Moth Smoke

Walk around, avoiding eye contact, touching fabrics, seeing who’s here. No men except the guard and one of the salespeople, who looks harmless. The other salesperson is a fierce-faced woman with arms bigger than mine. Keep my distance from both of them, because my mouth is dry and I’m zoned on hairy, so I don’t know how well I can talk. If they ask me what I’m looking for, I might shoot them. I think shooting something might calm me down. I feel hysterical. That damn kid keeps crying and tugging on his mother.

  I walk up to the guard and pull the automatic out of my jeans and put it in his face. His shotgun isn’t pointing at me. I notice that my finger’s on the trigger guard instead of the trigger, so I slip it into the right place. I click off the safety. The guard watches me. Above his head I can see my reflection in the window, and I look just as calm as he does, but I’m not calm at all and I don’t think he is either. He’s raising his hands, which is good. They’re not near the shotgun.

  I can’t believe I forgot to take my automatic off safety before I came in. He could have killed me. Thinking that makes me want to kill someone just to calm down.

  Murad Badshah’s here. He’s taking control. Good. The salespeople are giving him a lot of money. The customers are taking off their jewelry, their purses. The guard is lying on his face, his shotgun out of reach, and I realize I’m standing on his right hand, but I don’t move. I look around me, feeling embarrassed, but no one seems to notice.

  A police mobile drives by on the street outside without stopping. I watch it. If they stop I’m dead, and the first thing I’m going to do is start shooting. Shooting anyone and anything. But the police keep on going.

  I take my foot off the guard’s hand, but this makes me nervous.

  The woman with the kid yells something, and I look and see the boy running for the door. I don’t move. Little ugly boy who looks like Muazzam. Runs right by me and reaches the door. No one gets out, that’s the rule. No one gets out.

  My hand. Hand’s rising. Hand with the gun in it. Leveling off at Muazzam’s head. He’s not going to make it to Mumtaz. He’s not going to ruin this.

  The sound of an explosion and the glass of the door becomes opaque with cracks but doesn’t shatter.

  Was that me?

  14

  judgment (after intermission)

  The gavel weighs heavily in your hand. Suppressing a yawn, you use the handle to scratch yourself beneath your robe.

  The actors sit upright in these, the final moments of the trial. Murad Badshah perspires comfortably, his wet face beatific as it catches the light. Any thought, no thought, could be passing through his mind.

  Tension animates Aurangzeb’s handsome features, a streak of cruelty visible in his expression of uncertain triumph. It suits him. Women (and not a few men) cast admiring glances his way.

  Mumtaz carries herself with the equestrian elegance of a woman who looks good in hats, leaning forward as she prepares for a jump. Her eyes glitter. She watches Daru.

  And the accused, Darashikoh Shezad, coils without moving, explosive, motionless, barely contained. His smile is predatory. He stares at you.

  The prosecutor is closing his closing.

  ‘The accused would have you believe, Milord,’ he is saying, ‘that our trials are on trial here, that our judgments are being judged. The accused would have you believe that a crime is in progress in this courtroom. The accused would accuse those who accuse him. Hooked by the line of truth, thrashing against the current of evidence, the accused would have you believe, Milord, that the fish is reeling in the fisherman.

  ‘But what are you to make of the testimony of the witnesses who saw the accused kill the boy, of the witnesses who recall the make, model, and registration of a car the accused concedes to be his, fleeing the scene of the crime? What are you to make of the testimony of the police officers who conducted this most thorough and professional investigation, of the confession the accused made in their custody?

  ‘Nothing. You are to make nothing of the testimony you have heard. You are to make nothing of the evidence you have seen. You are instead to put your faith in the promises of the accused, in his fantasy that he is being framed by interests powerful enough to corrupt the professionalism of the police, wealthy enough to bribe these legions of witnesses, and malicious enough to destroy the life of a man who is as innocent of this crime as the innocent can be.

