Companions of Paradise

by Thalassa Ali

  Rahmat dropped his eyes. The Shaikh bent toward him, his starched headdress nodding. “Do not be ashamed,” he said kindly. “These mistakes are common among our people. But from now on, you must not listen to what ignorant mullahs tell you. Remember, instead, the saying of our Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, who said: ‘Paradise is what the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has ever flashed across the mind of man.’ ”

  He raised an instructive hand. “Keep in mind,” he added, lifting his voice, “that the descriptions of Paradise, even those in the Qur'an, are only by way of example. For how else can the indescribable be described? As to those virgins—

  “The Companions of Paradise,” he intoned, “are not what you have been told.

  “They are the cupbearers of the Infinite.

  They will give you to drink from the fountain of Salsabil;

  They will lead you to the treasure-gardens of the Beloved,

  And offer you the greeting of ‘Peace.’

  “That poem offers us something in the way of description,” he decreed. “In any case it is better than all that nonsense about drink and women. And now, Saboor,” he added, turning to the little boy who shared his platform, “you must go upstairs. Bhaji will want to give you your milk—”

  “Look, Lalaji!” The child pointed toward the gate.

  A Hindu in a loincloth and an unclean turban had entered the Shaikh's courtyard. He cut an odd figure among the Shaikh's guests with his short spear in one hand, and his jingling whip in the other.

  “I am looking for Shaikh Waliullah Sahib,” the stranger announced.

  THE FOLLOWING morning, several hours before a group of armed strangers arrived at Qamar Haveli and asked politely after the Shaikh's little grandson, a commodious old palanquin was already on its way north to Sialkot. It traveled with an armed escort and a full complement of twelve jogging bearers, four of them carrying the oblong box's long poles on their shoulders, and the rest awaiting their respective turns. A donkey minced along behind, pulling a cart full of bundles, rolled-up quilts, and baskets of pomegranates and blood oranges. Several servants perched on top of the load.

  “Stones to my left,” droned the sirdar bearer from his position in front, relaying the conditions of the road to the three men who trotted blindly behind him. “Hole in the road to my right. Bullock cart coming toward us. I am moving to my left.”

  Neither of the sirdar palanquin's occupants was happy.

  “But I do not want to visit my cousins in Sialkot,” Saboor wailed as he sat beside Safiya Sultana in the cramped box, his high voice drowning out the bearers’ voices. “I want to stay at home!”

  “Quiet, Saboor,” snapped his great-aunt. “Stop shouting into my ear.”

  Although she did not say so, Safiya Sultana, too, wished she were still at Qamar Haveli. Leaving her home, even for a short time, inevitably plunged her into aching homesickness. Today she had felt the first pang before they were out of the walled city.

  She shifted uncomfortably on the palanquin's pillows, hoping that while she was gone, the cousin she had chosen would care properly for the health of the large Waliullah family and all its servants. Humaira must see to the coughs and fevers among the children and inspect the hand of the cook who had cut himself. Of course she must also go up and down the kitchen stairs each morning, to measure out the spices and fruits to be eaten that day and later to count the hundred-odd rounds of hot bread for each meal. But would she properly supervise the washing of the clothes?

  Safiya sighed. Until she returned there would be no one to tell the children her special instructive stories, or to help the women who arrived unannounced from all parts of the walled city complaining of illnesses, of infertility, or of cruel treatment by their husbands or mothers-in-law.

  No one, not even her twin brother, could perform the umls, the secrets of the Karakoyia Brotherhood, that she knew. Wali, who enjoyed speedy results, had done the necessary recitations to be able to cure snakebite and scorpion sting by mystical means, and he also knew how to cool fire, but those umls solved only practical problems. Safiya's specialties were the more subtle cures, like the powerful one that quelled envy, one of the greatest evils of family life.

  And what would they do if someone went missing? She had never taught her brother how to find a lost person…

  She had planned to send Saboor to her niece in Sialkot with one of the family men, but had given up that idea when Saboor had flatly refused to travel without her.

  Her presence, however, had not improved his mood.

