Moffatt rose. ‘Ask them and find out. You’ll give Lan a run home as usual?’
‘Of course.’
‘I think I’ll go and seek advice too.’
‘From whom?’
‘Prince Naim, for one.’
‘His views should be interesting. And for another?’
‘Josh Bolton. As you know, he’s been collecting information about all the cases of Western women married to Afghans.’
‘For what purpose, except sensationalism? A less likely Sir Galahad I can’t imagine.’ Her dislike of Bolton was one of the few things she had in common with the sisterhood of the sewing circle.
‘You wouldn’t expect to see a modern Sir Galahad clad in shining armour, would you?’
‘No, nor with a three days’ growth on his face, and an Afghan odour about him.’
Moffatt laughed as he went down the steps. ‘How often did Sir Galahad have a bath?’
She sat and watched him walk plumply across the compound. He too, with his woman’s bottom, was rather a ridiculous deliverer of fair maidens from Afghan dragons.
Five
JOSH BOLTON called himself the only poor American in Kabul and so his country’s best ambassador. Certainly, he could not afford the new Chevrolet and marble-floored house which every one of his compatriots had, paid, so the Afghans cynically whispered, out of money officially designated as ‘Aid to Afghanistan’. Bolton lived in Kabul Hotel, where the toilet seldom flushed, the bath was rusted, and the food greasy with germs. When he went visiting, or inquiring, he walked or rode in ghoddies, two-wheeled gaudily painted carts drawn by bony horses. He shaved every second or third day, like the Afghans themselves, and he dressed in loose, vivid shirts and slacks marred by travel.
He was in Afghanistan for a year to write a book. His poverty had turned out to be his best asset, for, fascinated by his uniqueness – a poor American – the Afghans, from servants to cabinet ministers, had been very willing to grant him interviews and load him with information, which was not always quite accurate. Seeing him so earnest and so gullible, they had told him dramatically about events that had never happened, achievements that had never been accomplished, and reforms that had never been contemplated. Particularly was he susceptible to stories about the diabolical influence of the Russians, and it so happened that the Afghan imagination was especially prolific in inventing these; therefore many an interview, conducted in whispers, ended with satisfaction on both sides, even if the amusement was only on one.
He had written two other books, one about Thailand, called The Sickle and the Poppy; and another about South Korea, punningly entitled The Soul of a Nation. Neither had sold well. Indeed, he had arrived in Kabul with a trunkful of them and had insisted on presenting signed copies to various quarters, including the British Embassy library, where revenge was taken by hiding them away in a cupboard along with a copy of Stalin’s speeches, presented by the Russian Embassy. Harold Moffatt had also been a recipient. Liking the author, he had tried to like the books but had found the prose so flat-footed as to make tedious even a description of a Bangkok brothel. Nevertheless he thought that, after Lan, Bolton was the sincerest friend the Afghans had among the foreigners in Kabul.
The melancholy-eyed Italian manager of the hotel met Moffatt in the vestibule and readily gave him permission to use the telephone. All he asked in return was for Moffatt to listen to a further instalment of the tribulations of a hotel manager in Afghanistan. It appeared that two days before he had sacked a waiter for persistent unhygienic practices. ‘Some of the things I can’t tell you – too horrid! But he licked the butter off the plate, and he didn’t wait till he was out of the dining room. So I sacked him at last. I was angry, I tell you. Bugger off, I said, very quick, and damn to you and your friend who is a friend of a friend of a friend of the Minister of Transport, who is chief over all hotels in Afghanistan. So off he went, with a smile like a cat that has stolen the fish. This morning, out of that telephone, whose voice did I hear? You are right; it was the Minister of Transport’s, telling me to reinstate the licker of butter. He is reinstated, but I, I am saving up to fly home to Naples.’
During that recital Moffatt had dialled Prince Naim’s town house, to be told by a servant there that the Prince was at present living at his country cottage at Istalif, ten miles out of the city. After some hesitation Moffatt telephoned there. Naim, he was informed, was swimming in the pool; no, he had no guests with him; yes, he would be told Moffatt Sahib wished to speak to him. Three or four minutes later Naim was drawling in the Oxford accent he practised so regularly that he spoke Afghan in it too: ‘Is that you, Harold old fellow? I thought it must be from Abdullah’s description. No, I won’t repeat it to you, for it wasn’t a bit flattering; your corpulence entered into it. But don’t be offended, old chap, he approves of you. Anything on your mind?’
