Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes

There is a moment of confusion at the entrance to the garrison mess. A white-turbaned waiter opens the door and for a second I suspect that the sandstorm might have convinced the General to cancel the drill, but the door closes again. I see a batch of commandos rushing towards us, followed by the three generals.

I have no business with the sidekicks.

The bandmaster’s stick goes up in the air and the band starts to play a film song: the weather has got other ideas today, the weather has got something else in its heart . You have got to hand it to the bandmaster, I tell myself, the man knows his seasonal tunes. General Zia also seems to appreciate his taste in music. Instead of marching towards my squad, General Zia turns towards the band. The bandmaster’s stick does frantic somersaults in the air before coming down and bringing the music to a stop.

General Zia pats the bandmaster on the shoulder while the other two stand back. His hands play an imaginary bagpipe, the bandmaster grins as if he has found the bagpipe player he always wanted on his team, the feather in his beret quivers with excitement, like the crown of a rooster who has just won the village beauty contest.

They are walking towards me now. General Beg, with his Top Gun Ray-Bans, on Zia’s right side and General Akhtar two steps behind them. General Akhtar hits his baton on his leg with every step that he takes. He looks through me, betraying no recollection of our meeting over a dish of roasted quails. All I see of General Zia is a blur of big white teeth and a moustache so black that it looks fake. The hilt of my sword goes to my lips for the first salute and my squad comes to attention in unison. General Zia stands exactly five steps away from me, out of the reach of my sword. It’s the regulation distance between the parade commander and the guy inspecting the parade. He returns me a limp-handed salute and then, violating all parade decorum, leans back and whispers so that the other two generals can hear him. “When a son continues his father’s good work, I become certain that Allah hasn’t lost all hope in us sinners.”

“Permission to start the drill, sir?” I shout at strength 5. And suddenly, as if in respect for our drill display, the storm subsides; the wind quiets down to an occasional hiss, the sand particles, fine and scattered, are still flying in the air. In that moment, between me asking for permission and him nodding in approval, I take my first proper look at him. Instead of General Zia, he looks like his impersonator. He is much shorter than he appears on television, fatter than he seems in his official portraits. It looks like he is wearing a borrowed uniform. Everything from his peaked cap to the crossed sash across his chest is slightly ill-fitting, strangling his upper torso. There is a prominent grey mark on his forehead, probably the result of his five daily prayers. His sunken eyes are sending out mixed messages, one looking at me benevolently, the other looking beyond me at my squad with suspicion. There is a stillness about him as if he had all the time in the world for me. He opens his mouth and all I can think is that those teeth are not real.

“Please,” he says. “In the name of Allah.”

I take one, two steps back, execute an about turn and as my right foot lands on the concrete, my squad comes to attention. Good start. My sword flashes in the air and finds its home in the scabbard. The hilt touches the mouth of the scabbard; my squad splits in two, marches ten steps in opposite directions and comes to a halt. I am in the middle of two rows when they turn round and march nine steps and stop. The file leaders on both sides extend their arms and throw the G3 rifles at me. My anticipating hands grab the rifles with a practised ease. I rotate them like spinning tops for exactly thirty turns and they go back to the safe and secure grip of the file leaders. The whole squad throws its rifles up in the air, with their bayonets pointing towards the sky, and catches them behind their shoulders.

I pull out my sword for the final inspection. My head is cleared of all distractions; I see everything with the dead bulging eyes of Colonel Shigri. I march towards General Zia with the sword parallel to my upper body. Halt. My squad divides itself into two files behind me. My sword hilt goes to my lips and comes down outwards. My arm is parallel to my body, the tip of my sword pointing to the ground between our feet. General Zia salutes. “Silent Squad. Ready for inspection, sir.”

His left foot is hesitant but my left foot has already taken the first step for a slow march and he has no choice but to follow. Here we are at last, shoulder to shoulder, my sword stretched in front, his arms at his sides, slow-marching in step, about to enter the silent zone. Forty-five years of military service and he still doesn’t have any control over his movements. If it weren’t for my nimble footwork we’d be out of step. The Silent Squad is split in two files facing each other, eyeballs locked, rifles at the ready. I see his head jerk back involuntarily as the first set of rifles make a loop across our path. But now that he is in the middle of the tunnel formed by flying rifles he has no option but to move in step with me.

The most heavily protected man in the country is in a circle of whirling bayonets and inches away from the hungry, poisoned tip of my sword.

He has realised that in order to go through this he needs to keep looking ahead but he can’t seem to help himself; I can feel his one eye glancing towards me. It’s a genuine miracle that my boys haven’t mistimed their throws and pierced our faces with their bayonets. The last pair is ready with their rifles poised when I wink at the boy on my left. I would never know but I can guess that exactly at the same moment General Zia’s roving right eye makes contact with the boy standing on our right. They both miss a beat, the same bloody beat, and then throw their rifles. The bayonets flash through the air as the rifles complete half a circle and instead of gliding across each other clash in mid-air, making a momentary X as if posing to be photographed for a rifle regiment’s badge. Shigri to the rescue then: my boot kicks General Zia in his shins, and as he stumbles backwards my left hand breaks his fall and my righ: hand goes to work; nothing spectacular, nothing that anyone would notice, just a gentle nudge with the tip of my sword on the back of his flailing hand, drawing a single drop of blood. It couldn’t have hurt more than a mosquito bite. The reaction from the spectators — rushing jackboots, cocked rifles, commandos striking poses and the duty doctor shouting instructions at paramedics — is exaggerated, but not unexpected.

“If Allah wants to protect someone, nobody can harm them,” he says after the duty doctor has cleaned up the drop of blood and declared his wound a minor scratch. I try not to look at the commandos posted on the mess rooftop and shake my head in agreement. He produces a pocket watch out of his uniform shirt pocket and looks towards General Akhtar, who, it seems, is not reacting very well to the heat. Monster-shaped sweat patches are beginning to appear on his uniform. “What do you think, Akhtar, shouldn’t we pray before lunch?” He puts his arm around my shoulder and starts walking towards the mess without looking at General Akhtar. I notice that General Akhtar wants to say something. His mouth opens but no words come out and he follows us, almost dragging his feet. The American Ambassador steps forward. “What a coincidence, Mr President. I have to attend prayers too. There is a church five miles from here and an orphanage that I am supposed to visit…”

“Oh. Of course. But you are coming back with us. I am not leaving you in this desert. And since Brother Akhtar is here, let’s finalise this tank business on our flight back.”