A Case Of Exploding Mangoes Part 15

"I'll tell you a story that might explain my dilemma," says General Akhtar, "a true story. I was your age, a lieutenant in the Indian Army, must have been a couple of months before the part.i.tion. I was ordered to accompany a train full of Hindus going to Amritsar and I was told to make sure that it got there safe and sound.

"You must have heard about the trains from the Indian Punjab arriving in Lah.o.r.e carrying Muslims. Full of cut-up bodies. All those stories about unborn children being carved out from their mothers' wombs and their heads being put on spears were true. I didn't see any myself, but I knew they were all true. But orders were orders, and I set off with the train, telling my platoon that every single pa.s.senger on the train was my responsibility.

"As soon as we left Lah.o.r.e we encountered groups of people with machetes and sticks and bottles of kerosene trying to block the train, seeking their revenge. I kept sending them off with a wink. I told them that the security was the army's responsibility. Our new country would need these trains. Let's not destroy them. I kept talking to the pa.s.sengers, rea.s.suring them that I would get them to Amritsar. We were travelling at a snail's pace. I was trying my best to keep the attackers at bay. But at some point the military training just took over. I knew what my new country wanted from me. I called my subedar major and told him that we would stop the train for the night prayers. I would go about two hundred yards from the train to pray. And I would come back after offering my prayer. 'Do you know how long the night prayer is?' I asked him. I didn't listen to his answer. 'That's all the time you have,' I said.

"You see, it was difficult but logical. I didn't disobey the orders that I was given and what needed to be done was done with minimum fuss. I didn't want any unborn children speared under my watch. But I also didn't want to stand on the sidelines pretending to be a professional. History makes these great sweeps and unpleasant things happen. At least my conscience is clear."

I have quietly pushed my plate away, the bird intact except for one half-chewed leg.

"My dear son, I'll do anything in my power to get you out of this but what can I do for someone who is messing around with our national security? Do you even know where this friend of yours..." He looks towards Major Kiyani who interjects. "Obaid, sir, Obaid-ul-llah."

"Yes, do you even know where he was headed?"

"I don't know sir, I don't know."

"Well, we both know where he was going, but I am sure you had nothing to do with it. Now don't disappoint me, do what is necessary."

I want to know how they found out. I also want to know how far he managed to go. How did they get him? Surface-to-air missile? A sidewinder from a chasing aeroplane? Did he make a last call to the control tower? Any messages on the black box?

Baby O has left nothing except a bottle of perfume for me.

"You don't have to do anything. Major Kiyani here will write the statement on your behalf. Sign it and I'll take care of everything else. That's General Akhtar's promise to you. You can go back to the Academy and carry on your dad's mission."

What does he know about my dad's mission?

I take the napkin from my lap and put my feet firmly on the ground.

"Sir, your people may not always be telling you the truth. I'll carry out your orders but forget my case for a moment, there is this guy in the cell next to mine, the sweepers' representative, who has been there for nine years. Everyone has forgotten about him, he has never been charged."

General Akhtar looks towards Major Kiyani. "This is the height of inefficiency. You are still holding that stupid sweeper revolutionary. I think you should let him go." He picks up his cap, gives me that 'my dear son, I did what you asked me to, now go be a good boy' look and leaves the room.

I get up from my my chair, give Major Kiyani a triumphant look and salute General Akhtar's back. chair, give Major Kiyani a triumphant look and salute General Akhtar's back.

TWENTY-TWO.

The military band struck up 'wake up the guardians of our frontiers'-a tune that General Zia would have hummed along to on another occasion, but now he looked anxiously towards an approaching column of tanks. He was inspecting the National Day Parade from the presidential dais and the red velvet rope around it suddenly seemed an inadequate defence against the obscenely long barrels of the M41 Walker Bulldogs. He tried not to think about the late Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, who had been slain standing at a dais like this, inspecting a parade like this, accepting a salute from a column of tanks like this.

