Moth Smoke

7 four

I wake up sweating, staring at a motionless ceiling fan. Damn. They’ve cut my electricity. I call the power company, hoping that it’s just load-shedding or a breakdown, but a smug voice at the other end tells me that my account is in arrears and my service has been discontinued.

I yell for Manucci, and he sticks his head into my room with a smile. ‘What are you smiling at, idiot? Our electricity is gone.’

‘It will come back, saab,’ he says, still smiling. The boy has no fear of me.

‘No, it will not come back. They’ve cut us off. We’re back in the seventeenth century.’

He nods solemnly.

‘Make my breakfast. I’ll have eggs. No, it’s too hot. I’ll have a glass of milk and a sliced mango. Then run to the bazaar and get some candles. And some hand fans.’

He starts to shut the door to my room and then stops. ‘Saab, money?’

‘What happened to the money I gave you?’

‘It’s finished.’

‘What do you mean, finished? Stop smiling, you crook, this is serious.’ I take two hundred rupees out of my wallet and give them to him. ‘I want a full accounting when you get back.’

I take a shower and plop down on my bed, still wet, with a towel wrapped around my waist. At least I’m not hot this way. Having the power cut is serious. I was a month behind on my payments even before I lost my job, unprepared as usual for the summer spike in my bill that sucks a quarter of my paycheck into the air conditioner, and now I owe them half a month’s salary. Power prices have been rising faster than a banker’s wages the last couple of years, thanks to privatization and the boom of guaranteed-profit, project-financed, imported oil-fired electricity projects. I was happier when we had load-shedding five hours a day: at least then a man didn’t have to be a millionaire to run his AC.

I’m eating the mango when the phone rings. A voice jumps out of the receiver like a snappy salute, and even though I haven’t spoken to Khurram uncle in quite some time, I know at once it’s his. He has an unmistakable tone of command I associate with Sandhurst and the experience of sitting comfortably in an office while ordering men to die.

‘Darashikoh,’ he says, ‘Aurangzeb tells me you’ve encountered a spot of difficulty finding a position.’

So he knows I’ve been fired. ‘Yes, sir,’ I answer.

‘Well, son, I think it’s about time you called in the heavy guns. I know Aurangzeb has requested your presence at the house this evening. Come by my quarters at twenty-two hundred and we shall see if I can’t straighten things out.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very good.’

Khurram uncle was my father’s best friend at the military academy. He occupied a cushy staff position as an ADC in Rawalpindi in ’71, while my father died of gangrene in a prisoner-of-war camp near Chittagong. Then he slipped into the civil service, specializing, it’s said, in overpaying foreign companies for equipment and pocketing their kickbacks.

I have no real memories of my father. I turned two the summer his regiment was sent east. His photos and the stories I’ve heard have built in my mind the image of a quiet, courageous man, a soldier’s soldier. He was the best boxer at the military academy, and he drove a motorcycle. I have his ears, people say. Strange things to inherit, ears. Small and lobeless, like a pair of half-hearts. Otherwise we look nothing alike.

Khurram uncle was the first person to notice the similarity. I must have been seven or eight. Ozi and I had come back to my place from a football match and my knees were bloody. Khurram uncle was paying a visit to my mother. As she cleaned my cuts with Dettol, and I cried because of the stinging, I remember Khurram uncle taking one of my ears between his thumb and forefinger and saying, ‘Strange ears. Connected to the jaw. Just like his father.’

Khurram uncle visited our house fairly regularly. He always asked if we needed anything, and he often brought me presents. Sometimes he gave me clothes from abroad. I remember my first pair of high-top sneakers. Ozi told the boys in school that they were meant for him but were too small, so his father gave them to me.

I saw less and less of Khurram uncle as I grew older, especially after Ozi left for America. The summer my mother died, I went to a restaurant with some friends and found her having lunch with Khurram uncle. She told me he had found me a job at a bank. I don’t remember being happy at that moment. Maybe no one wants to stop being a student.

The last time I saw him was at her funeral. He was crying. Ozi’s mother was sick and couldn’t come. Khurram uncle told me to contact him if there was ever anything I needed. I never did. But even though we weren’t in touch, I kept hearing about him, that he’d built a mansion in Gulberg, that he was being investigated by the Accountability Commission.

I never said anything when people spoke of him. I’d been doing well enough for myself. I was getting by without any more of his handouts. And I was quite content not to see him.

But tonight I swallow my pride, hold my nose, and arrive at his place promptly at ten.

‘Darashikoh, my boy,’ Khurram uncle says when I’m taken to him. ‘Why haven’t you come to see me before this? There’s no need for formality between you and me. You’re a bright lad; all you need is a few doors opened for you and your merits will carry you far.’

I thank him and sit down.

‘So, what kind of work is it you’re looking for?’ he asks me.

I lean forward in my seat. ‘A bank or a large multinational.’

‘Have you thought about car dealerships?’

He doesn’t seem to be joking. ‘Not really.’

He takes a sip from a glass of whiskey and taps his shoe with a walking stick. ‘There’s good money to be made, and someone with your brains could be quite an asset to a car dealer.’

I feel the blood rush into my face, burn hotly in my ears. ‘I’m not –’

‘Now listen to me, Darashikoh. This is no cheap little used-car dealing operation on some side street. I’d never ask you to consider something like that. No, I’m talking about a modern business, a professional showroom on Queen’s Road, with well-dressed salespeople and well-heeled clients. A place where you will have twenty-five thousand rupees in your pocket at the end of every month.’

