, to catch any burning pieces that might fall as we smoke.

‘Why Zulfikar Manto?’ I ask her.

‘Manto was my favorite short-story writer.’

‘And?’

‘And he wrote about prostitutes, alcohol, sex, Lahore’s underbelly.’

‘Zulfikar?’

‘That you should have guessed: Manto’s pen was his sword. So: Zulfikar.’

I take a hit and cough through my nostrils, gently. ‘How have you managed to keep it a secret?’

‘It isn’t that hard. No one keeps tabs on where I am during the day. And I usually don’t slip out to work at night unless Ozi’s away.’

‘Don’t the servants say anything?’

‘They have, once or twice. Ozi asked me what I was up to and I told him I’d gone out for a get-together at somebody’s place. That was that. Ozi isn’t the untrusting type.’

The joint’s finished by the time we pull into the Jallo Park entrance. It’s the middle of the week, so there aren’t too many people here, and no one bothers us. We stroll around the caged animals, nicely buzzed.

‘So how are things with Ozi?’ I finally ask.

Mumtaz shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You said you’d been having problems.’

‘We are.’

We stop in front of the peacock area. A pair of albinos strut by, the male unfurling his white fan, making it shake by quivering his hips.

‘That’s a clear signal,’ I say. ‘Nature knows how to be direct.’

Mumtaz laughs, her eyes on the peacock.

The peahen is less impressed. She walks away.

If there’s ever an appropriate time to ask Mumtaz what’s going on with us, it’s now. I want to know what she thinks
of me, of the time we’re spending together, of where this is headed. And I’d like to tell her that I’m confused as hell. But my tail seems stuck and I can’t unfurl it.

The moment passes.

We walk on, past other fences, other animals.

I ask her about Muazzam.

‘He’s fine,’ she says. ‘He seems to like Lahore.’

‘What does he do when you go out?’

‘He has a nanny, Pilar. She’s lovely. She cut the umbilical cord.’

‘In America?’

‘No, here. Muazzam had me on a leash until she came along. But now I can disappear for the entire day and I don’t have to worry about him. I could disappear forever, I suppose.’

I grin. ‘That wouldn’t be very motherly of you.’

She turns, and I’m shocked to see anger in her eyes. For a moment I think she’s about to punch me.

‘What?’ I ask softly.

‘Who are you to judge me?’

‘I wasn’t judging you.’

‘Yes, you were.’

‘I’m sorry. I don’t even know what I said.’

She shakes her head and walks on, and I raise my face and squeeze my eyes shut, pissed at myself for being unable to understand. I follow a few steps behind her. We don’t speak
until we reach the car, but I don’t want to get in without making amends somehow, so I take hold of her elbow and turn her around.

‘Listen, Mumtaz, I’m sorry. Really. I’ve had a wonderful day with you. I think you’re wonderful.’ I pause, aware that I’m being astoundingly inarticulate. ‘I don’t want you to be angry with me.’

Well, I’m clearly no poet. But what I said seems to work, because her face softens and she says, ‘Forget it. It has more to do with me than with you.’ That’s it, no explanation, but at least my apology seems to be accepted.

Once, on the drive home, she holds my hand between gear shifts, between third and second, and I’m glad for the reassuring touch of her skin on mine. We talk, but we’re talking about nothing, just reestablishing a comfortable space, and although our first fight hasn’t been erased, I think it’s safe to say we’ve survived.

When we get home we kiss, again on the lips, soft and tender and brief, like a kiss between friends, except that I always kiss my friends on the cheek.

I have to make two trips to Murad Badshah’s rickshaw depot to get hold of him. That’s usually how it works, because Murad Badshah’s rarely in and there’s no telephone number where he can be reached. I once told him he ought to get a pager and he said that pagers are an American idea and the
only good thing America’s ever given us is Aretha Franklin. Bizarre fellow, Murad is. Anyway, on my first trip I leave a message saying I’ll be back at eight the following night. On my second I cruise down Ferozepur Road, past Ichra, hoping he’ll be there, because the weekend’s almost here and Raider’s relying on me.

He’s eating dinner, his drivers and mechanics gathered around him in a circle, their food on metal plates on the floor of the workshop.

‘Hullo, old chap,’ he calls out as he sees me, surging to his feet. Or rather, he says something to that effect with his mouth full as one of the younger mechanics helps him get his bulk off the floor.

He offers his wrist for me to shake, because his hands are greasy.

‘Will you do us the honor of joining us for dinner?’ he asks. ‘Tonight we’re having a special feast. Lakshmi Chowk’s best.’

I hadn’t planned on it, but a free meal is a free meal, and I’m partial to Lakshmi myself. ‘I’d love to,’ I say.

A generous space is cleared for me next to Murad Badshah and I sit down, rolling up my sleeves as I grab a naan and get to work. I’m famished, and I can hold my own when it comes to eating, so I match Murad Badshah bite for bite, until he pats his stomach, releases a resounding belch, and announces that he’s stuffed.

A boy brings us mixed tea, milk and sugar already present in generous quantities, and Murad Badshah takes a dainty sip, the small finger of his left hand extended away from his teacup.

A driver wearing a Sindhi cap grabs the roll of flesh that circles his midsection and says, ‘I’m about to explode.’

