THE POWER WENT OUT AGAIN as I raced down the steps of the emergency room, savouring the thought of having the entire backseat of the car to myself. Once outside the hospital gate, I looked for the car but there was no sign of it or Wali. I just stood there, shaking my head, staring at the empty spot where the car had been.
What now? I wondered aloud.
Jail Road was deserted except for a pair of flashing red lights in the distance which moved closer as I stood there. Then I heard Tarzan’s voice, filled with panic.
‘Sir, over here!’ he shouted from the darkness.
As soon as I saw him, he sprinted up the steps of the emergency room.
‘Come on!’ he screamed. ‘Follow me!’
‘Tarzan, where’s Wali?’ I demanded, running to catch up with him. The sense of impending doom had returned and was forcing its way through the fatigue. ‘What the hell’s going on now?’
We took the steps three at a time and Tarzan flung open the door for the hospital. Once inside, Tarzan stopped to catch his breath. He peeked out the glass doors as if he was hiding from someone.
Two blue pickups, red lights flashing and sirens rupturing the silence, zoomed through the gate and screeched to halt in front of the stairs. Their headlights swept the steps we had just vacated and I saw the doors flying open.
‘Come on,’ Tarzan panted. He started running again and there was nothing to do but follow him.
‘Tarzan, wait! Please! You’ve got to tell me what’s going on,’ I begged, scrambling down the empty hall, like we were tethered by a leash. ‘Where the fuck is Wali?’
‘You’ve just got to trust me right now. There’s no time to explain,’ he yelled over his shoulder as he ran toward the rear of the building.
‘Do I have a choice?’ I screamed, my fear and anger rising to a new high.
‘Not if you want to see the sunrise in one piece,’ he snapped.
We barrelled down dark deserted hallways, made a couple of turns and then reached what looked like a dead end. Tarzan turned on his flashlight and I saw that the dead end was really a huge pile of junked hospital furniture stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Tarzan scrambled over rusted metal cabinets and disappeared into what looked like a closet while I was left standing in complete darkness.
‘Would you talk to me for heaven’s sake?’ I demanded, leaping onto the pile and feeling it rock precariously beneath my greater weight. Staring into the closet I could now see Tarzan standing on the other side of the heap, his flashlight illuminating the passage.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked slowly, dragging out each word so the kid knew I was serious.
‘Faisal Town,’ he said from the other side. ‘Don’t stop, just keep going. You’ve got to crawl a few feet at the end.’
I inched along on my hands and knees through what seemed like a tunnel. It was like some twisted rabbit hole and I was definitely following a Mad Hatter.
By the time I emerged, I was completely covered in a fine dust that I half expected to have magical properties.
We stood next to a door. Tarzan had his sack with him again and I couldn’t imagine where he had stowed it until now.
‘Tarzan, how did you find this place?’ I marvelled at this wild hideout he seemed to have discovered. He had obviously scoped this place out before.
‘I smelled it,’ he said, pushing the door open.
That sounded really weird, but I decided to drop it because he clearly wasn’t in a talkative mood.
We stepped into what looked like a large public restroom that had been out of commission for months. The place stunk of pot, like somebody had been smoking a joint just a minute before. Tarzan threw his sack on the floor and pulled out an old brown leather briefcase.
‘Tarzan, if you’re not going to tell me what the hell’s going on, I’m leaving,’ I said, sounding lame even to myself. ‘Please, just tell me where Wali is. I’m tired, man!’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he handed me his LED penlight.
‘I need some light here,’ he instructed. He took out a roll of red adhesive tape and a cigar-sized green tube from the sack. He positioned the tube over the number lock of the briefcase, taped it down, and then pulled a lighter out of his pocket.
‘I hate these number locks,’ he muttered, bringing the flame to a shoelace dangling from one end of the tube. ‘Go!’ he suddenly shouted, shoving me hard toward the door.
