by Thalassa Ali
“Impossible, Munshi Sahib. I cannot do such a thing.”
Her teacher shrugged. “If that is because you are Christian, I remind you that Christians, like Jews and Muslims, are ahl-e-kitab, People of the Book. They recognize the same prophets, the same laws. Haji Khan is known to have traveled very far along the Path to Peace,” he added. “If he has suggested that you recite this durood, he has done so for a reason, although what it is, I cannot say.”
“He is also blind in both eyes,” she pointed out. “The cupboard behind him was full of identical rolls of paper. He could easily have given me the wrong one.”
Her teacher did not reply. Instead, he reached into one of the pockets of his long snowy shirt and withdrew a string of carved wooden beads. A silk tassel hung from a single large bead on the string. “These are for you, Bibi,” he said, as he laid them carefully on the table. “If you choose to do what Haji Khan suggests, you will need to count your recitations.”
In her bedroom an hour later she stared into space, Haji Khan's paper in her hand.
The answer will come to you of its own accord, at the proper time, he had told her. He had also invited her to return.
For all that he had said little to her, he had been a compelling presence, sitting white-eyed before his guests in that close little room. He had known at once that it was she, and not Nur Rahman, who had a question to ask.
And yet these verses offered her nothing.
If he had meant to give her this durood, why had he done it? What did he think would happen if she did as he had told her?
She had longed to learn mystical secrets from the moment she had met the Shaikh and his powerful sister, but it had never occurred to her that to do so she might have to stop being a Christian. That she could not do. It was one thing to study Oriental mysticism, but it was quite another to forsake the Church of England.
She could not imagine what her vicar father would say if he learned of the durood, or even of the beads that now lay hidden in the pocket of her gown.
But as alien as those verses had sounded upon her lips, and as strange as Munshi Sahib's beads had felt in her fingers, she was certain that together they offered her a doorway into some beautiful, unknown place.
The doorway beckoned. It was her choice to enter it, or pass it by.
“IT IS perfectly apparent to me,” Sir William Macnaghten said quietly the next afternoon as he sat in Babur Shah's memorial garden, “that if London wishes to save money, they should cut expenditures somewhere else.”
The English party had returned to Babur's tomb to enjoy one more outing before the weather turned cold. When Macnaghten and several political officers moved away from the others to a quiet grove of trees, Mariana had followed them and seated herself nearby, her back against a tree, straining to hear their conversation.
“This entire region is open to us,” Sir William went on. “With only a few more men we can take Bokhara in the north and Herat in the west.”
“Sir William,” Mariana's uncle replied cautiously, “have you considered our lines of supply? They are dangerously long already, and easily severed by insurgents in all those narrow passes.”
“We should perhaps take the Afghan point of view into account,” Charles Mott added, with uncharacteristic confidence, “especially that of the chiefs of the country and the religious leaders—”
“But,” Sir William went on, ignoring both remarks, “the government has insisted that I cut back expenses, and I have done so.
“General Sale's First Brigade will return to India next month. They will take the short road east, through Jalalabad. I have also cut the annual stipend for the Eastern Ghilzais by half. If the saving from these measures proves insufficient, then Shah Shuja will have to give up some of his little luxuries.”
Mariana held her breath, waiting for her uncle's response.
“You have done that?” When Adrian Lamb replied, his voice was filled with dismay. “You have cut the payment to the Ghilzai tribes who control all the passes between here and Jalalabad?”
“Oh, Uncle William,” wailed Charles Mott. “I really wonder—”
“I have done it,” Macnaghten said decisively. “Of course they kicked up a row about the deductions from their pay. One of them tried to protest, but Sir Alexander handled him very well. It will do them no good to complain,” he added. “And if they lift so much as a finger against us, they will be trounced for their pains, the rascals.”
“By General Sale, on his way to India?”
“Precisely. After all, he will be traveling through their country.”
