Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  Was he cheated? At first he wasn’t sure. The two persons in the room were the couple he had expected all right, Moffatt and the big-bosomed blonde, but they were not making love. It did not even look as if they had been, a minute or so before. Neither looked satisfied. In fact, the Larsen woman, seated in an armchair with a glass of whisky in one hand and irritation in the other, scowled across at Moffatt as he lolled on a sofa, more than half asleep. A glass of whisky stood on the carpet close to his dangling hand. No cushions lay on the floor to form a bed. The woman was fully clothed; even her knees were covered by her green dress. Moffatt’s jacket, though, was off, and lay across the back of a chair. They might have been friends listening to a symphony being played on the radio.

  Suddenly, causing Wahab to bump his nose against the glass, she jumped up, set the whisky down on a table, and strutted out of the room. For an instant he admired her plump angry buttocks. Perhaps she was now gone to a bedroom to prepare herself, to take off all her clothes so that when she returned in a minute or two she would be entirely naked. It seemed, however, that if such was her intention, he himself was showing much more interest than Moffatt, and would show more appreciation. Moffatt’s hand still hung above the glass of whisky; it had not once lifted it. The situation was altogether absurd, he decided, and was made worse by someone’s weariness, not Moffatt’s, but someone else’s, who yawned, kept closing his eyes and losing interest. For a few seconds he felt indignant at that sleepy intruder, until he realized it was himself. Even if the blond woman did come in naked he would continue to yawn and lose interest, and might even fall sound asleep.

  He did not wait to see her come back into the room, but, quite alone now, crawled away, going down the steps like a monkey and creeping round the side of the house to his bicycle. Only once did he fall off, when he ran into a large stone which he thought was a shadow.

  Fourteen

  TO LADY BEAULY and Alan Wint fell the task of bringing up to date the invitation list for the Queen’s Birthday Garden Party. The previous year more guests had come than there turned out to be whisky for, either because the Ambassador, rankling under a recent cut in his allowance, had miscalculated the number of bottles required or the orderlies had misunderstood their instructions as to the proportion of whisky to water; or the guests had consumed more than was decent or fair. He had afterwards discussed it with his wife and had left her to decide whether next year more water must go with the whisky or fewer guests should be invited. The former practice seemed to her not quite genteel, whereas the latter was not only perfectly permissible, according to any code of etiquette, but had the advantage of enforcing the exclusion of those rather exasperatingly on the fringe of eligibility, such as some educationists from Wyoming. Therefore, with Paula called in to give support to every decision made, Lady Beauly and the First Secretary met in the drawing room of the Residence for a whole afternoon, behind drawn sun blinds, to choose the lucky three hundred and fifty.

  Among those had to be Harold Moffatt and his wife; being British, nothing short of public sodomy could bar them, as he had been known to put it himself with typical disrespect; and the Mohebzadas were included, out of uneasy charity, the expectation being that they would not come. Among those excluded were Josh Bolton and Captain Mabie, one white and the other dark, so that the one snub cancelled out the other with characteristic British impartiality. Among those never considered, either for inclusion or exclusion, was Abdul Wahab.

  The completed list, with as many scoring-outs and writing-ins as the manuscript of a poem, was handed to Katharine Winn who was to type the names on the cards and envelopes. First, with what she called her plebeian efficiency, she went through the list and discovered the names of more than a dozen people who had left Kabul. One American couple had gone to Bangkok and she was tempted to send them their invitation there. Two of her friends, clerks like herself, employed in the American Embassy, had not been invited, either because they were too low in the hierarchy or because it was known at the Big House that they were personal friends of hers. She had once rejected an invitation to a function there in favour of a shindig at their house. However, she had suspected that they would be left out and without much hesitation put them in herself. Every guest had to be personally presented to the Ambassador and Lady Beauly in the great hall, by Alan Wint, and there was no doubt memories would somersault and eyes roll when these interlopers appeared, assured and radiant in beautiful dresses direct from New York. They would not know their invitations had been brazenly forged and, diplomacy being what it was, no one would ever tell them.

