The Parakeet Republic
Allah, America and the Army:
In this exact order, the godhead administers Pakistan, and unless you know one of their minions, you’re screwed. I’m lucky, I suppose: I snagged a ticket to the gravy train.
In the lavish office wallpapered in beige with periwinkle floral patterns, the glassy rosewood floor squeaks under my dull penny loafers. A massive twin-pedestal desk, maple with ornate legs, majestically rests by the far wall.
From behind it sneers a human boulder in a sable tunic named the honorable Wadda: his greasy, shoulder-length locks combed back, and a monopoly-man mustache betwixt his beefy jowls.
My heart flutters as his panda eyes fix on me. Act like a man, Shafu, not a mongoose. You badly need the gig, yes, and you’re more than qualified. You can’t drive a rickshaw forever. Think of your aging, unwed sisters. Gripping the envelope-style folder tighter to my side, I halt, ramrod straight, before his desk.
He motions me to sit opposite him on a straight-backed chair upholstered in satiny cinnamon. Then he folds one bole-broad leg atop the other, tents his fubsy fingers over his belly, and reclines on his throne-wide swivel chair.
I tug at my buttoned collar. His estate puts princes to shame. I’m set for life if he trusts me. Hell, his type could buy the country tomorrow and think it chump change. In a few years, after I have his confidence, I’ll beseech him to transfer me to his English manor. I reach inside the folder, simpering, and produce a sheaf of credentials.
“I’m here for the job, most exalted sahib,” I say, extending the stapled papers.
In mere seconds he coolly flicks through my life and lobs the papers onto his desk. “This is all?”
My breath cinches. All? For a lowly staff position, should I complete a PhD? “Um, is something the problem, sahib?”
“Yes, you have no manners. Where are my tributary sweetmeats?” he says, squinting.
Gluttonous bastard, if I could afford to buy sweetmeats frivolously, you think I’d apply to bathe your horses? I squirm in the chair. “A thousand pardons, your magnificence. I will not disappoint next time and bring you double.”
He breaks into a belly laugh and wobbles like Jell-O. “Me? No, no. You’ve disappointed Peer Ji (revered master). It is his forgiveness you must beg.”
I gape at him while crumpling my skinny black tie. “Absolutely, sahib. When may I undertake this honor?”
His gaze wanders to somewhere below his desk, and returns to me, flinty. “We’ll see. He’s meditating.”
Tsk, which organ will this forgiveness cost me? I voice a nervous chuckle. “Of course.”
He tips forward and plants his palms on the tabletop. “I don’t think my horses will let you touch them. You appear slovenly, and they’re royals through and through.”
My chin trembles. You’ve got to be kidding me. I spent half the damn night ironing these mothballed slacks. “Surely, sahib, you can convince them to give me a chance?”
He throws his hands up in mock exasperation. “Allah knows only Peer Ji can get anything done round here.”
The antlered cuckoo clock above his head raucously strikes three. Wadda at once shoots to his feet and yanks out a desk drawer. He upraises a shamrock green puggaree (turban) and meticulously installs it on his head.
My brow arches. Someone’s coming? The prime minister? I grip the padded armrests and rise into a crouch. “Everything okay, sahib?”
Behind me, the office door lashes open, and in strides a wiry tuxedoed man with a funereal expression. In one hand he grips a baroque birdcage to his ribs, in the other a tawny leather flap-over case. There is an unusual heft to his gait, as if he’s wearing workman boots under his starchy trousers.
The man silently sets both items on the desk and glides out. Wadda gazes at the birdcage and reverently palms his heart. Bone-white, it has the contours of an ancient fortress complete with slatted windows and steeples.
He throws me a nasty look. “Salute, you ingrate.”
I blink on repeat and acquiesce.
He shuts his eyes and appears to mutter a quick prayer. Then he gently unhooks the cage door and steps back. Muted squawks sound from inside, followed by a feathery pitter-patter.
First, a candy red beak, curved as a crab’s claw, peeks outside. Then he skips out: a pop-eyed parakeet with vivid yellow irises who reeks of half a dozen perfumes.
Wadda beams at me, and with an open palm gestures toward the bird. “This is our lord and savior, Peer Ji.”
My jaw hangs halfway to the floor. I know anything goes in Pakistan, but…
The parakeet flitters about the desk. He knocks over a sailboat-shaped penholder and shreds the lone tissue reaching out from an ivory-and-gold box. All the while, Wadda dips his head and folds his hands over the waist as if lost in salat.
My mind brims with choice cusses, but I dare not express them. Since I was a child, people told me every man must one day proclaim a donkey as his father to get ahead. I guess that day has come for me, and also, I only have enough cash to make this one trip. I quietly mimic Wadda.
