Moth Smoke

by Mohsin Hamid

  As they leave, visibly reluctant to go, Fatty Chacha insists on giving me five hundred rupees. Taking hold of my upper arm, he says quietly, ‘Come to see me tomorrow. I’m serious, Daru. I’m very worried about you.’

  And with that, I’m alone again. I lock the gate and the front door. Then I retrieve the battered aitch from my pocket and see what I can salvage.

  The day I go to the hospital and have my cast cut off and emerge from the last of my cocoon, the day I can again see the muscles in my forearm when I flex my hand into a fist, is also the day Murad Badshah finally takes me out of the city for some target practice. He’s bought me my gun: a 9-millimeter automatic, black, used, Chinese. Just a tool, really, like a stapler. A stapler that can punch through a person. Pin them. Drive blunt metal through flesh and bone.

  I’ve always had steady hands, so I’m surprised to discover that I’m a bad shot. Horrific, really. At twenty paces, I can hit a tin can about one time in five. As for moving targets, I have no hope. Walking from left to right, I don’t hit it even once in fifteen minutes of shooting. Murad Badshah tells me not to worry. There will only be one guard, and with my gun pressed against his head there should be no reason to actually shoot, and no way to miss if I do. At the end of half an hour of practice we start running low on ammunition, and we can’t afford any more. So that’s it: our prep work is over and we now have no reason to procrastinate. Time to move on to the real thing.

  At home I keep playing with the gun, unloading and reloading the magazine, chambering rounds, popping them out. It’s strange that pistols are such inaccurate devices. If I designed something with the power to kill people, I’d want it to give the user a little more control. But I’m not complaining. There’s something appealing about it, something wonderfully casual in the knowledge that when you squeeze the trigger you might kill someone or miss them completely. I like that. After all, moth badminton would be less fun if my racquet wasn’t so warped.

  My father gets off his motorcycle and runs his hands through his short hair, cropped close in accordance with military academy regulations. He gives his olive suit a once-over, making sure that nothing is amiss, and heads inside. For three coins the white-gloved attendant at the ticket box gives him a seat, not in the most expensive section, but not in the least expensive one, either.

  He chooses a well-upholstered couch behind a group of young ladies, students at Kinnaird College who pretend not to notice him, and lights a cigarette. Refined conversation fills the enormous cinema with a gentle murmur. Once all have risen for the national anthem and then sat down again, once the lights have dimmed and the projector has whirled to life, only then does my father reach forward and squeeze the hand my mother extends back to him.

  At intermission they eat cucumber sandwiches and sip tea, standing next to each other like strangers. Although he does bow slightly to her as he passes a plate, and her friends cannot help smiling with their eyes.

  The Regal Cinema did at one time deserve its name.

  Now I sit on a broken seat at the very back, a seat, not a couch, with a crack that pinches my bottom when I move, munching on a greasy bag of chips, trying to ignore the shouting of the men next to me as Chow Yun-Fat kicks his way to another victory for the common man, for good over evil, for hope over tyranny. I love kung fu flicks from Hong Kong. They’re the only movies I go to see in the cinema anymore. Everything else is better on a VCR, without the smells and sounds of the audience. But not kung fu.

  A fight breaks out somewhere in the middle rows, with much yelling and hooting. People surge up and at each other as Chow flashes a six-foot grin over the scene. One of the men to my left throws a packet of chips into the scuffle. There are no women to be seen here, except on screen, and when those appear, the men in the audience go wild, whistling joyously. Maybe the real ones are in private boxes. Maybe they know better than to come to see Chow Yun-Fat on opening night. Or to go to the cinema at all. No woman I know goes unless the entire cinema has been reserved in advance. Reserved for the right sort of people, that is.

  I sit for a while after the movie is over, watching the unruly audience make its way out, sad at what’s happened to this place since my parents were my age. Look at us now: we can’t even watch a film together in peace. I cover my face with my hands and it feels hot, my entire head feels hot. I’m on edge. I think I need some hairy.

