Wahab, a field mouse for the moment, jumped as if a cat had pounced at him. He opened his human eyes to see those great gold teeth glitter down at him.
‘Of course they’re all against it. Mojedaji’s at their head. What a picture of rapes and public copulations he paints!’
‘But, Excellency, every Jeshan they say it’s to be abolished.’
The Minister laughed. ‘Yes. But this is the year. Watch for it. After the march past. In the King’s presence. Think of it, Wahab: Next year there will be Afghan women at this garden party.’
They both turned to look at those foreign women. Wahab noticed Mrs Moffatt chatting to the American clergyman, Powrie. There were Pakistan and Indian women in beautiful saris; but they avoided one another. Next year would he have Laura with him? And would the other English women avoid her?
The Minister tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Well, I suppose we ought to circulate. We’ve given Mojedaji enough to think about. If I were you, I should find an opportunity this afternoon to speak to Prince Naim.’
Then he walked away, putting down each great brown shoe on the grass as if indeed it were a paw with brutal claws concealed in it. His buttocks were broad and powerful. From them Wahab glanced at those of other guests. Yes, under all these expensive and brilliant clothes everyone was constructed in the same way as his or her neighbour, Indian women were like American women, save for colour, and Afghan men like Englishmen. In Paris, a friend of his, studying at a French university, had taken him to a brothel. There in the choosing room the prostitutes, wearing nothing at all, had chatted with their prospective clients, pretty much in the same way as the women here were chatting with their husbands’ friends. These women were made like Laura, whom he loved, and under his clothes he was like these other men. Now at the British Queen’s Garden Party, in his own native Kabul, with Ambassadors and Ministers and Heads of Chancery and their wives present, he remembered that brothel scene and recaptured the feeling of sad compassionate kinship. Not only were bodies alike, minds were too: all were troubled by fears, anxieties, ambitions, greeds, and jealousies; and all were in some measure consoled by love.
Even the Minister of Justice loved his wife.
Some minutes later Mrs Moffatt came through the little groups of people, bringing the bow-tied American parson with her. Wahab had just taken from a passing tray a cake whose chocolate was melting in the heat. He had to wipe his fingers with his handkerchief before shaking hands.
‘Look, Mr Wahab,’ said the clergyman, ‘I know you don’t particularly want to be seen talking to me here with so many of your co-religionists about, but I just wanted to let you know that if you, and the young lady who is coming out to marry you, should need my help in any way, please ask.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I never allow myself to forget, Mr Wahab, that we are all God’s children, even if some of us play with the wrong toys. Well, so long. Delighted to have met you. Please keep in touch.’ And beaming, the clergyman went across to a group of Afghans to say a word or two to them, so that no one would know he had been saying anything in particular to Wahab.
Wahab was left with Mrs Moffatt. For a few moments they did not speak but stood smiling. He felt happy.
‘What did he mean by the wrong toys, Mrs Moffatt?’
‘You and I are not Christian, Mr Wahab.’
‘I see. Christianity then is the right toy?’
‘So Mr Powrie appears to think.’
Still smiling, still happy, and still with that sad compassionate feeling of kinship with his fellows, Wahab looked around to see what effect having the right toy to play with was having upon some of the Christians in view.
‘I shall tell you something, Mrs Moffatt, which I do not think I shall ever tell to anyone else, not even to Laura. It is possible I may be at the threshold of a career which I shall do my utmost to promote, whatever dishonesty, corruption, servility, and ruthlessness may be necessary. Yet at this moment do you know what I am wishing, with all my heart? I am wishing I were a peasant with a little plot of land in a mountain village, near a clear river. Is that not ridiculous? Here comes your husband. I think he would make a poem about my predicament if you were to tell him about it.’
‘I won’t tell him.’
‘I have no right to expect a wife to keep a secret from her husband. Tell him if you wish. I do not think his poem would be very unsympathetic.’
Then Moffatt, with a girl Wahab did not know, joined them. She turned out to be Katherine Winn, a clerk at the Embassy, and she had an apology to make and a favour to ask.
