“Home”

"Go on, get yourself something to eat," drawled Chaudrey Abdul Gafoor, leaning forward between the seats and passing ten rupees to Mustafa, his chauffeur. His breath stank of whiskey—he had soaked away the afternoon, holed up with another country politician in a backstreet Islamabad house converted into a hotel. Their little group from south Punjab all convened at this louche retreat, known among them as Auntie Puppo's place, their home away from home.

"He's just about over the line, God help him," thought Mustafa. Back in District Bahawalpur once, before Chaudrey Sahib won his seat in the Assembly and became immune to these afflictions, some policemen looking for a bribe stopped them at a roadblock, late at night on an empty road. The Chaudrey and his whole drunken entourage barreled off into the bushes, leaving Mustafa, the jeep, and half a case of whiskey. That had cost a fair amount—when they finally stumbled back to the jeep and tried to reclaim it. The police inspector drove a hard bargain, reminding Chaudrey Sahib of the ten strokes with oil-soaked bamboo awarded for possession of alcohol.

Chaudrey Sahib edged off past the doorman and into the five-star hotel, which had been strung with lights for the wedding reception being held there, the daughter of some minister belonging to Chaudrey Sahib's Liberation Party of the People (LPP). Mustafa drove toward the parking area, making room for the next car in the line that stretched down the street.

Maneuvering far to one side of the dirt lot, a rough holding area for the drivers from which they were summoned by loudspeaker, Mustafa pulled a damp rag from under the seat and wiped down the vehicle using the imported American polish, one hundred seventy rupees for the canister. He worked his way methodically around the vehicle, then stepped up on the wheels to get above the windshield and even reached over as far as he could on the roof. The Land Cruiser had three hundred thousand kilometers on it, most of it on country roads, where the son of a bitch contractors stole half the funds and left them full of potholes. And then the election! That's when every two penny party worker borrowed the car and rode around pretending to be a lord. Chaudrey Sahib couldn't say no. So he won his election, and tonight he was in there rubbing shoulders with fancier people than he had ever found back home.

The April wind blew down from the foothills of the Karakorum, playing among the dark leaves of the trees planted around the perimeter of the rutted parking lot. On the other side of the street he could just barely see a tidy little park with swings. Among the trees, a single bulb hanging above a tea stall swung in the wind, a welcoming place in the dark, like a lighted cave. Already some of the other drivers had wandered over from the lines of cars and sat sipping cups of tea. Having finished his quite unnecessary polishing of the immaculate jeep, Mustafa watched the parade of vehicles drawing up to the hotel, big black sedans and official cars bearing flags, Mercedes and others that he couldn't even identify, seen for the first time when he drove Chaudrey Sahib to the sittings of the Assembly. The whole panoply didn't impress him so much as fill him with wonder, gave him an impression of larger horizons, worlds unknown; it seemed a hopeful sign, that cars like muscled beasts should be sent from far away countries, visitants, promising the existence of a sleek, precise, gleaming world. One after another, vehicles that you couldn't buy for two squares of land drew up and the sahibs rolled out of the back seats, the women brightly colored.

Mustafa missed his wife, missed the little clay house that he had built, set on a half acre that his father left to him. Each of the brothers got half an acre. The house looked different in different seasons. Now it would look striped, seen through the tall, ripening mustard greens, the yellow flowers showing up against the tan walls. Last year he had bought his wife a sisal, a rare kind of partridge from the Frontier, which she kept in a bamboo cage, hooding the cage at night with a cloth that she embroidered. When he gave it to her she had teased him, saying it was really a gift from him to himself. Mustafa had hoped that it would call back when the wild partridge called from among the mustard, but it had a different song.