I leapt through and Tarzan followed, slamming it behind us. He started counting. When he reached seven, a muffled blast shook the door. Tarzan pushed it open and we stepped back into the bathroom. The place was filled with billowing acrid smoke. As Tarzan took the penlight from me, I almost fell over when he pointed the beam of light at the floor. Bundles of 1000-Dirham notes were scattered all over the filthy broken tiles. The briefcase, minimally damaged though, still contained the bulk of money stacked in neat rows. No more than a handful of bills appeared to have been burnt.
I stood speechless as Tarzan gathered up the money from the floor and carefully tucked it back into the briefcase. I sighed in frustration, wishing this whole thing to be just some jet lag-induced hallucination that would soon be over.
Reaching down to give him a hand, I saw a palm-sized black leather-bound book lying under the sink. I picked it up and brought it closer to the light. Flipping through its pages I saw they were all blank and looked like some sort of graph paper for high-school maths with a dozen boxes to a page. The book consisted of thirty numbered pages.
‘Keep this,’ Tarzan said, tossing me a wad of Dirhams and tucking a couple of bundles into his robe.
‘I’m not taking any of that,’ I tossed the money back into the briefcase. I had no intention of risking life and limb for petty theft.
‘What’s in your hand?’ he asked, clicking the briefcase shut. Except for its blown handle, it was undamaged. My admiration for Tarzan’s expertise climbed a notch and I wondered where he had gotten his education in these matters.
‘Just a book of blank pages, looks like some kind of graph paper,’ I answered.
‘Do you think it was in the briefcase?’ he asked, stuffing the briefcase back into his sack.
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ I said, smelling the book for gunpowder. ‘It was just lying over there under the sink.’
‘It’s not safe to pick up stuff that’s lying around,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here now. Wali’s waiting for us.’
Tarzan put his sack on the floor and climbed onto the seat of a toilet, holding his penlight between his teeth. Sliding his hands up the wall, he grasped the sill of a large black window overhead. He released the latch and pale moonlight flooded through the open window. Sticking the penlight back in his pocket, he grabbed the sill, hoisted himself up and swung a leg through the window. He sat there straddling the opening and stared down at me.
‘Sir, would you please hand me my bag?’ he asked.
‘Okay, but where’s Wali waiting for us?’ I demanded. ‘Just tell me what the fuck is going on.’
‘You’ll get your answers as soon as we’re out of here,’ he replied.
‘How the hell am I supposed to climb up?’ I said, hoisting his sack over my head and shoving it into his hands.
‘You can do it, sir—it’s not that hard,’ he replied and then disappeared. My heart simply sank. I couldn’t cope with the thought of getting trapped in some abandoned restroom-slash-drug den.
I had to admit though, I was curious about that book. Its blank pages had to mean something. It clearly didn’t look like an ordinary diary or notebook. Whatever it was, I wanted it and decided to keep it. If I survived this long strange night, I would figure out something to do with it.
Holding the book in one hand, I climbed onto the seat of the toilet and looked up. It would take both hands to pull myself up. I decided I would lay the book on top of the water tank up on the wall, and once I climbed up the windowsill I could lower myself a bit and retrieve the book without any problem. What I didn’t see, however, was that the lid of the tank was missing and the book fell right in with a soft thud.
Shit! It must have been ruined.
Standing on my toes, I put my hand into the tank and sighed with relief. There was no water in there and the book was safely resting at its dry bottom.
I made it to the windowsill on my third try. With considerable effort I was able to drag myself through the opening and straddle the sill the way Tarzan had done. I reached down and tried to grab the book, but the tank was out of reach and I couldn’t risk losing my balance. I had no choice but to let the book go.
I jumped down—we were about five or six feet from the ground—and landed on a soft patch of grass.
‘Nice going, sir! See, it wasn’t so hard,’ Tarzan teased, slapping me on the back. ‘Now, let’s get out of here.’
We walked over to the hospital’s boundary wall with Tarzan leading the way as we crawled through a crack in the crumbling masonry. Outside the wall, we turned onto a road lined with gated houses on both sides.
‘We’re right in the rear of Shadmaan Market,’ Tarzan said. ‘Wali’s parked at the end of the street.’
‘How did you get him to move his car over there?’ I asked, thinking of Wali’s Teflon-like character, his imperviousness to any earthly persuasion.