‘I’d really like something with a bank or a multinational.’

‘Ah, boys these days. They don’t know a good thing when they see it. Still, nothing is too much for the son of my dearest comrade-in-arms. Let me see what I can do.’ Khurram uncle takes another sip from his whiskey. He hasn’t offered me any, which is no surprise, since he doesn’t permit Ozi to drink in his presence, even though he knows Ozi drinks. Maybe it’s a little like Khurram uncle’s attitude toward corruption.

A young Filipina leads a child in by the finger. ‘This is Muazzam,’ Khurram uncle says proudly. ‘Aurangzeb’s son. Would you like to give him a hug?’

‘I know Muazzam,’ I say, taking the child into my arms. He struggles to pull free, like he’s afraid of me, and his nanny quickly retrieves him.

‘Children are excellent judges of character, you know,’ Khurram uncle says with a loud guffaw. ‘Well, off with you now, my boy. I’ll keep you posted.’

I head upstairs, feeling a little disgusted with myself.

When Ozi opens the door to his suite, though, surprise drives all thoughts of my meeting with Khurram uncle out of my head. Ozi embraces me hard, like a friend preventing a fight, or a boxer tying up an opponent with shorter reach. The smell of his aftershave envelops us both, and his voice tickles my ear as he whispers, ‘I’m so sorry, yaar. I know it was just supposed to be the three of us tonight, but there’s been a change of plans. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not, yaar,’ I say, confused.

‘And I tried to call you about dinner, but I couldn’t get through. Besides, we had sushi flown in from Karachi and I know you don’t like fish.’

And with that he steps aside and lets me pass, and I begin to understand what he’s talking about. I have arrived at a full-fledged invitational dinner only semi-invited. That is, I was told to come late for drinks, while the other guests came early and polished off an exotic air-transported meal. I know a snub when I see one, and this is a serious snub, especially since I love fish and know damn well that I’ve never told Ozi otherwise.

But why wouldn’t Ozi want me around?

It takes me only a cursory examination of the room to answer that question: Ozi’s made new friends.

Dressed in elegant evening wear, chins held aloft, are key components of Lahore’s ultra-rich young jet set, only five couples in all, but enough of a presence to indicate that Ozi has been granted a trial membership in their crowd.

The introductions begin. I know their names. Some venture an ‘I think I’ve seen you around,’ but most don’t bother. They’ve sized me up, figured out I’m a small fish, and decided to let me swim by myself for the evening. I spot Pickles, sporting flat-fronted black trousers and a bicep-revealing V-neck T.

‘Darashikoh, right?’

Yes, you pretentious bastard. Darashikoh, the same boy who thrashed you after PT behind the middle school building. ‘Right. How are you, Pickles?’

He seems less than ecstatic at my use of his pet name. ‘Very well. Yourself?’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ I find myself saying.

‘Really? What are you doing these days?’

I raise my chin. ‘Family business, you know. Import-export.’

‘Clothing?’

‘Of course.’

‘Great,’ he says. ‘What do you think of that Australian buyer everyone’s been talking about?’

I feel the illusion I’ve twirled around me like a sari start to come undone and fall to my feet. ‘You know, Pickles, there’s no quick answer to that one. Let me give you a call to discuss it further.’

He winks. ‘I already know the details. I just wanted to know whether it’s true.’

I can’t tell whether he’s referring to a sex scandal or a business blunder. ‘It’s true,’ I say.

He laughs. ‘Here’s my card,’ he says, whipping out a pen to write something on the back. ‘And that’s my mobile. We should do lunch.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking it from him. He looks at me expectantly, but I see Mumtaz coming into the room and excuse myself with a smile. Pickles probably thought I was dying to give him my card, and I suspect I’ve risen several levels in his estimation by not doing so.

Mumtaz gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. She looks harried, and nothing about her suggests that our midnight run to Heera Mandi ever took place.

‘Is everything all right?’ I ask her.

‘Yes. Sorry. Muazzam’s making a nuisance of himself downstairs. He won’t go to bed, and Ozi’s father gives him candies whenever I scold him. He probably has nothing but liquid sugar in his bloodstream at this point. He may never sleep again.’ She smiles at me. ‘How are you?’

‘Good. What is this?’

‘Lahore’s rich and famous.’

‘Are they your friends?’

‘I’ve met most of them before.’

‘So they’re Ozi’s friends?’

‘Some are. The rest will be. He’s good at this sort of thing, my husband. Can I get you some wine?’

‘I’m not a wine drinker.’

She looks at me thoughtfully. ‘You sound upset. Is it because Ozi didn’t invite you for dinner?’

‘No.’

‘Don’t feel bad. He wasn’t sure you would like this crowd.’

‘Why didn’t he just tell me not to come at all?’

‘He wanted to see you. So did I. Listen, I’m not a wine drinker either. Let me get us both a Scotch.’

I nod, feeling a little better. When she returns, we toast each other silently, and then she says, ‘Look, you have to try to enjoy yourself. Pretend that you’re an anthropologist observing the rituals of some isolated tribe.’

It isn’t hard to do.

