The Widow's Husband

by Tamim Ansary

  “Sluts,” the crowd screamed. “What have you done with the gold?”

  They flashed past Ibrahim like figures in a dream. He couldn’t help them, his feet would not lift, he had to stay with Karim. Any moment now, the crowd would catch those women and tear off their blankets. Ibrahim saw a man banging at an alabaster statue of a naked woman and breaking off her arm.

  “Sluts and whores!” bawled rabid voices. “Where’s the gold?”

  A dust devil of scuffling men rolled to the compound gates where a sudden intrusion of king’s-soldiers broke it back into individuals who scattered in their flight from the soldiers’ swords. But from the courtyard came a rain of stones. The women disappeared into the street, as soldiers clashed with rioters. The soldiers had guns, but the mob had stones. The man with the alabaster arm was wielding it as a club. The soldiers fell back from the fury of this mob.

  Another blare of noise pulled Ibrahim’s gaze back to the house. A handful of Afghans were dragging out something heavy. In the middle of the verandah, they pulled the weight upright and the rioting stopped dead and the noise gave way to stunned silence as the whole courtyard turned to look: Ghulam Dastagir and three others were holding up the corpse of Alexander Burnes, the man who had promised to save the malang. His face was disfigured almost beyond recognition, his garments ripped in a dozen places, and every rip oozed blood. Ghulam Dastagir clutched the corpse with one hand. His other held the knife he usually used to slice melons. The blade was two fingers long and today it was basted with blood. Ibrahim felt lost.

  When Ghulam Dastagir let go, the Englishman’s body dropped like a sack, even though three other men were holding it too. The strongman of Char Bagh came lurching down the steps toward Ibrahim and took his son back. He set the small body gently on the ground and leaned over the boy to smooth the blood-caked face with tender fingers. His shoulders heaved, his tears flowed without noise. Some of the men who had dragged the corpse out with him formed a respectful circle, honoring his lamentation. Years seemed to pass, but when Ghulam Dastagir finally sat back on his haunches, the sun was still a few ticks short of noon: mere heartbeats had passed, not even hours. Ghulam Dastagir’s knife rested next to him, forgotten. One of the men said, “Commander?”

  Ghulam Dastagir looked up with red-rimmed eyes . “I’m not the commander. He’s the commander.” He nodded toward Ibrahim. “That’s Malik Ibrahim of Char Bagh.”

  “Khan-sahib.” The man bowed to Ibrahim. “You have served Afghanistan today.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” Ibrahim retorted. “Ghulam Dastagir has sacrificed his son.”

  “Allah forgives the boy and accepts him directly into heaven. You have fathered a martyr, Khan-sahib. You and your commander are precious to us.”

  Ghulam Dastagir merely sighed.

  On the far side of the yard, two men with gold thread glinting in their vests and rifles resting against their hips studied Ibrahim. “We’ve attracted attention,” said the headman. “Rich men, and they’re coming for us. We’d better go.” He spotted a gate to his right. “Sir,” he said to a man fawning over Ghulam Dastagir. “Can you help us get the martyr’s body back to the Grand Bazaar? I think those king’s-soldiers are coming for us—”

  “Oh! That father-blasted bastard of a king, may he choke!” the man spluttered. “Get up, friend.” He poked Ghulam Dastagir. “We have horses, we’ll take your boy wherever you say. Everybody! Come help carry the martyr!”

  He spread his cloak on the ground, and a dozen hands rolled Karim onto it. Ibrahim kicked the little gate open and scouted the alley. The others were already prodding Ghulam Dastagir to his feet. “We’re leaving now?” the big man mumbled thickly. .

  “Hurry!” Ibrahim held the gate for the men carrying Karim’s corpse. He pushed his friend through and stepped through himself. One of the well-dressed warriors shouted something, but Ibrahim did not look back. His spine ached where a bullet would crash through if a marksman fired now, but he pulled the gate shut and broke into a run. Behind him the gate crashed open again, but Ibrahim was already rounding the corner. He vaulted onto a horse that someone was holding for him. Then he was galloping through unfamiliar streets, surrounded by strangers who—strangely enough—revered him and Ghulam Dastagir.

