The Hunter Inside

The journey from Islamabad was short and easy. But I’d slept only about three hours: after a very long walk in the city’s Jasmine Gardens and then a search for supper one of its numerous ‘markaz’ areas, under gathering thunder clouds and flashes of lightning, the evening before my departure, I’d sat up almost all night because of a storm, and given shelter from the rain until nearly dawn to the companions who’d taken me around. They were both on motorbikes and couldn’t ride home in hard rain on hilly paths.  

I am expecting just one visitor at 5 p.m., my friend Shama who wants to greet me after my thirteen months away from the city, and to run through the passages she’s going to read at the launch of my new book on Wednesday. But my friend and editor, Shahbano texts to tell me she’s approaching my club and will drop by to welcome me. I now have two guests to tea. Shahbano orders chips – called French fries here – which we eat while the two of them, who hadn’t expected to be here at the same time, discuss the excerpts to be read, while I listen in placid exhaustion. 

At some point I’m back in my room and hungry. I order a meal of rice and two curries, chicken and prawns, from Room Service. After we’ve eaten, Kashiff reminds me to open my suitcase to give him a gift I’ve brought him from London. I unzip the case. Instead of my clothes and books I see a folded traditional cloth bedizened with mirrors, a woman’s yellow dress with a pattern of appliqued red flowers, and recoil – this isn’t mine, I exclaim, and dash to the telephone before Kashiff has time to take in what’s happened. Reception tells me that I can only call PIA from the downstairs desk; I can’t make external calls from my room. I rush downstairs. 

It’s a losing battle. No response from anywhere. Tomorrow’s the Prophet’s birthday and everything’s going to be shut. The worst of it all is, I’ve got my whole week’s stock of Enzalutamide, my lifesaver, in the case; only one morning’s supply in my hand baggage. It’s a ritual I’m so used to it’s become invisible; four pills at the same time every morning after my first few cups of tea. (I’m also used to the side effects: insomnia, mood swings, memory gaps.) Missing one day is permissible. Miss two and the doctors say I’m in danger. My painkillers are missing too.  

But in the morning, after multiple calls, Kashiff manages to find someone in the airport who tells us to rush over there with the case. Kashiff has never seen me so fraught before. I have almost nothing in my hand luggage and though the bathroom is well-equipped with toiletries I’m tired of the sticky clothes I’ve been wearing for the last twenty-four hours. I need a change of underpants. 

Kashiff has known me for nearly four years, since we first met over cups of tea and cigarettes after a talk I gave at the Lok Virsa in Islamabad. He’d come across me through the occasional columns I write for DAWN. He’d taken a postgraduate degree in Islamabad and was leaving for his native Larkana the next day. We planned to meet again in Karachi, in summer. He was a very talented singer and gifted videographer. He had a long stint working in an archive in Karachi, where he also took music lessons. I met him once for tea, and once for supper, on my next trip when I was there to complete work on a new book; he attended a talk I gave at a bookshop. But when I returned a couple of months later to launch the book he was nowhere to be found. Later he wrote that he’d decided to go back to his lands in Larkana and become a gentleman farmer there. By the time he got back in touch I’d broken my leg in two places. But just two months after I was allowed to walk, unaided, I made it back to Pakistan four times in as many months; on the second of those visits, I’d already been diagnosed with cancer. Kashiff came to Karachi, travelling overnight on two of those trips, to spend an afternoon with me on one occasion and two on another. On the third of my visits, I’d lost my sister to a savage attack from the same hidden hunter that lives within me; and I’d been told that I was at Stage 4. But I decided to go ahead with the with a masterclass, and the Karachi launch of my first Urdu book. Kashiff was unable to leave his lands to come over to the city. 