A woman whose tied-on top reveals armor-plated abs starts clapping her hands above her head. ‘Quiet, everyone,’ she says. ‘Who wants to go swimming?’

Another woman, very drunk and visibly undernourished, starts chanting, ‘Swim-ming! Swim-ming! Swim-ming!’

‘In Ozi’s pool!’ yells the first.

‘O-zi! O-zi! O-zi!’ chants the second.

(I record the first entry in my ethnography: It appears that intermarriage has severely retarded the mental development of some members of the tribe.)

‘Forget that you’re Over Here! Pretend that you’re Over There.’

(The utopian vision of Over There or Amreeka promises escape from the almost unbearable drudgery of the tribe’s struggle to subsist.)

There’s some scattered clapping but no real enthusiasm for the idea. More drinks are tossed back. I see the rare sight of an iced martini glass being filled with gin and a splash of vermouth, then stirred gently and served with an olive. Ozi is really going all out. I wonder how much he’s spent tonight. Fifty thousand rupees? More?

After a while I tire of pretending I’m an anthropologist and focus on my Scotch, killing time by swirling ice cubes. Luckily, the end isn’t long in coming.

The Amazon and her famished friend start making a racket again. ‘Par-ty! Par-ty! Par-ty!’

As if on cue, people start downing their drinks and rounding up their mobile phones. I follow the pack downstairs. In the drive-way I don’t stand next to my car. It’s silly, I know, but I lean against Ozi’s Pajero instead. Eventually my friend’s guests have gone and it’s just Ozi, Mumtaz, and I.

‘So what’s the plan?’ I ask.

‘Pickles’s cousin is having a party at his farmhouse,’ Ozi says. ‘You have to come.’

‘I’m not invited,’ I say. And I don’t have a date.

‘We’ll get you in,’ Ozi says, clapping my shoulder. ‘Never fear, yaar: I’m back in town.’

We’re getting into our cars when Ozi stops and asks, ‘Is Muazzam in bed?’

‘I’ve handled him all night,’ Mumtaz tells him. ‘You check.’

Ozi shakes his head and goes back in. Mumtaz stares after him, as though she’s tracking his progress inside. She looks exhausted.

‘How’s my friend Zulfikar Manto?’ I ask her.

Life seems to rush into her face. She raises an eyebrow and sends a slow glance to either side, pretending she’s making sure we aren’t overheard. Then she grins. ‘The prostitution article came out today.’

‘And? I haven’t been reading the papers.’

‘Big response. I spoke with the editor, and he said he’s been swamped with calls.’

‘Good?’

‘Mostly furious. Which is good. It means people read it. One even threw a rock through the paper’s window.’

‘Was the editor upset?’

‘He said they’re used to it. They buy cheap glass.’

The door opens, spilling light, and Ozi comes back out. ‘He’s asleep,’ he says.

I follow Ozi’s Pajero in my Suzuki, struggling to keep pace. We head down the canal toward Thokar Niaz Beg, take a left, cruise by what everyone calls the Arab prince’s vacation palace, wind from a side street to an unpaved road to a dirt path, and finally end up at a gate in a wall that literally stretches as far as I can see into the night. Even out here we find the obligatory group of uninvited, dateless guys trying to get in, their way barred by a mobile police unit responsible for protecting tonight’s illegal revelry.

Ozi and Mumtaz show their invitation to a private security guard, and he lets them drive through. He stops me. ‘Invitation?’

‘I’m with them,’ I say.

‘Sorry, sir.’ He isn’t apologizing. He’s telling me I can’t go in. Luckily, I see the white reverse lights of Ozi’s Pajero come on ahead.

All three of us get out. ‘We told you he’s with us,’ Ozi says.

‘Sorry, sir. Orders.’

‘No sorry. Let him in.’

‘It’s okay,’ I say to them. ‘I’m tired anyway. I’ll just go.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Mumtaz tells me. ‘You’re coming in.’

A Land Cruiser pulls up behind us, blocking my exit. Pickles gets out and the guard touches his cap to him. ‘What’s the problem?’ Pickles asks.

‘They’re not letting Daru in,’ Mumtaz tells him.

Pickles nods to the guard.

And that’s that.

The driveway, made of brick and in better condition than most roads in the city, purrs under my tires. We park near the farmhouse, big and low, with wide verandas, and I notice the difference in the sounds of slamming car doors: the deep thuds of the Pajero and Land Cruiser, the nervous cough of my Suzuki.

It’s early summer, which means I’m not likely to go to another big bash for a while, so I put on my best party-predator smile, run my fingers through my hair, and light a cigarette, trying to get in the mood.

The party turns out to be a real insider’s affair. Just a hundred people, the who’s who of the Lahore party crowd, all hip and loaded and thrilled about Santorini in June. Even the music isn’t the standard club collage but rather some remixed desi stuff that I’ve never heard before (because, I’m soon told, the DJ mixed it specially for this party and sent it in from London).

I wander around, checking out the scene. Our host, Pickles’s cousin, is wearing a white linen shirt, thin enough to suggest an underlying mat of chest hair even though he has only the top button open. His sleeves are rolled up over thick, veiny forearms, and one of his fists clenches a bottle of rare Belgian beer. Long hair is moussed back along his scalp, giving his forehead a greasy gleam, and his nose sits like a broken gladiator above the huge grin he’s flashing at everyone and everything around him.

