Moth Smoke

3 two

Steadying the steering wheel with my knees, I pull the last unbroken cigarette out of a battered pack of Flakes. There are trees by the side of the road, but only on one side, and it’s the wrong side, so their shadows run away from me in long smiles that jump over boundary walls and grin at each other while I bake in my car like a snail on hot asphalt.

Knees turn the wheel left, then right, steering around an ambitious pothole, a crack aspiring to canyonhood. Fingers twist the barrel of the cigarette, loosening the tobacco, coaxing it into a sweaty palm, rubbing the Flake between thumb and forefinger until it’s almost empty. Eyes flick up and down, watching the road through the arc the steering wheel cuts above the dashboard. Foot gentle on the accelerator.

Slide the ashtray out and tip half the tobacco in. Take the compass I’ve had longer than I’ve had this car, which is a long time, and spear the hash on one blackened end. Left hand holds the tobacco in its palm and the compass in its fingers, right hand grips a plastic lighter while its thumb spins the flint. Sparks, no flame. Sparks, no flame. Then a light, and when the blue fire licks the hash, a sweet smell with a suddenness that’s almost eager.

Crumble the hash into the tobacco, crush it, break it, feel the heat telling nerves in fingertips to pass on the message of a little hurt. Knead it, mix it thoroughly. Hold empty Flake in mouth by its filter, suck and refill, pack against a thumbnail, tip tip tip, repeat, tip tip tip, and twist the end shut. Incisors grab a bit of filter, pull it out, gently, like a bitch lifting a pup. Tear off a strip to let the smoke through, reinsert the rest to hold open the end and keep things in their place.

I light up while rubbing the hash and tobacco residue off my hand and onto my jeans. Rolling while rolling, solo, and baking while baking in the heat. It helps kill time on long afternoons, and I haven’t traveled very far, but I know that no place has afternoons longer than this place, Lahore, especially in the summertime.

Two drops of Visine and I’m set.

The sun sits down. Evening. I pull up to a big gate in a high wall that surrounds what I think is Ozi’s place. His new place, that is. His old place was smaller. I’m a little nervous because it’s been a few years, or maybe because my house is the same size it was when he left, so I swing my face in front of the rearview and look myself in the eye. Then I honk out a pair of security guards.

‘Sir?’ one says.

‘I’ve come to meet Aurangzeb saab.’

‘Your name?’

‘Tell him Daru is here.’

Access obtained, I cruise down a driveway too short to serve as a landing strip for a getaway plane, perhaps, and pass not one but two lovely new Pajeros. Yes, God has been kind to Ozi’s dad, the frequently investigated but as yet unincarcerated Federal Secretary (Retired) Khurram Shah.

The front door opens and a servant leads me inside and upstairs. Time has ripened Ozi’s face and peeled his hairline back from his temples with two smooth strokes of a fruit knife. We crouch, facing each other with our arms spread wide, and pause for a moment, grinning. Then we embrace and he lifts me off my feet. I thump him on the back and squeeze the wind out of his lungs for good measure. Neither of us says hello.

‘You’ve gone bald,’ I exclaim.

‘Thanks a lot, yaar,’ he replies.

Mumtaz steps forward and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Hello, Daru,’ she says. Hoarse voice, from intimacy’s border with asthma: parched beaches, dust whipped by the wind. Very sexy but not much to drink.

I try on a welcoming, harmless smile. It gets caught on my teeth. ‘Hello, Mumtaz.’

‘And this,’ Ozi says, hoisting up a tired little boy, ‘is Muazzam.’

Muazzam starts to cry, wrapping his arms around his father’s neck and hiding his face.

‘You certainly have a way with kids,’ Ozi tells me.

‘He’s exhausted,’ Mumtaz says. ‘You should put him to bed.’

A muffled ‘No’ comes from the boy.

We sit down on a set of low-slung sofas like black-cushioned metal spiders. Mumtaz is watching me and I look away because she’s beautiful and I don’t want to stare. I haven’t seen her since the wedding, and I must have been more drunk than I thought because I don’t remember thinking then that Ozi was such a lucky bastard.

‘Scotch?’ Ozi asks.

‘Of course,’ I respond.

Ozi starts to hand Muazzam to Mumtaz, but she stands up. ‘I’ll get it,’ she says.

‘Do you really think I’ve gone bald?’ Ozi asks me.

‘I’m afraid so, handsome,’ I tell him, even though he still has hair left. Ozi’s vain enough to survive a little teasing.

