A Case of Exploding Mangoes

by Mohammed Hanif

  ‘You must have made quite an impression on the big guys,’ he says, a bit puzzled by whatever the paper has to say.

  ‘“Silent Drill Squad is invited to perform after the tank demo at Garrison 5, Bahawalpur, on 17 August,”’ he reads from the paper and looks up at me, expecting me to dance with joy.

  What do I run? An elite drill squad or a touring bloody circus? Am I expected to go from cantonment to cantonment entertaining the troops? Where is Garrison 5 anyway?

  ‘It’s an honour, sir.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it, young man. The President himself will be there, along with the US Ambassador. And if the Chief is going to be there, then you can expect all the top brass. You are right, young man. This is an honour and a half.’

  I feel like the guy left for dead under a heap of bodies, who hears someone calling out his name. What are the chances of the rope snapping before your neck does? How many assassins get to have a second go?

  ‘It’s all because of your leadership, sir.’

  He shrugs his shoulders and I immediately know that he hasn’t been invited.

  With that I realise for the first time that buried under the slick greying hair, privately tailored uniform and naked ambition, there is a man who believes that I have been wronged. He is on an epic guilt trip. Good to have suckers like him on my side but the only thing that is depressing about his ramrod posture, his shuffle towards me and the hands he places on my shoulders is that he means every word of what he is saying. He is proud of me. He wants me to go places where he himself would have liked to go.

  I look over his shoulder towards the trophy cabinet. The bronze man has moved to the right. His place is occupied by a paratrooper’s statue. The parachute’s canopy is a silver foil, the silver-threaded harnesses are attached to the torso of a man who is holding his ripcords and is looking up into the canopy. The temperature in the room suddenly drops as I read the inscription on the gleaming black wooden block on which the statue is mounted: Brigadier TM Memorial Trophy for Paratroopers.

  ‘Go, get them, young man.’ The Commandant’s hands on my shoulders seem heavy and his voice reminds me of Colonel Shigri’s whisky-soaked sermon. Once I am out of his office, I offer 2nd OIC an exaggerated salute and start running towards my dorm.

  I know the phial is there, in my uniform maintenance kit, secure between the tube of brass shine and the boot polish, an innocuous-looking glass bottle. I know it’s there because I have thought of throwing it away a number of times but haven’t been able to do so. I know it’s there because I look at it every morning. I need to go back and see it again, hold it in my hand and dip the tip of my sword in it. ‘It ages very well.’ I remember Uncle Starchy’s low whisper. ‘It becomes smoother, it spreads slower. But a poor man like me can’t really afford to keep it for long.’ I’ll find out how well it has aged. I’ll find out what hue it takes on the tip of my sword. I’ll find out if the sentiment in my steel is still alive or dead.

  Accidents in silent drill are rare but not unheard of.

  THIRTY

  GENERAL AKHTAR WAS scribbling on a paper with the intensity of a man who is absolutely sure about what he wants to say but can’t get the tone right. His eyes kept glancing towards the green telephone, which he had placed right in front of him, in the middle of a small orchard of table flags representing his myriad responsibilities to the army, navy, air force and various paramilitary regiments. As the head of the Inter Services Intelligence he had never had to wait for a phone call, especially for information as trivial as this. But now, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, he presided over strategic reviews and inaugurated one army officers’ housing project after another. Sometimes he found out about General Zia’s movements from the newspapers. This irritated him, but he had learned to cultivate a studied lack of interest in intelligence matters: ‘I am happy to serve my country in whatever capacity my Chief wants me to,’ he said every time he happened to be around General Zia. The information he was waiting for was easy to get: there were two planes and only one VIP pod. All he wanted to know was which one of the two planes the fibreglass structure was going into, which one of the two planes would become Pak One. He tried not to think about it. He tried to concentrate on the last sentence of his address.