General Zia shared the dais with General Akhtar who, with his pa.s.sionate arguments about sending the right signals to the nation, had convinced General Zia to attend this parade, but now General Akhtar himself seemed bored by the proceedings. This was the first time General Zia had stepped outside the Army House since the morning he had stumbled on Jonah's prayer. The parade was being held under Code Red and even an uninvited bird trying to invade the airs.p.a.ce above it would find itself the target of a sharpshooter. Zia had gone through the lists of invitees himself, taking out all unfamiliar names. Then Brigadier TM had crossed out all the names of people who in the distant past might have been related to someone who might have said something negative about General Zia's moustache or his foreign policy. There were no crowds to mingle with after the parade. General Zia wanted it to end even before it began. The parade seemed like a serene blur of gold braid, starched khaki uniforms and row after row of s.h.i.+ny oxford shoes. He felt exposed without Brigadier TM at his side; there was no one to keep the crowds away, no one to come between him and an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet. His anxiety was captured in all its sweaty detail by the television cameras recording the parade for Pakistan National Television. In stark contrast, General Akhtar's face betrayed no emotion, only the quiet pride of a silent soldier.

The cameras showed the approaching column of tanks. The television commentator, handpicked by the Information Minister for his flair in describing military hardware in metaphors borrowed from Urdu ghazals, said, "These are the tanks. The moving castles of steel that put the fear of Allah in the heart of our enemies." As the moving tanks started to turn their barrels towards the dais to salute him, Anwar Sadat's bullet-ridden torso flashed in front of General Zia's eyes. He looked towards General Akhtar, whose eyes were fixed on the horizon. General Zia didn't understand what General Akhtar was looking at, because the sky was a spotless blue and the air display was still hours away. For a moment, General Zia suspected that Akhtar was more interested in posing for the TV cameras, trying to look like a visionary.

General Zia was familiar with the routine of the parade and knew that Brigadier TM would land in the white circle right in front of the dais with his team of paratroopers after the march past. He wished he could fast-forward this parade and have Brigadier TM at his side. The tanks crawled past the dais with their barrels lowered. General Zia took the salute with one eye on the approaching Rani howitzers that were lowering their barrels towards the dais. He didn't feel threatened by the artillery guns. They seemed like giant toys and he knew there was no ammunition on board. "The President, himself a veteran of the armoured corps, appreciates the tough life that the tank commanders lead," the commentator said as the screen showed the General offering a sombre salute with a limp hand. "It's the life of a lonely hawk who never makes a nest. The President salutes their courage."

General Zia glanced towards General Akhtar again. He was beginning to wonder why he was avoiding eye contact.

General Zia began to feel better as the trucks carrying eighteen-foot-long ballistic missiles started to roll past. They were huge but they were also harmless in this context. n.o.body would launch a ballistic missile at a target twenty feet away. Asleep on their launchers these missiles looked like giant models prepared by a school hobby club. It had been General Zia's idea to name these missiles after Mughal kings and birds of prey. He noted with some pride that the names he had given them were written in giant letters in Urdu and English: Falcon 5 and Ghauri 2. His heart suddenly jumped as the military band started to play the infantry's marching tune and the soldiers began to march past on foot, their naked bayonets pointed towards the sky. The infantry squadrons were followed by the very exuberant commando formations; instead of marching they ran, raising their knees to chest level and stomping with their heels on the ground. Instead of saluting, the commandos extended their right hands and waved their rifles as they pa.s.sed the dais. "These brave men crave martyrdom like lovers crave the arms of their beloved," the television commentator said in a voice choked with emotion.

General Zia began to breathe easy as the military band finally shut up and the civilian floats came into view. Not a gun in sight on these ones. The first float represented rurai life: men harvesting and pulling in their nets br.i.m.m.i.n.g with paper fish, women churning milk in fluorescent clay pots under the huge banners of Pepsi, sponsor of the floats. Another float pa.s.sed by carrying drummers and Sufi singers in white robes and orange turbans. General Zia noticed that their movements were stilted and that they seemed to be lip-syncing to recorded music. He used the noise to lean towards General Akhtar and ask in a furious whisper: "What is wrong with them?"

