Hussein: An Entertainment

by Patrick O'Brian

  The wild elephant squealed like a huge pig, and Jehangir backed away. The tusker gasped twice, got up, and staggered away to the other edge of the clearing. There he turned and looked at Jehangir, who trumpeted again, and advanced a few steps. The wild elephant turned, and went crashing away through the forest, followed by all his herd, with the exception of the younger cow-elephants, who stayed to caress Jehangir with their trunks.

  Before dawn Jehangir was back in the camp, looking very innocent; but his wounds betrayed him, and Hussein beat his toe-nails, scolding him all the time.

  For the rest of the journey two of the she-elephants followed them at a distance, but Jehangir took no notice of them at all.

  The road pushed on and on: the men blasted through solid rock, and filled in swamps; they threw bridges across three streams, and at last they came to the village where the new road joined another, and their work was done.

  All the people were scattered to different parts of India: Gill was promoted to a better post in the hills — the result of his action against the dacoits. He wanted to take Hussein with him as his syce, and he offered good wages. For three days Hussein thought it over; Mustapha would not advise him, saying that it was his own life. In the end he felt that he could not leave Jehangir, so Gill went away without him.

  The elephants were sent to Haiderabad, where they worked on a great new embankment. By this time Hussein was a mahout in the Government service, and he rode a young bull elephant called Amurath. Amurath was an unintelligent beast as elephants go, but he had a good-natured, phlegmatic way about him, and Hussein got along very well with him.

  Jehangir was exceedingly jealous of Amurath, and he made the smaller elephant’s life quite a misery whenever they were alone together.

  When they had been some time in Haiderabad, Mustapha stiffened quite suddenly. They gave him a pension, and he retired.

  Hussein had Jehangir after that, and Amurath was left in peace.

  Mustapha spent his days in pottering about the elephant lines, and sitting in the sun before his house. He was happy in a mild way, but he was utterly lost without his work. He aged very quickly, and after some months his memory began to fail him: he called Hussein Ahmed, and sometimes he sat for hours in the sun with a book upside down in his hand.

  Zeinab, who was always active, was disturbed. She had never thought of herself as an old woman, for the business of feeding and caring for five men had always kept her very much alive. She said, with a puzzled smile, that it was very like having a baby in the house again.

  One night Mustapha died in his sleep. All the mahouts rent their clothes, and they gave him a great burial, with the elephants all trumpeting the Viceroy’s salute. The women came to comfort Zeinab, but she did not seem to need any comforting. She sat quite still: she seemed dazed, and she did not answer when they praised the dead Mustapha, neither did she loose her hair and wail in the dust: she did not even seem very unhappy, but that night she swallowed enough opium to ensure that her passing should be swift and clean. They buried her beside Mustapha the next day.

  Mustapha’s sons and Hussein mourned long and sincerely, with dust and ashes on their heads in the old eastern way.

  When their first grief had abated they came together to decide what they should do.

  Mustapha had always said that Hussein was to be regarded as one of his own sons, so Amir Khan, who, being the eldest, divided the inheritance, placed the money (in a jar buried under the floor) in four equal heaps, one for himself, one for Yussuf, one for Abd’allah and one for Hussein. It was difficult to divide the rest of the things, but after some time they settled it fairly among themselves. Hussein got all the books. For the full period of mourning they lived on together in Haiderabad, but after Ramadan the elephants which Yussuf and Abd’allah rode (they were all mahouts now) were ordered away to another part of the country. They were very unhappy at the parting, but they had to go. An uncle and three cousins were among the other mahouts who went with them, so they were not without friends. Amir Khan and Hussein moved to a smaller hut, for the older one was melancholy with no one in it. After a little while they began to notice that there was no sort of restraint upon them, and that they could do pretty well what they pleased. Although this was pleasant, there was something very sad in having nobody to tell them not to do things.

