Mohsin Hamid - Moth Smoke

This is the very sort of attitude that pisses me off with most of the party crowd. They’re rich enough not to work unless they feel like it, so they think the rest of us are idiots for settling for jobs we don’t love. ‘I need the money,’ I explain to her, as I would to a child. ‘I don’t have a choice.’

‘I know the feeling,’ she says as we descend into the Ferozepur Road underpass.

‘Do you?’

She turns and gives me a surprised look. ‘No need to sound so condescending.’

I realize that I’ve offended her, and suddenly I’m upset with myself. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looks ahead again. ‘I wasn’t talking about needing money. I was saying that I know what it is not to have a choice about working. I have to work, too.’

I thought Mumtaz was happily unemployed. ‘What sort of work do you do?’

‘It’s a secret.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m going to tell you. I have to, I suppose, since I’ve dragged you out here with no explanation. It’s very sweet of you to do this, by the way.’ Her hand touches my knee, briefly, before returning to the gearshift. ‘I have this thing about friends and secrets. Sometimes when I meet a person I like, I tell them a secret they don’t know me well enough to be told. It lets me judge their potential as a friend.’

‘But what happens when they don’t keep your secret?’ I ask.

She opens a power window and flicks her cigarette out. ‘I don’t know. They always have so far. But I don’t meet many people I like.’

I light another cigarette and pass it to her. ‘I’m flattered.’

She accepts the cigarette with a nod. ‘You should be.’ We speed through the Jail Road underpass. ‘But let me tell you what I think about secrets before you decide if you want me to tell you one. Secrets make life more interesting. You can be in a crowded room with someone and touch them without touching, just with a look, because they know a part of you no one else knows. And whenever you’re with them, the two of you are alone, because the you they see no one else can see.’

I think of the look Nadira gave me at the party.

Mumtaz turns to me and smiles. ‘Do you still want me to tell you?’ she asks.

‘How could I not?’

‘But if I don’t feel good about it once I’ve told you, we’ll probably never be friends. Doesn’t that possibility frighten you?’

‘It is pretty drastic,’ I admit. ‘But tell me and let’s see what happens.’

She looks at me and I see that she’s smiling at herself. ‘Here it is. I know the identity of Zulfikar Manto.’ She takes a left on Mall Road.

‘The journalist?’

‘Precisely.’

‘The one who wrote that article about the missing girl in Defense?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

‘But I didn’t know his identity was a secret.’

‘It is. He submits his work by mail and collects his checks from a post office box. No one knows who he is except the editor of the paper that publishes his pieces.’

She downshifts to second in front of Bagh-i-Jinnah and overtakes a group of teenagers in a car with big alloy wheels and a spoiler.

‘So who is Zulfikar Manto?’ I ask.

She laughs. ‘Me.’

‘You?’

‘Me. I am Zulfikar Manto.’

I start to laugh, too. ‘But why? Why don’t you just write the articles under your own name?’

‘That’s a little complicated. Anyway, life is much easier if I’m not working as a journalist and Zulfikar Manto is.’

Mumtaz assumes a mock-serious expression as we pass a mobile police unit near Charing Cross, and I feel like a character in an espionage film.

‘That’s incredible,’ I say.

She nods.

‘Are you glad you’ve told me this?’ I ask.

She’s silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ she says finally. ‘It felt good to tell you, but I’m a little uncertain about how I feel just now.’

I’m concerned. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we’ll have to see what happens.’ She shrugs. ‘But no more questions. This is where I need your help. We’re getting close to the old city, and I don’t know my way from here.’

We pass the High Court. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Heera Mandi.’

I start to laugh. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘I’m dead serious. I have to interview the madam of a brothel, and I can’t be late.’

This is turning into a very strange night, but I’m enjoying myself. I like the way Mumtaz drives, with a sort of controlled aggression. Actually, she drives the way I like to think I drive. I direct her, glad she never asks how I know where Heera Mandi is, and point out the sights along our way like a tour guide: ‘That’s Town Hall. Take a right here, on Lower Mall Road. That’s Government College to your right. Take a left. That’s Data Darbar. You should check it out sometime. This is Circular Road. See Badshahi Mosque? Minar-i-Pakistan’s behind it. Okay, slow down. Take a right. This used to be a gate. Now we’re in the old city.’

‘Who are all those people on the left?’

‘Heroin junkies. We’re almost there. You do realize that there won’t be many young women dressed the way you are?’

‘I hope not. It’s been a long time since anyone accused me of dressing like a prostitute.’

‘What I mean is, we might attract the attention of the cops.’

‘I can handle cops. Besides, I’ve brought a lot of cash.’

Soon enough we’re there, and even though it’s a little late for Heera Mandi, the place is still crowded. Mumtaz says we’ll wait in the car, for what I’m not sure. People stare at us, making me nervous. Then a man almost as big as Murad Badshah knocks on our window, his eyes bloodshot and the ends of his mustache curled into points.

‘Let’s go,’ I say.

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Open it.’

He leans in, ignoring me. ‘Are you here to see Dilaram?’ he asks Mumtaz.

‘Yes,’ she answers.

‘Come quickly.’

We open our doors and get out, but he stops me with one hand. ‘Not you,’ he says.

I lock eyes with him and remove his hand from my chest.

‘It’s okay, Daru,’ Mumtaz says. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back soon.’

I continue to glare at the pimp, my heart pounding. I wonder if Mumtaz would be impressed if I beat the hell out of him.

‘Please, Daru,’ she says. ‘You don’t know how hard it was to arrange this interview.’

‘It isn’t safe for you to be here alone,’ I tell her.

‘I’ll be fine,’ she says, tossing me the car keys.

‘Why can’t I come?’

She tilts her head to one side, smiling like she wants to rumple my hair. ‘You look so disappointed. Let me ask her. If she agrees, I’ll come back for you.’

Before I know it, Mumtaz is running off with a giant pimp into some back alley in Heera Mandi and I’m sitting alone in her car. I am such an idiot for doing this. What will I tell Ozi if anything happens to her?

She isn’t gone for long, but I’m already imagining an elaborate rescue scenario when she reappears. ‘You can come,’ she says. ‘But only if you promise not to do anything macho.’

‘I promise.’

I have to walk quickly to keep pace with Mumtaz and the pimp. We pass a few men in the alley: satisfied customers, judging by their vacant smiles. Definitely stoned. Maybe even a little heroin. One is fastening his nala with both hands.

Then we enter a building, climb two flights of steps, pass through a door that opens only when the pimp knocks out a little code, part a curtain of beads, and find ourselves in a room with a shuttered window, dimly lit by a clay oil lamp which sits on a low table.

Reclining against a long, round cushion is a middle-aged woman with finely plucked eyebrows, her fleshy body well proportioned and voluptuous. She takes a gurgling puff from the hookah beside her and with the tiniest dip of her chin indicates that we should sit.