‘He’s a tough nut to crack, that’s for sure!’ said Tarzan.
‘What did you say to him then?’
‘Nothing—I just had to take over his mind.’
His answer made me stop in my tracks.
‘How do you take over someone’s mind?’ I asked.
‘We’ll talk about it some other time, sir,’ he replied as he stopped walking and turned to face me. His eyes looked unusually bright in the darkness.
‘Where the hell did you learn all this stuff?’
‘Jinns,’ he answered casually.
Now he was pulling my leg. It was impossible to get a straight answer out of him—that much I knew. I gave up and resumed walking.
‘You’re a rich man now,’ I said, as we walked toward the Shadmaan Road. ‘You don’t have to sell papads anymore, or plant explosives in the stadium. Take a vacation or something.’
‘It’s not my money! I have to deliver it to my boss.’
‘Oh, I thought you were self-employed,’ I said. ‘What about the bundles you stashed inside your own pocket? Won’t he find out?’
‘That’s my commission,’ Tarzan said with a toss of his head and a chuckle. ‘Pir Pul Siraat doesn’t care too much about money matters.’
The name, Pir Pul Siraat, stuck me like a bolt of lightning. Whatever was left of my sanity had now blown into pieces. Bending forward I rested my palms against my knees lest I passed out.
‘Sir, are you okay?’
It took me a while before I regained my bearings.
‘What? What did you just say?’ I stammered, feeling as if I were waking from a dream.
Tarzan looked at me all puzzled.
‘Pir Pul Siraat is your boss?’ I stood back up. ‘This is fucking crazy!’
‘Yes, he is the Man, the head of the Resistance Movement, and he’s waiting for us,’ he said, turning my budding understanding of him on its head.
‘Waiting where?’ I asked. So this is how I was supposed to be contacted once I landed. You’ll be contacted once you arrive in Lahore. The whole thing was impossible to accept, way beyond what my analytical mind could grasp.
‘Shah Jamal,’ he said, his face lit with pride.
‘And what’s this resistance movement all about? Resistance against whom?’ I asked, feeling the return of the alarm that had dogged my Path to High Knowledge ever since landing here an eternity ago and fearing his answer.
‘Against the Khalifa.’
Holy crap! This new revelation left me speechless; I realized I was a pawn in the hands of players I knew nothing about. I had so many questions that I didn’t even know where to begin.
So if Pir had been the head of the resistance movement against the Khalifa, then Abba had to be connected to the latter in some important way. Please know that regaining your father’s trust is the path to success of our mission, a mission whose details will only be revealed to you when you are prepared to take action. Suddenly, Abba, whom I had genuinely wanted to patch up with after my Ayahuasca experience, seemed more ominous than my childhood memories of him, which were all but terrifying. I remembered the brutal campaign he had led against the hapless Kalash tribe of Kafiristan for not only gaining popularity and fame but also the choicest berth in Paradise.
Indeed, the price to gain direct knowledge of Paradise and Hell was turning out to be way too steep for a mere mortal like me. Shivering with a mixture of terror and excitement, I braced for more disasters on the Path to High Knowledge I was supposedly treading at the moment.
The excitement and curiosity of meeting with Pir Pul Siraat had taken the edge off my fatigue, but now I was thirsty as hell. My throat stung as if it was lined with sandpaper. Remembering the two bottles of Hoor Afza lying on the backseat of the car, I quickened my pace, my mind desperately trying to make sense of things. All I was certain of was the fact that I had failed miserably in each of the tests on every step of the way.
The power was still out in the area. Submerged in darkness, the houses looked like they had been abandoned for years. The howls of numerous cats pierced through the silence, growing louder as they were joined by more of their clowder to go about their nocturnal rounds. An eerie glow from a crescent moon overhead bathed the area in milky light, and huge shadows crawled over every surface.
Among other things, my perception of time had suffered a blow as well. It was good I had my watch on. It was quarter to one in the morning and my flight had arrived at 6.00 p.m., around seven hours ago. My journey so far felt like some never-ending dream, barrelling along out of control and tumbling toward a dark abyss. It could not be reality, I knew that. Yet I knew this was only the beginning.
