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

‘Is your husband still travelling a lot these days? I see his name in the Pakistani newspapers all the time.’

Mehrun replied in the affirmative and then quickly changed the subject. ‘So, how’s Umreeka?’ she asked.

Mansoor smiled at the way she pronounced America. He told her about his life in Iowa, about his studies and about Joseph being in America.

‘Have you found a girlfriend?’

Mansoor hesitated before answering her question, and when he did, he lied. He was not ready to talk about Lisa with anyone, definitely not from a payphone in a busy airport.

‘How are Noor Sahib and Begum Sahiba?’

‘They are fine,’ he lied again.

‘I would like to come and pay my respects to them.’

‘Yes, of course. Abba and Amma would be thrilled to see you.’

‘Are you sure?’

No, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t even know what state they would be in. After he hung up, Mansoor felt a rising annoyance about the call, something disquieting, but he wasn’t sure if it was guilt, shame, or pure idiocy. When he reboarded the plane, Mansoor’s mind returned to his conversation with Mehrun. Why didn’t he say anything about Lisa? Did he believe that the truth about his relationship with Lisa would affect his friendship with Mehrun? Was he sure that his parents would be thrilled to see Mehrun, now that she was a rich woman?

The telephone call depressed him; he didn’t know why he expected that talking to Mehrun would somehow make him feel better. Mansoor’s mind drifted to his father’s agonising letter, and that added to his despair. The final leg of his long flight should have made him excited, but it didn’t. Sitting cramped on such a long flight had made his legs ache. Mansoor got up to walk back and forth to stretch his muscles, but he sensed a heaviness in his steps. When he went back to his seat, Mansoor closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He needed to quieten his mind. He would have enough to deal with when he landed in Karachi.

Twenty-Three

Mansoor arrived in Karachi in the early hours of the morning—the pink clouds splashed their colour across the grey-blue dawn sky as if to prevent the sunlight from breaking through. Sikander came to pick him up. Although he must have known much about what was happening between Noor and Farhat, he said little. As the car approached the gates of the Kashana, Mansoor saw the wizened old Changez Gul sitting in an aluminium armchair, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed and his head tilted backward. Wasn’t he sitting in exactly the same position when I left for America? Mansoor thought.

Sikander drove the car right up to the gate and then honked. That startled Changez Gul, and he jumped up. When he saw that it was Mansoor inside the car, he saluted him, and Mansoor rolled down the window to greet him. Changez opened the gates, and as the car pulled up near the front porch, Mansoor noticed the weeds growing along the driveway. Withering coneflowers, their once-bright colours faded, their leaves black and brown, accentuated the neglect that appeared to have spread through the Kashana.

‘Does Jumman still work here?’ Mansoor asked Sikander.

‘Yes, Sahib, but only in name. He drinks heroine all the time.’

‘You mean the drug? Heroin?’

‘Yes, Sahib. Heroine.’

When Mansoor entered the house, he found his father waiting for him in the corridor. As soon as Noor saw him, he walked painfully towards him, grabbed him in a big hug and began to weep. It was not the father Mansoor had known all these years. The man had never cried like this. Separation from his wife had clearly crushed his dignity. His mottled scalp, the sagging wrinkles, the bent back, all told the sad tale of a shattered man.

‘Where is Amma? Did you tell her that I was coming?’

‘She is . . . at your . . . Aunt’s house. I . . . didn’t tell her . . .you were coming.’

Mansoor was disappointed. It was upsetting to come back to a desolate home. Without his mother, the house looked estranged. Thick layers of dust on the tables and cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling replicated the tale of shameful neglect from the front yard. Later, when Mansoor gave Noor the bottle of Chivas Regal, he smiled wistfully and told him, ‘This is . . . is . . . the cause of . . . our sep . . . sep . . . aration, beta.’ He held the bottle with both hands and sat staring at it for a while. Eventually, he said, ‘My friend in need has be . . . come my enemy ind . . . eed.’

The convoluted tongue, the slurred speech unnerved Mansoor. ‘Tell me from the beginning what happened,’ he asked.

Noor put the bottle on the side table, sighed deeply and said: ‘Wh . . . at is there to . . . to tell you! Ev . . . ev . . . everything gone. Nothing remains . . . not . . . thing remains. I am a man beaten by . . . by . . .’

Noor coughed and cleared his throat, wanting to say something but unsure about what to say. How could he tell his son about the distresses of his unhappy marriage of fifty years, that too with this jerky, hesitant tongue? Mansoor realized that there was something wrong with his father. It seemed impossible for him to talk coherently. He told his father to go back to sleep as it was still very early, and he promised that he would bring back his mother today.

After leaving his father, Mansoor went to the women’s quarter, not entirely sure why. The room was a veritable shrine now. On the marble floor, a beautiful and thick Turkish prayer rug greeted him, its corner folded, prayer beads spread out. In one corner of the room, on a wooden hand-carved Qur’an holder, lay a closed Qur’an. The