Mariana heard her uncle clear his throat. “I am sure you are aware, Sir William,” he said cautiously, “that Akbar Khan has come down from Tashkurgan in the north. He is said to be traveling toward Hazajarat, west of here. Are you certain he is not conniving against us with Ghilzai chiefs such as Abdullah Khan and Aminullah Khan? Those two men give all the appearance of being both dangerous and very much against us. I fear there may be a pattern of revolt, all instigated by Akbar, if we do anything to—”
“Mr. Lamb,” Sir William snapped, “I am tired of your incessant croaking. We are in no danger at all. With the exception of one or two little uprisings, this country is in a state of perfect tranquility.”
The ensuing silence from Mariana's uncle spoke volumes.
“Why has Sir Alexander declined to come today?” Uncle Adrian inquired as the three men passed by Mariana on their way to the table where the lunch was being laid.
“He said he has urgent business in the city,” replied Sir William.
Urgent business indeed. Still leaning against her comfortable tree trunk, Mariana pictured the voluble, excessive Burnes in the bazaar, ridiculous in his Afghan disguise, starting back from her in surprise, the leer wiped from his face.
Repugnant as that moment had been, Nur Rahman's later remarks had been more upsetting. How could Burnes, with all his experience in Central Asia, have risked the rage of powerful Afghans by soliciting their women in the marketplace, and successfully, too, if Nur Rahman were to be believed? And what of his lackey, the cowardly Johnson, the man now responsible for Shah Shuja's treasure?
If an Afghan's honor requires revenge, Munshi Sahib had told her, he will exact it, whatever the price.
As she rejoined the others, Mariana glanced around her at Sir William's guests and his pretty wife, who offered him a private little smile as he reached across her for the wine bottle.
Burnes and Johnson were a danger to them all. She should report them, but how would she ever explain her own presence in the Char Chatta Bazaar, disguised as an Afghan woman?
Since their arrival, Uncle Adrian had gathered a number of paid informers from various parts of the country. Mariana had seen them often—men young and old, wearing the dress of various tribes and regions. They always entered the garden by the front gate, then spoke quietly to her uncle on the verandah.
Surely they had told him about Burnes's activities. But, she realized, just as surely, he had discounted their stories. After all, an informer is paid to provide interesting news.
“I shall never tire of this view.” Lady Macnaghten sighed from her folding chair at the table. “Kabul has proved to be everything I had hoped for, although I must admit I am quite surfeited with grapes. I find myself pining for a nice, sour English gooseberry.”
Aunt Claire nodded beneath her parasol. “And I do not care if I never see another melon. Mariana, tell Adil to bring me a glass of water.”
“But,” General Elphinstone added, grimacing as he lifted his swollen leg onto a straw stool, “nothing can compare to the brilliance of the light and freshness of the breeze, especially here on this mountainside.”
Lady Macnaghten laid a hand on her husband's arm and pointed toward the Persian inscription over the mosque's marble entrance. “You must translate that verse for us again, William,” she said happily. “I find it so very affecting.”
He cleared his throat. “Only this m
osque of beauty,” he recited in a sonorous tone, “this temple of nobility, constructed for the prayer of saints and the epiphany of cherubs, was fit to stand in so venerable a sanctuary as this highway of archangels, this theatre of heaven, the light garden of the God-forgiven angel king.”
“Ah,” General Elphinstone sighed, “how well they were able to express themselves in those days! It is difficult to imagine the Afghan savages of today being capable of such eloquence.”
Savages. Mariana gazed down at the winding Kabul River and the orchard-filled Chahardeh valley beyond, imagining the starched, neatly bearded men she had seen in Haji Khan's room. She had not spoken to them, of course, but she had no doubt that for all the weaponry and reputed violence of the Afghans, Kabul had its own poets and scholars, scientists, doctors, and learned men.
Why was it so difficult for her people to accept that simple fact?
“It is no wonder that the Emperor Babur fell in love with this country,” Uncle Adrian observed. “If he were as good a king as people say, then he deserved to rule this beautiful land.”