I’d smile, too, if I were him. His party is a smashing success. The dance floor is packed, and the dancing sweaty and conversation-free. Businessmen and bankers crowd the bar, fetching drinks for models with long, lean, nineties bodies. A lot of skin is on display, like something out of a fundo’s nightmare or, more likely, vision of paradise. Tattoos, ponytails, sideburns, navel rings abound: this is it, this is cool, this is the Very Best Party of the Off-Season.

And I’m single, with no job and no money, and no real hope of picking up anyone.

Nadira’s here, some hotshot in tow, and I try to avoid her even though I know the party’s too small for me to hide successfully. I wish I’d brought some hash.

I look around for Raider. I don’t know how he does it, because he isn’t rich or anything, but the better the party, the more likely he is to be there. I find him kissing Alia under a mango tree.

‘Daru,’ he says, clearly delighted. ‘Where have you been, partner?’

‘Do you have a joint?’ Alia asks.

‘I was just about to ask you guys the same thing,’ I say.

They exchange grins. ‘No joint, yaar,’ Raider says. ‘But I have you-know-what.’

‘Raider, if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were Lahore’s number-one ecstasy supplier.’

‘Who’s that?’ Alia asks, looking in the direction of the house.

I see Mumtaz and wave. She walks over.

‘Does anyone have a joint?’ she asks.

Raider and Alia laugh and introduce themselves. ‘I like you already,’ Alia says to Mumtaz.

‘I was just telling Daru that we have some ex,’ Raider says.

I wish he would learn to be more discreet.

‘Really?’ Mumtaz says, with unexpected enthusiasm.

‘Only one,’ Raider says.

Mumtaz looks at me. ‘Do you want to?’

‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’ I ask her.

She takes my answer as a yes. ‘How much does ex cost here?’

‘Nothing,’ says Raider, handing her a little white pill.

‘Two thousand,’ I tell Mumtaz, hoping the price will discourage her. What would Ozi say?

She takes out some cash, peels off two notes, and hands them to Raider. Then she places the pill in her palm and breaks it with her thumbnail.

‘Cheers,’ she says, downing her half.

I look at the broken pill in my hand: smooth curve, rough edge. Might as well. ‘Cheers,’ I say, placing it on my tongue and swallowing.

‘It won’t kick in for a while,’ she tells me. ‘I’ll see you guys in a bit.’

I nod and she heads back inside.

‘Wow, I think I’m in love, yaar,’ Raider says admiringly.

‘So am I,’ says Alia. ‘Who is she? I’ve never seen her before.’

It somehow sounds inappropriate to say, ‘Ozi’s wife,’ so I say, ‘Just a friend.’

They both laugh. Then Raider starts stroking Alia’s arm, and I can see that I should leave. ‘Check on us from time to time,’ Raider says. ‘We’ll be right here till dawn.’

I wander around, making small talk and avoiding Ozi, because I’m still upset at not being invited for dinner and also because I’m feeling guilty about having ex with his wife. But eventually he catches my eye and weaves his way over, half-dancing to the music, flashing his famously irresistible grin.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asks.

‘Nothing.’

He puts me in a headlock and messes up my hair with his free hand, laughing. I push him away.

He looks surprised and hurt, and I feel bad, because I pushed him with more force than I’d intended. ‘Sorry, yaar,’ I say, trying to sound playful but failing miserably.

‘You’re mad at me, aren’t you?’

I shrug.

‘You think I’m doing a little social climbing,’ he goes on. He’s slurring slightly.

I don’t answer.

‘Lahore’s boring, yaar. Deadly dull. They provide some entertainment.’

‘They seem like good friends,’ I say, acid in my voice.

He embraces me, and I know the ex must be kicking in, because I’m very aware of the contact between us, his shirt, slightly sweaty, the muscles of his back, our breathing.

‘That’s why I love you, yaar,’ Ozi’s saying. ‘You always look out for me. But I don’t want to be friends with those people. We’ll be friendlies at best. People who party together. But that’s good enough. That’s all I want from them. They’re the best party in town.’

I feel my attention drifting with the ex, flowing in and around his words, and my gaze slips around the room, looking for Mumtaz.

‘It’s not my crowd,’ I say, trying to hold up my end of the conversation.

‘That’s because you can’t afford it. But you’re lucky in a sense. Being broke keeps you honest.’

I stare at Ozi’s mouth. I’m not sure if I thought those words or if he said them. But I want to get away from him. I need to breathe.

‘Let me get us some more drinks,’ he says.

I nod, but I’m starting to ex with unexpected intensity, and once he’s gone I head outside to be alone as I adjust, as I shed my sobriety for a newer, livelier skin. The stars look big tonight, and I float over the lawn in the direction of the mango tree.

‘Partner,’ someone calls out.

I look. ‘Hi, guys,’ I say.

Raider and Alia are giggling. ‘She went that way,’ Alia says.

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘Mum-taaaz,’ she says, stretching the word lovingly.

I walk in the direction she tells me. I feel my pores opening, sweat and heat radiating out of my body. A firefly dances in the distance, leaving tracers, and if I turn my head from side to side, I see long yellow-green streaks that cut through my vision and burn in front of my retinas even after the light that sparked them has gone.

I emerge from the mango grove into a field. In the distance unseen trucks pass with a sound like the ocean licking the sand. A tracery of darkness curls into the starry sky, a solitary pipal tree making itself known by an absence of light, like a flame caught in a photographer’s negative, frozen, calling me.