  The speech was going to be simple. He would keep it short and punchy. He would not go into long-winded formalities like General Zia did – ‘my brothers, and sisters and uncles and aunts’. His message would be short. In a mere ten lines, which would last no more than a minute and a half, he would change the course of history. ‘My fellow countrymen. Our dear President’s plane had an unfortunate accident in mid-air soon after taking off from an airfield in Bahawalpur …’

  He read the sentence again. It did not seem very believable to him. There was something about it that didn’t ring true. He should probably explain what had happened. A mechanical failure? He couldn’t possibly say sabotage but he could hint at it. He crossed out the words ‘had an unfortunate accident’ and replaced it with ‘exploded’. This sounds punchier, he thought. He added another sentence in the margin. ‘We are surrounded by enemies who want to derail the country from the path of prosperity …’ He decided to stick with the unfortunate accident after all but added: ‘The reasons for this tragic plane crash are not known. An inquiry has been ordered and the culprits, if any, will be brought to swift justice according to the law of this land.’

  He picked up the phone absent-mindedly. It was still working. He thought long and hard about the closing line of his speech. He needed something that would tie it all up, something original, something uplifting. There had been too much God-mongering under General Zia and he felt the Americans might like a nice secular gesture, something that would sound scholarly, reassuring and quotable. He was still divided between ‘we as a front-line state against the rising tide of communism’ and ‘we as a front-line state against the flood of communism’ when the phone rang. Without any preliminaries Major Kiyani read him a weather report. ‘Two low-pressure zones that were gathering in the south are headed northwards. Delta One is definitely going to overtake Delta Two.’ Instead of putting the phone down, General Akhtar pressed his forefinger on the cradle and went through a mental checklist, a list he had been through so many times that he felt that he could not be objective about it any more. He decided to go through it backwards.

  9. Address to the nation: almost ready.

  8. Black sherwani for the address to the nation: pressed and tried.

  7. US reaction: predictable. Call Arnold Raphel and reassure him.

  6. Where should I be when the news breaks: inaugurating the new Officers’ Club in General Headquarters.

  5. If Shigri boy has a go: problem solved before take-off. If Shigri boy loses his marbles: the plan goes ahead.

  4. The air freshener doesn’t work: nothing happens.

  3. The air freshener works: no survivors. NO AUTOPSIES.

  2. Does he deserve to die? He has become an existential threat to the country.

  1. Am I ready for the responsibility that Allah is about to bestow upon me?

  General Akhtar shook his head slowly and dialled the number. Without any greetings he read out the weather report, then gave a pause and before replacing the receiver said in loud and clear voice. ‘Lavender.’

  He suddenly felt sleepy. He told himself that he would decide the last sentence of his speech in the morning. Maybe something would be revealed to him in his dreams. He looked into his wardrobe before going to bed and took a long look at the black sherwani in which he would appear before the nation tomorrow. His hope about figuring out the last sentence of his speech in his dreams turned out to be false. He slept the sleep of someone who knows he will wake up a king.

  What woke him up was the red phone at his bedside, a call from General Zia. ‘Brother Akhtar. Forgive me for bothering you so early but I am taking the most important decision of my life today and I want you to be here at my side. Join me on Pak O
ne.’

  The C130 carrying my Silent Drill Squad smells of animal piss and leaking aircraft fuel. My boys are sitting on the nylon-webbed seats facing each other with their legs stretched to preserve the starched creases of their uniforms. They are carrying their peaked caps in plastic bags to keep the golden-threaded air force insignia shiny. Obaid’s head has been buried in a slim book since take-off. I glance at the cover; a bawdy illustration of a fat woman, part of the title is covered by Obaid’s hand. ‘ …of a Death Foretold’ is all I can read.

  ‘What is it?’ I grab the book from him, go to the first page and read the first sentence.

  ‘So does Nasr really die?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘It says so right here in the first sentence. Why keep reading it when you already know that the hero is going to die.’

  ‘To see how he dies. What were his last words. That kind of thing.’

  ‘You are a pervert, comrade.’ I throw the book back at him.

  ‘How about a rehearsal?’ I shout above the din of the aeroplane.

