The Widow's Husband

by Tamim Ansary

  “Tomorrer,” Sheehan agreed. “After you’ve ‘ad a bit of rest, the both of yer. We’ll put you on ‘orses and send you to Baghlan where they got a real surgeon, and all the comforts. Can you ride, d’ye think?”

  “We’ll have to see,” said Rupert.

  “Best you go soon, if it’s Kabul gives the orders. Better not to let a thing like this fester and steep, it only encourages the natives. The guv’nor’ll want to know about that man. If he took a stick to you, what else mought he be cooking up? A blooming ringleader, he is. A black-hearted troublemaker, sir!”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” Rupert agreed with mechanical melancholy.

  “It’s out here they cook up all their plots,” Sheehan confided, fussing about them like an old woman, stirring the mulled rum and pulling blankets over the men’s legs. “Oh, they have thousands’n schemes, sir! They like nothing better than to cut English throats. They meet in hidden places like your Char Bag and none the wiser—meet and stir their horrid brew.”

  “Could be, could be,” Rupert agreed. Then he sat up. Something flared in his memory—the isolated compound he had seen clinging to the slopes above Char Bagh, and the line of people he had seen trudging up to it almost every day. The first time he spotted it, he wondered why that dwelling stood separate from all the others. Now suddenly he understood. “Hudson,” he croaked. “That building on the hill, above the village! Do you know which one I mean?”

  “Aye, sir, the one as gets visitors every day.”

  “Exactly. That’s where the hellhound lives! That’s his lair, Hudson. And who is he? Why does he get such a stream of visitors? Why, in fact, our place was built to lodge his visitors, they implied as much that first day—remember?”

  “Now that you mention it, aye. And mighty uneasy they were ‘bout letting us have it. They implied as he was a hermit, sir, but what sort of hermit gets a stream of visitors, like you say? And his house—a mite grand for a hermit, I should say.”

  “He’s no damned hermit,” Rupert declared. “That place is his fort.”

  “He’s their bleeding captain, he is,” the garrulous Sheehan asserted. “They come to ‘im for orders. Won’t you ‘ave a bit more rum, sir? It’ll warm you.”

  “People come from miles ‘round,” Rupert crowed. “Miles, the boy said!” He took the glass from Sheehan. “We’ve caught a big one, Hudson. It was right under our noses. I had my suspicions from the start. He must have felt it. That must be what set him off.”

  “Right you are,” Hudson affirmed stoutly. “You had your eyes on ‘im, sir, oh ‘e knew the jig was up. He figgered if he killt us both, his secret’d be safe.”

  “That village would be the place to plan something!” The excitement inflating Oxley made him forget his woes. With rum burning in his belly, his extremities were warming up at last. “Cut off at top and bottom by gorges! The only way in or out is through that one narrow pass—why, you could pass within a mile of it and never know the place existed. We’ll ride tomorrow, Hudson—three or four days should get us to Charikar. Major Pottinger is there, he’ll know what to do. By God, I could earn my captain’s stripes out of this. I wonder what Lord Auckland will say!”

  “And your father,” Hudson offered.

  “Oh, exactly. ‘Rupert saves the empire.’ If only I could be a fly on that wall! By God, it’s worth a lump on the head to roust a plot like this one, eh, Hudson? You’ll get full credit, Sergeant. The way you battled the man and his whole troop—a tiger, you were. You’ll get promotion out of this—Lieutenant! I’ll see to it!”

  28

  A fog of melancholy permeated Char Bagh. At first, no one outside Ghulam Haidar’s compound knew exactly what had set the malang off, but rumors circulated: it had something to do with a woman of Haidar’s clan. Once the villagers got hold of that much information, they compared notes and traced the trouble back to willful Shahnaz, that outrageous rebel, always skirting the edge of decency. Some of the women recollected how she had teased the malang the time a group of them went up there, how she had told him she was available... They remembered how the malang had turned away from her lascivious teasing. Now, she’d brought catastrophe upon the village. The first night she returned to her father’s compound, outsiders in the nearby alleys could hear her shrieks and guess at the punishment taking place behind those walls.

