A Season for Martyrs: A Novel (20 page)

So Ali found himself pulled into the world of smart protesting. It was as if someone had given him a shot of adrenaline. Each morning, on waking he immediately grabbed his cell phone, but he wasn’t checking only for Sunita’s messages anymore: there might be a text waiting for him to say that there’d be a flash protest in three hours outside Agha’s Supermarket, or the Press Club, or the Sindh Secretariat. He’d reach there and meet the other protestors with grim smiles and tight nods, and someone would hand him a placard. They’d stand there, not saying anything, just holding up their signs while photographers took pictures and the video cameras from press agencies rolled. After fifteen minutes they’d put down their placards and silently melt away.

An email asked for volunteers to go on the Save Pakistan Graffiti campaign, so Ali volunteered for that, too: they met at four in the morning and went around the city, stamping the image of an army boot with an X marked through it under the tutelage of the young artist Asim Butt, who taught them how to use stencils and spray paint under the cover of darkness. In the morning people woke up to see their handiwork and, the next day, photographs of the crossed-out army boot appeared in all the newspapers. The graffiti was painted over by the end of the week but the protestors had made their point.

Ali went to candlelight vigils at night, joined protests during the day outside the City24 News building condemning the block on the Pakistani private media. These were noisier affairs, with protestors shouting slogans and defying the police to stop them. “Down with PEMRA, down with censorship!” they screamed, shaking their fists in the policemen’s faces. Ali was astonished at the many people that showed up for these events: as well as the usual journalists, NGO activists, and students, he saw housewives who brought their children, accountants, artists, and musicians. All kinds of people, it seemed, realized how precarious the future was and were tired of the endless cycle of victimhood that being a Pakistani had meant for the last sixty years.

Bilal, Imran, and Ferzana were at each event; Salma was a medical student at the Aga Khan University, so her time was limited, but she came to as many protests as she could. Ali worried about her the way he’d worry about his sister; the three leaders could take care of themselves, but Salma was just a kid, and her parents would take her out of medical school if they found out what she’d been up to while she was supposed to be studying chemistry and anatomy.

Ali told no one in his family about his growing involvement with the People’s Resistance. There had been a gradual thawing of relations since Ali had returned from Islamabad; things had almost gone back to normal between him and his brother, while his mother, still hurt by Ali’s secretiveness, talked to him about harmless household matters; the everyday discourse gave a semblance of normality to their home life. He didn’t want to do anything to upset that recovering balance, so he merely said that he was away on work when he had to slip out at midnight or in the early hours of the morning. They didn’t question him, either; Ali could see that they were frightened by the way he could draw shutters down and keep them out of his private world.

Talking to Sunita was out of the question. She hadn’t bothered returning any of his texts or emails. She’d even changed some of her class periods, so now he only caught glimpses of her as she hurried out of the university gates, and at a distance he couldn’t even be sure it was her. She had faded away from him, like a desert mirage that weakens as you approach and finally disappears under the sun when you run toward it.

The only place Ali felt free to discuss his new activities was at work, which relieved some of the boredom and the tension created by that boredom. Nobody at City24 knew what was going to happen: the channel was still off the air, both here and overseas, since the government had pressured the Gulf nation from where they’d been broadcasting to stop their transmissions “for the sake of law and order.” They were continuing to record programs, make documentaries, but they were banned indefinitely from reporting the news day by day, hour by hour.

Now, instead of disappearing inside her office for six hours at a time, Ameena lingered by the news desks. Ali expected to be snapped at, or told about some assignment he’d have to run and cover, so when she sat down at his desk and looked at him expectantly, he didn’t realize at first that he was actually supposed to have a conversation with her.

“So, Ali,” Ameena said, fixing him with her narrowed gray eyes. “I hear you’ve been going to some of these citizens’ protests. I hear they’re quite revolutionary.”

Ali was alarmed. How did she know? But then, this was a television station. And other news stations, those that had bowed to government pressure and promised to stop airing controversial footage, were back on the air. Ameena had contacts in all those places; she had spies in a hundred different parts of Karachi. Kazim Mazhar had his own contacts in the government and in Islamabad. It was the only way to run any kind of business in Pakistan: things got done according to what you knew and who you had to pay to find it out.

