Mohsin Hamid - Moth Smoke

‘Take off your ring,’ I say.

She does. It’s a solitaire diamond, simple and probably worth almost a year of my salary at the bank, when the bank paid me a salary. She puts it down on the bench behind her.

I keep wrapping, covering her knuckles, binding her long fingers together, then spiraling back down to her wrist. Finally I tie the two tassels at the end of the hand wrap. I tell her to make a fist and then let go, and I watch the blood rush back into her fingers.

‘Do you want to do the other one yourself?’ I ask her.

‘I’ll try,’ she says. She slips the loop over her thumb and starts to wrap, keeping about the right tension, neither too loose nor too tight. Sometimes I have to guide her hand with mine.

‘Let me tie the end,’ I say when she’s done.

‘I want to try.’ She grabs one tassel with her teeth, pulls the other around her wrist with her fingers, and ties a knot. I’ve had these hand wraps for a long time, but seeing them on her skin, seeing her use her mouth to tie them, makes them seem less familiar.

Finally I show her my gloves, once bright red, now faded and scuffed with use. ‘These will be too big,’ I say, putting them on her. ‘But I want you to wear them, because I don’t want you to hurt your hands.’

She stands up, squares her shoulders, and raises the gloves. Her hair is pulled back, away from her face, and she looks beautiful. I reach out and take her shades off the neck of her T-shirt, conscious of my fingers touching the skin below her throat, and set them down on the bench near her ring.

I look at her stance. ‘Spread your legs slightly,’ I say. ‘And bend your knees. Stand on the balls of your feet.’ Her body moves exactly the way I want. ‘Perfect. Now bring your hands up. Higher. That’s the basic on-guard position. After each punch, you want to come back to it.’

She starts hopping up and down and making mean faces.

‘Easy, champ,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s learn a couple punches first. This,’ I say, tapping her left glove, ‘is your lead hand. And this’ – I demonstrate – ‘is a jab.’ I throw another, much faster this time, just touching her glove with my bare hand. ‘Let’s see it.’

I talk her through a few basic punches, and she learns fast. Her movements are fluid, efficient, her attention focused on me when I’m explaining and on her own body when she’s moving. I put my hands on her arms and shoulders from time to time to adjust her position, and I feel long muscles under soft flesh.

After she’s warmed up and has the hang of it, we move to the heavy bag, and I start by demonstrating one punch at a time. She watches me, breathing steadily, her face shiny with sweat, a smile pulling at her lips. Reaching up, she shuts her eyes and wipes the sweat from her forehead with her arm. I want to touch her face, smooth the sweat out of her eyebrows with my fingers. Then she opens her eyes and sees me staring at her, and I turn and slam my hand into the bag with a ferocity that surprises me. Suddenly I’m going all out, punching hard, deep in my rhythm, coiling and exploding, again and again, dancing, my muscles full of blood, hitting on the move, slipping punches. The bag is jumping. My hands are brutal. I shake my head, smile violently, and hit it.

Then I stop, my breathing an easy pant, and look at Mumtaz. Our eyes meet and I feel the rhythm in my blood beating loud. I look down. Damn: my hands. I should have worn gloves, because now I’ve rubbed the skin off my knuckles.

Mumtaz steps up to the bag. She hits it hard, like she wants to punch right through it and trusts the strength of her wrist. The bag rocks slightly, and she hits it again, drawing power from her legs and twisting her body to put her shoulder behind the punch. She throws her punches at a slow, measured pace. Soon the bag is swinging. I hear a grunt of exertion, a sound almost like rage. She hits the bag like she’s furious with it, like she wants to hurt it. And she keeps on hitting it, completely intent on the bag, and my surprise at her strength gives way to a new surprise at her endurance. Finally she stops, puts her arms around the bag, and presses her forehead into it.

I tap her on the shoulder and she turns. ‘I guess I needed that,’ she says, grinning.

‘So who were you punching?’ I ask her.

‘Who were you punching?’ she replies.

I smile. ‘I was just showing off, I suppose.’

She hits her gloves together. ‘So was I.’

‘You have a lot of stamina for a smoker.’

‘I work out. Besides, I have an older brother, so I’m a fighter.’ Her T-shirt is dark around the throat and along the back of her shoulders, where her skin touches the wet fabric. ‘Are you ready to box?’ she asks me.

I start to laugh. ‘You won’t be able to hit me.’

‘Let me try.’

I stand in front of her and let my hands dangle at my sides. ‘Punch me in the head,’ I say.

She puts her hands up and throws a punch. And she doesn’t hold back. I watch the red glove coming and pull my head back at the last moment, grinning at her surprise. She keeps trying, but she can’t hit me.

‘Stop,’ I say finally.

She does, dropping her hands.

‘I boxed for years,’ I tell her. ‘It’ll take you a while before you can hit me.’ Then, just to tease her, I shut my eyes and lean forward, offering up my best ‘do it if you dare’ face.

Hot sunlight glows orange through my eyelids.

I feel the punch coming and don’t move, don’t even open my eyes. I’m sure she’s bluffing. Then my head snaps back as her punch hits me full in the face. ‘What the hell was that?’ I say, shocked. I touch my mouth and my fingers come away with a streak of blood.

She’s laughing, one glove in front of her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, trying to look apologetic. ‘I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. But I just couldn’t resist.’

I grab her by her wrists, just below her gloves, and pull her to me. She looks up, still smiling, and I can feel my mouth throbbing from her punch.

I’m intensely aware of every contact between my body and hers.

‘I could knee you,’ she says. Her leg moves up slightly, between mine, and I realize how vulnerable I am. That would hurt.

I let her go.

‘I wasn’t actually going to knee you,’ she says.

‘I didn’t think you were going to punch me either.’ My lips feel a little puffy as I speak.

‘I didn’t think I’d be able to hit you.’

I smile at her, feeling my lips stretch. ‘Very funny.’

I help her out of the gloves, and she takes off the hand wraps, rolls them up, and gives them to me. Then we head back inside and finish off a pitcher of water. Mumtaz stays for lunch. The sweat has dried on her face and covered it with dirty streaks. I imagine licking one and almost taste the salt, but I try to get the thought out of my mind before she sees what I’m thinking. I don’t eat very much, a little ashamed that there’s no meat or even chicken. I just watch her serve herself and clean all the food off her plate, wishing there was some reason for me to reach out and touch her skin.

I look at my hands. Who would have thought that I would ever teach a woman to box and come out of it with a bloody mouth and torn knuckles?

‘Let me see them,’ she says.

I reach across the table. She runs her fingers over my red knuckles, lightly, but doesn’t say anything. Then she turns them over and strokes my palms with her thumbs.

‘I went to see a palm reader the other day,’ she tells me.

Palm readers must be the new fad among the idle rich. ‘I would have thought you were too educated for that sort of thing.’

‘I’ve told you I’m superstitious.’ She lets go of my hands and lights a cigarette.