  Within Ghulam Haidar’s compound, the traumatized women retreated to the darkest corners, pressing their headscarves against their mouths to contain their shock and cringing from the beating underway, instinctively separating themselves as best they could from the fallen girl. Ghulam Haidar administered the beating in the tight small space behind the outhouse, hidden from the inner courtyard by sunflower bushes. His eldest son kept him supplied with branches cut from the willow tree in the center of the courtyard. Once in a while, as he brought the branch down across her back, her arms, her neck, or whatever part of her anatomy presented itself, he let out a curse or screamed out an imprecation—“May God strike you dead, you filthy dog!”—but mostly he just brought his whip hand up and down, up and down, following her as she tried to crawl away, and toward the end, weeping as he beat her. At first, she spat at him, screaming, “I hate you! I wish you’d die! You’re not my father!” Outrage and betrayal made her voice crack and shrill. But toward the end, more wounded than enraged, she just sobbed, “I didn’t do it…it wasn’t my fault…” The father exhausted ten or twelve branches on his daughter but dropped the last one and turned, biting at his lips, pushing his sons out of his way like a blind man pushing through a thicket, making his way alone, defeated, and humiliated up the steps and into his house.

  The women then came out of their hiding places and crept toward the corner of the compound where Shahnaz still lay on the ground, moaning inarticulately, curled into a fetal position, rocking slightly. Sensing the presence of the women in the gap between the sunflowers, she lifted her head and sought out her mother. She felt the depth of her transgression now, in her toxic shame, yet she struggled to her knees and dragged herself toward that only possible source of comfort, reaching out in penitential entreaty. Her mother stood hesitating for a moment, but when her daughter came close enough, she slapped the outstretched hand, then grabbed it and dragged the debased girl to her feet. She pulled her savagely toward the stable and pushed her through the open door, so that she fell onto the straw between the cows, onto the straw and the steaming heaps of cow dung. “That’s your place!” her mother spat at her. “That’s where you belong—among the animals, on top of their shit, you slut! How could you do this to me? Your poor father! Who will marry your sisters now? How will your brothers walk in the village with their heads high? You will never sit among us again—be certain of that. This is your place, this is where you spend your life now, you worthless clod of dirt!”

  She dragged the stable door to close it. Shahnaz’s older sister grabbed at their mother’s sleeve and remonstrated with her—“Let her out. Soften your heart, it’s not so bad. Just for tonight, comfort her tonight—just till her bleeding stops—” but the devastated mother snatched her arm away and put her shoulder to the door to swing it shut, howling her misery.

  Meanwhile, those who walked close enough to Ghulam Dastagir’s compound at the other end of the village would have heard blows sounding behind those walls too. The great wrestler had driven his son Karim to the wall and was hitting him with his open hands, slapping the boy across the head, and when those mighty blows sent the boy to his knees, kicking him on the backside, launching him forward to pitch face-first onto the dust. “Get up!” Ghulam Dastagir snarled. “Get up and be a man.”

  Ghulam Dastagir’s wife yelled at him from the steps. “What are you beating him for? How is this his fault? Leave him alone, God curse you! Wai wai!”

  “Keep out of this, woman,” Dastagir shouted without turning his head. “This bastard-son of yours should have kept an eye on those accursed farangis. How many times have I told you, boy? How many times have I told you
, eh? When outsiders are about, keep your eyes open and come to me the moment you see mischief. A tragedy like this does not jump out of a hole. You should have known.”

  He started beating again.

  Karim took the punishment without his usual cries of wounded innocence. He didn’t even try to protect his head. The spectators wondered at the boy. They knew Ghulam Dastagir was beating his son simply because he had no one else to beat. Tormented by the events of that night, he was venting his need to punish. No one moved to intervene. It would toughen the boy, and a father had a right to deal with his own son as he thought best. Those who were old enough remembered the beatings Ghulam Dastagir took from his own mighty father, and look how the beaten boy grew into a man that no one in the valley dared to cross. Someday, Karim too would strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, but there were some who pitied what he must go through to become that man. There were some who pitied him tonight, as they stood at a safe distance and watched his father go after him. Many of them knew that Ghulam Dastagir would vent whatever was left of his fury on his wife, later on, and after that, if he was still raging, who could tell?