  Amir Khan, having little sense, took up with a fast set of young bloods, and he borrowed money from a bunnia: soon he found that he could not pay it back, and he took to borrowing money from Hussein to pay the interest. Hussein put up with it for some time; indeed he did not make much of a fuss even when Amir Khan took his money without the formality of asking for it.

  Sometimes he made tentative suggestions to Amir Khan that he was hard up too, but his cousin would say quite truly that Hussein did nothing in his spare time but moon about with Jehangir or read, so that he wanted no money to spend, and as money was only a danger when it was hoarded, it was much better that one who could enjoy it should spend it.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘some day when you really need it I shall undoubtedly repay you — in fact, it is much the same as if you were to save it now, for I am a man of my word.’ Then he twirled his growing moustache and borrowed three rupees from Hussein.

  For more than a year they lived together in the Haiderabad elephant lines, but one day when neither Hussein nor Amir Khan had any money to pay the interest that was due, the moneylender hauled Amir Khan before the court to make him repay. In the court he became excited and tried to state his case in his own way. Two lawyers tried to restrain him, and he banged their heads together: then a policeman seized him, but he thumped him on the floor of the dock and kicked him in the stomach, for he was a stalwart young man.

  In the tumult he escaped, and came running to his hut, where he hid under Hussein’s bed, meaning to fly into the country during the night. But the police found him and he was sent to prison, after putting up a tremendous fight, in which all the mahouts joined so that there was almost a riot.

  Hussein wrote to Yussuf and Abd’allah; they took leave and came back to Haiderabad. On the appointed day they all went to see Amir Khan in the jail-khana: he was cheerful because he had acquired great izzat by his hardy resistance, but he did not know what to do when he should come out, as the PWD would not have him any more.

  They talked for some time, and then Abd’allah and Yussuf had to go back, for they only had two days’ leave. After a few weeks had passed they wrote to Hussein saying that a friend of theirs could secure a place as a mahout for Amir Khan on payment of Rs.100: they said that they could raise Rs.62 between them if Hussein could supply the rest: he did, by clearing his hoard right out and by pawning Amir Khan’s turquoise-studded ankus, which he had hidden when the bunnia came to take possession of Amir Khan’s other things, so that when his cousin came out of prison he was able to go straight to Sialkot, where his brothers’ friend was waiting.

  He parted very affectionately from Hussein, promising by his hope of Paradise to repay him, and borrowing another five rupees just before he went.

  When he was gone Hussein felt more lonely than he had ever been before, and he turned still more for companionship to Jehangir.

  However, he had made a good many friends among the younger mahouts, many of whom had been children with him, so he was not lonely, except when he wanted to be, as he did sometimes; for he had rather a powerful imagination, and there were times when he loved to be by himself, or with Jehangir, filled with a gentle, exquisite pity for himself, for no very obvious reason. When he felt like this he could sometimes go out beyond the elephant lines into the sand dunes, where he would thump on a tom-tom for hours at a time, singing that melancholy song they sing in Peshawar, of which the refrain goes ‘Drai jarra yow dee.’

  Now the chief of the mahouts had, among other things, a daughter. This daughter was as beautiful as a spotted sand-quail: her name was Sashiya.

  Most of the younger mahouts were enamoured of her, and she had been betro
thed as a child to a certain insignificant young man, who kept accounts.

  Hussein’s friend, Kadir Baksh, was particularly loud in his praises of her beauty: one day Hussein asked him whether she could be seen in any particular place.

  ‘Yes,’ said Kadir Baksh; ‘every Friday she and other of Ghulam Haider’s anderun go to the cemetery. They sometimes stay to play with the children among the mounds where there are no graves. I have often hidden with others among the trees, and I have seen her veil blown aside no less than three times.’

  ‘Then', said Hussein, ‘to-morrow we will go to the cemetery.’

  They went and concealed themselves in a bush among the trees at the deserted end of the cemetery. For some time they waited: Hussein began to get impatient when ants began walking over them, but Kadir Baksh assured them that it would be worth it.

