Part 19 (1/2)

He picked up his bottle of whisky and poured some into his gla.s.s with a tremulous hand. It sloshed, swirled and gurgled in the gla.s.s. At the door he turned back and said, ”Can you get my suitcase?”

By the time I dragged the suitcase to the living room, he was already sweating. The fire wasn't such a good idea. The sky was clear and our floating companions, the clouds, had gone back to Siberia or wherever they came from. Even the river down in the valley was silent.

Why do rivers decide to shut up on certain nights?

I dragged the suitcase into the middle of the room and fussed over the fire. The wood was dry, the weather was clear, we didn't need the b.l.o.o.d.y fire.

”I have saved a few lives in my time. Or I think I have. This whole b.l.o.o.d.y Afghan thing. I have done more than five hundred trips. All deniable missions. And now I end up with this.” He looked at the fire appreciatively. I looked at the suitcase.

My cheeks were glowing. The room was oven-hot.

”I took three days dragging this back,” he said, his voice full of remorse.

He stood up with his gla.s.s poised in front of his chest. He raised his gla.s.s to me and did a 360-degree turn. He seemed to be at a party that had gone on for too long but he was determined to get the last dance in.

”Open the suitcase,” he said.

Out of a very clear night sky a grey cloud, its edges bruised orange like a healing wound, appeared at the window as if Colonel s.h.i.+gri had called in a witness.

I opened the suitcase. It was full of money. Dollars.

”This was my mission. To retrieve this money from someone who was dead. And I buried my man there and brought this here. Do I look like an accountant? Do I pimp my men for this?”

I looked at him. We held each other's gaze. I think for a moment he realised that he was talking to his son.

”Into the fire,” he said.

If I hadn't been so sleepy I might have tried to reason with him. I might have told him that whatever his ethics of war, the money wasn't his to burn. Instead I obliged. And soon started taking pleasure in watching hundreds of little dead American presidents, White Houses and In G.o.d We Trusts In G.o.d We Trusts crumpling and turning into stashes of ash. I used both my hands and threw wads after wads of dollars into the fireplace. Soon the room was full of green smoke and twenty-five million dollars' worth of ash. I peeled off a bill from the last pile and slipped it into my pocket. Just to confirm in the morning that it wasn't a dream. crumpling and turning into stashes of ash. I used both my hands and threw wads after wads of dollars into the fireplace. Soon the room was full of green smoke and twenty-five million dollars' worth of ash. I peeled off a bill from the last pile and slipped it into my pocket. Just to confirm in the morning that it wasn't a dream.

”Go to sleep, young man. I'll keep watch. I have asked them to come and collect their pimp money.” I looked at him and laughed. His face was covered with the soot flying around the room. He looked like a badly madeup black slave in a Bollywood film. ”Wash your face before you go to sleep,” he said. Those were his last words to me.

The rain rattles the window.

”Has the monsoon started?” Obaid asks, distracted by the sudden las.h.i.+ng of rain on the window.

”Monsoon is for you people in the plains. Here it's just rain. It comes and goes.”

The Mango Party

TWENTY-NINE.

The first of the monsoon winds caught the crow gorging on mustard flowers in a sea of exploding yellows in eastern Punjab, just on the wrong side of the Pakistani border. The crow had spent a good summer, grown fat and survived a number of ambushes by gangs of Brahminy kites which looked like eagles but behaved like vultures, ruled this area unchallenged in the summer and, despite their exalted name, showed no interest in the abundant vegetation, preying instead on common crows like this visitor from across the border. The crow obviously credited his own cunning for his survival but the curse that he carried was saving him for a purpose, for a death more dramatic than being eaten alive by a bunch of greedy kites with no respect for dietary rules.

One hundred and thirty miles away from the mustard field, in Cell 4 of the Lah.o.r.e Fort, Blind Zainab folded her prayer that and heard the rustle of a snake. It was a small snake, probably the size of her middle finger, but Zainab's ears instantly recognised its barely audible scurrying. She stood still for a second, then took off her slipper and waited for the snake to move again. Keeping in mind a childhood superst.i.tion, she moved only when she was sure she could target it precisely. She brought the slipper down swiftly and, in three targeted strokes, killed it. Slipper still in hand, she stood still and her nostrils caught a whiff of the pummelled flesh. The dead snake's blood vapours floated in the dungeon air. Her headache returned with a vengeance, two invisible hammers beating at her temples with excruciating monotony. She reclined against the wall of her cell, threw her slipper away and cursed in a low voice. She cursed the man who had put her in this dark well, where she had n.o.body to talk to and was forced to kill invisible creatures to survive. ”May your blood turn to poison. May the worms eat your innards.” Blind Zainab Zainab pressed her temples with the palms of both her hands. Her whispered words travelled through the ancient air vents of the Fort and escaped into the tropical depression that had started over the Arabian Sea and was headed towards the western border. pressed her temples with the palms of both her hands. Her whispered words travelled through the ancient air vents of the Fort and escaped into the tropical depression that had started over the Arabian Sea and was headed towards the western border.

