Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  Naim held the flower to his nose for an instant; it seemed to stink of cruelty.

  ‘You are talking like Habbibullah and the others,’ he said.

  ‘I am merely expressing the truth as I see it, Highness.’

  ‘Sometimes I have the fear we’re on a slippery slope, Wahab. Let go once, and down we all go, taking our poor country with us.’

  ‘I have that fear too. But it seems to me that if we retain men like Siddiq in positions of responsibility, we will not be able to hold on and eventually climb up to the top of the slope. No, he and his kind will force us to let go, and take us to the bottom with them. Have they not been doing that for generations?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose they have. But my dream, Wahab? You know what it is?’

  ‘Yes, Highness, I should know, for it is also mine.’

  ‘To achieve in our country a high material standard of living, without sacrificing the dignity which you will see in any peasant tilling his land, or in any coolie drinking his tea in the chaikhana.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We see what has happened to the countries of the West, to America, Britain, Sweden, Germany, to them all. They have gained materially, but spiritually are almost destroyed. We can benefit from their example.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘But can we, Wahab, if we adopt measures like throwing poor Siddiq on the scrap heap, just because he happens to be incompetent?’

  ‘What dignity is there, Highness, in allowing incompetence to prosper? And how can there be any material improvement?’

  ‘I do not see Siddiq as incompetence, Wahab; I see him as an incompetent man. There is a difference.’

  Wahab was silent; then he sighed. ‘Yes, there is a difference, Highness. But we are only men; we cannot afford the compassion of God.’

  Naim turned and smiled piteously at him. ‘We really cannot afford it?’

  ‘I am afraid not.’

  ‘Of course you are right. Other men whose judgment and principles I also trust tell me the same.’

  Glancing away, Wahab for a few moments admired an Indian woman with her plump buttocks swathed in a sari of glittering golden cloth. She had a red spot in the middle of her brow, and when she laughed, throwing back her head, he noticed her tongue too was red, as everyone else’s was, Laura’s for instance, and Siddiq’s wife’s.

  ‘If you will allow me to suggest it, Highness,’ he murmured, ‘would it not be advisable to have Siddiq, and Mussein too, transferred to some school in the provinces? I have reason to believe that if they are allowed to remain in Kabul they will try to stir up trouble, out of a sense of grievance. For their own sakes it would be better if they were removed from that temptation. Besides, in the provinces they would be given an excellent chance to redeem themselves with hard and extremely valuable work.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Both reflected on the conditions in the provinces. There schools were primitive mud huts without equipment or even windows, and teachers, very poorly paid, found their standard of living lower than that of the peasants whose sons they tried so bitterly to teach.

  Wahab was watching Mrs Moffatt. For a moment he imagined himself, deeper than ever in evil, allowing her husband to remain in Afghan on condition that she slept with him. He would not, he thought, make love to her; he would just lie beside her.

  ‘You are a very strange man, Wahab,’ Naim was saying. ‘I am sure you have a kind heart, and yet you show no pity for Siddiq. You tell me you consider it necessary to subdue your feelings of pity. That makes me sad, but I understand it. After all, do I not have to subdue my own? What I do not understand, and what I would like you to explain, if you can, is why when you visited me at my house you pulled some flowers and then dropped them on the grass. The gardener’s boy said you looked like a man in a trance. Do you remember the occasion?’

  ‘Yes, Highness, I remember.’

  ‘Is there an explanation?’

  It occurred to Wahab as he stared around that a number of the guests were glancing toward them, and he suddenly realized that etiquette forbade them leaving until Naim had left. It was as if they were waiting for him, Wahab, too, and, with his eyes raised to the mountains, he felt the same intoxicating sweetness which he had felt in the Prince’s gardens when the policemen, instead of being brutal, had saluted him.

  ‘Yes, Highness, there is an explanation, a very simple one. I was thinking of the Englishwoman whom I am going to marry.’

  ‘I thought you might be, Wahab. But nevertheless why just pull them and throw them away?’

  ‘I am sorry if I destroyed them. Like yourself, Highness, I love flowers.’