But we met again in Karachi when I flew back, via Islamabad and Lahore, in September that year as soon as I was given leave to fly after the various lockdowns. We’d been corresponding throughout the pandemic after my mother died in April, and my disease had metastasised; my treatment underwent several transformations. At times I’d despair of it all, and of ever seeing anyone in Pakistan again. I was in double isolation; like my artist friend Rabbya in Lahore, with whom I’d spent my last hours in Pakistan before lockdown was announced a few weeks later, Kashiff had been a constantly encouraging presence during those days when all communication was virtual. I can’t remember how long exactly I was ‘shielding’ during those months. News from my tests was more and more dispiriting as cancer spread to my bones. 

Then there was the reassuring news that I’d responded well to the wonder drug and only needed to attend hospital after three months. And on that trip to Karachi, which was also in semi-lockdown, I saw Kashiff, and Shahbano and some other friends, nearly every day.

(There’s an unspoken conspiracy among them all that they won’t talk about death, and when I address it, they insist I’ll be around for many more years, though the oncologists predict a maximum of four. Excessive attention is paid, instead, to my bad leg. The hunter inside remains in hiding. But though they avoided the subject my friends we’re aware that this might be my last trip to Karachi.) 

A few days before flying to Karachi I’d taken a cab from Islamabad to Lahore on a fine September afternoon, past fields of fruit-bearing trees. As evening fell, Rabbya was waiting under the mulberry tree outside her house to go to dinner at the house of a writer friend after a reviving brew of tea. The next day she’d master planned a drive in the heat of a late Lahore morning to the tombs of Nur Jehan and Jehangir. I have idyllic photographs of the day, taken by both her and me, in the monuments and in their gardens. At the airport the next evening, when I asked her if she thought I’d ever make it back to Lahore, she replied: You’ve hopped across a continent and up and down staircases with your conditions, you’ll be here again. In time to see the mulberry tree outside my window laden with white fruit. So, I’m like the proverbial bad penny, I said. With renewed lockdowns in both our countries I never made it back for the mulberry season. 

Rabbya was right. Now, after thirteen months, there’s another book and another return. Today, though, I’m unable to reach anyone in Karachi to help me out, as phone lines across the city are shutting down. All communication lines from the Gymkhana are dead. We walk out in the midday sun, dragging the errant suitcase; Kashiff negotiates a fare with a taxi driver. We’re almost at the airport’s gates when Kashiff receives a call: No point in coming today. No one’s working. But we’re nearly here, Kashiff says. I lose hope. He politely insists that the guards call the airport official, whose name he’s copied down, to attend to us. The official emerges at the arrival gate. There’s a long conversation in Sindhi about my suitcase; they’ve managed to locate it because of all the tags I’ve retrieved from various places. It’s gone to the town of Badin. Kashiff explains, again in Sindhi, that I have life-saving medicines in there and it’s imperative I get them back that day. I move away to smoke a cigarette since I don’t speak a word of Sindhi and can’t really join them. Two guards are immediately beside me to offer me a light. The officials, after another long call in Sindhi, grudgingly give Kashiff the number of the passenger who’s carried away my case. One of them tell me that PIA will now absolve themselves of the issue; the exchange of cases is the problem of us foolish travellers who made the mistake and any claims must be settled between ourselves.

Kashiff manages to make contact with the people in Badin who have my case on the way back to the club. In his calm but persistent Sindhi conversation I hear the words cancer, medication, and worried. They promise, he tells me, that they’ll get the suitcase to me before nightfall. They must be needing their own stuff, too. When we get back, we discover that all communication lines have been cut; any chance of help even from the friends who were waiting to visit is out, unless they just show up. It doesn’t occur to me to call from Kashiff’s number, and I realise he has limited data. Anyway, I have no real idea how they can help, unless they drive me all the way to Badin on a national holiday to pick up the truant case. In my dogged Londoner’s way, I’d tried to handle it all myself but now, after the several calls I made from reception before their lines went down, Kashiff took over, and I am aware that I don’t know how to manage the system in the city of my birth.      

