Companions of Paradise

by Thalassa Ali

  She might have gone mad, of course, but whatever illness had unexpectedly overtaken her mind, it was clear that at this moment she wanted desperately to meet that mysterious man on his gray horse.

  But powerful as her desire might be, it was no greater than Nur Rahman's need to live. When the road cleared for a moment, he stopped, looked about him carefully, then took his blue chaderi from beneath his arm and threw it hastily over his head and shoulders.

  He peered ahead of him, through his disguise. Whoever this stranger was, he had ridden away as soon as the lady saw him, for there were no gray horses anywhere nearby.

  Of several riders in the distance, only one, who rode apart from the others, seemed to be on a pale-colored mount.

  His eyes on that faraway figure, Nur Rahman trotted along the road, the chaderi catching at his legs, his breath rasping in his ears.

  A group of horsemen rode toward him, obscuring his view. Moments after they passed, others came from behind and did the same.

  When they moved away, Nur Rahman stared at the road ahead.

  The rider had disappeared.

  Afraid to turn back, Nur Rahman ran on, sweating beneath his chaderi, aware of people's curiosity at the sight of a woman alone, praying that no one would stop and question him, that no one would offer him help.

  He stopped for tea near the Pul-e-Khishti and drank rapidly, hidden in a doorway. He would wait for the man here, he decided, for sooner or later, everyone in Kabul passed over the bridge.

  “Oh, Allah,” he whispered, “please let the lady's stranger return on his gray horse before it is too late.”

  Tomorrow she would march with Aminullah's kafila. He had promised Munshi Sahib not to leave her…

  Two hours later, he still waited in his doorway, his feet numb, his eyes on the traffic crossing the bridge. On the right bank of the Kabul River, the sellers of silver ornaments had boarded up their shops. Oil lamps and fires lit the approaching night. Groups of armed men talked among themselves as they crossed the river and moved in groups toward the cantonment.

  As the sunset call to prayer rang out, Nur Rahman looked up, and sucked in his breath. Twenty yards away, a man in a brown-shawl turban rode through the fading light, across the teeming bridge.

  There was something about him…

  But what was the color of his horse?

  The crowd parted. A proud, silver-gray horse's head appeared, then vanished again.

  Nur Rahman leapt to his feet and began to run.

  He forced himself through the crowd, ignoring the surprised glances as he elbowed his way past loaded coolies and gangs of small boys, struggling all the while to keep his eye on his quarry.

  Across the bridge at last, he peered eagerly into the crowd.

  The man and his horse had vanished into the city.

  Sagging with exhaustion and disappointment, Nur Rahman turned into the Char Chatta Bazaar and followed it to its end, ignoring the smell of kababs cooking over hot coals and the lamplight that changed the bazaar into a tunnel of mysteries as the afternoon faded.

  After two more turns, he was deep in the labyrinth of the old city, hurrying past its closed-up shops, avoiding puddles of dirty, melted snow, grateful to have come so far without drawing attention.

  He stopped at last, raised his closed fists, and pounded on a high wooden door with a heavy lintel. After the bolt groaned and the door creaked open, he stepped over the threshold and into Haji Khan's courtyard, then stood still.

  Tethered to the courtyard's lone tree stood a silver-gray horse.

  The boy gestured silently toward Haji Khan's room. The old gatekeeper nodded.

  Haji Khan's chamber looked the same as it had when Nur Rahman had left it that morning, down to the nightingale in its cage on a low table beside the blind man's platform.

  The room was warmed by a small brazier of well-burnt coals that did little to dispel the chill. Nur Rahman could see his breath as he crouched beside the door.

  A dozen men sat facing Haji Khan, their backs to him. Seven of them wore turbans. Munshi Sahib, of course, wore his golden qaraquli hat.

  Only one man wore a brown turban fashioned from an expensive Kashmir shawl.

  “After I found I could not enter the cantonment,” he was saying, “I spoke to hawkers of food along the road. None of them had seen a lady of her description leave its gates.”

  He sounded worn and disappointed. Nur Rahman held his breath and leaned forward.

