Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  At last Mussein seemed to have vomited the last dregs of his grievance. With sweat on his brow, he gaped at the ground; his eyes were closed, and he was shivering. It was obvious that within he was weeping; at any moment his tears might burst into the open.

  ‘What am I to say, Mussein?’ asked Wahab, crossly. ‘I do not see it as a personal matter at all. This is a critical time for our country. We must put it first. At present it is very backward. Now to be backward when most other countries are backward too is not a disgrace, but to be backward in this age of sputniks and hydrogen bombs and television is a disgrace. Do you not agree?’

  Mussein opened his bloodshot eyes. ‘I know that television is wonderful,’ he muttered.

  ‘I have seen it, and it is not wonderful,’ said Wahab testily. ‘It is a toy. I used it as a symbol. It represents the twentieth century; far too much in Afghanistan still represents the first century. It is not only necessary for us to advance, but we must do so at a prodigious rate. What subject did you teach, Mussein? What did you specialize in at the University?’

  ‘Persian literature.’

  ‘Of course. Well then, why blame me because you have been removed from the Principalship? It isn’t Abdul Wahab who has taken your place, Mussein; it is a scientist, a man of the modern world.’

  For a few moments Mussein could find no answer. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘at least poetry can teach us to be humble.’

  ‘But we do not want to be humble, Mussein. We have been humble much too long.’

  ‘There is a line from Firdausi, Wahab, which has often comforted me. “I am dust on the paw of the lion.” ’

  Wahab frowned: he had not expected so heroic a line. ‘Be dust as you wish, Mussein; but do not protest when others prefer to be the lion.’

  ‘I am lucky,’ said Mussein, with a sigh and ghastly smile.

  Wahab thought grief had softened his companion’s brain; he felt a magnanimous sorrow. ‘Indeed you are, Mussein. We are all lucky. God has called upon our generation to rebuild our people.’

  ‘You said you did not believe in God, Wahab. Have you found reason to believe in Him now?’

  Wahab said nothing, but since he did it with dignity it was equivalent really to a lion’s defiant roar.

  ‘I am lucky,’ repeated Mussein, ‘because I have a beautiful wife who loves me, and a little son who is very like me.’

  Whereas the lion’s intended mate was lame, with the thorn of fate in her paw.

  ‘But what is the benefit of having two sound feet?’ demanded Wahab bitterly. ‘Shrouded in her shaddry, a woman cannot run. Hobbled by ridiculous prejudice, she cannot dance.’

  ‘Sometimes in our home my wife and I dance a little.’

  To the music of the munching jaws of the greedy old uncle? But to have said so would have been to yelp like a jackal. ‘If, before you are too old to enjoy it, you and your wife are able to dance together in public, Mussein, you will have me, and those who think like me, to thank.’

  ‘We are happier dancing in our own home.’

  ‘Then there is nothing more to be said, Mussein. I must go now. I have an important appointment in town.’

  Into the Principal’s damp red eyes came a gleam of slyness. ‘How can you leave now, Mr Wahab? Have you forgotten you still have two classes to take this morning?’

  Wahab laughed: it was amusing when the dust tried to impede the lion.

  ‘At the moment, dear Mussein, I see at least six classes which no one is taking.’

  ‘Their teachers are absent.’

  ‘Something could have been organized.’

  ‘Now you are proposing, without permission, to go off and leave two other classes unattended.’

  ‘Without permission! Surely, Mussein, you cannot have read that letter in your hand.’

  ‘I have read it, Wahab. I could recite it by heart. In twenty years I shall still be able to recite it. It states that from the eighteenth I shall cease to be Principal of this school. Today is only the sixteenth. Therefore I am still the Principal. As such, I am unable to grant you permission to leave early.’

  ‘You have been given these two days, Mussein, to get things in order for my taking over.’

  ‘Then please allow me to get things in order. Evidently I have been considered too weak and amiable to succeed as a principal. Very well. I intend to use the little time left to demonstrate how, had I wished, I could have carried out my duties sternly and unpleasantly. Go to your classroom, Mr Wahab.’

  ‘This is absurd, Mussein.’

  The finger quivered but it still pointed towards the school.

  ‘It is not only absurd, it is unwise. You should know by this time that I have influential friends. Think of your beautiful wife, Mussein, and of your little son.’

  ‘Please go, Mr Wahab. Your threats are despicable.’

  The lion’s tail, as a matter of fact, just wouldn’t stay taut and proudly curled; no, it kept wanting to droop and trail in the dust.

  ‘I shall go,’ said Wahab. ‘But I must warn you that I intend to inform my friends that you have been insulting. I do not think Prince Naim will be pleased. In the meantime I shall be most interested in your somewhat belated demonstration.’

  He strode off towards the building, holding his tail up by force.

  Behind him Mussein stood for a few seconds as if praying, and then began to run as gawkily as a young camel toward the nearest group of boys, squatted peaceably on the ground. Before he reached them he was shrieking, and then he was punching and kicking at them wildly, causing them to scramble up and jump aside. He howled to them to go inside to their classroom. Some shouted back that their algebra teacher had gone for three days to his village to bury his old father who had died; others asked Mussein indignantly if he had gone mad. He continued to howl that they must go in and get on with their studies. Then he rushed away to the next group. As he was cuffing them the gong sounded, and hundreds of boys began to pour out into the playground.

  The Principal stood staring and then covered his face with his hands. A boy or two came a little closer, perhaps to ask if he were ill.

