Noon (18 page)

The manager beamed. ‘Thank you, Mr Narses, sir. Please also convey my warmest regards to Mr Sahil. He is a valiant hero of this country. I will never forget his courage.’

‘Good, good, Meeru. Now, tell me: broadband working fine?’

The manager nodded. ‘Sir with your duas. Thank you. I am, you know, a loyal Qasimic Call customer.’

‘I know, Meeru. And QC is what it is because of the duas of people like you.’

‘Yes, Mr Narses, sir. How many companies now?’

‘Eleven,’ Narses replied with such amazement that it was as though he had himself posed the question. ‘Can you believe it? From one room in Mr Tabassum’s house to a
conglomerate of eleven companies. At the time he’d just left politics. I was handling his finances so I can tell you he didn’t have fifty thousand rupees to his name. Can you believe
it, a man of fifty with no more than fifty thousand roops in his bank account. And six children to support.’

I had been left out of the count. Narses looked over to us and bunched up his fingers so as to give the impression that the conversation took place out of our earshot. Isffy looked at me with
fatigue, as though he had seen these sycophantic performances many times before. Narses, having turned back to the manager, was saying: ‘But he had foresight. He saw then, now fifteen years
ago, that the future was communication. He began small: with phone cards and cyber-optic cables, then broadband, cable network, payphones, LDI, wireless. He branched out: he dammed one revenue
stream and channelled it into another area. He worked on margins, he scaled economies. He didn’t waste a breath. When he wasn’t working, he was reading. His first love was politics
remember, not business. So he had to learn it all from scratch. He tells me, “Narses, when I began I didn’t know that equity had nothing to do with horses and liquidity, nothing to do
with water.” ’

‘Sir, good one!’ Meeru laughed. ‘Must remember that. Good one, sir, good one.’

Narses, seeing the components of his joke fall into place, laughed too. His very white, unusually long teeth showed. He seemed more boyish than ever. There was something of the tragedy of late
Elvis about him, of the weight having come to the still youthful face.

Serious again, he went on: ‘But now look at the result: he has channels, a newspaper, shopping malls here and in La Mirage, real estate, a brokerage house. And you know he oversees every
company himself. I handle the brokerage side of things. So if you don’t mind my saying it . . .’

‘No, sir, please, anything . . .’ the manager said.

‘Liquidity! I can’t pass solidity without the man finding out. I have so much as to open my nada and he calls: “Narses, what the bloody hell do you think you’re up
to?” My little nephew, Saif,’ he said, now once again looking over to us and bunching up his fingers into a petitioning flower, ‘has opened a bowling alley and go-cart company. A
small thing, you know, a children’s thing. But mind you, a money-earner. The boy’s sharp like his dad. Do you know, a day doesn’t go by when Mr Tabassum is not himself aware of
how many carts have gone around those tracks, how many balls have rolled down those alleys.’

The manager held so far in thrall became confidential. He took Narses aside and they spoke for a few minutes, now truly out of earshot. When they were finished, Narses nodded. ‘I’ll
look into it, Meeru. I’ll see what I can do. Tell the boy to come and see me.’

‘Will do, sir.’

Then, maintaining a furtive expression of concern, Narses surveyed the restaurant. Seeing no familiar diners, his eye paused gravely on our empty glasses.

‘Meeru, get the boys another drink, will you?’

‘Sir, of course. Another lime passion?’

‘Lime passion? I like it. Get me one too. But none . . .’ Narses made a gesture of a bottle pouring, ‘of
that
passion for me.’

‘No, sir,’ the manager replied, ‘all our drinks are non-alcoholic.’

When he had taken leave of Narses, the manager came up to Isffy and shook his hand warmly. ‘It’s such a pleasure to have you dining with us again, son. I’ve known you since you
were this high,’ he said putting his hand to his waist. ‘At the time Mr Tabassum was in and out of Faisalabad Jail. The Gul years, you know. He was so brave, I can’t tell you,
son. Once, I remember, they had him in a cage for thirty-six hours. In the day they would cover it in a black leather cloth and sprinkle water on it to raise the humidity inside. They wanted him to
sign an admission of treason. We had all signed, but not your father. They couldn’t get him to crack. When he came back to the cell after being tortured for days, we asked him how he had
withstood it. And do you know what he said: “It was nothing, Meeru. They made a miscalculation; that was all. They dragged it on too long. If they had asked in the first twelve hours, I would
have signed anything. But when a man exceeds what he thought were his limits, he becomes a little cocky.” Very brave, a tiger of Punjab.’