‘Yes. I’d like your advice.’
‘It’s yours for the asking. What’s the trouble? Are you writing a new poem?’
‘No. I don’t think I’d care to discuss it over the telephone.’
‘I doubt if you could. I’m amazed that our conversation has survived so far, without some bazaar nafar breaking in to harangue the goomroc about some merchandise they’ve held in bond for weeks. The wind must be in the right quarter today. Why not take a run out, if you’ve got time to spare?’
‘Thanks. I’d like to. By the way, do you mind if I bring Josh Bolton with me?’
There was a pause. ‘Ah, our worthy Herodotus! Yes, by all means. Perhaps I shall have thought up another outlandish anecdote for him to copy into his fat notebook. Lan won’t be with you?’
‘No, I’m sorry. She’s teaching.’
‘I too am sorry. Lucky children. Well, Harold, I shall expect you in half an hour.’
Upstairs in his small room with the grubby bedsheets and rusty stove, Bolton was busy typing. Ants kept running across his paper and into his machine; he flicked them away with the patience and compassion of a Buddhist.
‘Sure, I’d like to go with you, Harold. Just let me finish this page. The Prince is one of the most interesting guys in the kingdom. He told me the most amazing yarn about a pilgrimage to Ali’s two-headed dragon – that’s the big rock where there’s a spring of natural soda water.’
‘Are you putting it in your book?’
‘Sure. Like a kind of Moslem Canterbury tale, only a darned sight more fantastic. O. K. That’s it done.’ He got up and looked at himself in the cracked mirror. ‘Hell, I guess it’s true; I’m not as particular about my appearance as divers of my admirers think I ought to be, particularly Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul in Kabul.’
Moffatt grinned. ‘I didn’t know Gillie was an admirer of yours.’
‘Sure. Was I not at the Garden Party last June?’
‘I believe you were.’
‘And I shall be again, this June; thanks to the fact that my neck in the intervening months has lost none of its brass.’
‘You weren’t invited?’
‘I was not, despite the risk to Anglo-American solidarity. Be candid, friend. Am I fit to visit a prince?’
‘He’ll be dressed only in swimming trunks.’
‘That gives me an idea. I’ll pull on my other pants. I’d shave, if you’ve got a couple of hours to wait. It would take me all that time to descend to the kitchen for hot water, and I’d need the magic of Orpheus himself.’
As Bolton was taking off the dirty, and putting on the grubby pants, Moffatt said: ‘I want to ask the prince’s advice.’
‘What about?’
‘And I want to ask yours. It’s about an English girl who’s coming here in a few weeks to marry an Afghan.’
‘Break her legs first.’
‘You think she should be advised not to come?’
‘She must be forcibly prevented. See this notebook. Listen to it. Don’t you hear the breaking of hearts? Do you know that there are Western women here in Kabul who walk about the streets in shaddries, gh
osts indeed, as far as we are concerned.’
‘I had heard there were two or three of them.’
‘And did you know that there are some relegated to being the second or even the third wife?’
‘I thought polygamy was a thing of the past.’
‘Don’t you believe it, friend. It still flourishes. How do I look?’ He had drawn a comb through his gray hair.
‘Fine. Let’s go.’
The road from Kabul to the beautiful little mountain resort of Istalif climbed through a dusty, sunny landscape. Some nomads were seen, tending their sheep and goats. Bolton said he envied those dark mysterious men, so independent that their wives could walk through the capital with their faces bare, while even the queen in her limousine had to have hers completely veiled. At one point the road was being repaired by conscript soldiers, men of Mongolian appearance from the north; and at another three men trudged along, bearded, bare-legged, and bowed under great heaps of thorn bushes gathered from the desert.
‘What are those guys thinking about?’ asked Bolton.
‘Weariness.’
‘That all?’
‘And rest.’