  The cinema is almost empty when I realize someone is watching me. I stare at him, and he hesitates for a moment before walking over, motorcycle helmet in hand. Thick black beard. Intelligent eyes. Looks about my age. Salaams.

  I return the greeting.

  ‘Have we met before?’ he asks me. Calm voice.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Were you at GC?’

  ‘I was, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘I remember. You were a boxer.’

  I nod, surprised.

  ‘So was I,’ he says.

  I extend my hand. ‘Darashikoh Shezad.’

  He shakes it firmly. ‘Mujahid Alam. I was a year junior to you. Middleweight.’

  ‘Now I remember. The beard is new.’

  He looks around the deserted theater. ‘I came over because you looked upset.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, a little taken aback.

  ‘Did you find today’s spectacle disturbing?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All the shouting, the fighting, the disorderliness. Our brothers have no discipline. They’ve lost their self-respect.’

  ‘One can hardly blame them.’

  He lowers his voice and continues in a tone both conspiratorial and friendly. ‘Exactly. Our political system’s at fault. Men like us have no control over our own destinies. We’re at the mercy of the powerful.’

  Normally a speech like this from a virtual stranger would seem odd. But something in the way he says it makes me comfortable, drawing me in. I lean forward to hear him better.

  ‘We need a system,’ he goes on, and it sounds like he’s quoting something, ‘where a man can rely on the law for justice, where he’s given basic dignity as a human being and the opportunity to prosper regardless of his status at birth.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Then come to our meeting tomorrow.’

  ‘What meeting?’

  ‘A gathering of like-minded people, brothers who believe as you and I do that the time has come for change.’

  I’m not surprised. I could tell he was a fundo from the moment I saw him. But at the same time, I’ve taken a liking to him and I’m reluctant to let him down. I say gently, ‘I’m not a very good brother, brother. I don’t think I’m the sort you’re trying to recruit.’

  He smiles. ‘I’m not recruiting you. I just keep my eyes open for like-minded men. Besides, no believer is a bad believer.’

  ‘And what if I’m not a believer at all?’

  ‘You should still come. None of us can change things acting on our own. And to act together we need direction. What else is belief but direction? A common direction toward a better end?’

  I smile. ‘We could be hiding enormous differences.’

  ‘If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren’t differences at all. Maybe you’re more of a believer than you think.’

  I look at him. He seems like such a nice, earnest guy. ‘Tell me where the meeting is.’

  He writes it for me on a piece of paper, and as we part ways he shakes my hand with both of his. ‘I hope we’ll meet again.’

  ‘As God wills,’ I reply.

  He accepts that with a nod.

  In the car I take an aitch out of the glove compartment. Pre-rolled. I thought I might need one after the movie. I light up, thinking about Mujahid. What a nice guy. I hope he doesn’t get himself killed trying to make things better for the rest of us. I guess there are all kinds of fundos these days. And they’re obviously well organized if they even have a sales pitch fo
r people like me.

  I can’t say that I entirely disagree with their complaints, either.

  But I’m definitely not going to that meeting. I roll the paper Mujahid gave me into a ball and toss it out the window.

  I need a drink.

  I watch a lizard strut along a wall, its shoulders and hips moving in a sensuous swagger. I can’t tell if it’s dark brown or dark green in the candlelight, but I can see that it’s missing half its tail. Lizards look obscene without their tails, naked somehow. But tails grow back eventually, if the lizard is lucky and lives long enough. And this lizard is already only partly naked, partly tailless. Partly bald, like Ozi. Or partly damaged, like me, with my nine good fingers.

  I like its eyes: two black dots, nonreflective light-trappers. Utterly determined eyes, doubt-free, unselfconscious. Frightening eyes if they happen to be looking at you and you’re small enough to be dinner. The same eyes a man probably sees on an alligator before it drags him down and shakes the air out of his lungs and leaves him to rot a little in the murk, to be tenderized properly before he becomes a meal.