Soon the bird tires of the frolicking and plays dead beside the premium bottled water. His eyelids droop and he crooks his neck to cuddle against its flawless plastic.
Wadda breaks his pose and reaches for the case. He withdraws a flat rectangular pouch of the same make and plops into his throne. “Your life is in Peer Ji’s hands now.”
I lick my dry lips and lower inchmeal into the seat. Is he going to set the parakeet on me and see if I survive the mauling? I hear his cronies have private prisons with vicious pit bulls, but I’m no political rival. Hell, I’m a nobody. “I-I don’t understand, sahib.”
He unbuckles the pouch, and on the desktop arrays a stack of red-and-blue banded envelopes with their edges overlapping. Peer Ji flashes open his peepers and springs upright. He voices a throaty squawk and madly bobbles his head.
My gut churns as I slant forward. No, I must be wrong. This can’t be what I think it is.
“Burfi, burfi. Idiot, idiot,” the bird screams.
Wadda solemnly nods and turns to me. “I told you Peer Ji’s pissed. He wants his favorite sweetmeat.”
Then he coos at the bird, “Don’t worry, I’ll order some for you.” Peer Ji narrows his eyes and squalls in my direction.
I leap upright and clasp my hands to the chest. Bowing, I say in a fake teary voice, “Please forgive me Peer Ji. May my family perish in fulfilling your every desire.”
Wadda giggles and his shoulders shimmy. He taps the envelopes. “Very good. Now, let’s see what Allah intends for you.”
Peer Ji waddles back and forth over them, and his beak brushes a few.
I cover my mouth as hiccups seize me. All my years studying hard in college, what a waste. If only I’d listened to my father and learned to sew prayer caps. Will Wadda throw me before the hounds if I fail? What am I passing or failing at, anyway?
SQUAWK. The parakeet whips out an envelope and pushes it toward Wadda.
Bright-eyed, he lifts the seal flap and draws out white paper the size of a business card. Right away his brow pinches. “Trust in Trump?”
He rummages through the other envelopes as Peer Ji returns to his repose by the bottled water. “Goddammit, the national policy stack,” he grumbles and feverishly repacks the pouch.
Then he slouches and suspires. “You’re an ill omen. This has never happened before. To think Peer Ji didn’t sense the wrong stack.” He glares at me cock-eyed. “How did you hoodwink him? Are you a sorcerer? An Indian agent?”
What madhouse is this? Should I cut my losses and run? I weakly wave my palms from side to side. “No, no, sahib. There must be some mistake. I just want a job.”
He menacingly twirls his mustache. “Peer Ji cannot make miracles twice in one day. Allah knows we’ve tried.” Then he arches a brow. “Unless you have a bestowment, hmm?”
My toes gnarl in the loafers. I have three hundred rupees in my wallet: my fare back home. And if I bestow them, there’s no park nearby to slum in for the night. Round here, they only have hyenas and wild boars, present company included. “B-but sahib, I’m needy myself. I can only promise my first wage.”
He tut-tuts. “Are you new to this country, boy? Don’t know how things work here?”
Stupid Naya (new) Pakistan; it’s as wretched as old Pakistan. Much as my rickshaw is a sputtering scooter welded to a gaudy carriage. I swallow hard and shakily reach for my back pocket. From my chapped, shapeless wallet, I withdraw three soiled notes and hold them out.
“This is all I have,” I say, steeling myself for his wrath.
Wadda guffaws. “Smart boy. Slip the cash into the tissue box.”
He cants across his desk to grab the leather case and peers inside, his stumpy fingers flicking through its contents. Then he plucks out another pouch, a facsimile of the one before. “Hmm, losers. Yes, this is the one.”
My chest tightens and my teeth gnash. Yes, we’re losers, sahib. For when you first sought our vote all those years ago, we didn’t lynch you instead.
Wadda repeats his ritual with the envelopes and again taps them. Peer Ji hoists his neck and blankly glimpses round. Then he hops toward the box and sniffs the cash.
“You better hope your money is untainted. Peer Ji hates corrupt people,” Wadda says, rubbing his chin.
I speechlessly nod and sans permission wilt into my chair.
The parakeet struts across the envelopes; a poke here, a jab there; all the while throwing me the stink eye. Then he schleps one out, and instantly soars toward his cage to perch atop the steeple. Wadda lifts the chosen envelope in both palms as if it were a sliver of the Kaaba’s shroud.
I respire and my limbs quiver. Please Allah, let this be a condition I can meet. I’m not sure how many of my organs are saleable on the black market, and I certainly can’t pledge my first born while my marriage prospects are dim.
Wadda frowns as he studies its contents. “Hmm?” Then he looks toward Peer Ji, who winks twice.
