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

with any bank, tear apart any opponent, but he could not risk any public humiliation. Pulling his feet down from the table, he reached for the intercom and asked his secretary, ‘Mister Mehdi, please send Mehrunnissa to my room. And bring tea.’

He always called Mehrun by her full name. As he waited for her, he got up and went towards one of the bay windows. An ugly pastiche of vehicles and humanity called his attention to the chaos that was McLeod Road. Donkey and camel carts competed with rickshaws, trucks, cars and elderly ramblers for the scarce space. He saw a heavy-set woman in an orange shalwar-kameez balancing a rectangular wooden crate on her head. A skinny boy, his shirt torn, stood selling newspapers next to her. He saw beggars and pedlars fighting for their spots on the sidewalk—everyday scenes of a reiterated reality concealing the crush of human existence. Watching the people on the street, carrying on with their lives with a regularity and routine, was like seeing a mujra dance that you knew would end in a terrible tragedy. The world below dissolved into an indeterminate actuality as Alvi withdrew from the window and strolled back towards one of the large palm plants to appreciate the gentler side of life.

Ameer Abbas Alvi, a man in his mid-forties, of medium height and a dark brown complexion, his jet-black hair, slicked backwards, was an act of sartorial seriousness. Lately, his neurotic obsession was to be the Asian J.P. Morgan. The horizon never looked clearer.

Hearing a faint knock on the door, he returned to his seat and ordered the person to enter. It was Mehrun. She had changed her hairstyle recently and was wearing light make-up, the pale grey saree giving her an elegant look.

‘Come in, Mehrunnissa, come in,’ he said. It was not unusual for him to summon her to his office once or twice during the day.

‘Please, sit down,’ he said, gesturing to the chair across his table.

Mehrun sat down and waited for Alvi to open the conversation. But a long, painful moment of silence greeted her instead and she realized that Alvi had something important to say. He gathered his thoughts and forced himself to articulate them as clearly as he could.

‘Mehrunnissa, what I am going to tell you is very confidential,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied and became more attentive.

‘I have not told anyone else about this, and I expect that you, too, will keep it to yourself.’

‘You have my promise, sir,’ Mehrun replied.

‘I have decided to resign.’

‘Sir?’ she flinched, unsure about what she had just heard.

‘Yes, Mehrunnissa, I am going to quit.’

There was another knock at the door, and Alvi’s secretary entered the room, carrying a silver tray with a Royal Doulton tea set on it. The secretary placed the tray on the side table and got busy making two cups of tea. As soon as he was finished, Alvi signalled him to give the first cup to Mehrun, who accepted it with a thank you. Mehdi then gave the second cup to him.

‘Anything else, sir?’ he asked obsequiously.

‘No, that will be all. And, Mr Mehdi, please hold all my calls.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he replied and left the room.

‘Sir, may I ask why you are quitting?’ Mehrun continued once they were alone.

‘Mehrunnissa, I have been told point-blank by the new commerce minister that our bank will be the first one to be nationalized. I have slogged like a donkey for this bank, and I haven’t done this so that some stupid bureaucrat or some illiterate son of a minister or a landlord may come and park his fat ass on this chair,’ he paused. And then he continued, ‘This is not acceptable to me. I have worked hard to be in the place where I am now, and I am not going to let this feudal landlord-turned-prime minister tell me how to run a bank. I hate to boast, but no banker in Pakistan has accomplished what I have, that too in such less time.’

‘I agree with you, sir, and I would not be here without your kindness. But what will you do? Where will you go?’ she asked.

‘Well, I have been in touch with some foreign dignitaries in the Arab world. I have known them for years now, and they know me and my potential. They have asked me to set up an international bank in Dubai. It is a big challenge, but I have accepted their offer.’

He became quiet after that, and Mehrun, not knowing what to say either, started imagining her life without Alvi. In a male-dominated world, where positions were acquired through influence and promotions were gained through buttering, she and Ameer Abbas Alvi were a couple of rarae aves. Her confidence waned and she had this sinking feeling of being sent back to that hellhole of a house where she had grown up stifled. The image of working for a fat bureaucrat was hideous to say the least. Alvi noticed the tension on her face and tried to put her at ease.

‘I don’t know if your father will allow you to work in a foreign country, but you are welcome to join me if you want.’

Mehrun had never lied to him about her family background, but then, she had never really told him the truth either. She never discussed her personal life. At that point, however, she wanted to unload the facts on him, and unload she did. She told him everything: her struggles, the insults, her mother’s estranged life and her tragic death. She told him about her father’s schizophrenia. She told him about Mansoor and Noor ul Haq. Alvi knew Noor personally, as he had sought his legal opinion on many occasions.

When he heard her story, Alvi felt for Mehrun. The fact that she had been a domestic servant at one point made him admire her even more. His parents had also been domestic servants in India. He felt a peculiar but immediate affinity towards Mehrun, as if they both