  At length some people appeared among the tombs; they walked slowly towards the green mounds where there were no graves, and Hussein saw that they were women, with a few children among them. They all wore chudders, but Kadir Baksh pointed out one who wandered some way to the left of the main group. ‘That is she,’ he whispered.

  ‘She walks like a gazelle,’ said Hussein.

  ‘But a gazelle has four feet.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Sashiya hopped from one mound to another. ‘It is too hot for a veil,’ she said, taking off her chudder. Most of the others took theirs off, for they had no idea that they were watched.

  Sashiya sat on the top of a little green mound, hugging her knees. Hussein felt a shock go through him, as if he had swallowed a large piece of ice.

  His mouth opened and he protruded his head from the bush. One of the women saw him and in a moment they were all gone.

  Hussein turned to find Kadir Baksh regarding him coldly. ‘I wish I had never told you about her,’ said Kadir Baksh.

  They went home without more words, and parted in silence, each wrapped up in his own thoughts. Next week they each went separately to watch Sashiya, but she did not come. They met on the way back and quarrelled, each being in a bad temper. The house of the chief of the mahouts was in Haiderabad: he lived with his brother, a merchant in the town, who had built a large house with a garden on the roof.

  The women of the anderun used to spend most of the day up there during the hot weather, so that Hussein, coming to see Ibrahim, the chief of the mahouts, about a matter to do with the elephants, saw Sashiya leaning over the edge. She was gone in a moment, but he had recognised her.

  The same evening he spoke with an ancient woman who sold herbs nearby. She said that she had often been into the house to see the womenfolk. She told him about the garden on the roof, but she could not remember whether there was another roof near to it or not, until Hussein gave her a rupee, and then she recalled a tree that was growing in the courtyard of a neighbouring house: this tree, she said, hung over the parapet of the roof garden. Furthermore, she said that she could get messages into the house, as her sister was one of the servants; so Hussein sent several cardamom seeds and certain flowers, which being interpreted showed that he would be on the roof garden an hour after sunset.

  He spent the rest of the day beautifying himself, and then he went into the city.

  The courtyard where there grew the convenient tree was surrounded by a low wall. There had formerly been stables leaning against the wall, but these had fallen into disuse: indeed the whole place was practically deserted, as it had been bought up as a speculation by a merchant who had been unable to let it, since it was commonly reputed to be the habitation of a peculiarly malignant ghost.

  Hussein, wrapped in a sombre cloak, got over the wall and climbed into the lower branches of the tree. The night was pitch dark and there was no moon, so he went up the tree slowly.

  Just as he was hauling himself up on to the branch that overhung the roof, he bumped into a large soft body crowding against the trunk. It was Kadir Baksh on the same errand. ‘What are you doing here?’ he whispered.

  Hussein was rather at a loss to reply to this, so he grappled with Kadir Baksh, meaning to throw him off the tree. They creaked to and fro on the swaying branch, cursing each other in fierce whispers.

  Sashiya watched them interestedly from the parapet. She had often seen her lovers fighting in the courtyard below, but never before in the tree. Hussein wrenched Kadir Baksh loose from the trunk, and pushed him over, but the other seized Hussein’s leg as he fell. They hit the ground together with a muffled thump; they rolled over twice; Hussein came out on top and he seized Kadir Baksh by the throat.

  ‘Go away,’ he whispered, ‘or I will kill you.’

  ‘How can I go away when you hold me by the throat?’

  ‘Swear by the Prophet that you will go if I release you.’ Kadir Baksh swore in a choked voice. Then he got up, feeling his neck tenderly, and disappeared over the wall. Hussein scaled the tree again: he found Sashiya sitting on the parapet.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘I have come,’ replied Hussein.

  ‘So I see.’

  Hussein could hardly make any reply to this, so he came creeping along the branch, and he would have dropped on to the roof, but she said:

  ‘You had better stay where you are in case anyone should come, and then you could duck under the parapet.’

