In the Light of What We Know: A Novel

by Zia Haider Rahman

  Are you uncomfortable? he asked me, breaking off from his flow.

  Why should I be?

  I meant, in your seat. You’re fidgeting.

  No. I’m fine. I’m fine. Please, go on.

  Zafar leaned back, looking unconvinced.

  And now these heroes, he continued, they want to refashion the world in their image. They can do this only as long as the world that they are on the very cusp of changing is seen as a reliquary of humanity. This is the Orient they need to imagine. They paint pictures of intense color and beauty without depth. They charm us, but they charm themselves first. The fluttering kites, a caravan under a vermilion sky, and the night train over a chasm, children with eyes of moon, silk roads, and the derring-do of Burtons and Lawrences. Their coin is the ecstasy of beauty, and with it they buy their right in the world.

  Everything seen by the West is seen through the West. The Western reader, who is already the most adventurous person in the world, is afraid, for he has been taught to fear the Orient. This state—a mix of charm, mystique, and danger: the ingredients of riotously good sex—is the guarantor and license of military, economic, and cultural enterprises that reduce the Orient. It is the basis for creating fear.

  When I was a child, our first home in England was a squat in Marylebone, in a part of London that is now rather chic. We lived in a condemned building, which no one could be bothered to demolish. We lived in two rooms—a kitchen and the other room—in the basement with an outside lavatory. I can remember the place vividly, everything about it, the rubble in the yard, through which we picked our way to the lavatory, the single room almost wholly taken up with two beds. But while I can remember the kitchen, the two-ring electric hob and the secondhand fridge that alternately rattled and gurgled, while I remember that side of the room where our food was prepared, a few square feet, I can recall nothing of the other half. Yet my memory has not failed me. I have no visual memory of the side below the small window at the far end—far for a boy—because whenever I entered the kitchen I kept my eyes away from it; I never looked that way. There is nothing for my eyes to remember. From time to time, I might catch a scuffling sound, or from a scurry or scratch I would see a gray thread, a spark of static, at the perimeter of my vision. If I was in the bedroom, I might hear my mother now and again going at the rats with a broom. I was terrified of them, and the only response was not to look. This is how fear works. It transforms our perceptual field. It changes how we allow ourselves to experience the world—in order to circumvent the fear.

  * * *

  Zafar’s mysterious East was, if I understood him correctly, a conjured enchantment of the West. But I found it hard to follow him. Even so, I wonder now if in fact Zafar had undertaken his own enchantment, if he’d endowed Emily with this same charm, mystique, and danger, had given her qualities that had no more real presence than as the bare bones upon which to hang a fantasy. From what I knew of her, growing up in overlapping social circles, she was if not ordinary then unexceptional, other than perhaps in having an academic aptitude. What took me by surprise was the note of jealousy entering Zafar’s narrative; I would never have put him down as the jealous sort. Listening to him discuss Emily, listening to the account of Kabul, of him standing in that room with a view of Emily, I wondered whether he had in fact loved her.

  I see Emily, continued Zafar, but she does not notice me, and she won’t unless I do something. To my right is a pile of magazines—The Economist, The Atlantic Monthly, and others. I pick up the nearest and walk right up behind the chair opposite her, outside the circle of chairs and sofa, this ring with Emily its leader. I open the magazine and look her way and catch her eye as she looks up, and I look away. Why do I look away? Emily will not leap up and come to me. I know that. Emily will not exclaim “Zafar!” at her sheer surprise to see me there. I was in Kabul, she knew, staying at AfDARI, she possibly knew, but what was I doing here at the UN bar? There will be a break, a pause, a hesitation, maybe not so small in fact, and the men will look up, too, because they will follow her eyes. You know that we can’t help that? It’s a physical response that is virtually impossible to suppress. But because I look away before they look up, I retain anonymity and they cannot identify me as the man whom Emily then ignores. I look away to save myself that little shame.