Mumtaz pulls an unopened bottle of Black Label out of a cabinet. My bootlegger tells me Blacks are going for four thousand apiece these days. I stick to McDowell’s, smuggled in from India and, at eight-fifty, priced for those of us who make an honest living. But Ozi can afford the good stuff, and Black Label is fine by me, provided someone else is paying.

‘Ozi claims he was a real heartthrob in his younger days,’ Mumtaz says, cracking the seal.

‘He certainly was,’ I reply. ‘Lahore ran out of tissues the night you two were married.’

‘I still am a heartthrob,’ Ozi protests, touching his temples. ‘A little skin is sexy.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘At our age, my hirsute chum, all women care about is cash. And my bank account is hairy enough for a harem.’

‘Such refinement,’ Mumtaz says, handing me a Scotch, nicely watered and iced. ‘Are all Lahori men like him?’

‘Certainly not,’ I tell her.

‘Be careful, Daru,’ Ozi says, accepting his glass from Mumtaz. ‘She’s trying to divide us.’

Mumtaz sits down next to him. Her drink is stiffer than either of ours. ‘Since you’re one of my husband’s dearest friends,’ she says, ‘I have little hope for you.’

Ozi gives me a wink.

‘But a little hope,’ she adds, ‘is better than none at all.’

‘Cheers,’ I say. The three of us clink our glasses.

You know you’re in trouble when you can’t meet a woman’s eye, particularly if the woman happens to be your best friend’s wife. So I’m definitely in trouble, because I keep looking at Mumtaz and jerking my gaze away whenever she looks at me. I hope she doesn’t notice, but she probably does. Then again, maybe I’m thinking too much. Stoner’s paranoia.

We’re well into our second round of drinks when I pull out a pack of reds. ‘Smoke?’

‘I’ve quit,’ Ozi says.

‘You can’t be serious.’ The Ozi I knew was a half-pack-a-day man. The very fellow, in fact, who got me started on cigarettes in the first place, when we were fourteen, because he looked so cool smoking on the roof of his old house.

‘I’m a father now. I have to be responsible.’

‘To whom?’ I ask. ‘I feel abandoned.’

‘You should quit, too.’

I extend the pack. ‘Come on. One more. For old times.’

He shakes his head. ‘Sorry, yaar.’

‘Well, I haven’t quit,’ Mumtaz says, taking one. ‘And I’ve been dying for a smoke.’

Ozi gives Mumtaz a look over the head of their son.

‘He’s asleep,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you take him to bed?’

Ozi carries the boy out and I light our cigarettes.

‘I’m not allowed to smoke when he’s in the room,’ she explains, picking a newspaper off the table. ‘Do you read this?’

‘Sometimes. There’s a story today about a missing girl in Defense. The police suspect her family killed her when they discovered she had a lover. Her lover claims the police did something with her after the two of them were caught on a date by a mobile unit and taken into the station. And her family insists she never had a lover. Strange stuff.’

‘I read it. By someone called Zulfikar Manto.’

‘That’s right. I hadn’t heard of him before. Good article.’

She nods once, her eyes on the front page.

‘Let’s talk about this quitting-smoking thing,’ I say to Ozi when he returns, unwilling to let him off the hook so easily.

‘It’ll kill you,’ he says.

I flick some ash into the ashtray. ‘That’s no reason to quit. You have to weigh the benefit against the loss.’

‘And what exactly is the benefit?’

I spread my hands and take a drag to demonstrate. ‘Pleasure, yaar.’

‘Didn’t you tell me smoking ruined your stamina as a boxer?’

Mumtaz raises an eyebrow, the curved half of a slender question mark, black, in recline.

‘Ruined is a strong word,’ I say.

‘You never won.’

‘I won all the time. I just never won a championship.’

‘It takes years off your life.’

‘It helps fight boredom. It gives you more to do and less time to do it in.’

‘I must not be that bored. A wife and son do keep life interesting.’

I look at Mumtaz, cigarette in hand, but refrain from pointing out that the pleasures of having a husband and son haven’t eliminated her desire for the occasional puff.

‘What sort of person,’ Mumtaz asks, exhaling, ‘tries to convince someone not to quit smoking?’

‘Only a good friend,’ I respond. ‘Who else would care?’

‘It’s too late,’ Ozi says. ‘I haven’t had a cigarette in three years.’

‘You’ve been away,’ I point out. ‘Surrounded by health-crazy Americans. I’ll have you smoking again in a month.’

‘Don’t corrupt him,’ Mumtaz says to me, pulling her legs up onto the sofa and resting her head on Ozi’s shoulder.

