Part 9 (2/2)

”We know someone who can find out,” he said with his chin on my shoulder. I could feel the heat from his cheek.

”I don't trust him. And what am I going to say? 'Officer Bannon, can you use your connections to shed light on the circ.u.mstances of the tragic demise of a certain Colonel s.h.i.+gri who might or might not have worked for the CIA, and who might or might not have killed himself?'”

”You have to start somewhere.”

I wiped the tip of the sword vigorously one last time before putting it in the scabbard.

”I am not starting anything. I am looking for an ending here.”

He brought his lips to my ear again and whispered, ”Sometimes there is a blind spot right under your gaze.” His cardamom breath raged like the waves of a sweet sea in my ears.

I must have dozed off because when I wake up, the shock of being in the dark is new and someone is trying to prod the back of my head with what seems to be a brick. My initial reaction is that the pitch dark is trick-f.u.c.king my brains and I am inventing imaginary company. I close my eyes again and put the back of my head on the same spot on the wall and again it gets a little push from the brick. I turn around and trace the outline of the brick with my fingers. It is protruding half an inch from the wall. As I am tracing its outline, with a heart that desperately wants to believe in miracles, the brick moves again. It's being pushed from the other side. I put my hand on it and gently push it back. This time, it's pushed towards me more forcefully. The brick is now jutting halfway out from the wall. I hold onto it and gently ease it out of the wall, hoping for the cell to be flooded with light, with bird-song. Nothing happens. It's still as dark as the Mughals intended it to be. I squeeze my hand into the gap, my fingers touch another brick. I prod at it and the brick moves, I give it a little push, it disappears. Still not even a flicker of light. I can feel human breath held at the other end, then gently released. I hear a giggle, a well-formed, deliberate, throaty man's giggle.

The giggle stops and a whisper comes through the hole in the wall; a casual whisper as if we are two courtiers in the Court for the Commons in the Fort, waiting for Akbar the Great to arrive.

”Are you hurting?”

The voice asks me this as if enquiring about the temperature in my cell.

”No,” I say. I don't know why I sound so emphatic but I do. ”Not at all. Are you?”

The giggle returns. Some nut they put in here and forgot, I tell myself.

”Keep your brick safe. You will put it back when I tell you to. You can tell them anything about me but not about this.”

”Who are you?” I ask without bothering to put my face near the hole. My voice echoes in the dungeon and the darkness suddenly comes alive, a womb full of possibilities.

”Calm down,” he whispers back intensely. ”Speak in the hole.”

”What are you here for? What's your name?” I whisper, with half my face in the hole.

”I am not so stupid that I'd give you my name. This place is full of spies.”

I wait for him to say more. I s.h.i.+ft my position and put my ear in the hole. I wait. He speaks after a long pause. ”But I can tell you why I am here.”

I keep quiet and wait for him to read me his charge sheet, but he stays quiet, perhaps needing encouragement from me.

”I'm listening,” I say.

”For killing General Zia,” he says.

b.l.o.o.d.y civilians, I want to shout in his face. Major Kiyani has done it deliberately, thrown me into a king-sized grave and given me a crazy civilian for a neighbour and created a channel of communication. This is probably his idea of torture for people from good families.

”Really?” I say with the famous s.h.i.+gri sneer. ”You didn't do a very good job of it. I spoke to him two days ago and he sounded very alive to me.”

For a civilian his response is very measured.

”So are you his personal guest? What did you do to deserve this honour?”

”I am from the armed forces. There's been a misunderstanding.”

I can tell he is impressed because he is quiet for a long time.

”You're not lying?” he says, his voice half-question, half-bewilderment.

”I am still in uniform,” I say, stating the fact but it sounds like an attempt to rea.s.sure myself.

”Put your face in front of the hole, I want to see you.”

I put my face in the hole and whisper excitedly. ”You got a light?” If he has got a light, he might have a cigarette as well.

I am stunned when the spit hits my eye, too stunned even to respond in kind. By the time I come up with ”What the f.u.c.k?”, he has shoved the brick back in the hole and I am left rubbing my eye and feeling like an idiot, spat on by someone whose name I don't know, whose face I haven't seen.

What did I say? I get up in anger and start to pace up and down the room, my feet already know when to stop and turn. I try to remember my last words to him. All I told him was that I am still wearing my uniform. I thought civilians loved our uniforms. There are songs on the radio, and dramas on television and special editions of newspapers celebrating this uniform. There are hundreds of thousands of ladies out there waiting to hand their phone number to someone in uniform. My civilian neighbour is probably suffering from an extreme case of jealousy.

How the h.e.l.l am I supposed to know about civilians or what they think? All I know about them is from television or newspapers. On Pakistan National Television they are always singing our praises. The only newspaper that we get in the Academy is the Pakistan Times Pakistan Times which on any given day has a dozen pictures of General Zia, and the only civilians who figure in it are the ones lining up to pay their respects to him. They never tell you about the nutters who want to spit at you. which on any given day has a dozen pictures of General Zia, and the only civilians who figure in it are the ones lining up to pay their respects to him. They never tell you about the nutters who want to spit at you.

I hear the brick sc.r.a.pe against the other bricks. I hear the low whistle from the hole in the wall. I think of replacing my own brick in the wall and turning my loneliness into solitude, as Obaid used to say. But my neighbour is in a communicative mood. I put my ear on the side of the hole, making sure that no part of my face is in his line of attack.

”Are you going to apologise?” he whispers, obviously taunting me.

”For what?” I ask casually, without putting my face to the hole in the wall, without bothering to lower my voice.

”Shh. You'll get us killed,” he says furiously. ”You guys put me here.”

”Who are we guys?”

”The khakis. The army people.”

”But I am from the air force,” I say, trying to create a wedge between the nation's firmly united armed forces.

”What's the difference? You guys have wings? You guys have b.a.l.l.s?”

I decide to ignore his jibes and try to have a proper conversation with him. I want to give him a chance to prove that he is not a complete civilian nutcase before I slam the brick in his face.

”How long have you been here?”

”Since two days before you people hanged Prime Minister Bhutto.”

I ignore his attempt to implicate me in crimes that I have clearly not committed. ”What did you do?”

”Have you heard of the All Pakistan Sweepers Union?” I can tell from the pride in his voice that he expects me to know it, but I don't, because I have no interest in the politics of this profession, if cleaning the gutters can be called a profession at all.

”Of course. The body that represents the janitors.”

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