by Jamil Ahmad
“We have all wondered about you, stranger,” he addressed the visitor. “Why do you visit this grave so regularly? How well did you know this man? How can one who lived so evil a life find so devoted an admirer in you after his death?”
“Malik of the Bhittanis, I indeed knew him. I knew him well, and when you call him evil it pains me. I shall tell you the story, because a lifetime has passed since it happened, and it matters not today who knows it and who does not. Listen now. It was in the time when the British were still ruling in India. I was a young army officer then, a lieutenant in the Scouts, when I first met Mullah Barrerai. It so happened that one year some friends of mine and I decided to spend the Christmas week stalking mountain sheep. It was a delightfully successful week, because with the snow driving the animals lower and the mating season making them less wary, we were able to spot some really fine heads and bag some of them. One evening we returned to our camp a little earlier than usual. As we were camping near a village, some whim made us decide to say our evening prayers in the local mosque.
“The mosque was fairly big by village standards. With a tight squeeze, it could have packed the total male population of the village—say, about forty men. The prayers started almost as soon as we arrived, and we were prepared to get up and leave the moment they were over. However, to our puzzlement, we found that the rest of the congregation remained sitting and the village mullah started on a sermon. This was certainly strange, as we had never heard of a sermon after evening prayers. Anyway, I was glad that we stayed, because it was a very unusual sermon, indeed.
“First he told us a story about a man in these hills who was very poor. He told us that this man used to eke a living out of collecting firewood, which he would carry on a donkey—his most valuable possession—and hawk the firewood from place to place. When night came, he would spread his blanket under one tree or another and go to sleep for a few hours.
“ ‘Friends,’ the mullah told us, ‘this man lived a lonely life. His parents were dead, and his brothers, sisters, and cousins had moved away to distant places. His poverty did not permit him to take a wife. One would suppose that such a man would have been unhappy. But this was far from true. He accepted his lot with happiness and joy. He was always full of gratitude and praise for his Maker, although another person in his place would have grumbled. He said his prayers regularly and always had a prayer for other people—never for himself. Looking at him, one would think that here, perhaps, was a truly contented man. And indeed this would have been so, except for a strong desire which this man possessed. He had only one secret wish. While he knew that it was impossible that this dream would ever be fulfilled, occasionally he would indulge himself in a vision of the pilgrimage to Mecca. He knew that for a poor man like himself to have such thoughts was a sign of weakness and a wrong thing to do, but he hoped that God would forgive him, as his thoughts were not wicked. Well, brothers! One day, when this man was sitting under a tree, lost in his thoughts, a voice suddenly appeared to speak to him. “Get up, go to your donkey, and it shall take you for a pilgrimage,” it commanded. The man was bewildered, but did as he was told. As he approached the donkey, its stomach seemed to open up. The bewildered man sat down in it, and the walls of the stomach closed around him. The donkey then started trotting, and, believe me, it took him straight to Mecca, and the poor man performed hajj. This man died long ago. He must surely be resting in paradise. After his difficult stay on earth, I can imagine him sitting with the houris, who are wondrous, fair, and who possess breasts the likes of which are beyond your imaginations. Breasts so large that it would take a crow a full day and night to fly from one nipple to another. I can imagine him roaming in a cool forest where trees bear grapes the size of water pitchers and one grape can provide you your fill of food and water, and bath, too, if you wish it.’
“As the story ended, the enraptured audience let out an audible sigh of exhilaration and dispersed slowly, while we walked back to our camp, discussing the village mullah. By the time we reached our camp, we had decided to invite the mullah over to dine with us. Our messenger returned almost immediately and told us that the mullah asked what was cooked for dinner, and would come only if it included meat.
“Mullah Barrerai, as he introduced himself, liked his food and proved to be capital company. It was also quite a surprise for us to discover that he was totally free from prejudice. We were strangers in the area, but as the conversation progressed, we became a little bolder and started a discussion with him on the sermon of the evening. ‘Tell us, do you believe in the story about the donkey?’ I asked him.
“ ‘No,’ came his quick reply.
“ ‘Do you believe in houris with chests as broad as you described, or grapes the size of water casks?’
“ ‘No.’
“ ‘Then why did you tell these lies?’ I asked him.
“At my question, Mullah Barrerai started laughing. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘These are not lies. These stories are like ointment, meant for healing, or like a piece of ice in the summer, with which water in a glass is cooled. Would you call that piece of ice a lie?’ He continued to tell us, ‘What do these people have? Hardly enough food or water in normal times, and after a few months, summer will be upon them, when most of their springs will dry up. For the next few months, they will need hope as a thirsty man in the cities needs ice in his water, and I am giving it to them. Call them lies if you please.’
“ ‘We still call them lies, but we understand.’
