‘There had been some doubt among us,’ he wrote, ‘that the sepoys would pass the Indus, a river appointed by their religion to mark the utmost borders of their empire. But in the end all passed off well, although not with any marked alacrity. The crossing of the great river presented a military spectacle of the most impressive kind. The battering train and heavy shot were towed across on rafts, and then the men crossed the magnificent bridge we had caused to be floated in the river. First, the native regiments dispelled our concerns by crossing with great good humour, cheering as they went, and then our men. The cavalry went on foot, leading their horses by the reins. The bridge swayed considerably, but its broad expanse held. Finally the camels with their attendants; the unaccustomed movement beneath their feet caused them great distress, and several bolted; still, I do not believe that we lost above two hundred, which in such a vast number is not a catastrophe. In truth, it was the most magnificent spectacle I ever beheld, and all accomplished with great ease.’ He set down his pen; how naturally the anticipation of small losses came to him, and now that he had written it, he felt that it would all come to pass, just as he had supposed.
It was some days before another officer wrote a letter to his wife, back in Calcutta, when the crossing had been achieved. It had been much as his colleague predicted. ‘… the crossing was magnificently organized, but many of the native troops were rather ragged. I fear I was tired, and as we rested on the far bank of the river, watching the column cross, I was suddenly startled by what I took to be a large funeral procession. What put such a thought into my head I know not, as I was thinking of very different subjects. I cannot help recording this, it made such an impression.’
He put his pen down, and scratched his head. The letter would go with a bearer the next day, or the day after that. They had crossed the Indus; in a matter of weeks or months, they would be in Kabul, and he would send for Hannah to join him. The climate, after all, was said to be most agreeable.
8.
The servants lined up in the empty marble hall, expressly to smirk. Vitkevich formed a poker face, and drew his black furs about him. As the doors were opened to him, never again to reopen, a carriage was drawing up in the courtyard. He lowered his head, as if against the snow which was now forming, but in reality because he did not want his departure to be seen; he could not bear any further snubs, he could not bear, at this moment, a familiar face to look directly into his and force itself to make no acknowledgement. Twenty times a day, wherever he went, that happened; or a lovely face which had once gazed into his eyes with adoration had flushed, and twisted on its neck and looked into the middle distance, until he had passed. He went to the places where that was most likely to happen, and it happened, as he knew it would. He lowered his eyes now, and shrank into his greatcoat, and hurried away from what, undoubtedly, would be some new humiliation. He was a brave man, he assured himself, and now he knew what he was expected to do.
The streets were empty, and the few men in them huddled over their braziers at each corner. Even people who had never heard of him turned their backs. Vitkevich’s chambers were not far from the Princess’s palace; it had been part of his idea of himself that he would live, and continue to live, in the best part of Petersburg, and now he saw how empty that bravado had been. He had foreseen this, and earlier that evening had dismissed the servants. The doorman let him into the dark, empty, cold flat, and Vitkevich dismissed his suggestion that he light the fires with a final, extravagant tip. The man gazed at the ten-rouble note with astonishment, and retired hastily.
Vitkevich dropped his fur on the floor, and, lighting the lamps as he went with his flint, went into his study. Everything here was neat and orderly. For a moment, he gazed at the blank wall, and he saw what he would rather not have seen: the image of the plaster, painted with a single spurt of the blood his skull held. Onwards. Vitkevich sat down at his desk, breathing into his hands, and took his papers out of the top drawer. Perhaps it would be best to light the laid fire, after all. While it grew and settled, he went through them. There was nothing here, in truth. He drew a sheet of writing paper towards him; as well to say something at the last. Various formulae went through his head; various pieces of grand bravado; it all came so easily, and it was only when he took his quill, dipped it in the ink, and prepared to start that he realized he had no one to write to. The pen, poised above the paper, dripped; a single black blot. A tear for Vitkevich, he thought sardonically. No matter. And then, in a fury, he took a handful of his papers, and threw them into the fire; and then another, and another, watching them burn, to lick and roar at the chimney until it was all done. There was nothing left of Vitkevich, now; and the fire retreated to a peaceful crackle. Everything, now, was done. He sat down for one last time, and faced the sheet of paper with its single black tear. Burn that, too? No. That would do for an epitaph. The key was in the lock of the bottom drawer, and he turned it briskly. There, as he knew it would be, was his old pistol. He wondered, briefly, who would hear the noise of the shot into his head, and who would come running. He had always been brave, and now the time had come to be businesslike.