  The lizard dashes forward and stops. Two feet away, on the wall above a candle, taking a much-deserved breather from hectic lovemaking, sits one of my shuttlecocks in waiting: a moth the perfect size for pinging. Black dots eye dinner. And dinner, exhausted from a rather strenuous dance with the candle, pants with its wings folded in an aero-dynamic delta, more sleekly angled at rest than in flight.

  The lizard steps forward. Two steps. Two more. Then four. Stops. Dinner doesn’t move. Black dots come closer, close enough to blow moth dust off dinner if the lizard should happen to sneeze. But dinner doesn’t seem to think of itself as dinner. No, dinner is completely caught up in its own fantasy, a romantic Majnoon, antennae unkempt, warming itself in the updraft of heat from the flame of much-loved Laila.

  Slowly, with no hurry at all, the lizard takes the moth into its mouth and squeezes. Only now does dinner realize it is dinner, one wing trembling frantically until it breaks off and falls like a flower petal, twirling. The lizard swallows, pulling the moth deeper into its mouth, then swallows again. And that’s that.

  I clap loudly, my legs crossed at the knee, smiling at the lizard. Thanks for the entertainment. Clapclapclap.

  Echoes bounce back from the walls.

  Mumtaz comes. She doesn’t want to go inside. So even though a light rain is falling, we stand by her car.

  ‘I missed you,’ I say, reaching for her.

  She steps back and looks down without saying anything.

  Her silence frightens me. I say, to make her speak, ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘I’ve been writing.’

  ‘Zulfikar Manto?’

  She nods. ‘A piece on corruption.’

  How convenient. ‘You can do all the research without leaving your house.’

  She looks at me, and the sadness in her face makes me want to hold her. ‘Daru, it’s over.’

  Has she left him? ‘What?’ I ask, wanting to make sure.

  ‘This. I’m not going to be coming to see you anymore.’

  Confusion. What is she saying? Stay calm. Try to sort out what’s happening.

  ‘You can’t just walk away from this,’ I say.

  She reaches out and hugs me, pulls my head down to her shoulder. ‘I can. I’m sorry, Daru. We can’t be lovers anymore.’

  ‘Why are you saying this?’ I whisper.

  ‘I was never going to leave Ozi for you. I told you that from the beginning.’

  I step back, disengaging myself from her embrace. ‘Do you know he killed a boy?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I was there. I saw him. He ran him over.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘He didn’t even bother to stop. He just drove off.’

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘But he’s a murderer. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? How can you stay with him?’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  Suddenly I understand. I grab her arm. ‘Has he threatened you?’ I’m screaming. ‘I’ll kill him! I’ll kill the bastard!’

  She tries to pull away, but I hold her by the wrist, tight.

  ‘Let go of me.’

  ‘I have a gun. If he hurts you, I’ll kill him.’

  She twists violently and pulls her arm free. ‘He hasn’t threatened me,’ she says, backing away.

  ‘Wait. Don’t go.’

  She stops at the door of her car. ‘Daru, please do something about yourself. Tell your family. You need help. You shouldn’t be alone.’ She looks at me for a moment, then slams the door shut and drives off.

  I wait for her in the driveway, but she doesn’t come back. Then I go inside and sit down and wipe my face, but no matter how much I wipe, it seems to stay wet.

  And everyone on my street must be incinerating their garbage, because the stench of burning flesh is so strong I can’t sleep. Once, in the darkness, I even imagine that I’m on fire, smoke rising from my body, and leap out of bed.

  But it’s nothing. Just a moth fluttering by my eyes.

  I lie awake and think.

  And the more I think, the clearer it becomes. Ozi hasn’t threatened her. It’s Muazzam. Muazzam is the problem.

  I never won a championship when I boxed for GC. Our coach used to say that the guys who win championships are the ones who decide they aren’t going down, no matter what. I was one of the best boxers on the team, and I worked hard, but he still disliked me. He told me I wasn’t a real boxer, because there was only so much pain I was prepared to fight through. My last fight was for the All-Punjab. I was TKO’d in two rounds with a bad cut above my left eye. The coach said I was a coward.