“We remained in that camp for over a week, and, in that period of time, we came to know what an important role the mullah played in this tribal community. People came to him with a variety of issues—property quarrels, marriage problems, thefts, suspicion of witchcraft, murders, or tribal disputes. Barrerai would drop into our camp every evening, and we learned that he was a widely traveled man and had lived with most of the border tribes at one time or another. Before we finally moved camp, he told us that he would be leaving that community after a few days. We were not overly surprised, because, from all he had told us about himself, we gathered he was a wanderer and needed a change now and then. This confirmed that he was not only an unusual person but more so an unusual tribal mullah, because any other would have been very reluctant to move once he had carved out a place and a secure livelihood for himself.
“Once we left the place, we forgot him completely. It was hardly likely that we would ever meet again, but strangely enough, our paths did cross, in fairly unusual circumstances. We had put our troops through a strenuous monthlong training exercise and decided that they deserved to relax. So it was arranged that a few sheep be slaughtered and an evening’s entertainment be provided for the troops. Our commanding officer sent word to the nearby town, and a couple of days later, a small band of musicians together with singing boys and girls arrived at the fort. That evening, some time after we had retired to our rooms, a sudden commotion erupted in the camp, followed by a few rifle shots. We rushed out into the dark and found that a soldier had tried to assault one of the dancing girls, but the man in charge of the dancing party had come to her rescue. In the scuffle, the soldier opened fire with his rifle and hit the girl’s protector in the shoulder.
“When I went to visit the wounded man in the hospital the next morning, who should I find but my old friend Mullah Barrerai? It was quite a surprise to find him, of all people, acting as the manager of dancing girls. Barrerai was not embarrassed in the least, and told me that he had done the job before, but never had it ended in the kind of violence he had experienced the previous night. He was all right, but he hoped that no harm would befall the girl. I assured him that the girls and the rest of the party were already on their way to town. At that, his mood lightened considerably, and he started to inquire about the prospects of getting employment with us. I told him that it was extremely doubtful, particularly as his popularity with the troops was bound to have suffered after the previous night’s incident.
“I visi
ted Mullah Barrerai regularly throughout his stay in the hospital. He was never very clear about his plans. Sometimes he would talk about going to the city for a while. Sometimes he would be critical of city life and would plan on going north, where he had not been for some years. He was a strangely disturbed man, and behind all his talk, one could sense an undertone of worry and fear, a feeling of failure. Indeed, he did mention on more than one occasion the virtues of a settled life, but he would immediately counter it by saying that he himself was not designed to live in one place permanently.
“One day, when I went to see him as usual, I learned that he had left suddenly and without telling anyone. I felt disappointed, but it was truly in character. He hated being tied down—whether it be to a place or to a person.
“Things had been quiet—in fact, unnaturally quiet—around our border posts and forts for some months. Even the usual sniping and cutting of telephone wires had ceased. This calm did not presage well, and worried us more than a little, because the Second World War had already started and any serious incident on our side of the border would embarrass the government considerably. We kept our ears close to the ground but could not discover anything brewing.
“One day, late in the evening, I received a message from one of the postern gates that a man wanted to see me on very urgent business. It was not unreasonable to suspect mischief, so we took all the necessary precautions before the gates were opened to admit the visitor. He was brought to me inside the guardroom. The stranger had wrapped the lower part of his face with the end of his turban. As the other people left the room, he revealed himself as a Wazir soldier who had deserted from one of our posts about a year ago.
“ ‘I have been sent by Mullah Barrerai,’ he said. ‘He has ordered me to pass on to you a message. He says tell my friend, the captain, that there is great danger for him and his people, and he must take care.’
“ ‘Where does the danger come from, and how does Mullah Barrerai know of it?’ I inquired.
“ ‘The danger comes from the Germans, your Far-angi enemies. For a long time, they have been making payments, distributing arms and ammunition, and doling out promises through Mullah Barrerai. At their behest, he has been exciting them with the prospect of unlimited plunder on the plains and its people after the British lose their dominance. The situation is now ripe for starting a holy war against the British, and the trouble against you out here on the frontier could start any day.’
“ ‘If Mullah Barrerai calls himself my friend, how could he be party to this?’
“ ‘Why do you not understand? If it were not Mullah Barrerai, it would have been someone else. At least in him you have someone who may help you.’
“I thought this over for some time. ‘Thank Mullah Barrerai on my behalf. Thank him deeply for calling himself my friend,’ I told my visitor. ‘I would like to meet him.’
“ ‘A meeting will be difficult but can be arranged later. In the meantime, I shall be in touch with you as his messenger.’
“I accompanied the messenger to the gate, where he was let out. I then hurried back to the mess to wake up the colonel. Our commanding officer was an old, experienced frontier campaigner who had originally served in the Irish Guards. But he’d opted for a transfer into the Indian army after his regiment was moved to England. He loved the area deeply, and had not once visited his hometown in Ireland in the past twenty years. After some discussion, he decided to send a telegram to the government, and at the same time to try and seek further confirmation of the truth or otherwise of the information brought to us.