9.
Masson was sated with the days, the weeks of solitary lies; but to Hasan he would not lie. The boy had appeared from nowhere, from the air, and Masson took the unspeaking face of the beautiful annunciation between his two hands and spoke, and spoke. He told him, again and again, that he loved him, knowing that when the next day broke, he would be gone, and said over and over again that now Hasan must be brave on his own. Told him as boldly as he could that he must never forget that this was his country, and it was for him to fight, to keep it his. Told him that the English were coming, and it was for Hasan, the hero, to fight, to kill, to drive the English back to the sea, to drive them back to where they were born. Nothing in Masson’s life had ever struck him with the necessity he now felt, of saying this as plainly as he could, and he talked, on and on, to Hasan’s listening face. Remember me, he wanted to say, remember to fight, remember who you are, and the angel listened, as if to a confession, as if to something he already knew. They did not have long, and as Masson went on talking, it seemed less and less as if he was wasting what few hours they now had together. He would leave the boy sleeping, in the early morning light, and the boy would wake and find him gone, and there was only one thing he wanted to leave him with. Masson went on talking in his fantastic gabbling Persian, and in the serious silent Asian night, Hasan did not lower his gaze, but went on listening to what he must do.
10.
The Bolan Pass fell; and Kandahar fell; and Ghazni fell; and the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan sat in his citadel and heard of the progress of the infidel towards his great city, and knew what must be done. His armies had melted away, disappearing into the hills before the forces of the English, and the Amir thought, and did what he must do.
This, then, was the first of the two virtuous journeys of the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan. He observed his city, and, with a great sorrow in his heart, accepted his task. The princes of the court were summoned from the far corners of the kingdom, and stood before their Emperor with their heads bowed, knowing what he was to say.
‘We must leave our beloved city,’ he said into the silence, and one after another, the princes of the court began to weep, knowing that it must be. Only the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan did not weep, knowing that he was telling his unhappy subjects only the beginning of the story, and not its end.
The noble horses of the Bala Hissar were made ready, and the Amir and his princes, his family and their families, their attendants and the warriors of the kingdom rode out in the night. They left the gates of the mighty palace open for the infidel to find, and did not look back. They rode out of the fortress, and through the jewelled city of Kabul, and out into the mountains, and the weeping entourage followed their unweeping Emperor, riding eastwards, and never looking back. The Amir faced towards the dawn, and his bright eyes were like emeralds in the early light, and were wise. Great was the Amir of the A
fghans! And even at this moment, as he rode, as he undertook his virtuous journey, he was calm. His people wept and cried out when they saw in the morning the gates of the Bala Hissar hanging open, and the halls of the Bala Hissar empty like the shell of a nut, but the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan, as he rode out to deliver himself into the hands of the infidel, did not weep, for he knew one thing. He knew that he had chosen to take one virtuous journey; he knew also that there would be a second, and he did not speak of it.
11.
The Bolan Pass had fallen; and Kandahar had fallen; and Ghazni had fallen; and the Army of the Indus rested, in something like shock, before the city of Kabul. They had been there, unmoving, for four days. The morning had come to advance into the city. This would be no siege; the low walls of the city lay undefended before them. For days, the curious inhabitants of the city had been paying visits to the camp; some trying to sell food to the hungry soldiers, but most merely to inspect their new masters. Bazaar merchants, street-boys, the veiled women had come; the Newab Jubbur Khan, to Burnes’s high amazement, had appeared from nowhere and casually informed him that the court had fled, he knew not where. The city lay before them on a silver plate, a gift. It was Shah Shujah’s; it was theirs; and the days were spent not organizing a siege, but arranging a triumphal procession.