By evening, after several more calls, Kashiff’s calm optimism is giving way to frustrated crankiness. I know these people, he says, they’re lying, they’ll never bring the case tonight, they obviously don’t care enough about their own lost luggage: and the last time I told them you needed your pills, they said, Well God keep him safe, which was a way of dismissing your disease as your own business.  

Night has fallen; I suggest we go out for a walk on the deserted street, to set aside the day’s worries, and wait to see what tomorrow will bring. I’m strangely reminded of my shielding months at the thought of being shut away in my room at night with no clothes and limited contact. We cross a deserted square to the petrol station to the only shop that’s open, buy two packs of local Marlboros, and walk back, laughing in dismissal of the errant suitcase, to the Gymkhana under a waxing red moon. In three days, I’ve been promised a ride on a boat, to see the full red moon rise over the sea.        

II

Wednesday. I receive a text from Kashiff telling me the case is on its way. It’s morning; I have my launch this afternoon and, recognising the pressures the city of my birth is placing on me, I know I’ll have to be at the Arts Council long before my talk begins. 

Today the influx of morning visitors, which I often find hard to manage, is welcome. My friend Nasir, who works nearby, is the first: I’ve known him six years, in which time he’s published two collections of poems, and got married, too. He tells me that if he’d known in time, he could have had the suitcase picked up, or delivered. He wants to take me out on the passenger seat of his motorbike for brunch, but I’m still waiting for Kashiff. I’ll take you to Urdu Bazaar tomorrow, he says. Then another writer friend arrives, Wasio whom I’ve known for as long; we’ve adopted each other as brothers. We’ve shared news of marriages, births, sickness, deaths, and books over these years, face to face, on the phone, on messenger. He whizzes me off in his car and insists on buying me new clothes, at a fancy boutique in a mall by the sea, for the launch of my book in the evening. We lunch. 

On our way back to the club, I receive a text from Kashiff: my case is going to be dropped off at a junction not far away from where he’s staying with his family, in the distant suburb of Malir. He’ll collect it. He sends a photograph of the case, strapped to the top of a van. It’s already 3 p.m. I know it won’t be here before I leave for my talk at 4:30 p.m. I quickly shower and change before Shahbano comes to pick me up. But I’ve forgotten to buy new underwear. 

Shahbano wants to take me somewhere nice for dinner after the launch, but I know I’ll be too anxious to eat until the case arrives. Finally, it does. Without Kashiff. Reception sends it up, an hour or so after I reach my room. I think I’ve missed two days of medication; it’s too late to take my pills now. What the hell. Perhaps the lost suitcase, travelling back to Karachi on top of a van, is going to be another recurrent motif in my dreams: the sheet of misplaced pills, as it’s never been before, a reminder of a flame within that still wants time to flicker before it blows out.  

The first response I get from a friend who’s seen pictures of my talk on Instagram is: 

• Your clothes are ill-fitting.
• Oh yeah, well.    

I wonder where Kashiff is. 

My friend Taha comes to keep me company while I unpack and unwind after my public appearance. Though we speak often, I haven’t seen him face to face since before the lockdown. Kashiff texts just after he leaves, to tell me his best friend’s father died; he’s on his way back to his village. He sent the case with a cousin and wants to know if everything’s in it. Yes, I got the pills, I say. Nothing else really matters. I don’t hear from him again during the five remaining days of my stay in Pakistan, nor when I’m back in London. Perhaps the effort of reclaiming my case was too much for him. 

III

I dreamed last night that I was about to die in the arms of a woman who may have been my mother. My eyes were closed; I knew that if I managed to count down to zero, I’d be gone. But when I passed the number one, I rose to my feet, lurched to the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water. I was alive. I realised I was awake: I’d actually walked to the kitchen. It was 5 a.m. Usually dreams of this sort leave me paralysed and sweating in my bed, afraid of the darkness and the day to come. Now all I had to contend with were the last two dark hours before daylight. Then I’d rise and begin, as I often do, to read or write. 

