Brigadier TM could stand disorder at one end of the queue, but now there were women wagging fingers and shouting at both ends, those furthest from him cursing the last woman in the queue and this one right in front of him defying presidential protocol. He took out his revolver and moved towards the cameraman.
“Stop filming.”
“This is good, lively footage,” the cameraman said, his eye still glued to the camera. Then he felt something hard poking his ribs and switched off the camera.
Brigadier TM had the protesting woman removed and the ceremony started again, this time without the television camera. General Zia’s movements became mechanical, he barely looked at the women when they stepped forward to receive their envelopes. He even ignored their blessings. If his enemies had infiltrated his saviour angels, he was thinking, how could he trust anyone?
By the time the last woman in the queue stepped forward to receive her envelope, General Zia was already turning towards his Information Minister. He wanted to give him a piece of his mind. General Zia extended the envelope towards the woman without looking at her; the woman held his hand and pressed a small metallic ring into it. He only turned to look when he heard the sound of glass breaking.
His wife was standing there striking her glass-bangled wrists against each other, something that women only did when they heard the news of their husband’s death.
Later she would listen patiently as General Zia blamed his enemies in the press, pleaded national interest and invoked their thirty-eight years together. He would say everything the First Lady had thought he would. She would agree to continue to do her ceremonial duties as the First Lady, she would appear at the state ceremonies and she would entertain other first ladies, but only after kicking him out of their bedroom.
But here at this moment, she only said one thing before walking off. “Add my name to that list of widows. You are dead for me.”
THIRTEEN
The soldier escorting me back from the torture chamber unties my hands, doesn’t bother to remove my blindfold, holds my neck down with one hand, puts his boot on my buttocks and shoves me into a room. I land face down, my tongue tastes sand. The door that shuts behind me is small. I am relieved to notice that I am not in the bathroom where I spent the night. I fumble with the rag covering my eyes, the knot is too tight. I yank it down and it hangs around my neck like a poor man’s dog collar. My eyes blink and blink again but don’t register anything. I open them wide, I narrow them. I don’t see a thing. Have I gone completely blind? I stand still, scared to move my hands and feet, scared to find myself in a grave. I breathe, and the air smells of a duvet that has spent a night out in a monsoon, but it’s better than last night’s stench. Tentatively, I move my right hand, stretch out my arm. It doesn’t touch anything. I stretch out my left hand; it flails in a vacuum. I stretch my arms to the front, to the back, I make a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn with my arms outstretched, they don’t come in contact with anything. I keep my hand in front of me and walk, counting my steps. Ten steps and my hand scrapes a brick surface. I run my hand over the slim, flat bricks that the Mughals used to build this fort. Conclusion: I am still in the Fort. I am in a part of the Fort which is not an extension built by the army. I move left. Twelve steps and I run into another specimen of Mughal masonry. I knock on the wall, and as I should have known, there is only the dead sound of my knuckles against a historical monument.
I am not in a grave. I have ample space, I can breathe. I am in a luxury-sized dungeon. My eyes adjust to the dark, but they still can’t see anything. The darkness just grows darker. It’s the kind of darkness which is ancient, manufactured by the sadistic imagination of the Mughals. Those buggers may have lost their empire but they knew how to build dungeons. I go down on my knees and embark on a crawling tour of my abode. The sand is real sand, beneath it the floor, endless cold slabs of stone. Anyone planning to dig a tunnel here would need to hire a mining company. In this monument to sixteenth-century architectural values, the only concession to modern times is a plastic bucket in a corner that I butt my head against. It probably hasn’t been used in a long time, but the stale smell that emanates from it makes it absolutely clear that I shouldn’t expect any visits to a loo.
I sit with my back to the wall and shut my eyes, hoping the darkness will get less dark, the way it does in a cinema. I open them again. This place is no cinema. I can’t even muster any imaginary shadows.
Minutes pass, hours pass. How should I know how long I have been here? If I stay still I’ll lose my eyesight or parts of my brains and probably the use of my limbs. I jump up in panic. On your feet, Mr Shigri, get busy. I command myself to run. I run on the spot for a while, my body warms up. I keep my mouth shut and concentrate on breathing through my nose. Not a good choice of exercise, as I realise I am breathing in sand from the floor which has begun to fly in the air. I stop. I put my hands behind my neck and sit on my toes and start doing frantic squats. I do five hundred and without a pause jump in the air and land with my hands on the sand, body parallel to the ground. One hundred push-ups; a thin film of perspiration is covering my body, and an inner glow brings a smile to my face. As I sit back with my back to the wall I think that Obaid could probably write an article about this, send it to Reader’s Digest and fulfil his dream of getting one hundred dollars in the maiclass="underline" ‘Aerobics for Solitary Prisoners’.
I started my brief career as a swordsman by practising on a bed sheet. I hung the sheet over the curtain in my dorm and marked a circle roughly at the height where my target’s face would be. I stood with my back to the bed sheet and tried to pierce it from all possible angles, from above my shoulder, with my left hand, with backhand swipes. After one hour the sheet was in shreds and the circle more or less intact, mocking my swordsmanship. The next day, as Obaid got ready to go out for the weekend, I pretended that I had a fever. Obaid came to my bed, put his hand on my forehead and nodded his head in mock concern. “It’s probably just a headache,” he said, pulling a face, disappointed at the prospect of having to watch The Guns of Navarone without me.
“I am not a city boy like you. I am from the mountains where only women get headaches,” I said, irritated at my own lie. Obaid was mystified. “What do you know about women?” he taunted me, spraying his wrists with a sharp burst of Poison. “You don’t even remember what your mother looked like.” I pulled my bed sheet above my head and started to detach myself, bit by bit.
I locked the room as soon as he left and dressed up in uniform; boots, peaked cap, sword belt, scabbard, the whole works. From now on every rehearsal would be a full dress rehearsal. There was no point doing this by halves, it didn’t make sense not to simulate the exact circumstances. I took out a white towel. Instead of a circle, this time I drew an oval shape with a pencil, then two small circles for eyes, an inverted seven for a nose. I took extra pleasure in drawing a broom of a moustache. I hung my creation over the curtain, put my right hand on the hilt of the sword and took five steps back. I came to attention, with my eyes fixed on the moustached face on the towel. I drew the sword and extended it towards the target. It flailed in the air inches away from the towel.
Five steps is the regulation distance between the parade commander and the guest of honour inspecting the parade and nobody can change that. I tried throwing the sword. It did pierce the chin but throwing the sword is not a possibility. You can’t do that with a live target because if you miss, then you are left standing there empty-handed. Not that I could afford to miss. Not that I was going to be given a best-of-three-type chance.