‘Sure. They look as if they’d dropped from another planet, yet I guess that’s just what they’re thinking about: weariness and rest; and the price their fuel will fetch in the town; and their chances of getting a ride in a lorry, without the driver looking for too much baksheesh; and their families left behind in the village. Human beings. Men. These guys will never have heard of Eisenhower or Khrushchev. That’s something now that makes me personally darned humble, and hopeful too. Yes, sir. We just have got no conception at all of the extent of responsibility that men should have for one another. I’m thinking of a millionaire I once saw, a silver-haired dynamo he thought he was; and I’m thinking too of those poor guys under those piles of thorn brush. Now should that comparison make me love God, or marvel at His notion of justice, or reject Him altogether as a nuisance?’
‘Why not consult Manson Powrie?’
Bolton frowned: Powrie, the minister of the American Church in Kabul, came calling on him in his hotel bedroom and, gently brushing ants off his knees, spoke earnestly about Jesus. ‘It doesn’t do to laugh at Manson P.,’ he said. ‘It’s more than likely that those three guys we passed know him. He visits as many villages as he can with his pills and ointments. I went with him once. His wife Thelma was there too. You see, the men won’t allow him to treat their women, so he’s had to train poor Thelma to do it. It’s hell for her, for she just can’t see Christ in syphilitic sores, as he can. I’ve seen her turn green because there was a small beetle in her soup.’
By this time they had turned off the tarred road and were bumping along an earth track between great fields of vines. At a corner two boys were standing with bunches of flowers in their hands; they shouted and waved to them.
Bolton asked Moffatt to stop the car. The bigger of the boys raced along with bare feet to hand in the bouquet. Bees came in with it and a lovely fragrance. ‘Tashacour,’ cried Bolton, and held out a handful of coins. The boy, tempted, made as if to accept but pulled back his hand. Bolton dropped the money into the dust.
As the car drove on they looked back and saw that the smaller boy was squatting to collect the coins. His shaved head glittered in the sunlight.
‘One of the nicest things about the people of this country,’ said Bolton, ‘is their love of flowers. See a real tough guy down from the hills, six feet high, with a scowl like a gorilla’s, and gun across his back; ten to one he’s carrying a rose in his hand and dusting his beak with it.’
‘Yes.’ Often Moffatt found roses lying on his desk in the morning.
The policeman at the gate scrutinized them, with a yawn. As he waved them on with one hand, the other failed to reach his cap in a salute.
The house, built of stone, overlooked the wide expanse of vines. Behind, the mountain slopes were green with pine trees, out of which rose the blue cupola of a small mosque. Nearer, on an adjacent hill, was a round tower with pointed roof; it was painted red, and hundreds of white doves flew and crooned about it.
Near the house was a small swimming pool lined with blue tiles. Beside it, seated at a table under a large striped awning, was Prince Naim, wearing red swimming trunks. As his visitors approached he rose to welcome them. He was a small, skinny man of about thirty-five, with large nose and prominent teeth. His dark glasses were so large they looked like a disguise. He was not, as Bolton muttered out of the side of his mouth, the handsomest guy in the realm.
‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. Welcome to Istalif. Did you bring your swimming trunks?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Moffatt.
‘Ah no, you have come on business.’
‘Not quite business, Naim.’
‘With Mr Bolton now, every glance of his eye, every sniff of his nose, every quiver of his ear, is business. Even when they are sound asleep, I understand, authors are hard at work; problems baffling to them while awake are solved by their subconscious during sleep.’
‘I guess I’m not that kind of author, Prince,’ said Bolton. ‘I’m the donkey kind; it’s hard work for me all the time.’
‘Please be seated, gentlemen. I am drinking orange squash, as you see, but there is beer for infidels.’
‘Beer would be just dandy,’ said Bolton.
When it had been brought and tasted, the Prince smiled at Moffatt: ‘I’m glad to see you looking so composed. You sounded so upset on the telephone. Lan, I hope, is well?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Of course since speaking to me you have had the consoling society of Mr Bolton.’
Bolton grinned. ‘I guess I’ve been about as consoling as a cement mixer. I talk too much.’
‘And of course when you talk you do not have the opportunity to prune, delete, condense, as you have when you write.’
