Mohsin Hamid - Moth Smoke

Only after light’s echo has come as sound, after it is clear sound’s echo will fail to come as heat, do lips and teacups make contact, and even then minds and taste buds remain far apart.

It is, after all, our first nuclear monsoon. And I’m looking for a fat man.

I follow Ferozepur Road as it curves past Ichra, hoping as the water gets deeper that my car won’t stall. But soon I reach a point where most of the traffic is turning around and only the Bedford trucks and four-wheel drives are continuing on. Ahead, a few cars have foundered, their exhaust pipes submerged, and I doubt mine will do any better, so I park my car beside the road on a raised slope in front of a shop that sells toilet seats and bathroom tiles. With my shoes tied together by the laces and hanging from my neck, and my jeans rolled up to my knees, I head out on foot.

It takes me the better part of an hour to wade the mile or so to Murad Badshah’s workshop. He’s chatting with a mechanic, and their hands are stained with motor oil. ‘Hullo, old chap,’ he booms when he sees me. ‘This is a pleasant surprise.’

‘I thought we had an appointment,’ I reply, shaking his hand.

‘Yes, but I assumed it was canceled, force majeure and all that.’ He gestures in the direction of the street. ‘How did you make it here, by ship? I’m losing money every hour because this damned water has two of my rickshaws stranded.’ He tells the mechanic to take a break and offers me a stool next to a rickshaw lying on its side. ‘I tried to call you from the shop next door to tell you not to come, old boy, but no one answered at your end.’

‘My phone is dead,’ I tell him. ‘It must be the rains.’ Either that or I’ve finally been disconnected.

He smiles and strokes his chin, his stained fingers leaving streaks. ‘No job, no electricity, no telephone. Perhaps you ought to reconsider joining me in the entrepreneurial venture I mentioned before.’

I have reconsidered. That’s why I’m here. I only hope I’m not about to be disappointed. ‘I’m in no mood to be laughed at,’ I warn him.

His puffy eyes open wide. ‘I’m being serious.’

‘Tell me.’

Murad Badshah lights a cigarette and leans back on his stool like a child on a wooden horse. ‘A mechanic in my employ has a dimwitted cousin who managed to secure a position as a guard at a storage depot on Raiwind Road. In April of last year, during the flour shortage, a hungry mob attacked the depot. The guards shot three people dead. People were dying for their hunger, old boy, dying for their hunger. But there was no need for them to go hungry. My mechanic’s cousin told me, and I heard this with my own ears, mind you, that there was over a hundred tons of flour in that warehouse alone. Stockpiled, hoarded to keep up the prices.’

‘May I have a cigarette?’ I ask. ‘Mine seem to be soaked.’

‘There you are.’ He offers his pack and lights one for me.

‘So what does all this have to do with your plan?’

‘Just laying the intellectual foundation, old boy,’ Murad Badshah tells me. ‘This is how I see things. People are fed up with subsisting on the droppings of the rich. The time is ripe for a revolution. The rich use Kalashnikovs to persuade tenant farmers and factory laborers and the rest of us to stay in line.’ He reaches under his kurta and pulls out the revolver I’ve seen once before. ‘But we, too, can be persuasive.’

‘Let me see it,’ I say, and he hands it to me. It feels cool against my cheek, soothing, like a wet compress on a feverish forehead. I sight along the barrel, pleased that I hold it rock steady, without the slightest trembling. ‘What’s your plan?’

He takes the gun back from me and tucks it away. ‘Boutiques. I want to rob high-end, high-fashion, exclusive boutiques.’

Is he mocking me? ‘Why boutiques?’

Murad Badshah starts rocking back and forth with excitement as he ticks off the reasons on his fingers. ‘Built on main roads with easy access, rarely more than one guard, good cash-to-patron ratio, small size, risk-averse clientele, high-profile hostage possibilities, little competition. And, as an added bonus, symbolism: they represent the soft underbelly of the upper crust, the ultimate hypocrisy in a country with flour shortages. Boutiques are, in a word, perfect.’

‘It can’t be that easy or someone else would be doing it.’

Murad Badshah smiles. ‘Entrepreneurs tend to ignore that argument.’

I look at him, at his good-natured face, his chin streaked with motor oil. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you know what you’re talking about? Have you done this sort of thing before?’

He looks offended. ‘You doubt my qualifications?’

‘It’s a reasonable question. Don’t look at me like I’ve demanded a copy of your c.v.’

He pulls up his kurta, revealing the long, slow roll of his belly. Dead center, a scar the size and shape of a large bird dropping on a car window.

‘Polio vaccination?’ I ask.

He turns around and bends forward, revealing another, larger scar. ‘Polio vaccinations don’t leave exit wounds.’

I’m relieved. Impressed, even. Exaggerated or not, there’s obviously some truth behind his stories. But one thing still bothers me. Why does Murad Badshah need me if his plan is so good? ‘I don’t know anything about robbing boutiques. I don’t even know how to use a gun.’

‘You can walk into a boutique without arousing suspicion,’ Murad Badshah says. ‘If someone like my mechanics, or my drivers, or even myself showed up, the guard would watch him like a hawk. No offense, but you blend in with those boutique-going types. When you walk in and act like a customer, no one will look at you twice. Then you put a gun against the guard’s head, I come in, we generate some revenue and implement our exit strategy. No violence, no profanity, suitable for viewing by young children, and potentially extremely lucrative.’

‘Let’s do it,’ I say, extending my hand.

We shake. Surprisingly, I don’t feel the slightest tremor of doubt or worry. Must be the hairy. Which reminds me. ‘Do you have any more heroin?’

He’s quiet for a moment, looking at the rickshaw lying on its side. ‘My supplies have been cut off by the rain. The Jamrod-Lahore trucking circuit has been disrupted.’

Just my luck. ‘That’s bad news. I’m completely out.’

‘Don’t do any more. I’m being very serious now, old chap.’

‘How do you know I’ve done any?’

‘You look awful. Besides, I can see you’re on it right now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your eyes. And you keep scratching yourself.’

I have to remember not to do that. ‘Are you sure you don’t have any?’

‘I have a little. But I’m not going to give it to you.’

‘I don’t need your protection.’

He looks at me, surprised at the tone in my voice. Then he shakes his head.

As I wade back to my car, excitement builds inside me. I’m finally taking control of my life. I keep waiting for the fear to come, but it doesn’t. In fact, I’m walking taller, grinning, empowered by the knowledge that I’ve become dangerous, that I can do anything I want.

I get behind the wheel and point my finger at a passing Pajero.

Bang bang.

In the morning, the smell of something burning brings me out of the house and onto the street in search of its source. Neat mounds of rubbish in front of the neighbors’ houses smolder, trash smoke rising only to be beaten down by the rain.

I walk closer.

Definitely an odd smell. Maybe there’s plastic in the heaps. Or maybe the rain does something to the way they burn.

I kick one. Sodden refuse, half-burnt, flies off. Underneath it’s more dry, but I see no fire, no embers even. Just smoke coming out of fissures in the black heart of a trash pile, like steam from the cooled crust of lava.