  My squad looks at me with weary eyes, Obaid curses under his breath. They line up sluggishly in the middle of the cabin. I can see their hearts are not in it. The smelly cabin of an aeroplane that has recently been used to transport sick animals, cruising at thirty thousand feet, is not the best setting for our elegant drill routine. But then the pursuit of perfection can’t wait for the ideal environment.

  We are in the middle of a rifle salute when the aeroplane hits turbulence. I stand and watch their reactions. Despite a sudden drop in altitude, followed by regular shuddering of the aircraft, my boys manage to hold onto their rifles and their positions. I bring the hilt of my sword to my lips, the tip of the sword is tinged a steel blue with Uncle Starchy’s nectar. I put the sword back in the velvet-lined scabbard and watch them. The aeroplane goes into a thirty-degree turn and I am suddenly skidding towards my squad, trying to maintain my balance. Obaid puts his arm around my waist to steady me. The loadmaster shouts from the back of the plane. ‘Sit down, please. Sit down. We are coming in for landing.’

  The aeroplane starts to descend. My inner cadence tells me that my mission starts now. My poison-tipped sword tells me that it’s ready.

  An unmarked white Toyota Corolla started its journey from Rawalpindi with the intention of covering the 530-mile distance to Bahawalpur in five hours and thirty minutes. Those who encountered the car and its maniacal driver along the route were almost certain that the driver would not survive the next ten miles. The car ran over stray dogs and broke up cowherds making their way to the rubbish dumps in the suburbs. It zoomed through crowded city junctions, threatened and overtook the most macho of truck drivers. It didn’t stop for children waiting at zebra crossings, it honked its horn at slow horsecarts, it swerved and dodged public transport buses, it threatened to run through railway crossings, it ran down footpaths when it couldn’t find its way ahead on jammed roads, it was pursued in a futile chase by a road-tax inspector, it was sworn at by labourers repairing the roads, it stopped for refuelling at a petrol station and then took off without paying. The driver of the car was obviously in a hurry. Many of the people who saw the car whizz past were sure that the man driving it was suicidal. They were wrong.

  Far from being suicidal, Major Kiyani was on a mission to save lives.

  He had personally supervised the last dusting of the VIP pod and inserted the lavender air freshener in the air-conditioning duct. He was there when the pod was lifted by a crane, rolled into the C130 ’s fuselage through its back ramp and fastened to the floor of the cabin by the air force technicians. He had to leave the VIP area and retreat to his office as General Zia’s entourage started to arrive; in his new job he didn’t have the security clearance to be around the red carpet.

  It wasn’t until Pak One had taken off from Rawalpindi’s military airport for Bahawalpur that Major Kiyani put his feet on the table, lit a Dunhill and casually glanced at the passenger list that had been left on his table before Pak One’s take-off. His feet came off the table when he saw General Akhtar’s name just below General Zia’s. Like most veteran intelligence operators he believed that one should know only what one needs to know. Surely General Akhtar knew when to board Pak One and when to get off it; General Akhtar always knew the bigger picture. After eighteen names, starting with senior military ranks, he saw the first civilian name. Mr Arnold Raphel, the US Ambassador. He stood up from his seat. Why was the US Ambassador travelling on Pak One and not on his own Cessna?

  Fear was Major Kiyani’s stock-in-trade. He knew how to ration it to others and he knew how to guard against it. But the kind of fear he felt now was different. He sat down again. He lit another cigarette and then realised one was already smouldering in the ashtray. Was there anything that he had not understood about General Akhtar’s instructions?

  It took him another eight minutes and three Dunhills to realise that his options were limited. There were no phone calls he could make without bringing his own name onto the records forever, there were no security alerts he could issue without implicating himself. The only thing he could do was to be there physically before Pak One took off for its return flight. He needed to get there and talk to General Zia before he stepped on that plane again. If General Akhtar was trying to play games with Pak One, it was a matter of internal security. But if General Akhtar was planning to bring down a plane with the US Ambassador on board then, surely, it was a threat to the nation’s very survival and it was his duty to stop it from happening. Major Kiyani felt he was the only man standing between a peaceful August day and the beginning of the Third World War. He looked at the passenger list again and wondered who else was on the plane. Everybody, he thought, or maybe nobody.