  It was easy to explain why she should have risked Ambassadorial lightning – the only danger in her case being that the monocled flashes might send her into a giggling fit – on her friends’ behalf, but for years afterward, in various parts of the world, including Leopoldville and Barcelona, she was often to wonder why she should have done it for the Afghan Abdul Wahab, particularly as she felt quite sure, while typing his name on the gilt-edged gilt-crested card and the College’s address on the envelope, that the invitation would confound rather than flatter him. Perhaps one part of her motive was jealousy of Helga Larsen, voluptuous and blonde, whereas Katherine herself was mousy-brown and, at twenty-eight, as good as virginal. Another part could have been the pity she had felt for poor Wahab at the Barbecue Dance where she had come upon him twice in the space of two hours, still sipping the same orange juice, and dabbing at his sore eyes with his handkerchief. Moreover, she detested his country and sometimes in her heart felt ashamed. But most of all her inviting him represented rebellion against Alan Wint and the Ambassador’s lady, who seemed to think that their positions of petty authority gave them the right over her of masters over a slave. Well, just as a slave might get revenge by spitting in the soup, so she got it by sending out that card to Wahab. She did not think he would come, but even if he did and astounded the Reception Committee by his meek intrusion, he would have some kind of right to be there, since he was engaged to marry an Englishwoman; though, to be truthful, she considered that ambition of his a presumption worthy often years’ solitary imprisonment.

  So, one morning about a week after the Barbecue Dance, the Pakistani orderly, with the red Embassy turban and the Rudge Whitworth bicycle, delivered the envelope to Isban College. He handed it on the front steps to the custodian, Sadruddin, who asked what it was. When told it was an invitation to the great party at the British Embassy which was to celebrate the British Queen’s Birthday and which the Afghan Prime Minister would attend, he assumed it was for the Principal. In fact, it was the latter himself who, after a minute or two’s pride and rejoicing, discovered that the name on the envelope, and worse still, on the card itself, was not his but, impossible to believe, Wahab’s – whom everyone knew to be almost in disgrace and who at that moment was teaching the Twelfth Class in an ordinary classroom. The laboratory in the meantime had been closed as a precaution against something, the Principal himself wasn’t sure what but believed it had to do with Wahab’s unfitness and imminent dismissal.

  Looking out of the window at two small dung-gatherers with their kerosene cans roped to their backs, neither of them as old as his own son, he noticed the large stain on the lapel of his silver-gray suit where some rice had fallen out of his hand at dinner. It was his best suit, and if he had been invited to this great celebration he would have had to wear it, as it would have been impossible for him to buy a new one, unless his cousin the Minister advanced him the money. Let this anxiety also be Wahab’s. But all the same, why Wahab, an ordinary teacher, not even an under-Principal? No wonder, he thought with sad bitter smile, a British envoy and all his staff had been murdered here in Kabul a hundred years ago.

  ‘This is not for me,’ he said, with dignity, handing the card back to the custodian. ‘It is for Wahab.’

  ‘Wahab?’

  ‘Yes. I think he must have friends among the British.’

  ‘I have heard,’ said one of the other teachers, from an armchair, �
�that Wahab is the friend of a Chinese woman who is the wife of an Englishman who teaches at the University.’

  ‘I have heard that too,’ said the Principal, and he was reflecting, with the most cautious nose-picks as if each nostril were red hot, upon that extraordinary involvement of Wahab’s, when the telephone on the desk in front of him rang. As he picked it up, he kept shaking his head, trying to disentangle poor Wahab from that Chinese wife of an Englishman.

  The voice in his ear was sudden, harsh, and anonymous. ‘I want to speak to Abdul Wahab.’

  Though the accent was much too good for an Englishman, the Principal pretended the speaker was from the British Embassy.

  ‘It is all right,’ he answered coldly. ‘He has received his card.’

  ‘What card? Do not be a fool, Abdul Mussein. I am speaking on behalf of the Brotherhood.’