‘I’ve never corrupted anyone,’ I say.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she says.

She’s finished her cigarette but hasn’t put it out properly, so it’s still smoking in the ashtray. I crush mine into it, grinding until both stop burning. ‘I never lie,’ I lie.

She smiles.

By the time I leave for home, I’m happily trashed. Not a bad reunion, all in all. Ozi and Mumtaz see me out, we shake hands and kiss cheeks, respectively, and I’m off, driving under the hot candle of a shadow-casting moon that’s bigger and brighter and yellower than it should be. There are no clouds and no wind, and there are no stars because of the dust. The road sucks on the tires of my car. Great night for a joint, but I don’t think I’m sober enough to roll one, and I should have been paying more attention because I’ve run into a police check post and it’s too late to turn. There’s nothing for it. I have to stop. I light a cigarette to cover my breath and open a window.

A flashlight shines into my eyes and I can make out a mustache but little else. ‘Bring your car to the side of the road,’ the mustache says.

I do it.

‘Registration,’ says the mustache. ‘License.’

I give them to him, anticipating the list of possible bribe-yielding items he’ll ask me about. I hope he doesn’t smell the booze.

‘Get out,’ says the mustache.

They search my car: the dickey, the glove compartment, under the seats. Nothing. Now if I’m lucky the mustache will let me go. But I’m not lucky and he continues hunting.

‘Where are you coming from?’ asks the mustache.

‘My parents’ house.’ Always a safe answer.

‘Where do they live?’

‘In the cantonment.’ The police are terrified of the army.

He smiles, and I think, Damn, he’s smelled the booze. He has.

‘Have you been drinking?’ he asks.

‘What sort of question is that? I’m a good Muslim.’ Stupid answer. He knows I’m drunk. I should beg for mercy and throw him a bribe.

Other mustaches gather around. ‘Let’s take this good Muslim back to the station,’ one says.

‘Do you know the penalty for drinking?’ asks the first mustache.

‘Eternal hellfire?’

‘No, before that. Do you know how many years you will be shut in prison?’

This has gone far enough, I think. One of these guys might be a fundo with a bad temper, so I’d better buy my way out of this fast. ‘Isn’t there some way we can sort this out?’ I ask.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Perhaps I could pay a fine instead,’ I suggest.

‘Shut him in prison,’ one of the mustaches mutters.

The first mustache leads me a short distance away from the others. ‘This is a very serious crime,’ he says, ‘but I see that you’re sorry for what you’ve done. Give me two thousand, and I’ll convince them to let you go.’

‘I don’t have two thousand,’ I say, relieved that we’ve started haggling.

‘How much do you have?’

I take out my wallet and shuffle through the notes. ‘Seven hundred and eighty-three.’

‘Give it to me.’

‘I’m very low on petrol. Let me keep the eighty-three.’

‘Fine.’

I drive off in a state of drunken emptiness that I know will give way to anger, because I can’t afford to throw away seven hundred rupees like that. But for now I’m still buzzing, so I take swoopy turns with a grin that’s so separate from my eyes it feels like my face belongs to two people. If there’s a camera filming my life it moves up, higher and higher, until I’m just a pair of headlights winding my way home.

I’m huddled under the sheets in my cold bedroom when I hear, above the air conditioner’s hum, a sound I don’t want to hear. It’s Manucci, knocking on my door.

‘Saab, your breakfast is ready,’ he says.

Manucci only does this when I’m late. I look at my alarm clock: ten minutes to nine. I should be leaving right now. ‘Breakfast!’ I roar. I shower and shave at the same time, cutting myself, throw on a suit, and try to gulp down the water Manucci has brought me, but it’s so cold I have to drink it slowly. I have a headache and an upset stomach, signs that last night’s Black Label might have been fake, and my shirt is missing a button.

I grab my briefcase, shovel some fried egg into my mouth with pieces of toast, and head out the door. A dog is lying in the middle of the driveway, just outside the gate, and he doesn’t stir when I yell at him or even when I send a stone thudding into his back. I look around for a stick but can’t find one, so I walk forward empty-handed to see if he’s dead. He is. He can’t have been dead for long because gorged ticks still cover his ears like bunches of grapes. There are a lot of dead dogs these days: the heat’s killing them. I push him with my foot toward the refuse pile by the gate and notice he’s already stiff, tendons like tight ropes wrapped around his bones.