Burnes was near the head. Before him rode Shah Shujah and his assembled entourage. Macnaghten and the English went behind, and then a few hundred cavalry officers, their spurs bright in the mountain sun. So, Burnes thought, so this is our achievement; to take what we are being given. The brilliant clean cavalcade left the camp, and when the first of the horsemen passed the low wall, there was a small shock in Burnes. Nothing had happened. It was theirs.
Shah Shujah had not seen his city for many years, but his head was upright and stiff, looking to neither side. Burnes felt that nothing in the city – in his city – interested him but the possession of the Bala Hissar itself, and in the old king’s unmoving rigidity, he saw not the dignity of an emperor, but an inhuman lack of curiosity. They went on into the silent city. There was a great weight in the silence; it was not that of an empty city, Burnes felt, and soon he understood why. At the edges of the streets, people were standing; more and more people, not moving, not speaking, just staring. Acclamation had not occurred to them, and the thickening crowds stood and stared at their old king and his new allies in complete, leaden silence. They rode on and on, and when, through the silence, from the crowd, a hoarse hiccupping cry sang out, Burnes almost blushed with the shame of it. Involuntarily, he looked for the source of the single heckle, and found it; an old madman, an old familiar figure from years before. He was behind the mass of the crowd, and half-running along, keeping pace with the riders, and shouting the same thing, over and over. ‘Gharib nawaz!’ the old madman was shouting, laughing as he called out. ‘Gharib nawaz!’ Burnes had never heard it before; he had only been told by Masson that all Kabul had nicknamed him, your humble servant, and now, riding behind the deplorable Emperor in this contemptuous metropolis, he blushed with an all-enveloping shame.
Burnes pulled his horse to one side of the procession, to the side of the street, and waited there. The crowd was three thick, and gazing up sullenly. All at once, the madman fell silent, and melted, somehow, into the crowd, and, all at once, the air rang with the people’s silence. He had never heard such silence in Kabul, or seen such massed stillness. The whole of Kabul stood on the street; small children, red-veiled women, the merchants of the market, the mullahs. They stood without moving, staring at the empty triumph of Shah Shujah and his glittering foreigners, and made no noise. The procession went on, and soon Burnes, on his horse, was far behind the principals. He wheeled his horse round, facing the crowd, and they parted in front of him. He rode away from the procession, through the empty silent streets. The city had surrendered itself, as it were, to the funeral of some beloved prince, and had closed itself to every other pursuit. No one was there to stare at him; the shops and houses were locked up and silent, and in ten minutes he had ridden to the outer edges of the city. He tugged at the horse’s reins, and spurred its sides, and broke into a gallop. It was a bright, empty day, and he emptied his mind of the silent city behind him. The mountains rose before him like a dream, brown and cream and white in the clear high sun, the earth hard as stone beneath the horse’s hooves. He was alone, and rode out into the distant bare country like a hunter. It might have been minutes, or hours, before he slowed and slid off the sweating flanks of the horse, the city far behind him. He looked up into the utter clarity of the Afghan sky, and saw something he had never seen before; a single cloud, like nothing he had ever seen before in his life. Across the depthless azure of the Afghan sky, a single, brilliantly white line, shining with the reflected sun, being drawn as if with a piece of chalk. Burnes looked at it, never having seen it before. Far above, tens of thousands of feet above, a jet plane was tearing across the sky. He looked, and to his mind came a single dictionary thought: disaster. Disaster: evil star. He stood with his neck tipped back, his mouth open, until he ached and the thing was quite gone. What it meant, he did not know.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL INTERLUDE
1.