  Swiftly the Principal changed the telephone to his other hand, so that he could drag his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dab his brow with it. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. The Brotherhood terrified him. It was a new secret society, whose purpose was said to be the purification of Afghan life. A week or two before, an Afghan had been found murdered in the street outside his home. People whispered that the Brotherhood had done it. The man had been a known adulterer. Nepotism too, so it was rumoured, the high-minded Brotherhood condemned.

  ‘Is Wahab there?’

  ‘You mean, in the room at the moment?’

  ‘Is he available for me to speak to?’

  ‘Yes, certainly.’

  ‘Then fetch him.’

  The Principal shouted. The message boy jumped up from his snooze on the floor.

  ‘Go and tell Abdul Wahab to come here at once.’

  The voice in his ear said: ‘And I want my conversation with him to be private. You understand? Everyone else must clear out. Yourself included.’

  The Principal trembled and frowned; yet, instead of protesting at that rudeness, he murmured meekly: ‘You may be interested to know that today, ten minutes ago as a matter of fact, Wahab received an invitation to the big party at the British Embassy to celebrate their Queen’s birthday.’

  ‘Did you receive one?’

  ‘No. Yet am I not the Principal?’

  ‘You are a nonentity.’

  The Principal blinked. It had occurred to him that the speaker might not be a member of the mysterious Brotherhood at all, but someone from the Twelfth Class playing a joke.

  ‘I am the Principal of one of the chief educational institutions in Afghanistan,’ he said, with dignity.

  ‘Your students consider you a frightened fool, and rightly so.’

  ‘I do my duty. The Minister is pleased with my work.’ He almost added: ‘I have only one suit fit for a man in my position, and it has a stain on the lapel. Therefore it is obvious that at least I take no bribes as other principals do. No matter how wealthy a student’s parents may be, he must work to pass the examinations in my school; he cannot use his money to buy marks.’ But he kept silent, for though it was true he had accepted no bribes, being afraid to, still he had yielded to please on behalf of the Chief of Police’s nephew. Besides, he knew his teachers took bribes. ‘I hope,’ he said, with trembling magnanimity, ‘that poor Wahab is in no trouble.’

  ‘That is our business.’

  ‘I think I can say, with justice, that he is a sincere teacher.’

  ‘Who are you to judge?’

  ‘I am the Principal.’

  The other laughed. Perhaps he was a Twelfth Class student, and also a member of the Brotherhood? Youth was the age for reckless idealism.

  ‘You know that many, if not all, of the people in this country, in important positions, occupy these solely because they have been hoisted into them by relatives who themselves were previously hoisted into theirs.’

  ‘I have heard of it. It is not right, I agree; but it is still possible for a corrupt system to appoint a capable man.’

  ‘Such as yourself? We know your history. Is not His Excellency your cousin? When you were at the University you were not one of the brightest students.’

  The Principal suddenly remembered that some subordinates were listening. Therefore he dropped his voice to a passionate whisper: ‘I was often hungry in those days, and I had no private room in which to study.’

  ‘All the most able young Afghans are hungry often, and have no private rooms.’

  ‘Then surely I was one of them?’

  ‘It does not follow. Your reasoning is illogical. Why is Wahab taking so long?’

  ‘His room is downstairs, at the end of a long corridor. But here he comes, carrying his card, I see.’

  ‘The invitation card?’

  ‘Yes. He must be a friend of the British.’

  ‘Give him the telephone, and then clear out. My conversation with him must be private.’

  ‘I understand.’ But he wasn’t convinced yet that this wasn’t a hoax. He imagined some of the Twelfth Class faces at the other end of the line, and every one, with its impudent smile, fitted; but what he could easily imagine too was the fierce bearded face of some leader of the Brotherhood – fanatical, bloodthirsty, and pro-Russian.

  ‘Wahab,’ he called. ‘Someone wishes to speak with you.’

  Wahab approached the desk. He did not look frightened. Was it the card in his hand that gave him courage? Indeed, he looked stern and important. Was it possible that he was a Brotherhood leader? Certainly he was a rash and fervent advocate of change. Remember the syphilis microbes! Remember the telephone conversation with Prince Naim. Remember, too, this invitation to a party that most of the chief men in the Government would attend.