The landscape itself was surreal, irrational, and the oddity so pervasive that people had stopped noticing it. This certainly wasn’t how they behaved when I had lived here.
‘Tarzan, I need to use your phone,’ I said, thinking that perhaps I should give my father a call, although I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to do so at this hour.
‘The phone’s dead right now. I took the sim card out.’
‘Why?’
‘Orders from the boss. I think you should stay with us tonight at Shah Jamal. It’s not safe moving around after dark.’
‘As long as Wali is willing to drive, I think I’ll leave right after meeting your boss.’
‘Sir, you don’t get to meet a person like Pir Pul Siraat every day.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Pir has powers.’
‘Powers? What kind?’
‘We’re not allowed to talk about those things,’ Tarzan replied solemnly.
Up ahead I could see the faint outline of a car and I silently prayed it was Wali’s.
‘What if I don’t want to come along with you?’ I had come to realize that asking Tarzan indirect questions was the best way to draw out information.
‘But I can’t show up at Shah Jamal without you. You don’t have a choice here, sir.’
The look on his face told me that if he needed to drag my dead body to Shah Jamal, he would. ‘Orders from the boss’ meant pretty much the same thing here as it did everywhere in the world and in all languages.’
‘Okay, fine. I’ll go with you—but just for a few minutes.’
‘That’s great, sir,’ Tarzan said. ‘Pir will be happy to see you.’
Wali was waiting for us at the end of the road, just as Tarzan had promised. He was lounging on the hood of the car with his head resting on the windshield, smoking a beeri and gazing up at the moon. Seeing us he jumped off the car and gave us a hug like we were his long-lost relatives.
‘Sirji, I’m really glad to see you,’ he said, opening the rear door of the car for me.
I was about to slide into the backseat when I caught sight of some movement out of the corner of my eye. Crouching a few feet above my head on a tree branch was a huge black cat. Its long tail whipped back and forth as the creature studied me with fluorescent yellow eyes.
I froze. Before I could take a breath, the cat lunged through the air and landed on the roof of the car, snarling and baring its long curved fangs. The creature was so close that I could have reached out and touched it. I stumbled backward and Wali started banging on the bonnet with his fist. Startled by the noise, the animal jumped down and darted into the shadows.
‘Damn! That was one huge cat!’ I exclaimed. It was the size of a young leopard.
‘We’re seeing them more and more, sirji,’ Wali said. ‘They’ve even started attacking people.’
‘Where do they come from?’ I asked, scouring the darkness, my body tense in case the thing reappeared. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.’
‘There used to be fewer of them, but their population suddenly increased when the dogs disappeared,’ Wali said.
‘What do you mean “the dogs disappeared”?’ I asked.
‘They were all killed. Slowly all were exterminated. Now, Alhamdolillah, you hardly ever see a dog in this country.’
‘How could you possibly kill all the dogs in a country this big?’
‘It was the order from the Khalifaji.’
‘But why?’
‘Sirji, don’t you know that dogs block the flow of Allah’s blessings when they are present in an area; whether it’s a small house or a whole country? There is a hadith which says that the angels of mercy won’t come to you if there’s a dog nearby.’
‘And people agreed to kill their own pets? That’s horrible! And kind of hard to believe.’
‘Well, if you’re getting one free bottle of Hoor Afza for each dog you kill, that’s pretty much all the incentive most people here need. Hoor Afza had just come on the market when the dog killings started.’ Wali explained this mass extermination of millions of animals, many of whom must have been beloved family pets, like it was a nothing more than a new recycling policy.
‘What’s so special about Hoor Afza?’ Now I was really curious about the drink, which only doubled my thirst.
‘There’s no point talking about it, sirji. Why don’t you try yourself and see what happens? You’ve got two bottles in the car.’
It seemed like the perfect time to try it—quench my thirst and my curiosity at the same time. I got in the car, grabbed one of the bottles lying on the seat and drank the whole thing in one go. It was a mango-flavored, sugary soda drink with a peculiar, mildly sour but pleasant aftertaste. Wali and Tarzan exchanged glances when they saw me opening the second bottle.
