How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid Read Free Book Online Page B

He ruff les your hair. These gestures feel good, even though it is strange that the man performing them has become shorter than you.
    Your mother is taken home from her surgery alive. She is perplexed by her wounded status, like a soldier who has been shot but as yet sees no blood. The trauma her body sustained in the operating theater leaves her weak, and because the extraction of her thyroid and her lymph nodes involved the disassembly of considerable portions of her neck, she finds it difficult to speak. She is thus doubly disarmed, of her physical vitality and of her powerful tongue, and when not exhausted she is baffled, and at times angry.
    Your family insists on maintaining that all will be well, with or without radiotherapy. You pretend to agree, but you also decide to approach your hostel leader for funds. He has just returned, his whereabouts while away a secret, and you find him in his room, reclining in torn socks upon his sweat-stained mattress.
    â€œI need money,” you say.
    â€œThat’s a funny greeting, little brother.”
    â€œI’m sorry. My mother’s sick.”
    â€œHow much do you need?”
    You name the figure.
    â€œI see.” He strokes his jaw slowly.
    â€œI know it’s a lot . . .”
    â€œIt is a lot. But I think we can help you.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œYou should take her to one of our clinics.”
    â€œOur clinics?”
    â€œYes.” He watches you. He has what should be a benevolent smile but his face remains impassive. You have seen him smile this way after breaking a man’s nose.
    â€œShe’s been treated at a private hospital. It’s very good.”
    â€œOur clinics are very good. What’s her illness?”
    â€œCancer.”
    â€œI’ll make a few calls. Find out where she should go. Tell them to expect you.”
    You know better than to argue.
    In the evenings you ride your bicycle to your home, staying with your parents until it is time for them to attempt to sleep. You do not wish to burden them with the costs of your meals, so you continue to board at the hostel, and besides, your membership of the organization is an occupation for which you are paid, if modestly, and on which your performance is assessed. Now in particular it is important that you be seen to be doing your job well. You attend meetings, read the organization’s literature, and keep your eyes and ears open, as you have been instructed to do. But your thoughts wing their way to your mother.
    Later that week you have the good fortune of again catching a group of students furtively smoking hash in a shed behind the space sciences building. You inform your leader, who tells you to accompany him to the scene. As you walk he looks around pleasantly at the plum-headed green parrots chattering in the treetops. You suspect he is carrying his gun.
    He greets the smokers. There are five of them and two of you, but they appear very frightened.
    â€œThis is not good, my brothers,” your leader says.
    â€œWhat, sir?” one of them asks. He is a lanky fellow with sideburns and a soul patch, his T-shirt suggesting an affinity for heavy metal.
    Your leader cuffs him across the face and continues without raising his voice, “These drugs are forbidden. They will make you weak. You’re intelligent boys. You should know that.”
    All five nod vigorously.
    Your leader spreads his arms. “This won’t happen again?”
    He is assured that it will not.
    The following day your leader gives you the details of a clinic. It is just outside the city, or at least outside what is currently thought of as the city, even though roadside urbanization links its location to the metropolis like the arm of an octopus. You and your mother journey there by bus. The clinic is a low building, almost equal in footprint but not in height to the place of worship that sits beside it. Its clientele is poor, and it utterly lacks the computers