  ‘But the accused has been unable to demonstrate the existence of foul play, unable to find an alibi, a single witness, an atom of evidence that might corroborate his version of events. The accused has been described as untrustworthy by a former employer, as a peddler of drugs by a father whose son he corrupted. He has been seen consorting with known outlaws. Illegal narcotics and an unlicensed firearm were found in his home. The words of such a man must be given little weight, Milord, if indeed they are to be given any weight at all.

  ‘It is true another voice has joined the accused in crying that he is the victim of a shadowy conspiracy. But surely, Milord, if the rule of law demands anything, it demands you ignore the voice of his adulterous lover, distraught at the thought that prison bars may do what the sacred contract of marriage could not: stand in the way of her carnal relations.’

  The prosecutor licks his lips like a victorious mongoose.

  ‘Enough of this nonsense, Milord,’ he says. ‘Do justice.’

  There is a pregnant pause, and one by one the other actors in this drama turn to you. The audience awaits. The director bites his nails. Critics and producers will judge your decision.

  Here comes your cue.

  ‘Come on,’ someone hisses from offstage. ‘What’s it to be? Guilty or not?’

  15

  eight

  I hear over the sound of the car’s engine the ringing of a gunshot fired close to my ears. It diminishes in volume without subsiding into silence, becoming more and more irritating, too quiet not to be imaginary, stealing my attention from the road.

  Murad Badshah doesn’t speak. He holds his gun in his lap, the barrel pointed at my kidneys, and although he faces straight ahead, I know he’s watching me out of the corner of his eye.

  At home I wait in the car as he gets out, so we don’t have to look at each other or talk. He stands for some time in the driveway, thinking, then climbs into his rickshaw and drives off. It’s raining. He forgot to give me my half of our night’s take, and I forgot to ask.

  I can’t sleep. I stand in the open door of my house, a candle behind me, light glittering off raindrops until the instant they pass into my shadow, smoking a cigarette, straight up, no hash, no hairy, snapping out smoke rings the monsoon washes away. When it’s done I go back inside and sit down, the badminton racket beside me. But I can’t bring myself to touch it, and I hardly notice the moths as they pass.

  I worry a thumbnail, trying to make the edge smooth, until I peel a long sliver still embedded in flesh and the pain makes me suck my thumb. Then I start to squeeze with my canines, harder and harder, covering one pain with another, and when I take my thumb out of my mouth it’s almost numb, sensation-free except for the throb of my pulse deep inside the flesh.

  The morning comes gradually, with color in the sky, the deepest blue not black. Shadows appear. I know what day this is. I know Zulfikar Manto checks his mail today, and I know where. But I don’t know when, so I’m in my car, outside the post office, waiting well before it opens.

  Across the street, the flow of people from bank branch to money changer’s stall builds steadily, rupees shifting into dollars in the wake of the nuclear sanctions, the exchange rate ticking into the high fifties, the low sixties. Some families ride with gunmen to protect the contents of safe-deposit boxes they intend to take home. In a car beside me four men with beards jot down license-plate numbers. A ripple in the city’s crime wave.

  I wait for Mumtaz.

  A letter writer near the post office entrance starts to eat a paratha. Oil mixes with the ink s
tains on his fingers. When he wipes them on a greasy newspaper, they leave blue streaks.

  I didn’t see Mumtaz enter the post office, but I see her now, emerging, and my first thought is to leave, to slip the car into reverse and slide back onto the street. The wind and rain have made a solid mass of her hair and it hangs in clumps beside her face, curling, thick. The way it does when she sweats, after boxing, after sex on a hot day. I know what it must smell like.

  I’m startled by her walk, how familiar it is: shoulders back, chin up. For all the world invulnerable, perfect, until she stumbles on the uneven pavement in front of the post office, a quick trip followed by an even quicker smile, a smile I’ve seen countless times, what her mouth and eyes do when her guard slips and she laughs at herself.

  I don’t know what I can say to her. I don’t know why I thought she would be different. I wish the sight of Mumtaz had brought my memory of her into even the slightest doubt. Because this, seeing her as she was, makes me want to run away.