‘Anyone interested in Hoor Afza?’ I asked, holding the bottle up. They both shook their heads and I gulped more than half of the second bottle in one go.
‘Wali, we’re not far from Shah Jamal, right?’ I asked.
‘Sirji, it all depends on the road conditions,’ he said.
‘Road conditions? We’re not travelling on Karakoram Highway to China for God’s sake! I could probably walk there in twenty minutes.’
‘Things around here have changed, sirji. Have you ever seen Lahore this quiet before?’ He was right. Shadmaan market was empty and as silent as a graveyard. There was absolutely nobody out on the street.
‘Okay, let’s get going, Wali. It’s already one o’clock,’ I said, feeling a pleasurable tingling sensation through my body. ‘Tarzan can lead the way. We’ll spend a few minutes at the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal and then go on to Faisal Town.’
‘Your wish is my command, sirji,’ Wali said.
For the first time in a long, long while I felt at peace. The prospect of meeting Pir had lifted my otherwise ravaged spirits. I was happy to just be relaxing in the back seat of the car. I leaned back and surrendered myself to the peace and quiet. The tension and foreboding that had gripped me since I first stepped off the plane had been replaced by a delicious indifference to all but the pleasures of lounging here in the back of the car. I watched Tarzan climb into the seat next to Wali and smiled. They looked like a pair of old buddies.
I was beginning to understand Wali’s attitude toward life. There was no guarantee of anything in this world—especially at one o’clock in the morning in Lahore where my father’s old car, equipped with a pair of martyr tanks and a handy safety switch, could be the safest bet in town.
The road was terrible and the car bounced along as if the ground beneath us had been carpet-bombed. Gravel hitting the undercarriage of the car sounded like firecrackers going off under my feet. My arms and legs lay heavily as if made of out lead and a warm cloud of euphoria lulled me like the siren song. I drained the last few drops of the second bottle of Hoor Afza and tossed it on the floor. I took a deep breath, held it, and then sighed.
I felt lightheaded, so I closed my eyes as another delicious wave of warmth washed away my body, the car and my companions. A flurry of images raced through my mind. The vivid clarity of these scenes made me open my eyes in alarm. It was like watching a movie.
In the front seat, two heads bobbed up, down and sideways. I giggled. They looked so hilarious, like a pair of bobble-headed clowns. I recalled from somewhere that these heads were named Wali and Tarzan. I felt remarkably still, as if anesthetized, as the head belonging to Tarzan swivelled around and gazed at me through huge dark eyes.
‘Is everything okay, sir?’ a gentle, hollow voice coming from the head asked.
‘Yeah, I’m good,’ I said, laughing softly. I shut my eyes again and the images resumed their silent parade across the inside of my closed eyelids. Clearer, sharper images now crowded my inner vision—the faces of my ex-girlfriends. I couldn’t even remember the names of many of them. Everything seemed so real. But something wasn’t right. With supreme effort I opened my eyes again.
‘Guys, what exactly is in this Hoor Afza?’ I said. ‘It’s making me see things.’
‘Sirji, with two whole bottles of that stuff in you, we’re sitting here betting on how soon you’ll spot a hoori sitting next to you back there,’ Wali said. ‘That’s why it’s called Hoor Afza.’
‘Spot a what? A hoori? You mean the virgin of Paradise?’ I said. ‘Are you kidding me?’
Suddenly I felt elated. My aches had completely gone and my thoughts soared, except they were all about women. I was completely detached from my body; in it but unfettered, like a morning breeze drifting through a grove of sandalwood, like a butterfly looking for nectar.
‘Sir, this is why the boss forbids us to drink Hoor Afza,’ Tarzan remarked. ‘He says it’s crap—number-two stuff.’
‘What the hell are you guys talking about? This is crazy!’ I wondered what the number-one stuff would be like.
‘Sirji, don’t waste time talking. Just relax, close your eyes and dream,’ Wali advised. ‘Enjoy it as long as it lasts.’
My body tingled and started to flush. I felt as if I was held in a soft embrace of a warm, viscous liquid. All my blood seemed to be rushing towards my loins. Just go with the flow, I thought, closing my eyes.