Not good, not good. “Something wrong, sahib?”
“No, no. It all makes sense now.” He flips the piece of paper toward me. “Peer Ji was not at fault, obviously. It was you.”
The paper simply says: Shida.
My face scrunches as I scratch my tousled hair. Who the hell is that? Is he trying to pin some dacoity on me? “I don’t follow.”
He leans back in his throne and laces his fingers behind the head. “Simple, your name should be Shida, not Shafu. It’s your mistake, your parent’s mistake. Peer Ji is never wrong.”
My fingernails dig into my thighs as I goggle at him. “Excuse me?”
He sighs. “Change your name to Shida and the gig is yours. You have ten minutes to decide,” he says, stuffing the case. The parakeet crows his assent and nibbles at an armpit.
The office whirls round me as if I’m a worm staring at the steaming turbines of a jet engine.
Preposterous. And to Shida? Wasn’t he the man who unclogged gutters in my village? Humph, my name is of great import. Grandfather dreamed someone threw a rose in his lap and urged him to name it Shafu: the compassionate one. And I have lived up to my name amid unapologetic scoundrels. Who runs this damn country? The parakeet? Goddammit, that makes so much painful sense.
The room glues back together again. Wadda slumbers and noisily snores. Atop the cage, Peer Ji’s head tucks between his wings and his ball-like figure sways.
My blood boils and I flush crimson. This fool organizes a protest to clinch a top government gig, but does he do any work? No, why should he? Because Peer Ji, may Allah smite him, makes all the decisions. I harrumph and lump my chair a few inches forward.
Wadda’s eye winks open and he sits upright. “Who are you?” he asks in a hoarse voice. Peer Ji screeches and swoops over to the desktop.
My lips press into tweezers. Nothing doing, I’ll dip into my sisters’ marriage fund. They’ve waited years, what’s a few more months? “Sahib, isn’t there another way beside changing my name? Maybe I can work for free a few weeks so you can assess my commitment?” I ask delicately.
He scrubs his face and squinches. “Eh? What name?” Then he straightens with a menacing face. “How did you get in, huh? Are you an assassin?” His hand retracts a drawer, and inside, metal clinks.
A gun? This man could murder me here and tomorrow declare me a terrorist. I bolt upright, breathless, and raise my open palms to my ribs. “I-it’s Shafu, sahib. I’m here for the post of horse-bather, remember?”
He scowls at me, wild-eyed, and clutches to his side something that glints as steel. Peer Ji jets off the desktop and flutters in a circle overhead, clamoring, “Time-out, time-out.”
I press my sticky palms against the ears. What do I do now? Try to reason with him in the hope he’s temporarily insane and will soon calm down, but risk the bullet? Or hightail it out of here and later panhandle for the cab fare? I need the job, but it won’t feed my corpse.
The cuckoo clock strikes four and the parakeet screeches louder. At once, the office door whips open, and the tuxedoed man with the gloomy demeanor reappears.
This time he clasps to his waist a black remote control: the width of a transistor radio with two outstretched antennas. The man stops halfway into the room and whistles.
Peer Ji at once glides over to his shoulder. “Inshallah, martial law!” he cries, throwing his head back.
My legs are bags of sand and a giant mango clogs my throat. What is the blasted bird blabbing about? I look from the stranger to Wadda. “Mommy,” I babble.
Wadda’s face is ashen and his jaw twitches. He gapes at the man, his mouth opening and closing without a sound. Then a dawn-gray firearm the shape of a detergent’s spray nozzle clangs onto the floor, and his arms winch up in surrender.
I don’t know what to do, so I clench my sphincter.
The remote control clicks and straightaway Wadda sinks into the floor with a whoosh. A creaking sound follows, and then more clinks, and something slams shut.
The tuxedoed man frowns at my frozen self. He clacks over to me and slaps my cheek with a gloved hand.
The cowhide stings, but gets my blood going, though I may wet myself. The parakeet at close quarters has an intensely discomforting stare.
He places a firm hand on my shoulder and eyeballs me. “Don’t worry, son. We’ll always save the day,” he says in a gravelly voice.
The small bones in my spine chatter from his icy cool. Am I saved or in deeper trouble?
He drills toward the desk, collects the leather case and the cage, and breezily pockets my cash. Then he steps behind it, kicks back Wadda’s throne, and stomps on the floor. It makes a hollow sound.
“You were never here. Or else, well, you know how it goes,” he says casually.
My mind wells with questions, but I know better. Never mess with people who bet rocket launchers at weekend poker.
He meets my stare with a stony face. “Questions?”
I rub the nape of my neck and break into a dopey smile. “Y-yes, sahib bahadur. Can your tank drop me home?”
