Companions of Paradise

by Thalassa Ali

  “Fifteen days?” Hassan gestured impatiently at the busy caravanserai that boiled around them. “Why should it take so long to find pack animals? I see camels and ponies everywhere. Why can we not buy camels, and join some other caravan that is leaving earlier?”

  “Those kafilas are not taking our route,” Zulmai answered patiently, “and we cannot use camels, for a camel will not climb. As for the delay, everyone is traveling at this season. The mules and yabus in the market are thin and overworked. Fresh ones will not arrive for another ten days. But do you really want that many?” he added doubtfully. “Surely you do not need all these extra tents and—”

  “I want them all,” Hassan Ali Khan said decisively. “Who knows what we will find when we reach Kabul? There may be women and children who need our help.”

  Ghulam Ali looked up from the bale of rezais he was tying. This heap of baggage, with its thick carpets, heavy bolsters, and satin quilts, was easily as lavish as that of the Tajik wedding party he had joined on his way to Jalalabad, but it was fitting that Hassan should travel in luxury. After all, he was a rich man on his way to Kabul to collect his wife and bring her home.

  If Hassan Ali Khan were traveling with his own family instead of an Afghan merchant, if his beautiful Akhal Tekke horse were white, not gray, and if his wife were a veiled stranger instead of the woman who had braved the violent streets of Lahore to save his life, this might be a wedding procession, and Hassan the groom on his way to take possession of his bride.

  Of course when they arrived, there would be no one to put flower garlands about Hassan's neck as they did in the Punjab, or greet him with hospitality and respect.

  “We will carry all our food,” Hassan went on. “I want to avoid the villages on our route. There is no point in risking shortages along the way, and I want us to draw as little attention as possible.”

  Zulmai nodded a greeting to a man leading a shaggy camel. “As you wish, although you will be far from invisible with that horse.” He raised his voice over the commotion around them. “There is always the risk of thieves and raiders.”

  Hassan shrugged. “That is why we are joining all those other people, and bringing our own guard.”

  “Does Governor Avitabile know you are leaving for Kabul?” Zulmai asked.

  “If he does not, he will find out soon enough. His spies are everywhere. I am sure that even now we are being watched.”

  “And you do not think he will take revenge on you for insulting him and defying his orders?”

  Hassan smiled. “My friend, Avitabile is not an Afghan. When he learns we have outplayed him by removing Saboor from danger, he will move on to his next game, his next victim.”

  Zulmai nodded. “So now,” he said thoughtfully, “we have only to rescue your family in Kabul.”

  Hassan nodded absently, his fingers seeking something hidden in his clothes.

  TWO DAYS later, Mariana's munshi took his usual place beside her chair and clasped his hands behind his back.

  “Muballigh,” he told his small audience, “followed the road out of the Kingdom of Greed, past gardens and fields, all tended by slaves from the Kingdom of Despair.”

  His voice still sounded hoarse after three days of illness, but it was not the state of her teacher's health that caused Mariana to fidget distractedly while he spoke.

  During the night, someone had blocked the irrigation canal outside the rampart walls that had supplied the cantonment with water for more than two years.

  After discovering that the tank was dry when he tried to make her morning coffee, Dittoo had fought his way through a crowd of several hundred people to a small irrigation channel outside the walls of the Residence compound, where he had managed to scoop up a few precious buckets full—enough for coffee and to boil the rice for everyone's lunch, but not enough for any other purpose. This morning Mariana had barely even washed her face. Had anyone, she wondered, thought of a survival strategy for the British force until General Sale arrived to relieve them?

  Munshi Sahib cleared his throat. “After many days of traveling,” he continued, gesturing with fingers whose nails were uncharacteristically dirty, “Muballigh came to a third kingdom. This kingdom was easy to identify, for unlike the previous two, it was both rich and poor, and its people were both happy and sad. As he traveled through it, Muballigh saw rich gardens, heavy with ripening fruit, and meager, poorly kept ones. In some villages, women laughed around the well; in others, beggars crouched hungrily in the doorways.

  “As he gazed upon this new country's rolling hills and bright rivers, Muballigh longed more than ever to return home, and to see the face of his wise old king.”