The monsoon currents induced a certain restlessness in the crow and he took off, flying into the wind. The air was pregnant with moisture. The crow flew one whole day without stopping and didn't feel thirsty even once. He spent the night at a border checkpoint between India and Pakistan picking at a clay pot full of rice pudding that the soldiers had left outside in the open to cool down. The pot lay in a basket hanging from a was.h.i.+ng line; he slept on the was.h.i.+ng line with his beak stuck in the pudding. The next day the crow found himself flying over a barren patch, the monsoon wind turned out to be an empty promise. His mouth was parched. He flew slowly, looking for any signs of vegetation. The crow landed near an abandoned, dried-up well where he picked at a dead sparrow's rotting carca.s.s. His lunch almost killed him. Dying of thirst and stomach pain, he took off on a tangent and followed the direction of the wind until he: saw lights flickering in the distance and columns of smoke rising on the horizon. He tucked his left wing and then his right wing under his body by turns and flew like an injured but determined soldier. In the morning he reached his destination. The lights had disappeared and the sunrise brought with it the wonderful smell of rotting mangoes. He swooped over an orchard, then spotted a skittish little boy rus.h.i.+ng out of a small mud hut with a catapult in his hand. Before the crow could take any evasive action, a pebble hit his tail, and he flew up to stay out of the boy's range. His restlessness was over. His crow instincts and his crow's fate combined to tell him that he must find a way to stay in this orchard.

The crow's fate was intertwined with that of one of the two big aluminium birds being put through the last maintenance checks in the hangar of the VIP Movement Squadron of the Pakistan Air Force, five hundred miles away. The engines had been tested, the fatigue profiles had been declared healthy, the backup systems checked for any malfunction. Both the C130 Hercules aircraft were healthy and superfit to fly. According to the standard presidential security procedures, however, the aircraft for General Zia's journey to attend a tank demonstration in Garrison 5, Bahawalpur, would not be chosen until a few hours before the flight. A fibregla.s.s VIP pod, twelve feet long, was being put through a very strict hygiene regime by Warrant Officer Fayyaz personally. From the; outside the pod looked like one of those s.h.i.+ny capsules that NASA launches into s.p.a.ce. From the inside it looked like the compact office of a gangster. Warrant Officer Fayyaz dusted the beige leather sofas with its nova suede headrests and vacuumed the fluffy white carpet. He polished the empty aluminium bar and put a copy of the Quran in the drinks cabinet. It was mandatory for all vehicles and flights carrying the General to have a copy. Not that he recited it during his journeys. He believed that it added another invisible protective layer to his elaborate security cordon. Now all Warrant Officer Fayyaz had to do was to put new air freshener in the air-conditioning duct and the pod would lie ready. For security reasons the pod would not be fitted into one of the two planes till six hours before take-off. Only when this pod had been fitted into one of the two aircraft would it become the presidential plane. At this point it would automatically acquire the call sign Pak One. Warrant Officer Fayyaz had a lot of time on his hands, enough to do a second round of dusting and polis.h.i.+ng before he went to pick up the new air freshener from VIP Movement Squadron's supply officer, Major Kiyani.

The crow circled above the orchard, out of the range of the catapult, until the boy spotted a red-nosed parakeet and started to prepare an ambush. The crow swooped down and settled on the top branch of the tallest mango tree, hiding in the blackish-green branches, and picked at his first mango. As the smell had promised, the mango was overripe and dripping with sweet, sweet juices.

When I get the summons from the Commandant's office I am busy teaching a pair of my Silent Drill Squad members how to be an Indian; it involves completing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn with their feet and head on the floor and their hands in the air. I caught them whispering during the silent drill practice and now I am administering a lesson on the virtues of silence. They are groaning like a bunch of pansies. Probably the c.o.ke bottle tops that I put under their heads are causing some discomfort. If they thought I would come back tender-hearted from my tribulations, they have definitely revised their opinions by now. Bannon or no Bannon, the rules of the drill can't change. If they thought a few days in a jail could turn a soldier into a saint then they should try spending a week in the Fort. Only civilians learn their lessons behind bars, soldiers just soldier on. I put my half-smoked cigarette in the mouth of the one making the most noise, his hands flail in the air and his groans become louder as the smoke enters his nostrils. ”Learn some manners,” I tell him and start marching towards the Commandant's office.

