Moth Smoke (16 page)

So he is selling the stuff, after all. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I insist.’

Pride tells me to give it back, but common sense tells pride to shut up, have a joint, and relax. I shrug and put the note into my wallet.

‘Do you think you could do this again?’ Raider asks.

‘Get more pot?’

‘This much for so little.’

‘I could, I suppose.’

‘There are definitely people who would buy from you. It might be good, you know, keep you liquid till you find some work.’

‘I’m liquid enough, thanks.’

‘Come on, yaar. Don’t get defensive. What about the electricity? A little extra cash can’t hurt.’

‘Enough, Raider.’

‘Okay. Sorry. Thanks for helping me out. I appreciate it.’

We shake hands and I head off. In the car my wallet sits snugly between my rump and the seat, a folded note thicker than it was a little while before. I wait for regret and guilt to come, but they don’t show up. The whole thing is between Raider and his friends. If he’s selling and they’re buying, it really has nothing to do with me. Just a little cash for my troubles, money that will make life easier for a few days. And it isn’t another loan, another debt to Fatty Chacha, who can hardly afford to lend to me in the first place.

Besides, I’ve topped off my stash, and that’s cause to celebrate.

When I get home I find Manucci staring at a candle on the mantelpiece for no apparent reason.

I walk over to him, my shadow dancing on a different wall from his.

‘What is it?’ I ask him.

‘A moth in love, saab,’ Manucci says.

Sometimes I don’t understand what he’s talking about. But I do see a moth circling above our heads.

‘Bring me the fly swatter,’ I tell him.

‘No, saab.’

I hit him across the top of his head, not too hard and with an open hand, but forcefully enough to let him know that I won’t put up with any impertinence. ‘What do you mean, No, saab?’

‘Please, saab,’ he says, cringing. ‘Watch.’

The moth circles lower, bouncing like a drunk pilot in turbulence. I could clap him out of existence but I don’t, because I’m getting a little curious myself.

The moth starts to make diving passes at the candle.

‘He’s an aggressive fellow, this moth,’ I say to Manucci.

‘Love, saab,’ he replies.

‘I never knew you were such a romantic.’

He blushes. ‘The poets say some moths will do anything out of love for a flame.’

‘How do you know what the poets say?’

‘I used to sneak into Pak Tea House to listen.’

The moth stops swooping, enters a holding pattern about two feet above the candle, and then lands on the wall in front of us. It’s gray with a black dot on its back that looks like an eye.

‘That’s an ugly moth,’ I say.

I wait for Manucci’s response, but he says nothing.

The moth doesn’t move.

‘He’s afraid,’ Manucci says.

‘He should be. Love’s a dangerous thing.’ I look carefully. Dark streaks run down the moth’s folded wings. ‘Maybe he’s burnt himself.’

The moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he’s circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the wall on each round. He circles lower and lower, spinning around the candle in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain. A few times he seems to touch the flame, but dances off unhurt.

Then he ignites like a ball of hair, curling into an oily puff of fumes with a hiss. The candle flame flickers and dims for a moment, then burns as bright as before.

Moth smoke lingers.

I lift the candle and look around the mantelpiece for the moth’s body, but I can’t find it.

For a moment I think I smell burning flesh, and even though I tell myself it must be my imagination, I put the candle down feeling more than a little disgusted.

The city plays host to a fundo convention the weekend after the kamikaze moth’s last flight. The bearded boys are celebrating our latest firecracker with parades, marches, and speeches. The score is 6 to 5, and we’re up. I suppose it’s 6 all if you count their first one in ’74, but that was arguably
another match, and either way, we’re certainly not behind, even if we’re also not clearly ahead.

One night a very serious Ozi comes to see me.

He’s here to talk, but it’s too hot for him inside and I don’t want to sit in his Pajero with the air conditioner on and the engine running, so we compromise by climbing up to the roof, where it’s a bit cooler.

