I look over his shoulder towards the trophy cabinet. The bronze man has moved to the right. His place is occupied by a paratrooper’s statue. The parachute’s canopy is a silver foil, the silver-threaded harnesses are attached to the torso of a man who is holding his ripcords and is looking up into the canopy. The temperature in the room suddenly drops as I read the inscription on the gleaming black wooden block on which the statue is mounted: Brigadier TM Memorial Trophy for Paratroopers.
“Go, get them, young man.” The Commandant’s hands on my shoulders seem heavy and his voice reminds me of Colonel Shigri’s whisky-soaked sermon. Once I am out of his office, I offer 2nd OIC an exaggerated salute and start running towards my dorm.
I know the phial is there, in my uniform maintenance kit, secure between the tube of brass shine and the boot polish, an innocuous-looking glass bottle. I know it’s there because I have thought of throwing it away a number of times but haven’t been able to do so. I know it’s there because I look at it every morning. I need to go back and see it again, hold it in my hand and dip the tip of my sword in it. “It ages very well.” I remember Uncle Starchy’s low whisper. “It becomes smoother, it spreads slower. But a poor man like me can’t really afford to keep it for long.” I’ll find out how well it has aged. I’ll find out what hue it takes on the tip of my sword. I’ll find out if the sentiment in my steel is still alive or dead.
Accidents in silent drill are rare but not unheard of.
THIRTY
General Akhtar was scribbling on a paper with the intensity of a man who is absolutely sure about what he wants to say but can’t get the tone right. His eyes kept glancing towards the green telephone, which he had placed right in front of him, in the middle of a small orchard of table flags representing his myriad responsibilities to the army, navy, air force and various paramilitary regiments. As the head of the Inter Services Intelligence he had never had to wait for a phone call, especially for information as trivial as this. But now, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, he presided over strategic reviews and inaugurated one army officers’ housing project after another. Sometimes he found out about General Zia’s movements from the newspapers. This irritated him, but he had learned to cultivate a studied lack of interest in intelligence matters: “I am happy to serve my country in whatever capacity my Chief wants me to,” he said every time he happened to be around General Zia. The information he was waiting for was easy to get: there were two planes and only one VIP pod. All he wanted to know was which one of the two planes the fibreglass structure was going into, which one of the two planes would become Pak One. He tried not to think about it. He tried to concentrate on the last sentence of his address.
The speech was going to be simple. He would keep it short and punchy. He would not go into long-winded formalities like General Zia did—‘my brothers, and sisters and uncles and aunts’. His message would be short. In a mere ten lines, which would last no more than a minute and a half, he would change the course of history. “My fellow countrymen. Our dear President’s plane had an unfortunate accident in mid-air soon after taking off from an airfield in Bahawalpur…”
He read the sentence again. It did not seem very believable to him. There was something about it that didn’t ring true. He should probably explain what had happened. A mechanical failure? He couldn’t possibly say sabotage but he could hint at it. He crossed out the words ‘had an unfortunate accident’ and replaced it with ‘exploded’. This sounds punchier, he thought. He added another sentence in the margin. ‘We are surrounded by enemies who want to derail the country from the path of prosperity…’ He decided to stick with the unfortunate accident after all but added: ‘The reasons for this tragic plane crash are not known. An inquiry has been ordered and the culprits, if any, will be brought to swift justice according to the law of this land.’
He picked up the phone absent-mindedly. It was still working. He thought long and hard about the closing line of his speech. He needed something that would tie it all up, something original, something uplifting. There had been too much God-mongering under General Zia and he felt the Americans might like a nice secular gesture, something that would sound scholarly, reassuring and quotable. He was still divided between ‘we as a front-line state against the rising tide of communism’ and ‘we as a frontline state against the flood of communism’ when the phone rang. Without any preliminaries Major Kiyani read him a weather report. “Two low-pressure zones that were gathering in the south are headed northwards. Delta One is definitely going to overtake Delta Two.” Instead of putting the phone down, General Akhtar pressed his forefinger on the cradle and went through a mental checklist, a list he had been through so many times that he felt that he could not be objective about it any more. He decided to go through it backwards.
9. Address to the nation: almost ready.
8. Black sherwani for the address to the nation: pressed and tried.
7. US reaction: predictable. Call Arnold Raphel and reassure him.
6. Where should I be when the news breaks: inaugurating the new Officers’ Club in General Headquarters.
5. If Shigri boy has a go: problem solved before take-off. If Shigri boy loses his marbles: the plan goes ahead.
4. The air freshener doesn’t work: nothing happens.
3. The air freshener works: no survivors. NO AUTOPSIES.
2. Does he deserve to die? He has become an existential threat to the country.
1. Am I ready for the responsibility that Allah is about to bestow upon me?
General Akhtar shook his head slowly and dialled the number. Without any greetings he read out the weather report, then gave a pause and before replacing the receiver said in loud and clear voice. “Lavender.”
He suddenly felt sleepy. He told himself that he would decide the last sentence of his speech in the morning. Maybe something would be revealed to him in his dreams. He looked into his wardrobe before going to bed and took a long look at the black sherwani in which he would appear before the nation tomorrow. His hope about figuring out the last sentence of his speech in his dreams turned out to be false. He slept the sleep of someone who knows he will wake up a king.
What woke him up was the red phone at his bedside, a call from General Zia. “Brother Akhtar. Forgive me for bothering you so early but I am taking the most important decision of my life today and I want you to be here at my side. Join me on Pak One.”
The C13O carrying my Silent Drill Squad smells of animal piss and leaking aircraft fuel. My boys are sitting on the nylon-webbed seats facing each other with their legs stretched to preserve the starched creases of their uniforms. They are carrying their peaked caps in plastic bags to keep the golden-threaded air force insignia shiny. Obaid’s head has been buried in a slim book since take-off. I glance at the cover; a bawdy illustration of a fat woman, part of the title is covered by Obaid’s hand. “…of a Death Foretold” is all I can read.