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, becaus
e 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 tha
t 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?’