Of Smokeless Fire by A.A. Jafri (i wanna iguana read aloud TXT) 📕

the news from Haider, the first thing he did was to phone Sadiq at his home, but no one answered. He called all the people who might know his whereabouts, but no one knew anything. Except for Anna, Sadiq’s other daughters had already left for various parts of the world after they got married. So Noor called Anna, but she did not pick up the phone either. It was as if the entire Mirza clan had vanished from the face of the country. Worried about his friend, Noor got into his car and asked Sikander to take him to all the possible places where Sadiq might go. But he came home empty-handed.

‘These shameless lawmakers should all be lined up and shot by a firing squad,’ he told Mansoor in a fit of escalating emotions.

Some of the lawmakers who had signed the death warrant of the Ahmadis were Noor’s clients. He vowed to Mansoor that he would never represent them again. The Daily Jadal, in an editorial, commended the prime minister for doing something that should have been done twenty-seven years ago, when Pakistan became independent.

*

Intoxicated by power and distended by hubris, The People’s Leader began tightening the noose around people’s necks and cracking down on general dissidents. He then turned his wrath on the dissenters from his own party, stripping them from party ranks and personally ordering their beating by the SCAB. Those who remained defiant were labelled subversives, thrown into prisons without any charges and tortured physically and sexually. The few newspapermen who wrote against The People’s Leader were routinely arrested and beaten.

Haider Rizvi was the only top editor who was spared arrest. He began playing the game that he had alluded to when he spoke to Noor a while ago. Under Haider’s leadership, the Morning Gazette became the administration’s mouthpiece, and in return, the government rewarded him generously with advertisements. Rizvi began enjoying the new limelight, hobnobbing with the powerful and the ruthless. Irreligious at heart, but steeped in slyness, he practiced his art of pretension to perfection. So shameless was his sycophancy at the time that his prickly friend Noor became uncomfortable in his company. Had he not been such an old friend, Noor would have dumped him altogether.

Part III

‘Who holds the devil, let him hold him well,

He hardly will be caught a second time.’

—Faust: Part 1, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Nineteen

Mansoor completed his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Karachi and was eager to study further in America. All his admission papers from the University of Iowa had arrived, but the prized American visa eluded him. The process was so labyrinthine that he almost gave up on it until Haider Rizvi offered his help.

‘I know someone at the American consulate who can get you the visa, but there is one condition.’

‘What is that?’ Mansoor asked.

‘You will let me call you the twelfth man!’ Haider laughed so hard that he began to cough.

After he settled down, Mansoor replied, ‘Uncle Haider, if you get me the visa, you can call me anything you want.’

‘Okay, my twelfth man, come to my office tomorrow, and we will start the innings,’ Haider said.

The next day, Mansoor drove his Datsun to Haider Rizvi’s office. Located in an old colonial-style mansion, the fading yellow building grimly reminded Mansoor of the control the government had on it now. After parking his car inside the Gazette’s parking lot, a rarity in this densely populated, land-scarce city, he went straight to Haider’s second-floor office. Sitting behind a sturdy table, a petite and well-groomed secretary in a light blue dress guarded Haider’s office.

‘I am here to see Mr Haider Rizvi.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, but he asked me to come at any time.’

‘You can’t see him if you don’t have an appointment . . . besides, he is with somebody right now.’

‘I know him personally . . . could you just tell him that Mansoor ul Haq is here to see him?’ he pleaded desperately.

‘I am sorry, Mr Haq, no appointment, no meeting. I can get you an appointment for January.’

But January was two months away. Besides, he was supposed to be in America in January. Feeling thoroughly disgusted by the imperious, intransigent secretary, Mansoor turned around to leave, but Haider came out of his office just then and saw him.

‘Oh, come on in, Mansoor! I am glad you came. Miss Davis, please hold all my calls.’

A sly smile on his face, Mansoor glanced at Miss Davis triumphantly and walked into Haider’s office. Inside, he saw a man in a crumpled kurta-pyjama sitting comfortably across from the editor. Wearing a white prayer cap, his round moustache-less face concealed by a long salt-and-pepper beard, he looked familiar to Mansoor.

‘Assalam alai kum,’ Mansoor greeted him, raking his memory to identify the face.

‘Wa-alaikum assalam wa rahamatullahe wa barakatuh.’

Greeting Mansoor with the additional benedictions of divine mercy and blessings, and squeezing out all the pietistic verbiage he could to assert his new self-image, was a man no other than Zakir Hassan.

Mansoor recognized that raspy voice. Gone was the man with the infectious smile, the dapper attire and the magnetic personality. In his place sat a shaggy mendicant with a stern face.

What a transformation! Mansoor thought. He knew that Zakir Hassan had gone through a period of exhaustive soul-searching, but such a drastic makeover he had never imagined. Mansoor pulled an empty chair and asked, ‘How are you doing, Uncle Zakir?’

‘All praise is to Allah,’ came the prompt reply. After a brief pause, Zakir continued, ‘So you are going to America?’ And before Mansoor could reply, he spoke again, ‘Good! Very good! Our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said seek education even if you have to go to China . . .’

Mansoor knew that there was a ‘but’ hidden somewhere and he waited for it to erupt.

‘But, let me give you a piece of advice. You know I lived in America for many years, and I have seen its worst side and its best