General Akhtar turned his head in slow motion, looked at him with a winner's smile and whispered back calmly in his ear: "They are all our boys in civvies. Why take a risk?"

"And the women?"

"Sweepers from General Headquarters. Highest security clearance."

General Zia smiled and waved his hand to the men and women on the float who were now performing a strange mixture of military drill and harvesting dance.

Pakistan National Television showed a close-up of the two smiling Generals and the commentator raised his voice to convey the festive mood. "The President is visibly pleased by the colourful vitality of our peasant culture. General Akhtar is delighted to see the sons and the daughters of this soil sharing their joy with the defenders of this nation. And now our Lionhearts in full colour..."

The cameras showed four T-Bird jets flying in a diamond formation, leaving behind streaks of pink, green, orange and yellow smoke on the blue horizon, like a child drawing his first rainbow. Their noses dipped as they flew past the dais making a colourful four-lane highway in the sky. They turned, executed a perfect lazy eight, a few loops; General Zia waved at them, the handful of civilian spectators waved their flags and the T-Birds flew away wagging their tails. General Zia heard the familiar rumble of a Hercules C13O approaching, an olive-green whale, floating slowly towards the parade. General Zia loved this part of the ceremony. Watching the paratroopers tumble out of the back door of a C13O had always been pure pleasure for General Zia and he couldn't take his eyes away. The paratroopers fell out of the rear of the plane as if someone had flung a handful of jasmine buds against the blue sky; they fell for a few seconds, getting bigger and bigger, and any moment now they would blossom into large green-and-white silken canopies and then float down gracefully towards the parade square, their leader Brigadier TM landing in the one-metre-wide white circle right in front of the dais. General Zia had always found the experience purifying, better than golf, better than addressing the nation.

General Zia knew something was wrong when both his eyes remained focused on one of the buds from C13O which had still not blossomed, while the others were popping open and beginning to float. This one was still in free fall, hurtling towards the parade square, becoming bigger and bigger and bigger.

Brigadier TM, like many veteran paratroopers, tended to delay opening his parachute. He liked to wait a few seconds before pulling at his ripcord, enjoying the free fall that precedes the opening of the parachute's canopy. He liked to feel his lungs bursting with air, the struggle to exhale, the momentary loss of control over his arms and legs. For a man who was beyond human weaknesses, one could say that this was his one vice: giving in to gravity to get a bit of a head rush for a few seconds. But Brigadier TM was also a professional who calculated risks and then eliminated them. While strapping up his parachute before embarking on this mission, he had noticed that the belt around his torso dug into his flesh. Brigadier TM was furious with himself. "d.a.m.n it, I am sitting around the Army House all day doing nothing. I am getting fat. I must do something about this." Standing in the back door of the C13O moments before the jump, Brigadier TM looked down at the parade square, tiny formations of men in khaki and a small crowd of flag-waving civilians. Like a true professional, Brigadier TM resisted the temptation to ride the crisp air some more, formulated a weight-loss plan in his mind and pulled at his ripcord early. His body prepared itself for the upward jerk that would come as his canopy sprang open and filled with air. Nothing happened.

General Zia felt beads of perspiration running along his spine, and his itch seemed to be returning. He clenched his fists and looked towards General Akhtar. General Akhtar wasn't looking up at the paratroopers. His eyes were searching the floats, which had been parked behind the artillery and armoured columns. In his head General Akhtar was silently rehearsing his eulogy for Brigadier TM; trying to choose between 'The finest man ever to jump from a plane' and 'The bravest man to walk this sacred soil'.

Brigadier TM took a firm grip on his ripcord and pulled again. It seemed the ripcord had cut all its ties to the parachute, had lost its memory. As Brigadier TM spread his arms and legs outwards to steady his fall, he realised something that might have come as a relief under different circ.u.mstances: he hadn't put on weight. He was carrying someone else's parachute.

