The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack

by Achmed Abdullah

  * * * *

  And, unhurriedly, he left the room and crept down the stairs with that furtive step which had become second nature to him: heels well down, toes slowly gripping through soft duffle soles, arms carefully balanced, hands at right angles from the wrists, and fingers spread out gropingly, like the sensitive antennas of some night insect, to give warning of unfamiliar objects—

  He slipped the dagger from his loose sleeve.

  Even as he opened the door to the doctor’s office, he wondered subconsciously which of the Cantonese whom En Hai had treated “like doit beneath his feet” would be suspected of the murder.

  FEUD

  Today he lives in Bokhara, in the old quarter of the desert town that the natives call Bokhara-i-Shereef. He has a store in a bazaar not far from the Samarkand Gate, where he sells the gold-threaded brocades of Khiva and the striped Bokhariot belts that the caravanmen exchange for brick-pressed tea across the border in Chinese Turkestan, and where, methodically filling; his pipe with tobacco from the carved pumpkin-shell at his elbow, he praises the greatness of Russia.

  There, at noon every day, his ten-year-old son comes to him, bringing clean and well-spiced food from the market.

  “Look at him!” he says often, proudly pinching the supple arms of the lad, and exhibiting him as he would a pedigreed stallion. “Sinews and muscles and a farseeing eye, and no nerves—none at all. Because of which I give thanks to Allah the Wise-judging, the Opener of the Door of Knowledge with the Key of His Mercy. For one day my son will wear a plaited, green coat and a tall chugerma cap of white fur, and serve Russia. He will learn to shoot straight, very straight, and then,” he adds, with a meaning smile, if he happens to be speaking to one of the three men whom he trusts,—“then he will desert. But he will return, perhaps,”—rapidly snapping his fingers to ward off misfortunes,—“he will return to his regiment, and he will not be very much punished.”

  A true Russian man he calls himself, and his name, too, has a Russian purring and deep ringing to it—“Pavel Alikhanski.” Also there is talk in the town that he is in the pay of that great Bokharan magnate, the kushbegi, friend of the Russians, bringing tales to them about his Highness the Emir, and receiving milled gold for the telling.

  But ten years ago, when I called him friend, his name was not Alikhanski. Then he called himself Wazir Ali-Khan Sulaymani, that last name giving clue to his nation and race; for “Sulaymani” means “descendant of King Solomon,” and it is known in half the world that the Afghans claim this resplendent He brew potentate as their breed’s remote sire.

  In those days he lived in a certain gray and turbulent city not far from the northeastern foot-hills of the Himalayas, where three great countries link elbows and swap lies and intrigues and occasional murders, and where the Afghan mist falls down like a purple-gray veil. In those days Russia was not on his lips, and he called himself an Herati, an Afghan from Herat, city-bred and city-courteous, but with a strain of maternal blood that linked him to the mountains and the sharp, red feuds of the mountains. But city-bred he was, and as such he lisped Persian, sipped coffee flavored with musk, and gave soft answer to harsh word.

  He did not keep shop then, and none knew his business, though we all tried to find out, chiefly I, serving the Emir of Afghanistan in that far city, and retailing the gossip of the inner bazaars from the border to the rose gardens of Kabul, where the governor sits in state and holds durbar.

  But money he had, also breeding, also a certain winsome gentleness of spirit and speech, a soft moving of high-veined hands, well-kept, and fingernails darkened with henna in an effeminate manner.

  He spent many a day in the Khwadja Hills, called poetically Hill A12, C5, K-K61, and so forth, in the Russian and British survey-maps. There he would shoot bighorns and an occasional northern tiger that had drifted down to the wake of the Mongolian snows. This was strange, for an Afghan does not kill for the sake of killing, the sake of sport. He kills only for the sake of food or feud.

  Nor could he explain even to himself why three or four times every month he left his comfortable town house and went into the hills, up and down, following the call of the wilderness; through the gut of the deep-cleft Nadakshi Pass; up beyond the table-lands, pleasant with apricot- and mulberry-trees; still farther up to the smoke-dimmed height of the Salt Hills, where he stained his soft, city-bred hands with the dirt of the tent-peg and the oily soot of his rifle.

  Once I asked him, and he laughed gently.