I’ve had strange dreams since I came back from Karachi. One, I think, is recurrent: I’m running through a white underground tunnel. I know it’s Karachi. In another, a friend who I have been cautioning from speeding on his motorbike is lying, bandaged from head to foot in surgical white, on a hospital bed. Each time I’ve woken up with a milder form of the high anxiety which caused me insomnia last winter; they called it suicidal ideation. It led my oncologist to assign me a counsellor, on Zoom, to discuss the connection between the disease and unresolved issues of grief and mourning. Over and again, in the dark months and until spring and lockdown’s precarious end, I had to tell her: I had cancer before my sister died. I had a full diagnosis of an incurable form of it before my mother died. So, aren’t these dreams a reaction to a year of lockdown, and don’t they reach back, perhaps, to older losses, betrayals, conflicts? 

Several months before the hunter within me was detected, I had a freak fall while opening the backdoor of my building; my leg cramped, gave way under me, and I slipped on a rain-drenched slope. I fell, if I remember face downward, on the pavement, somehow managing to break both fibula and tibia. Five weeks on my back, ankle full of metal, hobbling to the lavatory on a walker. Five weeks or more with a surgical boot, still not allowed to place any weight on the damaged ankle. Then, finally, a combination of boot and crutch; I started teaching again that way. Then, one day in July, I was free to walk unaided. I know that my freakish accident was the result of unexpressed emotional trauma. I’d been feeling that I was ‘heading for a fall’, and the feeling proved to be quite literal. It was my body, not my mind, that couldn’t withstand the weight – deaths of friends, as well as loss and betrayal -that I’d carried for months. Just three months after my dismissal from the orthopaedic clinic, I visited my GP to tell him my leg hadn’t healed. He insisted on giving me a battery of tests and suspected prostate cancer right away.

In the months that followed I was accused at different times by family and friends of bravery, courage, fortitude, fear, and anger. My first reaction to the diagnosis was that I didn’t want to fight the disease. All I’d known was that, after hours suffocating in noisy machines with a body full of chemicals, I couldn’t bear the indignity of any form of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. But friends and family forced me to change my decision. Then, partly because of the danger of travelling daily to the hospital during the pandemic, I was placed on the pills that I lost in the suitcase. They’ve been successful for longer than expected but every visit to – or call from – the oncologist is an experience of Damocles’ sword. 

I can’t remember now whether it was one of the many oncologists I’ve seen since my diagnosis or my counsellor that said I should learn to live with cancer, not die of it. I feel that if my body was whole that might be easier. I hobble on with my metal ankle. I’ve treated myself carelessly and casually, pandemic permitting, disease and bad leg ignored whenever possible, as if each day is my last. As I reached the end of my talking therapy, my counsellor asked: Aren’t you aware that you’ve published two books and several other texts during this period of grief, travelled to Pakistan in semi-lockdown, taught on Zoom, and given a dozen talks as well? Are you aware that you have friends in more than one country and how much they love and cherish you? 

I’m glad I’ve told her all that. I don’t like to enumerate my public activities to myself, am often dismissive of them to others. Though I never take love for granted, it often isn’t enough. But complaining to a loved one that I feel neglected seems like a kind of suicide. Complacency would make me lazy. I want to go beyond these hazards. I will occasionally push my body to its ultimate resources: that crazy drive keeps me going. But sometimes I’m so tired that I just want to sleep forever. So, whose is the voice of denial that speaks to my counsellor, and makes her think I underestimate myself? Where is the voice of self-affirmation? Who enters my dreams at night, makes me wake up sweating? Is it the hidden hunter of disease or an older, crueller twin that lives within me? And which twin is the friend? And who is the adversary?

But this body is the only home I have; I have to learn to tame the twins, if indeed they’re twins, and accept the doubled hunter, that unwelcome guest who lives inside me.