The Good Son (44 page)

We got into her Mini and Rukhsana gunned the engine and pressed the horn, trusting the dog people to scramble out of our way, which they did, apparently without resentment, and she whipped us out into the exit road traffic.

I said the expected
“Lahore Lahore hai,”
and she laughed and replied in Mahji Panjabi.

“Yes, and can you still speak your cradle tongue, or have you forgotten?”

I answered in the same language. “I have not forgotten, Auntie, although I think that even you are more comfortable in English or proper Urdu.”

“Yes, but I am part of the cosmopolitan liberal elite that will be the ruin of pure Islamic Pakistan, according to my brother Seyd. I believe he has stopped using English entirely.”

“Then, we’ll have to speak Urdu when we meet.”

“You intend to visit Seyd?” She seemed astounded.

“Sure,” I said. “I need to find out what ISI knows about the kidnapping. I’m assuming he’ll be forthcoming. One of his relatives by marriage is among the hostages.”

“Whom he has always despised. Honestly, Theo, you cannot be so naïve. Don’t you understand that the people who did this atrocity are ISI pawns? I would not be surprised to learn that ISI arranged the whole affair.”

“Why would they do that?”

“A number of reasons. To embarrass the new government, who perhaps are not as bloodthirsty or purely Islamic as they would like. To discredit
anyone working for peace with India. To curry favor with the mullahs. For money.”

“How money?”

“Well, if you have kidnapped one of the richest men in the world, I assume there will be money involved. I have heard rumors of negotiations. I have heard of lunches up in Pindi between businessmen, strangers, and high officials of the military and Inter-Services Intelligence. Something is going on. It is well known the whole country is for sale, so why shouldn’t our terrorists be for sale as well?”

“If that were true we’d have bin Laden by now. No one’s collected the twenty-five million.”

“Oh, well, those are Pashtuns. In any case, betraying a leader is a different affair entirely to selling a hostage.” Then she yelled, “Get out my way, you shit-eater, go rape your sister!” out the window at a multicolored bus as she whipped across several lanes to make a left turn.

“You’re not going to Model Town Park?” I said, as we changed direction.

“Oh, no, we are too fine for Model Town Park now. We have a house in Gulberg, which would have been quite convenient when the children were at school, but now we float around in it like fish in a tank. We have fifteen
marlas
, can you imagine?”

“That’s a good-sized house,” I said, falling easily back into the traditional calculations. A marla was 272 and a quarter square feet, so fifteen marlas was a big house for urban Pakistan.

“You must be doing very well, Auntie.”

“Oh, well, I am working and the children are grown and Jafar was made head of his division, and we did well on the Model Town house and some investments. You know, most people have small houses full of elderly relatives so we all take one another out to restaurants. When you are able to entertain in your own home that is a big something.”

“Yes, Auntie, I know. I was born here.”

“Of course, I know that, but you look like such an American now. Anyway, it is now considered more chic to have others to one’s house, and that was one reason we bought it. You’ll see. Of course, it is not old Lahore, not like my father’s house, but Gulberg is not nothing either.”

She sounded sad when she said this, and I asked her, “And do you entertain very much, Auntie?”

“No, we do not, or rather not for some time, because when one is promoted to head of division one has no time for such things anymore. He is in Kahuta half the time, and I am by myself. And even when we did entertain it was all very stiff, the women on one side talking children’s accomplishments, the men on the other talking office politics. No conversation that any civilized person would recognize as such. Oh, Theo, do you remember those nights at my father’s house? People from every part of Lahore, faquirs and generals, merchants, chemistry professors, journalists, ministers, and that wonderful music, with the ghazals floating up through the colored lanterns on strings. What happened to that world, that is what I want to know? We are richer than ever we were then, but somehow the taste has gone out of life. Or am I just getting old?”

I had nothing to contribute in that department, so I asked how her kids were doing, always a safe subject for a Punjabi woman, even a modern one, and she told me about Shira, who was in the foreign service, a diplomat, if you can imagine, and Hassan, who was prepping for Cambridge, and the baby, Iqbal, not such a baby anymore; he is mad for computers and doesn’t want to go to college but open his own software business, and Nisar is encouraging him, offering investments, and his father is going to shoot both of them; and we talked and argued about stuff like that for the rest of the trip to Gulberg.

The house was a new one, two floors, tan stucco, and a lot of sheet glass, with little Islamic details so you knew you weren’t in L.A. My aunt showed me to a guest room and told me dinner would be at eight, she would be out and about getting ready, and if I wanted anything just ring.

I remembered that aspect of life in Pakistan too, and after unpacking my stuff, I rang. A young woman appeared, who seemed surprised when I addressed her in her native tongue and asked her to bring me tea and snacks. Upper-middle-class Americans don’t usually have clusters of servants, but my aunt did, and I found I had not picked up any of the typical American discomfort with them. I guess you have to be born into a feudal society to understand what that’s all about.

But I was gringo enough to ask the woman what her name was and how long she’d been working for the Lagharis and tried to start a little chat, but I saw she was not happy with that, was getting more and more nervous, and I realized that the only reason a male guest would normally engage a maid in conversation would be if he was planning to
throw her down on the bed and fuck her, so I froze my face into a commanding mask and waved her out.

I fell on the bed alone and conked out for a couple of hours and then I had a bath and dressed in my one suit, a custom-made number I’d picked up in Dubai a few years ago for about what a pair of decent jeans would cost in the States. I’d bought some silk shirts and a tie at the same time just for the hell of it. I’d never owned an outfit like that, and I guess I’d put it on two or three times at weddings and the occasional party at the house in D.C., but I wore it to dinner that night because I didn’t have any Pakistani clothes.