  37

  That night, a professional barber prepared Karim’s body for burial, washing it in the courtyard of Hakim Shamsuddin’s tiny house just east of the Grand Bazaar. Neighbors who had learned about the boy’s martyrdom came over with sweet rice porridge cooked in oil. He was buried the next day in the same graveyard as Hakim Shamsuddin’s parents. Ghulam Dastagir moaned throughout the ceremony tormented by the thought of burying his boy in strange soil far from home. But taking the little body back to Char Bagh was out of the question, now that the snows had begun. Even in the best of seasons, it would have taken too long: the dead must be buried as soon as their souls have flown to God. The whole group from the Grand Bazaar attended the burial, and so did Ghulam Dastagir’s growing coterie of new admirers.

  The following Friday, a mullah led a funeral service for Karim at the Blue Mosque. Ghulam Dastagir’s coterie acted as bodyguards, escorting him and his headman to the house of God. A harsh drizzle that was mixed with particles of ice kept the streets deserted, but inside the mosque, they found hundreds of well-wishers, from prosperous merchants and feudal khans to men dressed in rags. The mullah’s sonorous chanting made the windows of the blue edifice ring. Afterwards, people came crowding around Ghulam Dastagir, eager to touch the garments of the martyred boy’s father.

  Suddenly, Ghulam Dastagir’s volunteer bodyguards rushed in to warn that a troop of grim-faced men had just tethered their horses outside and were coming into the mosque. Ibrahim pulled Ghulam Dastagir out a rear exit. Later, people recounted how the cavaliers had fanned through the crowded mosque, gazing and peering. Clearly, they had not come to pray but to prey. After that, on their friends’ advice, the two village men stayed indoors. They didn’t care to find out who was hunting them.

  Friends and admirers kept them well-supplied with food and news, and the news was never good. Travel in the city kept growing more dangerous. Every day skirmishes broke out between Afghans and Engrayzees. Most of the battles ended inconclusively, which left the aggression they aroused unsated and so, in the wake of every skirmish, bands of men roamed the streets, venting their violence on Afghans of other ethnic groups, looting stores, or simply beating and robbing ordinary folks. Order was breaking down.

  One morning, a pair of travelers from Charikar happened by. They said people were rising up in Charikar, and even in Jabul Seraj. There as well, what started as violence against the Engrayzee often ended up as fighting between Afghans. No one could leave their shops unattended. Bandits even broke into people’s homes sometimes. Who could tell what was happening further north, closer to Char Bagh?

  That afternoon, Ibrahim watched Ghulam Dastagir pacing in the cramped alley behind the hat store. “You feel caged in here,” he guessed.

  “I’m in pain, Hajji. I swear I don’t know how people live in cities. No land, no chance to set your feet on real soil. I can’t gather my thoughts. Can you?”

  “Cities are not for men like us.”

  “What if he opens his eyes?” the big man burst out. “Under the soil! What if he wasn’t dead when we buried him? I can’t remember if I really checked.”

  “Hush. Karim is safe with God now, Ghulam Dastagir.”

  “I never taught him what to say to the angel!”

  “His mother taught him. And I heard Soraya instructing him. Don’t worry.”

  “You must think me very weak.” Ghulam Dastagir looked up with uneasy shame. “I can snap a brick in two barehanded, but I can’t stop dreaming that I buried my son alive. What’s wrong with me?”

  “I was like that with Ahmad. It’s proper to feel pain. It’s proper to grieve.”

  “But I never did, Ibrahim-jan. I haven’t wept for him. You must think me very heartless. My little f
ellow...”

  “You wept when he died, Ghulam Dastagir. I saw.”

  “I never wept enough. Never enough. What are we doing here, Hajji-sahib? Why are we still in this city? I ask the question, and I can’t seem to find the answer.”

  Ibrahim nodded solemnly and addressed the trouble he heard beneath Ghulam Dastagir’s questions. “We’ve been gone a long time without any news from home.”

  “I wanted to ask those fellows from Charikar, but what would they know? Back in Char Bagh, no one even knows Karim is dead. No one is mourning for him. How lonesome he must be in the dark. And we hide here in the Grand Bazaar like rabbits in holes. What good are we doing?”