  “My mother came from the hills,” he replied, “and it is perhaps her blood screaming in my veins which makes me take to the hills, to kill bighorn and snow-tiger instead of killing brother Afghans.”

  “You do not believe in feuds?” I was astonished, for I was young in those days.

  Again he laughed.

  “I do,” he said; “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. A true saying, and a wise one. But what worth is there to me in killing my enemy if my enemy’s son will kill me in the course of time? An unfinished feud is a useless thing. For, tell me, can even the fleetest horse escape its own tail? Can the naked tear their clothes? Can a dead horse eat grass?”

  So month after month he went into the hills, and he came back, his soul filled with the sights he had seen, his spirit peopled with the tales and the memories of the hills. Often I spent the evening with him, and he would digest his experiences in the acrid fumes of his bamboo pipe. He smoked opium in those days.

  Then one day he came back from the hills a married man.

  She was a hill-woman of the Moustaffa-Khel tribe, and her name was Bibi Halima. She was a distant cousin of his on his mother’s side.

  Tall, hook-nosed, white-skinned, with gray-black, flashing eyes and the build of a lean she-panther, not unbeautiful, and fit mother for a strong man’s sons, I saw her often. For these hill-women despise the customs of the sheltered towns; they will not cover their bodies with the swathing farandjés, nor their faces with the chasband, the horsehair veil of the city women.

  Ali-Khan loved her. He loved her with that love which comes to fortunate men once in a lifetime once and not oftener. His spoken love was as his hands, soft and smooth and courtly and slightly scented. He would fill those hands with gifts for her adornment, and he would write poems to her in the Persian manner.

  And she? Did she love him?

  Assuredly, though she was silent. The women of Afghanistan do not speak of love unless they are courtesans. They bear children—sons, if Allah wills—and what else is there for woman in the eyes of woman or of man? Also, since love is sacrifice, can there be greater proof of love than the pain of giving birth?

  No, Bibi Halima did not weave words of love, cunning and soft. Perhaps she thought her husband’s spoken love-words in keeping with his henna-stained fingernails, an effeminacy of the city, smacking of soft Persia and softer Stamboul, the famed town of the West.

  She did not speak of love, but the time was near when she was about to give answer, lusty, screaming answer. She expected a child.

  “May Allah grant it be a man-child,” she said to her husband and to her mother, a strong-boned, hook nosed old hag of a hill woman who had come down into the city to soothe her daughter’s pains with her knowledge “a man-child, broad-bodied and without a blemish!”

  “Aye, by God, the Holder of the Scale of Law! A man-child, a twirler of strength, a breaker of stones, a proud stepper in the councils of fighting men!” chimed in the old woman, using a tribal saying of the Moustaffa-Khel.

  Ali-Khan, as was his wont, snapped his fingers rapidly to ward off the winds of misfortune. He bent over Bibi Halima’s hands, and kissed them very gently, for you must remember that he was a soft man, city-bred, very like a Persian.

  “Let it be a man-child,” he said in his turn, and his voice was as deep and holy as the voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. “Allah, give me a son, a little son, to complete my house, to give meaning and strength to my life; and to yours, blood of my soul!” he adde
d, again kissing Bibi Halima’s hands. “And you, beloved,” he continued haltingly, for a great fear was in his heart—“but you, pearl tree of delight—you must live to…”

  “Silence, babble-mouth!” the old mother interrupted with a shriek. “Do not speak aloud with naked heart and tongue! You will bring ill luck on your house! Of course she will live. She is my daughter, blood of my blood and bone of my bone. She is of the hills.” She laughed. “Seven sons have I borne to my lord, and still I live.” And she pushed Ali-Khan toward the door, mumbling bitter words about foolish men of Persian manners sporting with the jinn of misfortune. “Go now!”

  “I go,” Ali-Khan said submissively; and he returned, half an hour later, bearing many gifts, silk and brace lets and sweetmeats and perfume from Ispahan.

  But Bibi Halima waved them aside with a short, impatient gesture. No, no, no, she did not want these man-made things. She wanted him to go to the hills to bring back to her the flowers of the hills, purple rhododendrons, soft-colored mimosas, and wild hibiscus smelling strongly of summer.

