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

Mehrun stayed in that position until she could cry no longer. She got up and looked in the mirror, expecting to see the churail, but the churail was nowhere in sight. Wouldn’t this be a perfect time for that wretched creature to reappear and harass her? To taunt her and make fun of her life? And this time, Mehrun waited for her as if her arrival were a foregone conclusion. But the churail never came, and Mehrun felt forsaken entirely. In your time of need, she thought, it is not only your friends who betray you, but your tormentors abandon you as well. Frustrated and tired, she washed her face and dried it with the thick towel on the rack. When she came out of the bathroom. Alvi had left. She didn’t know where he had gone, and she couldn’t care less. She called the front desk and ordered a cup of tea. At that moment, she desired Mansoor’s presence, the only friend whom she could trust, but then she had left him with only a quick good-bye phone call.

A bearer in a crisp white uniform and a red cummerbund brought her the tea tray. Pouring the tea from a silver teapot, the man ogled at her with his creepy, denuding glances, making her eyebrows twitch. After he left, she took her brew and sat on the wing chair near the window. The setting sun arched towards the horizon, bathing the earth in its glow and agonizing Mehrun. She turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows, letting in the desert air to freshen the room. With the windows open, the room became alive to the urban racket outside—horns blaring, brakes screeching, people talking and shouting. Way down below her fifth-floor window, she saw Arabs in their white flowing robes hobnobbing with Westerners in their dark suits, and people from India and Pakistan in their native dresses, roaming on the streets. The allure of oil money had mixed and matched people of all nationalities and social classes.

This nature-neglected country, now nourished by oil, had turned into a major hub of global finance. The town, inhabited by impoverished Bedouins who braved the desert heat on their camels’ backs until a few years ago, was now populated by flamboyant sheikhs who subjugated the scorching desert heat in the backseats of their chauffeur-driven Bentleys and Jaguars. It was a town that bustled with activity, where power was brokered and deals were made. It was the perfect place for a man like Ameer Abbas Alvi to rearrange the monetary order.

As Mehrun glanced at life on the streets, she thought about her new life up here in the luxurious hotel room and how it had come to a screaming halt. She turned away from the window and returned to a rococo chair in one corner of the room. Darkness began to invade the room, but Mehrun did not feel like turning on the light. She had to get used to this new darkness, this obscure turn. And as she sat there all alone, Mehrun reached a decision. Remaining a victim was no longer an option for her. She was not going to take things lying down; she was ready to play this game on her own terms. She had no other alternative. Her life in Pakistan was finished. She could never get another job at another bank there. Going back to washing dishes and dusting rooms was no longer part of her life plan either. Besides, what was the future of a destitute divorced woman anywhere? No, she was not going to let this ‘opportunity’ go by. She would swallow her pride, confront her life and take this bull by the horns; she was going to accept her homosexual husband on her terms and then . . . and then, she did not know what her future would be beyond that. With her old confidence back, she decided to leave the past, not worry about the future and relish the present.

That night, Alvi came back to the room slightly drunk, and Mehrun smelt the liquor on his breath. It reminded her of her father’s breath when he drank the crude, home-made spirits. Mehrun only said two things to Alvi—she did not want a divorce and that she hadn’t had dinner. And he said, ‘Good, I haven’t had any either.’

The silent agreement thus made, the unsigned contract thus attested, he told Mehrun to change her clothes so that he could take her out for a nice dinner. She obliged him and wore her pink chiffon saree, the most beautiful one in her new wardrobe, and then, like a shy bride, went downstairs with him. The charade had begun, the curtains had been raised and Mehrun became a willing performer in the dissolving drama of her marriage to Triple-A.

*

Joseph delayed his return to Pakistan by six months. And when he eventually came, it was because he had been cashiered. But he did not tell anyone about this. The signs of a revolution in Iran had begun appearing early on, and the Shah of Iran dealt with the agitators harshly—first it was the subversives and then it was the foreigners, especially those with darker skins. And Joseph became an unfortunate casualty to this reprisal. But before he departed, he went to see his American friend, Peter Dawber, and dramatized his sob story. Dawber, a senior executive at the oil company, felt sorry for Joseph and promised to find him a job in the company in Texas when he returned to America. Joseph gave him the Kashana’s address, care of Mansoor ul Haq.

When he returned to Karachi, Joseph went straight to the Kashana and pleaded with Noor to let him stay there once again for a few months, till he got his call from America. Noor doubted his story but allowed him to stay for two months in the servants’ quarters where Jumman had moved in. When Noor asked him why he did not