She nodded her agreement. With its clear, crystalline light, so different from the damp luminosity of England and the dusty haze of India, Afghanistan was indeed beautiful. What a pity her own people had forced upon it that sour, nervous Shah Shuja and his swaggering followers.
The snow on the distant mountain peaks turned from pink to violet as the afternoon progressed. As the valley below the garden took on hues of ochre and gold, Mariana wished Hassan and Saboor could see it with her.
She sighed. Perhaps her second letter would reach Hassan safely.
She pictured Ghulam Ali trudging along the road from Kabul, with its rocky outcroppings and rushing streams full of rounded pebbles, his loose cotton clothing stained from travel. Was he at this moment crossing a mountain meadow perfumed with aromatic grass, or climbing a hillside covered with wild lavender and thistles?
When would he cross into India?
His unusual appearance might prevent him from being recognized immediately as a servant of the British. That might be a good thing. He still carried his long-bladed Khyber knife, did he not?
If anything happened to the courier who had helped her rescue Hassan the night he was wounded, and who had later hurried after her from Lahore, Hassan's carefully wrapped gold medallion hidden in his pocket, she would never forgive herself.
The Qur'anic verse carved into the little medallion possessed a beauty that tugged at Mariana, as did Haji Khan's durood.
The fulfillment of the soul's longing. Did verses like these have the power to inspire dreams or answer the questions of the soul? Could they touch a heart with poetic alchemy, and change it forever?
She did not know, but as she sat in Babur Shah's garden among her own people, she made up her mind to try reciting the durood, but with one small change to protect her Christianity.
THE SUN was low in the sky when Sir William's guests and their armed guard assembled for the return journey.
Lady Macnaghten put a booted foot onto her groom's proffered knee, and climbed awkwardly into her sidesaddle. “What a lovely day,” she fluted as she adjusted her riding veil. “I expect to be happily exhausted tomorrow.”
“It is a good thing,” observed her husband, “that Kabul is such a quiet station. In these times of peace we may tire ourselves with abandon.”
“What a pity Sir Alexander was unable to join us,” she said. “He would so much have enjoyed the view.”
“Come along, Mariana,” her uncle called, as the rest of the party descended the hill toward the garden's elegant gateway. “Yar Mohammad has brought your mare.”
“Be careful crossing the bridge,” he warned a little later. “People are coming the other way. And remember not to look at them.”
A tall, heavily bearded rider approached from the opposite bank, followed by three dogs and six or seven horsemen. She glanced at the tall rider as he came near, and drew in her breath. On his leather-clad wrist, hooded and silent, rode a pure white hawk.
She lowered her gaze, feeling the man's eyes upon her.
Several rabbits and a score of large, red-legged partridges hung from the horses’ saddles. From the corner of her eye she saw the white hawk open its wings partway, and hunch its shoulders. There was no hint of gray anywhere on its wings or body. Its leather hood had been embroidered with silver thread.
“That is a tujhun,” her uncle said quietly. “A Siberian goshawk. They are great hunters and very rare.”
“Why did that man look so familiar?” Mariana asked, after the hunting party had clattered past them on the bridge, talking among themselves, their long-haired hounds trotting alongside them.
“That, my dear,” her uncle said, glancing over his shoulder at the departing horsemen, “was Abdullah Khan himself, the Achakzai chief who knocked down those tents at the race meeting. Do you remember him throwing down his tent peg as if he were challenging Shah Shuja to a duel? I was told he had returned to the Pishin valley after that, but my information was clearly wrong.
“I do not like seeing him here in Kabul,” he added. “I do not like the derisive look I saw on his face as he passed us, or the way his men talked among themselves and pointed in our direction.”
He frowned. “All this reminds me that I must discover the whereabouts of that doddering old Aminullah Khan. For all I know, he is here as well.”
The day was fading rapidly. The little shrine beside the river was now alive with people, their lanterns casting shadows as they moved about among the trees. Mariana imagined the wicked old tribesman lurking in the dark with his men, like the villain in a fairy tale.