He wanted a cup of tea but felt shy about his flip-flops and his embroidered Sindhi cap, which no one in the city seemed to wear. As soon as he had time off, he planned to buy himself a good-looking sweater in the second-hand bazaar—he had been mustering the courage to change his country look. Treating himself to a second cigarette, he put his foot up on the bumper and looked into the darkness of the park on the far side of the tea stall. After a few minutes a driver from one of the cars further down the row walked past and then stopped. He had a neat white beard, a religious man with a kindly face, and wore the white chauffeur's uniform, which Mustafa had rarely seen, like the station master at the Firoza train station wore, with epaulettes and brass buttons. He carried the distinctive Mercedes keys, ornamented with a three-pointed star, looped around one finger.

"Hello, brother," the man said. "How are things out in the desert?" He knew from the license plates.

"No rain, sir. The nomads are selling their stock."

Mustafa almost offered him a cigarette, then stopped himself. A lot of these religious types didn't smoke. The man seemed willing to talk, however.

"Are you going for a cup of tea?" asked the other driver. "There's a fire. Come on, they'll be hours in there, trust me."

* * * * *

The kerosene stove set up on the counter hissed unevenly, and a filthy enamel kettle with a rag tied around the handle stood on the counter beside it. Small porcelain cups with a rose design were piled next to a bucket of water. The owner of the tea stall wore a brown shawl wrapped around his body, up to his long misshapen nose, and he warmed his hands over the heat of the stove, putting his weight now on one leg, now on the other, like a horse. A small boy wearing frayed maroon shalvar squatted by a tiny fire heaped in a tin pan originally used for mixing cement. He snuffled and wiped snot on his sleeve, dreaming into the fire and sometimes breaking twigs and pushing them cunningly in.

"As-salaamu aleikum, Haji Sahib," said one of the other drivers, making room for the bearded chauffeur on a wooden bench. They all seemed to know each other. Mustafa went up to the stall and asked for two cups of tea and a bit of rusk.

"No rusk, biscuits," said the tea stall man, ladling mixed sweet tea from a big pan into the kettle and turning up the flame. In a few minutes the kettle began to rock and steam. Shy among the concourse of drivers, Mustafa put on a fixed expression, as if listening to a distant sound. When the man asked for eleven rupees, he blushed and then reached under his shirt to the money belt, pulling out wrinkled bills. He looked at the plate of biscuits. Only four!

"Now that's what I call prudence, it's like keeping your cash in a bank," called one of the drivers sitting nearby. "You folks out in the country must be loaded."

A couple of the faces glowing by the fire looked up, eyes glinting with amusement.

"Around here everyone's trying to pull your pants down," Mustafa said, trying to be funny, and immediately regretting his words, for this only made him seem more like a bumpkin. He walked over to the impassive driver who had befriended him and gave him a cup of tea. "Here you are, Haji Sahib. Warm yourself."

Mustafa squatted down on his haunches beside the bench and drank his hot tea, first pouring it into the saucer and then sipping it off. After a pause, one of the drivers continued telling a story, something about how he won a tidy sum from some ambassador's driver, betting on which of them had more money in his pocket. Mustafa took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, hunching his shoulders and concentrating as he struck the match and cupped the flame.

When the story ended the circle became quiet, uneasy as people are when one in a group has been boasting. Mustafa watched a slice of moon rise in the branches of the trees, white and hard in the cold air.

"Allahu akbar," murmured the driver who had invited Mustafa to join them at the tea stall, brushing the palms of his hands down over his face and beard, as if wiping away water. He and two others went to say their prayers.

Mustafa rose up quietly and took one of the vacant places at the end of a bench, holding his hands out toward the small fire.

"Where are you from?" the man next to him asked in a kindly way. The man had skin so dark that it seemed to absorb the firelight. He must be from the sweeper class, thought Mustafa, somehow become a driver. Whatever his background, he wore pant-kot, western clothes; and Mustafa noticed a big square gold ring on one finger. Mustafa told him about the drought, which seemed to interest people in the city, probably because the newspapers wrote stories about it.

* * * * *

On the far side of the tea stall, moving in a series of interlocked motions, arms working in concert, like a spider, a hobbling figure emerged out of a wash that cut across the parking lot. It dragged around, staying out of the light.