Life can take a good turn if you are from a good family and if your meeting with General Akhtar has gone well.
“Anybody can catch a thief or a killer or a traitor,” Major Kiyani says, munching on a chicken patty. “But what is satisfying about my job is that I have to stay one step ahead of them.” I nod politely and nibble at my Nice biscuit.
A Dunhill is offered and accepted with a restrained officer-like smile.
The prisoners circle the marble fountain outside the Palace of Mirrors, their shaved heads bobbing up and down behind the manicured hedges covered in purple bougainvillea.
They haven’t been brought out to have tea with us.
They look like betrayed promises; broken and then put back together from memory, obscure names crossed out of habeas corpus petitions, forgotten faces that will never make it to Amnesty International’s hall of fame, dungeon-dwellers brought out for their daily half-hour in the sun. The prisoners start to form a line with their backs towards us. Their clothes are tattered, their bodies a patchwork of improvised bandages and festering wounds. I realise that the ‘no marks’ rule is applied selectively in the Fort.
The tea cosy in front of me has an air force insignia on it, a simple, elegant design: a soaring eagle with a Persian couplet underneath it: Be it the land or the rivers, it’s all under our wings.
“There are many ways of serving one’s country,” Major Kiyani waxes philosophical, “but only one way to secure it. Only one.” I put the cup on the saucer, move forward in my chair and listen. I am his attentive disciple.
“Eliminate the risk. Tackle the enemy before it can strike. Starve it of the very oxygen it breathes.” He takes a very deep puff on his Dunhill.
I pick up my cup and drink again. Major Kiyani might be a good tea-party host but he is no Sun Tzu.
“Let’s say you caught somebody who wasn’t really a threat to national security. We are all human, we all make mistakes. Let’s say we got someone who we thought was going to blow up the Army House. Now, if after the interrogation it turns out that no, he really wasn’t going to do it, that we were wrong, what would you do? You would let him go, obviously. But in all honesty would you call it a mistake? No. It’s risk elimination, one less bugger to worry about.”
My eyes keep glancing towards the prisoners who are shuffling their feet and swaying like a Greek tragedy chorus that has forgotten its lines. Their shackles chime like the bells of cows returning home in the evening.
Major Kiyani’s hand disappears under his qameez. He pulls out his pistol and places it between the plate of biscuits and a bowl of cashew nuts. The pistol’s ivory handle looks like a dead rat.
“Have you been inside the Palace of Mirrors?”
“No,” I say. “But I have seen it on TV.”
“It’s right there.” He points to the hall with arches and a cupola on top. “You should have a look before you go. Do you know how many mirrors are there in this palace?”
I dip my Nice biscuit in lukewarm tea and shake my head.
“Thousands. You look up and you see your face staring at you from thousands of mirrors. But these mirrors are not reflecting your face. They are reflecting the reflections of your face. You might have one enemy with a thousand faces. Do you get my point?”
I don’t really. I want to go and have a look at the prisoners. To look for a secretary general. “Interesting concept,” I say.
“Intelligence work is a bit like that. Sorting out the faces from their reflections. And then reflections of the reflections.”
“And them.” I point towards the prisoners and take my first proper look at them. “Have you sorted them as yet?”
“They were all security risks, all of them. Neutralised now but still classified as risks.” The prisoners are standing in a straight row, their backs towards us.
In their tattered rags, they don’t seem like a risk to anyone except their own health and hygiene.
But I don’t say that. I nod at Major Kiyani appreciatively. Why start an argument when you are sitting on a lush green lawn, the sun is going down and you are smoking your first cigarette after a century?
“This has been an interesting case.” Specks of chicken patty shine in Major Kiyani’s moustache. He looks at me appreciatively like a scientist would look at a monkey after inserting electrodes in its brain. “1 have learned a lot from you.”
The air of mutual respect that surrounds this ceremony demands that I return the compliment. I nod like a monkey with electrodes in its brain.
“You didn’t forget your friends even when you were…” Major Kiyani’s hand dives in the air. He has the decency not to name the places where he kept me. “But at the same time you were not sentimental. What is gone is gone, let’s cut our losses, move on. I think General Akhtar was impressed. You played your cards right. Lose one friend, save another. Simple arithmetic. General Akhtar likes scenarios where everything adds up in the end.”
The prisoners now seem to be following some inaudible commands or perhaps they just know their routine. They shuffle left and they shuffle right, then sit down on their haunches. I hear groans.
If they have been brought out for exercise, they are not getting much. If they are expected to put on a show for me, I am not entertained.
“You always learn something.” Major Kiyani licks a glace cherry off the top of a jam tart. “In my line of work you always learn something. The day you stop learning, you’re finished.” A bird’s shadow crosses the lawn between us and the prisoners.
Is Secretary General among them? Probably all packed up, ready to go home and start the struggle all over again. It would be nice to say goodbye to him. I would like to see his face before they release him.
“Turn round,” Major Kiyani shouts. Then he looks towards me, his brown eyes howling with laughter over some joke that he doesn’t want to share with me. “Let’s see if you recognise anyone.”
I am relieved that Major Kiyani hasn’t sidestepped the issue. My goodwill towards him blooms like the sunflowers. I pick up another Nice biscuit. I made a deal with General Akhtar — I sign the statement and they let Secretary General go — and that deal is about to be honoured. That’s the good thing about men in uniform. They keep their word.
I am expecting to see a man in a Mao cap. It goes against Secretary General’s current political belief system, but my recently released prisoner’s instincts tell me that I should look for a Mao cap.
I scan the faces, glazed eyes and sheep-sheared heads. There are no Mao caps. There are no caps at all. There is a woman in a white dupatta at the one end of the row. I don’t know what they have done with her. Her eyes are all white. No corneas.
My eyes get stuck on a head with a glowing red patch in the shape of a triangle. Some weird skin infection, I think.
No, the fuckers ironed his head.
The head moves up, the eyes look at me blankly, a tongue caresses the parched, broken lips. Under the ironed eyebrows, his long eyelashes have been spared.
Baby O closes his eyes.
Major Kiyani extends a plate of patties towards me. I push it aside and try to get up. Major Kiyani grabs me by my shoulder and pins me down in my chair, his eyes mean business now.