I saw myself sitting beside four girls whom I had dated while doing my masters: Christen, Judith, Aisha and Kim. They all wore bikinis and lay on towels spread over lush grass. I could do anything I wanted to with them. They were there just for me.
‘Holy shit!’ I said loudly, grabbing my head.
‘Sirji, is she sexy?’ Wali asked. ‘When you relax, they look better and better by the minute.’
‘There are four of them, Wali,’ I said.
‘It’s good practice for the seventy-two you’ll get up there,’ he said, winking and jabbing his thumb toward the ceiling of the car.
‘Sir, the drink brings out one’s fantasies,’ Tarzan chimed in. ‘You see what you’ve been wanting to see deep in your heart.’
‘Don’t tell me this shit is available to the public.’ My loins throbbed and threatened to carry me over the edge. I struggled with the decision to either proceed with my Hoor Afza-induced mental imagery and gratify myself with these four ravishing beauties simultaneously or stop immediately by opening my eyes.
‘Sirji, now you know what I was talking about?’ Wali said. He seemed to be having quite a lot of fun at my expense. The car hit a deep pothole and my head banged against the roof. My eyes shot open and I stared at Wali.
‘Sorry, sirji, I didn’t mean to spoil your fun.’
‘Sir, two bottles of this stuff can drive anyone crazy,’ Tarzan said.
‘How long does this shit usually last?’ I asked, covering the obvious bulge under my robe with my hand.
‘Long enough to cum once; maybe twice if you get lucky,’ Tarzan snickered, turning around and ogling me. ‘It all depends on how fast you can get it up again after the first time.’
Wali looked at Tarzan and they both roared like a couple of teenagers.
‘Don’t talk like that in front of sirji, Tarzan!’ Wali scolded, his tone mocking and ready to erupt with laughter again. ‘Show some respect!’
‘What if I keep my eyes open?’ I asked, ignoring their fit of giggles.
‘Sirji, then what’s the point of drinking Hoor Afza?’ Wali asked. ‘Shut your eyes and go back to playing with yourself. We won’t look. This time,’ he added, stifling another round of laughter.
‘What happens to women when they drink this stuff?’ I asked, shoving the bulge down between my legs.
‘They’re forbidden to even touch Hoor Afza, sirji. No one in their right mind would sell that stuff to women. They put you in jail for things like that,’ Wali said. His voice sounded like it was bubbling up from the bottom of a deep well.
Drifting off again, I wondered if I could control my trip vision and direct it to go wherever I wanted it to. I closed my eyes and conjured up the face of my beautiful Sophie. She was standing exactly where I had first kissed her, by the waterfall. A rainbow formed over the curtain of mist as water crashed over the boulders and gushed down toward the valley below.
She stepped forward and brushed my neck with her soft fingers. Her lips parted and my mouth touched hers. She tasted like apricots. Suddenly overwhelmed with guilt, I opened my eyes. Somehow it didn’t feel right to be thinking about her. Not like that. I felt angry at my father. Why in the hell did he decide to marry my girlfriend, of all the women in the world?
I closed my eyes. This time I would just look at her possibly from far away. A lush green hillside opened up before me: living, breathing, three-dimensional. I could even smell the little purple flowers and the tall grass.
Once again, I could see Sophie standing in the distance as if through a pair of powerful binoculars. There was a bunch of wild purple flowers in her hands. She wore her favourite long, black skirt and the red-fringed shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders trailed down her back, getting entangled in her hair. She was gathering flowers as she waded through a field of mauve blossoms that spread over the green slope. Wind brushed through the golden grass like a great unseen hand. All I could think of was her hair, bathed in the crimson rays of the setting sun.
About fifty feet from where she stood, a dark shadow emerged from the tall grass. I gasped when I realized that the shadow was of a heavyset, dark-skinned man wearing a black shawl. He crouched like a tiger, slowly creeping closer toward Sophie as I watched helplessly from my self-imposed distance. Oblivious to her stalker, she knelt down to pluck a bunch of wildflowers. That was when the man sprang forward and dashed toward her. Before she could flee or even cry for help, he was on top of her.