  I don’t run, though. I get out of my car. Wet dust on cement, smooth like paper, like silt, retains my footprint. I take two steps and wait. She stops. Then she walks over. We stand for a moment, watching each other. She doesn’t speak.

  Something hot rises inside me, like a sob on fire, demanding release, and I tilt my head back and shut my eyes, my mouth in line with my throat, my face flat to the rain. And gravity pulls me down, overcoming exhausted muscles, an unfed, unslept body, bending weak legs, bringing me to the earth, leaving me on my knees. The air lacerates my lungs as I breathe, the world turning against me, existence an agony.

  Then a shock as I feel her hands. She strokes my hair gently, cradles the back of my head with long fingers, pulls me to her, buries my face in her loins. And I lean against her legs, upright only with her support, my arms at my sides, my chest against her thighs, as she caresses me from above. It lasts until I’ve stopped waiting for her to let go. When she walks away my body remains erect. And when I open my eyes I find I have the strength to stand.

  The police come for me that afternoon. I hadn’t expected them, but I go quietly. In the back of their mobile unit, one asks me why I did it. I don’t answer him.

  ‘Why were you in such a hurry?’ he asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The boy you killed because you couldn’t be bothered to stop for a red light. What was so important you couldn’t wait for him to cross the road?’

  I look at him, not understanding.

  ‘He was probably rushing to meet a woman,’ another says.

  They laugh.

  And as I look out the open back of the mobile unit at the intersection falling behind and people on firm ground receding as though carried away by the earth’s spin, I begin to remember and to understand. I feel something, wild anger and confusion perhaps, but I’m so tired I can’t place the emotion, and it, too, slips away as I shut my eyes.

  16

  the wife and mother (part two)

  It’s me again: Mumtaz. Now commonly called ‘the monster.’ Sometimes even to my face. Which makes my story, I suppose, a kind of monster story. With Daru among my victims.

  I wonder what would have happened if I’d met him a few months earlier, when he still had his job. Or maybe even years earlier, before his mother died, before I’d gotten married and had Muazzam. We probably would have had an insane affair, a couple weeks of wild sex, and that would have been that. I wonder, because that’s what should have happened. But when I met Daru his life was falling apart, and our relationship became something else.

  Even though I told him not to, Daru fell in love with me. Maybe ‘love’ isn’t the right term. He became obsessed with me. And I guess you could say that it was, at least in part, my fault. I stayed with him past the first warning signs. I don’t know if that was wrong of me. All I know is that it made me feel good to take care of him. I was desperate to prove to myself that I wasn’t a bad person, that I wasn’t selfish and uncaring, that I could be giving and good. That it wasn’t my fault I didn’t love my son.

  As soon as I heard Daru had been arrested for killing a boy in a car accident, I told Ozi. And Ozi smiled.

  That’s when I realized Ozi knew about our affair. He’d never said anything, didn’t say anything even then. But something in his expression left no doubt in my mind. I felt sick. Disgusted by what Daru had done, disgusted by my husband’s glee, disgusted at myself for having the affair in the first place, for ending it so abruptly. I felt sorry for all of us.

  And then I made up my mind. I decided that I couldn’t stay in this house any longer, that I needed to abandon my family to save myself.

  I thought about Muazzam growing up without a mother. I told myself that he would still have Ozi, his grandparents, his nanny. That they would take care of him. That he’d be emotionally disturbed if he grew up with a mother like me. That already I was spoiling him to make up for the love I didn’t feel. But as much as I tried, I never convinced myself I wasn’t hurting my son by leaving him behind. I just knew I had to. And I felt strong enough to live with it.

  So one day I transferred half the money in our joint account to one I’d opened for myself, took my jewelry out of the safe-deposit box, and packed two suitcases. I felt almost as determined as I had the day I told Ozi I’d marry him. But when I told Ozi I was leaving, when I saw him register the shock and pain, then I felt sad, too. For both of us. And for Muazzam.