  I walk to the archway, toward the funnel of noise from the bar. Her eyes won’t follow me, because that would signal to her ring of admirers the cause of her momentary distraction. But she’ll come, in her own time. She’ll come and find me.

  * * *

  I had started my journey a week earlier. In 2002, the UN rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan was a chap called Dr. Hassan Kabir, who was based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The “Doctor” honorific and his name were inseparable. In South Asian circles, his career and history commanded awe: sometime fellow of All Souls, once a partner in a giant international law firm, and in his day instrumental in the founding of the modern state of Bangladesh as an author of its constitution. Of the eight or so who put their pens to the document, all but Kabir were to perish over the years in various coups and assassinations. Wit and cunning, they say. I could never utter his name without thinking of that other doctor, Henry Kissinger, which is the best irony since Kissinger spared little effort to thwart the emergence of the new nation. Perhaps I think of Kissinger because political divides are thinner than others, social ones, for instance. National interests don’t vary, only nations do.

  What happened in the bar? I asked, interrupting Zafar.

  I’m telling you what happened. What do you think I’m doing?

  Zafar got up and walked over to the drinks cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He set them down in front of us, poured himself a drink, and pushed the bottle toward me. I didn’t pour.

  Two weeks before Kabul, in Dhaka, Dr. Hassan Kabir asked me if I’d consider accompanying him on a visit to Afghanistan; he needed someone to take notes and generally undertake tasks while there. I said I’d consider it, and he asked me to give him an answer in two days. But the following morning I received a call from his office, informing me that Dr. Kabir had been called to Geneva and New York and would be unable to make the trip to Afghanistan; also a visa had been arranged for me through the offices of the Afghani ambassador in Geneva and that arrangements for flights to Kabul had also been made. Given how keen Dr. Kabir seemed to be that I should go, I felt a refusal would have marred my relationship with him. Influential people seem to think that helping them would be an honor.

  I thought you went to Afghanistan because of Emily. Didn’t you say she called you?

  The call from her came the following day, but I didn’t let on that I was already set to go to Kabul for the UN rapporteur. I didn’t want to give her an excuse not to come through on her claims that there was work for me to do. I wanted to see what she would organize, what kind of introductions she’d make, if she thought I’d come to Kabul at her behest.

  But why did you feel you needed to test her like this?

  If she thought that I’d come to Kabul because she had wanted my help and I arrived to find there was nothing for me to do, then I’d know that she had asked me to come because she wanted to see me. How perverse is that? The idea that I could rely on her unreliability and see in it the intimation of love. Since when was unreliability a virtue? When did it ever do any good?

  On the PIA connecting flight from Dubai to Islamabad, as I settled into my seat, pressed in against the window, a young man sat down beside me, tall and rather burly. Unavoidably his forearms extended over my own armrests. Mohsin Khalid introduced himself to me, at your service, in a thick Pakistani accent, and beamed from under a Red Sox cap.

  Do you like flying? he asked.

  Not particularly, I replied.

  I hate it, he continued. Which is funny, to say the least.

  I looked at him.

  I climb mountains, you see. I don’t mind heights at all. But only if I can look down. Funny, isn’t it?r />
  I smiled back at him. Would you like the window seat?

  Oh, no. I need the space of an aisle seat. Besides, it’s not the same, looking out a window and looking down the side of a mountain.

  I suppose it isn’t.

  I climb mainly in the Karakoram, but I’ve done others. Everest, also. Always impresses the Westerners when I say that. But the idiots don’t know Everest is easy compared to K2, a climber’s mountain. You know of course that the K in K2 means Karakoram?

  I do know that, as it happens.

  Of course you do. K2 is a fucker of a mountain, bhai sahib, oh, yes. Everest is bigger, but K2 is much tougher, a savage mountain any road up. But to the Western mind, big is all that counts, and the bigger the better. Americans especially. That’s all they want to know.

  Did you go up from the Chinese side?

  Very good. You know your geography.

