Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid Page B

them because of his friend’s family. The entire venture is being bankrolled by his friend’s father, who works in Bahrain and happily buys his son any computer-related gadgetry he wants. And unlike wide-eyed Jamal, with his delicate fingers and soft, protruding lower lip, his friend looks very business-savvy. I feel uneasy. I hate to see Jamal depending on this guy and being hurt. But there’s nothing I can do. And maybe there’s nothing to worry about, maybe I’m just unsettled by the fact that my little cousin, who’s still in school and twelve years younger than I, is working and I’m not.
    I don’t stay long.
    Stepping out into the hot day, I shiver at the sudden change in temperature. The sun beats down on the roads, searing the last blades of green from otherwise completely brown dividers of parched grass. I stop at Liberty Market for a long glass of fresh pomegranate juice.
    The shopkeeper looks edgy, and the boy who brings memy drink doesn’t smile. Probably tense about this nuclear thing.
    Or maybe it’s just the heat.
    I sip slowly through a waxed-paper straw while I watch two dogs in the shade not far from my car. An emaciated bitch lies on her side, so thin it seems the skin covering her ribs will soon dissolve in the heat, exposing the white bones of her skeleton. She looks dead except for the slow rise and fall of her flank as she breathes, too tired to be bothered by the flies or the big, healthy pup who nuzzles at her dry tits, his tail moving rapidly from side to side as he sucks the last drops of life out of her.
    Paying up, I drive off.
    I’m on Jail Road, stopped at Samugarh Chowk, when I notice a Pajero in my rearview, the polished red of its exterior striking on a road where everything else is dulled by a layer of dust. A squint and I recognize Ozi, so I roll down my window to give him a wave. On my left a boy pushes off unsteadily to cross the road on a bicycle that’s too big for him.
    Ozi hasn’t noticed me. He’s bearing down on the red light at full speed. Out of the corner of his eye, the boy sees the Pajero and he bends forward, pumping hard. I feel sorry for the kid, constantly afraid of being hit by maniacs like Ozi, and the arm I stick out my window starts flapping up and down instead of waving, telling my friend to stop eventhough I know he hasn’t seen me and doesn’t mind putting a little fear into people whose vehicles are smaller than his.
    Ozi’s Pajero roars by me, piercing the intersection. The boy is staring straight ahead, his eyes desperately focused on the opposite curb, now not far away, when his foot slips from the pedal and he wobbles, his pace broken, and I think, Shit, Ozi’s cutting it too close. Then the quick flash of brake lights, a sudden scream of rubber sliding like skin on cement, too little too late, the front of the Pajero dipping like a bull ready to gore, a collision unheard because of the squeal of locked tires. A brief silence. The sound of an engine gathering itself as the Pajero charges away.
    The boy’s body rolls to a stop by a traffic signal that winks green, unnoticed by the receding Pajero.
    I drive to where the boy lies on the asphalt. His head has been partly crushed, flattened on one side, but the rest of him seems almost untouched except that one of his shoes is missing and a little brown foot sticks out of his shalwar. I think he’s dead, but as I stand over him his arm twitches and someone says, ‘He’s alive.’
    I look around. A crowd has gathered to stare, but no one does anything. I put my hands under the boy to lift him. The back of his head is soft and sticky, and I swallow against what rises in my stomach as I smell the smell. Another man helps me, and together we place him on the back seat of my car and drive quickly to Services Hospital.
    I press down on my horn until two orderlies rush out to put the boy on a trolley and wheel him inside. Then I tell the man who came with me to stay and talk to the police until I