  ‘Do not speak yet, Wahab,’ he said, in a tone involuntarily respectful. Then he clapped his hands and cried shrilly: ‘You must all leave. Mr Wahab’s call is a private one.’

  All were astounded, none more so than Wahab himself. He gaped at the instrument in his hand. ‘Is it from England?’ he asked, hoarsely.

  The Principal shivered. What kind of man was this who expected telephone calls from England? ‘No, no, Mr Wahab. It is local. Hurry, please, everyone.’

  Out of armchairs and off sofa, they dragged themselves, insulted and indignant, especially those senior to Wahab.

  When they were all out, the Principal whispered: ‘I think you will agree, Mr Wahab, that I have done my best to treat you fairly. Remember also that upon my salary many people depend.’ Then he crept out and closed the door.

  ‘Hello, please,’ said Wahab, into the telephone. Miracles had happened before. Consider the exploits of Ali, the Prophet’s son-in-law. Laura could have arrived secretly, by aeroplane, and could now be waiting to speak to him from the airport.

  The voice that answered obviously spoke through a beard; it was gruff and as unlike Laura’s as a human voice could be. ‘Abdul Wahab?’

  His belly aching with disappointment, Wahab answered: ‘I am Abdul Wahab. Who are you?’

  ‘Never mind who I am. It is enough for me to tell you that I am speaking on behalf of the Brotherhood.’

  Wahab’s belly got sorer as anger mixed with the disappointment. His eyes glittered. ‘And who may the Brotherhood be?’

  The other gasped. ‘You do not know?’

  ‘I have heard of a gang of grown-up children who skulk in the darkness and yet claim their aim is to bring light to our country.’

  ‘That is our aim.’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘Wahab, I warn you.’

  ‘And I warn you,’ cried Wahab hysterically. ‘I shall form a brotherhood too, with myself the only member. I shall make it my task to expose you.’

  ‘You must be drunk again.’

  ‘Again? I never was drunk in my life.’

  ‘We have heard differently. I have been instructed to summon you before a meeting of the Council.’

  ‘Absurd!’

  ‘Take care, Wahab.’

  ‘Who are you? You know my name, tell me yours. Let us speak like men together.’<
br />
  ‘I am under an oath of secrecy.’

  ‘In that case I have nothing whatever to say to you.’ He set the telephone down, and was staring at it, in awe at his own splendid audacity, when it rang again. To his astonishment the member of the Brotherhood, for it was he again, spoke this time in a much less unpleasant voice.

  ‘I am sorry I cannot give my name, Wahab. What I am instructed to do is to summon—’

  ‘Summon?’

  ‘Invite you then, to a meeting of the Council.’

  ‘Who are its members?’

  ‘But, Wahab, you cannot ask that.’

  ‘I have already done so, and I do it again. Who are the members of your Council?’

  ‘They are important men.’

  ‘Give me their names. I shall judge their importance for myself.’

  ‘Really, Wahab, I cannot tell you. The place is Abdul Raouf’s bazaar in the carpet serai, at seven o’clock. Do you know the place?’

  ‘I am a native of Kabul. I know every corner of my beloved city.’

  ‘Good. You will be there?’

  ‘Suppose I am not, suppose I dismiss all this as puerile folly, what then?’

  ‘Do you think Hamoudi, who was found dead last week, thought it was puerile folly too?’

  Wahab laughed scornfully. ‘I know people are whispering that the Brotherhood killed him, but I do not believe it. His wife’s brothers killed him. The Brotherhood are merely trying to steal the credit, if you can call it creditable to murder a man in the dark, even an adulterer. But yes, you may tell your Council that I shall be there. Tell them too that I am not afraid of their masked faces and their hidden knives. If it is true, as you yourself have almost admitted, that they employ assassins to carry out their aim of restoring Afghanistan to greatness, then I shall welcome this opportunity of pointing out to its leaders that the methods of Genghis Khan are not applicable today.’