The last time Ozi and I were up here together was the night before he left for America, eleven years ago. That night I was the angry one, angry because he was leaving me behind, because Lahore was about to become lonely, because I’d done better than he at school, on the tests, and he was the one going abroad for college. I’d studied with the richest boys in the city, been invited to the homes of the best families. And money had never really felt like a chain until the summer they all left. Five of our class fellows were on Ozi’s flight the next day. I remember their names. And dozens of other boys we knew were flying out over the next few weeks. Nadira would be in Lahore a little longer, until September. She was our biggest crush. Ozi joked I’d never have the guts to do anything by then, and afterwards he would be the one to get her because I’d be too far away. He was wrong: I kissed Nadira many years later, after she came back to Lahore, but before she launched her husband hunt, before she left me to pursue men with Pajeros.

I have no doubt why Ozi has come. He must have found
out that I’ve been seeing Mumtaz behind his back. He probably wants to beat the hell out of me. I’d let him do it, because I know I deserve it, because I’ve betrayed him in my mind, even if little has actually happened. But Ozi knows I could thrash him if I wanted, and if he was going to beat me up he’d have come with some of his father’s men. He’s here alone because he’s decided to hit me with guilt instead of hired fists.

He still hasn’t spoken, so I ask, to make it easy for him, ‘Where’s Mumtaz?’

‘At home,’ he answers. ‘Muazzam has a fever. But I wanted to talk to you about the accident. Did you tell the police?’

‘No,’ I say, surprised.

‘Good. I wouldn’t want to get my father involved.’ He looks at me. ‘So you haven’t told anyone?’

Remembering that day, digging it out from under a month of charas and sweat, I start to get angry. ‘No,’ I answer.

‘Thanks, yaar. I must admit, I’ve been pissed off with you. I didn’t like the way you acted. It wasn’t what I expected from a friend.’

‘Really’ is all I can say.

‘We’re not the boys we were when we were seventeen,’ Ozi says. ‘But my view on friendship hasn’t changed. Friends support each other no matter what. Do you agree?’

He’s right. That’s what friends do. I’m not sure if I have any now, but when I did, when I was younger and it was
easier to have friends, that’s how I thought of them. ‘I agree,’ I say.

‘Good. I still consider you my friend. I’m ready to forget the way you acted after the accident.’

‘Thanks,’ I find myself saying, suddenly too sad to say anything else. ‘I’m sorry.’

We shake hands and embrace. But for me, holding Ozi now, this moment marks an end. I hold him tight because I’ll miss him. I already do. But he’s a bastard, and I don’t owe him a thing. And if his wife wants to see me without telling him, there’ll be no pain in my guts over it.

I say so long to Ozi tonight, and I mean it.

As the five hundred rupees I made from the hash deal with Raider quickly disappear, I consider doing it again. It seems easy enough: buy the stuff cheap from Murad Badshah and sell it dear to acquaintances with money to burn. Most of the party crowd smokes, and so does the younger banking and business community. And everyone complains about being out of hash.

The problem is that selling hash seems sleazy somehow. Lower class. I still like to think of myself as a professional, not rich, but able to stand on my own, with a decent income and a job that doesn’t involve bribing or being bribed, helping my friends with a little hash when they’re out, getting a little booze from them when I am.

But I’m not a professional anymore. And I need the money. Temporarily.

I decide to do it again.

I buy another five hundred rupees’ worth from Murad Badshah, split it into four little balls that I flatten into pancakes and wrap in plastic, and head out to a popular spot for business lunches near Mini Market. I recognize a dozen faces as soon as I come in, and a couple of people invite me to join their tables, but I turn them down because I see Akmal sitting by himself, sipping a soup while he chats on his mobile. He was one of my clients at the bank. His family sent him to Lahore a few years ago, when they thought they’d have to leave Karachi because of all the kidnappings, and he stayed, living off the income of a million-plus U.S. that he has sitting in his bank account. He does some small-time business ventures, but mainly he’s a man of leisure, twice divorced and a big pot smoker.

I stand by the door, feeling a little embarrassed, and wait until Akmal hangs up.

‘Sit,’ he says as we shake hands.

‘Why not?’ I take a seat and pick up a menu.

‘My new account officer doesn’t know the first thing about client relations,’ he says. ‘I offered him a Scotch when he came by my place and he said he doesn’t drink.’

I order some food, which is stupid, since a meal here costs much more than I can afford, but I need time to decide how to ask him if he needs some hash.