A breeze tastes my sweat and I shiver, shutting my eyes and raising my arms with it, wanting to fly. I walk in circles, tracing the ripples that would radiate if the stars fell from the sky through the lake of this lawn, one by one, like a rainstorm moving slowly into the breeze, toward the tree, each splash, each circle, closer.

And with a last stardrop, a last circle, I arrive, and she’s there, chemical wonder in her eyes.

‘Hi,’ she whispers.

‘Hi,’ I say. It’s as if she’s not Ozi’s wife but someone new, someone I haven’t met before. ‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

She smiles. ‘My name?’

‘Your full name,’ I say, the words coming slowly. ‘Before you were married.’

‘Mumtaz Kashmiri. It still is. I didn’t change it.’

‘Kashmiri.’ I let the word flow over my tongue, my lips kissing the air in the middle of it.

I shut my eyes and lean against the pipal tree, my world tactile, a dandelion of feeling. Cotton flows over my body, dancing with my breathing, and through it the slender tree trunk at my back, its grooves, its notches, its waves on my skin, tendrils of nerves smiling. It trembles. Kashmiri is leaning against the tree and I feel a hint of her weight pushing through the trunk. My shoulders sense the nearness of hers, but nothing more, no touch, the tree between my neck and hers, my spine and hers.

I want to touch her, to kiss her, to feel her skin. My hands explore my own arms, the arms they come from, my skin pure pleasure, exciting me.

And terrifying me. With a shock of knowledge, of waking while dreaming, I know what I’m thinking is wrong, that the woman behind me isn’t Kashmiri but Mumtaz, Ozi’s wife, and I can’t betray him, betray her, betray them by touching her.

I push against the tree and run away, stumbling, the unreal night playing with me, gravity pulling from below, behind, above, making me fall. And I run through a world that is rotating, conscious of the earth’s spin, of our planet twirling as it careens through nothingness, of the stars spiraling above, of the uncertainty of everything, even ground, even sky.

Mumtaz never calls out, although a thousand and one voices scream in my mind, sing, whisper, taunt me with madness.

Then I’m in my car, driving home. I lose my way, but this is Lahore, and by dawn I’m in my bed, the growing heat welcome as pure, reliable sensation.

My back begins to ache as I sleep, waking me, and by midday spasms of pain rip down my vertebrae, arching my body like a poisoned rat’s, forcing me to grit my teeth and hug my ribs against this, my ecstasy’s aftermath.

I’m lying in bed with the taste of Panadol in my mouth, trying desperately not to move, when Ozi comes in and, before I’ve recovered from the surprise of his unexpected appearance, tells me the neighbors have gone nuclear.

‘Shit,’ I say.

‘Why are you still in bed?’

‘I sprained my back.’

‘Bad?’

I nod.

‘Sorry,’ he says, sitting down. The foam mattress stretches with his weight, tugging at my back like a torturer tightening the rack.

‘How do you know?’

‘Everyone knows. It’s mayhem outside. I had to drive through a demonstration just to get here.’

‘So what happened?’

‘They tested three. A hundred kilometers from the border.’

‘How symbolic.’

Ozi shakes his head. But he’s grinning. And in spite of the spasms ripping quietly through my back, I notice I am, too.

‘Why are we smiling?’ I ask him.

‘I don’t know. It’s terrifying.’

‘You know the first place they’d nuke is Lahore.’

‘Islamabad.’

‘No, Lahore. If they nuked Islamabad, no one would be able to stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Us. From nuking them.’

‘We’ll nuke them if they nuke Lahore.’

‘No, we’ll nuke them before they nuke Lahore.’

‘What do you mean?’

I try to stop grinning, but I can’t. ‘We’ll nuke them first. They’re bigger. They don’t need to nuke us. Some skirmish will get out of hand, they’ll come marching our way, and then we’ll nuke them. One bomb. For defensive purposes.’

‘And then they’ll nuke Lahore?’

‘Where else?’

‘What about Karachi?’

‘Too important. If they nuke Karachi, we’ll nuke a few of their cities.’

‘Peshawar?’

‘Be serious.’

‘Maybe Faisalabad.’

‘That’s true. They might nuke Faisalabad.’

He looks at me and starts to laugh. ‘Poor Faisalabad.’

I try to fight it, but I’m laughing, too, holding my ribs against the pain, strangling each chuckle into a cough that bounces down my back like a flat stone cutting the surface of a lake.

I laugh until tears run down my face. ‘They’re screwed.’

‘Faisalabad.’ Ozi can hardly breathe, he’s gasping so hard.

‘One more reason not to live there,’ I say when I can speak again.

Ozi sighs, shutting his eyes, his face exhausted, spent. ‘That hurt,’ he says.

‘Imagine how I feel.’

He leans forward. ‘Do you want a cigarette?’

I tilt my head. ‘What do you mean?’

He pulls a pack out of his shirt pocket. ‘Reds?’

‘Reds.’

He lights one for me, taking a long drag without coughing. ‘Here you go.’

I take it from him. ‘I thought you’d quit.’

‘I have. That was my first puff in years.’

