The monsoon rain came at two that afternoon, and beneath an awning on the rooftop terrace Ahmed slept, or tried to. A wet wind flapped Hanuman's veil. Ahmed lay face up on his cot and imagined himself telling Daniel Erickson the story of his monkey god.
He'd have to begin with the Babri Masjid riots across the border back in '92—Mister Danny would likely not know about this—and how Hindu militants in India had destroyed a Muslim mosque. How Muslim militants in Pakistan retaliated by destroying Lahore's last remaining Hindu shrines. And how Ahmed by chance had been out driving solo that night, enjoying the carefree air, only to find his way blocked by a mob.
How they waved crowbars and metal pipes and made him point his car so its headlights lit up their target—the Moti Lal Mandir.
Moti Lal: Red Pearl. As a boy he'd played in its courtyard. He wanted to linger on that good memory, but he pushed the story forward, imagining Danny listening, taking earnest eager notes.
How the police had stood by and done nothing. How someone had torched the shrine from within. How the rioters had swarmed over the temple spires. They pried brick from brick, limb from timbered limb, till the temple groaned and the spires cracked and fell in a rushing slide of stones.
How he cowered in his car and clutched the wheel and wanted to do something but felt too afraid to throw himself in the way to protect the old things he loved.
All night he'd sat there, till the rioters dispersed and the fires burned out. Dawn, and he stepped out among the charred rubble, until, in a cavity beneath fallen beams, he found a hidden Hanuman. Overlooked. Unspoiled. Untouched.
There. It truly would make a fine story for the American. Or it would if there were time. As the Taliban had told him: Your time has run out.
He needed a smoke. But first he had one more chore.
He sat up and called the kitchen help and told them there was a large object that needed shifting downstairs.
The rain had stopped. The air was fresh. No customers tonight. Doubtless they'd all been scared off. But he and his marble monkey god were there by the door. They had the alley to themselves.
He sat outside in his chair and indulged in one Camel after another. He imagined Jameel's dismay. Nonetheless they tasted good. A filthy habit. But they tasted good.
Something else Daniel Erickson might not know from his Google: Dara Shikoh's last public action, as his brother's soldiers paraded the heretic-prince in chains through the crowded streets of his onetime empire. A fakir—a holy beggar—cried out a blessing and prayer of thanks to the prisoner.
A Venetian traveler, by happenstance an eyewitness to the scene, jotted the prayer in his memoir: May God requite thee, O Prince, for the many times you filled the bowls of the poor.
Whereupon Dara paused and replied, One more gift for you, then. And taking from his shoulders a torn cashmere shawl—stained but still royal—he bestowed it on the fakir.
The guards of course snatched the shawl and beat the beggar and prodded Dara on to his doom. A useless gesture. Useless. But splendid.
And Ahmed Akhtar Zaydi sniffed the night air and kept his Hanuman company. He expected any moment the pop-pop-pop of motorbikes drawing near. But this didn't stop him from counting up in his mind all the things of old Lahore that he loved.
Another cigarette would steady him. There. A deep plume of smoke. A comfort. He had to admit: these things tasted good. They tasted good.