“We must catch up with the others,” her uncle said sharply. “I do not like to be out at dusk without an escort.
“It is rumored,” he murmured as they neared the Residence compound, “that Abdullah Khan killed his elder brother by burying him in the ground, tying a rope to his neck, and then riding circles around him until his head was torn from his shoulders. That story may or may not be true, but it illustrates the man's reputation.”
That night, Mariana lay whispering in the dark, as Munshi Sahib's beads clicked between her fingers.
It was acceptable, he had told her, to recite Haji Khan's durood in English. He had not, however, authorized the small alteration she had made.
“Shower thy blessings,” she whispered, hoping for a glimpse through the blind man's doorway, “upon their leader and master Muhammad”
September 26, 1841
You have cut the annual payment to the Eastern Ghilzai chiefs by half?” Shah Shuja dropped his bunch of grapes and regarded Sir William with dignified horror. “You have done this without so much as asking my advice?”
Behind him, elegant and self-possessed, his double row of ministers murmured among one another, turbaned heads together, their eyes upon the two black-clad Englishmen in front of him.
“Sire,” the Envoy replied, “we had no option. Our government in Calcutta has been insisting for months that we cut our—”
“Ah, Macnaghten, you took no time to think.” The Shah pushed the fruit bowl away from him and turned a tired eye upon his guests.
Of the other officers, both civil and military, who stood behind Burnes and Macnaghten, only three spoke Farsi. Of those, only Mariana's uncle and his assistant watched Shah Shuja's reaction with any interest.
When Macnaghten threw them a fiercely defensive glance, Charles Mott shuffled his feet. Adrian Lamb did not drop his gaze.
“Did you consider your agreement with the Ghilzais before you cut their payment?” the Shah went on in his high, unpleasant voice. “Did you weigh the loss of your honor in breaking your promise?”
“Honor?” Macnaghten gave a lighthearted shrug. “I hardly think that matters in this country, Sire, where no one—”
“Honor matters very much in this country, Macnaghten. I have warned you before of the danger of taking gold from some chiefs while giving it to others. Even if you ha
ve not done exactly that,” the Shah added, “the appearance of it has created enemies for yourselves and for me. Now, you have compounded your mistake.”
Macnaghten smiled broadly, his hands open in front of him. “But Sire,” he argued, “all we have done is make things fairer. The other chiefs still must pay, but the Ghilzais are getting less. Is that not a good thing?
“These people are such children,” he muttered to Burnes beneath his breath, his smile still in place.
“You have returned me to my throne, Macnaghten.” Shah Shuja sighed. “But you have snatched the sovereignty of my country from my hands. Believing that your big guns will keep you safe, you interfere with us, and force your British ways upon us. In your pride, you have turned all the chiefs against me.”
Behind him, his ministers nodded their agreement.
Alexander Burnes stiffened in his chair. “There is no need, Sire, to speak to us in this manner. We have harmed no one. Your enemies are free and unblinded. Why—”
“Have you not understood the saying that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?” The corners of the Shah's mouth turned down. “In taxing them severely, you have injured chiefs to the north and south of Kabul. In breaking your promise to them, you have injured the Eastern Ghilzai chiefs. And do not forget that Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammad, who has sworn to regain his father's throne, waits with his men at Bamian, to the west. All will now unite against you. Whether you accept it or not, you are now encircled by your enemies.”
“Really, Sire, that is the most—”
The Shah held up a silencing hand. “Once they have identified a common foe, our people form alliances against him, but not before each separate faction has proved itself with exploits against that foe, for Afghans do not rally under one leader, but under a confederation of leaders. What you regard as a few small uprisings may well be those exploits, which will lead to greater and greater attacks by larger and larger numbers of men.
“Your British officers have been openly insulted in the bazaar when they have tried to order tools and weapons from our artisans. Two of them have been stabbed in the marketplaces of Kabul. Several of your Indian soldiers have been killed when they strayed from your cantonment. Do you think these incidents are unrelated?”