As Wahab listened to her giggled explanation he looked towards the mountains; but there the peasant squatting on his patch of dust was an ignorant reactionary fool, probably chancred with syphilis. Here, at this party, in this beautiful garden, with the great white house above and the imperial flag surmounting all, the only part to play with any honour was that of the Principal whose hand the Prime Minister had publicly shaken, and whose unscrupulous support the Minister of Justice confidently expected.
‘It was really a joke,’ said Miss Winn, for the third time.
‘No harm done,’ said Moffatt, smiling. ‘The Head of Chancery saw you shaking hands with the Prime Minister. I told him too you were a friend of Naim’s. Now he’s kicking himself for not inviting you. Katherine here’s likely to get a medal.’
‘Not, I’m afraid, from me.’
Moffatt glanced at the dark, dour, dedicated face. Lan was right: Wahab was some kind of complicated idealist. He felt liking and sympathy for him.
‘I wouldn’t let it bother me, Wahab,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I must, Mr Moffatt.’
‘Oh dear, I’m sorry,’ said Katherine.
‘Why did you choose my name, Miss Winn?’
She could not answer.
‘Was it because you regarded me as a figure of fun?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I do not find your denial at all convincing. But I accept your apology.’
‘Thank goodness for that!’
‘But this means I must in my turn go and apologize.’
‘To whom?’ asked Moffatt.
‘To Mr Wint first, and then to my host and hostess.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Katherine.’ If you do that they’ll have me shot.’
In the old days in my country, he thought, an underling so malicious would have been shot. But it was those days he was committed to renounce.
‘I am sorry, Miss Winn, if it means trouble for you, but my duty is clear.’
‘For God’s sake, stop him, Harold!’
‘I don’t really see why I should, Katherine. It’s not my business.’
‘You then, Lan!’
Lan smiled and shook her head. ‘I think I should want to apologize too if I were in Mr Wahab’s place.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Moffatt,’ said Wahab.
‘Oh go to hell,’ muttered Katherine. ‘You’re all mad. What do I care, anyway? I didn’t want to be sent to this God-forsaken, dusty hole.’
She walked off on indignant high heels.
‘Please excuse me,’ murmured Wahab. ‘I must find Mr Wint.’
It was easy enough to find the Head of Chancery. He was in the midst of a cosmopolitan group, which he was making laugh with a story told in correctly lisped French and illustrated with Gallic gestures. To facilitate those Paula held his glass.
Wahab approached, waited for a few seconds, and then plucked the Head of Chancery by the tail of his jacket. The latter’s red astonished face, with its comic pouting still on it, turned.
‘Excuse me, please,’ said Wahab. ‘I should be obliged for a few words in private, Mr Wint.’
Wint’s face was acting in a most agile fashion. First it threw off the pout; then, set to scowl, it suddenly leaped up into a joviality that may have startled but by no means discountenanced Wahab, who, without so much as a flicker of conceit, supposed that the favour shown him by the Prime Minister, Prince Naim,
and Dr Habbibullah, as well as others, had caused the British diplomat to take him out of the pigeonhole labelled Nonentities, and put him into that labelled Men to Keep an Eye On.
‘And what, Mr Wahab,’ asked Wint, affably, ‘can I do for you?’
‘I want to apologize, Mr Wint; both to you, and to my hosts, the Ambassador and his wife. For being here without a proper invitation.’
Wint remembered he didn’t have his glass of whisky in his hand. He went to his wife for it and came slowly back.
‘Look here, Mr Wahab,’ he said, with his most winning smile, ‘there’s really no need for you to apologize. I am sure His Excellency understands. If not, I shall explain it to him.’
‘Your explanation will not remove my feeling of humiliation, Mr Wint.’
Wint stared through narrowed lids. A moment after he snapped them open again, remembering that for a diplomat to reveal cunning, perturbation, ignorance, or perplexity was dangerous. Good-humoured omniscience was by far the best disguise.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m awfully sorry you feel humiliated, Mr Wahab. There’s really no need to, you know.’
‘I am the best judge, Mr Wint.’