Jehangir was at the next desk and though he continued to sort through the papers in his file cabinet, Ali knew he was listening carefully to the conversation between them. Ali had tried to talk to Jehangir about the protests, to persuade him to join them at the next protest at the Press Club that Friday. But Jehangir just rolled his eyes. “
Yaar,
that’s not my scene. I’m going to Underground that night anyway.”

“Underground?”

“Oh,
yaar,
don’t tell me you’ve become so boring you don’t remember how to have any fun. Underground. Café. In Zamzama?”

“I know where it is, Jehangir.”

“Of course you know where it is because I took you there. So why don’t you forget all this resistance bullshit and come with me? Arty’s coming, Lila, Xeneb, some of the other girls. Don’t you want to find a new girlfriend now that you and Sunita are—”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t like that place. Too many media types there.”

Jehangir laughed. “What does that make us? Come on,
yaar
. Good scene. Plenty of booze and other fun ways to pass your time. Know what I mean?”

“I’m not into that shit, J.” Ali didn’t want to get into the discussion on why he didn’t try hard drugs, why trying hash a few times had been enough for him, why Jehangir seemed to get such a kick out of pills and lines of coke. He couldn’t even remember when Jehangir had started indulging; it seemed like he’d been involved with it for a long time now. But Ali knew his own life was complicated enough without drugs. They were a distraction for people who didn’t have the sort of problems that he had.

Jehangir had tried to convince him, then shrugged his shoulders. Ali was thinking about what Jehangir said, about Sunita and he being … were they? They’d had no contact for two weeks, but it felt like two years. He put the thought away under the section in his mind marked
To be answered later
.

He turned to Ameena and said, “Yeah, actually it is really exciting. The protests are amazing. So many people there from so many different backgrounds, working together for one cause. And it’s not just protests. They’re doing really cool things, too. There’s going to be a car rally next week, can you believe that? A car rally for democracy!”

“Really?” Ameena took out a cigarette and lit it, sat back in her seat, and regarded Ali with an interested stare. Ali couldn’t recall ever seeing that expression on her face before. “A car rally, hmm?”

“Yes. And they’re organizing street theater as well. That’s going to start up in a few weeks. You know, to get the message out to the average person.”

“That’s very interesting. Maybe you could do a piece on it. You know, when we go back on the air.”

“Is that going to be anytime soon?”

“I’m not sure. We’re working on it … let’s see. Kazim’s going to Islamabad on Monday. I’ll go with him. We’ll keep you all advised.”

Jehangir had stopped pretending to work and was now blatantly staring at the two of them. They’d spent hours telling each other that Ameena was a total bloody monster,
yaar,
who couldn’t care less if either of them lived or died. And now here she was paying attention to Ali, and if he wasn’t mistaken, leaning forward a little bit and allowing the collar of her shirt to drop open where she’d unhooked a button at her neck. Jehangir was pulling his chair closer, wanting desperately to be involved in the discussion. Ali didn’t know why that made him feel so gratified, or why it felt so good to be one up on a person he’d always counted as his friend.

“I didn’t think you were all that interested in politics, Ali,” said Ameena. “But maybe I’ve been mistaken.”

Jehangir cleared his throat at that moment. Ameena half turned and saw him. “Oh, Jehangir. Do you think Ali’s got a future in politics?”

“No, he just goes to all those protests to meet girls,” said Jehangir, flashing her a charming grin.

Without thinking, Ali shot back, “You’re just jealous, fag.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. Ameena’s face stayed impassive, but there’d been a lens click of comprehension in her eyes—she didn’t miss a thing!—as she was processing the stricken look on Jehangir’s face, starting to regard him in an entirely new way, at his hair, his slender fingers, the way he wore his shirt tucked into his pants. Evaluating. Putting two and two together. Ali knew he’d murdered his friend more effectively than if he’d picked up a pistol and shot him in the face.