  A tragic, familiar-sounding sigh floated in from the corridor. Mariana understood Dittoo's feelings. He, and probably Yar Mohammad, must ache to be in a safe, familiar place far from Kabul. But unlike them, she could not say where she belonged, or even where she would be welcome. The servants could describe every stone and brick of their ancestral villages, but for all that Mariana felt desperately homesick, she could not call anywhere her real home.

  She could not long for Sussex and spinsterhood, or for some nameless Indian cantonment where she would live with Harry Fitzgerald. All she wanted was the tantalizing, unreachable Qamar Haveli. It was not home, but it was the only place she longed for….

  “Muballigh,” the munshi continued, his voice roughening, “followed the road leading to the king's palace. As he trudged along, he saw an old man resting beneath a tree. Beside him lay a basket filled with raisins, almonds, pistachios, and other dried fruit.”

  “The old man motioned for Muballigh to approach him. ‘I see, messenger,’ he said weakly, ‘that you are on your way to meet the king. I was going to see him myself, to give him this basket of dried fruit, but I can carry it no farther. Do me the kindness of delivering it to him. I cannot pay you for this work, but you may eat as much of it as you like.’

  “Happy to oblige, Muballigh lifted the old man's basket onto his head and continued his journey. When at last he reached the palace gate, he found a smart-looking man standing guard.

  “The guard returned Muballigh's greeting. ‘I see,’ he added, ‘that you are dressed as a messenger, but you are carrying a basket like a peasant. Which are you, if I might ask, and what is your business here?’

  “ ‘I am indeed a messenger,’ replied Muballigh. ‘I bring words for the king's ears alone. This dried fruit is a gift from an old peasant I met upon the road.’

  “ ‘The king is not here,’ said the guard, ‘and so your message must wait. But if you leave the basket with me, I will see that his family receives it.’ ”

  Munshi Sahib looked tired and wan, but he seemed determined to continue his story. His health should have improved, thanks to the resourceful Nur Rahman, who had ventured into the city three days ago with Yar Mohammad, a purse full of Mariana's rupees, and a borrowed donkey, to buy a sheepskin cloak for the old man, and a dozen quinces to stem his cough.

  “Yar Mohammad looked exactly like an Afghan,” he had told Mariana excitedly. “As before, he pretended to be speechless, so no one was surprised at my bargaining for the cloak and the fruit. We were very careful with the money,” he added, then smiled, his heart-shaped face alight. “We have brought you potatoes and onions, and pomegranates from Jalalabad.”

  If they went on another of those adventures, Mariana promised herself, she would ask for sweet red carrots and small, dried apricots with their seeds still in.

  “As Muballigh handed over the old man's gift,” Munshi Sahib was saying, “a little boy came running from inside the palace.

  “ ‘Oh, Guard,’ he cried excitedly, seeing what was in the basket, ‘is all this dried fruit for me?’

  “The guard smiled. ‘It is, O Prince,’ he said affectionately, ‘for you and all your family.’

  “ ‘But since I am the eldest son,’ the little prince added hopefully, ‘may I have some now?’

  “As he looked down at the child, Muba
lligh knew what he must do.

  “ ‘Peace be upon you, little prince,’ he said, tenderly. ‘I have a secret message for your ears alone. I will tell it to you if you will promise to live by its wisdom for the rest of your days.’

  “ ‘Oh, yes,’ the child replied eagerly, for more than almonds and figs, he loved a secret.

  “ ‘Then here it is,’ said Muballigh. ‘Remember that the secret is yours alone until you choose to impart its wisdom to others.’

  “His face radiant from having carried the secret for so long, Muballigh leant over the little prince. ‘True happiness,’ he whispered, ‘lies only in the faithful heart.’ ”

  Faith. Mariana saw it every day in her munshi, who showed no sign of disturbance, even in this dangerous time. Were Haji Khan in her teacher's place, she was certain, he would be no different. She envied them both.

  “The little prince looked into Muballigh's serene face, his eyes shining. Then, forgetting the basket of fruit, he ran back into the palace.