  “Go to the hills, O pilgrim,” added the old woman as she saw his anxious face. “We women need no man around in the hour of trial. Ho!” she spat out her betel through blackened, stumpy teeth, “let women do women’s business. Men in the house are as useless as barren spinsters, fit only to break the household pots. Go to the hills, my lord, and bring back the flowers of the hills. On your return, with the help of Allah, there will be a little son strengthening the house.”

  And so he went to the hills, his rifle in his arm. Up to the high hills he went to pick flowers for his beloved, a song on his lips.

  “O Peacock, cry again,” I heard his voice as he passed my house.

  Early the next morning Ebrahim Asif came to town. He also was of the Moustaffa-Khel, and a first cousin to Bibi Halima, and upon the blue-misted Salt Hills he was known as a brawler and a swashbuckler. A year before he had spoken to her of love, and had been refused. She had married Ali-Khan instead a few months later.

  Now he came to her house, and the old mother stood in the doorway.

  “Go away!” she shrilled; for being an Afghan herself, she did not trust the Afghan, her sister’s son.

  Ebrahim Asif laughed.

  “I have come to see my cousin and Ali-Khan. See, I have come bringing gifts.”

  But still the old woman was suspicious.

  “Trust a snake before an Afghan,” she replied. “Ali-Khan is away to the hills. Go, filthy spawn of much evil!”

  “Spawn of your sister’s blood, you mean,” he replied banteringly; and the old woman laughed, for this was a jest after her own heart. “Let me in!” he continued. “Once your daughter blinded my soul with a glance of her eye. Once the fringe of her eyelids took me into captivity without ransom. But time and distance have set me free from the shackles of my love. It is forgotten. Let me bring these gifts to her.”

  So the old woman let him into the zenana, where the windows were darkened to shut out the strong Northern sun. Bibi Halima gave him pleasant greeting from where she lay on the couch in the corner of the room.

  “Live forever, most excellent cousin!” he said, bowing with clasped hands. “Live in the shadow of happiness!” He took a step nearer. “I have brought you presents, dispenser of delights.”

  Bibi Halima laughed, knowing of old Ebrahim Asif’s facility for turning cunning words. She spoke to her mother.

  “Open the blinds, Mother, and let me see what my cousin has brought from the hills.”

  The old woman drew up the blinds, and Bibi Halima looked.

  “See, see, Mother!” she exclaimed, “see the gifts [which my cousin has brought me!”

  “Aye, Daughter,” the old woman replied, “gifts to adorn the house.” And then she added, with the pride of age greedy for grandchildren, “but there will be a gift yet more fit to adorn this house when you lay a man-child into your lord’s arms.”

  Then the terrible rage of the Afghans rose suddenly in Ebrahim Asif’s throat. He had come in peace, bearing gifts; but when he heard that the woman whom once he had loved would give birth to a child, the other man’s child, he drew his cheray.

  A slashing, downward thrust, and he was out of the house and off to the hills again.

  The blow had struck Bibi Halima’s temple with full force. She was half dead, but she forced back her ebbing strength because she wanted to hold a man-child in her arms before she died.

  “Stop your crying!” She turned to her mother, who had fallen into a moaning heap at the foot of the couch. “Allah el-Mumit—God the Dispenser of Justice—will not let me die before I have laid a son into my lord’s arms. Call a doctor of the English.”

  So the old woman came to my door, giving word to me of what had occurred. I hurried to the Street of the Mutton Butchers, where the English hakim lived, and together we went to the house of Bibi Halima.

  He examined her, dressed her wound, and said:

  “A child will be born, but the mother will assuredly die.”

  The old woman broke into a storm of tears, but Bibi Halima silenced her with a gesture.

  “It is as God wills,” she said, and the doctor marveled at her vitality. “Let but the child be born first, and let that child be a man-child. The rest matters not. And you”—she turned to me—“and you, my friend, go to the hills and fetch me my lord.”

  I bowed assent, and went to the door.

  “Wait!” Her voice was firm despite her loss of blood. “If on the way you should meet Ebrahim Asif, you must not kill him. Let him be safe against my husband’s claiming.”

  “I shall not touch him,” I promised, though the sword at my side was whinnying in its scabbard like a Balkh stallion in the riot of young spring.