After a silent, nauseating pause that seemed to last forever, Jehangir raised his chin. “Actually, Ali has a great future in politics.” His voice was different now, still jokey, but with an undercurrent of poisoned steel. He turned to smile at Ali. “Isn’t that right, Ali? Thinking about running for the elections?”

Ali said in a low voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jehangir could be dangerous when slighted, bearing a grudge that lasted weeks or months against even a minor infraction. Ali had seen it happen with other people; girls who’d spurned Jehangir’s advances, Jehangir’s parents when they refused one of his whims, servants who displeased him with their inefficiency. Ali wished desperately he could take the last five minutes back but there was no turning back time for him now.

“Is your family in politics, Ali? You never said,” Ameena said. She looked as though she could put the conversation on a plate and eat it for breakfast, it was so delicious to her.

“No,” replied Ali. “We’ve got nothing to do with any of that.” He tried to keep his voice steady, keep up the pretense, even though he knew it was already shattering all around him.

“Oh yes,” said Jehangir. “His family’s very much into politics. In fact, his father’s running for a seat in the National Assembly from—where is it, Ali? Sukkur? Shikarpur? One of those feudal bastions anyway.” He waved his hand in a vague direction that seemed to imply everything north of Karachi. His accent tightened and became more clipped, recalling the private school that he’d gone to that required recommendations from heads of foreign banks, ambassadors, even heads of state.

Ali was unable to speak. Two patches of heat burned on his cheeks, and although he was too dark to blush, the blood rushed to his face, then to his stomach, leaving him lightheaded. He wanted to rise and walk away, but he found his legs paralyzed under the table.

Jehangir went on. “What is your father again? A zamindar? A Pir? Or is it both? I can never quite remember.”

“I think you’ve remembered plenty,” whispered Ali. His voice barely escaped the confines of his throat.

“But Ali,” said Ameena, “I thought you told me your father was—”

“Oh, he’s very much alive,” said Jehangir. “Owns half of Sukkur, but lives in Bath Island, I think. With his other family. Not Ali’s. But then, that’s what feudals do, isn’t it, Ali? Marry two, three times?”

Ameena’s eyes traveled from Jehangir to Ali’s face. He thought he could see sympathy in the downcast turn of her mouth—then again, it could be any of a half dozen emotions: disappointment, cynicism, anger, condescension. He could stand to look at her no longer, and bowed his head, defeated. There was no point asking Jehangir how he knew, either. Working at a television station, where information could be bought and sold for the price of a carton of cigarettes, Ali knew Jehangir could find anything out about anyone, and what money or his connections couldn’t discover wasn’t worth finding out in the first place.

“Don’t you think the feudals should be paying income tax like the rest of us, Ali?”

“That’s enough, Jehangir,” said Ameena softly.

Jehangir shrugged and turned back to his desk, and Ameena made some excuse about having to make a phone call. Before going back to her office, she shot Ali a glance that said,
Are you okay?
It was the concern of the powerful, who could afford to be solicitous in front of those that they pitied.

Ali refused to meet her eyes. Nor did he acknowledge the half-defiant, half-terrified expression on Jehangir’s face, the one that said they’d both gone too far. But Ali realized, with the same certainty that told him he’d never see Sunita again, that Jehangir’s betrayal was only a part of the self-destruction Ali had brought upon himself with his secrets and lies.

The Game of Kings

HYDERABAD
,
SINDH
, 1943

“Come, jailer, come and play a game of chess with me.”

Ahmed Damani’s head jerked up in surprise. These were not the words he was expecting to hear from a man condemned to die in the morning, But then neither had Ahmed expected to find himself working in the Central Jail at Hyderabad, a jailer in the feared Death Cell, where he saw men as they faced their last hours on this earth. And Ahmed had certainly never expected that the British would have ever caught the Surhiya Badshah—the Brave King, tried him in court like a common criminal, and then sentenced him to death by hanging. Or that his would be the cell where the Brave King would spend his last night, smoking and contemplating the full moon that glowed through his tiny window. And yet here was Ahmed, dressed in the black uniform of a death watch jailer, and the Pir Pagaro was inviting him to come into his cell and play a game of chess.