Small houses hunched over shoulder-high boundary walls disgorge a few tardy inhabitants onto the narrow street. My place is plain, unlike some of the pink-painted, column-sporting mini-monstrosities nearby. A gray cement block, more or less, with rectangular windows, a couple of balconies too narrow to use, and the best bloody tree in the neighborhood: a banyan that’s been around forever and covers most of the dust patch I call my front lawn.

I drive fast, belching up the taste of egg from time to time, and I’m thinking about an appointment I have at ten which I’d rather not have at all. Still, I’m not happy when my car’s engine dies on me and a quick glance tells me that I’m out of fuel. I try to make it to the next petrol pump on sheer momentum, but there’s too much traffic and I have to hit the brakes. I take off my jacket, roll up my sleeves, open the door, and push with one hand on the steering wheel until the car is by the side of the road. People honk at me unnecessarily as they drive past, and my white shirt is turning translucent in spots.

I walk the half-kilometer or so to the station and buy some regular, a container, and a funnel. It’s 9:48. Petrol swishing beside me, I jog back, inhaling the dark smoke buses spit in my direction and feeling sweat fill my eyebrows and overflow, stinging, into my eyes. I restart my car, driving with one hand and unbuttoning my shirt with the other so I can dry myself off with a rag.

I’m in the office by eleven minutes after ten, cold because I’m soaked and the air-conditioning in the bank is always too strong. I smell like a garage on a windless day, and I’m sure I look a mess.

Raider sees me and shakes his head. Raider’s real name is Haider, and his dream is to become a hostile takeover specialist on Wall Street. He’s the only man at our bank who wears suspenders.

‘You’re in for it, yaar,’ he says.

‘Is he here?’ I ask.

‘Is he ever late?’

‘Is he pissed?’

‘He isn’t smiling.’

Raider’s talking about my client, Malik Jiwan, a rural landlord with half a million U.S. in his account, a seat in the Provincial Assembly, and eyebrows that meet in the middle like a second pair of whiskers. His pastimes include fighting the spread of primary education and stalling the census. Right now he’s sitting behind my desk, in my chair, rotating imperiously.

‘You’re late,’ he says.

I’m in no mood for this. ‘Sorry, Mr Jiwan, my car –’

‘Never mind. Has my check cleared?’

‘Your check?’

He strokes his beard and looks at me, saying nothing.

I remind myself why God gave bankers lips: to kiss up to our clients. ‘Please tell me: what check?’

‘The check for thirty thousand U.S. I deposited with you.’

‘Let me just find out.’ I call customer services and give them the account number. ‘I’m afraid it hasn’t gone through yet.’

‘That’s ridiculous. I deposited it a week ago.’

I’m enjoying his discomfort. ‘International checks can take some time.’

‘Didn’t I tell you to take care of this personally?’

‘I don’t remember your saying that, Mr Jiwan.’

‘Well, I remember saying it.’

Good for you. ‘Next time you really ought to consider a cashier’s check.’

‘Are you making fun of me?’

God forbid. ‘No,’ I say.

‘Young man, I don’t like the way you’re smiling.’

I’m not one of your serfs, you bastard. And I want you to get the hell out of my chair. ‘Mr Jiwan, I’m not trying to be disrespectful.’

‘Your tone is disrespectful.’

Before the Day of Judgment, as every good banker knows, will come a Night of Insolvency. And on that Night I intend to go calling on one or two of my more troublesome clients. But for now my bank is still sound, and I’m limited in my choice of responses to Mr Jiwan’s attempt to impose feudal hierarchy on my office. ‘Mr Jiwan, I’m doing my best to provide you with any service you require.’

‘Do you know who I am?’

I’m beginning to lose my patience. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘I can have you thrown on the street.’

‘Don’t threaten me, Mr Jiwan. I don’t work for you. You’re a client of this bank, and if you don’t like the service you receive here, you’re free to go elsewhere.’

‘We’ll see who goes elsewhere. I want to speak to your Branch Manager.’

‘Certainly.’ I escort him to my BM’s office, outwardly calm, because I don’t want him to see me squirm. But from the way my BM grabs Mr Jiwan’s hand, in both of his, and also from the way my BM bows slightly, at the waist and at the neck, a double bend, I know this is going to be unpleasant.

‘Ghulam,’ Mr Jiwan is saying, ‘this boy has just insulted me.’

‘Shut the door, Mr Shezad,’ my BM says to me. ‘What happened?’

I know I need to present my case forcefully. ‘Sir,’ I begin.

‘Not you,’ my BM says. ‘Malik saab, tell me what happened.’