  ‘They weren’t destroyed. I sent them to Mrs Mohebzada. You remember, her baby was very ill at the time.’

  ‘Yes.’ But Mrs Mohebzada must not be allowed into this conversation. ‘You see, Highness, my fiancée, Miss Johnstone, is a cripple.’

  ‘A cripple?’

  Cripples were often enough seen in Kabul. There was one, indeed, whom the Prince probably saw every day on his way to the Ministry – a man who sold Russian matches in the street. Both of his legs were contorted, as if God at his birth had seized each foot and twisted and turned it, like a man winding a watch. That they had grown and kept their peculiar contortion was a greater miracle than growth itself.

  ‘Yes, Highness. When she was a small child, Laura had a serious illness. She almost died. When she did recover, her left foot was found to be permanently paralysed.’

  ‘Is she able to walk?’

  Wahab’s voice rose in triumph and love. ‘And dance too. And climb hills. And march across the whole world, if it were necessary.’

  ‘But surely it is a handicap?’

  ‘On the contrary, Highness, it has been a challenge which she has met with great courage.’

  ‘Yet you threw the flowers away?’

  Wahab smiled sadly. ‘Blame our history for that, Highness. I am an Afghan. We still pay for our wives. My father paid for my mother. We are conditioned to demand that there be no physical blemish in our women.’

  ‘I understand, Wahab.’ There was a mistiness in Naim’s eyes; he laid his hand on Wahab’s sleeve. ‘And I now realize why you have the resolution not to waste pity on unworthy men like Siddiq and Mussein.’

  Wahab bowed his head; in it he was marvelling that this, his most consummate display of hypocrisy so far, should also be accepted as the best proof of his sincerity.

  ‘I shall be honoured to meet this fine woman, Wahab.’

  Wahab looked up and saw other fine women, Mrs Wint, for example, Mrs Gillie, Mrs Mossaour, Lady Beauly, and many others. None was fit to clean Laura’s shoes, not just because she was superior to them, but also because she was going to be his wife. Only Mrs Moffatt was excepted.

  ‘It is time to go,’ said Naim. ‘You came with Moffatt? Come back with me. I should like your views on certain changes I am proposing to introduce.’

  Wahab murmured he would be honoured.

  So it was that when he did say good-bye and thank you to his host and hostess, it was immediately after Naim and the Prime Minister, and therefore the question of the apology did not arise. He took much pleasure in noticing the many surprised glances he got when, by Naim’s side, he went up the carpeted staircase, through the ballroom, and into the gleaming car with the royal flag flying from its hood. He knew he was in too deep now to swim cravenly back. Besides, the shore of ambition and high advancement was near enough to be reached, if he kept his head and mustered all his resources, some of which, he realized with a pang of joy and wonder, were still as yet unknown even to himself.

  Nineteen

  EVERY August, at Jeshan, Kabul and most provincial towns and villages were decorated with triumphal arches in celebration of the failure of the British, forty years or so previously, to subjugate Afghanistan and incorporate it in their shameful Empire. Their repulse was described at length in the school history books, and those particular passages had to be memorized by ev
ery pupil, along with passages from the Koran, understandably so, because seldom had history been written so liturgically. In every bazaar shopkeepers hung their best red carpets outside their shops, and also framed photographs of the famous political and military leaders who had led the fight against the insolent invaders. But as those bearded worthies had faded a great deal and now hardly looked glamorous enough for the occasion, other pictures were hung up alongside, showing in very gaudy colours Persian and Indian damsels with tiny feet, breasts as round as balloons, and eyes so mild and defenseless as to be aphrodisiacal. Sometimes deer or leopards would accompany them, and sometimes men, not quite so tame, whose eyes, beneath their jewelled turbans, glittered and squinted with desire. Those pictures, the work of native artists, were much admired, especially by the young men from the villages who came flocking in at this time to the capital, carrying their provisions in bundles on their backs and their sad lusts on their faces.

