The Lotus and the Wind

by John Masters

  Robin listened to talk of horses, asked people’s opinions, gave his own, and heard a great deal. He could not tell yet whether any of it had value for him. In Bukhara everyone talked behind his hand, in undertones. In every tea-house and coffee shop there were three or four men perpetually whispering together. Once he placed himself so that he could, unknown to such a group, hear their talk. It was about a sacred text that had recently come up for sale in the book mart. In Bukhara secrecy had become a habit.

  The bazaars were roofed over, every street separately, with roofs of beaten clay on undressed timber. They formed a many-branched endless tunnel where every noise echoed and redoubled itself, every smell stayed at the place of its birth to be increased by subsequent smells. And behind all, the whispering. On the third day Robin sought refuge in the quiet under the high brick dome of the book mart. Studying the famous text he had heard discussed, he saw that the man on his right, who had come to admire the same treasure, was a Powindah horse-trader. He had met and talked with the man the previous evening. He thought it might not be a coincidence that they met again here, so he said, ‘May you never be tired!’

  When the Pushtu greetings were at last out of the way the Powindah said, ‘Let us retire to a corner. It is a happy chance to see you here. I have heard of a piece of business that may interest you.’ Robin agreed politely that their meeting had been an opportune coincidence. It was obvious that the Powindah had come looking for him. When they were settled the Powindah said, ‘I have been offered good money to take a couple of Russians, a man and a woman, south into Afghanistan.’

  ‘Indeed? I hope you will get your money in advance.’ Robin was not thinking of what the Powindah had said but of his motives in saying it.

  ‘I’m not accepting. My business lies here, and north. I’ll be going back south, of course, in a few weeks, but not the way these people want to go. If I recommend you to them, now, could we work out something?’

  ‘I think so,’ Robin said slowly. It was no good trying to assess the Powindah’s motives until he knew what the Russians wanted. He’d have to take the offer--but not sound too enthusiastic about it--and in the meantime just note that the Powindah had guided him to it. This was not a trail that he had discovered by himself. He said again, ‘I think so--a percentage perhaps? And I’ll buy from you whatever animals I need for the trip? Something like that?’

  Buyers moved slowly about the mart. Close by an old man droned aloud to himself from the Koran, his voice never changing pitch or tone.

  The Powindah said, ‘Twenty per cent.’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Robin shrugged, and the other said, ‘Someone will come to you in the serai to-morrow morning.’

  The following morning, while Robin and Jagbir were squatting over the little cooking fire in their serai cell, a Turki entered the main gate and asked a question of the keeper. The latter pointed at Robin, and the Turki picked his way forward between the kneeling camels and the littered piles of dung. He wore ordinary Turki clothes, with the addition of a red waistcoat, which gave them the appearance of a livery. He stopped in front of Robin and asked, ‘Are you Khussro the horse-trader?’

  ‘Some say so.’

  ‘My master wishes to speak to you. He is a foreigner, a Russian. Muralev is his name. Come at once.’

  Robin answered coldly, ‘I’ll come when I am ready. Wait there.’

  He ate his meal with deliberation while the servant stamped and fumed in the yard. At the end, after belching, Robin said to Jagbir, ‘I’m going with this fellow now.’ Jagbir grunted. Last night they had arranged that he would follow at a distance and watch the house until Robin came out.

  The Turki led the way through the streets for over half a mile, to a house off Bukhara’s great square, the Registan. Robin kicked off his slippers and followed the Turki up a narrow flight of wooden steps. The upper chamber was nearly dark. He paused inside the hanging curtain at the head of the stair and stood still until his eyes became accustomed to the gloom. Then he saw two people sitting on cushions at the far end of the room. He could not tell how tall the man was, but he seemed to be of medium height. He was about forty-five years old, and streaks of grey marked his thin, fair hair. He had a long nose, a big, tired face, and narrowish rather stooped shoulders. He wore European clothes, not too clean--white trousers, sandals, a white shirt. His coat lay in a careless heap on the rugs. He wore rimless spectacles.

