Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes

“Did Jinnah ever have to make these decisions?” General Zia made a last desperate attempt to educate Brigadier TM about the vestiges of history. “Did Jinnah ever have to fight the Russians in the morning and convince the Americans in the evening that it is a fight still worth fighting? Was he ever a prisoner in his own Army House?”

“Yes, sir.” Brigadier TM shouted and brought his heels together.

“I think I need to be in the country.”

Brigadier TM felt relieved. He didn’t want to go to Mecca. He didn’t want to be in that empty, black marble room again.

Brigadier TM felt alive when there was action or at least the promise of it. You are twenty thousand feet above the ground, free-falling, you adjust your posture, you let your body ride the air currents, you dive, you lose a thousand feet, you do a somersault, you spread your arms and legs, you pull your ripcord and suddenly the world is real, a patch of concrete in front of the presidential dais, or thick bush behind the enemy lines.

He had felt the same sense of anticipation as he walked behind General Zia and entered the Khana Kaaba’s compound on his first visit. He was offered a white robe, one like the ones everyone else was wearing, but he took one look at the Saudi policemen escorting them and refused. He was in the House of God but that didn’t mean that he should forget his duty. They asked General Zia if they should let his security chief in, dressed in his battle fatigues, but Zia was crying violently and nodding his head constantly. The Saudi police couldn’t really tell if he approved or not. General Zia snivelled and buried his head in his white robe and started to pray loudly as they walked towards the black room at the centre of the compound. Brigadier TM looked around for any potential threats. The worshippers were few and scattered and prone; in their various states of worship they looked like logs thrown about randomly. The light was stage bright but cool. Brigadier TM liked well-lit places. The centre of his attention was the black marble, low-ceilinged cubicle draped in black silk. He didn’t expect any security risks here. The room had been there for more than fourteen hundred years but he had to take precautions as he knew it was being opened specially for General Zia. The rest of the pilgrims had to make do with touching its outer walls and kissing the gold-embroidered black silk that adorned its walls.

He had ordered a file on the place from the ISI when he did his routine risk assessment and they had sent him a photocopied page from a high-school Islamic Studies book.

It was the exact spot where Abraham had tried to slaughter his son, where Mohammed had smashed idols and declared that all non-Muslims who laid down their arms would be safe.

The only people carrying arms tonight were Saudi security people. Brigadier TM wondered if they even knew how to use them. The place hummed with respect and prayers and he took his hand off his holster. His gaze became that of a tourist, fleeting, slightly curious and not suspicious. He noted with interest that most of the worshippers were black but there were people from other nations. He saw a white woman sitting in a corner reciting the Quran. He couldn’t suppress his smile when he saw an old Chinese man holding his rosary with one hand and a walking stick with the other and dragging his feet around the black cubicle.

Brigadier TM thought that maybe after his retirement he would come here as a pilgrim and see if he could feel what others felt.

Their hosts, Saudi princes in gold-bordered silk kaffiyehs, led the way. He had lost count of how many princes there were in this kingdom.

As they approached the black marble cubicle in the centre, Brigadier TM moved in front of the posse, having suddenly realised that, after all, they were entering the unknown. The door opened and nothing happened. There was nobody ambushing them. There was nobody welcoming them either.

The room was empty.

There were no flashes of divine light, no thunder, the walls of the room were black and without a single inscription. And if it hadn’t been for General Zia’s choked voice seeking forgiveness, it would have been a quiet room full of stale air. Allah’s house was a dark, empty room. Brigadier TM shrugged his shoulders, stood at the door and kept an eye on the pilgrims going around the Khana Kaaba.

Brigadier TM felt the Founder’s eye blink at the back of his head again. General Zia realised that TM was not in the mood for small talk. He wrapped his nightgown tightly around himself and left the room muttering something, of which Brigadier TM could only make out ‘get some sleep’. What General Zia was saying was, “Who can get any sleep on a bitch of a night like this?”

Brigadier TM walked towards the frame, trying to avoid eye contact with the Founder. His hands slipped into both his pockets and came out wrapped in white handkerchiefs. He held the frame by its edges and removed it from the nail from which it hung. He held the frame in front of his chest, carried it to the sofa and placed it carefully with the Founder facing down. He pulled his trouser leg up with his right hand and produced a dagger from a leather sheath clipped above his ankle. He removed the hooks one by one, inserted the tip of the dagger under the cardboard, lifted it and tossed it aside. A thick green velvety cloth covered the back of the portrait. His fingers traced the area where he thought the Founder’s face was. Behind the Founder’s monocle-covered eye his fingers found a hard round object. He took his dagger again, cut a neat hole around it and picked out a grey metal disc slightly thicker but not bigger than a fifty-paisa coin. He picked it up with his handkerchief-covered hand and held it away from his body as if it was about to explode.

As Brigadier TM was still examining both the sides of the disc, trying to decide whether it was some artistic contraption that the painter of the portrait had used or a lethal device set to blow him away, the metal surface parted from the middle, like the curtains on a miniature theatre, and a concave little lens blinked at him. The metal curtains immediately shut again.

Brigadier TM closed his palm around the spy camera and tried to crush it until his knuckles hurt.

Remote-controlled bombs, reinforced bullets, daggers thrown from a distance, the glint from a marksman’s rifle, shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles, bodyguards with grudges and itchy fingers: Brigadier TM could handle it all without his heart beating a beat faster. But this sneaky little camera made him so angry that he forgot his duty for a moment; instead of calling in the forensic experts and trying to track down the camera feed, he walked towards General Zia’s bedroom. He hesitated outside the door of his bedroom for a moment, took three deep breaths to compose himself and then knocked.

First Lady opened the door, installed herself in the middle of the frame and looked at him with mocking eyes, as if he was a child who had knocked on his mother’s bedroom door after wetting his bed.

“What is it now?” she asked. “Does he have a midnight appointment with a foreign lady correspondent? Or is India about to attack us again?”

Brigadier TM really didn’t know how to answer back to a woman.

He opened his palm and showed it to the First Lady.

She gave him a withering look. “Your boss doesn’t live here any more.” Then she turned and shouted along the corridor. “Look, Zia, your friend has got a present for you.”

“Do you like mangoes?” secretary General’s whisper is barely audible. His breathing is heavy. It seems he is in pain. The bastards haven’t given him any food either. How much time has passed? Can’t be more than three days. I crawl towards the hole in the wall, knocking down little sand pyramids I have been building to mark the days. Not that I know when the day starts or when it ends. There hasn’t been a single knock on the door. There hasn’t been a single sound from anywhere. “I don’t like mangoes,” I say. “Not worth the effort. We had apple trees in our backyard on Shigri Hill. I like apples. Pick them, rub them against your pants and eat them. No hassles.”