  “His work done, Muballigh turned away from the gate. As he readied himself to travel to the next kingdom, a rushing sound came from above his head.

  “In an instant the great bird stood before him. ‘O Muballigh,’ it said, ‘you have delivered the message well. The prince will, indeed, find true happiness.’

  “ ‘But how do you know my name?’ Muballigh asked in surprise. ‘And how have you come to know the secret message?’

  “The bird cocked its ugly head. ‘That message has never been a secret,’ it said, ‘and it never will be, although it flourishes best when sealed in an innocent heart. The wise cherish it, and disclose it only to those whom it will truly benefit. The unwise, as you have seen, treat the message as useless and the messenger as a fool.

  “ ‘Come, then,’ added the bird, turning its back and spreading its ragged wings. ‘Come, faithful messenger, for you have earned true happiness for yourself. It is time for you to return home.’ ”

  Home. Snuffling sounds came from the corridor. Mariana glanced through the doorway. Nur Rahman and Dittoo were weeping.

  Munshi Sahib rocked back on his heels, staggered briefly, and then, before she had time to cry out, or Nur Rahman could rush to his side, he collapsed gently onto Mariana's carpet.

  November 20, 1841

  After Munshi Sahib's collapse, Nur Rahman had bundled him into several padded rezais, sat him on the borrowed donkey, and taken him away to Haji Khan's house in the city.

  For three days, he had not returned. Each morning Mariana sent for Yar Mohammad and asked him for news, but he had only shaken his head, his eyes hollow with worry.

  But her old teacher's illness was not the greatest difficulty Mariana had to face.

  “We are not to be relieved,” her uncle announced as they perched on two of the sitting room's three chairs after breakfast. “General Sale is not returning from Jalalabad.”

  “He is not coming? But why?” Mariana stared at her uncle.

  “Macnaghten has asked him to return eleven separate times,” he said heavily, “but as Envoy he has no military authority. No one can get poor old Elphinstone to make any decision at all. Sale has therefore decided for himself.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “Sale is right. It seems that immediately after he fought his way through the Khurd-Kabul and Jagdalak defiles, the same tribesmen reappeared and closed them again, more tightly than before. It is a miracle that any messages have gotten through.”

  His nose was scarlet from the cold, although he sat close to the fire. “Of course you and I remember those deep passes well,” he went on. “As Sale went through, the Ghilzai defenders ranged themselves high up on the corridor walls and poured fire down upon the column. It was only with great difficulty that Sale was able to crown the heights and dislodge them.”

  “They never told us that part of it. They said the passes were clear, and—”

  “Ah, Mariana.” Her uncle sighed. “It was sheer folly on all our parts to imagine the tribesmen would not return in even greater numbers. After all, that is their way.”

  Mariana shivered, remembering the steep, claustrophobic defile at Jagdalak. “But Sale's sappers must have blasted open the worst of the bottlenecks,” she offered.

  “I am sure they did, my dear, but that would not have helped much.”

  “Does he not worry about Lady Sale and his daughter?”

  “He is a military man, my dear.” Her uncle shook his head. “He must do what is right for the army, whatever the consequences. I am sure he is very worried about his family.”

  “Then what of General Nott at Kandahar? Will he get through to us with reinforcements?”

  “He has said he will try. All we can do now is wait.

  “That one-armed fool, Brigadier Shelton, thinks Sale is too frightened to return,” he said, sighing again. “He has already said so, publicly, to Lady Sale.

  “I wish he were still in a tent at Sia Sang,” he added, “or anywhere but here. Since his return from the Bala Hisar, he has taken to rolling himself into a quilt during councils of war, and pretending to fall asleep.”

  Mariana shook her head.

  “If Shelton is as good in the field as he thinks he is,” her uncle went on, as he took a large thermometer from its leather case, “he should prove it now. It is forty degrees in this room,” he said, studying the instrument, “but only because we have such a large fire. This morning it was just above freezing.”

  Outside the sitting room's single window, the sky was a heavy gray. Shriveled, brown stubble covered the ground. Mariana hugged herself inside her many shawls.