General Zia saw the man tumbling out of the sky towards him and thought that maybe he had misinterpreted the verse from the Quran. Maybe Jonah and his whale had nothing to do with it. Maybe this was how it was going to end: a man falling from the sky would crush him to bits in front of television cameras. He looked around for something to hide under. The marquee had been removed at the last minute, as the Information Minister wanted vista shots from a helicopter. "Look up," he whispered furiously to General Akhtar, who was looking down at his shoes, having reached the conclusion that he shouldn't mention the words jump jump and and plane plane in his eulogy. Not in good taste. He pretended not to listen to General Zia's gibberish and offered his strong-jawed profile to the TV cameras. in his eulogy. Not in good taste. He pretended not to listen to General Zia's gibberish and offered his strong-jawed profile to the TV cameras.

The crowd, transfixed by the man falling past the floating parachutes, arms and legs stretched parallel to the ground and heading for the presidential dais, started to wave their flags and cheer, thinking that this was the finale of the performance.

Even before he pulled the emergency cord on his parachute, Brigadier TM knew that it wouldn't function. What really surprised him was that the hook that was supposed to activate his emergency parachute didn't even budge. It stuck to his lower ribcage like a needy child. If the circ.u.mstances hadn't been what they were, Brigadier TM would have raised his hands in front of his eyes and given them a taunting smile. The hands that could crack a neck with one blow, the hands that had once hunted a wild goat and skinned it without using a knife, were failing before a stubborn two-centimetre hook that could release the emergency parachute and save his life.

His lungs were bursting with air, his arms were feeling numb and he was trying to ignore the parade square with its colourful flags and stupid, noisy civilians. He put his thumb in the emergency parachute's ripcord ring again, got a firm grip on his lower ribcage with his four fingers, screamed the loudest scream of his life, managing to exhale all the air out of his lungs-and pulled.

General Zia took a step back. He still hadn't realised that the falling man coming at him was Brigadier TM. He shuffled back, trying to duck behind General Akhtar, who stood his ground, still not looking up. General Akhtar didn't have to think any further about what to say in his eulogy. Brigadier TM wrote it himself as his body crashed into the white circle right in front of the dais.

"A professional who didn't miss his target even in death professional who didn't miss his target even in death."

The paramedics who removed his smashed body from the white circle noticed that there was a big gash on Brigadier TM's left lower ribcage. Then they saw his clenched right hand firmly holding onto a metal ring, a piece of khaki cloth ripped from his s.h.i.+rt and three of his own ribs.

TWENTY-THREE.

We are drinking tea and discussing national security on the lawns of the Fort when the prisoners start to emerge from the pa.s.sage that leads to the underground cells. A long line of shabby men with shaved heads, handcuffed, shackled and strung along a chain, shuffle out of the stairwell as Major Kiyani dissects the external and internal security threats facing the nation. He takes a handful of roasted almonds from a bowl and throws them into his open mouth one by one, between ticking off his strategic challenges. I glance towards the prisoners out of the corner of my eye because it would be impolite to turn round and look. I don't want Major Kiyani to think that I don't: care about national security.

The military establishment that runs the Fort has been at my service since my meeting with General Akhtar. I left a blindfolded prisoner. I have returned like a forgiven prince: statement signed and submitted, name cleared, honour restored, glory promised. If I am to believe Major Kiyani, we are just waiting for some paperwork before I am sent back to the Academy. My experience tells me that I shouldn't believe him but it's fun to watch him fawn over me, making sure that I am fed properly, that I stay in the best room at the Fort. He is a changed man. We are celebrating the beginning of this new relations.h.i.+p. Politeness and mutual respect are the order of the day.

"Hindus are cowards by nature and it's understandable that they would stab us in the back, but we have learned to deal with that nation of lentil eaters. For every bomb blast that kills a few people in Karachi, we will hit back with a dozen blasts in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, you name it. If they use Taiwanese timers, we'll send them remote-controlled RDX beauties." Major Kiyani chews his almonds properly before throwing another one into his mouth. His aim is very good. "So they are not the threat. It's the enemy within, our own Muslim brothers who call themselves Pakistanis but speak their language: they are the real threat. We have got to learn to deal with them."