‘I told this boy to take care of a deposit personally. Today, when I find out that he hasn’t done so, he calls me a liar, and says that I never told him to. He’s rude to me, and when I tell him I won’t stand for it, he raises his voice and tells me to take my business to another bank.’

My BM is looking at me with hard eyes. ‘This is unacceptable, Mr Shezad.’

‘Please let me tell you what happened, sir.’

‘You told Malik saab to take his business to another bank?’

‘You see, sir –’

‘Mr Shezad, this isn’t the first time a client has complained about your attitude. You’re on very dangerous ground. Just answer my question.’

‘No, sir, I didn’t say that.’

‘Are you saying that I’m lying?’ asks Mr Jiwan.

I’ve had a bad day. A bad month, actually. And there’s only so much nonsense a self-respecting fellow can be expected to take from these megalomaniacs. So I say it. ‘This is a bank, not your servant quarters, Mr Jiwan. If you want better service, maybe you ought to learn some manners.’

‘Enough!’ my BM yells.

I’ve never heard him yell before.

His voice brings me to my senses. What am I doing? Fear grabs me by the throat and makes me wave my hands like I’m erasing the wrong answer from a blackboard. ‘I’m very sorry, sir,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Jiwan.’

They don’t say anything.

‘I don’t know what came over me,’ I go on. ‘It won’t happen again. I’m very sorry.’

My BM says, ‘You’re fired, Mr Shezad.’

A quick side step into unreality, like meeting your mother when you’re tripping. Am I losing my job? Right now? Is it possible?

Pull yourself together.

‘Please, sir,’ I say.

‘No, Mr Shezad.’

‘But please, sir. Please.’

‘No.’

I leave my BM’s office, leave them both watching me, and walk to my desk, and I look around it, and there’s so much to do, so much work to do, and I can do it. I can do it. But I can’t concentrate. My nose is running, and I taste it in my mouth, and my face is hot even though I’m cold.

Everyone is staring at me. How can they know already? I want to tell them it’s a mistake, but I look down at my desk instead. Just act natural. Don’t draw attention to yourself.

My BM is walking Mr Jiwan out. I pick up a pen and move some papers, and they don’t say anything to me. Everything will be all right.

Someone comes to stand in front of my desk. Ignore him and he’ll go away.

‘Mr Shezad.’

I raise my head. It’s my BM. There’s a security guard beside him.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘You’re fired, Mr Shezad.’

‘But, you see, sir, I’m really very sorry. Don’t fire me. I’ll work a month without pay.’

‘You have a serious psychological problem, Mr Shezad. Your severance pay will be sent to your home by registered post. You need to stop crying, collect your personal items, and go home.’

‘Do you want me to fill out some form?’

‘No, Mr Shezad. Please leave.’

He’s watching me. I’m looking for personal items on my desk but not finding any. Pick up my briefcase. Legs move, feet go one in front of the other. Look straight ahead as the guard opens the door. Turn the key in the ignition. Drive. Drive where? Home. Give briefcase to Manucci and ignore the words that come out of his mouth because I’m going to my room, shutting the door, locking it, pulling the curtains, taking off my clothes, crawling under the sheets, and curling up in the dark dark dark.

I don’t know if I’ve been sleeping or dreaming while I’m awake, but suddenly my eyelids snap apart under the sheets and I’m back from somewhere very different. I feel feverish and I’m covered in sweat, but I think it’s because I didn’t turn on the AC or even the fan. Unnh, I need to go to the bathroom.

Sitting hunched over on the toilet, I feel the wet smoothness of my skin as my belly doubles over and touches itself. My stomach is so bad that I’m passing liquid. It burns. I grab the lota and wash myself.

Walking naked to the window in my room, I pull open the curtains and see an overripe sun swelling on the horizon.

I remember that I’ve agreed to go to a party with Ozi and Mumtaz. When they come to pick me up, Mumtaz is wearing something black that exposes her shoulders. She kisses me on the cheek. Her smell stays near me.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks, concern mixed with the gravel of her voice.

‘I’m not feeling well.’

She smiles sympathetically. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Upset stomach.’

‘Have some Imodium and let’s go,’ Ozi says.

‘I’m not going,’ I say.

‘Come on, yaar,’ Ozi says, turning his hands palm up and tilting his head.

‘I’m feeling really bad.’

‘That’s how we’ll all be feeling in the morning. You just have a head start.’

‘I’m sorry, yaar. I’m not going.’

‘Yes, you are. I insist.’

‘Look at me: I’m not dressed and I look horrible.’

