Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  Then, with air as precious to her as a pearl diver, she drew back before again plunging into that depth of love. This time, though, she was not submerged so long; that brief sunlit scrutiny had revealed to her his hurts, and also the fact that he was not wearing his usual spectacles.

  ‘You are hurt,’ she cried, her fingers light as moths on his lips. ‘What has happened? These are your old spectacles. Where are your other ones? Did someone strike you? Have you had an accident?’

  As he took her hand and kissed it, he remembered the optician to whose shop she had taken him to have his spectacles renewed. He had been a small brisk man in a hard, white collar and a black, glistening waistcoat with gilt buttons, and he had spoken of how, as a solider in India, he had once visited the Taj Mahal. He hadn’t liked it, because for all its magnificence it was a tomb for a dead wife, and his own wife, although alive, had been thousands of miles away.

  ‘Who was it?’ she cried fiercely, and half turned toward the house, as if blaming her host Moffatt.

  ‘A policeman.’ And then in a rhapsody of love and relief and pride he told her what had happened at the school yesterday, and that afternoon at the Minister’s.

  She listened, bright-eyed; and at the right moment, just before he burst uncontrollably into tears, stopped him; not this time sternly, as a mentor who knew his limits of folly and for her own pride’s sake took care he did not exceed them; no, this time rather as lover, using her profound and intimate knowledge of him to give the guidance that not only he, but every man facing the temptations of the world, needed so often. These cries of joy and sympathy, and this loving tapping of her forefinger on his lips were her answers to the Minister’s challenge. In them were foreshadowed the many subsequent answers she would also give, with the same delicate authority. If it was up to her, how capably they would succeed!

  Moffatt and his wife had come out on to the terrace to greet them. Wahab, remembering his conversation with the Minister, realized he had really meant what he had said about wanting to keep Moffatt here to savour his humiliation. Now, remorseful, and apprehensive for his own happiness based on such evil expectation, he wished it was a simple thing such as his having in his pocket some paper incriminating Moffatt; all he would need to do then would be to take it out and destroy it. But what threatened Moffatt was lodged in his mind, and in Laura’s too; there it might rest for ever, doing no harm, like a non-malignant tumour; but, on the other hand, it might become a monstrous growth, strangling even the youngest happy thoughts.

  Thinking that in his guilt he was being morbid he turned towards Laura, and found her dangling the flowers in her arms, bending her mouth to them with the rapt possessiveness of a woman toward her baby.

  Yet she whispered: ‘Tell them nothing, Abdul. This is our business; it has nothing to do with them. If they ask, let me answer.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Perhaps, he thought, in the ruthless years to come, she would be the one to leave her mark on the development of her adopted country. She had the intelligence, the reticence, the devotion, and, yes, the ruthlessness.

  Moffatt, he noticed, was grown so fat in the belly that his top fly button couldn’t be fastened. Such grossness in so young a man was disgusting, but Wahab, who should have had hatred to reinforce his disgust, was not disgusted at all. On the contrary, he wanted to laugh and poke Moffatt in the belly and make jokes, like a friend.

  Laura, however, was doing the talking. ‘Aren’t these flowers lovely, Mrs Moffatt? The boys of Abdul’s school gave them to him for me.’

  The card was in his pocket; he had been afraid she might not appreciate its assumption couched in such silly English.

  Mrs Moffatt admired the flowers, holding her pale calm face close to them. ‘What a thoughtful thing for them to do,’ she murmured. ‘But then, as I have said, Afghans are charming, especially the young.’

  Moffatt had been as quick as Laura in noticing the swollen nose and different spectacles. ‘I heard you had a little trouble at the school yesterday,’ he said.

  ‘There was no trouble,’ said Laura sharply. ‘Nothing that isn’t over and done with.’

  ‘You have very swift sources of information, Mr Moffatt,’ said Wahab.

  ‘It was Naim who told me. He telephoned. According to him you came out of it very well. He seemed most impressed.’

  ‘And you seem most surprised,’ said Laura, smiling.

  Moffatt gazed at her and smiled too. ‘Yes. It takes a lot of nerve here to stand up to the police.’