Suddenly I’m aware of a connection I haven’t felt in a long time, a bond of boyhood trust and affection. I look at Ozi and see my old friend’s image, a younger face projected onto this fatter, balder screen. A hundred of my teenage adventures must have begun with Ozi inhaling a cigarette and blowing the smoke out the side of his mouth, the same side that smiles when he flashes his usual half-grin. That grin used to make me wonder what it would take to pull a full smile out of him. And his crazy ideas were like answers to that question. I remember the time we jumped the wall of Ayesha’s house and her father set his Dobermans on us, whether because he thought we were robbers or because he was overprotective of his daughter, we never discovered. We had to climb a mango tree to get out: the top of the wall was too high to reach by jumping. And Ozi let me climb first.

I take a hit, jointlike, from the cigarette he’s given me, filling my lungs and holding it in. ‘Thanks, yaar.’

He looks away.

I shut my eyes and savor the smoke.

When I open them again, he’s watching me.

‘I’ve been having some problems with Mumtaz,’ he says unexpectedly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think she’s unhappy.’

I feel guilt pinch me on the ass and grab a quick feel. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, yaar.’

‘What makes you think she’s unhappy?’

‘Little things. She never wants to talk. She’s always tired. She’s snappish with Muazzam.’

‘Lahore isn’t New York. Maybe she doesn’t like the city.’

‘That isn’t it. She was like this in New York. Besides, she wanted to come back.’

‘Then what do you think it is?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Maybe you should ask her.’

‘I have. I do. I ask her all the time.’

‘What does she say?’

‘She says she’s unhappy.’

‘Then she probably is.’

He smiles. ‘I know.’

‘How long has she been like this?’

‘Months. Maybe a year.’

‘It could have nothing to do with you. People go through difficult times.’

‘But I don’t like to see her this way. I miss her.’

I nod, finishing off the cigarette and stubbing it out on the table. One more burn mark in a constellation of burn marks.

Ozi is pinching the point of his chin as though he’s discovered he missed a spot shaving this morning.

‘You know,’ I say, trying to cheer him up, ‘they really might nuke Lahore.’

He stops playing with his chin. ‘We’re going to test, too.’

‘When?’

‘Who knows. I hope we do it soon.’

‘Why? We know we have the bomb.’

‘We want them to know.’

‘They know.’ I say it casually. As casually as I can. Because unsaid between Ozi and me, unsayable, is a possibility, a doubt: What if our bomb doesn’t work?

Ozi’s sweating. His face shines and he wipes it with the tips of four curved fingers held together. ‘It’s damn hot. How long has the power been gone?’

‘Just a couple of hours,’ I lie.

‘Load-shedding or a breakdown?’

I shrug.

‘You need a generator,’ he tells me.

Ah, Ozi. You just can’t resist, can you? You know I can’t afford a generator. ‘Do I?’

‘Of course. How can you survive without one?’

‘Most people do manage to, you know.’

‘I wonder if we still have the small one from the old house. If we do, you might as well take it.’

‘I’m fine.’ I don’t need your secondhand generator, thanks very much. And I don’t have the money to buy fuel for it in any case.

‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice the heat until now.’

‘Nothing like nuclear escalation to make people forget their problems.’

He winks. ‘And on that note, I’d better push off. Some of us have to work, you know.’

He says it as though he’d like to be unemployed.

I feel myself getting angry, and the connection between us snaps in silence. ‘Not if they nuke Lahore,’ I say under my breath.

He leans over and puts the pack of reds on my bedside table. I don’t want it now. But, as with all his gifts, I take it anyway.

My back is better by the time Ozi kills the boy.

It’s a Sunday, the neighborhood nuclear test count is up to five, and I’m on my way to Jamal’s office. Strange that my sixteen-year-old cousin should have an office, but he’s been working for a week now, on weekends and in the evenings, after school.

The address he’s given me turns out to be a house in Shadman with two nameplates: a white one above with Alam in faded black lettering and a sleek silver rectangle below which reads chipkali internet services. I enter through a side door marked Headquarters and shut it silently behind me, feeling the chill of air-conditioning at full blast.

Jamal and his partner, a short boy with bad posture and a white boil on his neck, just under the straight line of his clipped hair, sit with their backs to me, staring at a computer screen the size of a television. Various pieces of hightech equipment are scattered about the room, connected by wires and plugged into an enormous surge protector. I sneak up on them and tap Jamal on his shoulder.

He turns, startled, then smiles and gets up. His partner looks embarrassed.

‘What are you two doing?’ I ask. ‘Looking at naughty pictures?’

They blush together and begin to explain.

‘No, Daru bhai –’

‘We were just –’

I move them apart with my hands and glance between their shoulders at the monitor. But instead of naked women I see a jerkily expanding mushroom cloud, a burst of digital pastels. ‘What’s this?’ I ask.

‘We downloaded it from one of the sites covering the nuclear tests,’ Jamal tells me.

We watch the clip run through in somber silence. People have begun to say we might be attacked before we can get our own bombs ready.

‘But I thought their tests were underground,’ I say.

‘This isn’t one of theirs. It’s an American test. An H-bomb.’

‘We’re going to use it for a client’s site,’ his friend adds, his voice a nasal whine.

I pull my eyes away from the screen. ‘A client? You have clients?’

‘Three,’ he says proudly.

‘And what do you do for them?’

‘We design and host Web sites,’ Jamal explains. ‘Completely customized, maintained on our server.’

I smile. ‘And how much do they pay you?’

