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

enraged her. And when father and son joined in this sinful act, it hurt her deeply. And that night again, hearing a conversation in that alien language made her feel like a foreigner in her own bedroom; she hated these legatees of British colonialism.

As Mansoor fiddled with his half-filled glass, Noor continued with his lecture, ‘Now look, son, I hope you don’t believe in patriotism. Remember, it is the last resort of scoundrels.’

Noor laughed awkwardly at his own words, and then, raising one of his eyebrows, he waited expectantly for an answer, but Mansoor kept quiet.

‘Don’t think that it is your patriotic duty to come back, okay?’ Noor continued.

Pausing for a moment, he switched gears and railed against The People’s Leader, cursing him for Pakistan’s current mess. When he eventually realized that he had veered away from the task of advising Mansoor, he said, ‘Son, excuse my candour, but I also want to give you advice of an intimate nature.’ He paused to gather his thoughts, and then continued, ‘I hope . . . that you will listen to me very carefully and not get embarrassed.’

Already turned off by the encore lecture, Mansoor quickly forced himself to tune back in when he heard the word ‘embarrassed’.

‘Sure,’ he replied.

‘I don’t know if you have already, and I don’t want to know . . . ha ha ha . . . But in America, you will have temptations and . . . ahem . . . in my books, there is nothing wrong with it, and I am not forbidding you to have . . . before you get married, but I just want to caution you about a few things. Number one: never . . . ever . . . never coerce anyone.’

Is he trying to give me advice about sex? Mansoor thought. Checking to make sure that his mother did not understand any part of this awkward conversation, he replied in English, ‘I am not stupid, Abba.’

‘I know you are not, but I am your father and I have a responsibility to tell you these things.’ Then he cleared his throat and paused, trying to remember point number two. ‘Ah, yes, what number is that? Whatever, yes . . . always . . . take precautions; you don’t want to have a bast . . . ahem . . . unwanted . . . you know.’

As the conversation turned clumsier, Mansoor felt increasingly embarrassed, his body heat rising to his ears. He wanted to think of something else; Mehrun perhaps. He was hurt that she had not invited him to the wedding. A day before she was to leave for Dubai, she had made another brief call from her office to tell him about it. The shock that she had gone ahead and married Alvi was not as deep as the shock he’d received when she first informed him of her intention. It had made him react in the most unnatural way when he had congratulated her. And now Mansoor was saddened that she, too, was leaving for another country.

He heard his father clear his throat again, louder than before, and say, ‘I don’t mind if you marry a white woman, but . . . don’t marry before you finish your studies. Marriage is a responsibility, and you should not take it lightly. However,’ he paused here and took a sip of the whisky, ‘however, I can tell you this; your mother would be deeply hurt if you do marry a white woman.’

Was his father hiding his prejudices behind his poor mother? How would Noor feel if he married a black woman? And why was he talking about sex and marriage at this late hour? Noor was about to give more advice to Mansoor when the telephone rang in the study. Mansoor looked at the clock. It was 11.25 p.m. Who could be calling at this hour? He ran to the study and picked up the telephone. It was a long-distance call from Anna, Sadiq’s daughter. She was calling from Paris, and she was hysterical.

‘Is everything all right, Anna Apa? Why are you in Paris?’ he asked.

‘No, Mansoor. Nothing’s right. They killed Abba, and Ammi is missing. They murdered him, Mansoor. They . . .’ Suddenly, the line got disconnected before Anna could say anything more.

Mansoor stood there, stunned, his heart thumping wildly, the black telephone handset still in his hand. He did not know what to do. He couldn’t tell his father, not in his inebriated condition, not at this hour. Putting the phone in its cradle, he went back to his parents’ bedroom and lied to Noor that it was a wrong number. Excusing himself, he returned to his room. This news will kill my father, he thought. He stayed awake for a long time that night, thinking about how he would break it to his father.

*

The next morning, Mansoor woke up with a headache. After gulping two Optalidon pills, he rushed to the bathroom, where he reflected on how to talk to his father. As Mansoor approached the men’s quarter a few minutes later, he heard the sound of voices and sobs from within. Inside, he saw that his father, tears streaming down his cheeks, had his arms around Zakir’s shoulders and was trying to comfort him. Zakir was weeping uncontrollably, while Haider sat on the sofa, looking visibly shaken. When he saw Mansoor, his father told him the news, which he already knew but pretended otherwise. Haider filled him in with the details.

He told him about the harassment and the death threats that Sadiq had been receiving, especially after the passage of the Second Amendment declaring the Ahmadis non-Muslim. Scared of the intimidations, Sadiq, his wife and Anna’s family went into hiding. Sadiq had withdrawn all his savings from the bank and bought tickets for Anna and her family and persuaded them to leave for Paris, where her younger sister Sarah lived. He and Talat then took the train to the city of Rabwah, in Punjab,