‘Come now. I doubt that. Do you know, I think you have rather enjoyed yourself here this afternoon. For a man feeling humiliated you have associated with very strange company, Prime Minister and Prince and poet and priest.’
‘It is because my company has been distinguished that I must apologize.’
Wint poked a finger inside his damp collar: a gesture not only undiplomatic but ungentlemanly, as Paula frequently pointed out. The trouble was, when he was in a quandary and foresaw himself making a wrong decision, which would incur an ambassadorial rebuke, he felt that not enough air was getting into his lungs: hence the dimming of his intelligence and the hesitancy of his judgment. He wondered if he should look for Howard Winfield and consult him.
‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘Why not see me later about this? At the Chancery would be best.’
‘I would prefer to have it settled here, now. It is a simple matter, Mr Wint, from your point of view. You have only to accept my apology. Do you accept it?’
‘Of course. Like a shot. But really what’s troubling me is, I’ll confess, simply that I doubt very much whether you ought to approach His Excellency about it. You see, Mr Wahab, if you’ll pardon my putting it this way, it’s really rather a trivial matter.’
‘I do not regard it so. Lest you should regard me as a monster of conceit, Mr Wint—’
‘The last thing I should think of doing, my dear fellow!’
‘Lest you should, I would like to make it clear that the humiliation is not merely mine, it is also my country’s.’
It is a quicksand, thought Wint. The more I argue the deeper I sink. ‘Oh come now, surely you’re exaggerating? No one here has done the slightest thing to humiliate your country.’
‘I am a simple Afghan. Therefore I represent many millions of my countrymen. To treat me as if I did not matter, as if I were of as little consequence as a donkey, as if I was dust on the lion’s paw, is therefore to treat most of my nation as such. This I must never tolerate.’
Dust on the lion’s paw? What the hell does the fellow mean? God, what conspiracy is cooking? Is that sinister brute Habbibullah behind it? Is rebellion imminent? Are the Russians going to be invited to walk in and take over? Is it timed to coincide with Voroshilov’s visit in a few weeks? Dust on the lion’s paw. Is this the password that this fanatic has blurted out? Christ, and we’ve been treating him as an ill-paid schoolteacher with the impertinence to want to marry an Englishwoman. It adds up, as the Yanks would say. As sure as eggs we’ll find this Miss Johnstone who snubbed Pierce-Smith has been a member of the Communist party for years. All this must certainly be fully discussed at our next policy meeting. But, good God, is there going to be such a meeting? This fellow’s showing the kind of calm lunacy that often precedes assassination. Ten to one, he’s got a gun about him somewhere.
‘When I am saying good-bye to them,’ offered Wahab, ‘I shall mention it to them.’
Yes, by Jove, quietly mention it, and next second empty your pistol into H.E.’s belly. No, no, that’s the wildest melodrama. Let’s be realistic about this. All right, Wahab goes up to H.E. What does he say? Something like this: ‘Thank you, Your Excellency and Lady Beauly, for your kind invitation. Unfortunately it was false.’ No, dammit, he wouldn’t say that, for his grievance was that the invitation had been far from kind. This then? ‘It has been most enjoyable. I wish to apologize, nevertheless, for being here, as I now realize my invitation was sent me as a silly joke.’ Yes, that was more like it; that might even do, provided Lady Beauly didn’t decide to be bitchy about it.
‘Well, what have you in mind to say to them?’ he asked.
‘Surely an apology is a private matter, Mr Wint?’
The bugger’s mad, thought Wint, quietly but recklessly mad. Look how damp and bloodshot his eyes are. God, what am I to do? Here at the Queen’s Birthday Garden Party is the last place we want a political sensation to happen. Was H.E.’s curious reference to the holy man’s bones prophetic? Hell, of course not; mustn’t let my imagination run away with me. Paula. Why didn’t I think of her before? Think not of her warm solacing bosom, but of her influence on other men, on this susceptible Afghan, for instance, who has shown he prefers white breasts to brown.
He turned, and yes, oh wonderful woman, she was waiting for the signal. He gave it, and over she came, not Paula Wint, not the wife of the Head of Chancery, not the daughter of Mr Henry Deverson of Hankley Manor, but Eve, Aphrodite, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Eternal Woman, whose very ankles as they moved made a man’s heart somersault.