‘It depends on the work. They can pay us once, up front, a lifetime fee that covers design, maintenance, everything. Or they can pay us monthly.’

‘And how much do you expect to make on average, from one client?’

Jamal tells me. And I’m shocked.

‘But why would they have you guys do the work? Why wouldn’t they go to professionals?’

Jamal’s friend turns his face away haughtily. ‘We are professionals.’

I’ve decided I don’t like him.

‘We’re cheap,’ Jamal says. ‘And we’re really good, Daru bhai. Besides, we’re learning fast. And our first three clients aren’t paying that much. We’re giving them a discount, as an introductory offer, you know, as we get started.’

‘How much of a discount?’

‘Ninety percent.’

‘That still isn’t bad. And have they paid you?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’m expecting a dinner from you when they do.’ It’s a joke, but immediately after I’ve said it, I feel ashamed, because I could actually use a free meal.

‘Of course, Daru bhai.’

They offer me a chair and take me on a tour of their handiwork, showing me sites they admire and want to copy, as well as the Chipkali Internet Services home page, which they designed themselves. I’m happy to see Jamal so excited, but the more he tells me, the more worried I become. The equipment all belongs to his friend. The office is in his friend’s house. The clients have come to them because of his friend’s family. The entire venture is being bankrolled by his friend’s father, who works in Bahrain and happily buys his son any computer-related gadgetry he wants. And unlike wide-eyed Jamal, with his delicate fingers and soft, protruding lower lip, his friend looks very business-savvy. I feel uneasy. I hate to see Jamal depending on this guy and being hurt. But there’s nothing I can do. And maybe there’s nothing to worry about, maybe I’m just unsettled by the fact that my little cousin, who’s still in school and twelve years younger than I, is working and I’m not.

I don’t stay long.

Stepping out into the hot day, I shiver at the sudden change in temperature. The sun beats down on the roads, searing the last blades of green from otherwise completely brown dividers of parched grass. I stop at Liberty Market for a long glass of fresh pomegranate juice.

The shopkeeper looks edgy, and the boy who brings me my drink doesn’t smile. Probably tense about this nuclear thing.

Or maybe it’s just the heat.

I sip slowly through a waxed-paper straw while I watch two dogs in the shade not far from my car. An emaciated bitch lies on her side, so thin it seems the skin covering her ribs will soon dissolve in the heat, exposing the white bones of her skeleton. She looks dead except for the slow rise and fall of her flank as she breathes, too tired to be bothered by the flies or the big, healthy pup who nuzzles at her dry tits, his tail moving rapidly from side to side as he sucks the last drops of life out of her.

Paying up, I drive off.

I’m on Jail Road, stopped at Samugarh Chowk, when I notice a Pajero in my rearview, the polished red of its exterior striking on a road where everything else is dulled by a layer of dust. A squint and I recognize Ozi, so I roll down my window to give him a wave. On my left a boy pushes off unsteadily to cross the road on a bicycle that’s too big for him.

Ozi hasn’t noticed me. He’s bearing down on the red light at full speed. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy sees the Pajero and he bends forward, pumping hard. I feel sorry for the kid, constantly afraid of being hit by maniacs like Ozi, and the arm I stick out my window starts flapping up and down instead of waving, telling my friend to stop even though I know he hasn’t seen me and doesn’t mind putting a little fear into people whose vehicles are smaller than his.

Ozi’s Pajero roars by me, piercing the intersection. The boy is staring straight ahead, his eyes desperately focused on the opposite curb, now not far away, when his foot slips from the pedal and he wobbles, his pace broken, and I think, Shit, Ozi’s cutting it too close. Then the quick flash of brake lights, a sudden scream of rubber sliding like skin on cement, too little too late, the front of the Pajero dipping like a bull ready to gore, a collision unheard because of the squeal of locked tires. A brief silence. The sound of an engine gathering itself as the Pajero charges away.

The boy’s body rolls to a stop by a traffic signal that winks green, unnoticed by the receding Pajero.

I drive to where the boy lies on the asphalt. His head has been partly crushed, flattened on one side, but the rest of him seems almost untouched except that one of his shoes is missing and a little brown foot sticks out of his shalwar. I think he’s dead, but as I stand over him his arm twitches and someone says, ‘He’s alive.’

I look around. A crowd has gathered to stare, but no one does anything. I put my hands under the boy to lift him. The back of his head is soft and sticky, and I swallow against what rises in my stomach as I smell the smell. Another man helps me, and together we place him on the back seat of my car and drive quickly to Services Hospital.

I press down on my horn until two orderlies rush out to put the boy on a trolley and wheel him inside. Then I tell the man who came with me to stay and talk to the police until I return.

Ozi lives just off Main Gulberg Boulevard, so I’m at his place in a few minutes, punching my horn with the side of my hand again and again. The guards must know me by now, because they open the gate and let me in.

The red Pajero is parked in the driveway, Ozi watching a servant wipe the dent in its bumper with a wet cloth. My best friend is wearing sunglasses, a bright T-shirt, and knee-length shorts. He looks like an overgrown child. A child who gets everything. Gets away with everything.

I step out of my car and say very softly, ‘I saw you just now.’

For a moment he watches me, silent, expressionless, as though he’s trying to remember who I am. No, not remember: decide. Decide who I am.