  The woman was a little younger, forty perhaps. She had thick blonde hair, a wide mouth, a good, short nose, and pale grey eyes set wide apart in a square face. Her high-necked Russian blouse looked extraordinarily incongruous above a pair of red silk harem trousers and big bare feet. Robin stared at her, forgetting his Persian manners. He knew in that instant that she was a Russian agent, and he was trying to work out why he knew. But it was no good. He dropped his eyes and stood in impassive silence until the man spoke.

  ‘Greetings! Do you drink tea, Khussro? Ho, out there, bring tea, please! Take a place.’ He had a thin, rasping voice, nasal but not unpleasant. He spoke classical Persian with an accent.

  Robin folded his feet under him on a cushion and still did not speak. He wanted to look at the woman again. She had not said a word and had hardly moved, but she exuded a dominant vitality. Now she spoke, also in Persian. ‘You come from Afghanistan? Where?’

  ‘My home is Gharghara.’ He must not look directly at her. His first stare could have been excused on the grounds of surprise and curiosity.

  ‘You know the route between here and Baikh, and the roads east and south from there?’ Her voice was full and strong.

  ‘Well enough.’ He did not know any routes beyond Balkh except the one he had taken from Kabul. He would have to cross that bridge when he came to it. A few questions in any serai would tell him all he’d need to know.

  ‘Our friend the Powindah tells us you are interested in helping us.’

  Robin said, ‘I might be,’ addressing the man. ‘I want to hear more details.’

  It was still the woman who took up the tale. She spoke directly at him, her voice like a tenor bell, her personality wholly feminine, yet very strong, demanding his attention. He would not look at her. He stared at the man, and the man, quietly absorbed, stared at him, studying him from head to toe.

  The woman said, ‘We, my husband and I, are--there’s no word for it--we’re birdcatchers. We catch birds and animals, skin them, and send the skins back to our friends in Russia, who put them in a big house and give them all names.’

  Robin shrugged. Khussro would not know what a naturalist was, nor would he believe there were such people when the word was explained to him. He would be insulted that anyone should expect him to believe such a rigmarole. He said coldly, ‘As the lady says.’

  After a few words in Russian to her husband, the woman went on. ‘We have enemies at home. They are jealous of us because our success puts us in greater favour than they with His Majesty the Czar. These enemies, who are also bird-catchers, are always trying to prevent us from reaching the places where the rare birds and animals are to be found. You see, there are honours to be earned for this work, from the Czar’s hand. If we do not get the honours, these others will. They are all learned men, but even learned men can be jealous. They say that we will cause trouble for Russia if we go where we want to, but their real reason is jealousy.’ Robin held his face immobile. He knew to what lengths the collector’s passion will carry men, however learned and civilized. Khussro the trader, however, would not know, or at least would never be able to think of dead birds as reasonable objects of such a passion. His proper course now, and it would be a part of the Persian good manners expected of him, was to extend the appearance of credence to this nonsense, while indicating that in due time he would prefer to have the truth. He said therefore, ‘There are indeed people in all countries who say one thing and mean another.’

  The woman said, ‘We want to go into Afghanistan--to Balkh first, thence probab
ly east, we are not sure. We hear there are rare birds in the upper valley of the Oxus.’

  ‘How did the lady hear?’ said Robin quickly, addressing the man.

  ‘We hear. We pay such men as you for news. We have been in these parts for some years, off and on. Well, we want to go, but the Amir will not let us. You realize that a Russian official advises him on many matters? That Russian is the brother of our greatest enemy. On his suggestion the Amir forbids us and has given orders that no one is to provide us with transport. Will you get ponies for us, arrange a small caravan, and take us? In secret, you understand.’

  Robin stroked his chin. This latest information, if true, made it just possible that self-preservation was the Powindah’s only motive in steering him here. Better a percentage than the bastinado. He said, ‘My business brings me frequently to Bukhara--like the Powindah. Next year or the year after, when I return, the Amir will bastinado me or cause my ears to be cropped. Or perhaps he will have me thrown from the tower.’ There was a tower two hundred feet high near the Kok Lumbez mosque. Nearly every day a criminal was cast screaming from the summit.