  I like maps.

  As a matter of fact, I have climbed it from both.

  Is it hard for a Pakistani to get into China—so close to the border, I mean?

  In life, all things are possible. Did you know that we mountaineers have smaller amygdalae than most people and therefore have a smaller fear response?

  Really?

  So you know what the amygdala is, then? he asked.

  Something like broccoli but in the brain, right?

  I have no idea, but I think you might be right.

  How do you know this about mountaineers? I asked him.

  About the amygdala?

  I nodded.

  I read it. In one of those, those … what do they call them?

  Books?

  Precisely! I read it in a book. Although, as far as I can tell, everything and his uncle seems to be put at the door of the amygdala.

  ’Twas ever thus.

  So where are you traveling to? he asked.

  Same as you. Islamabad, I replied.

  Of course, he chuckled. I’m sorry, I meant what is your final destination?

  Kabul.

  Afghanistan, the biggest mountain of all. Good luck. For whom do you work?

  I trained as a lawyer.

  They need lawyers?

  I laughed.

  I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to be impertinent.

  Not at all, I reassured him. You know the joke? What do you call five hundred lawyers at the bottom of a lake?

  I don’t know, he replied.

  A good start.

  He laughed, and we passed the flight in amiable conversation. He discussed various aspects of mountaineering. I asked questions and he obliged with answers. When I asked him how he made a living at it, he explained that he didn’t.

  From time to time, he said, I will guide parties on climbing expeditions. That brings in a little.

  So what do you do?

  I take them up. They have money and egos but no sense—

  I mean, what do you do when you’re not rappelling the north face?

  Ah. By day, I work in the family import-export business.

  What do you import and export?

  Anything. That’s the nature of the business. If we focused on one thing, we’d get caught up in someone’s supply chain and inevitably we’d get taken for a ride, and we don’t want to be held hostage, do we? So we import and export as requirements dictate.

  Before we disembarked, Khalid expressed his pleasure at meeting me and gave me his business card. That might have been the last I saw of him, but half an hour later, as I emerged from the airport terminal onto a bustling outdoor concourse, where the overwhelming light had me reaching for my sunglasses, there was Khalid waving to me from the roadside. He offered me a ride to my hotel. When I explained that I had not made any reservations, he exclaimed, Oh, well! It’s settled, then. You will be my guest.

  We arrived at a large house in the diplomatic enclave, below the Marghalla Hills. Mature climbers covered the walls of the building and rain had smeared the white stucco, leaving black patches and vertical runs of gray. There was nothing of the modern ostentation of houses in affluent neighborhoods in South Asia, none of the ornate iron gates or wide jutting terraces above the ground floor. Instead, the two stories of the house, its tall windows, and its aspect onto the road were all arranged, I thought, with such simplicity as to suggest that the house must once have stood in larger grounds.

  The driveway took us under an archway of overhanging trees, down an incline, and around the back. The car had barely come to a stop when the door opened and an orderly addressed me. Please, sahib, he said, gesturing the way into the house. I was led through a spacious hall—it had a wide stairway—and was shown into a long, airy lounge. I saw no one else. There was an arrangement of sofas and side tables, all in cane, and some rugs, and a coffee table with a small pile of chess books. I looked for the open chess set. Tucked away in the far corner of the room, which was open to light on two sides, between two opposing chairs, was a table giving off the dull gray of cast iron. Something at the center of that table was covered in a piece of cloth embroidered with golden stitching. There was no lamp on the table, nor any nearby, and the words chess by daylight came to my mind, and the words seemed curious to me, carrying some incalculable significance.

  Here and there were rugs. In the corner of one, I noticed—because I was looking for it—the tiny white square of nylon that bears washing instructions.