‘I saw it last night on television, you know,’ says another, a drop of sweat hanging from his nose. ‘The explosion.’

‘What was it like?’ asks a mechanic.

‘They did it under a mountain,’ explains sweaty nose. ‘The mountain trembled like an earthquake. Dust flew into the sky. And the rock turned dark red, like the color of blood.’

‘How would you know?’ asks Sindhi cap. ‘You only have a black-and-white television.’

‘But it’s a very good one. You can almost see colors.’

‘Bloody fool. It’s black-and-white.’

‘No, but you can sometimes tell what the real colors are. I swear.’

‘Nonsense.’

Sweaty nose doesn’t argue. ‘The blast was fantastic,’ he says to the mechanic.

‘How fantastic could it be?’ Murad Badshah asks. ‘It was underground.’

‘The shaking, the dust. It was too good.’

Murad Badshah farts loudly. ‘There. Shaking. Dust. Was that too good as well?’

Sindhi cap pinches his nostrils shut. ‘That was a bad one, Murad bhai.’

‘My bad one won’t double the price of petrol. It won’t send tomatoes to a hundred rupees a kilo. But our bloody nuclear fart will.’

‘Let tomatoes go to two hundred,’ says Sindhi cap. ‘I hate tomatoes anyway. And if the price of petrol doubles, so what? We’ll raise our prices. We’ve done it before.’

‘And who will pay?’

‘The tomato farmers who are getting two hundred rupees a kilo.’

This gets a laugh.

‘Good one, yaar,’ says sweaty nose.

Murad Badshah shakes his head. ‘This nuclear race is no joke. Poor people are in trouble.’

‘Let us be in trouble,’ Sindhi cap says, to the approving nods of the group.

‘The Christians have a bomb. The Jews have a bomb. The Hindus have a bomb.’

‘The Buddhists have a bomb,’ interjects sweaty nose.

‘Right,’ continues Sindhi cap. ‘Everyone has a bomb. And now the Muslims have a bomb. Why should we be the only ones without it?’

‘And when prices go up, and schools shut down, and hospitals run out of medicine, then?’

‘Then we’ll work twice as hard and eat half as much.’

‘We’ll eat grass,’ says sweaty nose, quoting from one of the Prime Minister’s speeches.

‘And do you think people who eat grass will still go for rides on rickshaws?’ asks an exasperated Murad Badshah.

‘At least we’ll be alive,’ Sindhi cap says.

‘We would have been alive anyway. The entire world knew we had the bomb.’

‘I didn’t know,’ says sweaty nose.

‘Yes, and it’s one thing to say you have it, and it’s another to shake mountains,’ says Sindhi cap.

Murad Badshah snorts. ‘Shake mountains. We’ll see who gives a damn about shaking mountains when we can’t pay for the rent of this depot and our rickshaws break down and the only things for sale at Lakshmi are boiled onions.’

‘We had to protect ourselves.’

‘My roof protects me,’ says Murad Badshah. ‘My full belly protects me. You boys think we’ve done a great thing. But you’ll see. Difficult times are ahead.’

Sindhi cap and sweaty nose exchange a look. But no more is said. The mechanics clear the food and the drivers head out to their rickshaws to begin their night rounds.

Murad Badshah and I remain seated.

When we’re alone, I tell him I need five hundred rupees’ worth of hash.

He strokes his jowls. ‘Five hundred, old boy? May I ask why such a large amount?’

‘It’s for some friends.’

‘Heavy smokers?’

‘Clearly.’

He gets up, opens a toolbox, rummages around inside, pulls out some hash, and plops it in my lap. It’s about the size of my fist and wrapped in a transparent sheet of plastic.

‘This is fine stuff. I’m giving it to you for five hundred, but you can easily sell it to people of means for two thousand or more.’

‘Why are you giving me so much?’

He laughs, his body shaking. ‘I help out my friends. And when a friend buys in bulk, he gets a fair price.’

I grin. ‘Thanks.’

He nods. Then he takes something out of his pocket. ‘See if they like this as well.’

‘What is it?’

‘Heroin.’

‘No thanks.’

‘You never know. Your friends might be interested. It’s not much. I’ll throw it in for free with what you’re buying.’

I examine it. ‘It looks like hash to me.’

‘It’s mixed with charas. But believe me, the heroin is there.’

I slip it into my pocket and thank Murad Badshah, turning down his offer to smoke a joint, because I don’t want to arrive at Raider’s place too late. On my way I break off a
healthy chunk of hash for myself. I’m almost out, after all, and five hundred for the rest is still a bargain.

Raider lives with his parents in a housing colony off the canal near the university. I ring the buzzer and he comes out of the house to see who it is.

‘Partner,’ he says when he recognizes my face over the gate.

We shake hands. ‘I’ve got it,’ I tell him, handing it over.

‘This is a hell of a lot of hash,’ he says. ‘Is it good?’

‘Yes.’ Murad Badshah never fools around with inferior stuff.

‘I can’t take it from you for so little. Here, take another five hundred.’

I wave his hand away. ‘It only cost five.’

He pushes the note into my palm. ‘I’m not going to give it to them for less than fifteen hundred. If you don’t take a cut I’ll feel guilty.’