For a man with a somersaulting heart, though, Wahab was remaining very cool. Wint could never have guessed that Eve as she advanced was without a stitch of clothing; Wahab’s ambitious admiration rose rather higher than ankles.
‘Paula, my dear,’ said the Head of Chancery, ‘you have met Mr Wahab?’
‘Of course.’ She smiled, with every wile turned full on.
The wrong man was mesmerized – her husband who stood and gaped at her in his usual transport. Wahab, on the contrary, looked at her with what, after a few blushing blinks, she saw was really some kind of pity. From that moment on she was convinced he was simple in the head.
She recalled Alan. ‘Well, dear?’
‘Oh, yes. It’s just that Mr Wahab feels understandably annoyed at that silly prank of Katherine’s. He thinks he ought to apologize personally to H.E. I’ve been trying to persuade him it isn’t really necessary.’
‘I see. Well, at least, darling, I hope you’ve made it clear to Mr Wahab that it’s we who owe him an apology.’
Had he? Yes, he supposed he had. But Wahab, damn his mysterious humiliated face, didn’t appear to think so.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Mr Wahab knows we’re awfully sorry about it.’
Wahab made a slight bow.
‘Very well then,’ said Paula, smiling sweetly, ‘The matter’s best considered closed. I’m sure we all agree? By the way, Mr Wahab, what is the latest news of your fiancée, Miss Johnstone?’
Ah, thought her husband, that’s it. Why didn’t I think of that? Concentrate now about his damned Laura. What the devil can she be like anyway, this female boor from Manchester, this Dago-loving crypto-Communist, this stern-faced hag unable or unwilling to mate with a man of her own race and colour?
‘By Jove yes,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘what about Miss Johnstone? Is she still coming? Or should I say, when do you expect her?’
‘In three weeks.’
‘So soon! You must be quite excited.’
About as excited, thought Wint, as a shrimp left on a plate at midnight, after a party. Yet did such a shrimp sneer? Look up and around with a long-necked disdain that the Ambassador’s crane couldn’t have bettered?
‘I am looking forward very much to Laura’s arrival.’
‘Is s
he coming by air?’ asked Paula.
‘Yes.’
Wint wondered why. Surely such a formidable female, who scorned the Himalayan barrier of colour, could easily have walked the whole bloody way?
‘You really must,’ said Paula then, with that one pluck at her left earring which was her signal to him that she was going over the top, that was to say, was about to dash out under fire into no man’s land to rescue their reputation at the moment crouching there, ‘come to see us when she does arrive.’
After her went Alan gallantly. ‘By Jove, yes. We must all rally round to see that she gets a good impression of Afghanistan.’
‘Thank you.’
There was no need for him to say any more. By this time he had said enough to deserve an honour that the Wints conferred on very few: that night in bed they were to waste at least five minutes in discussing him.
With the stealth, patience, and grace of a leopard hiding at a river, Wahab waited for Prince Naim to become separated a moment from his friends. His pounce then, though carried out with respectful gestures, was as deadly and bloody. Naim, fruit juice in one hand, and with the other twirling a flower his hostess had given him, looked with involuntary terror and disgust into his subordinate’s submissive but fiercely earnest face, and listened to the latter’s reasonable words with little distressed flicks of his head, as if it too were a flower in some great hand.
‘Yes, I noticed Habbibullah talking to you,’ he said. ‘I knew what he was up to. All right, I won’t argue. If Maftoon’s the man you want, then of course you must have him. I suppose something else almost as good can be found for Siddiq as a consolation.’
‘If you will allow me to say so, Highness, I do not think that would be wise.’
‘Surely you don’t think the poor fellow should be stripped of all promotion?’
‘I’m afraid I do.’
‘Granted he’s inefficient, he’s still a man who’s given thirty years to the service of education here. It would be needless cruelty to throw him down to the very bottom again.’
‘I do not know if it would be cruelty, Highness; but I do know it would not be needless.’
Dust on the Paw Page 29