  All that day and the following night, making no halt, I traveled, crossing the Nadakshi Pass at the lifting of dawn, and smelling the clean snow of the higher range the following noon. Here and there, from mountaineers and the Afghan Emir’s rowdy soldiers, I asked if aught had been seen of the two men, both being well known in the land.

  Yes, I asked for both men; for while I was hurrying to my friend with the message which was about my heart like a heel-rope of grief, it was also in my soul to keep track of Ebrahim Asif. Kill him I could not, because of the promise I had given to Bibi Halima; but perhaps I could reach Ali-Khan before the other had a chance to make the rock-perched villages of the Moustaffa-Khel, and thus comparative safety.

  It was late in the afternoon, with the lights of the camp-fires already twinkling in the gut of the Nadakshi, when I heard the noise of tent-peg speaking to hammer-nose, and the squealing of pack-ponies, free of their burdens, rolling in the snow. It was a caravan of Bokhara tadjiks going south to Kabul with wool and salt and embroidered silks, and perhaps a golden bribe for the governor.

  They had halted for a day and a night to rest the sore feet of their animals, and the head-man gave me ready answer.

  “Yes, pilgrim,” he said; “two men passed here this day, both going in the same direction,” and he pointed it out to me. “I did not know them, being myself a stranger in these parts; but the first was a courteous man who was singing as he walked. He gave us pleasant greeting, speaking in Persian, and dipped hands in our morning meal. Two hours later, traveling on the trail of the first man, another man passed the kafilah, a hillman, with the manners of the hills, and the red lust of killing in his eyes, nosing the ground like a jackal. We did not speak to him, for we do not hold with hillmen and hill-feuds. We be peaceful men, trading into Kabul.”

  It was clear to me that the hillman intended to forestall just fate by killing Ali-Khan before the latter had heard of what had befallen Bibi Halima. So I thanked the tadjik, and redoubled my speed; and late that evening I saw Ebrahim Asif around the bend of a stone spur in the higher Salt Range, walking carefully, using the shelter of each granite boulder, like a man afraid of breech-bolt snicking from ambush. For a mile I followed him, and he did not see me or hear me. He knew that his e
nemy was in front, and he did not look behind. Again the sword was whinnying at my side. For Ali-Khan was friend to me, and we of Afghanistan are loyal in living, loyal also in taking life.

  But there was my promise to Bibi Halima to keep Ebrahim Asif safe against her husband’s claiming.

  And I kept him safe, quite safe, by Allah, the holder of the balance of right. For using a short cut which I knew, having once had a blood-feud in those very hills, I appeared suddenly in front of Ebrahim Asif, covering him with my rifle.

  He did not show fight, for no hillman will battle against impossible odds. Doubtless he thought me a robber; and so, obeying my command, he dropped his rifle and his cheray, and he suffered me to bind his hands behind his back with my waistband.

  But when I spoke to him, when I pronounced the name of Ali-Khan and Bibi Halima, he turned as yellow as a dead man’s bones. His knees shook. The fear of death came into his eyes, and also a great cunning; for these Moustaffa-Khel are gray wolves among wolves.

  “Walk ahead of me, son of Shaitan and of a she-jackal,” I said, gently rubbing his heart with the muzzle of my rifle. “Together you and I shall visit Ali-Khan. Walk ahead of me, son of a swine-fed bazaar-woman.”

  He looked at me mockingly.

  “Bitter words,” he said casually, “and they, too, will be washed out in blood.”

  “A dead jackal does not bite,” I said, and laughed; “or do you think that perhaps Ali-Khan will show you mercy? Yes, yes,” I added, still laughing, “he is a soft man, with the manners of a Persian. Assuredly he will show you mercy.”

  “Yes,” he replied, “perhaps he will show me mercy.” Again the cunning look shone in his eyes, and a second later he broke into riotous, high-shrilling laughter.

  “Why the laughter?” I asked, astonished.

  “Because you shall behold the impossible.”

  “What?”

  “When the impossible happens, it is seen,” he answered, using the Sufi saying; “for eyes and ears prove the existence of that which cannot exist: a stone swims in the water; an ape sings a Kabuli love-song—”