  “Azim and I were playing a new game in the courtyard,” he pouted. “Poor Lalaji will have to meet all his guests without me, and—”

  “Enough!” she grunted. “Leave me be, Saboor. Open the side and look at the passing sights, but do not lean out. And you must close the panel again if there's too much dust.”

  The sun had beaten down on the moving palanquin's roof since morning, turning it into a long, pillow-filled oven. Safiya mopped her face. With God's permission they would arrive at her cousin's house in Gujranwala by late afternoon.

  She did not look forward to this visit. The last time she had stayed in that large household, her cousin Khalida had looked after her well enough, offering her fine food, excellent fruit, and a comfortable bed, but she had unkindly neglected a maidservant who was clearly suffering from fever, and had gossiped about other family members until Safiya thought her head would burst.

  “And as to the girl my dear nephew Shamoun is engaged to,” Khalida had cried in her high, penetrating voice, “she let her dupatta fall from her shoulders to her lap right in front of me. I saw the shape of her breasts with my own eyes. Have you ever heard of such immodesty? Why, the girl might as well be from the lowest of families. If I were the boy's mother, I would have broken the engagement at once.”

  Safiya sighed. They would have to remain at Khalida's house for at least a fortnight, as it would be unthinkable to stay there only a day or two. But at least in that disorganized household, Saboor would be protected from the Governor of Peshawar's long reach.

  As soon as I learn that Saboor is safe, Hassan had written, I will arrange my departure for Kabul.

  She sighed. That statement had pacified Saboor for the time being.

  The child shifted against her, his face to the open side panel. She patted his back, hoping Hassan's plan to rescue his wife had been prompted by more than simple duty.

  Hassan's letter had also made it clear that the whole of Afghanistan had now taken up arms against the British, and that one of their senior officers had been murdered.

  God willing, Hassan would not meet with ill fortune on this perilous journey. If he had not forgiven himself for Yusuf Bhatti's death, his danger would increase.

  Self-loathing would make a dangerous companion now.

  She laid her head back, allowed her eyes to become heavy, and abandoned herself to other thoughts.

  It had been two years since the family had learned to their surprise that the future of the Karakoyia Brotherhood rested on Saboor's small shoulders. Until that moment, it had not occurred to any of them that such a thing might happen. It was uncommon for a Sufi Shaikh to be succeeded by one of his relatives, and that unusual circumstance had already occurred nearly thirty years before, when her twin brother had been made Shaikh after the death of their grandfather, the great Shaikh Abd Dhul-Jalali Wal-Ikram.

  Perhaps, with Allah's help, Saboor would grow to be as wise as her grandfather had been.

  Saboor's father was another matter. For all his courtly manner, Hassan was a sensible man, and a good manager. As practicality was always in short supply among the dreamers and storytellers of Qamar Haveli, the management of the family's farmlands and fruit gardens had fallen entirely to him.

  Safiya had no idea how she would do without her nephew. The thought of her brother trying to manage the family accounts made her shudder.

  She opened her eyes. The next Shaikh of the Karakoyia Brotherhood was
tugging at her sleeve. “I cannot see anything,” he complained. “All I can see is running legs.”

  “Shut the panel, then,” she told him, and closed her eyes again.

  She had not always been close to Hassan. Fearing the strong bond between her husband and his twin sister, Hassan's mother for years had kept her little son from his clever, unglamorous aunt. Even after he learned to walk, Mahmuda had kept him to herself, insisting that he remain by her side night and day.

  Safiya, of course, had not been blameless, for she had failed to see Mahmuda's desperate loneliness, separated as she was from her own generous, artistic family. Spartan in her own approach to life, Safiya had not understood the taste for lovely things that had been Mahmuda's legacy to Hassan, and perhaps even to Saboor.

  It was a pity that Mahmuda had died when Hassan was only nineteen.

  Safiya's opportunity to approach her nephew had come when he was four. Called away to attend to her father in his last illness, and suffering herself from recurring fevers, Mahmuda had been prevailed upon to leave her son behind.