“Before the next day was over, the information was fully confirmed. A whole company of Khassadars—native soldiers—deserted during the night with their weapons and ammunition. Most of the tribal chiefs and subchiefs who were due to visit the fort the next day to receive their six-monthly allowances failed to turn up. Instead, they sent representatives—usually distant relatives—to receive payments on their behalf.
“The period of uncertainty was now over. Our situation was indeed desperate. We were left with only a handful of troops on whose loyalty we could depend. The tribes of the area, together with their chiefs, were under the complete influence of our German enemy. We spent the next two days disarming the units of the tribal levies whose loyalty had become suspect, and in regrouping the troops left to us in strategic posts—abandoning the rest.
“The next evening the messenger from Mullah Barrerai visited us again. ‘The mullah says,’ he told us, ‘that the tribes are now boiling with hatred. They are gathering from far and wide to share in the German money and loot, and to take part in what they are calling a religious war. He says that the talk of money and of religion has excited them to the point where everybody has abandoned you. He says that once fighting starts, he will not be able to stop it, and you have only one chance.’
“ ‘What chance does he give us?’ I inquired.
“ ‘He says that you will have to match money with money, and it is a risk worth taking, because money will be of no use to you if your forts and posts are overrun. He says that if you are willing to trust him, you should go to him openly with as much money as you can collect, but it should in no case be less than fifty thousand gold sovereigns.’
“I made the visitor wait while I hurried to the colonel and gave him the news. The colonel smiled as I finished the story.
“ ‘I knew it would come to that,’ he said, ‘and I have already obtained the approval of the government to do what you suggest. You have my permission to negotiate with the rebels.’
“I returned to the messenger and told him that I would be visiting their camp the next day with some soldiers, and that I would be carrying money with me. I was confident that I would be safe from them, but wanted to make sure that my escort was also covered by their safe conduct. Just before the messenger left, he again repeated, ‘The mullah wanted to make clear to you that you must bring the money openly and make no secret of the amount.’
“ ‘I will do as he says, though I do not understand the reason behind it.’
“Fifty thousand gold sovereigns is no light weight, and we had to pack it on four mules. These, together with my escort and myself mounted on horses, made our small party look quite impressive as we left the fort at first light the next morning. By midday, we reached the camp of the hostiles, where Mullah Barrerai was waiting for us. He was surrounded by more than a score of his lieutenants, some of whom had been on our side till very recently. The whole area was full of small encampments where thousands of tribesmen had gathered over the past days, preparing for an attack against our forts. Mullah Barrerai gave no sign of recognition as we met him.
“As soon as lunch was over, Mullah Barrerai collected the key leaders among the tribesmen and addressed them in our presence. What he told them briefly was that of the two reasons that were being given for the gathering of the tribes against the British government, one was religion, and the other was money. As far as religion was concerned, it was a false argument, because the Germans were also nonbelievers, and their religion was no different from what the British professed.
“As far as money was concerned, the Germans had given some money, but mostly it was promises, and the worth of a German promise had never been tested so far. As against this, from the British side, a representative was now with them, carrying gold, and prepared to match each German promise with cash. So what would they choose?
“It appeared that Barrerai had been talking to these people in the same strain for some time past. Our arrival with packs of gold clearly tilted popular opinion in our favor, and before the afternoon was over, the tribes solemnly decided to accept the payment offered by the British and to disperse after returning the arms that the deserters had taken away. He beckoned for me to move nearer.
“ ‘Are you happy at the outcome?’ he asked in a low voice.
“ ‘I don’t know whether to be happy,’ I replied. ‘Now that the tribes have smelled money, what happens if they get a bigger offer
from the Germans tomorrow or think we have more to offer?’
“Barrerai’s face broke into his old familiar smile. ‘Ah, you do not understand. If payment were to be made, you would indeed be in deep trouble. Payment is not going to be made. This night, you and I and the money are going to disappear. Do you understand what it would mean?’
“ ‘Tell me!’
“ ‘When this happens, they will lose the only person they have considered honest enough to trust with money. There will be so much suspicion and bitterness that they will never again be able to gather under one banner. So you will secure both your safety and your money. Do you now understand what is in my mind?’
“ ‘I do now. This can work beautifully, but what is going to happen to you? You must take some money before you go.’
“ ‘Friend, taking money from you would be like eating pig meat. Do not ever mention this again. I can always find a living.’
“ ‘But this time you do not understand. If we do what you suggest, you can never be the same person as you were in the past. You will be hunted, because men will suspect you of carrying a fortune on yourself, and they will be seeking you in revenge for stealing their share of gold.’
“ ‘This is of no importance,’ he insisted. ‘I have always lived with a little trouble of one kind or another. I know that as a friend you would do the same for me.’
“With that, he refused to discuss the subject any further. He remained silent not only during the few hours we stayed on in the camp, but even as we left for the fort during the middle of the night.
“I don’t even know when he left the party. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. He must have quietly slipped away on the mule he was riding. It was typical of him to leave without fuss and without saying good-bye.”