I pull out my sword for the final inspection. My head is cleared of all distractions; I see everything with the dead bulging eyes of Colonel Shigri. I march towards General Zia with the sword parallel to my upper body. Halt. My squad divides itself into two files behind me. My sword hilt goes to my lips and comes down outwards. My arm is parallel to my body, the tip of my sword pointing to the ground between our feet. General Zia salutes. “Silent Squad. Ready for inspection, sir.”
His left foot is hesitant but my left foot has already taken the first step for a slow march and he has no choice but to follow. Here we are at last, shoulder to shoulder, my sword stretched in front, his arms at his sides, slow-marching in step, about to enter the silent zone. Forty-five years of military service and he still doesn’t have any control over his movements. If it weren’t for my nimble footwork we’d be out of step. The Silent Squad is split in two files facing each other, eyeballs locked, rifles at the ready. I see his head jerk back involuntarily as the first set of rifles make a loop across our path. But now that he is in the middle of the tunnel formed by flying rifles he has no option but to move in step with me.
The most heavily protected man in the country is in a circle of whirling bayonets and inches away from the hungry, poisoned tip of my sword.
He has realised that in order to go through this he needs to keep looking ahead but he can’t seem to help himself; I can feel his one eye glancing towards me. It’s a genuine miracle that my boys haven’t mistimed their throws and pierced our faces with their bayonets. The last pair is ready with their rifles poised when I wink at the boy on my left. I would never know but I can guess that exactly at the same moment General Zia’s roving right eye makes contact with the boy standing on our right. They both miss a beat, the same bloody beat, and then throw their rifles. The bayonets flash through the air as the rifles complete half a circle and instead of gliding across each other clash in mid-air, making a momentary X as if posing to be photographed for a rifle regiment’s badge. Shigri to the rescue then: my boot kicks General Zia in his shins, and as he stumbles backwards my left hand breaks his fall and my righ: hand goes to work; nothing spectacular, nothing that anyone would notice, just a gentle nudge with the tip of my sword on the back of his flailing hand, drawing a single drop of blood. It couldn’t have hurt more than a mosquito bite. The reaction from the spectators — rushing jackboots, cocked rifles, commandos striking poses and the duty doctor shouting instructions at paramedics — is exaggerated, but not unexpected.
“If Allah wants to protect someone, nobody can harm them,” he says after the duty doctor has cleaned up the drop of blood and declared his wound a minor scratch. I try not to look at the commandos posted on the mess rooftop and shake my head in agreement. He produces a pocket watch out of his uniform shirt pocket and looks towards General Akhtar, who, it seems, is not reacting very well to the heat. Monster-shaped sweat patches are beginning to appear on his uniform. “What do you think, Akhtar, shouldn’t we pray before lunch?” He puts his arm around my shoulder and starts walking towards the mess without looking at General Akhtar. I notice that General Akhtar wants to say something. His mouth opens but no words come out and he follows us, almost dragging his feet. The American Ambassador steps forward. “What a coincidence, Mr President. I have to attend prayers too. There is a church five miles from here and an orphanage that I am supposed to visit…”
“Oh. Of course. But you are coming back with us. I am not leaving you in this desert. And since Brother Akhtar is here, let’s finalise this tank business on our flight back.”
“I’ll be here before take-off,” says Arnold Raphel. As he walks off towards the car park, a familiar face greets him. Bannon is wearing a suit and gives me a formal nod and waves his hand as if he remembers my face but has forgotten my name. I am glad he didn’t show up during the drill. I needed my concentration. A team of commandos rushes off to accompany them.
A waiter wearing a white turban opens the door of the mess and ushers us into a world where the air is sand-free and chilled, where large glass cabinets hold tank models and tennis trophies, where the white walls are covered with paintings of turbaned horsemen chasing spotted deer. The garrison commander leads us towards a big white hall, muttering apologies that the new garrison mosque is still under construction. General Akhtar falls in step with me. I try to quicken my pace, hoping to avoid the inevitable arm around my shoulder. He puts his arm around my shoulder. “That was very well done.” He sounds disappointed. Then he leans towards my ear and whispers, “I told them to let you go, you know it was a mistake. By the way, you really know how to control that sword. It could have gone anywhere. Your father never knew when to stop.”
“It all comes with practice.” I give a pause and then say loudly, “Sir.”
He takes his arm off my shoulder abruptly as if he doesn’t want to be seen with me any more. Obaid might have told them about my sword practice but nobody in the whole world knows about Uncle Starchy’s nectar.
My eyes track General Zia’s feet for any signs. He is walking straight and steady as if his blood has never tasted the tip of my sword.
“Smooth and slow.” I remind myself of Uncle Starchy’s promise.
We sit down in front of a water pipe fitted with a series of stainless-steel taps for our ablutions. My memory of how to do it is vague, so I glance around and do what everybody else is doing. Hands first, then water in the mouth thrice, left nostril, right nostril, splash water over the back of my ears. I keep glancing at General Zia. There is something mechanical about his movements. He takes water in his one cupped hand, pours it into the other, then lets it go before rubbing both his hands on his face. He is not actually using the water. I have a feeling that he is not even doing his ablutions, just miming them. By the time I finish, I have water splashes all over my uniform. The zeal of the occasional worshipper, I suppose.
During the prayer I am again glancing left and right to take my cue whether to go down on my knees or raise my hands to my ears. It seems a bit like cheating at the exam, but I hope the examiner here is more understanding. General Beg seems to think so because he has got his Top Gun Ray-Bans on. What kind of person doesn’t want God to look him in the eye while praying? Then I pull my thoughts together and start reciting the only prayer I know. The prayer I said at Colonel Shigri’s funeral, the prayer for the dead.
THIRTY-THREE
General Akhtar salutes with extra care, making sure that his palm is straight, his eyes level, his spine stretched, every muscle in his body throbbing with respect. That Shigri boy lost his marbles in the end but the plane General Zia is about to board has enough VX gas on it to wipe out a village.
General Zia is a dead man and dead men in uniform deserve respect.
Under any other circumstances General Akhtar would have walked with him, right up to the plane, waited for General Zia to climb up the stairs and for the aircraft door to shut before walking back on the red carpet. But the two hundred yards of red carpet that stretches between them and the plane is the distance he is determined not to cover. He has already changed his estimated time of arrival in Islamabad twice and now he needs to leave, right now, even at the risk of appearing abrupt, rude or disrespectful. He, after all, has a country to run.