  Muralev rasped softly, ‘We don’t think so. The Amir’s adviser will shortly be replaced by a political agent, and we know who he will be--a friend of ours. Besides, we will pay you so well that you can afford to miss Bukhara for two or three years.’

  Khussro would now want to know the truth behind the nonsense about catching birds, that they should be willing to spend so much money. But Robin did not want to press the Muralevs on that point yet. While he hesitated Muralev suddenly said, ‘You are a good man. I would like to go with you.’

  In the context it was a strange remark. Robin noticed that Muralev had shadowed blue eyes and poor teeth. There was something familiar about him too--an air, a manner, a breath of aloofness or loneliness, something. Muralev said, ‘If we have to have someone with us in the deserts and the mountains, let it be you.’

  Robin’s nerves, taut till then, relaxed. He smiled and said easily, ‘I will come.’

  The Muralevs began to talk together in Russian, which Robin did not understand. He did not listen and did not look at them. There were three possibilities. Firstly, they might really be naturalists. If so, he’d be wasting his time with them, except that Muralev was an interesting man. Secondly, they might be Russian agents who had picked on him by chance to help them. That would be an amazing piece of luck. What was the Powindah’s part in this? Thirdly, they might be Russian agents who knew that he was a British agent. Then what was their object? It could not be to kill him because that they could arrange in Bukhara at any time for a few coppers. It must be that they wanted to put him on a false scent--either right off the track or on to a level of deception.

  The woman’s whole personality shouted to him that she was not a naturalist. That left the other two possibilities, in both of which the Muralevs were Russian agents. Either suited him well enough. Even a false scent, if recognized as such, would be nearly as valuable as a true scent.

  The Russians finished their discussion, and the woman turned to him. ‘Attend! We want a riding horse, properly saddled, for our servant. We don’t need horses for ourselves, because we have them. We want four or five ponies or donkeys to carry our tent, bedding, food, and the equipment we need to skin the birds and animals properly. Later, as we eat down our food, we will load the skins on the ponies. Can you get all that for us? Except the skinning things, of course, which we have here.’ She pointed to two leather-bound boxes-on the floor against the wall behind him.

  ‘I want to take my violin,’ the man said. The woman gestured with a helpless, affectionate smile and answered in Russian. She turned to Robin again. ‘How soon can you arrange it?’

  Robin thought before answering. ‘Two days. On the second night I or my man will lead a donkey by here and stop for a minute in the courtyard, as though peddling. The donkey will have as load two empty boxes, like yours. While it is in the yard, change the boxes.’

  ‘Good! Excellent!’ the woman cried.

  ‘On the third morning I will set out at dawn on the road to Balkh--the one that goes by way of Karshi. You go out shooting, on horseback but without baggage of any kind, some time that morning. Go north. Circle around the town till you meet the Balkh road, then go down it. I’ll be waiting for you. We’ll have to set off again at once as soon as you come, so nurse your horses. You cannot take your servant. He must stay here. He can say he does not know why you haven’t returned from your shooting, if he’s asked. Or he can say you’re both ill of fever, smallpox. It depends how much he values his neck.’

  ’You seem to have much experience of these matters, Khussro,’ Muralev said with his quiet harshness.

  ‘No. But I live in Afghanistan.’

  They both laughed, Muralev naturally, the woman with a full, slightly artificial trill.

  Robin said, ‘The second night and the third morning, then. I’ll want two hundred roubles now for buying the animals, and fifteen a day--weekly, in advance--as long as you’re with me. All in gold.’ He noticed that it was the woman who gave him the money.

  Later that day Robin completed his arrangements with the Powindah. All went well, and in the dawn of the third day he and Jagbir left Bukhara. The pack-pony’s head-rope was attached to Robin’s saddle, and Jagbir herded the five trotting donkeys as he rode. At nightfall the Muralevs joined them in the desert, and the whole party then moved on for another fifteen miles before pitching camp.