‘You always look horrible. Throw on some clothes and let’s go. We’ll wait in the car.’

In a daze, I put on a pair of black jeans, with a black T-shirt, black belt, and black loafers, slip some hash into a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and head out.

‘You two match,’ Ozi says, meaning Mumtaz and me.

I sit in the back of Ozi’s Pajero. I’ve never been in a Pajero before. Costs more than my house and moves like a bull, powerful and single-minded. Ozi drives by pointing it in one direction and stepping on the gas, trusting that everyone will get out of our way. Occasionally, when he cuts things too close and has to swerve to avoid crushing someone, the Pajero’s engine grumbles with disappointment and Ozi swears.

‘Stupid bastard.’

‘It was a red light,’ Mumtaz points out.

‘So? He could see me coming.’

‘There are rules, you know.’

‘And the first is, bigger cars have the right of way.’

A favorite line. One I haven’t heard in a long, long time. I remember speeding around the city with Ozi in his ’82 Corolla, feet sweating sockless in battered boat shoes, following cute girls up and down the Boulevard, memorizing their number plates and avoiding cops because neither of us had a license. Hair chopped in senior school crew cuts. Eyes pot-red behind his wayfarers and my aviators. Stickers of universities I would never attend on the back windshield. Poondi, in the days of cheap petrol and skipping class and heavy-metal cassettes recorded with too much bass and even more treble. We had some good times, Ozi and I, before he left.

I would have reached out and clapped him on the shoulder then, grinned at him in the rearview, but I don’t do it now. I’m too tired.

We arrive at the party. A mostly male mob is gathered outside the gate, hoping to get in. It’s summertime, after all, and parties are few and far between.

Ozi pulls up and honks, and we get some glares.

‘Sorry, sir, I can’t open the gate,’ says a security guard.

‘You’ll have to. I’m parking inside,’ says Ozi.

The Pajero must give Ozi’s words added authority, because instead of laughing in his face, the guard says, ‘But how will we keep these people outside?’

‘That’s your problem. If anyone tries to get in, hit them one.’

The guard disappears. Ozi inches the car forward, pushing the crowd out of his way. I hear people swearing. Suddenly the gate opens and we drive in, leaving two security guards and some servants to scuffle with the crowd.

Ozi and Mumtaz head indoors, toward the music, and I’m about to follow them when someone grabs my arm. It’s Raider, taut with nervous energy. ‘Shit, yaar,’ he says.

‘Let’s not talk about it.’ The last thing I want to do just now is think about what happened today. Besides, the pity in Raider’s face is making me feel unwell.

He nods and raises his hands in accommodation. ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘To hell with those bastards. I can’t believe –’

‘Leave it.’

Raider shifts from foot to foot, an intensely vacant look in his eyes, and grins at me. ‘You’re a killer, yaar. A killer. I like your style, partying tonight. I’d be a complete wreck.’

I take hold of his shoulders. ‘Please, shut up.’

He ducks his head. ‘Sorry.’ Then he starts grinning again. ‘But I’ve got the perfect thing for you.’

‘What?’

‘Ex.’

I should have guessed he was on something. ‘Here?’

He nods. ‘Great stuff, yaar. Very peppy.’

I shake my head. ‘Not tonight.’

‘Especially tonight. I know what I’m talking about.’

‘How much?’

‘Two thousand.’

‘I can’t, yaar. It’s too much.’

Raider smiles. ‘Just take it, then. A gift.’

That’s the problem with Raider, why he’ll never make it to Wall Street or probably even to Karachi, for that matter: he’s too generous. He’s the last person you want on your side in a negotiation.

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But I can’t. Another time.’

‘Just call,’ Raider says, suddenly sad. ‘The bank will be boring without you. All worker bees and no wasps.’

I pat him on the back and walk off.

Then I’m inside. I see the familiar faces of Lahore’s party crowd, and soon I’m caught up in the whole hugging, handshaking, cheek-kissing scene. Tonight’s venue is a mansion with marble floors and twenty-foot ceilings. Rumor has it that the owner made his fortune as a smuggler, which is probably true but could also be social retribution for his recent ascent to wealth.

The dance floor is packed. Ozi and Mumtaz are shaking it down to ‘Stayin’ Alive.’ They make a sexy pair, a welcome new addition to the scene, and I overhear the update passing like a Reuters report: ‘Aurangzeb and Mumtaz, back from New York, very cool.’ Information is key at these things: no one wants to be caught holding social stock that’s about to crash.

