The Widow's Husband

by Tamim Ansary

  The guards set to work, hitting the king’s victim. After two or three minutes, the fellow went to his knees, but he kept flinging his arms up to fend off blows, then dropping them to yelp and rub at his forearms where a stick had hit, only to throw his arms back up as sticks kept crashing against his skull.. His head began to bleed. Macnaghten leaned forward. “I say,” he began.

  Shah Shuja waved him back. “Not now,” he barked. “Really, Macnaghten! I have some experience in kinging, you know.”

  “Your experience lost you the throne, you miserable sot,” Macnaghten snarled. “If it wasn’t for us, you wouldn’t be here,” and he spat the addendum, “Your highness!”

  A grin lit up Shah Shuja’s features. A gold cap gleamed on his right bicuspid. “Well, well! You show some spirit! But I am assuring your lordship, with these people, you cannot be gentle. They will take you for weak and swarm you like dogs. They only understand strength. That was my mistake. I was too gentle with these people the last time, too good to them. They lost respect for me. This time they will not lose respect.”

  Macnaghten threw up his hands with a snort and rolled ing his eyes. “Just take care not to exhaust my patience, your highness. We put you on that bloody throne, we can bloody well take you off again.”

  “Mr. Macnaghten!” the king smiled, comfortably encircling his mistress with his free arm again. “Rage, rage, but I have spoken with his lordship. You need me. I need you also, that is the case. So why don’t we just learn to get along?”

  12

  So this was India. Rupert Oxley stared at the scenery slipping past the glass. He saw a spired temple …He saw a banyan tree with leaves the size of fans…He saw two men washing an elephant… He had seen such sights in pictures and had always thought they would seem so much more transporting and wonderful in real life but somehow, now that he was here, it all seemed …ordinary.

  The air sopped into his lungs, warm and wet and heavy as gravy. Yet the horses trotted along briskly. How they managed in this heat, Rupert could not imagine. He mopped his brow. Of course, it wasn’t just the temperature making him sweat, but the tension too. The next few hours might set the course of his whole life. He cast a glance at Colonel Hollister, but the old dodger seemed lost in thought. He had said very little since Rupert arrived, just the obligatory inquiries about his family and a few formal welcoming remarks.

  At last the Governor General’s domicile hove into view, what Colonel Hollister had termed a bungalow, but Rupert could see at one glance that “bungalow” meant something different here in India, something altogether more grand—and why should it not? Everything seemed bigger in this land. Why, on the map that once hung in Rupert’s nursery, he remembered how all of England could tuck into the bottom corner of India, right in the jungly part that was adorned with tiny pictures of tigers and monkeys—how he loved those little tigers and monkeys… that map… the nursery…

  Lord Auckland was a florid gentleman whose girth made the gaps between his waistcoat buttons bulge. That afternoon, he and Lady Auckland had attracted nearly two dozen social callers, over whom Lady Auckland presided like a queen. Just moments after they arrived, an older woman with a moustache collared Oxley and would not let him wriggle free.

  Seconds later he lost all desire to wriggle free because a pretty young copy of the matron, her niece perhaps, appeared at her side: Amanda Hartley, blond of hair and green of eyes, a perfume of femininity surroundinged her person. Looking closely, Oxley could see a faint down on her upper lip and a squareness to her jaw that might one day harden into her aunt’s masculine cast but not yet. Not now. Now she struck Rupert Oxley as perfect. He only wished he could give her his full and close attention, but his head was like a hive of bumblebees, he was so nervous about the conversation he would have to muddle through with Lord Auckland sometime this afternoon, a conversation in which he would have to seem easy and sociable, even though his whole Indian career depended on the impression he made. Listening to Amanda through this buzz of anxious thoughts, all he could do was nod and sometimes say “Yes mum” as she chattered on.

  Lady Auckland was offering nothing but black tea as refreshment, but Oxley had a flask of stronger stuff hidden in his khaki jacket and was able to sneak a fortifying nip in the hall now and again. By the time the tea things were cleared away, he was surprised to find his supply drained. He felt a bit bright about the eyelids, but not incompetent. He had done well to brace himself, he thought. Once the Governor got to quizzing him, he would need all the confidence he could muster. The Old Man no doubt expected staffers to know heaps about politics. Oxley was not wholly ignorant, he could carry on about the tariff and the Reform Bill and even the damned Chartists, but those were all English topics. They must have different topics here. A sober Rupert would have succumbed to panic, but the fortified Rupert felt equal to any challenge, even though he had no idea what would be asked or what he would answer when the time came.