The manager’s praise of our father seemed to make Isffy uncomfortable, and he was visibly relieved when Meeru asked, with a quick look in my direction, ‘Your
friend?’

‘No, my brother!’ Isffy exclaimed. ‘Can you believe it?’

Doubt entered Mir Anwar’s face. He seemed to be trying to work out how this was possible. At last smiling from embarrassment, he said, ‘Saif . . .’

‘No, no, Rehan,’ Issfy replied, taking a strange pleasure in the awkwardness of the situation. ‘A brother from
yet
another mother.’

Mir Anwar must have felt it was not right to ask more. But welcoming me, he said, ‘Mr Sahil exact.’

Narses, who had been watching the exchange with an intent, but unreadable expression, now walked over with arms outstretched. ‘Baabs,’ he said to Isffy, ‘I’ve missed you.
Come here.’

Just then, the restaurant shook with the thunder of protestors outside.

Lunch with Narses, though a bland, disorganized affair, full of cellular interruptions, was important from our point of view for a few reasons. One: to have seen the expression
on Narses’s face when I brought up Mirwaiz’s offer to drive me north. It happened like this.

He had said, unconvincingly, ‘Abba is really looking forward to spending some time with you. When were you thinking of going up to La Mirage?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, draining the green drink to its icy dregs, ‘I was thinking of just hanging out in Port bin Qasim for a while, then making my way up slowly.
Your very charming driver offered to take me.’

‘That’s quite impossible,’ Narses said, pale from the force of his reaction, his voice tight, ‘your father would never allow it. The interior of our lovely country is now
a dangerous place. It wasn’t when I was a child; nor even when Isffy was a child . . .’

‘You didn’t know me when I was a child,’ Isffy cut in, ‘Shaista was still herself a child.’

‘What difference does it make? What I’m saying is that it was safe till ten years ago, but is very risky now. It was stupid of Mirwaiz to suggest it. I must scold that boy.’
Observing his reaction, I thought then that this was a nerve Isffy must never touch.

Narses, a conciliatory tone entering his voice, said, ‘But why drive? Stay. Hang out. Soak up Port bin Qasim and when you’re ready to leave, fly. It’s a forty-five minute
flight, you know. I hope you’re finding the QC guest house comfortable? I did it up myself.’

‘I haven’t . . .’ I began.

‘Oh, yes, of course. You came straight from the airport. Well, you’ll see it after
lunch. Be sure to tell me how you find it.’

‘He won’t be seeing it after lunch; he’s staying with me,’ Isffy said.

And now something else showed in Narses’s face, something passionless and battle-ready, seeming not so much to hide emotion as threat. I knew too little then to understand what was behind
it, but Isffy seemed to catch its every vibration.

As lunch ended, the manager reappeared with a young man. He wore grey shapeless trousers and a yellow checked shirt. He had a thick beard and small hard eyes, partially hidden
behind the smudged and greasy lenses of his steel-rimmed glasses. At the centre of his dark forehead was a thick grey callous with the texture of elephant skin. I recognized it immediately as a
prayer mark, and was chilled to see so self-defacing a sign of piety in one so young. Mir Anwar, too, elegantly dressed, the manager of a fashionable restaurant, seemed embarrassed by his
son’s appearance. As for Narses and Isffy, a look of open disgust crept into their faces at the sight of him.

‘You’ve raised a mullah, Mir Anwar,’ Narses said, somewhat thunderously. ‘Had I known, I might not have employed him at QC.’

Mir Anwar reddened, but tried to laugh it off. ‘Sir, what can I tell you, this new generation, they have funny ideas. We were not like this. Of course we were good Muslims, but never so
showy, sir.’

‘What’s your name, son?’ Narses said, with the expression of a man confronted with a hideous deformity.

‘Bilal,’ the boy said, shrinking from their scrutiny.

‘Bilal,’ Narses said, as if committing the name to memory. ‘Well, Bilal, let me look to see if there’s an opening for a promotion. How long have you been working for
us?’

‘Sir, three years.’