  Hussein felt quite nonplussed: he had expected something entirely different. He hardly knew just what he had anticipated, but he felt that this was unconventional and not at all the right thing.

  ‘I have composed a song,’ he said, ‘about your eyebrows.’

  ‘Well, you can’t sing it now,’ replied Sashiya, ‘or you will wake everybody up. But what is there that is so remarkable about my eyebrows that you should make a song?’

  ‘They are like thin black bows bent in perfect symmetry above pools of unfathomable depth,’ said Hussein, quoting from his song, which he had taken from the works of Hafiz.

  ‘Aha?’ she said. Hussein felt that this was more like the real thing, and he went on.

  After the third verse he said, ‘Even the finest poetry cannot be recited with any effect in a tree, you know, let alone such poor doggerel as I can turn out.’

  ‘Well, if you come here you must promise not to make the least sound, or I don’t know what will happen to me if that cat Fatima comes up …’

  ‘On my head and heart,’ said Hussein, pulling himself on to the parapet.

  ‘You may go on with your poem,’ said Sashiya hastily.

  When he had finished, she said, ‘What a pity I have read Hafiz too!’

  Hussein was very much taken aback, but he did not show it. ‘How singular!’ he said. ‘So you can really appreciate him. Do you know “The Gazelle of Quarasmia”?’

  ‘By heart: and the “Rose of Frangistan”.’

  ‘Bismillah! But you are fortunate. I have never been able to get the “Rose”.’

  They talked for a long while, until the moon came up, and then Sashiya had to go.

  ‘When may I come again?’ asked Hussein.

  ‘Next week, perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, before then, please. To-morrow at the same hour?’

  ‘Well … it will be difficult: you will wait in the tree if I am late?’

  ‘All night, if need be.’

  She found him quite stiff with waiting in the tree the next night, but she rewarded him with the ‘Rose of Frangistan’. They talked only of themselves that night: strangely enough they found it extraordinarily interesting.

  In the morning Jehangir sniffed at Hussein and gave a little discontented rumble deep in his throat. As he lifted him up on his back the elephant gave him a little squeeze and shook him.

  ‘Jealous, old fat pig?’ said Hussein, pulling Jehangir’s ears, and the elephant muttered again.

  The next night he came to see Sashiya, and the next and the next: each time he liked her more than the last time.

  Jehangir became really jealous, and he swallowed the ‘Rose of Frangistan’ because it smelt of Sa
shiya.

  One evening, as Hussein was climbing over the courtyard wall, he was suddenly jerked to the ground and his head was enveloped in a cloak. A hearty blow stunned him, and he remained unconscious for nearly an hour.

  When he came to himself, he was only aware of a violent headache, and he thought for a moment that he must have fallen from the tree.

  Then a voice said, ‘He is awake.’

  Hussein opened his eyes and looked around: he was in a small low room with four men in it. They all had their faces covered.

  ‘We had better peg him out,’ said someone. Hussein was seized, and his hands and feet were tied to stout pegs driven deep into the ground. The four men gagged him, and then without saying a word they beat him very grievously indeed.

  He could only grunt and strain at the ropes. The men said nothing: the only sound was that of their panting breath, and the heavy thud of the lathis.

  At length the pain grew so intolerable that Hussein ceased to move, in the hope that they would think him to be dead; but they went on and on, so that he writhed again. Then one of the men, missing his stroke, hit Hussein on the head, and he was stunned. He came to himself on a heap of rubbish near the elephant lines: the sun was beating down on him: he was entirely stiff, but his wounds had stopped bleeding. He could hardly move for his extreme soreness, but little by little he managed to creep into the shade. Time passed, and the shadow slid away from him: he lacked the strength to crawl after it now, and a host of flies tormented him cruelly. Some people passed fairly near, and he tried to shout, for he was still just conscious, but he could only achieve a cracked groan that went unheard.