Mohsin Hamid - How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

As you ride you see the pretty girl on a billboard. She is modeling jeans. She poses as one of three young people, two female and one male, the others leaning their backs against each other and presenting their sides to the viewer, and so giving the impression to you of being a couple, while the pretty girl walks alone, perhaps signifying that she is single. This giant image creates conflicting emotions in you. You are struck, as always, by her beauty, and you are glad to be able to see her. You have heard through neighborhood rumor that she has split from the man she ran away with, and this composition, which creates the sense that she is available, is pleasing to you. But you also feel a stab of loss. The mobile number you had for her was immediately disconnected upon her departure, and you have not spoken to her, or seen her in person, since.

The pretty girl has finally succeeded in securing a place of her own, a room in an apartment she shares with a singer and an actress, both women in circumstances not dissimilar to hers. The marketing manager has been left behind, and she is now in an on-and-off relationship with a photographer, a long-haired fellow with an expensive motorcycle, who is thought by some to be bisexual. The pretty girl makes a modest living off print and runway work, having yet to establish what is known in her business as a name. At this very instant, recently awoken, and after skipping her lunch, she stands up in her lounge and takes a drag on a menthol cigarette, gazing out her window at scattered clouds bloodied by dust.

Beneath those clouds you dismount. You have been summoned to your home by your father because your mother is unwell. Your sister is again pregnant, so she cannot be here, but your brother and his wife have come. The unsightly bulge at your mother’s throat upsets and shames her.

“If it weren’t for my tits,” she says, “everybody would think I’m a frog.”

Despite her condition, the forcefulness in her eyes is undiminished. Unfortunately, much time has been wasted. Her normally robust health predisposed your mother to ignoring her symptoms. A neighborhood peddler of powdered herbs then fed her his concoctions for months, to no positive effect. The so-called doctor thereafter retained began a course of treatment that was halted only when it was discovered by you, chancing one day to watch him actually administering it, to consist entirely of saline injections and analgesic pills.

Your father has supplicated the matriarch of the family that currently employs him, a formerly tight-fisted widow who after her husband’s passing has begun to engage in a measure of philanthropy, and she has agreed to intervene by arranging a trip to a private hospital.

The matriarch arrives outside your home in her car. She does not step out or open her door. She does not roll down her window. Your mother and sister-in-law are borne beside her on the rear seat, your father in front with the driver. You and your brother travel separately by bus, rejoining them in a hospital waiting room.

“Why are they here?” the old lady asks your father.

“These are my sons.”

This seems to have little impact.

Your father adds, “This one’s at university. He’ll understand what the doctor says.”

The old lady scrutinizes you, taking in your beard, your attire. She addresses your father again, “Only one of you will come inside.”

“Him,” your father says, indicating you.

The doctor is a plump, serious woman your mother’s age. Her diagnosis upon examination, confirmed by test results at your second visit a week later, is papillary thyroid cancer. She explains that it is eminently treatable if dealt with early and appropriately. In your mother’s case the opportunity to treat it early is long past, but surgical removal of the thyroid still carries hope.

“How much will this cost?” the matriarch asks.

“Including medicines, anesthesia, and recovery?”

“In a communal ward.”

The doctor specifies a figure greater than your father’s annual salary.

“And without the surgery?” the matriarch asks.

“She’ll die.”

The matriarch considers. You watch your mother. She stares fixedly ahead.

“Very well,” the matriarch says.

The doctor silences a ringing mobile in the pocket of her smock. “Then there’s ongoing treatment. Hormones, radiotherapy.”

“That will be her family’s responsibility. Is it likely the surgery alone will cure her?”

“It’s possible.”

“Good.”

“But this is an advanced case. We’d normally expect to administer radioiodine a few weeks later, then…”

“Please explain all that to her family.”

The doctor comes outside and does so. Your father looks at you repeatedly, and each time you nod. He is tearfully grateful to the matriarch for agreeing to pay for the surgery. He smiles and blinks and shifts his weight. He bows at the neck to her, again and again, a gesture like a nervous tic. You have not seen him in the presence of one of his employers since you were a child. To observe him like this disturbs you.

But you are struck most by your mother’s expression. She has until now utterly refused to believe that she will not soon return to health.

“It won’t be painful,” you whisper to her. “They’ll put you to sleep.”

“I’ve pushed four of you out between my legs,” she whispers back. “I can handle pain.”

You smile, but only briefly, because looking at her you realize she is certain for the first time that her ailment will kill her.

Relations between your father and you have been tense, disapproving as he does of your beard and the organization you have joined. But over the following days he comes to lean on you heavily. There is deference in the way he watches you listen to a nurse or speak to a pharmacist or fill out a hospital form. He has never been a talkative man, but when you were younger he could be expressive physically, and he reverts to that mode of communication. He puts his arm around you. He pats your back. He ruff les your hair. These gestures feel good, even though it is strange that the man performing them has become shorter than you.

Your mother is taken home from her surgery alive. She is perplexed by her wounded status, like a soldier who has been shot but as yet sees no blood. The trauma her body sustained in the operating theater leaves her weak, and because the extraction of her thyroid and her lymph nodes involved the disassembly of considerable portions of her neck, she finds it difficult to speak. She is thus doubly disarmed, of her physical vitality and of her powerful tongue, and when not exhausted she is baffled, and at times angry.

Your family insists on maintaining that all will be well, with or without radiotherapy. You pretend to agree, but you also decide to approach your hostel leader for funds. He has just returned, his whereabouts while away a secret, and you find him in his room, reclining in torn socks upon his sweat-stained mattress.

“I need money,” you say.

“That’s a funny greeting, little brother.”

“I’m sorry. My mother’s sick.”

“How much do you need?”

You name the figure.

“I see.” He strokes his jaw slowly.

“I know it’s a lot…”

“It is a lot. But I think we can help you.”

“Thank you.”

“You should take her to one of our clinics.”

“Our clinics?”

“Yes.” He watches you. He has what should be a benevolent smile but his face remains impassive. You have seen him smile this way after breaking a man’s nose.

“She’s been treated at a private hospital. It’s very good.”

“Our clinics are very good. What’s her illness?”

“Cancer.”

“I’ll make a few calls. Find out where she should go. Tell them to expect you.”