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

‘Please show Begum Sahiba the exit door,’ Mehrun instructed him.

Talat put the money back in her purse and left her office, but she issued another warning as she left: ‘If I see you within twenty feet of my husband, I will kill you.’

The mild headache that had been lingering at the edges of her temple all day now began to pound Mehrun’s head with full force. She rang the bell again and asked the guard to bring a couple of Aspro tablets and some water. As the guard left, her boss, Alvi, knocked on her door. He craned his neck through it and asked her if everything was okay. Mehrun just nodded and was relieved that her boss left without asking any other question.

The guard returned with the Aspro tablets and the water a few minutes later. Mehrun sat there at her desk, a little dazed, and swallowed the Aspro, washing it down with the cloudy water that the guard had brought, not even noticing when he left the room. Did she have any reason to feel guilty about anything? All she had wanted was to benefit from Sadiq’s intellect. Why did her love of learning become a constant source of violence? Why did those written words, sources of serenity, become sources of sorrow? It was something she just could not comprehend. Why did Talat come to her office to humiliate her? And what was the second wife contention all about? As tears began to well up in her eyes, she buried her head in her hands. Was she losing her mind? She sat up and took out a handkerchief from her purse to wipe her eyes. Then she reached for the telephone and dialled Mansoor’s number, but just as the phone rang, she put the handset down. What if Farhat or Noor picked up the phone? A second later, she picked up the handset again and redialled the number. If anyone else picked up the phone, she would say that it was a wrong number and just put it back down. But, after a few rings, it was Mansoor who picked up the phone at the other end. She asked him if he could come over to the bank.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked.

‘No, just come to the bank,’ she replied.

‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

Mehrun buried her face in her palms again and thought about calling Mansoor back to tell him not to bother, but it was probably too late. He must’ve already left the Kashana. She needed to unburden herself and the only person she could think of was her childhood friend.

*

There is an old saying that when the mind reaches for the stars, the soul yearns for the ordinary. While Mansoor’s father was drilling into him esoteric ideas, he longed for simple teenage pleasures, such as being with friends, eating out and having a good time. Mansoor’s edification by his demanding father had detached him from his friends. The few, who had found it difficult to relate to him in the past, now considered him downright tiresome. Noor’s insistence on the value of doubt made Mansoor introspective and reflective, but it also deprived him of a healthy social life. Mehrun, on the other hand, had also grown intellectually under Sadiq’s tutelage, and Mansoor found a kindred spirit in her. And although her presence at the Kashana had become irregular after her run-in with his English tutor, whenever Mansoor did manage to meet Mehrun, he cherished her company. The passage of time only brought the two of them closer. But until the day she called him and asked him to come over to the bank, Mehrun had kept Sadiq’s pass a carefully guarded secret.

*

Mansoor had also taken his Senior Cambridge exam and done exceptionally well. He enrolled himself in the University of Karachi. The institution was no intellectual powerhouse, but he found a few teachers who excited his imagination and aroused his curiosity. His mind, however, remained agitated and his beliefs continued to collide. On the surface, he appeared tranquil, but inside he was bursting with uncertainties. The more profound metaphysical questions of life plagued him. He was a young man struggling with self-doubt. The sense of belonging to a family, to a tradition and to a geography began to elude him. Did belonging provide cultural comfort? Was an un-belonging self, a drifting self with no meaning, devoid of intent or purpose? Did a djinn reside inside his soul? Why did Haider Rizvi still call him the twelfth man?

These ontological questions tormented Mansoor regularly, and his utterly incompatible parents muddled things up every day. On the one hand was his father, a worldly man, well-read, thoughtful, secular in his politics, agnostic in his beliefs and resentfully living in a country where religion had gradually become a public face. On the other hand was his poor mother, an uneducated woman without opinions, faithful to her husband not out of love but out of loyalty to tradition, unwavering in her faith in God and deeply rooted in religion. And both wanted Mansoor to grow up with their beliefs, and in their likeness.

*

As a reward for doing well in the exams, Mansoor’s father had bought him a new Datsun, which he now drove maniacally towards the High Finance Bank. He was trying to park near the curb when he saw Mehrun waiting for him at the bank’s door, dressed professionally in a cream-coloured silk shalwar-kameez. She hurried over when she spotted him and opened the car’s door, collapsing on to the front passenger seat.

‘Are you okay? You look like you saw a bhoot, a ghost.’

‘What? Yes, that’s exactly what I saw,’ she replied with a sigh, and then added, ‘Could we go and have coffee at Chandni Lounge?’

Mansoor nodded and drove towards Hotel InterContinental, which lay in an exclusive part of central Karachi. The hotel’s restaurant, Chandni Lounge, was the newest hang-out for the bohemians,