Under the late-afternoon sun the Fort looks like a very old king taking a siesta. The shadows of the crumbling arches of the Court for the Commons stretch across the lawns, the sunflowers are in full bloom and stand tall with their heads bent like turbaned courtiers waiting for their turn at court. In the underground interrogation centre someone is probably being thrashed with such abandon that the ceiling is getting a fresh splattering of blood. We are sitting in lawn chairs, in front of a table laden with fine china crockery and the best afternoon snacks that Lah.o.r.e has to offer.

Life can take a good turn if you are from a good family and if your meeting with General Akhtar has gone well.

"Anybody can catch a thief or a killer or a traitor," Major Kiyani says, munching on a chicken patty. "But what is satisfying about my job is that I have to stay one step ahead of them." I nod politely and nibble at my Nice biscuit.

A Dunhill is offered and accepted with a restrained officer-like smile.

The prisoners circle the marble fountain outside the Palace of Mirrors, their shaved heads bobbing up and down behind the manicured hedges covered in purple bougainvillea.

They haven't been brought out to have tea with us.

They look like betrayed promises; broken and then put back together from memory, obscure names crossed out of habeas corpus pet.i.tions, forgotten faces that will never make it to Amnesty International's hall of fame, dungeon-dwellers brought out for their daily half-hour in the sun. The prisoners start to form a line with their backs towards us. Their clothes are tattered, their bodies a patchwork of improvised bandages and festering wounds. I realise that the 'no marks' rule is applied selectively in the Fort.

The tea cosy in front of me has an air force insignia on it, a simple, elegant design: a soaring eagle with a Persian couplet underneath it: Be it the land or the rivers, it's all under our wings Be it the land or the rivers, it's all under our wings.

"There are many ways of serving one's country," Major Kiyani waxes philosophical, "but only one way to secure it. Only one." I put the cup on the saucer, move forward in my chair and listen. I am his attentive disciple.

"Eliminate the risk. Tackle the enemy before it can strike. Starve it of the very oxygen it breathes." He takes a very deep puff on his Dunhill.

I pick up my cup and drink again. Major Kiyani might be a good tea-party host but he is no Sun Tzu.

"Let's say you caught somebody who wasn't really a threat to national security. We are all human, we all make mistakes. Let's say we got someone who we thought was going to blow up the Army House. Now, if after the interrogation it turns out that no, he really wasn't going to do it, that we were wrong, what would you do? You would let him go, obviously. But in all honesty would you call it a mistake? No. It's risk elimination, one less b.u.g.g.e.r to worry about."

My eyes keep glancing towards the prisoners who are shuffling their feet and swaying like a Greek tragedy chorus that has forgotten its lines. Their shackles chime like the bells of cows returning home in the evening.

Major Kiyani's hand disappears under his qameez. He pulls out his pistol and places it between the plate of biscuits and a bowl of cashew nuts. The pistol's ivory handle looks like a dead rat.

"Have you been inside the Palace of Mirrors?"

"No," I say. "But I have seen it on TV."

"It's right there." He points to the hall with arches and a cupola on top. "You should have a look before you go. Do you know how many mirrors are there in this palace?"

I dip my Nice biscuit in lukewarm tea and shake my head.

"Thousands. You look up and you see your face staring at you from thousands of mirrors. But these mirrors are not reflecting your face. They are reflecting the reflections of your face. You might have one enemy with a thousand faces. Do you get my point?"

I don't really. I want to go and have a look at the prisoners. To look for a secretary general. "Interesting concept," I say.

"Intelligence work is a bit like that. Sorting out the faces from their reflections. And then reflections of the reflections."

"And them." I point towards the prisoners and take my first proper look at them. "Have you sorted them as yet?"

"They were all security risks, all of them. Neutralised now but still cla.s.sified as risks." The prisoners are standing in a straight row, their backs towards us.

In their tattered rags, they don't seem like a risk to anyone except their own health and hygiene.

But I don't say that. I nod at Major Kiyani appreciatively. Why start an argument when you are sitting on a lush green lawn, the sun is going down and you are smoking your first cigarette after a century?

