Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid Read Free Book Online Page A

heroin. One is fastening his nala with both hands.
    Then we enter a building, climb two flights of steps, pass through a door that opens only when the pimp knocks out a little code, part a curtain of beads, and find ourselves in a room with a shuttered window, dimly lit by a clay oil lamp which sits on a low table.
    Reclining against a long, round cushion is a middle-aged woman with finely plucked eyebrows, her fleshy body wellproportioned and voluptuous. She takes a gurgling puff from the hookah beside her and with the tiniest dip of her chin indicates that we should sit.
    ‘It’s a man’s habit, but I love it,’ she says, taking another puff. Her voice is throaty, like Mumtaz’s, but much deeper.
    Then she points one henna-decorated finger at me. ‘Have I seen you before?’
    ‘No,’ I say.
    The woman chuckles. ‘Of course not. Your father, perhaps, but not you.’
    A disturbingly young girl with long eyelashes brings in tea. She wears bells on her ankles that chime as she walks, and I find myself hoping this is the only service she’s made to provide, although I doubt it very much.
    ‘You’re not bad-looking,’ the woman says to Mumtaz, who smiles and lowers her gaze politely. ‘A nice face. And good hips. But your breasts aren’t generous. You should eat more.’
    Mumtaz starts to laugh. ‘They’re bigger than they were. I’ve fed a boy.’
    ‘With those?’ The woman considers. ‘Perhaps it’s because you have broad shoulders that they seem small.’ She smiles. ‘Are you looking for work?’
    Mumtaz flashes a sly grin. ‘Your tea is delicious, Dilaram.’
    ‘Thank you. Like all things in my profession, it is a learned art.’
    ‘How did you come to begin learning?’ Mumtaz asks, slowly taking out a minicassette recorder.
    Dilaram laughs solidly, her body rippling. ‘It’s quite a funny story really. I was a pretty girl, like this one here.’ She smiles at our adolescent tea server. ‘Only younger. The landlord of our area asked me to come to his house. I refused, so he threatened to kill my family. When I went, he raped me.’
    Mumtaz shuts her eyes.
    Dilaram chuckles. ‘I was so skinny. Not like a woman at all.’
    ‘He paid you?’ Mumtaz’s voice is so soft I can barely hear her.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then what happened?’
    ‘He kept making me come. He let his sons rape me. And sometimes his friends. One of them was from the city. He gave me a silver bracelet.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He said it was a gift. Then I became pregnant.’ She laughs. ‘Imagine, my mother was also pregnant at the time.’
    ‘So what did you do?’
    ‘The landlord told me the man from the city wanted to take me to Lahore to marry me. I didn’t believe him. But the villagers told me it was the only way to recover my honor, so I went.’
    ‘Did he marry you?’
    ‘No. He took me to a hakim who ended my pregnancy. Then he told me he had bought me from the landlord for fifty rupees. He said I would have to give him fifty rupees if I wanted to go back to my village.’
    ‘But you didn’t have the money.’
    Dilaram chuckles. ‘He brought me to Heera Mandi and made me have sex with men until he had his fifty rupees.’
    I look at Mumtaz, but she doesn’t notice me. The women are completely focused on each other.
    ‘Then did he let you go?’
    ‘No. He told me the villagers would not accept me back because I had lost my honor. I believed him. The others knew stories of girls who had returned to their families and were killed by their fathers or their brothers. So I stayed on. I worked for many years, until I was no longer young and had few clients. By then the man had grown old. He needed my help to run this place. Once it was clear to the girls and the clients that I was in charge, he died. Some people said I poisoned him.’ She laughs silently, shuddering.
    I light a cigarette as the interview continues, and not seeing an ashtray, I tip the ash into the palm of my hand. Dilaram seems a little too well-spoken for