  The walls were adorned with framed photographs, mainly of military personnel, some taken outdoors, others against a studio background. One picture in particular caught my eye, squat and wide angled, reminding me of matriculation photographs. When I drew up close enough, I saw that it was exactly so, a photograph from Exeter College, Oxford, class of 1964. Next to it was a photograph of soldiers, taken, according to the caption, at Sandhurst, the British army’s officer training center, where the future senior ranks of the armies of the colonies and postcolonies were sent, and are sometimes still sent to this day.

  There was one dark face in the Oxford photograph, floating among rows of white faces, and, true enough, this face was also in the second photograph. I then heard a voice.

  You’re an Oxford man, aren’t you?

  I turned. Before me was the man in the photograph, much older, but the same man.

  I studied there, I replied.

  But you’re not an Oxford man?

  His furrowed brow emphasized the question but gave no suggestion of genuine puzzlement. He had the fallen shoulders of old age that made me think of young men who stand tall, as if to exceed their own height. A sheer forehead rose above fulsome gray eyebrows before crashing into thick white hair, swept back, probably with the Brylcreem that is so popular in South Asia. An immaculate mustache framed the judgmental tilt to a robust jaw. He wore a gray Nehru suit and dark leather sandals.

  If going there to study makes me an Oxford man, then that I am, I replied.

  But in spite of all temptations, to belong to other nations, he remains an Englishman!

  You know your Gilbert and Sullivan.

  It’s not mine. In the army, the officers used to play bridge, you know? Mad about the game. They used to ask me: Mushtaq, old chap, why aren’t you a bridge man? I’m a chess man, I’d say. So are you an Oxford man?

  Is a man who climbs mountains a mountaineer or a mountain man? I replied.

  Quite. Hello, Zafar, old boy—may I call you Zafar?

  Of course, I replied.

  Pleased to make your acquaintance. Colonel Sikander Ali Mushtaq, retired.

  How do you do? I said, taking his extended hand.

  Your mountaineer friend—my nephew, by the way—has gone off on some business of his own, but he may join us for supper. Do you play?

  Chess?

  I learned the game as a boy from a friend, he said. He played very slowly and seemed ever calm and composed in the face of all the trials that came his way. He had a hard life. Father was a bastard. Chess teaches patience. Every game is different. A game can be deeply unsatisfying, dissatisfy
ing, even as it delivers your triumph. Making victory alone your goal is to make failure of the worst kind a foregone conclusion.

  How so? I asked.

  It is an obtuse notion that a given game of chess stands alone and apart, that it is free of past and future, an egoistic notion that the game at hand is the one game that matters. Only arrogance can allow such a view. What matters is the beat and rhythm, the heave and ho of game after game, so that the cumulative history shows one the texture of what might be, of what is inherent in the thirty-two pieces and the sixty-four squares and, most of all, the board. Some people think chess is about the pieces. It is always about the board. One begins with the board half covered and half open, and as one progresses, one reveals its mysteries. But only game after game. Mark my words, Zafar. Only game after game. Do please take a seat. I shall have a whisky. May I pour you one?

  Thank you.

  He opened the door and called out for two whiskys, and with the door open I could hear the hum of servants.

  Interesting photos, don’t you think? Oxford and Sandhurst, continued the colonel, emblems of Empire, and there we were, the former colonial subjects, sitting at the feet of dons who trained the colonial administrators. In 1835, Lord Macaulay, as I expect you know, wrote in his famous paper to the British Parliament about the superiority of the Western canon. In it, Macaulay writes a passage that I have never forgotten since I first set eyes upon it: We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern—a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.

  The colonel paused, presumably to let the quotation take effect.

  We have never overcome the sense of inferiority, he continued. Our elites study at their universities in their language. Marx called Macaulay the systematic falsifier of history. Do you know what I studied at Oxford? History. But whose bloody history? Theirs. We bought their values wholesale in exchange for our dignity, grafted their subject-ruler mentality onto our own so that these countries of ours are incapable of anything like democracy. Millions go starving while the rich and powerful in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh lord over them, disdaining them and denying them. We mimic the Westerners though we hate them.