  At last, the patriarch turned away from his son and pushed his turban back to wipe the sweat from his shining forehead. He barked out a demand for water. Karim had gotten to his feet as soon as his father turned away. He sat huddled against a wall, blinking back tears, pretending to wipe his nose so that with the same gesture he could surreptitiously wipe his eyes and thus hide the fact that he was crying.

  All that week the people of Char Bagh shuffled about their business with lowered heads. The men whispered amongst themselves over tea, too shocked for vigorous conversation. The women tended their animals and puttered in their vegetable gardens. They cooked and cleaned as always, but in eerie silence.

  Many went to the malang’s compound each day at sunset and prayed just outside the walls, but the malang did not come out to greet them or speak to them, and no one except Malik Ibrahim dared to knock and go inside. Ibrahim reported only that the malang was preoccupied with his prayer beads at this time.

  In the evenings, many of the men instinctively gathered in the mosque to perform namaz communally, as if it were Friday. Karim tagged along with his father, and Ghulam Dastagir let him. His rage had waned. Once, as they entered the mosque, he was even seen with his arm around the boy’s shoulder. In the wake of the latest beating, strangely enough, he had developed a tenderness for his youngest boy. Karim scarcely noticed. His troubled eyes made him look even more wounded than Shahnaz’s father. He was taking this shameful episode very hard, showing a fine concern for the reputation of the village, but when anyone tried to pat the boy, he shook the gesture off.

  Just as life was getting back to normal, the Engrayzees returned, and they came in numbers this time, twenty-strong, all wearing red coats, except for the original one, the man with the yellow hair and the eye-equipment, who was now dressed in blue.

  Karim saw them from the barley field and let out a cry. Ghulam Dastagir ran to the malik’s house to report. By the time a string of villagers started up toward Baba’s Nose, the Engrayzees had reached the malang’s compound. Several had dismounted and were banging sword butts against his door. Ibrahim broke into a run, but he couldn’t move fast enough running uphill. The Engrayzee had already pushed into the compound and now they came out again, three of them shoving the malang along, a fourth one scurrying along behind, trying to bind his hands with rope. Khadija came after them. She snatched at that last Engrayzee and tried to drag him down with her weight, but he knocked the woman to her knees. Ibrahim’s every breath was a blast of fire. “Stop,” he panted, “Stop, bastards!”

  The Engrayzees saw the crowd coming. Five of them dropped to their knees and lifted their rifles. Five more moved into place behind the kneeling men to form a second line of gunmen. From the redcoats came a cry of “Halt!” The villagers had no idea what halt meant, but they understood pointed rifles. They pulled up and stood there, clenching and unclenching their fists, swearing at themselves for coming up empty-handed, cursing at the red-coats, screaming out the dire things they would do to foreigners next time—break heads, cut throats—the whole time watching in impotent rage as one of the soldiers flung the malang over his horse like a bag of wheat.

  The villagers moved forward cautiously, each side watching the other in grim silence—the villagers watching for an opportunity to charge, the Englishmen for the moment when they must fire. The mounted soldiers cantered backward, keeping their rifles trained on the villagers while those who had dismounted got back on their horses. They certainly knew how to handle horses, these Engrayzees. Then they strung into a column and, one by one, starting from the rear, they turned and galloped away. As the last man wheeled, Ghulam Dastagir lunged and grabbed onto the horse’s tail. The soldier swung his rifle butt back. Ghulam Dastagir dodged it and got the rifle stock in his clutch, but the horse burst into a full gallop now, and it dragged Ghulam Dastagir off his feet. The Englishman spurred the horse and wrested his rifle out of the Afghan’s grasp. Ghulam Dastagir dropped to the ground. He scrambled up at once, but the foreigner turned in his saddle to fire a shot, and Ghulam Dastagir went down.

  The big man’s friends rushed to him with cries of rage and pity, but Ghulam Dastagir had merely twisted his ankle. He sat up chagrined, rubbing the joint.