‘Well, to tell you the truth, Prince, that’s a thing I can’t bear to do. Once it’s down on paper I think it’s good. Afterwards critics assure me it’s long-winded, verbose, repetitious, and tautological; but I just can’t see it like that. Maybe I’m scared to admit they’re right. You see, if I thought they were, I’d be like the guy in the story who was determined to leave in only what was essential, and so he started to cut out what wasn’t. In the end he was left with a blank sheet; even his name seemed superfluous.’
‘I like that story, Mr Bolton. The moral seems to be that of the many thousands of books published every year, very few are necessary. That is a comforting thought to me, an Afghan, because I doubt if there is any civilized nation that publishes fewer books than we do.’
‘It is kind of disappointing, Prince, that your literature is so sparse.’
‘But you are helping to remedy that, Mr Bolton. By the way, have you unearthed any interesting stories recently?’
‘I was rather hoping you’d supply me with one, Prince, like the one about that pilgrimage to Ali’s two-headed dragon.’
‘Yes, that was a strange tale. In your researches into our history, Mr Bolton, I don’t suppose you will have heard of Said Hasruddin.’
‘Can’t say I have. Who was he?’
‘Some call him a patriot, others a brigand.’
‘What would you call him, Prince?’
‘I am biased. You see, his ambition was to seize the throne and, I suppose, cut the throats of all my family.’
‘Said Hasruddin? No, can’t say I remember the name, though I’ve read all the history I can lay my hands on.’
‘Not much of our history has been translated into English, Mr Bolton. Would you like to hear about this Said Hasruddin?’
‘I certainly would.’
‘Said Hasruddin was as astute as he was ambitious. He had to get a number of men into Kabul secretly if his coup was going to have any chance. Even if they came in twos and threes they would be suspected. So he had the bright idea of buying up as many shaddries as he could – four or five hundred, I should say – and disg
uised in these his men began to enter the capital. It is difficult to see how such a ruse could fail. As you know, the shaddry is not only an inviolable garment, it is also voluminous, a shoplifter’s boon.’
Bolton laughed. ‘That’s good. A shoplifter’s boon!’
‘Under it a man could be armed literally to the teeth. Unluckily – for Hasruddin, I mean – one man passing a policeman let his rifle clatter to the ground. Courteous though our policemen are instructed to be to ladies properly shaddried, this fellow on reflection decided he had grounds for investigating. He did so, and received, I am sorry to say, a dagger wound in his stomach.’
‘Did he die?’
‘No, he recovered. Well, that was the plot unmasked. For weeks afterwards there were many unfortunate scenes when shaddries were torn off suspicious-looking characters, only to disclose that these were genuinely, though in quite a few cases not meekly, female. Indeed, the confusion and uncertainty were so great and the complaints so numerous, that for a time the shaddry was in danger of being abolished out of hand. You might say, a pity it wasn’t.’
‘Remarkable,’ said Bolton. ‘You’d have no objection, Prince, if I printed this story?’
‘I should be delighted. Only I should like to offer some advice. Treat the whole affair as humorously as you can. Make a farce of it. Ridicule is the weapon which will in the end rid us of the shaddry.’
‘I believe you’re right there, sir.’
While Bolton was completing his notes, Naim turned to Moffatt: ‘And now, Harold, how can I help you?’
During the hoaxing of Bolton, Moffatt had listened with a smile, and even with an outbreak or two of laughter. Yet most of his mind had been concentrated on something else, by no means funny: Lan’s belief that he refused to have children because he would be ashamed of them, half-English, half-Chinese. Mrs Mossaour believed that too. So, he suspected, did Wint. No doubt there were others who talked about it behind his back. But there was one person whose apparent sharing of that belief astonished him: himself. Yes, he believed that he was frustrated by that shame; yet surely it could not be true. It was so absurdly against what he had always professed, and indeed had observed: that the most beautiful and interesting children were of mixed parentage. Besides, such a shame on his part was utterly treacherous to Lan whom he loved; it might even destroy her. Most of his friends would have said too that he was betraying himself. They would have expected him in this matter of Miss Johnstone and Abdul Wahab to take the opposite view, to be favourable rather than antagonistic. Yet as, in as matter-of-fact a voice as he could manage, he explained to the Prince about Mrs Mohebzada and then about Miss Johnstone, he felt seething deep within him that unreasonable and inexplicable hatred.
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