When I got down to the living room, which looked like anything you might find in suburban Washington, I found that all the men were dressed Western-style like I was, and I guess they were doing it in honor of me, which I thought was pretty neat. I think there are about twelve cousins in my generation of the family, counting me, Rukhsana’s three, and Nisar’s three girls. Seyd’s five kids were naturally absent. I was a little nervous about this gathering because of the current situation and the family history, my mom not being the pride of the clan, but it all went fine.

Better than fine, to tell the truth. I’m the senior cousin, the son of the oldest brother, which counts for something in Punjabi society; and it turned out they’d been hearing stories of my colorful exploits all their lives, mainly from Auntie R, and they were fascinated; and when it turned out I could speak their languages and wasn’t a typical American asshole, was totally desi except for the skin tones, had manners, et cetera, it turned into a love fest. Rukhsana’s three were as described, all good-looking and a lot smarter than me. Nisar’s Yasmin, Zahra, and Miah were all in various schools; they chattered and tried out their flirting and used American slang they’d picked up from the Web and movies, just wrongly enough to be charming. Pakistanis of that class obviously travel a good deal nowadays and have total access to international media, but they’re still psychologically sheltered, and now they had what amounted to a tame monster right in the family. I felt like I was coming out of a shell of my own devising into the sunlight of human life, that for the first time I could see a cure for the evil of my days, and I
regretted having denied myself this for so long, nursing my isolation and loneliness, buried in the world of grunts, not that much better off than Billy Olin. What wonderful people, I thought: my family!

So we talked and laughed through a really terrific dinner, and they told me about their lives and I told them what I thought they could handle about mine, and the only things that weren’t quite right was that Seyd had refused to come or let his kids come, and Jafar came in late, when we’d already sat down, and I could see that there was something not right between him and Rukhsana.

After dinner, the men walked out on the roof terrace for smoking and guy talk and I gave Nisar and Jafar the bottles of eighteen-year-old Macallan I’d bought, which they really seemed to appreciate, and Jafar got a servant to bring glasses and ice and we all had an illicit drink, with which we toasted Babaji, and Nisar said, “Scotch is not wine,” and everyone laughed.

Then Jafar got into a discussion of the recent cricket test matches with his sons that I couldn’t really follow and Nisar took the opportunity to pull me away for a private conversation.

“So what are your plans?” he asked.

“Obviously, I want to find out where they’re holding my mother.”

“Do you think you can do that?”

“I don’t know, Uncle, but I have to try. It’s not entirely hopeless, I think. I have contacts in the jihad, and something of a reputation.”

“You’ll go north?”

“Yes. I know people in Peshawar.”

“From the jihad? How do you know they’re still alive?”

“They were the kind of people that are hard to kill.”

He chuckled at that and said, “Look, I don’t want to tell you your business, but this is a difficult time for Pakistan. The general is out for now, which is a good thing in a way, but when the lion leaves, the hyenas fight over the carcass, you know? Ordinarily, I could ease your efforts in various ways; I too know a lot of people in the north. But nowadays it’s difficult to know whom to trust. And I feel responsible, letting your dear mother and all of them go to Leepa . . . insane, really, but you know it’s quite difficult to say no to your mother and my sister all in one go.” He laughed sharply and then grew serious again. “It’s also not a good thing that Seyd did not come tonight. You understand why?”

“Rukhsana suggested that ISI might have had something to do with the kidnapping.”

“Oh, it’s more than a mere suggestion, I can tell you. My God, this organization, this so-called al-Faran, was invented, bought, and paid for by ISI. Whether they are still following orders or have set up on their own, who can say?”

“What do you hear about ransom negotiations? I mean for Craig.”

“I hear five crore—dollars, not rupees—is the asking price.”

“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “It’ll be hard to move fifty million dollars in Pakistan.”

“Yes. I have interests in the largest bank in Pakistan, and now I am hearing discreet inquiries from people connected to ISI: how can they conceal an influx, an
unusual
influx, source unspecified? This country! Do you know, Theo, that my bribery bill is an insanely large percentage of my payroll? How can one run a nation this way? Look, I am not pure like my father. I do business, and to do business in Pakistan one must play along, but I am also my father’s son and I say there is a limit. There is still decency.”

He went on about the agony of Pakistan for a while before I brought him back to my immediate problem. “Can you get me in to see Seyd?”

“Not a good idea, Theo; he is a peculiar fellow, my dear brother. He is very proud and quite incompetent, which is a dangerous combination. He might even have you arrested or expelled. He owes me a great deal, but he would die before acknowledging how much of my influence has gone into supporting his position in the military. As for him knowing anything that could help you—well, let us just say that Seyd is not privy to the inner secrets of his organization.”

“Yes, there are people like that in every army.”

“And ours has more than most. Half our national budget goes to arms, and I ask you, have we ever won a war? The country is tearing itself apart, and these imbeciles spend and spend on nuclear weapons. Do you know the nuclear establishment employs over twenty thousand people?”

“Including Jafar. He seems to have done well out of it anyway.”

“Yes, of course, but we have brownouts in Lahore every day. How can you run businesses this way, I ask you? And these nuclear bombs, what use are they? To frighten India? Don’t make me laugh! Meanwhile,
this war in the north—it could be the end of Pakistan, you know? And no one knows what the hell to do about it.”

I couldn’t help him there.

Then he asked, “Suppose you find out this location. What will you do? Because if you are thinking that the Pakistani authorities will help, I cannot encourage you. And this plan of yours—I can’t say I have much confidence in it.”