  Finally the guests began to take their leave. He saw Amanda following her aunt toward the door. She cast a look back at Oxley. He had barely spoken to her, she barely knew him. Her attention seemed to strain toward him even as she was turning away, or was it merely his attention clinging to hers? He didn’t want her to go, he might never get another chance with her. Then it was too late. She was gone. They were all gone, all the guests. He was alone with Colonel Hollister, Lord Auckland, and some other rooky his own age. Rupert’s palms were sweating, but it wasn’t nerves, he told himself: it was the heat.

  “New to the colonies, youngsters?” Auckland beamed at both young men. “It’s a great deal to take in, I know. I remember how it was for me. We all go through this period. Mr. Oxley: the colonel has been good enough to share your particulars with me. You come well recommended. Arthur, my boy, I hope you left your parents in good health. Dear friends of mine. What do you think of India so far, gentlemen? You’ve been with us a week now?”

  “Two weeks, sir. Dreadful climate,” Rupert responded, “but a fascinating country. Full of surprises.”

  “It does take some getting used to,” said the other rooky.

  “It does, it does, but you’ll get used to it. We all do.” Auckland strolled to the sideboard and opened the mahogany doors. “Claret?”

  “A bit early for me.” Colonel Hollister smoothed his moustache with his thumbs.

  “I’ll take half a glass, sir,” Arthur said politely.

  “Wine?” Oxley was surprised. Auckland had started out in the admiralty and those navy men were hard drinking chaps, he’d always heard. “Wine would suit me, sir, unless you have something stiffer.”

  “Perhaps some cognac then.” The governor-general of India reached deeper into the cabinet and brought out a bottle from which he poured a finger’s worth of amber liquid. Oxley accepted the cut-glass vessel, put his heels together and tossed it back in one gulp, just to show himself a soldier and a man. He set the glass down on the sideboard and wiped his lips. Good stuff, by God.

  Suddenly, the richly appointed room swamped his attention. Flocked golden wallpaper. Polished window trimmings of beveled wood. Ivory inlays on the sideboard and on other bits of incidental furniture. If only the lads back at the Leicester School for Boys could see him now, amidst such splendor. The room was too damned small, though. This Indian climate! Oxley loosened his collar.

  “I’m always interested in fresh word from England,” Auckland said. “We get reports, but it’s different hearing it from the horse’s lips. What are they saying about Afghanistan?”

  Arthur stretched his long legs. “Very little, my lord. Wait-and-see is the attitude.”

  Oxley was astounded. Clearly his rival had not been keeping up! “Actually,” he declared, “it’s quite the hot debate in Parliament these days, Afghanistan.”

  “I know what they say in Parliament.” The Governor’s eyes were bland, his voice dry. “What do people say privately?”

  “Privately!” Oxley’s head was swimming, although not unpleasantly. “P
rivately, ah well, people are saying it’s a baaaad business. Terrible things happen in those mountains. Stories get around.”

  “Do they. And yet…” Lord Auckland took a pinch of snuff from the back of his hand, “the whole affair has gone extremely well. Does that story not get around?”

  “Very well so far,” Oxley cautioned, remembering an argument about this question in which someone defeated someone with this very point. So far!

  “Nonsense!” Auckland insisted. “The Dost has surrendered to us, we’ve brought him to India, not one Afghan has peeped—it’s over. We’ve secured the empire. And yet the old women in Parliament go on debating resolutions.” The Governor-general took out a handkerchief and wiped his ruddy cheeks. “Can you explain that to me, Mr. Oxley?”

  “Well, sir…” Something was tickling at Oxley’s brain. Something they were saying about Afghanistan at the officer’s club the other day. Some telling phrase hovered just outside his reach. But he couldn’t hook it, so he changed tack. “Well, now, this new king.”

  “New!” Auckland scoffed. “He was king thirty years ago! His grandfather was emperor. Who has a better blood right to that throne than Shah Shuja?”

  “But he’s a bounder, isn’t he?”

  Auckland stared. “A bounder?”

