Mohsin Hamid: Moth Smoke

‘No, but she always came to watch when I asked her. She hid her face behind her hands, but she came.’

‘I’m sure she was terrified.’

I lean back on the bench and look up at the sky. Two stars, a low-riding moon, dusty haze. Cloudless but not clear. Not very dark but dark enough. Impossible to see anything falling.

I think of my mother on a rooftop, of waking beside her, early, at first light on an almost-quiet summer morning. The flies would come later, swinging up over the walls with the rising sun, buzzing and ripe like honeybees.

Someone calls our names. It’s Ozi.

‘There you two are,’ he says. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘Talking,’ Mumtaz says. ‘I like this friend of yours.’

Ozi smiles and puts his arm around me. ‘You’ll get over it soon enough,’ he tells her.

We walk inside, Mumtaz and I on opposite sides of Ozi, and the pounding of the music gets louder as we approach, the lights from the dance floor reflecting off the walls so that colors start to blur and change, again and again and again.

The police don’t stop us on our drive home. We are in a Pajero, after all.

ZULFIKAR MANTO: Good to meet you, Professor. I’ve read some of your work. None of the academic materials, I’m afraid. Econometrics scares the hell out of me and I can hardly even pronounce heteroscedasticity. But I enjoyed that piece you wrote a few months ago about the phoenix myth. Very witty.

JULIUS SUPERB: Yes, ah, likewise.

ZM: Your students speak highly of you. They say you’re a brave man.

JS: They say I’m, ah, a man. A brave man. Do they?

ZM: Is something wrong?

JS: Wrong? No, no, of course not. Please excuse me. Never having met, you see. I was somewhat unprepared. But that’s your business. I don’t mean to presume. I’ve read all your articles. That is to say, all that I’ve come across. And they are top-notch. Really first-class journalism. Commendable. Ah, I’ve lost my train of thought. What was the question?

ZM: Actually, I asked if something was wrong. But let’s begin at the beginning. How did you first meet Darashikoh Shezad?

JS: He was a student of mine. He distinguished himself by attending my lectures and taking notes. It was this second characteristic, note-taking, that really caught my eye. So one day I said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ To which he replied, ‘I’m sorry, Professor?’ And I responded, ‘No, you’re not. You’ve been doing it for weeks. You’re taking notes.’

ZM: Is that really so unusual?

JS: Not really. But I confront each and every one of them. No one takes notes in my class without explaining themselves to me personally. I hit them with an impromptu quiz, right there, one on one. And if they do well enough, I ask them to come to my discussion group. Most refuse. Daru didn’t.

ZM: Discussion group?

JS: Yes. On alternate Tuesdays. From noon until two. Lunch included.

ZM: What do you discuss?

JS: Anything. Economics, development, politics, literature. Someone presents a paper and the rest of us tear it apart.

ZM: Sounds fun.

JS: It is. I soon realized Daru had potential, so I encouraged him to pursue a Ph.D. Which he did, for a while.

ZM: How long?

JS: I met him when he began his master’s. So that would have been another … two years. Two years of dissertation work.

ZM: And what was the subject of his dissertation?

JS: Development. Microcredit, specifically. Small loans to low-income groups, guaranteed by the community. The Grameen Bank model and variations. Explaining low default rates, analyzing claims of paternalism, social critiques, that sort of thing.

ZM: What did you think?

JS: Daru? Brilliant. Though a bit of a seat-of-the-pants economist. Could have used more quant training. Liked to assert rather than prove. And not the best at handling criticism. Took methodological challenges very personally. But talented, definitely.

ZM: And his dissertation?

JS: Needed focus. But, to be fair, he was more into implementation than theory. Could have done some good work.

ZM: Why did he stop?

JS: Money, I think. His girlfriend had just left him for a textile baron’s son. He got a job offer from a bank, and he couldn’t resist. He told me it was impossible to make a living in academia or development. I told him he was wrong: students will pay good cash for exam questions, and multi-laterals certainly make some poor people (their employees) well off. He didn’t appreciate the humor. So I said he was too bright to work for a bank, which was true. And I asked him about his commitment to being someone who acts rather than complains. He said he was acting for himself so he could stop complaining. And he left.

ZM: How did you feel?

JS: I was disappointed, naturally. But more, I was worried for him. I didn’t think he was choosing a path that would make him happy. It’s hard to stop thinking once you’ve started.

ZM: Did you remain in touch afterwards?

JS: No, unfortunately. Which is another bad sign. Most of the students I bring into my discussion group don’t just disappear. I suspect Daru was too dissatisfied with what he was doing to let himself look back. Actually, don’t quote me on that. How would I know? As a professor I have a tendency to slip into omniscient narrative.

ZM: How did you hear he had been arrested?

JS: The same way the rest of the city did, I suppose: everyone is talking about this case.

ZM: Why do you think that is? Why has it received so much attention?

JS: I’ve given quite a bit of thought to that question. It can be analyzed using a three-dimensional matrix. On the X axis, that is, the horizontal axis, is the accused. On the vertical axis, Y, is the crime. And on the Z axis, rising up off the page, is the defense. And this situation is clearly in the … I can see I’m losing you.

ZM: I’m afraid so.

JS: Well … let’s use a box instead of a matrix. The case is a box. In this situation, the accused is bright, well educated, and charismatic. An orphan. Extremely sympathetic. So the box is wide. The crime is violent and despicable: the needless killing of a boy. So the box is long. And the defense invokes a grand conspiracy, corruption, which is particularly resonant these days. So the box is tall.

ZM: Criminal, crime, and conspiracy. That’s why everyone is talking about it?

JS: One more thing: sex, which is purple. This box is covered with it. Painted. Smeared. Naturally, if there is a big purple box lying around, people will stare. That’s why everyone is talking about it.

ZM: And do you think he’s guilty?

JS: That, my dear, ah, Mr Manto, I just don’t know. From my experience, Daru is completely crazy. Quick-tempered, oversensitive, inconsistent. But so am I, and I haven’t killed anyone, yet.

ZM: Thank you.

JS: It has been my good fortune, I assure you.

May arrives with a burst of heat that leaves nine dead in Jacobabad, but one evening a flirtatious breeze makes the trees swell and it looks just bearable enough for me to step outside with a cigarette in my mouth and another behind my ear. These are my last two smokes and I smoke them like an addict consuming all that’s left of his stash, half-preoccupied with the thought that each drag brings me closer to the point where I have to get some more.

Just as I flick the second butt over the wall and turn to head indoors, I hear a rickshaw sputter up to the gate and honk. Murad Badshah’s massive form is squished into the driver’s area, and he waves a hello when he sees me, sending a stream of paan-red spit over his shoulder. I open the gate and he pulls inside like an adult riding a tricycle. ‘Greetings!’ he exclaims, hauling himself out of the rickshaw with some difficulty.