  ‘It isn’t only Englishmen who have courage, you know.’

  Grinning, Moffatt scratched his belly.

  Provoked, she cried: ‘The Afghans have always been considered a very brave people.’

  ‘In war, d’you mean?’

  ‘Yes, but not only in war. I have been reading their history.’

  ‘You’ll have read then of Dr Bryden?’

  ‘Dr Bryden?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does he matter now?’ asked Wahab uneasily. ‘It was more than a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Yes, but my students often tease me about him.’

  ‘Who was he?’ demanded Laura.

  ‘Abdul will tell you.’

  ‘No, no. You will tell me. This Dr Bryden seems to have some special significance for you.’

  ‘Not for me. For the Afghans, yes, I think so. At any rate they give him a gloating prominence in their history books. Every schoolboy will tell you, with pride, who he was.’

  ‘Ah, not with pride, Mr Moffatt,’ cried Wahab.

  ‘Yes, with pride.’

  ‘But it was such a long time ago; and there were faults on both sides.’

  ‘That’s true enough. You see, Miss Johnstone, a British army was occupying Kabul then.’

  ‘By what right?’

  ‘By the right of conquest. You and I might not accept such a right, but the Afghans of that day certainly did. They had to. Every chief held on to what he had by force.’

  ‘We British have a great deal of experience of that sort of thing too.’

  ‘Yes. Well, this army, consisting of about twelve thousand, mainly Indians, found itself surrounded here. The Government at home couldn’t make up its mind what orders to give.’

  ‘How typical!’

  ‘Ah, what nonsense all this is,’ sighed Wahab.

  ‘It is not,’ said Laura sharply.

  ‘Meanwhile the Afghan chiefs had got together an immense force. The British commander decided he should retreat; he asked for, and was given, solemn promises of safe passage. I don’t suppose he, or anybody else, trusted those promises, but there was nothing else to do. The upshot was the Afghans ambushed and sniped at them all the way. It was a long way, too: a hundred miles. One survivor arrived in Jellallabad, one out of twelve thousand. He was Dr Bryden.’

  Wahab saw the red blood glisten like flowers on the dry earth of those tragic hills. In anguish he pressed his fist against his cheek. Fist and cheek were as brown as those which had caressed the treacherous rifles. Was the blood that coursed in them the same too, embittered forever with useless spite and hateful longings for revenge?

  Laura was smiling. ‘What was his first name?’ she asked.

  ‘Bryden’s, do you mean?’ asked Moffatt.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alexander, I think.’

  ‘Well then, Abdul and I will call our first son Alexander Bryden Wahab.’

  ‘No, no, Laura,’ protested Wahab. ‘The incident is forgotten. If not, it should be.’

  ‘I don’t agree. It should be remembered. We should not be afraid of history. We should profit from it.’

  ‘But, my dear, a child with such a name might—’

  ‘Might what?’

  How could he explain to her who had been in Afghan only two days?

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she said.

  ‘By the way,’ remarked Moffatt, ‘Gillie the Consul phoned to say he’d be pleased to see you at his cocktail party this even
ing.’

  ‘Me?’ asked Wahab.

  ‘Both of you.’

  ‘Are you and Mrs Moffatt going?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Wahab was about to accept eagerly when Laura frowned him into silence.

  ‘I take it,’ she said to Moffatt, ‘it isn’t customary to invite people to these functions by telephone, particularly using go-betweens?’

  Moffatt laughed. ‘It’s not unheard of.’

  ‘But it isn’t customary. There are usually printed invitation cards?’

  ‘Yes.’ Moffatt seemed amused.

  ‘Delivered by post?’

  ‘No. By runner. The postal services here aren’t very efficient.’

  ‘Mr Gillie knew yesterday I was here. Why didn’t he send me the usual card?’

  ‘But I must remind you, Laura,’ said Wahab, ‘that I have always found Mr Gillie friendly and helpful.’

  ‘Besides,’ murmured Moffatt, ‘Bob didn’t know yesterday how things stood between you. However, it’s none of my business. I promised to pass on the invitation; that’s all.’