Narses did not listen to his reply and looked away. When a second later he realized Bilal still stood there, he craned his neck around, and muttered, ‘Well, good. We’ll see what we
can do. But . . .’ And now he grew animated, as if all this time he had been working up his resolve. ‘You’d do well to shave off, or at least trim, that beard a little.
We’re a modern company and Mr Tabassum does not like to see this overt show of religion in the workplace. Your religion is for your house; and it does not make you any less of a
Muslim.’ He spoke in a tone of upper-class authority that was at once assured and uncertain. I had heard it used many times in India, often by stern granddames with young men of religion;
there was an element of fear in it, as though they hoped, by the sheer force of their nerve, to quash a rebellion in its early stages.

The boy nodded and seemed about to reply, but thought better of it and simply nodded again.

When he had gone, relief passed over Narses’s face. ‘How awful,’ he said, ‘how awful. More than anything, how ugly. And in our own company! Mir Anwar, you know, was a
Zeban-e-Pak man. That he should have raised this little fundoo. How awful!’

Then, as if wishing to shield the newcomer from these grim realities, Narses turned to me and said, ‘Mummy wants you to come over to the house for Sunday crabs and beer.’

That evening – Saturday evening – once I had moved into Isffy’s house, and we sat on black leather beanbags drinking beer, he said, ‘He hates that
you’re a Tabassum, you see. And, forgive my saying it, a back-door one at that!’

The large room we sat in was like that of a child. Model aeroplanes hung from the ceilings; posters of racing cars, battleships and faded beauties – Turlington, Cindy Crawford and
Evangelista – covered the walls; and, when the power failed, which was often, the room glowed with the ghostly green light of planets and stars from an Aerospace museum.

‘What do you mean?’ I said, and laughed. ‘I thought he loved the Tabassums.’

‘He loves my father. Our father, sorry. More than life itself, he loves him. But he hates the rest of us. He thinks it’s unfair that people who have not proved their love should be
close to the man he has worked so hard to be near.’

‘Will he try to make trouble?’

‘Only if he has the opportunity. And only if he feels threatened. You haven’t come to Port bin Qasim eyeing the Tabassum millions. So what does he have to fear?’

In this I detected a note of warning from Isffy himself. I realized I was in eddying waters, full of cross-currents. But it didn’t worry me too much: it was true I was not after the
Tabassum millions. I had come to spend time with Isffy, to let the place wash over me, and to make my way north, in my own time, to La Mirage. My visits to my father’s country in the past had
been marked by the short, intense periods of seclusion I spent with his family. They had, I felt, been responsible for the raised expectations, and the big disappointments. I wanted now to enjoy my
strange patrimony, with its many players and new country, to feel it more as an opportunity than an obligation.

Two empty beer bottles, the red labels drenched and peeling, stood on the thick glass of the coffee table. Eyeing them, my brother said, ‘More beers?’

‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘Do you want me to get them?’

‘No, no,’ Isffy said, with a smile, ‘Zulfi! Beer aur laana!’

An assenting growl was heard from the well of the house, and soon the massive figure of Isffy’s bodyguard appeared with two amber bottles.

‘How come you need him?’

‘Everyone does,’ Isffy replied, pouring the beers into clear tumblers, ‘there’s a lot of kidnapping in PbQ, especially if your father’s as rich as mine . . . ours
is.’

Then, as if wanting to get something straight, he said, ‘You know, Rehan, I met your mother once.’

‘Really?’ I asked, genuinely surprised. ‘Where?’

‘In Nepal, actually. Our father had taken my sister and me on a holiday there. On the plane, he got friendly with this nice woman in a purple and white polka-dot shirt – I remember
that shirt so well – and when we landed in Kathmandu, he said that he’d made a friend who was going to join us on our trip. I remember that trip really well because it was just before
he left my mother.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling in some inexplicable way guilty. ‘And my mother?’

‘That was her! She was the woman in the polka-dot shirt. I realize now that they would have had an arrangement beforehand, but this, at least, was how it was presented to us.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Bas, I’m sure. My sister remembers too.’

‘Do you recall anything about her?’

‘No, just the shirt and the big, seventies-style sunglasses. I hope you don’t mind my saying this?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Because you know, there’s no issue. We’re now both the sons of his ex-women, so what does it matter, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Then can I ask you one more thing?’