Read Online Fire in the Unnameable Country by Ghalib Islam - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ghalib Islam
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their record player broke, or when they wanted to catch American channels on their television set, and while laden with tasks so secret he could not even mention them to me, he never said no and rarely charged a fee for such pedestrian jobs. No one spoke anymore about his constant odour of curried vegetables, not even as a joke, since these days they would touch even the hem of his ermine cape. I tried to retain the fluidity of our original conversations, but found myself swept back by the lucidity of his thoughts and the surety with which he asserted his place in the world as a fixer and maker of machines.
I hope you will not take my words to mean jealousy, for understand I had no wish to achieve a popularity equal to that of my friend; in the unnameable country, one stays alive by avoiding being spoken of, hunted after. I wished for Niramish to live another thousand years. And yet. And then. Alas, once upon a time, I had a friend named Niramish. And then the first bombing at which I paid scant attention, because everything explodes eventually in this fissile country. Once upon a time, and this is true, the story of my friend Niramish coincides with the story of the first suicide bombing in the unnameable country.
How so: at that time, it had grown fashionable to wear football bags slung over one shoulder, so much that it served at once as a symbol of youthful taste as well as the utilitarian purposes of carrying and storing all manner of items, most of them not at all affiliated with sports. And also: while excluded from most international affairs, the unnameable country had nevertheless participated in its second African Cup football tournament two years earlier, in which, if you care to recall, we placed fourth, and over whose joyous occasion people erupted into the streets, celebrating with confetti and handfuls of rice dropping from overhead and sweetmeats free for all, hear ye and marhabbah. I myself held no interest in sporting events, but Niramish and I shouted and danced the steps with them while disappearing into the three A . M . haze until the coppers called us halt. Somewhere in the distance there was a thud like the falling of a large animal from the sky. Then there sang an MPâs car alarm, but the subsequent cries of horror folded so neatly into those of joy all around us that we did not realize what had happened until late in the morning.
Ten days later, hours before a major financial conference in the capital Victoria, a twenty-year-old commerce student from the nationâs biggest university walked into the Sheraton Hotel. He seated himself in the lobby, as a guest would, casually with arms splayed on a couch, ordered lemonade and todayâs International Herald Tribune , the staffcame to inquire whether he would have/ they disappeared and then they returned.
Will you be having lunch with us, sir.
Depends on the soup, he replied without glancing up, and unfurled the business section. A single droplet of sweat emerged, unnoticed, on his left temple. He inquired of the soup menu. Then they went away and the light became peaceful in the room.
When the grey clotted plumage of the dining room blast cleared and its effects could be measured, observers were bewildered by its sheer destructive force, which had collapsed several floors above and below the first, and they had trouble believing its cause was a single bomb, though no other evidence but that which was presumed to originate from just one football bag could be found. The Belgian financial ambassador, two World Bank representatives, a high-level oldster from the Chase banking group, five or six interns, American university students on the trip of their lives, and local businessmen numbered among the seventy-six dead. More than three hundred people were injured, some of whom would later die in hospital.
Soon after, Niramish began to birbirbirbirbirbirbirbir to himself while pacing back and forth behind the screen where he soldered and joined
I hope you will not take my words to mean jealousy, for understand I had no wish to achieve a popularity equal to that of my friend; in the unnameable country, one stays alive by avoiding being spoken of, hunted after. I wished for Niramish to live another thousand years. And yet. And then. Alas, once upon a time, I had a friend named Niramish. And then the first bombing at which I paid scant attention, because everything explodes eventually in this fissile country. Once upon a time, and this is true, the story of my friend Niramish coincides with the story of the first suicide bombing in the unnameable country.
How so: at that time, it had grown fashionable to wear football bags slung over one shoulder, so much that it served at once as a symbol of youthful taste as well as the utilitarian purposes of carrying and storing all manner of items, most of them not at all affiliated with sports. And also: while excluded from most international affairs, the unnameable country had nevertheless participated in its second African Cup football tournament two years earlier, in which, if you care to recall, we placed fourth, and over whose joyous occasion people erupted into the streets, celebrating with confetti and handfuls of rice dropping from overhead and sweetmeats free for all, hear ye and marhabbah. I myself held no interest in sporting events, but Niramish and I shouted and danced the steps with them while disappearing into the three A . M . haze until the coppers called us halt. Somewhere in the distance there was a thud like the falling of a large animal from the sky. Then there sang an MPâs car alarm, but the subsequent cries of horror folded so neatly into those of joy all around us that we did not realize what had happened until late in the morning.
Ten days later, hours before a major financial conference in the capital Victoria, a twenty-year-old commerce student from the nationâs biggest university walked into the Sheraton Hotel. He seated himself in the lobby, as a guest would, casually with arms splayed on a couch, ordered lemonade and todayâs International Herald Tribune , the staffcame to inquire whether he would have/ they disappeared and then they returned.
Will you be having lunch with us, sir.
Depends on the soup, he replied without glancing up, and unfurled the business section. A single droplet of sweat emerged, unnoticed, on his left temple. He inquired of the soup menu. Then they went away and the light became peaceful in the room.
When the grey clotted plumage of the dining room blast cleared and its effects could be measured, observers were bewildered by its sheer destructive force, which had collapsed several floors above and below the first, and they had trouble believing its cause was a single bomb, though no other evidence but that which was presumed to originate from just one football bag could be found. The Belgian financial ambassador, two World Bank representatives, a high-level oldster from the Chase banking group, five or six interns, American university students on the trip of their lives, and local businessmen numbered among the seventy-six dead. More than three hundred people were injured, some of whom would later die in hospital.
Soon after, Niramish began to birbirbirbirbirbirbirbir to himself while pacing back and forth behind the screen where he soldered and joined
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