The room he rented had initially seemed nice, but it hadn’t taken long to discover that the little square it looked out on was brutally noisy, all night long. The taxis of Kabul congregated there – how had that escaped his notice? – and their engines, idling, filled the upper rooms with exhaust fumes. It was bad enough during the day. At night, the revving of engines was even noisier, and the drivers seemed to wait until the small hours before testing the noisiest functions of their cars, hooting for no obvious reason. It woke you up, choking in the lingering fumes, and for a moment you had no idea where you were, but you were already angry. Angry with the world, and then you identified the source of your rage. There was no point in going to throw open the shutters to yell at them; he had tried that a couple of times, but the drivers, each squatting possessively on the bonnet of their car, just looked up incuriously, as if at a change in the weather they had not caused and could do nothing much about. He, too, fumed; but less noisily.
In the day, the drivers greeted the Englishman with good humour. He had been there long enough to become part of Kabul, it seemed, and they hailed him merrily, like wrongdoing schoolboys putting on a pretence of ignorant innocence before an angry headmaster. He took it, in a way, as a compliment. Every other Westerner they came across was fair game. Often, making your way across the little square, you came across a driver negotiating with a hapless pair of travellers; they saw someone weighed down with rucksacks, and their eyes narrowed at the prospect of the fortune to be made out of some boy with dollars in his pocket, wanting only to be driven to Peshawar, and perhaps, too, a few cheap drugs. Sometimes, a driver would be nonchalantly naming some gigantic price for the drive, and then would glimpse the English anthropologist leaving his house. The hard, incredulous stare would disappear, and the driver break into a broad cheerful grin at his new Kabuli friend. On the whole, it was agreeable to be accepted like this; he tried to persuade himself to stop troubling about anything else.
2.
He had been there a few months when a diversion occurred to him. The laborious work of interviewing, of picking over absurd titbits of Afghan family history for something which could be reduced to diagrams was growing wearisome to him; he started to wonder, in fact, if he was truly all that interested in questions of matrilinearity. The winter came early that year, and, gloomily staring out into the falling snow, an interesting diversion occurred to him; a trip, not to gather information, but just to pace some ancient steps.
Whenever he came to Afghanistan for fieldwork, he always made a point of packing a battered and treasured book. He had had it since he was eleven; an old library book, borrowed and reborrowed from the local public library, and in the end, when he had read it a dozen times, he had reported it lost and paid for the thing. That must have been the first thing he had ever heard
about Afghanistan, which now constituted half his life. He first came here in 1961; now, fifteen years of kinship diagrams later, he felt he understood the country less than he had when he was eleven, and reading his stolen library book. No one else he knew had ever read the shabby book in its green binding; it was a shameful pleasure. He always brought it with him to Kabul. Of course, the derring-do tone of this epic of empire had no real merit, but, alone in his room, he had never ceased to be excited by it. He was honest with himself; he brought it with him to egg himself on, to remind himself what had driven him here in the first place. A few pages of Pottinger’s heroism, read by candlelight, would reconcile him to a Kabul power out, and the next day, he would be able to embark on the dull task of sifting solid information from his rambling interlocutors with some measure of zest.
He opened it up, with the usual mild sighing pleasure; he was only looking for a date, but the book fell open at the familiar rabbity portrait of Dost Mohammed, and, without meaning to, he began to read, scratching his Afghan beard. There was nothing more comforting than reading a book you could practically recite, and soon, the room, the metallic stink of exhaust fumes, the raucous outside noises of the Kabul streets receded, and he was eleven again and utterly absorbed for a gorgeous hour. Kabul was always demanding that you spread your own self out, shared it out like titbits at a picnic. You had to be companionable here; reading was a bad, a solitary pleasure conducted in an empty room. The Demands of Sociability; he saw the book some anthropologist would write one day. Not him, though. In the end, oblivious to the task he had set himself, he read beyond what he had wanted to find out, and had to turn back twenty pages. Poor people! There it was: 6 January.
The Mulberry Empire Page 42