  Ibrahim, meanwhile, had rushed to the malang’s compound. Khadija sat on the covered porch, her scarf askew, her mouth grim, her face wet, her eyes blazing. She fell into his embrace and they stood for a moment, body to body, lost to any consciousness of what eyes might be watching them, united in shock and sorrow. When she pulled away at last, he turned guiltily to see if the door stood open, but no, thank God, he had pushed it shut as he entered.

  “Oh, Ibrahim-jan! Oh, Hajji-sahib!” Khadija shook her head and brushed her face as if to clear away hair, even though no hair hung there. She rubbed fretfully at her cheeks. “They took him away. And you let them!”

  “They had guns.”

  “You let them! You let them—”

  “How could we stop them,? They had guns, Khadija! The next time—”

  “What next time? He’s gone! Go after them!”

  “They’re on horseback.”

  “Don’t we have horses? They took our malang!” she screamed. “What’s wrong with you cowards. ? Catch them before the pass, fling their bodies into the gorge! Kill them all, get our malang back!”

  “Hush, Khadija, I’ll take care of this.” He put his arms around her shoulders, still trying to comfort her. “You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. I’ll send Soraya up. I must go to the mosque now to confer with the men—”

  She brushed him aside and strode to the gate. She flung it open, and stood before the men of Char Bagh, bare faced. The wind rushing down the slope made her skirts billow in front of her, made her headscarf stream toward the crowd. Strands of her hair, shaken loose, fluttered wildly.

  “Don’t a single one of you dare to tell me I should not stand here in the open in front of men,” she yelled. “Don’t you dare tell me I should be ashamed. What men? I see no men here, only rabbits! I see only mice! I see ants! You should be ashamed to be seen by me. You, who stood and watched infidels fling our man of God on a horse like a carcass. What stopped you? They had guuuuns, your headman says! Guns? Bastards! You valued your shameful skins above our precious malang? You traded his blood for your own, the malang who found water for us! Have you no shame? You let infidels come and dishonor a woman of this village right under your noses. I wondered at it before, but I wonder no more. Who can wonder at such things in a village without honor? Oh, if only I were a man—”

  “Khadija.” Ibrahim pulled his sister-in-law into the privacy of her own yard, spun her around by the shoulders and glared into her face. “You’ve said enough. Get into the house and wait for Soraya. Don’t come out again today!”

  Her jaw jutted, her eyes churned with ferocious demand, but finally she said, �
��Go on, then, but you better save the sheikh. You call yourself malik of Char Bagh, prove you’re big enough, Ibrahim. God gives you this chance.”

  29

  Most of the men were already at the mosque. Ibrahim plunged in and took his place at the center with Ghulam Dastagir and the other elders, painfully aware that he was the only one in that circle without a single white hair. Stragglers would keep arriving, lesser men, younger ones, boys too, but the jirgah could not wait.

  “Malik-sahib,” someone blared, “you’d better control your sister-in-law. The day I tolerate such talk from a woman—”

  “You’ll do what that day, you ass-fucked dog? What will you do on that day?” Ghulam Dastagir jumped to his feet, craning at the speaker. “Now you’ve found your courage? Now? The woman was right. Why, I’ll pound your God damned face if you—”

  Ibrahim yanked the big man back down. “Calm yourself.” He cleared his throat. “Companions.” He cleared his throat again. Emotion blocked his breath. “Terrible things have happened to us.”

  Uproar broke loose. Terrible things indeed! Everybody wanted to list them. Everybody spoke at once. Each man had to have his say, even if no one was listening. When the clamor died down at last, Ibrahim continued.

  “Often you hear me call for caution but, my brothers, not this time! This time, Ghulam Dastagir has it right. Only blood can wash us clean of shame. As Muslims, we yield to God, but our first concern…”

  The men leaned closer instinctually.

  “—must be to rescue Sheikh-sahib. I don’t know where they took him, but no matter where they’re going, they’ll have to pass through Baghlan first.” Ibrahim rubbed his feverish hands together to keep his mind calm. “So that’s the first thing to do, I’ll go to Baghlan and make inquiries. If I hurry, I might even catch them there.”