Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes

“I’ll be here before take-off,” says Arnold Raphel. As he walks off towards the car park, a familiar face greets him. Bannon is wearing a suit and gives me a formal nod and waves his hand as if he remembers my face but has forgotten my name. I am glad he didn’t show up during the drill. I needed my concentration. A team of commandos rushes off to accompany them.

A waiter wearing a white turban opens the door of the mess and ushers us into a world where the air is sand-free and chilled, where large glass cabinets hold tank models and tennis trophies, where the white walls are covered with paintings of turbaned horsemen chasing spotted deer. The garrison commander leads us towards a big white hall, muttering apologies that the new garrison mosque is still under construction. General Akhtar falls in step with me. I try to quicken my pace, hoping to avoid the inevitable arm around my shoulder. He puts his arm around my shoulder. “That was very well done.” He sounds disappointed. Then he leans towards my ear and whispers, “I told them to let you go, you know it was a mistake. By the way, you really know how to control that sword. It could have gone anywhere. Your father never knew when to stop.”

“It all comes with practice.” I give a pause and then say loudly, “Sir.”

He takes his arm off my shoulder abruptly as if he doesn’t want to be seen with me any more. Obaid might have told them about my sword practice but nobody in the whole world knows about Uncle Starchy’s nectar.

My eyes track General Zia’s feet for any signs. He is walking straight and steady as if his blood has never tasted the tip of my sword.

“Smooth and slow.” I remind myself of Uncle Starchy’s promise.

We sit down in front of a water pipe fitted with a series of stainless-steel taps for our ablutions. My memory of how to do it is vague, so I glance around and do what everybody else is doing. Hands first, then water in the mouth thrice, left nostril, right nostril, splash water over the back of my ears. I keep glancing at General Zia. There is something mechanical about his movements. He takes water in his one cupped hand, pours it into the other, then lets it go before rubbing both his hands on his face. He is not actually using the water. I have a feeling that he is not even doing his ablutions, just miming them. By the time I finish, I have water splashes all over my uniform. The zeal of the occasional worshipper, I suppose.

During the prayer I am again glancing left and right to take my cue whether to go down on my knees or raise my hands to my ears. It seems a bit like cheating at the exam, but I hope the examiner here is more understanding. General Beg seems to think so because he has got his Top Gun Ray-Bans on. What kind of person doesn’t want God to look him in the eye while praying? Then I pull my thoughts together and start reciting the only prayer I know. The prayer I said at Colonel Shigri’s funeral, the prayer for the dead.

General Akhtar salutes with extra care, making sure that his palm is straight, his eyes level, his spine stretched, every muscle in his body throbbing with respect. That Shigri boy lost his marbles in the end but the plane General Zia is about to board has enough VX gas on it to wipe out a village.

General Zia is a dead man and dead men in uniform deserve respect.

Under any other circumstances General Akhtar would have walked with him, right up to the plane, waited for General Zia to climb up the stairs and for the aircraft door to shut before walking back on the red carpet. But the two hundred yards of red carpet that stretches between them and the plane is the distance he is determined not to cover. He has already changed his estimated time of arrival in Islamabad twice and now he needs to leave, right now, even at the risk of appearing abrupt, rude or disrespectful. He, after all, has a country to run.

General Zia, instead of returning his salute, moves forward and put his arms around General Akhtar’s waist.

“Brother Akhtar, I want to tell you a story. I called you because I wanted to share this memory with you. When I was in high school my parents couldn’t afford a bicycle for me. I had to get a ride from a boy in my neighbourhood. And look at us now.” He moves his arm in a half-circle, pointing at the C13O and the two small Cessna planes parked on the tarmac. “We all travel in our own planes, even when we are going to the same place.”

“Allah has been kind to you,” General Akhtar says, forcing a smile. “And you have been kind to me. To us.” He looks towards General Beg whose eyes are fixed on the horizon where a small air force fighter has just taken off on a reconnaissance sortie. The plane’s mission is to search the surroundings for any natural hazards and act as a bogey target in case anyone in the area wants to take a pot shot at Pak One.

Five miles from where the generals stand, the crow hears the roar of an aeroplane approaching. Startled out of its full-stomached slumber, the crow flutters its wings in panic, then gets distracted by a mango rotting on the branch above him and decides to continue his nap for a little longer.

General Zia doesn’t notice that General Akhtar is squirming in his grip, straining to get away. He continues his reminiscence. “People always talk about the past, the good old days. Yes, those were good times, but even then there was nothing like a free ride. Every week my bicycle-owning neighbour would take me to a mango orchard near our school and wait outside while I climbed the boundary wall, went in and came back with stolen mangoes. I hope Allah has forgiven a child’s indiscretions. Look at me now, brothers. Allah has brought me to a point where I have my own ride and my own mangoes gifted by my own people. So let’s have a mango party on Pak One. Let’s bring back the good old days.”

General Beg smiles for the first time. “I am one of those unfortunate people whom Allah has not given the taste buds to enjoy the heavenly taste of mangoes. I am even allergic to the smell. But I hope you enjoy the party. There are twenty crates of them, you can take some for the First Lady as well.” He salutes and turns round to go.

“General Beg.” General Zia tries to muster up an authority that seems to be deserting him. General Beg turns back, his face patient and respectful, but his eyes hidden behind the mercury coating on his glasses. General Zia rubs his left eye and says, “Something has got into my eye. Can I borrow your sunglasses?” General Zia has his eyes fixed on General Beg’s face, waiting for the sunglasses to come off, waiting to get a good look into his eyes. He remembers the intelligence profile he had ordered before giving Beg his promotion. There was something about his taste for expensive perfumes, BMWs and Bertrand Russell. There was nothing about any allergies, nothing about mangoes and absolutely nothing about sunglasses.

Both of General Beg’s hands move in unison. His left hand removes the sunglasses and offers them to General Zia, while his right hand goes into his shirt pocket, produces an identical pair and puts them on. In the moment that his eyes are naked, General Zia discovers what he already knows: General Beg is hiding something from him.

It is General Zia’s right eye that reaches the verdict. His left eye is wandering beyond Beg, beyond the sword-wielding Shigri boy trying to suppress his grin (like father like son, General Zia thinks, no sense of occasion). In the distance the mirage of a man is running on the tarmac. The man is in uniform and he is charging towards them recklessly, breaking the security cordons, ignoring the commandos’ shouts to halt, ignoring their cocked Kalashnikovs, oblivious to the confused snipers’ itching forefingers. They would have shot him if he wasn’t wearing his major’s uniform and if he hadn’t held his hands in the air to show his peaceful intentions. General Akhtar recognises him before anybody else and raises his hand to signal to the snipers to hold their tire. The snipers keep his legs and face in their cross hairs and wait for the mad Major to make any rash moves.