  Also gaped at in awe were some guns, said to have been captured from the British during their retreat. These, cleaned and polished, and adorned with flowers, were always given a leading place in the military march past the King, evoking from the populace a fiercer, prouder series of yells than the far more modern artillery being bought on the instalment plan from the Russians. However, as if to balance things, the instruments which the Afghan Army Band played had been bought in London, though the music was native and, to Western ears, rather more plaintive than martial. For two weeks before the Jeshan celebrations it practised, at four o’clock in the cool of the morning, in the park opposite the Moffatts’ house.

  Lying in bed, laughing indignantly at those remarkable serenaders, whose progress around and around the park could be told by the music receding and approaching, Moffatt suggested some facetious ways of getting them to stop or go elsewhere; but it was Lan who offered the suggestion that struck them both as funniest.

  ‘We shall have to ask Abdul Wahab,’ she murmured, ‘to use his influence.’

  What was funny about that was that in those few weeks since his elevation to the post of principal and his public recognition as a friend by Prince Naim, Wahab had taken to boasting incontinently of the various powerful men to whom he had been introduced and who were now his colleagues. He would come to the Moffatts’, often without warning, and sit in their lounge, talking excitedly for hours about his ambitions for his country, his school, and himself. When Laura came, he vowed, she would not find herself being asked to marry a nobody, as Mrs Mohebzada had been, and she would not be asked either to live in a squalid mud house with lots of mysterious relatives who ate with their hands and stank of bad oily rice. No, by God, on the contrary she would find herself not only mistress of a more beautiful house than any she had ever lived in in England, but also acting in it as hostess to Princes, Ministers, Generals, Ambassadors, and other important people of that kind, whom in England she would only see in newspapers or on newsreels.

  The Moffatts had sat and listened, laughing sometimes, teasing a little, and disbelieving most of the time. That Naim had found him a furnished house at a very low rent they could believe, and were delighted about for Laura’s sake, but that it was half as grand as Wahab maintained seemed hardly possible. They noticed how when describing it he liked to dwell on the bedroom which had, among other opulent features, carvings of swans and lilies on its wooden ceiling.

  That the shaddry was going to be abolished at Jeshan they couldn’t believe either, though before telling them, in a whisper hoarse with importance, he had tiptoed to the door to make sure no servant was eavesdropping outside. That Voroshilov was going to be conducted round Isban College also sounded more like an Afghan hope than a likelihood, especially as it would mean depriving the pupils of part at least of their usual Jeshan holidays; besides, a schoolful of disgruntled young Afghans might not be the most politic thing to show the Russian president. Yet Wahab spent hours describing how experiments involving the use of microscopes were planned and lessons on geography utilizing maps and globes; while a drama, especially written by Naim, with Wahab’s collaboration, would be enacted by the pupils. This would portray the Afghanistan of the future, a land of plenty where nevertheless men were dignified and spiritual. Possibly, Wahab admitted, the acting might not be very well done, as the boys were too young to take the play seriously and in any case wouldn’t have enough time to rehearse their parts properly. But there was no doubt it would make a tremendous impact. Every Afghan who saw it would have tears in his eyes. And every foreigner too, thought Moffatt, only here the tears would be of laughter. He had seen Afghan moralities before.

  So when Lan whispered that they would have to get Wahab to speak to the Commander in Chief about the band, they laughed a good deal, but in their laughter was affection for Wahab. As Harold said, you could scarcely help liking a man who said, as a kind of joke that he meant to be taken seriously, that all the decorations being put up in the streets, and especially the triumphal arches, weren’t only for Jeshan and Voroshilov, but also for Laura; and who was completely serious when he claimed that the biggest arch of all, the great red, green, and black one across the airport road, with the word WELCOME on it in huge white Afghan characters, had been erected a day earlier than necessary, so that it would be there for Laura’s arrival, two days before Voroshilov’s.

  When Harold asked him if he minded Mrs Mossaour being at the airport to meet her, he said he did not, although he felt sure that as his wife, Laura either wouldn’t work at all or else would teach in the Kabul Girls’ High School. He did object to the Reverend Manson Powrie’s being present, and requested Harold to be so kind as to keep that goodhearted meddler away.