  The time to make educated guesses was long gone.

  A quick look at the commercial flights schedule ruled out the possibility of catching a plane to a nearby city. He thought about making a few calls and getting an air force plane but that would require authorisation from a general and there was no way they would let him land at Bahawalpur. He picked up the keys to his Corolla and was barging towards the door when he looked at his watch. He realised that he would have to wear his uniform. No civilian could do that long a drive without being stopped a dozen times along the way. Then there was the problem of negotiating General Zia’s security cordon. It couldn’t be done without the uniform. He took out a uniform from the stationery cupboard. It was pressed and starched but covered in a thick layer of dust. He couldn’t remember when he had last worn it. His khaki trousers were too stiff and impossibly tight around his waist. He left the zip button on his trousers open and covered this arrangement with his khaki shirt. He took out the dust-covered oxford shoes from the cupboard but then realised that he was running out of time and nobody was going to see his feet in the car anyway. He decided to stick to his open-toed Peshawari slippers. He didn’t forget to pick up his holster. He had one last look at himself in the mirror and was pleased to notice that despite the awkward fit of the uniform, despite the fact that his hair covered his ears, despite his Peshawari slippers, nobody could mistake him for anyone other than an army major in a hurry.

  THIRTY-ONE

  GENERAL ZIA WAS searching the sand dunes through his binoculars, waiting for the tank demonstration to start, when he saw the shadow of a bird moving across the shimmering expanse of sand. He raised his binoculars and searched for the bird, but the horizon was endlessly blank and blue except for the sun, a blazing silver disc lower than any celestial object should be. General Zia stood under a desert-camouflage tent flanked on one side by US Ambassador Arnold Raphel and on the other by the Vice Chief of the Army Staff, General Beg, with his new three-star general’s epaulettes and tinted sunglasses. General Akhtar was standing a little further away, his binoculars still hanging around his neck, fidgeting with the mahogany baton that he had started to carry since his promotion. Behind them stood a row of two-star generals, Armoured Corps Formation commanders and battery-p
owered pedestal fans that were causing a mini-sandstorm without providing any relief from the August humidity. At least the tent did protect them against the sun, which beat down on the exercise area marked with red flags, turning it into a glimmering, still sea of sand. Holding to their eyes the leather-encased binoculars provided by the tank manufacturers, the generals saw the khaki barrel of an M1 Abram appear from behind a sand dune. The tank, General Zia noted with interest, had already been painted in the dull green colours of the Pakistan Army. Is it a free sample, he wondered, or has one of my eager generals in Defence Procurement already written the cheque?

  The M1 Abram lowered its barrel to salute the General and kept it there as a mark of respect for the recitation from the Quran. The Armoured Corps’ Religious Officer chose the General’s favourite verse for these occasions: ‘Hold Fast the Rope of Allah and Keep Your Horses Ready’.

  Lowering his binoculars, General Zia listened to the recitation with his eyes shut and tried to calculate the percentage of kickbacks. As soon as the recitation was over he turned to confer with General Beg about the mode of payment for these tanks. He saw his own distorted face in General Beg’s sunglasses. General Zia couldn’t remember Beg ever wearing these glasses before he appointed him his deputy and practically gave him the operational command of the army. When General Zia had gone to congratulate him on his first day in his new office, General Beg received him sporting these sunglasses even though it was a cloudy day in Islamabad; further proof, if proof was needed, that power corrupts. General Zia hated General Beg’s sunglasses but still hadn’t found a way to broach the subject. It was probably a violation of the uniform code. What was worse, it made him look Western and vulgar, more like a Hollywood general than the Commander-in-Chief of the army of an Islamic republic. And General Zia couldn’t look into his eyes.