The Commandant had accepted us back into the fold as if we were his errant sons. He walked into our dorm on the night we arrived from s.h.i.+gri Hill and looked at us pensively from the doorway. Obaid and I stood to attention by our bedsides. ”I don't like it when my boys are taken away from me,” he said in a subdued voice, dripping with fatherly concern. As if we were not two just-out-of-the-dungeon prisoners but a pair of delinquents who had arrived home after lights-out time. ”As far as I am concerned and as far as the Academy is concerned you were away on a jungle survival course. Which is probably not very far from the truth.”

I have always found his Sandhurst brand of sentimentality sickening, but his words came out undipped and unrehea.r.s.ed as if he meant what he was saying. I didn't feel the usual nausea when he said things like putting it all behind us and drawing a line under the whole episode. He turned to go back and asked in a whisper, ”Is that clear?” We both shouted back at strength 5: YES, SIR. He was startled out of his depression for a moment, smiled a proud smile and walked away.

”There goes another general wanting to play your daddy,” Obaid said bitterly, falling back on his bed.

”Jail has made you a cynic, Baby O. We are all one big family.”

”Yes,” he said, yawning and covering his face with a book. ”Big family. Big house. Nice dungeons.”

What could the Commandant possibly want from me now? A report on the progress of the Silent Drill Squad? Another lecture about jail being the university of life? Has someone from the squad been complaining about my new-found love for c.o.ke bottle tops? I adjust my beret, straighten my collar, enter his office and offer an enthusiastic salute.

His reading gla.s.ses are on the tip of his nose and his two-fingered salute is even more cheerful than mine. There is a have-I-got-good-news vibe in his office. Has he got his third star? But he is beaming at me me. I seem to be the source of his soaring spirits. He is making circles in the air with a paper in his hand and looking at me with eyes that say 'Guess what?'

”You must have made quite an impression on the big guys,” he says, a bit puzzled by whatever the paper has to say.

”'Silent Drill Squad is invited to perform after the tank demo at Garrison 5, Bahawalpur, on 17 August,'” he reads from the paper and looks up at me, expecting me to dance with joy.

What do I run? An elite drill squad or a touring b.l.o.o.d.y circus? Am I expected to go from cantonment to cantonment entertaining the troops? Where is Garrison 5 anyway?

”It's an honour, sir.”

”You don't know the half of it, young man. The President himself will be there, along with the US Amba.s.sador. And if the Chief is going to be there, then you can expect all the top bra.s.s. You are right, young man. This is an honour and a half.”

I feel like the guy left for dead under a heap of bodies, who hears someone calling out his name. What are the chances of the rope snapping before your neck does? How many a.s.sa.s.sins get to have a second go?

”It's all because of your leaders.h.i.+p, sir.”

He shrugs his shoulders and I immediately know that be be hasn't been invited. hasn't been invited.

With that I realise for the first time that buried under the slick greying hair, privately tailored uniform and naked ambition, there is a man who believes that I have been wronged. He is on an epic guilt trip. Good to have suckers like him on my side but the only thing that is depressing about his ramrod posture, his shuffle towards me and the hands he places on my shoulders is that he means every word of what he is saying. He is proud of me. He wants me to go places where he himself would have liked to go.

I look over his shoulder towards the trophy cabinet. The bronze man has moved to the right. His place is occupied by a paratrooper's statue. The parachute's canopy is a silver foil, the silver-threaded harnesses are attached to the torso of a man who is holding his ripcords and is looking up into the canopy. The temperature in the room suddenly drops as I read the inscription on the gleaming black wooden block on which the statue is mounted: Brigadier TM Memorial Trophy for Paratroopers Brigadier TM Memorial Trophy for Paratroopers.

”Go, get them, young man.” The Commandant's hands on my shoulders seem heavy and his voice reminds me of Colonel s.h.i.+gri's whisky-soaked sermon. Once I am out of his office, I offer 2nd OIC an exaggerated salute and start running towards my dorm. OIC an exaggerated salute and start running towards my dorm.

I know the phial is there, in my uniform maintenance kit, secure between the tube of bra.s.s s.h.i.+ne and the boot polish, an innocuous-looking gla.s.s bottle. I know it's there because I have thought of throwing it away a number of times but haven't been able to do so. I know it's there because I look at it every morning. I need to go back and see it again, hold it in my hand and dip the tip of my sword in it. ”It ages very well.” I remember Uncle Starchy's low whisper. ”It becomes smoother, it spreads slower. But a poor man like me can't really afford to keep it for long.” I'll find out how well it has aged. I'll find out what hue it takes on the tip of my sword. I'll find out if the sentiment in my steel is still alive or dead.