The Mi Abram lowered its barrel to salute the General and kept it there as a mark of respect for the recitation from the Quran. The Armoured Corps’ Religious Officer chose the General’s favourite verse for these occasions: “Hold Fast the Rope of Allah and Keep Your Horses Ready”.
Lowering his binoculars, General Zia listened to the recitation with his eyes shut and tried to calculate the percentage of kickbacks. As soon as the recitation was over he turned to confer with General Beg about the mode of payment for these tanks. He saw his own distorted face in General Beg’s sunglasses. General Zia couldn’t remember Beg ever wearing these glasses before he appointed him his deputy and practically gave him the operational command of the army. When General Zia had gone to congratulate him on his first day in his new office, General Beg received him sporting these sunglasses even though it was a cloudy day in Islamabad; further proof, if proof was needed, that power corrupts. General Zia hated General Beg’s sunglasses but still hadn’t found a way to broach the subject. It was probably a violation of the uniform code. What was worse, it made him look Western and vulgar, more like a Hollywood general than the Commander-in-Chief of the army of an Islamic republic. And General Zia couldn’t look into his eyes.
General Akhtar saw them whispering to each other intensely and his resolve strengthened. As soon as the demonstration was over he would make an excuse and dash back to Islamabad in his own Cessna. General Zia seemed to have forgotten that he had invited his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. He didn’t seem to remember that he wanted to consult ‘Brother Akhtar’ on the most important decision of his life. If this was a test, he had passed. Now he needed to be close to General Headquarters, close to the National Television Station, close to his black sherwani. He would need to address the nation in less than two hours. This unscheduled trip had added another layer of depth to his plan. Now nobody could say that he had deliberately stayed behind in Islamabad. They would say he was just lucky because he didn’t stay for lunch at the garrison mess. In order to distract himself from the proceedings, he silently started to rehearse his address to the nation.
Listening to General Beg’s long-winded reply about the payment for the tanks, General Zia made a mental note that after the tank trial he would settle this sunglasses business once and for all. General Beg was still going on about the direct link between the proposed tank deal and US military aid — all of it falling within the procurement objectives set in the US-Pakistan defence pact — when the first shot rang out.
General Zia terminated his conversation mid-sentence, put the binoculars to his eyes and searched the horizon. All he could see was a wall of sand. He tried to readjust his binoculars and as the sand began to settle he saw a red banner, the size of a single bed sheet, with a giant hammer and sickle painted on it, fluttering intact over a remote-controlled target-practice vehicle, like a golf cart carrying an advertising banner. The Mi Abram obviously couldn’t see very well. He looked at Arnold Raphel who, with binoculars glued to his eyes, was still searching the horizon optimistically. General Zia wanted to make a joke about the tank being a communist sympathiser but the ambassador didn’t look his way. Other target-practice vehicles started descending the sand dune, bearing other targets: a dummy Indian MiG fighter jet, a gun battery made out of wood and painted a garish pink, a cardboard bunker complete with dummy soldiers.
The Mi Abram’s cannon fired nine more shells and managed to miss every single target. The tank turned towards the observers’ tent, and lowered its barrel again, slowly, as if tired from all the effort. All the generals saluted, the ambassador put his right hand on his heart. The Mi Abram turned back and trundled up the sand dune. The remote-controlled target vehicles, with their dummy targets still intact, started to line up at the base of the sand dune. A gust of desert wind rose from behind the dune, a swirling column of sand danced its way towards the observers’ tent, everybody about-faced and waited for it to pass. As they turned round, shaking the sand off their caps and flicking it off their uniforms, General Zia noticed that the red banner had come loose from its platform on the vehicle and was fluttering away, over the sand dune. Arnold Raphel spoke for the first time. “Well, we got that one. Even if it wasn’t our firepower but this anti-communist desert force.”
There was forced laughter followed by a moment of silence during which everyone heard the faint but unmistakable howling of the desert winds. General Beg took his sunglasses off with an exaggerated gesture. “There is another trial left, sir,” he said, giving a dramatic pause. “Lunch. And then the finest mangoes of the season.” He gestured towards an army truck full of wooden crates. “A gift from All Pakistan Mango Farmers Cooperative. And for today’s lunch, our host is the most respected Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Akhtar.”
THIRTY-TWO
The Martyrs’ boulevard dividing the freshly whitewashed garrison mess and the football-field-size lawns in front of it, is full of screaming sirens and Kalashnikov-carrying commandos jumping in and out of open-topped jeeps. Every general with more than two stars on his shoulders is escorted by his own set of bodyguards and heralded by his personal siren song, as if the occasion were not a lunch in their own dining hall but a gladiatorial parade where the one with the most ferocious bodyguards and the shrillest siren will win. The Garrison Commander’s idea of a warm welcome seems to involve whitewashing everything in sight that doesn’t move. The pebbled footpath on the lawns in front of the mess is whitewashed, the wooden benches are painted white, the electricity and telephone polls are gleaming white, even the trunk of the lone keekar tree under which I have lined up my Silent Drill Squad is covered in a dull rustic white.
In this opera of wailing sirens and glinting Kalashnikovs, nobody seems to be bothered about a bunch of cadets at the edge of the boulevard. My boys are slouching on their G$ rifles, trying to scratch their sweat-soaked bodies under starched khaki uniforms without being noticed. The Garrison Commander came to me soon after we disembarked from the truck, the enormity of the occasion seeming to overwhelm him. “I know it’s not a good time but General Akhtar asked for it,” he had said, gesturing towards my boys. “Can you keep it short?” I gave him an understanding smile and said, “Don’t worry, sir. We won’t be keeping him for long.”
The only person who is really pleased to see us is the bandmaster at the head of the military band formation, three rows of overdressed men lined up in the middle of the manicured lawn in front of the mess. After eyeing me for a while he marches up to me with his silver-crested stick, trailing a tartan doublet behind him, a fake red feather quivering in his beret. His face falls in disbelief when I tell him that we don’t need the band to accompany us.
“How are you going to march without a beat?”