  “You have sacrificed enough,” said Ibrahim. “You’re right, you’ve probably done all you can, you should head home. If you leave at once, you might still get through the passes. But I can’t, you see. I can’t go home without Malang-sahib. It’s just not possible. If I can’t rescue him, I have to die trying. That’s my obligation, it has nothing to do with you. Your obligations are to your boy, may his memory be green, to his mother, to your other children, your kin. If you ever felt bound by any promise to me, I release you. Know that. Return to Char Bagh, take news of me to my family, you will be doing me a great service. Start for home, I beg of you, Ghulam Dastagir. Start for home.”

  The big man wrung his hands. “How can I go back alone? What would people say? I came along to protect you, youngster.”

  Still that condescension. Ibrahim bit his lips. After all they’d been through Ghulam Dastagir still saw himself as the seasoned elder guiding a green boy. He would not give Ibrahim the respect that was due to a malik. “Well,” Ibrahim murmured, “we’ll talk about this tonight. Right now, danger or no danger, I must go out and get some air.”

  Ibrahim wrapped the end of his turban around his chin and left the bazaar. He walked up toward Behmaru, a hill north of the river, because people said that from the top of that hill, you could look right down into the Engrayzee fort. The last time he had gone up there, he had seen no one in the streets except boys playing marbles. Today, however, the maze was crowded with men holding torches, waving daggers, dancing, and yelling—all sorts of men: slant-eyed Hazaras, beak-nosed Pushtoons, flat-nosed Uzbeks, handsome Tajiks like Ibrahim himself. The feverish feeling of these crowds began to make Ibrahim uneasy.

  “What are we celebrating?” he asked a passing stranger with a blood-caked beard. .

  “We took the heights of Behmaru.” the man grinned. “What a battle! You should have seen me, oh how I fought! This one farangi came at me—“

  “You were brave,” Ibrahim muttered, feeling suddenly lightheaded. “You were strong.” What had happened in the city during these days they had spent in hiding? Ibrahim hurried on up the hill, past men with bloody turbans and wounded faces who were all giggling like children. Closer to the top, he saw fires in the streets. Men were feeding looted furniture into the flames, baking plundered half-plucked chickens on sticks. Men were singing and firing guns into the air. Strangers kept hugging Ibrahim joyfully, weeping, “My brother! My brother!”

  His pulse pounded. There was no point in going to the very top. He should go down and tell his friends the Afghans had seized Behmaru. This was big news, wonderful news. Why did he feel so anxious? Was it the sight of blood and celebration mixed together? He picked his way down the hill, his head a jangle of confused thoughts and intense feelings. Suddenly a muscular Pushtoon stepped into his path. The man wore a rich cloak and a vest embroidered with golden threads, a vest that glinted even in the gray light of this blood-splattered afternoon.

  38

  “Salaam aleikum, Ibrahim-khan.”

  “How do you know my name?” the village headman gasped.

  “Ghulam Dastagir told us. We’ve just now come from him.”

  “How did you know his name?”

  “How could we not? He fathered the boy who gave his last breath in the sacred cause!”

  “Who are you?” Ibrahim whispered. His body braced.

  “Mohammed Jamal of the Achekzai clan. My uncle Abdullah—you’ve heard of him, of course—one of the greatest chieftains in the land. But I serve an even greater one: Wazir-sahib himself.”

  Wazir-sahib. Ibrahim gulped. Any big landowner might call himself “khan.” Any man of high blood might call himself “sardar.” But what kind of man dared to title himself wazir? A wazir was a king’s chief minister. He was often more powerful than the king himself. After all a king wore robes, but his chief wazir wore armor. A king presided over ceremonies, a wazir gave orders.

  “Forgive me,” Ibrahim stammered. “When you say Wazir …?”

  “I mean Wazir Akbar Khan,” the man declared. “Young lion of the Afghan cause. Implacable sword of Allah’s justice. Mighty son of the mighty Dost Mohammed, our great and precious king. Wazir-sahib wants to meet you and your friend Ghulam Dastagir.”

  Oh. Ibrahim’s limbs went warm for a moment. “Where is…?”