  Therefore at the airport that hot sunny August morning the welcoming delegation consisted of Wahab, Lan and Harold Moffatt, Mrs Mossaour, and Howard Winfield, who blandly and mendaciously said he had come to represent the Embassy. This lie was swallowed by Wahab as naturally as a bird swallows a worm. It was almost certain, Wahab confided, that Prince Naim would be along too, not in either of his capacities as Prince or Minister, but privately as a friend. He would be useful in getting Laura quickly through the Customs.

  Kabul airport consisted of a wide dusty plain, ringed by hills, about two miles outside the city. Its buildings were of mud brick, painted white, and there was even a tearoom, where, as in even the most sinister chai-khanas, only the tea was safe to drink. Dozens of flies, blown off by the cheerful waiter, arrived with the buttered bread or sticky cakes. Almost as numerous as those flies were the soldiers scattered about, all in shaggy, dusty uniforms, and some carrying guns with fixed bayonets. Side by side, like great mating birds, stood the aeroplane of the American Air Attaché, with the stars and stripes painted on it, and one of Aeroflot’s, with the hammer, sickle, and star.

  It was already hot. They stood, for there was nowhere to sit, in the shade of the tearoom. Several times Wahab heard the noise of the aeroplane; it turned out each time to be the hum of a fly near his ear. Twice he dashed off to inquire when the plane was expected.

  ‘They say in ten minutes,’ he cried, when he returned the second time. ‘But I do not think they know. They are Indians. Have you ever noticed how effeminate the Indians are? Really they are a decadent nation. How foolish to see in them the hope of Asia!’

  Moffatt grinned. ‘Did you ask if she was on board?’

  ‘No, I did not. Of course she is on board. She said so in her letter. You will find she respects the truth.’

  ‘It’s a far cry from here to Manchester. If you like, I’ll go and ask.’

  ‘No, no, Mr Moffatt. But it is absurd that I should continue to call you Mr Moffatt. Do you object if I call you Harold from now?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You see?’ Wahab grinned at the others. ‘Harold one day throws whisky in my face, and the next I am claiming him as my friend. You believe the British are the only ones with a broad outlook. Now you see that so have the modern Afghans. But I shall go and find out if Laura is indeed on the
plane.’

  They watched him rush off.

  ‘Well,’ said Harold, ‘I suppose he’s got an excuse for being excited.’

  ‘He’ll insist on her wearing a shaddry,’ said Mrs Mossaour.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Maud,’ said Lan.

  ‘In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t brought one with him, to clap it over her head the moment she steps off the plane.’

  ‘He’ll certainly try,’ murmured Howard, ‘to stamp his brand on her, whatever that might be. I hope she doesn’t let him.’

  ‘She won’t,’ said Harold. ‘We’ve got the impression that Laura’s able to look after herself.’

  ‘It becomes exhausting,’ said Mrs Mossaour, ‘not to be able to relax.’

  They knew she was referring as much to her own position as to Miss Johnstone’s.

  ‘I’d better go and see how he’s getting on,’ said Harold.

  He found Wahab in an incoherent rage with the amiable chubby-cheeked Indian radio operator.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘He refuses my request,’ cried Wahab, ‘in my own country, too. Both of you – please excuse me for mentioning this, Harold – are foreigners. This I beg you respectfully never to forget. You have chosen to come here to serve us, remember. Good. You are welcome as servants, as friends, but not as masters; I repeat, not as masters. This dust which is on my shoes, and on your shoes, is the dust of my native land, not of yours.’

  Kansab’s brown eyes rolled in an inquiry: Harold, is this fellow mad, or is he just being an Afghan? Which one of us should tell him that in the Afghan Air Lines not a single Afghan is employed as air crew, and that the seventeen jets of the Afghan air force are flown by Russians?

  ‘It’s against regulations to distract the pilot with private messages,’ said Kansab, with a wink at Harold.

  ‘Who is the pilot?’

  ‘Captain Mabie.’

  ‘Oh, Mabie won’t mind. Tell him it’s me who’s asking. We want to know if there’s a Miss Johnstone among the passengers.’