  “They did not see her, my dear Hassan,” Munshi Sahib replied gently, “because she was wearing a chaderi when she left the British fort. She is now under the protection of Aminullah Khan. It was only yesterday that we learned of her escape.”

  My dear Hassan? Nur Rahman craned to see the man's face. He seemed to know everyone…

  “A brave, resourceful action.” A white-bearded man nodded approvingly. “An action worthy of our own women.”

  The man called Hassan hunched his shoulders. “But has he taken her out of Kabul?” he asked tensely. “Does anyone know where she is?”

  Nur Rahman could wait no longer. “May peace be upon you, Haji Khan,” he interrupted.

  Everyone turned to look at him. All but one man registered surprise at the sight of him in his chaderi. From his place on the carpet, Munshi Sahib lifted an encouraging hand.

  The blind man raised his chin. “And peace upon you, my child,” he returned. “On what errand have you come?”

  “I am searching,” Nur Rahman announced, already certain what the reply would be, “for the owner of the gray horse that is tethered outside.”

  The man in the brown turban frowned. “The horse is mine,” he said.

  The boy reached into his pocket and withdrew the gold medallion on its delicate chain. “In that case,” he said, savoring the drama of the moment, “I have something to give you.”

  THAT EVENING, in General Elphinstone's drawing room, Brigadier Shelton glared at his Commander in Chief. “Of course we can trust Akbar Khan,” he barked. “He has signed the treaty with us, hasn't he? He has promised us safe passage to Peshawar, hasn't he? What else could we possibly ask for?”

  Charles Mott squared his shoulders. “And in return,” he observed, “we have promised him all our treasure, and seven of our guns. I call that a very generous offer to the man who murdered my uncle.”

  “What right have you to call it anything,” snapped Shelton, “when your own superior has run away?”

  “He has not run away, Brigadier.” Mott lifted his chin. “As I have already reported, he has been detained by the same chief who abducted his niece.”

  He dropped his gaze from Shelton's.

  Shelton shrugged an armless shoulder. “I could not care less about either of them, Mr. Mott. In any case, Akbar has told us a dozen times that he had nothing to do with the Envoy's murder. He has wept over it for hours.”

  “He may have wept,” General Elphinstone said weakly from his place beside the fire, “but nonetheless, I fear he has been false to us. One of our officers has been warned that ten thousand tribesmen are already waiting for our column at Khurd-Kabul, and another ten thousand at Surkhab.”

  “And all in spite of Akbar's promise of protection and plenty of food for the journey?” Shelton insisted, his voice rising.

  “I call that a clever move, not a promise,” Mott replied doggedly. “Now, if we attempt to protect ourselves or provide our own food, it will show our lack of faith in him. If we do nothing, we may find he has deceived us.”

  “A clever move, you call it?” sneered the brigadier.

  “I do, since I am the intelligence officer in this room.”

  “There is another point to be made,” Lady Sale's son-in-law put in, his scarred face contracting painfully as he spoke. “The entrance to the cantonment is too narrow for our force to move out with the proper speed. I suggest we throw down our eastern rampart and create a forty-foot breach in the wall.”

  “But,” objected General Elphinstone, “if w
e open such a large breach, then who is to defend it?”

  “No one can defend it!” shouted Shelton. “We cannot defend the smallest thing! Was I the only witness to the plundering of our camels and dhoolies this morning, as they returned from leaving our wounded at the Bala Hisar? Did I alone see our drivers and bearers stripped of all their clothes and forced to run for their lives, naked, across the snow?”

  The general sighed. “I do not know why no one ever fights these people off when they attack us. Have we no sentries, no proper guard?

  “I have received another letter from Shah Shuja, begging us not to desert him,” he added mournfully. “I wish I had any idea what to do now.”

  They were to leave in the morning. Mariana stared into space as she sipped her third cup of tea. The sun had already set. It was too late.

  After Nur Rahman pounded away toward the city, she and her family had continued their dignified journey toward the vast caravanserai and animal market west of Kabul where Aminullah's men waited to escort them to India.