I see Nadira glaring in my direction as she dances with some guy whose wet shirt sticks to his back. Keeping her eyes fixed on mine, she pulls closer to him and grinds her body against his, running her hands up his thighs. I’ve never understood why she does this to me, since she’s the one who ended it. As usual, I try to ignore her.

I’m in no mood to dance and there are too many people at the bar, so I wander through the house and out to the back lawn. Finding a wrought-iron bench, I sit down to watch the party out of the darkness.

As I roll a joint, couples argue and kiss, unable to see me seeing them. Two guys are pacing about. One seems to be calming the other down, but I’m too far away to hear their words. Several people chat on their mobiles.

Then a woman walks in my direction.

‘Daru?’ she says.

‘Here, Mumtaz.’

She comes over and sits down, her body as far from mine as this narrow bench will allow.

‘How did you find me?’ I ask.

‘I watched you go outside. What are you doing?’

‘Just enjoying the night air.’

She smiles and says conspiratorially, ‘It looks like you’re rolling a jay.’

‘I suppose it does look like that.’

‘Can I have some?’

I look down. ‘Where’s Ozi? We should all share it.’

She points to the house with her chin. ‘He’s inside, chatting it up with some old school buddies. Besides, he’s stopped smoking pot.’

‘I can see I’m going to have to be firm with him,’ I say. ‘He’s forgotten his roots.’

‘We used to smoke together before. I was stoned when we first met. He was dancing. Ozi’s a great dancer, you know.’

‘I know. He’s a charmer. Women love him.’ I finish rolling the joint. ‘Do you want me to go and get him?’

She shakes her head. ‘No, let him enjoy himself.’

I light up. We share it. She takes one hit and starts coughing, but she takes another before handing it back. I don’t say anything, shutting my eyes and smoking slowly as we keep passing the joint. When it’s done, I flick it into a hedge.

Both of us are silent. I stare straight ahead.

‘What’s wrong?’ asks Mumtaz.

‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have come.’

‘I’m sorry if Ozi forced you.’

‘It’s not that. I had a bad day.’

‘What happened?’ she asks.

The joint has made my throat burn and my eyes water. ‘I got fired.’

Mumtaz brushes my face with her fingers. They come away wet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.

My stomach constricts. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I shut my eyes and bend over, coughing through my nose.

Mumtaz puts her arm around me. ‘It’ll be okay,’ she says gently. ‘Don’t be scared.’

I stay bent over like that for a long time, until the coughing stops, and I wipe my face on my jeans before I sit back up. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘Please go in to Ozi.’

‘I’d rather stay outside with you for a little bit. If you don’t mind.’

My coughing seems to have loosened the tightness wrapped around my chest. I take a deep breath, my lungs raw like I’ve been for a long run. ‘This bastard told my boss I was rude.’ I start to laugh. ‘I wish I’d known I was going to get fired. There are a few more things I’d have liked to say.’

Mumtaz laughs with me. ‘I can imagine.’

I love her voice. It has the soul of a whisper, meant only for the person she’s speaking to, even when she isn’t speaking softly. ‘Are you stoned?’

‘You know, I’m really stoned.’

I nod. ‘This is good hash. Courtesy of a friend of mine, Murad Badshah.’

‘Murad? Did he go to school with you and Ozi?’

I smile. ‘No. I met him while I was at Punjab University, when Ozi was off studying in the States.’

‘Well, his hash has certainly given me a buzz.’ She moves her arm back and rests both of her hands in her lap. I find my mind tracing the line her skin touched as it curved around me.

‘I’m pretty stoned myself,’ I say.

‘You look less unhappy.’

‘I feel completely empty.’

‘You’ll find something to fill you.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’m sure you’ll find something.’

I light a cigarette.

‘May I have one?’ she asks.

‘I’m sorry. Of course.’

I light it for her.

A bird passes overhead, invisible, the sound of agitated air.

‘Did you ever study with Professor Julius Superb?’ she asks me.

I grin. ‘Do you know where his name comes from?’

She laughs. ‘No, but it’s fabulous.’

‘His great-grandfather was the batman of a Scottish officer who tried for years to get him to convert. When the Indian Mutiny broke out, the old Scot wound up with a knife in his chest. Julius’s great-grandfather came to him on his deathbed and said he’d decided to become a Christian. And the last thing the Scot could croak before he died was: Superb. Julius is the fourth generation of the line.’

Mumtaz is laughing so hard she has to hold her sides. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she gasps.

‘It’s true,’ I say. ‘Professor S. told us himself.’

‘No.’ She’s smiling at me and shaking her head.

