SENTIMENT DU FER
ELEVEN
The man blindfolding me seems like an expert at this kind of thing. The half-moon scar on his freshly shaved left cheek, his pencil-thin moustache and his neatly pressed shalwar qameez give him the air of a reformed hoodlum. His fingers are gentle and he makes a swift little knot at the back of my head. He holds my hand and leads me out. The blindfold is loose enough for me to open my eyes but it’s tight enough that I can’t catch any stray rays of light. I wonder if you are supposed to keep your eyes open or shut behind the blindfold. As we step out of the bathroom, I breathe in large gulps of air, hoping to rid my body of the bathroom stink, but I can still taste it at the back of my throat. Not even Obaid’s collection of perfumes would be enough to kill this stench.
The corridor is wide, the ceiling is high and the floor under my boots is made of uneven stone slabs. The sound of our boots — which fall into a parade-like rhythm after the first few unsure steps — echoes in the corridor. We stop. He salutes. I just stand, half at attention, half at ease. I assume you are not supposed to salute someone you can’t see. The room smells of rose air freshener and Dunhill smoke. Paper rustles, a cigarette lighter sparks, a file is thrown across the table.
“Do what you need to do, but I don’t want any marks on him.” Major Kiyani’s voice is hoarse, as if his throat is reluctant to deliver this particular order. The file is picked up.
“I am not a butcher like you guys,” an impatient voice whispers.
“Let’s not be so touchy,” Major Kiyani says. A chair is dragged. “I am talking to my man here.”
Don’t listen to him, I tell myself. It’s the same old good-cop, bad-cop bullshit. They are all sons of the same bitch.
Steps move around the room. The burning end of Major Kiyani’s Dunhill is close to my face for an instant, then he is gone.
“Sit down please.” The voice addressing me belongs to the good cop but he is obviously not looking at me. I shuffle forward and stop.
“We need to remove that thing.”
I stay still. Are you supposed to remove your own bloody blindfold?
“Please uncover your eyes, Mr Shigri.”
The Army major sitting in front of me is wearing a Medical Corps insignia on the right shoulder of his khaki uniform; on a round, red velvet badge, two black snakes are curled around each other, mouths half open as if in a censored kiss. His long grey sideburns defy the military haircut regulations. He is slowly turning the pages of a yellow-green file, the tip of his tongue under his teeth, as if he has just discovered that I am suffering from a rare condition he has never treated before.
“I don’t work here,” he says, waving his hand to indicate the office.
The place has leather chairs, a green leather-topped table and a sofa with velvet covers. An official portrait of General Zia adorns the wall. The picture has been touched up so generously that his lips appear to be pink under his jet-black moustache. If Major Kiyani’s uniform, with his nameplate, wasn’t hanging on the wall, I would think we were sitting in the office of a bank manager.
I sit on the edge of the chair.
“We need to carry out a few tests. It’s very simple. You have multiple-choice questions in the first one. Just tick the one you think is right without thinking too much. In the second part, I’ll show you some pictures and you’ll describe in a few words what you think those pictures mean to you.”
First my loyalty to my country was suspect, now they want to probe the dark corners of my brain to find out what is causing all the turmoil in the land.
“If you don’t mind, sir, may I ask—”
“You can ask all you want, young man, but this is just a routine assessment. I have been sent from Islamabad and I am supposed to take back the results. I think it’s better that you spend your time with me doing this rather than with the people who are trying so hard not to leave any marks on you.”
Like all good cops, he makes sense.
He pushes a stack of stapled papers towards me, puts a pencil on top and removes his wristwatch.
“There are no right or wrong answers in this,” he says, trying to reassure me. “The only thing that matters is that you finish all sixty questions in twenty-five minutes. The trick is not to think.”
You can say that again. If I wasn’t the thinking type I would still be marching up and down the parade square commanding some respect, not sitting here trying to pass loony tests.
I glance at the paper. The cover page just says ‘MDRS P8039’. There is no hint of what is under that cover sheet.
“Ready?” he asks, giving me a faint, encouraging smile.
I nod my head.
“Go.” He places his watch on the table.
Q1: Would you describe your present mental condition as (a) depressed (b) mildly depressed (c) happy (d) none of the above
My dad was found hanging from a ceiling fan. Baby O has disappeared with a whole bloody plane. I have spent the past two nights locked up in a civilian shithole. ISI is investigating me for crimes that I have clearly not committed. I have just untied a blindfold from my own eyes with my own hands. What do you think?
There is no space to write, just little squares to tick.
Mildly depressed, it is then.
There are questions about my spiritual health — mildly spiritual; any suicidal thoughts — never; my sexual life — occasional wet dream. Belief in God?
I wish they had an option saying ‘I wish’.
I tick the square that says ‘firm believer’.
By the time it comes down to the questions about whether I’d rescue my best friend’s kitten drowning in a river or tell myself that cats can swim, I have begun to enjoy the test, and my pencil ticks the squares with the flourish of someone celebrating their own sanity.
The good cop picks up his wristwatch from the table and gives me an appreciative smile. He wants me to do well.
There is that inevitable question about drugs. It doesn’t give you the option to say ‘only once’. It doesn’t ask you if you enjoyed the experience.
Never, I tick.
Running back from Bannon’s room, instead of following the Martyrs’ Avenue I jumped over a hedge and started walking in the shrubs that surround the parade square. A lone firefly emerged from nowhere and hovered in front of me as if leading the way. The hedge ran around the parade square like a perfectly formed wall with sharply cut edges. The grass under my boots was damp with early-evening dew. I was thinking hard, like you think when your blood absorbs Chitrali hashish and rushes to your head with urgent messages from beyond, clearing all doubts, transforming your whims into immaculate plans. The messages I was receiving were so loud and clear that I kicked the hedge just to make sure that it was all real. The hedge lit up as thousands of fireflies blinked from their slumber and launched a fated assault on the night. Bloody good, I said; time to wake up and spread the light.
According to the Reader’s Digest’s special issue on the War on Drugs, no scientist has ever been able to map the effects of weed on the human mind. They shouldn’t even keep the Chitrali hashish in the same room as their lab rats.
What I saw was this: a shadow flitting around the pole that flies the Pakistani flag on the dais at the edge of the parade square. The man climbed onto the dais, looked left and right then slowly unwrapped the flag from the pole where it had been hoisted down for the night.