Of Smokeless Fire A.A. Jafri (books to read to improve english TXT) 📖

from saying the words out loud. He had grown up in a society where saying ‘I love you’ was thought to cheapen the pure sentiment of love. It was never announced, never displayed.

After a slight pause, Mansoor closed his eyes, gathered his thoughts and said haltingly, ‘I . . . I love you, Lisa Reid, but . . . I have to go back . . . to sort things out with my mother and with my relatives.’

Mansoor had told Lisa about the ruckus his mother had created when she saw the picture of them from the party. After a slight pause, he continued, ‘I also have to decide where I am going to live—in Pakistan or in America. My mother is all alone there, and I know . . . she . . . she wants me to return to Pakistan and live with her. I also know I will have a difficult time convincing her about me marrying you, so I have to break the news gradually.’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Did you just say that you have to convince your mother about marrying me?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘But don’t you think you have to ask me about marriage first? I mean, how can you be sure about whether I even want to marry you or not?’ she asked.

‘I don’t want to ask you something that I may not be able to deliver. And I cannot force you to live in a place that you may hate.’

‘I would sure like to try living in Pakistan. I know I can make adjustments,’ Lisa said.

‘Life in Pakistan is not so easy, Lisa. There are too many small annoyances. Too many restrictions. Too many things that you take for granted here are simply not available there.’

‘I think you are trying to find excuses,’ Lisa said with a degree of petulance.

‘No, I am not!’ Mansoor protested. His head swimming, he felt like he was going to throw up any minute.

‘Mansoor, I know you’ve had too many drinks and that this is not the time to talk, but I would appreciate it if you could think things over and give me an answer in a couple of days.’

Lisa just could not understand why Mansoor alone could not make the decision regarding marriage. The need for his mother’s permission to marry her was something that simply lay beyond her grasp. It was his life after all!

And then, with his eyes closed and his head throbbing with a headache, Mansoor asked her the question that he should have asked a long time ago, ‘Will you marry me?’

‘WHAT?’ Lisa turned and looked at him, unsure that she had heard him correctly.

‘Will you marry me?’ he repeated.

‘Mansoor, you don’t have to ask me that question to end this discussion. I told you, you can think about it for a few days. I can wait.’

‘I want to marry you, Lisa. And I will marry you today, on the first day of the new year, if you say yes.’

‘Mansoor, wait. You just told me you needed your mother’s permission, how can you say you want to marry me today? Are you sure you are not saying this because you feel pressured by me?’

‘No, I am not asking you to marry me because of any pressure. So, what do you say?’

Before she could answer, they heard the telephone ringing in Joseph’s room. After four rings, Joseph picked the phone up. Then they heard him shout into the phone.

‘I think it’s a long-distance call, probably from Pakistan,’ Mansoor said, sitting up.

He heard Joseph say, ‘Salaam, Haider Sahib. Yes, he is here with me. What? How did it happen? Sahib ji . . . Hello? Hello?’ Then he heard Joseph clicking the cradle a few times and cursing the telephone system of Pakistan.

An unknown terror gripped Mansoor. His stomach tightened, his throat dried up and he had this terrifying feeling that something was wrong, and he knew it had to do with his mother.

Mansoor heard the door open and saw the silhouetted figure of Joseph appear from his bedroom. He was wearing a lungi, like he used to wear in Pakistan.

‘What’s wrong, Joseph?’ Mansoor asked.

‘Hey, you guys still up?’ Joseph was startled to see them in his living room.

‘Who was it on the phone?’

‘Oh! No one! It was just a wrong number,’ Joseph tried to lie, but his ashen face gave it all away.

‘No, it wasn’t. I heard you clearly. You were talking to Haider Rizvi. It was about my mother. Wasn’t it? Is she dead?’ Mansoor said all this in one breath. It was as if he had a sudden foreboding about his mother, or perhaps he had unconsciously prepared himself for the worst news. Joseph stood there motionless, his mouth open, his mind blank in utter disbelief.

‘Yes.’

‘Did he say when this happened?’

‘No, the line got disconnected.’

‘Can I use your phone to call home?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Joseph replied.

For the next hour, Mansoor tried to call the Kashana, but the line appeared to be perpetually busy. Lisa could feel the hail of emotions that hit him. Frustrated with the telephone line, he got up and asked Lisa to wake him up around eight. She looked at the time. It was almost quarter to six.

Twenty-Seven

Farhat had a massive heart attack. With Athanni by her side, she was rushed to the hospital where, as she lay dying, she repeatedly called Mansoor’s name and implored Athanni to phone him. He promised to call him but made no attempts to actually do so. To show the world that Mansoor was an utterly heartless person, he then spread the lie that he had placed the call and apprised Mansoor of the situation, making it amply clear to him that his mother was on her deathbed, but Mansoor did not want to come right away.

‘Can you believe that he slept with that half-breed churail even before his father’s soul ascended to heaven? And even though his dying mother wished to see him one last time, he simply chose to