  “Here in Kabul. The young lion has roared, the chiefs have heard, they’re gathering. When you meet him, you will know why. Come now. We must take you and your friend to Wazir Akbar Khan. Do you have a horse of your own?”

  “Yes, sahib.”

  Aching with fear and hope, Ibrahim and Ghulam Dastagir said farewell to their friends who embraced them and whispered Quranic verses over them, abashed by their sudden grandeur. Who could have guessed that a pair of stray villagers they had taken in out of pity would be called to an audience with the famous prince about whom all of Kabul was gossiping, the man who made even the Engrayzee tremble?

  The villagers rode through the streets, protected by a dozen mounted riflemen, gazing in sorrow and amazement at the many stores that looked plundered and abandoned. Smoke was rising from Shor Bazaar, where Alexander Burnes had lived and died. Smoke was rising from the other side of the river too, where the Qizilbash clansmen had their homes. A cannon roared from the hilltop palace once or twice. Gunshots kept cracking out. The streets were alive with the flittering urgency of people rushing to get to other places.

  In one place, a crowd of ragged men blocked the entire street, having captured a string of camels. The merchant must have fled, or else he was lying somewhere dead. The beggars had pulled bags and bundles off the bellowing beasts and torn the sacks open on the spot. They were quarrelling over the goods now, over mirrors, spices, bits of jewelry. Another day, the mounted men might have scattered these looters and punished the ones they could catch, but today, grimly focused on another mission, they watched until they knew this blockade would not melt away, and then with silent gestures agreed on another route.

  After a long canter through wreckage and deserted alleyways, the company passed through the Ghazni gate. Beyond this point, residential neighborhoods gave way to fallow fields and leafless orchards. Muddy roads criss-crossed a grim landscape. Every few miles, another fortress-like compound loomed up.

  “Mahmood of the Barakzai.” One of the mounted men pointing up the road, not to a man, but to a fortress. Evidently, it belonged to some lord of the Barakzai Pushtoons, the clan headed up by the exiled king. Ibrahim saw some hundred horses tethered amongst the trees around the fort. Grooms came flocking out to take charge of their mounts. Within the walls, countless men lazed about on cots or ambled along the walkways, chattering among themselves. Some wore bullet-loaded bandoliers. Others had shed their bullet belts and set aside their guns, evidently feeling safe enough here inside this fort; but their long-barreled Jezail rifles leaned in rows against nearby walls.

  Servants led the villagers into a dark hallway filled with shoes. Ibrahim and Ghulam Dastagir slipped out of their own rude sandals and followed the servants into a room of dazzling size, where gorgeous red overlapping carpets covered the floors, and tapestries hung on the walls. The windows were fitted with shining glass and framed with oiled wood. At the far end of the room, a dozen men sat cross-legged on cushions around a dining cloth, feasting from platters of saffron rice.
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  One of these men looked up at the newcomers, and Ibrahim knew he was looking at the celebrated Wazir Akbar Khan. He appeared to be no older than Ibrahim himself and might even have been younger. A pristine turban wound tightly around his glossy black hair allowed some locks out to graze his shoulders. A jutting nose gave him a hawk-like look, but his round face and the cherubic shine of his round cheeks contributed a boyishness as well. When this young man looked up, so did all the others in the room. When he glanced from one of the villagers to the other, so did all his companions. Wherever his attention turned, so did theirs. He radiated power, this young man; all the others seemed like puppets attached to him by strings of unseen force.

  One of the servants blared out, “The men of Char Bagh, my lord.”

  The prince said “Ah.” Without rising, he gestured them closer. “Gentlemen.” He spoke with polished courtesy. “Consider our house your house. We beg your pardon for starting the meal without you. Join us please.”

  He pointed to the place directly across the cloth from himself and the men in that spot quickly shifted position to make room for the newcomers. Hesitantly, the villagers settled down. The black intensity of the royal gaze discomfited Ibrahim. Since the prince was looking at him, every other eye was trained on him as well. Ibrahim felt like he was sitting next to a lantern, in a dark room filled with strangers, himself and his companion the only visible objects.

  “You are Ghulam Dastagir,” the prince stated. He addressed neither man in particular and waited for them to reveal which one belonged to this name.