The calls were routed through the South — East Asia Bureau in Hong Kong, through the Islamabad Embassy and finally through the liaison office in Peshawar. In a last desperate attempt, a communication satellite was ordered to change its orbit to get a bearing on his satellite phone receiver. The logbook wouldn’t mention the reason for this urgency. The logbook wouldn’t say that Arnold Raphel had decided to visit an orphanage associated with a local church in an attempt to not get stuck with General Zia, to avoid the embarrassing post-mortem on the Mi Abram’s performance.
The satellite receiver, a clunky silver contraption cased in a hard plastic box, is switched off and stashed under the back seat of the ambassador’s black Mercedes. The Mercedes is parked in the brick-lined courtyard of a Catholic church under construction. The scaffolding has been covered with white plastic sheets for the ambassador’s visit, the emblem of the Carmelite sisters, with its three stars and a silver cross, hangs limp from the mast on the roof of the church. Behind the Mercedes, the commandos from the Pakistan Army are stretching their limbs in the open-topped jeeps, cooling down under the scarce shade of date trees and listening to the strains of music coming through the church door.
Arnold Raphel is inside the low-ceilinged hall, sitting on the front bench surrounded by barefoot nuns, listening to the strangest choir of his life. There is a man on the harmonium and a twelve-year-old boy sits besides him playing the tabla. “In the school of the crucified one, in the school of the crucified one,” sings the man playing the harmonium, and a choir of well-scrubbed children wearing khaki shorts and white half-sleeved shirts stretch their arms out and tilt their heads towards the right to mime the crucified one. The ceiling fan, the iced Coke, the sound of proper American English in this remote desert village, lulls Arnold Raphel, a strange calm descends on him and for a few moments he forgets about the awful tank trial and about his impending return journey with General Zia. This is not the kind of church he occasionally visited in a Washington DC suburb. There is incense on the altar, and the nuns smile at him extravagantly. A plump Jesus painted on a backdrop in various shades of gold and pink, with a marigold garland around his neck, looks down on the congregation with his kohl-lined eyes. “You don’t pay any fees, you don’t pay any fees” Arnold Raphel bends forward to hear the nun’s whisper who is translating the hymn for him. “You don’t pay any fees, in the school of the crucified one.” His eyes are transfixed by the nun’s bare feet. There are rows and rows of delicate crosses on both her feet, tattooed with henna. A smile plays on Arnold Raphel’s face and he decides to stay on till the end of the service. General Zia can have his own goddam mango party on Pak One, he thinks, I should go back on my own Cessna. “You have to pay with your head, you have to pay with your head, on the chopping board.” The orphans cut their throats with imaginary swords and the chorus sings on. “In the school of the crucified one. In the school of the crucified one.”
The chief communication officer in Langley throws his hands up in the air and reports that the ambassador is probably having a very long siesta. “Pak One has got clearance to taxi. It is taking off within minutes,” reports the communication satellite picking up the air traffic control’s calls from the garrison. The duty analyst at the South Asia Desk looks at all the calls logged in his register, starting with the first call made by a general with the unlikely name of Beg who had pleaded that the US Ambassador shouldn’t join the mango part on Pak One and decides that there is no need to pursue the matter any further.
Trust these Pakistani generals to get excited about a goddam smelly fruit, he tells his colleagues, clocking off his shift.
THIRTY-SIX
Major Kiyani looks down at his slippers and for a moment forgets why he isn’t wearing his military boors. His head feels dizzy as if he has just come off a roller coaster. He sucks in air with the lust of a dying fish. Throughout the entire five-hundred-and-thirty-mile drive he has rehearsed one sentence: “It’s a matter of life and death, sir, it’s a matter of life and death, sir.” He looks around. Arnold Raphel is nowhere in sight. There is not a single American on the tarmac. General Akhtar looks at him with pleading eyes, imploring him to say God knows what. Major Kiyani suddenly feels that he should salute, walk back to his car, drive back to his office, at a reasonable speed this time, and resume his duties. But he can feel the snipers’ guns pointed at the back of his head and two pairs of very curious eyes inspecting his face, waiting for an explanation. A matter of life and death, sir, he says quietly once again to himself, but then between gulping a few more cubic feet of oxygen blurts: “It’s a matter of national security, sir.”
A dark shadow falls across General Akhtar’s tense, yellow face. He wants to shoot Major Kiyani in the head, board his Cessna and fly back to Islamabad. He expects his men to take decisive action, to cover his flanks in battle, to provide him an exit when he needs one, not behave like pansies discussing national security.
He sucks in his thin lips and holds on to his baton tightly. Suddenly Major Kiyani seems to him not the rescuer on horseback waving the irrefutable proof of his innocence, but the Angel of Death himself.
General Zia’s eyes light up, he punches the air with his clinched fist and shouts: “By jingo, let’s suck the national security. We’ve got twenty crates. General Akhtar, here my brother, my comrade, we are going to have a feast on the plane.” He puts one arm around General Akhtar’s waist, the other around Major Kiyani’s and starts walking towards Pak One.
General Zia is feeling safe surrounded by these two professionals but his mind is racing ahead. A jumble of images and words and forgotten tastes are coming back to him. He wishes he could speak as fast as his mind is working but he can’t arrange his words properly. By jingo, he thinks, we will get rid of that bastard with sunglasses; we’ll hang him by the barrel of Abram One and fire the gun. We’ll see how Abram One misses that one. He laughs out loud at that thought. “We’ll buy those tanks. We need those tanks,” he says to Arnold Raphel and then realises that the ambassador isn’t at his side.
“Where is Brother Raphel?” he shouts. General Akhtar sees his opportunity and squirms in General Zia’s grip. “I’ll go and look for him.” General Zia tightens his arm around General Akhtar’s waist, looks into his eyes and says in a spurned lover’s voice. “You don’t want to suck national security with me? You can slice it with a knife and eat it like those city begums. You can have it anyway you want, brother. We have got twenty crates of the finest national security gifted by our own people.”
General Zia approaches the red carpet and a dozen generals line up to salute him. As their hands reach their eyebrows, General Zia winces and instead of returning their salute inspects their faces. General Zia wonders what they are thinking. He wants to ask them about their wives and children, to start a conversation to get an insight into his commanders’ thinking but he ends up issuing an invitation that sounds like an order. “The party is on the plane.” He points his finger at Pak One. “All aboard, gentlemen. All aboard. By jingo, let’s get this party started.”