We talk general business talk for a while, and he listens closely to what I’m saying, because I know my stuff, I know the near-bankruptcies and defaults businessmen love to hear about, and my information may be dated, but it’s still good.

When the bill comes, I reach for it, but he takes it from me over my objections, his manner slightly condescending, in the way the rich condescend to their hangers-on. I should pay, being the first to get my hands on it, but the total is four fifty-three and I only have a couple hundred on me.

‘Drop by for a drink sometime,’ he tells me as he places a five hundred on the table, but I know the offer is insincere.

‘I’d love to.’ Then I flex my abs and take the plunge. ‘You know, I got my hands on some good charas today.’

‘Really?’

I hope he’ll say he wants to buy some, but he doesn’t. ‘You don’t need any, do you?’ I ask after a while.

He grins. ‘I can always use some. I’ll take whatever you can spare.’

‘I can give you about five hundred worth.’

‘Come by my place tonight.’

‘I have it here.’

He looks at me, surprised. Then he starts to laugh. ‘I love it. You people have balls, yaar. Slip it to me under the table.’

I don’t like the ‘you people’ comment but I do it anyway, startled to feel him place a note in my hand because I didn’t
see him take one out. But he’s from a business family, so I suppose this is what he was bred for.

As he drives off he rolls down a window and says, ‘You didn’t get fired for trying to sell dope to bank clients, did you?’

Laughing, he speeds away.

Maybe he doesn’t think what he said was insulting, or that someone like me can even be insulted, really. But humiliation flushes my face.

And something inside me starts to snap.

I suck the spit through my teeth and nod to myself, rage building. Then I run to my car and pull out onto Alam Road behind him, my bald tires squealing. But even though I drive like a maniac, my Suzuki’s no match for his Range Rover. I lose him near Hussein Chowk.

He probably didn’t even know I was chasing him.

I circle the roundabout, five hundred rupees richer, and I think I’d be willing to pay all of it for the chance to hit him, just once, on his double chin. Making money this way isn’t worth it. These rich slobs love to treat badly anyone they think depends on them, and if selling them dope makes them think I depend on them, I just won’t do it.

But as I’m sitting at home I realize that I sold him a hundred and twenty-five rupees of drugs for five hundred. That makes me feel a little better. Not much, but definitely a little. I promise myself never to sell to any of these rich bastards unless I can rip them off. Let them think they’re
getting a fair deal. And if they’re nasty enough, maybe I’ll slip a little heroin into their hash, just to mess with them.

Making money this way isn’t pleasant, but it’s easy, and easy money is exactly what I need, even if there isn’t enough of it to pay an electricity bill.

I spend most of my time smoking and thinking of Mumtaz. It’s been a week since we went to Jallo Park and I miss her. I tried to reach her on her mobile once, but Ozi picked up and I had to ring off without saying anything. I wish she would come to see me.

Every time I roll a joint I keep it for a while, hoping she’ll appear so I can share it with her. But she never does. And Manucci must be leaving the screen doors open, because there seem to be more moths in the house every evening, circling candles, whirring in the darkness. I kill them when I can catch them, until my fingers are slick with their silver powder. But most of the house is dark at night, and there’s little I can do about the invasion. Sometimes, when Manucci’s asleep and I have no one to talk to, I get stoned and take out my badminton racquet to smash a few. Occasionally the biggest ones make a pleasing little ping as I lob them into the ceiling, but more often they just explode silently into clouds of dust.

One night I’m doing this, sweating in the heat, my body lightly powdered with moth dust, when a car honks outside the gate.

It’s Mumtaz. She says nothing when she sees me, shirtless and clutching a badminton racket. I take her up on the roof.

‘Ozi’s out of town,’ she says. ‘And Muazzam’s crying like mad. I left him with Pilar. I had to get out for a while. I wanted to see you.’

‘Would you like a joint?’

‘Please.’

I have one rolled and waiting in my cigarette pack, so I light it and pass it over.

I watch her face in the glow of the burning hash and tobacco. She seems worried.

‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask.

She passes the joint back to me and watches me smoke it, but she doesn’t answer. Then she reaches out and wipes sweat down my shoulder with the blade of her hand. ‘What were you doing?’ she asks.