Terrified, she screamed and beat his chest with her fists. But he was too big and powerful to have felt her blows. He grabbed her by the waist, lifted her off the ground and then threw her over his shoulder. She kicked the air desperately but to no avail. The hideous intruder darted across the meadow, carrying Sophie over his shoulder like a sheep for the slaughter.
The man came to a halt at the edge of a hole in the ground. Just then I opened my eyes. I was sweating, completely shaken. I knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that the man had jumped into that dark round pit. My Sophie had been taken into the underworld.
I struggled to keep my eyes open until we reached Shah Jamal. It was a bone-rattling ride over a cratered road littered with rocks and debris. Though shaken by a vision so real I could still smell the flowers and see that hideous, gaping hole, I was gripped by the crisis between my legs at that moment which had become almost unbearably painful.
I glanced at the front seat and saw Wali and Tarzan chatting. As promised, nobody was looking. I pulled my robe all the way up to my waist. I reached down and wedged my right hand between my legs and rocked against the seat, making sure my cum stayed within my underwear. After a couple of minutes, my body shook with delight and I felt the warm wetness over my groins.
A few minutes later Wali stopped the car in front of the shrine of Baba Shah Jamal. By the time Tarzan opened his door, about a dozen men dressed in black surrounded the car. Their faces were masked with veils, rendering them almost invisible in the darkness that engulfed the shrine.
‘Everybody out!’ one of the men barked.
‘Tarzan, this wasn’t part of the deal! Now what?’ I managed to whisper into his ear.
‘Be calm, sir,’ Tarzan said. ‘They’re just doing their job.’
We all got out and stood by the car. The air was filled with the sounds of howling cats. They were somewhere up in the trees and their wailing filled the night like a song of death.
Entering the shrine’s grounds I saw many people seated in groups around fires. A dense cloud of smoke hung over their heads and the pungent aroma of cannabis saturated the air. The cats had become silent as they watched from the trees.
Escorted by half a dozen armed men, Tarzan and I walked past the fires. The men were all smoking hashish from rough carved pipes that were being passed around the circles. No one bothered to even look up as we passed. They were lost in another world.
‘Where’s Wali?’ I whispered.
‘He’s staying with the car.’ Tarzan said, his burlap sack hanging from his shoulder. ‘Sir, don’t be afraid, they’re going to blindfold you now.’
Before I could speak, someone threw a piece of cloth over my head and tied it behind my neck, covering my eyes and my face. Then someone else grasped me firmly by the arm and walked me around in circles. We walked like this for a good five minutes before descending a steep, narrow stairway.
My shoulders rubbed against rough stone walls as we made our way downward. I counted nineteen steps before my feet hit a flat surface. We walked again for a minute or two before halting; then my blindfold was removed. I was standing next to Tarzan on what looked like a rocky ledge. We were overlooking a huge courtyard filled with about thirty people; mostly boys in their teens. The men who accompanied us had disappeared.
Lit by a dozen or so gas lamps hanging around the periphery, the courtyard looked like it was floating in the air. Three tightropes were stretched across the courtyard, each tied to the apex of a pyramidal assortment of four metal poles set in a concrete base on either side.
All three tightropes had boys edging their way across the open space of the courtyard some twenty feet below, their arms spread out and their faces strained with concentration. The rest stood below, watching the action with rapt attention.
A man wearing a white-striped black tracksuit walked around beneath the tightropes, monitoring the progress the boys were making and barking instructions from time to time. He wore a red headband across his forehead and his long white hair hung limp down his back. He must have been six feet tall and was well built. I figured this had to be Pir Pul Siraat.
We were gathered inside some massive building or subterranean cavern. There was no moon visible overhead, nor could I see any ceiling above. The man with the red headband turned and walked toward us, looking straight ahead. Two large black cats dashed across the courtyard and he stopped to scratch their ears and stroke their sleek fur. They flanked him as he walked, their tails raised in the air and their sides brushing his legs. They looked like two young black jaguars.
‘Tarzan, where the hell are we?’ I managed to whisper.
‘We’re inside the world of Pir Pul Siraat.’