  After his mother's departure, Hassan had crouched alone in a corner of the sitting room, then wept himself to sleep.

  The next morning, Safiya had called the family children together, and announced that she would tell them a story. Pretending not to notice Hassan in his corner, she had launched animatedly into a tale her grandmother had often told her.

  The story had taken four mornings to tell. On the second morning, Hassan had crept shyly toward his cousins. On the third morning, he had sat shoulder to shoulder with them, his mouth open, his eyes fixed on Safiya.

  He had come to her on the fourth evening.

  “Bhaji,” he had whispered, lifting her hair away from her ear, as Saboor so often did now, “may I sleep with you tonight?”

  A cloud of dust rushed into the palanquin, filling Safiya's lungs. She started up, wheezing. “I told you to close the panel, Saboor,” she snapped, flapping her hands in front of her face. “Close it this instant!”

  “But what shall we do now, Bhaji?” he asked, after he had banged the panel shut. “What shall we do?”

  She smiled into his mournful little face. “Come, Saboor,” she intoned, patting the mattress beside her. “Come here and listen to the story of the King's Messenger. It is a long story, and so I cannot tell it all today.

  “In a kingdom very far from here…”

  A HASTILY dispatched messenger had arrived in time to warn Khalida of her guests’ impending arrival. Waiting men had hurried to push open the tall, double doors of her spacious house and admit the palanquin and its escort into a broad courtyard containing a fountain and several dusty trees. When Safiya and Saboor were shown into the ladies’ quarters, Khalida had offered them shrill cries of welcome.

  After lunch two days later, as she and Saboor rested against a pair of bolsters in Khalida's sitting room and the other family ladies snored around them, Safiya began the third part of the story.

  “Muballigh,” she began, whispering in order not to disturb the sleeping ladies, “left the bitter king's sorrowful country behind him and set off to find another king to receive his message.

  “In time, the landscape changed from barrenness to plenty, and Muballigh knew he had arrived in a new country.

  “Here were fields of ripening crops and orchards heavy with fruit. Animals grazed the land and people worked in the fields.

  “But as he approached them, he was surprised to find that the people he had seen were not cheerful peasants. They looked more like slaves, toiling joylessly on the rich land, carrying huge loads on their backs, bending unsmiling to their work.

  “When Muballigh entered a village, he found no children playing. No veiled housewives gossiped at the village well, but through the windows of the houses he saw richly dressed men and women lolling on cushions, laughing, eating, and drinking.

  “A dirty-faced child passed him, carrying a tray of sweetmeats. When Muballigh asked her how to find the king's palace, she did not reply, but only pointed a thin hand toward a distant, gleaming city before hurrying away.”

  “But why was the girl's face dirty?” asked Saboor. “Why was her hand thin if she had sweets on her tray?”

  “She was poor,” his great-aunt whispered. “She had to work. But you must listen to the rest of the story.

  “The city was both rich and beautiful. The carved gate to the palace had been polished until it glowed, and the gateway itself was inlaid with precious stones.

  “A sumptuously dressed gatekeeper looked Muballigh up and down.

  “ ‘I have come to see the king,’ said Muballigh. ‘I bring a message for his ears alone.’

  “The gatekeeper clapped his hands. When a poor old man appeared, he pointed to a grand, nearby building. ‘Take this person to the palace,’ he ordered.

  “ ‘The Vizier,’ he said loftily, turning to Muballigh, ‘will decide whether or not you will be allowed into the king's presence.’

  “Muballigh followed the old man across inlaid courtyards and down painted corridors until he came to the king's Vizier, who lounged on a priceless carpet, surrounded by attendants.

  “ ‘Who are you?’ he demanded, curling his lip at Muballigh's travel-worn clothes. ‘How dare you enter the king's antechamber?’

  “ ‘I bring a message from my king,’ Muballigh replied patiently, ‘who rules the land beyond the Kingdom of Despair. The message is for your king's ears alone.’