  “Perhaps,” she suggested, as her uncle put the thermometer away, “it would be better if we did not know how cold it is.”

  He hoisted himself to his feet and reached for his greatcoat. “I must go and see Sir William now,” he said. “Would you mind looking in on your aunt while I am gone?”

  Aunt Claire had been ill with fever since the weather turned cold. Wrapped to her eyes in shawls, a newly purchased poshteen spread over her lap, she did not smile when Mariana appeared in her doorway.

  “I would give anything for a nice, hot cup of soup,” she said faintly.

  Mariana smiled as encouragingly as she could.

  “I wish Lieutenant Fitzgerald would come,” her aunt added, as Mariana patted her arm. “I always feel better when he is here.”

  A little later, Mariana stood in the open doorway of their quarters, looking pensively out over the parade ground, her icy hands tucked beneath her arms. Fitzgerald had not come to see them for three days, which meant he was even busier than usual with the cantonment's defenses. The last time he came, he had barely been able to keep his eyes open.

  She had been unsurprised by his exhaustion. To defend a poorly built perimeter more than a mile long with insufficient men and guns would have been difficult anywhere. Here, with every foot of the cantonment wall exposed to attack, the job was too great for any one man.

  Perhaps she would feel less cold in his burly, comforting presence, but whatever she might wish, his poor exhausted men needed him more than she did.

  She had seen them standing guard on the ramparts during the bitter evenings, Englishmen and Indians, many with no more covering than the same woolen uniforms they had worn throughout the summer. At night, their painful coughing echoed over the parade ground.

  Like Munshi Sahib, many of them now had pneumonia, but her teacher at least had a sheepskin cloak and a heavy quilt, and boiled quinces and Nur Rahman.

  The others had barely any water, and not enough to eat

  She turned and stared past the parade ground and over the cantonment wall, toward a pair of low hills northwest of the cantonment. At least there was the food from Bibi Mahro.

  Every third day, a file of camels entered the cantonment gate, laden with wheat from the flat-roofed village built into the side of one of those hills. The farmers of Bibi Mahro could not supply all the cantonment's needs, but they brought enough to provide the soldi
ers with half their daily bread ration.

  It was all the cantonment could count upon.

  Fodder was scarcer than wheat, and the animals were beginning to starve. Each day the bony carcasses of half a dozen camels and horses were dragged outside to be abandoned in the sun near the gates. Each night the pile of carcasses froze. Each day it thawed enough to rot a little more. Each day the air grew thicker with the sweet, nauseating smell of putrefying flesh.

  At least Mariana's own food had improved. Thanks to Nur Rahman, she and her family had breakfasted that morning on bread from a Kabuli baker, warmed by Dittoo over a cooking fire. There had also been butter, although the cook had complained that it had been half butter and half goat hair when it arrived from the city.

  Tea, chickens, sugar, even grapes and cabbages, appeared daily in the panniers of Nur Rahman's borrowed donkey, to be shared with the Macnaghtens and Lady Sale. When there was extra, Mariana shared it among the seven other ladies and their pallid children, but there was little she could do for the runny-nosed native children who swarmed barefoot outside the officers’ quarters, begging for food, reminding her of herself, crouched in terrible need outside the gate of Qamar Haveli.

  “Forgive me,” she said, when they held out their little hands, “I am so sorry, so sorry.”

  Needing something else to think about, she set off to discover how Lady Macnaghten was bearing the current difficulties. Adding one more shawl to the three she already wore, she made her way across the frozen lawn to Lady Sale's house.

  “Oh, it is you,” someone said moistly, when Mariana arrived in the drawing room.

  The speaker sat huddled beside the fire. From the sound of her voice, Lady Macnaghten had been weeping. Lady Sale was nowhere to be seen.

  “It is foolish, really.” Lady Macnaghten raised her head and regarded Mariana with tear-filled eyes. “It is just that Vijaya is ill, and I have no idea how to pin up my hair. My lips are so chapped from the cold that I can hardly move them. I envy your youth,” she added mournfully. “A fresh-faced girl like you needs no assistance. I have criticized your appearance in the past, but it was only for your own good. You are a lovely girl, really.”