  Hollister kept shaking his head. Some sort of tic, perhaps. Oxley turned back to the Governor, but the whole room turned with him, and kept turning. He paused to let it finish whirling, wishing he could get another nip of that excellent cognac, just to steady himself. Auckland didn’t seem to know what a bounder was. “A snake?” Rupert offered helpfully.

  “A snake.” The governor had the oddest habit of repeating a man’s words. “Well, Mr. Oxley, if he’s a snake, he’s our snake. Without Shah Shuja, good Lord! Russia rushes in. With Shuja on the throne, we push forward. Forward, young man! Remember that! Afghanistan is a thrilling success.”

  “Well.” The other rooky cleared his throat.

  “Well what?” Auckland shifted his scowling gaze.

  “I hope there is still work to be done. I hate to think we’ve missed all the fun.”

  Auckland’s features relaxed. “Yes, boys, there’s still the odd agitator or two, you soldiers will have your chances, but we make progress every day. A time will come when you’ll be able to ride a carriage from Rawalpindi to Kabul as easily as you go from Leicester to London. And on that day, you fellows—”

  At that moment, a snicker squirted out of Rupert. “I just remembered what they’re calling this whole Afghanistan business!” Colonel Hollister now shook his head vigorously, but Rupert pushed on, because it was a splendid joke, and his lordship seemed like a good enough egg to appreciate it. “Auckland’s Folly!”

  Silence dropped over the room. Rupert glanced at Colonel Hollister. A frown was gripping the man’s face like a crab. Rupert heard the words he had just spoken echoing in his mind. “Not that I—” he stammered. “Not that I would ever…”

  But then Auckland burst out laughing, and seeing that it would be okay, Oxley released his own hilarity. Auckland and Oxley laughed together. The governor was a good fellow after all, this Auckland. Colonel Hollister smiled uncomfortably. The other rooky drew in his limbs and shifted his bottom on the sofa. In that moment, Rupert felt that he and the Old Man shared a companionship the other two could only envy.

  But the Lord Governor’s mirth vanished as water into sand. “No one tells me these things, Mr. Oxley. It’s refreshing to hear from such a fearless young man.” He smiled, and Rupert smiled back, relieved. “Arthur, m’boy,” Lord Auckland went on, “perhaps you’d give Mr. Oxley a lift back to his quarters. I need to keep the Colonel for a bit.”

  ***

  

  Auckland dropped down across from the colonel and opened a cigar box.

  The colonel shook his head. “I’ve acquired a taste for these native bidis.” Out of his pocket he drew a box covered with line drawings of swollen-breasted Hindu goddesses. From it he extracted a very thin cigar, a single leaf wrapped around a few pinches of tobacco. An acrid odor rose with its smoke. “Filthy habit,” Colonel Hollister acknowledged. “I know.”

  Lord Auckland began stuffing his pipe. “This protégé of yours. Oxford, is it?”

  “Oxley. Son of an old school chum of mine.”

  “Well, he won’t do. I can’t use him.”

  “He has some growing up to do, I see your point. But he’ll smooth out,” Colonel Hollister offered anxiously.

  “I’m sure he will but that’s not it. A clumsy chap like him isn one thing in barracks, but on my staff? Ccolonel, you know it’s all political work, what we do up here. One wrong word with these Pathans, with the Sikhs, with some of these Rajas—good lord: catastrophe. I need men with a feel for nuances. This boy doesn’t have it, never will.”

  The colonel sighed. “It’s just that I promised his father I would do something for him. He got himself in a pickle in England, nothing serious. Youthful high spirits. I had one or two rough moments myself early on…” The colonel bit his lips. “Rupert’s grandfather got me into the regiment and that’s what put me at Waterloo, and Waterloo, George, Waterloo’s what saved me. This boy can turn around, I’m sure. We were all young once. He just needs a clean slate, George, and India’s the place for it.”

  The governor paced to the window. “Auckland’s Folly.”

  “Tactless, I grant you, most tactless, but he’s a decent soldier.”

  “If it’s a clean slate he wants, why not send him to Afghanistan.”

  “Oh now! George—”

  “Yes! Afghanistan!” Auckland insisted. “It’s perfect. Let this boy get a first-hand look at the forward policy. He’ll see for himself how well we’re doing, and when he goes home, he’ll broadcast it to others. And they’ll tell others. He’ll be a walking argument for the great work we’re doing here. Yes, Afghanistan is the perfect post for this boy.”

