Hina sniggered to herself with the thought that there wasn't exactly a long queue of tourists waiting to brave roadside bombs and drone attacks in India's two dysfunctional Islamic neighbours. Her father, a devout Muslim born in Lahore, would have probably hit her for such thoughts, but her home was Delhi, not Pakistan, which she had left at the age of one during the Partition in 1947. And while she considered herself a devout Muslim, she found nothing in common with the hateful radicals who seemed to hold sway nowadays in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She put the last plate in its place and then turned to the TV, planning to finish her coffee before she heated dinner. She flipped the channel to BBC, where they were interviewing the American President, who was in London for a summit. She had welcomed his election, not because of any other reason but because she found him strikingly handsome. She took comfort in the fact that sixty-five summers had still not entirely robbed her of the feelings and emotions that had once made her a vivacious young woman.
Those eyes that she had admired now looked filled with trepidation as the American President spoke.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we have been through a number of outbreaks before. Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS and many others. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this latest outbreak and their families, but I do want to reassure all of you that medical science is now at such a level that we can contain and eventually turn back such outbreaks.'
One of the reporters asked a question.
'Mr. President, could you update us on the latest number of confirmed cases in the US and Great Britain?'
The President turned to ask one of his advisors and then, for a brief moment, shook his head as if in disbelief, as he responded.
'We now have four thousand people in quarantine in the United States and two thousand here. Total confirmed cases worldwide stand at just under fifteen thousand.'
There was a collective gasp from the gathered reporters. Hina found herself mumbling a prayer. Fifteen thousand in just over two days? What disease was this that turned people so crazed that they bit anyone who came near them, and one bite was enough to infect a victim? And what about those rumours about them dying and coming back to life? How did medical science explain that?
Before the reporters could ask any more questions, the American President had left. Hina changed the channel to NDTV India, which was reporting the first confirmed cases in India. One of the `experts' was responding to a question on how the disease could have spread so fast.
'As far as it's known today, the infection was first spotted in a few young men flying out of Afghanistan through Pakistan. Hence the name. Then there are the American soldiers who developed the symptoms while being flown to Germany and infected dozens of others. Consider this simple fact. There are an estimated four million people traveling by air every single day across the world. Add people meeting them at airports, their families, staff on the planes and at airports, the taxi drivers who ferry them and so on. Literally each traveller could be in close contact with hundreds of people each day. So it's not surprising that the number of infections outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan has exploded so fast.'
Hina turned off the TV. It was a depressing enough day without having to worry about an exotic virus and it's bizarre effects. She brought the small cake she had baked to the table and sat down on the same chair that she had sat on at mealtime for the last thirty years. To her right was the head of the table, where Imran once sat. She stifled a sob at the memory. No, today was a day for celebration, not for sorrow.
She blew out the candle and cut a big slice that she placed on a plate and kept it where Imran would have once wolfed it down in a few bites. She took a small slice herself and whispered.
'Happy birthday, darling.'
Tonight, as had been the case for more than a dozen years, Hina ate alone. Also, as had been the case all those years, the table had been set for four. One for Imran, the love of her life, who had been taken from her by a heart attack; and two for her children, now in distant America, with lives and families of her own. Arranging plates for them served to remind her of a family that had once been, and yes, also made her feel less lonely.
She finished eating and then booted up her Macbook Air. She was a sixty five year old Professor of History, but when it came to technology, she was not a second behind any of her students. She surfed the Net for some time, and tiring of reading more gloom and doom about the Afghan Flu, she began to write.
This was normally the one time of day when Hina really felt all her worries lifting. When it was just her and her imagination, and of course her trusty keyboard, over which her fingers were now flying, almost as fast as the ideas coursing through her head. This was also her little secret. Hina Rahman, stern History professor by day, was also the worldwide bestselling author of a number of historical romances, which had been praised for their writing quality and historical authenticity and in equal measure loved and hated for their explicit content. Of course, nobody who knew solid, dependable Ms. Rahman would guess her capable of it as she wrote under a pen name, Alice Flowers. Alice had been the name of her favourite school teacher who had first encouraged her to write; and Flower was the literal translation of her Urdu name.
However tonight her mind was not really on her writing. She kept thinking of Rumana, her daughter in Boston and Said, her son in New York. With the infection spreading so fast, she hoped they and their families were okay. She saved her work and then got up to call them to check, but then realized it would be early morning for them. So she brought up the browser and checked CNN.com. There was a lot of breaking news and none of it was good.
'Doctors say fatal levels of radiation and toxins found in blood of infection victims.'
'Fifty thousand infected worldwide.'
And then she saw a scrolling line that sent a shiver down her spine.
'All contact with Kabul and Peshawar lost. Last reports speak of hordes of Afghan Flu victims going on a rampage as the Sun set.'
Her children would not answer their phones, and she tried to sleep, knowing she had an early lecture to deliver the next morning. However, sleep eluded her. All night, she heard the sounds of police and ambulance sirens outside.
Could it really have spread to Delhi so fast?
Finally at six in the morning, she got up and turned on the TV. The night had been of a kind that Asia had never seen before. As soon as the Sun set, hundreds of infected people across countries in Asia had seemingly died and then come alive and attacked anyone in sight. The number of new patients was in the tens of thousands. Some of the original attackers had been caught and quarantined, but the vast majority had just slipped away at daybreak, not to be seen again. Tens of thousands of victims were in hospital, with no apparent cure and the authorities at a total loss as to what to do with them. If the cycle started at Sunset, as many were now guessing, she wondered what the next night would bring.
Then a thought struck her. The Sun was just setting in the United States. She turned to CNN and watched the images in horror. Whole cities were burning, and the streets were full of infection victims on the rampage. Through the camera of a news helicopter, she got her first look at them, and her blood froze. It was a large mob, moving in a stiff gait, and as the camera zoomed in, she saw that they were yellowed in color, and covered in filth and blood. For some inexplicable reason, they all wore black turbans. And then, they ran at dizzying speed, more like a pack of animals than men, at a group of people huddled inside a Starbucks. The camera mercifully panned away as they reached their victims. BBC showed that other parts of the world were no different and the reporters looked too scared to really be credible bearers of news. She was sure of that when a young BBC reporter said that the government had called the Army onto the streets, but soldiers had told her that their bullets had no effect on the mobs. The reporter said, with wide eyes, that after taking several bullets, the infected would just get up and resume their crazed attacks.
Then the channels started going off the air.
***
Mayukh reached the breakfast table to see an emotion he had never seen before on his father's face-fear. A career bureaucrat in the Home Ministry, the elder Ghosh was used to wielding power and influence, not feeling powerless. Yet, this morning, he listlessly stirred his bowl of cereal, bloodshot eyes looking at the TV set. Mayukh had spent the evening playing World of Warcraft online and then listening to music. He had no idea of the chaos that was slowly but surely intruding upon his world.
'Dad, are you unwell or something?'
Being in front of his son restored some of his father's courage and he tried to compose himself.
'No, Mayukh, I just didn't sleep much last night. I was on the phone almost all night.'