  The next day the Muralevs cantered out ahead of the little caravan. He carried a collector’s haversack slung on his back. She wore baggy Russian trousers and top-boots, and she rode astride. Most of the time Robin could see them as little dots in the clear, dry atmosphere. Occasionally a trick of light made them very large ahead of him and raised them twenty feet or so, so that they seemed to be trotting on air well above the surface of the desert. They stopped frequently and Robin noted the places, and when he reached them looked carefully around to see what had interested the Muralevs. Sometimes he could detect nothing; sometimes they were places where the grass of the desert was slightly greener than elsewhere.

  Towards the end of the day he caught up with them. Muralev casually turned over the page of the notebook on which he had been writing and beckoned him. When he came close Muralev showed him the book. The top page now carried a drawing of a small animal like a squirrel. Robin had seen many of them near this road when he had travelled it in the opposite direction. They were cheeky little things that sat up and chattered at travellers from a distance.

  ‘This is a suslik,’ Muralev said. ‘There are many varieties to be recorded. Have you seen any?’ He peered at Robin through his spectacles.

  Robin shaded his eyes with his hand and glanced around. ‘There.’ He pointed.

  Muralev took off his spectacles, stared, and said, ‘Spermo-philopsis. Not a true suslik, but we’d like him.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty around our camp to-night. We can’t stop here. We must get on. Come up!’ Robin jerked the pack-horse’s lead rope.

  ‘Are they easy to catch?’ the woman asked.

  ‘I’ve never seen anyone try. They are unclean, not to be eaten by believers.’

  ‘Of course. Well, let’s move on.’

  Jagbir had already passed them. He could not afford to stop or the donkeys would scatter and begin to graze. The Muralevs fell in on either side of Robin, they all talked pleasantly enough together and in due course came to the staging site.

  The following afternoon the Muralevs left camp as soon as it was pitched, and headed off on foot to the north-east. In that direction a man on horseback, or from a desert hillock, could see the broken green lines of vegetation marking the courses of the Karshi River, which here consisted of many channels that wandered through the desert like travellers lost and searching for water.

  Jagbir freed the donkeys to graze. Robin saw that one of them was wandering off. As an excuse, it would do. He said, ‘One of the donkeys has strayed,
fool. Can’t you keep an eye on them?’

  Jagbir looked at the donkey, which was still in full view, and said, ‘Do you want me to go and find It, lord?’

  ‘No. Guard the camp.’

  Robin mounted Bahram and set off on a circling course that would bring him through rolling dunes to the Muralevs. When he could get no closer without showing himself on the ridge tops, he dismounted, left the pony nibbling the grass, and climbed slowly up the dune. He dared not lie down; that would look suspicious if they were watching him, and he did not know exactly where they had got to. He stopped a few yards short of the crest so that, as he stood upright, only his head showed. For a minute he could not see them. Then he found them. They were on the near bank of a branch of the Karshi River. It did not seem to contain any water. They had their backs to him. The man was sitting, with something spread out on his knees--the notebook perhaps, or a larger volume. The woman was standing beside him, her rifle in her hand, moving her head slowly, looking around the grey and brown and green waste. Robin watched for ten minutes.

  The susliks ran about and chattered at him from a safe distance. A hawk hung on racing wings above the desert. There was a hillock there, perhaps half a mile away across this nearest branch of the Karshi. The hill looked familiar, and he stared at it for a long time. There was a ruin on top, a heap of scattered stones, no more. He put his hand to his belt where Alexander’s coin lay. That was it. The hillock over there, though smaller, was the same shape as the hill by Tezin Kach. Well, Alexander had passed by this way too.

  He shook his head, trying to dispel the warm haze of speculation that filled it. There was nothing more to see here. The Muralevs would soon go back to camp, and he had better be there before them. Whatever they were doing, they were not collecting specimens.