  Perched atop her camel, frantic with nerves, she had hardly noticed the sweet air she breathed, or the clear azure sky above the steep brown hills in front of them. After they passed inside the caravanserai's high gate, she had paid little attention to the huddled camps scattered over the caravanserai's hilly terrain.

  A short distance from the main gate, they had found their quarters, a pair of thick, black goat-hair tents that squatted close to the ground, each one boasting half a dozen armed guards.

  Other tents stood nearby. A lamb had been tied to one of them.

  “The ladies will take one tent, the men will take the other,” Aminullah Khan had announced from the back of his horse, gesturing toward the black tents. “I will entertain you until your departure in the morning. Then I will accompany you as far as the Sher Darwaza pass.”

  The morning. Mariana sighed, adjusting her hopes. Perhaps the horseman had not been Hassan after all. Perhaps he had only turned his head as Hassan would have done…

  She looked about her in the gathering darkness. Held up by many poles and wrapped in layers of black goat-hair, the women's tent was comfortable enough, although it was too cold inside for them to remove their poshteens. It also was attractive, with its thickly woven floor coverings, its mattresses and bolsters, its piles of woven saddlebags, and its cheerful little fire in a circle of stones, although Aunt Claire had already complained bitterly about being stuffed into the same ice-cold tent with all the female servants.

  Mariana imagined Uncle Adrian with Yar Mohammad and the Mug cook, not to mention Dittoo.

  The smell of roasting meat drifted in from outside, along with male voices. Earlier, hearing frightened bleating, Mariana had put her head out of the tent in time to see a man holding the dying lamb up by its hind legs, while the blood from its slit throat drained into the snow.

  Now, chopped into pieces and threaded onto skewers, it was to be their dinner.

  She was dozing against a bolster when Nur Rahman put his head hesitantly into the tent.

  “Tell that boy to come in or go out, but for goodness sake close the flap,” Aunt Claire snapped from her cocoon of quilts, causing Mariana to start awake. “We have a howling draft as it is. Why is he in the women's tent? And why is he swathed in—”

  Before her aunt could finish, Mariana was on her feet, beckoning him inside.

  “I thought I would never find your horseman,” he whispered excitedly. “But there he was, at Haji Khan's house, drinking tea with Munshi Sahib. He—”

  “Where is he now?” Mariana demanded, her thoughts whirling. “Is he here?”

  “Of course not.” The boy waved a vague arm. “He is at his own camp. Aminullah Khan would have him killed if he tried to visit you here. Aminullah has taken responsibility for your honor.”

  His face filled with curiosity. “Who is this man? Why do you want to see him?”

  “Wait there.” Without replying, she hurried across the tent floor, found her chaderi, and put it on. “Take me to him.”

  A plaintive voice rose from the carpet as she tugged on her boots. “Mariana! Where on earth are you going?”

  “I shall be back soon, Aunt Claire,” Mariana called over her shoulder as she and Nur Rahman, identical in their chaderis, left the black tent and started off into the darkness.

  “Stop. I must explain first.” Nur Rahman whispered something unintelligible to the trio of guards who sat outside, then motioned for Mariana to follow him.

  “We must look as if we are going to that tent over there,” he said quietly, pointing. “They must think we have gone to find other women to shield us while we relieve ourselves outside. There is very little time,” he added, “only enough to wish the man peace before we return.”

  Fires glowed in the distance. Tents clustered near them. The boy pointed. “That is his camp.”

  A faint glow inside the largest tent told them it was occupied.

  Mariana tried to smooth her hair, but it was beyond help after being stuffed into the embroidered cap of her chaderi, with most of its pins gone. Her lips were chapped from the cold.

  She ran a nervous hand over her face. Why, in all those months, had she not imagined what she would say to Hassan?

  Her stomach lurched as she remembered Harry Fitzgerald.

  Someone heard them arrive. “Who is there?” inquired a male voice.

  “It is I, Nur Rahman,” called the boy.

  “Enter,” the voice replied.

  Mariana signaled for Nur Rahman to wait, took a deep breath, lifted the door flap, and entered.