‘Seriously.’ I smile back. ‘But how do you know him?’

‘I came across an article of his today. It’s called “The Phoenix and the Flame.” Have you read it?’

‘No.’

‘Let me read a piece of it to you.’

‘You have it with you?’

‘Just one page that I tore out. Do you think that’s odd?’

‘No.’

‘It is odd, isn’t it? Whenever I read something interesting, I tear out a piece and keep it as a talisman until I find something new to replace it with. It’s a sort of superstition. I did it once and it helped me break out of writer’s block, so I’ve done it ever since. Librarians must hate me.’

I look at her, surprised. ‘What do you write?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

I shake my head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m teasing. I used to write for some magazines in New York.’

‘That must have been fantastic.’

‘Not really. I wrote boring stuff.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I’ll read you this article.’ She opens a little bag and takes out a folded piece of paper. ‘Could you keep your lighter lit so I can read this? Thanks. Here’s what it says: “My father liked to wonder aloud whether the phoenix was re-created by the fire of its funeral pyre or transformed so that what emerged was a soulless shadow of its former being, identical in appearance but without the joy in life its predecessor had had. He wondered alternatively whether the fire might be purificatory, a redemptive, rejuvenating blaze that destroyed the withered shell of the old phoenix and allowed the creature’s essence to emerge stronger than it was before in a young, new body. Or, he would ask, was the fire a manifestation of entropy, slowly sapping the life-energy of the phoenix over the eons, a little death in a life that could know no beginning and no end but which could nonetheless be subject to an ever-decreasing magnitude? He asked me once if I thought the fires in our lives, the traumas, increased our fulfillment by setting up contrasts that illuminated more clearly our everyday joys; or perhaps I viewed them instead as tests that made us stronger by teaching us to endure; or did I believe, rather, that they simply amplified what we already were, in the end making the strong stronger, the weak weaker, and the dangerous deadly?” That’s it.’

The gas coming from my lighter hisses, suddenly audible, until I relax my thumb and extinguish the flame. Back in my pocket, the metal radiates heat into the skin below my hipbone.

‘That’s vintage Superb,’ I tell her, a little wistfully. ‘He teaches economics, but basically he’s a freelance thinker.’

‘I like the image his article brought to my mind, of this old Punjab University fuddy-duddy hard at work in his office.’

‘He’s a comrade.’

‘Comrade?’

‘Communist.’

‘Are there many?’

‘Not anymore. The unshaven boys are the new populists. But they leave Professor S. alone. I think they’ve decided he’s harmless. Or irrelevant.’

‘What about the other Communists?’

‘Most of them have become experts at couching their beliefs in religiously acceptable terms. The academic version of Sufi poets, you might call them.’

‘And the rest?’

‘Some professors were roughed up. They left.’

‘How sad.’

I shrug. ‘Good old Professor S. is still writing away. Which brings me back to you. You haven’t told me what you’re writing now.’

‘I have a question for you first.’

‘What?’

‘Tell me about boxing.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. What’s it like? How did you get into it?’

‘Family tradition. I was an out-of-shape little kid. Very soft. One day my uncle took me aside and said, “The time has come,” or something like that. He trained me in the evenings: jump rope, speed bag, heavy bag. He was pretty lazy, so he usually sat on a chair and smoked while I pounded away, but every so often he put on his gloves and knocked me around so I’d learn not to be scared. I boxed until the end of college.’

‘You said you never won a championship.’

‘No. But I made it to a couple. And I won more fights than I lost.’

‘Did your mother approve?’

‘No, but she always came to watch when I asked her. She hid her face behind her hands, but she came.’

‘I’m sure she was terrified.’

I lean back on the bench and look up at the sky. Two stars, a low-riding moon, dusty haze. Cloudless but not clear. Not very dark but dark enough. Impossible to see anything falling.

I think of my mother on a rooftop, of waking beside her, early, at first light on an almost-quiet summer morning. The flies would come later, swinging up over the walls with the rising sun, buzzing and ripe like honeybees.

Someone calls our names. It’s Ozi.

‘There you two are,’ he says. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘Talking,’ Mumtaz says. ‘I like this friend of yours.’

Ozi smiles and puts his arm around me. ‘You’ll get over it soon enough,’ he tells her.

We walk inside, Mumtaz and I on opposite sides of Ozi, and the pounding of the music gets louder as we approach, the lights from the dance floor reflecting off the walls so that colors start to blur and change, again and again and again.

The police don’t stop us on our drive home. We are in a Pajero, after all.