Then he hangs his head. His shoulders fall. ‘There was nothing I could do. I didn’t see him until the last moment.’ He looks into my eyes, begging to be believed.

‘It was a red light.’

‘Do you think he’s okay?’

I shake my head.

Ozi’s lips stretch. Flatten. Not a smile: a twitch. ‘We’ll take care of his family,’ he says. ‘I’ll make sure they’re compensated.’

My throat constricts, choking me. I want to speak, but I can’t work my voice.

Fingers curl, hands become blunt. Lungs half-fill, then lock, rib cage and chest now armor.

I focus on the underside of his jaw. His Adam’s apple. The soft flesh there.

Ozi sees the violence in me. Recognizes it.

And, gently, he takes hold of my arm.

‘Daru?’

Something claws its way out of me, tearing, ripping, forcing my eyes shut, as powerful and vicious as a sob.

And then it’s gone, my anger, dispelled by his touch, by the tone of his voice. I feel weak and sick. Sunstroke. Dehydration. But I can speak again. ‘I’m going back to the hospital.’

‘Don’t tell them about me.’

I don’t answer. I turn and get back into my car, rubbing my eyes with my fingers as I reverse out of the driveway. The back seat is covered with blood.

When I arrive at the hospital, a blue police jeep is already there and the cops are questioning the man who helped me bring in the boy. Their officer turns as I approach. ‘You brought the victim here in your car?’

‘Yes,’ I reply.

‘Then why did you leave?’ he asks suspiciously. ‘Where did you go?’

‘To look for the car that hit him,’ I answer. ‘But I couldn’t find it.’

I don’t say anything about Ozi. The officer tells me that the boy is dead and I’m to come with them to the police station. A policeman rides beside me in my car, a rifle between his thighs. ‘In case you don’t know the way.’

I’m led past an interrogation room, I suppose to impress upon me the need to be forthcoming. Inside, an old man is screaming that an atomic bomb incinerated his wife. A brawny interrogator slaps him again and again, saying, ‘It was you, it was you,’ in a frightened voice that belies the bored expression on his fat face.

It takes the police a long time to record my statement, and I’m left uncertain whether they consider me a witness or a suspect.

When Manucci sees the blood on the back seat of the car, he just stands there with his lips pressed together like a kiss and questions ballooning behind his eyes. But I take one look at him and say, ‘Clean it,’ and he jerks to attention, running for a bucket of water and a cloth.

I have a hard time sleeping that night. But I decide one thing: I’m not going to take any of Ozi’s father’s help in looking for a job.

It isn’t as hot as usual the next morning, so I’m still in bed when Manucci comes banging on my door.

‘What is it?’ I yell.

‘Saab, an andhi is coming,’ he says.

I get up and pull open the curtains. It’s dark, like late evening. ‘Shut all the windows,’ I say. ‘I’m going outside.’

Lahore could use an andhi, especially if it brings rain. There’s too much dust everywhere, and it’s too damn hot too early this summer.

I walk out to the banyan tree in front of the house, stepping on my heels because sticks and rocks on the dead lawn stab my feet. A dusty smell hanging in the still air reminds me of the storms of my childhood, when the lawn had been green and lush and I hid behind the banyan tree because my mother would have made me come inside, hid even as the storm broke, because the banyan tree sheltered me from the wind and dust until the rain began to fall, and I ran dancing in it while it soaked me and washed away the heat, leaving everything cool and clean, it seemed, for days.

The lawn has died since then, but the banyan tree is still alive, wound about itself like iron cable. Its branches hang low, their canopy casting a shade over roots that grip and break the soil, grasping in every direction. The tree is old, much older than the house and the boundary wall that seems almost to have been built to hold it in and against which the tree is now beginning to push.

For some reason I find myself doing what I used to do as a child, even though now there’s no one to hide from: going to stand in the lee of the banyan tree. I feel the pressure building around me, feel it between the hair of my forearms and the skin, along the back of my neck, the line of my shoulders.

The sun is completely blotted out by a dirty sky.

I shut my eyes as the wind picks up, whipping through the branches with a rising howl as dust sweeps over me, smoothly abrasive. The andhi builds, pushing me back a step, screaming in my ears, bending my outstretched arms as I stand my ground. It flings sand at me, sends leaves hurtling into me, but the tree breaks their force and I feel only brief touches on my skin.

Raindrops begin to shatter on my eyelids, on my ears, my throat, my stomach. The andhi roars now, violent and fully alive, and I keep my eyes closed as I wait for it to subside.

Suddenly something strikes my chest. My eyes snap open and I’m immediately blinded by the dust. I turn around and put my back to the wind, rubbing my fists into my stinging eyes. I fight to keep my balance, gasping, overwhelmed by the storm.

The andhi dies unexpectedly, without much rain.

My eyes are tearing and I open them, blinking to flush the dust out. I have a small cut on my chest, probably from a broken branch of the banyan tree. Around me everything is coated with dust, damp in patches from the spray. The sun is already burning a hole through the rusty clouds.

I’m filthy and it’s begun to get hot again. The wind blowing through the branches of the banyan tree carries the smell of parched land that has waited too long for too small a drink. Rubbing the dirt in the corners of my eyes and fingering the cut on my chest, I go inside to take another shower.

They say the nuclear tests released no radioactivity into the atmosphere. Each a huge gasp, smothered unsatisfied.