"This has been an interesting case." Specks of chicken patty s.h.i.+ne in Major Kiyani's moustache. He looks at me appreciatively like a scientist would look at a monkey after inserting electrodes in its brain. "1 have learned a lot from you."

The air of mutual respect that surrounds this ceremony demands that I return the compliment. I nod like a monkey with electrodes in its brain.

"You didn't forget your friends even when you were..." Major Kiyani's hand dives in the air. He has the decency not to name the places where he kept me. "But at the same time you were not sentimental. What is gone is gone, let's cut our losses, move on. I think General Akhtar was impressed. You played your cards right. Lose one friend, save another. Simple arithmetic. General Akhtar likes scenarios where everything adds up in the end."

The prisoners now seem to be following some inaudible commands or perhaps they just know their routine. They shuffle left and they shuffle right, then sit down on their haunches. I hear groans.

If they have been brought out for exercise, they are not getting much. If they are expected to put on a show for me, I am not entertained.

"You always learn something." Major Kiyani licks a glace cherry off the top of a jam tart. "In my line of work you always learn something. The day you stop learning, you're finished." A bird's shadow crosses the lawn between us and the prisoners.

Is Secretary General among them? Probably all packed up, ready to go home and start the struggle all over again. It would be nice to say goodbye to him. I would like to see his face before they release him.

"Turn round," Major Kiyani shouts. Then he looks towards me, his brown eyes howling with laughter over some joke that he doesn't want to share with me. "Let's see if you recognise anyone."

I am relieved that Major Kiyani hasn't sidestepped the issue. My goodwill towards him blooms like the sunflowers. I pick up another Nice biscuit. I made a deal with General Akhtar-I sign the statement and they let Secretary General go-and that deal is about to be honoured. That's the good thing about men in uniform. They keep their word.

I am expecting to see a man in a Mao cap. It goes against Secretary General's current political belief system, but my recently released prisoner's instincts tell me that I should look for a Mao cap.

I scan the faces, glazed eyes and sheep-sheared heads. There are no Mao caps. There are no caps at all. There is a woman in a white dupatta at the one end of the row. I don't know what they have done with her. Her eyes are all white. No corneas.

My eyes get stuck on a head with a glowing red patch in the shape of a triangle. Some weird skin infection, I think.

No, the f.u.c.kers ironed his head.

The head moves up, the eyes look at me blankly, a tongue caresses the parched, broken lips. Under the ironed eyebrows, his long eyelashes have been spared.

Baby O closes his eyes.

Major Kiyani extends a plate of patties towards me. I push it aside and try to get up. Major Kiyani grabs me by my shoulder and pins me down in my chair, his eyes mean business now.

"I am very curious about one thing that you didn't mention in your statement," he says. "Why did he try to use your call sign?"

When someone dies, you are free to make up any old story about them. You can't betray the dead. If they come back from the dead and catch you betraying them, then you are trapped.

It suddenly seems as if Obaid has cheated on me by being alive. I signed the f.u.c.king statement because you were dead. I cut a b.l.o.o.d.y deal because you were supposed to have been blown to bits because of your own stupidity. Now you are standing there asking for explanations. Couldn't you have stayed dead? I signed the f.u.c.king statement because you were dead. I cut a b.l.o.o.d.y deal because you were supposed to have been blown to bits because of your own stupidity. Now you are standing there asking for explanations. Couldn't you have stayed dead?

Suddenly, I want to strangle Baby O with my own hands.

I pat Major Kiyani's shoulder. I look into his eyes. I try to harness the tea-party camaraderie that we have both been fostering.

"Major Kiyani, only a professional like you can appreciate this," I say, trying to keep my voice from choking, covering up the surprise that you get when you see someone who you thought had taken a hit from a surface-to-air missile. Also the bigger surprise: your own desire to see them dead. "It could only have been a case of professional jealousy."

Baby O opens his eyes and puts his hand above his missing eyebrows to block the sun that must be piercing his eyes. His hand is covered in a bloodstained bandage.