  13

  Rupert endured a deadly week in Peshawar, waiting for the convoy, a week he spent brooding about his blunder and what his father would think about his disgrace, and how his brother would smirk at the news of it. He took his meals in his room and rarely went far from his quarters. Where would he go? There was nothing to see out there in the city. Peshawar was a labyrinth of narrow, filthy streets, clamorous at all hours with the sounds of people shouting and fighting and singing, the sounds of animals baying and wild dogs barking—it was the noisiest place Rupert had ever been. No one seemed to sleep in this country. Least of all Rupert. Auckland’s Folly, he kept thinking. Oh, how he wished he had never blurted out that bloody phrase!

  Finally the convoy arrived, a wagon train of goods and people bound for Kabul. Rupert was to join the small detachment of John Company escorting them into the mountain kingdom. After his idle week, he was good and ready.

  The convoy creaked out at dawn the next day. It would have to make its way through treacherous, snow-choked passes to reach the rude frontier outpost, he was told, and along the way it might have to fend off hostile natives, but it could be sure of a warm welcome in Kabul because of the wagonloads of goods it was bringing in, civilized amenities such as smoked hams, cognac and cigars, chandeliers—even a harpsichord. More important, it was bringing women: its passengers included over a dozen English ladies and twice that many Indian women, wives and consorts and maidservants. The cargo was loaded onto camels and donkeys and packed into wagons hauled by mules. The women rode at the end of the train, in wagons that were covered and had seats inside and springs above the wheels to cushion the ride.

  Nothing could cushion the ride entirely, however. The road over the Khyber Pass was achingly narrow and terribly bumpy, and it had many false summits. Again and again the convoy would top a rise and start down, only to find its path tilting upward again. The work was beyond taxing. Rupert and the others had to ride up and down the line, keeping the carts away from the edge and guiding them around the hairpin turns. Any misstep might prove fatal. Once, paus
ing at the edge of the dusty path, Rupert looked down a long, steep slope of rocks and dirt and saw the tops of trees, hundreds of feet below. He shuddered at the thought of going over! Even if a man survived the fall, God only knew what the natives would do to him.

  At that moment, he heard a melodious voice. “Mr. Oxley?” He turned and peered. A young woman with blond sausage curls was waving to him from the nearest wagon—good God, it was Amanda Hartley, the pretty one from Lord Auckland’s bungalow!

  He blushed and tipped his hat to her but felt too shy to stammer out more than a brief greeting. It struck him that she might have heard of his drunken blunder that day, might have laughed about it with her friends. A humiliating thought! Well, he had no time for ladies anyway, he huffed to himself. He had work to do, important work, keeping the wagons bumping over the rutted road. If not for him the train might not make it over the Khyber, much less to Kabul. Besides, he had to watch the hills for danger. He was a soldier, and this convoy might come under attack at any moment. Perhaps he would distinguish himself, fighting the natives. Perhaps he would save Amanda’s life. Then she’d see! And the news would filter back to his family…Rupert, hero of the day! The smirk would drop off Robert’s handsome face. His father would bluster and grump but pride would shine through his bluster. Perhaps a posting to Afghanistan was not the worst of fates. A man might prove himself …

  The next rise proved to be the real summit. From that point on, the train steadily descended, but the urgency of the work hardly diminished, for every hand was now needed to keep the wagons from rolling too fast and crashing into the mules. Probably, they should have unhooked the animals from the front and yoked them to the back to restrain rather than push, but there was no place to make the switch, and so the convoy kept going, all the men heaving and sweating and grunting and shouting, until it had descended out of the mountains and was rolling over relatively level terrain. Now they were truly in the land of the Afghans. And now at last the guides called a halt for a much-needed rest. The wagons pulled up within strolling distance of a clump of shade trees, the only greenery to be seen in this dismal landscape. Nothing else met the eye in any direction except scrubby gray brush, dotted by an occasional purple blossom. A warm wind had started to blow. Despite the seeming desolation, a crowd quickly gathered: boys at first, then bearded, swarthy men. They kept their distance, but the wind carried the sound of their guttural voices to the wagons. They all wore turbans, the tails of which were wrapped over their mouths and noses, leaving only their eyes showing. Many had eyes rimmed with kohl too, which in London would have made them look effeminate, but here only rendered them the more sinister.