  A single oil lamp lit the comfortably arranged tent. Its flame guttered in the draft from the door. Remembering, she bent to remove her boots.

  Hassan was already on his feet when she entered. “I have been waiting for you,” he said sharply, stepping toward her across a thick Bokhara carpet. “Where is the lady who sent you to find me?”

  He was thinner than she remembered. He looked worn, as if he had recently completed some long and difficult work.

  “Speak,” he snapped, gesturing impatiently.

  “Oh!” she cried, her hand to her mouth, too flustered to take in that he thought she was Nur Rahman. “Oh, your beautiful hand!”

  He stopped short. He bent, and gazed through her cutwork. “It is you,” he said.

  He wore an exquisite, unfamiliar scent. Unnerved by his presence, she could only nod.

  Nur Rahman's head appeared in the doorway. “Quickly, Khanum,” he urged, “we must return at once.”

  Hassan turned, frowning at the interruption. Mariana raised a hand. “A moment, Nur Rahman.”

  “No!” The boy shook his head violently. “There is no time. You have left Aminullah Khan's tents without a male escort. If you do not return at once you will cause him dishonor. They kill their own women for making such mistakes,” he added desperately.

  Hassan strode across the carpet and jerked the door curtain open, letting in both Nur Rahman and a blast of freezing air. “Where is his camp?” he asked curtly.

  Nur Rahman pointed. “Inside the gate. Near the mosque.”

  “If it is that far away,” Hassan said decisively, “then you have already been gone too long. You cannot return.”

  Not return? “But I must go back,” Mariana protested. “My aunt and uncle will worry. They will—”

  Ignoring her, he pointed outside. “Nur Rahman, you will sleep in that tent over there. My servant Ghulam Ali will give you food.”

  Ghulam Ali had survived the journey after all! He had found Hassan, and given him her second letter….

  Mariana breathed in, trying to grasp her situation. Hassan's carpeted tent was lovely, with its small quilt-covered table on one side, and its pile of silk bolsters. Nevertheless, she felt a sudden pang of homesickness for her aunt and uncle, for Dittoo and Yar Mohammad. How would they manage without her? They were her family.

  “Go,” Hassan snapped.

  Nur Rahman did not reply. As he wal
ked out of the tent, a single sob floated behind him.

  He had only been trying to protect her. All this time he had treated her with respect, and no one had bothered to tell him the truth.

  “Wait,” she called, stumbling after him. “That man is my husband,” she said to his back.

  He stopped short. “Your husband? Why did you not tell this to Aminullah Khan?”

  Already turning back, she did not reply.

  She found Hassan bending over a saddlebag, his back to her.

  “You must write to your uncle,” he said briskly, as he took out paper, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink, and laid them aside. “Tell him you are safe. Tell him that I have undertaken to escort you to Lahore.” He straightened, frowning. “And take off that dirty chaderi.

  “I would have brought the rest of your family with me,” he added, as she pulled off the yards of enveloping cotton and raked her fingers through her tumbled hair, “but it would be disrespectful for them to leave Aminullah Khan.”

  He held out the paper and pen. “Write,” he said, then strode from the tent.

  When he returned with Nur Rahman, she was folding her letter. He took it from her and handed it to the boy. “Deliver this without your disguise,” he ordered. “Be careful.”

  Dearest Uncle Adrian, the letter said, My husband Hassan has arrived from India. I am safe with him.

  Sadly, we must now part. It was not my intention to desert you at this difficult time, but by calling on Hassan I have somehow broken a Pashtun rule, and now may not return to Aminullah's camp. Furthermore, it would be most unwise for us to interfere with Aminullah's arrangements for you and the servants.

  Please forgive me, and give all my love to Aunt Claire. God willing, we will meet again in India.

  After Nur Rahman had trotted away, Hassan turned to Mariana and looked silently at her. Something in his tired face made her want to close her eyes.

  She must tell him how she felt now, before she lost her courage. She must voice her remorse and hope before it was too late.

  “I am so—” she began.

  He silenced her with a raised hand, then took her arm and guided her to the sandali with its pile of bolsters.