  Ozi didn’t get angry. He was quiet for a long time. And when he spoke, softly, he just said he’d see to it that Daru wouldn’t get out of prison for a long time.

  I didn’t lie, didn’t pretend I hadn’t had an affair. I just said, ‘You killed the boy, didn’t you?’

  Ozi didn’t answer. Which was his answer. I felt like crying.

  He didn’t speak again until the servants were carrying out my suitcases. Then he said, ‘Please stay. I’ll forgive you.’

  And who will forgive you?

  I thought I would go home to Karachi, but I haven’t. Something keeps me here. Zulfikar Manto, maybe. My parents’ complete inability to understand. A reluctance to run from where I’ve been, what I was.

  I think about Muazzam more than anything else. I remember his long eyes, eyes that are neither mine nor Ozi’s but his own, uninherited, original. He isn’t a strong boy. He tires easily, cries more than most three-year-olds. But he likes my voice, likes me to read to him. It puts him to sleep.

  Muazzam called me ‘Amma.’ And not softly, but insistently, desperately, even when he was barely awake. I wonder if he always knew I would leave him. Maybe all children do, maybe that’s where nightmares come from, nature telling them their parents will be gone one day. But I wonder if mine suspected his would leave sooner than she should.

  I don’t think I will ever be able to explain to him why his mother couldn’t stay.

  One thing he will definitely know is that his mother was a very bad woman. Everyone’s talking about this trial, and more than anything else they seem fascinated by the question of whether or not Daru and I were having an affair. I say ‘the question,’ but it isn’t, really. I don’t think many people are giving me the benefit of the doubt.

  Or Daru, for that matter.

  But Zulfikar Manto’s been writing an article that tells things from Daru’s perspective, or what I imagine his perspective to be – I haven’t spoken with him since he was locked up. I’ve interviewed people who are willing to say, anonymously, of course, that a Pajero and not a Suzuki killed the boy. And certain members of the Accountability Commission, while refusing to be quoted, have pointed out that it would be extremely inconvenient for Khurram Shah, himself under investigation, if his son were to be accused of this crime.

  Manucci’s been a big help tracking down witnesses. When I left Ozi he left with me. I’ve discovered he’s a brilliant investigator. I might make a journalist out of him, once I’ve taught him how to read properly.

>   I doubt the article will do much good, but at least Daru will have some defenders. Which is more than I have. But I’m finding I can live with myself, which shocks me more than anything.

  Maybe I am a monster, after all.

  17

  nine

  In the cell a man moves and I watch him, his shadow in the shadows, as he looks past the bars at the light, itself so pale the hot yellow of its filament fails to fill evenly the glass of the bulb. An ember unable to catch fire.

  The envelope glows in my hands. It reminds me of things I’d rather not remember, a smell like burning flesh, a hazy world seen through smoke. Mumtaz’s face, the faces of many boys blurred together. A ringing sound. Places I will not let my mind go.

  I want to tear it up. But I can’t. So I pull my knees to my chest and open it. Across the top of the page, Mumtaz has written, ‘The Trial, by Zulfikar Manto.’

  It is the story of my innocence.

  A half-story.

  I read it over and over again, until I notice the paper getting wet, the ink blurring into little flowers.

  At the ends of their stories, Emperors like empires have the regrets that precede beginnings. As he lay on his deathbed, exhausted by half a century of rule, Emperor Aurangzeb dictated a final letter to his favorite daughter. ‘I reflect now on my life with sadness,’ he wrote. ‘Tell my sons not to fight as we did. To each I will leave a portion of my lands, so he need not make war on his brothers.’

  But merciless Aurangzeb, who faced an elephant without fear as a child and ruled his empire as a land of one belief, failed at the task of fathering sons unlike himself. The war of succession was again bloody, and the empire left the victor by his father too frail and too rigid to contain its own people.

  Fission of empire, a new fusion, then fission again as children parted ways.