  ‘I think we should go, Laura,’ whispered Wahab.

  She ignored him. ‘Who will be there?’ she asked. ‘I suppose the whole British community?’

  ‘Most of them.’

  ‘The Ambassador?’

  ‘I expect he’ll look in.’

  ‘Will there be Afghans?’

  ‘Yes. But only men, of course. Afghan women never go to such affairs.’

  ‘After tomorrow they will,’ cried Wahab.

  Moffatt laughed. ‘You still think so? I asked Naim. He was cagey.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Moffatt, it is going to happen tomorrow.’

  ‘If we do decide to go,’ said Laura, ‘is it necessary to inform Mr and Mrs Gillie?’

  Moffatt noticed how pale she had turned. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Come with us in the car,’ said Mrs Moffatt.

  Wahab stood and bowed his gratitude.

  Laura, nursing the flowers, looked up quickly from them, shook her head at his excessive courtesy, smiled, shuddered, tried to smile again, but instead, to everyone’s astonishment, her own most of all, burst into tears. In an instant she had lowered her face to the flowers, but then, almost fiercely, she raised it again, to give them an opportunity to interpret that weeping as they wished. It was obvious she herself was mystified by it.

  Twenty-Five

  THE military parade was the highlight of Jeshan, the annual Independence celebrations. Military attachés, such as Colonel Rodgers, were convinced that the purpose of this display of tanks, guns, and aeroplanes, all of Russian make, was not to warn off neighbouring countries, one of which, indeed, was Russia herself, but rather to intimidate any potential usurper from the hills into giving up his ambition. Yet, as the same experts knew or pretended to know, those tanks, guns, and aeroplanes were not only built by Russians, but also serviced and even manned by them.

  Left to the management of Afghans, Colonel Rodgers had reported, the jets would either never leave the ground or else would return to it like bombs; according to skilfully acquired information fifty-three Afghans had been killed in the past three years, during training as pilots. As for the tanks, whose serial numbers he made elaborate efforts to collect, it was obvious that these would be useless in any tribal uprising, if their crews were Afghans. They would get stuck in the steep, stony hills or would topple over and lie like dead rhinoceroses, while the battle was fought around them by bearded and turbaned horsemen with homemade rifles and curved, razor-sharp swords. Therefore, the Colonel had confidently written, these demonstrations of force at Jeshan were really in a military sense without purpose, except that they might perhaps give those Afghans who were advanced and alert enough to be patriotic some feelings of national pride.

  It was no doubt noticed by the Colonel’s superiors, to whom his highly confidential reports were sent, that he appeared to have a personal grudge against the parades, and, since some had been attachés in their day, they guessed the true reason. How unsporting of the Afghans, after a chap had spent months bumping about their difficult country, giving himself headaches by staring for hours through powerful binoculars, to go and put on public show what amounted to the total strength of their army and air force. You would almost think, as he put it to his wife Sarah, that the Afghans did it to thwart those attachés like himself who did their jobs conscientiously, and to benefit those others, such as Colonel Radford, his American counterpart, who did nothing but attend and give cocktail parties, and wait till Jeshan.

  All the same, on this particular Jeshan, Colonel Rodgers made sure he was there early enough to get for himself and book for his British colleagues a front position in the diplomats’ stand. This year, though, he had a new worry. Contingents of foreign troops had been invited to take part. Convinced that the Americans and the Russians would hardly condescend to enter into competition with each other in such an insignificant setting, he had advised the Ambassador to turn down the offer on behalf of Britain; but a contingent of crack U.S. Marines had been flown in from Berlin, and a squad of Red Guards from Moscow. Sir Gervase, reproached daily by the Afghan Foreign Ministry, had been furious with the Colonel. Therefore the latter’s dress uniform for all its scarlet and gold, did not seem so brilliant this year, and his sabre kept getting between his legs more than usually.