  But I’ve decided that I’m not going to lose Mumtaz. I’m not going down this time.

  In the morning I find myself heading out for a drive. I’ve taken my gun with me. First I pass by my bank, slowing down to watch the customers slipping inside. Then I drive to Shuja’s house. The gunman outside doesn’t recognize me, even though my Suzuki must be distinctive with its smashed windows. I stop and stare at him, my gun on my lap. He looks uncomfortable and goes behind the gate. And that makes me feel good.

  Eventually I find myself where I knew I’d end up: parked near Ozi’s house. I think Mumtaz told me he was out of town, in Macau or something, but I don’t care if he is here, if he does drive up and see me. I’ll tell him I’m having an affair with his wife. What can he do about it?

  But I don’t see him, and I don’t see Mumtaz either, which is fine with me. Because I’m hoping to see someone else. And early in the afternoon, when the sun comes out and the gray clouds part to reveal a beautiful blue sky, I do see him: little Muazzam, in a black Lancer with his nanny and a driver.

  I slip into first and follow. Muazzam is what stands between Mumtaz and me. She feels so guilty about leaving him that she’s willing to stay in a meaningless marriage. I wonder what would happen if Muazzam got into a car accident, if he died suddenly. Mumtaz might be upset for a while. But eventually it would be better for her. She would be free, happy again, able to come to me. What adventures the two of us could have. We would be unstoppable.

  The Lancer takes a left, heading toward FC College. Dirty water stretches across the road, hiding potholes, and the driver slows down. I get closer. I can see the driver’s eyes in his rearview mirror. Then he accelerates, the Lancer pulling away, and I have to floor my Suzuki to keep up. But he isn’t trying to lose me. He slows down again at a roundabout, takes a right. I’m very close. Muazzam disappears. Then he stands up again on the rear seat, his curly head visible through the window, just ten feet away from me.

  The Lancer gives a left indicator and turns into the driveway of a house I remember, Ozi’s grandfather’s place. We used to play there sometimes, when we were younger.

  Dark clouds with red bellies, lit from below by the electric
city or a last gasp of light from the drowning sun, and a smoky breeze that stinks of burning flesh from the trash pile down the street. A joint in my mouth, heavy on the hairy, and a 9-millimeter automatic tucked into my jeans, pressed into my hipbone, bruising my flesh painlessly because of the numbness. Crows flap against the wind, sitting on a telephone line, quiet, watching the outnumbered parrots in my banyan tree.

  Finally, fear stronger than the hairy can hide.

  I’m so scared that I feel like throwing up. I’d force my finger down my throat and make myself gag if it would make me a little less dizzy. But I’m not drunk, I’m frightened, and I don’t think vomiting would be much help.

  Murad Badshah arrives and parks his rickshaw, and we head out in my car. We don’t speak much. For once, even Murad Badshah doesn’t have anything to say. He keeps adjusting himself under his shalwar, or maybe he’s trying to find a comfortable position for his revolver.

  The hand brake makes a loud sound when I pull it up. Light pours out of the big glass windows of the boutique. Mannequins cast shadows on our car. Murad Badshah reminds me what I have to do, and even though I’m listening, I don’t understand a word he’s saying. My college boxing coach once had to slap me before a fight to get me to attend to his instructions.

  I get out, feeling self-conscious. Then I turn and walk into the boutique. The guard stares at me and my heart starts pounding in my head, hard. I stare back at the guard like I’m a rude patron. I realize I’ll kill him if I have to. He’s a young guy, balding, with dark skin and glistening temples and a mole like a fly on his left nostril. He’s sitting on a stool with a short-barreled pump-action shotgun across his thighs, and I’m standing beside him so its barrel is pointing at my knees. If he squeezes the trigger he’ll blow my legs off.

  I walk out of his line of fire and his eyes don’t follow me. An ugly kid who looks like Muazzam is crying and pulling on his mother’s arm, and the sound is so unnerving that I want to shoot him to prevent myself from panicking.

  Get hold of yourself.