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

showdown had to wait. But how would it affect his mother? She’d always had a tender spot for her sister—he knew that—but what tormented him the most was her emotional susceptibility to Athanni. With his smarmy voice and phoney attention, he had her wrapped around his fat fingers. She had become too close to Athanni, even suggesting in one of her letters that he had become like a son to her in Mansoor’s absence. He thought about his beloved Uncle Zahid, and how much his mother would have needed him right now. But he died too young. He would have been able to handle the whole situation with Zakir Hassan, and especially with Athanni and his family. His mind drifted back to Zakir, how the man had changed. The urbane ex-diplomat had been totally replaced by this ultraconservative mullah, both in looks and in thoughts.

Religion, with its Sufistic spirituality, had always existed in his country as something private. But its new, literalist public face horrified Mansoor, and not without reason, making him fearful and angry at the revolt of the fanatics and their needless cruelties. He wasn’t at all excited at the prospect of going back home. He shuddered at the thought of living in a repressive society where many intelligent, educated people now supported General Behroopia’s moral imperatives. But what troubled Mansoor the most was just how arch-conservative the young people of his generation had become. They had lapsed into a pastiched nostalgia that never was. He wondered if Pakistan’s short history was tragically repeating itself. He envied the West for having come out of the dark Middle Ages, their social problems notwithstanding; America had opened up Mansoor’s eyes.

The thought about America turned his attention back to Lisa. Like the sweet, fragrant bela flowers back home, her bright and beautiful image appeared from the messy corner of his mind, and he smiled again. Saddened to hear about her parents’ ugly divorce, he had felt for her when she told him their story. He was in love with her, that much he knew, but he kept warring with his feelings for Mehrun. Why had he slept with her? All these complications had muddled everything. He knew that Lisa, too, had developed deep feelings for him; he could see it in her eyes and he could feel it in her touch. But alas, theirs was a relationship that was doomed from the start. Too many dead-ends, too many winding roads lay ahead, or so he thought. He wasn’t even sure where he would be two years from now.

Regardless of where Pakistan was headed, his future was there, and Lisa would be a misfit there. It would be unfair to ask her to give up everything for him and live in a distant land where everything was unstable. Besides, how could he make her comfortable in a country where he knew he would be miserable? Plagued by these misgivings, he shut his eyes, but the unrelenting thoughts stayed until sleep finally took over.

*

One shivery Iowa evening, Mansoor came back early to his apartment. It was only 4 p.m., but the darkness outside made it feel like the middle of the night. The temperature tumbled to record lows as the Arctic spell froze bodies and souls. Despite putting the thermostat to a toasty 75 degrees Fahrenheit, Mansoor could still feel the Midwest chill drilling into his bones. He turned on the television, took out the leftover chicken from the refrigerator and placed it in the oven to warm it up. The local weatherman was talking about the frigid weather and Mansoor almost died when he heard the man say that with the wind-chill factor, it was minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

With his dinner warmed, Mansoor sat down in front of the television to eat. It was during the middle of the NBC news report that Tom Brokaw, the anchorman, casually read a three-sentence statement that two former prime ministers, one from Iran and the other from Pakistan, had been summarily hanged early that morning. There were no other details. Stunned, Mansoor furiously flicked through different channels to hear more. But the executed leaders of these minor countries were too insignificant to compete with the exigency of a Pepto-Bismol commercial—a simple cure for unending heartburn eclipsing the dead leaders of Iran and Pakistan.

Enraged at the lack of coverage of such an important event, Mansoor telephoned Lisa to find out if she had heard anything; but she hadn’t been watching the news. He then called the president of the Pakistani Students’ Association.

‘Did you watch the evening news?’ Mansoor asked.

‘No, why?’

‘The general hanged The People’s Leader.’

‘Thank God! I am going to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the good riddance, my friend.’

Mansoor hung up in disgust. How could anyone rejoice as if there was justice in the hanging of these rulers—authoritarians, no doubt? Justice and execution, two moral imperatives that were at odds with each other. Wasn’t that moral nihilism with all its connotations and grotesque plausibility? Did moral facts not exist? What about General Behroopia, who was becoming more repressive and draconian? Should he not be executed to correct his wrongs? The tragedy of Pakistan’s history had risen again from the rubbles of its fleeting democracy.

Mansoor was no admirer of The People’s Leader. On the contrary, he had despised him with equal ferocity. But he also believed that his execution was based on trumped-up charges. He had been murdered to pave the way for the mullahs and their brand of dictatorship. By killing him, he thought, General Behroopia will have wiped out all opposition. The People’s Leader had built a cult around his own personality, and this very cult became his nemesis in the end. The next day, the local papers printed a short blurb about the two executed leaders. Mansoor crumpled the newspaper into a ball and threw it in the dustbin.

*

At the end of his course work, Mansoor took his qualifying exams and became a candidate for the PhD degree. Now, all he had