  Nevertheless, as he had said to Sarah a hundred times and said to her again as she sat by his side in the carpeted stand, his advice had been justified. The British position at these Jeshans was peculiar; after all, the independence celebrated was from them. What, dragged by mules, started off the procession? Yes, of course, those guns that the Afghans claimed to have captured from the British during the Afghan War of 1920. Well, for Christ’s sake, really, would it not have been a farce having, say, the Coldstream Guards or the kilted Black Watch march past in splendour, after the ignominy of those guns? That the guns were, in his opinion, forgeries, made no difference. All these tens of thousands of Afghans, these ragged, stinking, turbaned chaps on the flat roofs and in the trees and along the walls, like starlings or monkeys, these others kicked and truncheoned into order along the street, and particularly the sleek-hatted bastards in the Ministers’ box and even in the King’s, where they would be hobnobbing with Voroshilov, every single one of them would have laughed his dusky head off and jeered like a baboon. Surely it was his duty to save our chaps from such humiliation? And, by George, there was a shower there, among fellow diplomats, such as Indians, Pakistanis, and Iraqis, who would pretend to be sympathetic, but would be hooting up their gold-linked cuffs with so-called anti-colonial derision.

  Sarah, however, was much more interested in inspecting the dresses of the other women in the various stands and tents. There were of course no women in the Afghan stands or among the hordes of Afghan spectators. Tents striped like pyjamas had been set up along the route; in these were the foreign women without diplomatic status; among these would be Lan Moffatt, Maud Mossaour, and Jean Lawson. Among them too was a surprising number of pudgy-faced Russians. These, all the year round, were seldom seen; but on this particular day they always appeared in hundreds. But they were of little interest; none dressed stylishly.

  She had to say something, for Bruce stiff by her side was waiting, like a clockwork toy that needed rewinding.

  ‘But, dear,’ she drawled, ‘didn’t you tell me their new band instruments were from London?’

  Yes, he had told her that. It was a piece of information he had astutely obtained. The Afghan Army Band had been fitted out with new instruments, supplied by Boosey and Hawkes, London. In a way, as Sarah hinted, this might compensate to some degree for the disgrace of the guns, or it would if people knew about it. He had come determined to pass the word along as soon as the band appeared or was weirdly heard.

  Then he realized that Sarah, and everyone else in the diplomats’ stand, including his British colleagues had risen and were gazing down in astonishment at a
couple who had just stepped out of a car. They were Afghan. The man was that sinister Russian-lover, Habbibullah, and the woman, in a shaddry of green silk, was his wife, said to be as haughty as he was ruthless, and as beautiful as he was brutal.

  ‘That’s jolly odd,’ said the Colonel. ‘I’ve never seen an Afghan woman here before.’

  No one listened to him. All eyes were on Mrs Habbibullah as, cool and wonderfully graceful in that shroud of green, she went up the stairs into the Ministers’ box and sat down, not in a discreet corner, but in the very front row, and in the centre of it. The high Afghan officials bowed as she passed them.

  The diplomats resumed their seats and discussed it eagerly. Alan Wint presided over the British excitement.

  ‘She’s obviously here for a purpose,’ he said, leaning across Paula so that they could all hear him. ‘We can be sure of that.’

  ‘We can,’ grunted Bob Gillie, with a sneer that, thought Alan, nettled, hardly went with his morning coat, white rose, and subordinate position.

  ‘Naming things that had no purpose,’ added the Consul, ‘used to be a game we played as kids. Earwigs was a favourite, but birds eat them, don’t they? And boys poke them out of wooden fence-posts with bits of grass.’

  It must be the heat, thought Alan; but he felt worried too. In this irrelevance of Bob’s was always a hint of genius. Remember, for instance, that outburst on Moffatt at the policy meeting.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Muriel, ‘it couldn’t just be that she’s nagged him into bringing her?’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Paula. ‘She’s said to be an arrogant one. Why should the men get all the fun? Though God knows this isn’t much fun, is it? By the time it’s over we’ll all be fried.’

  Alan took command again. ‘I meant an important, deliberate purpose,’ he said.

  ‘I think Muriel’s hit the nail on the head,’ said Muriel’s husband. ‘Haven’t you noticed that behind all the official pomposities, all the pretentious façades, a very simple reason’s to be found? Think of H.E.’s tantrums. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they can be traced to some silly asperity of Lady B.’s.’