“Come on, let’s go wake him up.”
We went a little way, then turned and entered a lane, then knocked at a door. The door opened, Afzal came out and scrutinized us. “Mice! Why have you come at this hour?”
“To sleep,” I said.
“But I don’t have any extra cots.”
“We’re from the pre-cot era.”
“But I don’t even have any extra bedding.”
“You have a bare floor?”
“Yes, that I have, though even that’s a bit chewed up.”
We entered the room. A rickety cot, with dirty worn-out bedding, and a massive book lying at one end. In one corner, a mat spread on the floor, with books scattered all over it.
I picked up the heavy book from the bed. “What’s this?”
“It’s the complete works of Nazir, and it’s my pillow.”
“You still need a pillow when you sleep,” Zavvar said.
“Well, it’s like this: awake or asleep, I want to keep my head high.”
Stretching out on the mat, I ran my eye over the whole room. “Yar, the room’s not bad.” I was seeing Afzal’s place for the first time.
“This one room’s still good, but the whole rest of the house has been ruined, and in fact the whole neighborhood. When I came here the lanes were clean and the houses spotless. Now the lanes are filthy and the houses soiled.”
“In my opinion,” Salamat said, “a Muslim can’t tolerate very much cleanliness.”
“This house was quite large,” Afzal told us, “and all furnished and equipped. The mice seized all the furniture. They left me as my total share this image of Lord Krishan.”
“Afzal, they did you a favor,” Zavvar said.
“Really?” Afzal looked at Zavvar with innocent wonder.
“After all, what would you have done with furniture? They’ve left you the really important thing.”
“You’re exactly right. This is just what I thought myself. Yar, they’re good people. They left the good thing for me. It’s the reason that this room is clean, while the whole rest of the house is soiled.”
Stretched out on the mat, I was turning over the books. “Afzal, you were sleeping; you’re a big bore.”
“No.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“I was conversing with the image.”
“But we’ve come to sleep,” Ajmal said.
“Don’t sleep.”
“Why not?”
“If you go to sleep, when you wake up you’ll see that you’ve turned into mice.”
“You’re quite right.” Zavvar, who had sat down on the cot, stood up. “Come on, yar.”
Taking Afzal with us, we went out. “Yar, where are we going?” I asked, as we walked down a long road.
“It’s a very meaningless question,” Zavvar said. “Don’t ask where and why. The real point is that we’re going.”
“Come on, we’re going to the Imperial!”
The Imperial was the final stopping place in our night journey. The city was still unacquainted with air-conditioning, so the Imperial took great advantage of its expansive courtyard and open-air dance floor. Romantic couples loved to dance there, holding each other elegantly and decorously under the star-filled summer night sky. This decorum was endangered when the night grew late and all the lights suddenly went out and Miss Dolly’s appearance was announced. Then there was darkness all around, with only a spotlight on Miss Dolly. But Miss Dolly herself, wearing only the most nominal costume, was like a flash of lightning in the darkness. There was one other living creature who could sometimes be seen with Miss Dolly in this circle of light: a tawny cat. But a waiter always came swiftly from the back, and either picked up the tawny cat or chased her away.
This tawny cat was the manager’s darling; she habitually lay tucked under his chair. She contented herself with whatever she got from his table; she was never seen prowling over toward any of the other tables. But when it was time for the cabaret, she yawned and arose and went over to the dance floor, sometimes right near Miss Dolly. A waiter coaxed her away and brought her back, and she came without a fuss and sat down again by the manager’s chair, or tucked herself underneath it. Dolly and Tawny were the Imperial’s two chief characters.
That evening at the Shiraz is enshrined in my memory, set apart from all other evenings. When the Shiraz, despite being full, was silent, and there was a sign in the middle of the room, “Please refrain from political conversation.” Even the night before, the Shiraz had been noisy, for at every table and in every group there had been only one topic of conversation: the coming elections. The discussants had been loudly and energetically predicting the downfall of Sikandar Mirza. But today the whole discussion had been suspended. The people sitting in the room were only drinking tea. They exchanged a few words among themselves, but in whispers.
“Yar, the tea was cold,” Zavvar said disgustedly, as he drank the last sip.
“Yes, yar, it was no good, let’s order more.” With these words Salamat called out, “Abdul!”
Fresh tea came and it was hot, but even then they didn’t like it. That time it was Irfan who announced his displeasure: “Yar, what’s happened to the Shiraz’s tea?”
Gradually all the friends began to suffer from the feeling that something had happened to the Shiraz’s tea. Then they passed beyond this feeling and began to think that something had happened to the Shiraz itself.
“Yar, the Shiraz is deserted now.”
“Yes, yar, how noisy it used to be!”
“Where has everybody gone?”
“Not everyone is as idle as we are.”
Salamat glared at Zavvar. “Meaning?”
“What I mean,” Zavvar said, “is that we waste a lot of time in the Shiraz.”
“Where else should we waste it?” Afzal said promptly.
“Do we have to waste it?”
Afzal looked angrily at Zavvar. “Mouse! Time can’t be carefully preserved. Time is wasted no matter what.”
In fact we had now begun to feel uprooted in the Shiraz. We tried very hard to stick to the place. Forgetting all our differences, we talked sometimes about literature, especially modern literature, and sometimes about abstract art, but somehow or other someone would wander off the topic and end up in forbidden territory. The conversation shifted from literature to the situation. But very soon someone would look with a start at the neighboring table, and fall silent. The man at the next table was looking elsewhere, but listening to us. It seemed as if his ear were right in our midst. Ears loomed larger and larger in our imaginations, they came and pressed themselves against our lips; we fell silent.
Finally we were uprooted from the Shiraz, and uprooted in such a way that our group was broken up. Only Irfan and I were left, having emigrated from the Shiraz, sitting in the Imperial. But now the Imperial didn’t seem so lively either. No white faces, no young couples dancing together, no chinking and rattling of cups and plates, no waiters bustling efficiently back and forth. Many of the tables remained empty. One or two tables were filled. On the open-air dance floor, some middle-aged Anglo-Pakistani couples wearily danced. The band too played in a tired-out way. The tawny cat sat next to the manager’s chair, with her eyes closed. Only rarely did she rise and go onto the dance floor, and meekly say “Meow,” and voluntarily turn back. Why should she stay on the dance floor? Miss Dolly’s cabaret no longer took place. Some high-spirited admirer had whisked her away. When she went, the Imperial’s vitality went with her.
“After today I won’t be coming here.”
“Why?”
“I’ve gotten a job on the newspaper, and I have night duty.”
I looked at Irfan with surprise. “You’re going to work?”
“I’ll have to.” He sighed.