  “ ‘Very well.’ The Vizier toyed with a thick rope of pearls around his neck. ‘If your message proves to be as important as you believe it is, then you will escape with your life. But if it is as trivial as your appearance indicates, then before evening your head will adorn a spike on the palace wall.’ ”

  “Why was he going to kill poor Muballigh?” Saboor demanded in a stage whisper. “He was only doing what his king asked him to—”

  “Quiet.” His great-aunt held a finger to her lips. “Like Muballigh's message, this story is for your ears alone.” She glanced about the sitting room, taking in a group of soporific old ladies with thin quilts over their legs, and some children playing with a tangle of colored threads. “If the others learn that I am telling it, I shall have to start from the beginning.

  “Muballigh was frightened by the Vizier's threat,” she continued, “but he bravely followed the slave into an inner room. There, lying on a pile of brocade cushions, was the king. He was fat as a baby, and covered from head to foot in jewels. Slaves fanned him with enormous feather fans, musicians played, and young female slaves danced before him.

  “ ‘I have no need of messages,’ he announced, when Muballigh told him why he had come. ‘But for all I know, yours might amuse me. Speak.’

  “Muballigh leaned over him. ‘True happiness lies only in the faithful heart,’ he murmured in his tenderest voice.

  “The king threw back his head and laughed aloud. ‘I have never heard anything so funny,’ he gasped, wiping his eyes. ‘Happiness lies in the, what did you say, the faithful heart?’

  “He slapped the nearest eunuch on the back, then collapsed onto his cushions. ‘I'll tell you where happiness lies,’ he choked out. ‘It is here, in this very room.

  “ ‘What,’ he crowed, gesturing about the sumptuous chamber, ‘could make a man happier than to have defeated his enemy? Do you see these slaves who fan me? They are the sons of my brother, the King of Despair. These dancing girls are his daughters. My lands are tilled and tended by his people so that my own subjects do no work. All this wealth and happiness comes from one thing alone, my cleverness at defeating my enemy.

  “ ‘Go your way, young man,’ he added, mirthfully, ‘and give your useless message to someone foolish enough to believe it. Throw him out,’ he ordered the guards, ‘but spare his life, for he has told me a fine joke.’

  “Before he knew it Muballigh found himself lying in a heap outside the palace gate.”

  “Poor Muballigh,” whispered Saboor.

  �
��Sorely disappointed,” Safiya continued, “he took the road leading to the next kingdom, but soon, too discouraged to travel any farther, he sat down and dropped his head into his hands. At once, a voice came from a tall dead tree nearby.

  “ ‘Now that you have wasted your message on the King of Greed,’ said the bird, ‘will you return to your home?’

  “ ‘No, Bird,’ Muballigh said sadly.

  “ ‘If you wish for my help,’ it added, ‘you need only tell me the secret you carry.’

  “When Muballigh did not reply, it flapped its great wings and flew away. Soon it was only a speck in the sky almost too small to see.

  “And that is all for today.” Tired of speaking, Safiya sighed and leaned gratefully against her bolster. An instant later, she sat up, frowning.

  Small, miserable sounds were coming from the child.

  “Now what is the matter, Saboor?” she inquired.

  “I want to go ho-o-o-me.”

  She drew him to her and stroked his face. “We will go home soon. Very soon.”

  “I want An-nah.” His tears dotted Safiya Sultana's kameez. “Why is everything so sad, Bhaji? Why is poor Muballigh all alone? Why does Abba not bring An-nah home from Kabul?”

  “Tch,” Safiya clucked. “Your Abba is leaving soon for Kabul. Inshallah, he will bring your An-nah home safely.”

  But the child would not be comforted. “And why,” he sobbed, “is Muballigh alone? The bird keeps going away, and—”

  Safiya sighed. “Hai, Saboor, it is only a story. But since you will not stop weeping, I suppose I shall have to tell you the rest of it.”

  November 15, 1841

  It will not be long now.” Zulmai the merchant hitched his jezail on his shoulder and surveyed the heap of tents, piles of furniture, oil lamps, and other supplies lying before him on the dusty ground. “I expect to have twenty more yabus and a dozen mules within fifteen days. By that time that caravan I spoke of will be at Kohat, ready to leave.”