  Wahab, watching from the steps, laughed, but not too confidently; in his heart he by no means felt certain that he himself possessed the authority and strength of character necessary to clear playgrounds, compel teachers to attend, dead fathers or no, and enforce in every classroom diligent and profitable silence. To govern a country, he realized, was probably easier than to discipline a school; in the first task one had the help of police and soldiers, in the second one had to use the compulsions only of love and compassion.

  As he went upstairs he noticed the dust on his shoes and for a foolish, passionate, heart-sinking moment felt envious of it. To be the lion’s paw meant prowling and pouncing dangerously, and meeting in conflict other lions, older and fiercer.

  On the morning of the eighteenth, sleek in his new fawn suit, Wahab sat at the desk in his room overlooking the street, sucking a throat pastille. Impelled by an imprudence which seemed to rise spontaneously and yet which kept astonishing and indeed alarming him, he had telephoned the Ministry the day before and invited Prince Naim to be present at his installation. If a new era was to begin, better, he had suggested, introduce it with trumpets. Naim had consented, cautiously; perhaps he was offended a little by this insinuation that the promotion of Wahab, rather than his own assumption of power, inaugurated the new educational era. However, he had agreed to come, and now Wahab was waiting at the window for the big dark-blue Daimler to appear, with the royal flag flying on its fender.

  Below, the boys were being arranged in classes in front of the entrance. This was being done by the other teachers, under the leadership of Mohammed Siddiq, the Headmaster, who was next under the Principal and who was well aware he was again on probation, though he was gray-haired and twice Wahab’s age. Therefore he yelled at his subordinates who yelled at the boys who yelled at one another. Buses passing sounded their horns. Camels and donkeys brayed. The noise
was considerable, but it did not worry Wahab; nor would it Naim. Afghans always took noise to be a sign of vitality. The sports teacher, for instance, when announcing the teams for a game of football, would make a tempestuous harangue of it with furious gestures. Wahab himself, with his own crusading speech to make, hoped his throat would be able to do it justice. Never in his life had his voice been powerful. Now he sucked the medicinal candy.

  The Daimler arrived and glittered through the gates. Snatching up his hat, Wahab rushed downstairs. When he went outside on the top of the steps there was no instant hush of awe, or even of respect, as there should have been. Even when he clapped his hands no one heeded. Teachers scowled toward the mountains. The boys were cheering Naim. Perhaps it was a mistake asking him to come, thought Wahab, as he hurried across to the car; I should have waited until the whole school was under my benevolent domination.

  The Prince was dressed in a white suit, with a red rose in his lapel. He looked fitter to visit a brothel than a school. I must not be bitter, thought Wahab; or rather, I must not let my bitterness show.

  The Prince was very affable and shook hands. ‘How can we despair, Wahab,’ he cried, ‘when we have such magnificent material to work with?’

  He meant the boys, who seemed then to Wahab a vast, menacing, brainless mob; but the new Principal had to laugh and shine with enthusiasm.

  ‘Who knows, Your Highness?’ he said. ‘Perhaps there is among them an Afghan Einstein.’

  ‘Or an Afghan Shakespeare,’ added the Prince. ‘In our advance, science must go hand in hand with art.’

  Which is the paw, and which the dust? wondered Wahab. Aloud he cried: ‘How true, Your Highness!’

  As he pushed his way through the boys many, bigger and heavier than he, would not budge or move aside. For the Prince they did so alertly and cheerfully. What has happened is easy to see, thought Wahab: the rest of the teachers through jealousy have poisoned their minds against me. Well, it may make my task harder, but my courage to accomplish it will be all the greater. Even as he said this to himself, another voice, even clearer, called it humbug.

  He stood on the terrace beside the Prince. The sports master blew a whistle. Everyone was quiet.

  ‘You know why I am here this morning,’ said the Prince.

  There was a great clapping of brown hands.

  ‘A few days ago I became the Minister of Education.’

  Again those dark wings fluttered noisily.

  ‘The Government knows that the welfare of our country lies in your hands. You are our future. The most important task before me is to ensure that your education becomes a reality and does not remain the dream it has been so far. I have many plans, but in the meantime men are being appointed as principals who have vision. This is the quality which most of all we need today. With it we can do marvels; without it, we are as blind men. You all know Abdul Wahab.’

  No one clapped. Wahab broke into a sweat. He saw a teacher grin with malice.

  ‘He is not only a teacher of proven ability; he also has vision, and faith in our country. I share that faith. So, I am sure, do you. If we all work together, who can prevent us from taking our rightful place among the important nations of the world? We may be smaller in numbers than some, but we can make up for that by our sincerity and our uniqueness. Yes, I believe that Afghanistan can astonish the world. Today we see nations advanced materially but spiritually sick. Suicide, divorce, murder, racial hatred, mental sickness – these are rife in countries where the standard of living is very high. What we can do, protected by our traditional wisdom and dignity, is to raise our standard as high as theirs, but at the same time to retain our spiritual health. This opportunity to be an example to the whole of mankind is Afghanistan’s today. I call upon you to help me, and your new Principal, to accept that opportunity.’

  They clapped so vigorously that it was clear to Wahab the action was purely physical. The Prince might have told them obscene stories and got the same response. Look now, thought Wahab, how they renew the clapping and cheering every time they think I am about to begin my speech. He remembered how when he was a student at the University this was how they had tried to prevent the white-bearded, old Dean from addressing them. He had been known to be a tool of the Government who had approved of every reduction in students’ allowances.

  Naim held up his hand and, magically, there was silence. Uneasily Wahab entered into it.

  ‘Your Royal Highness, esteemed colleagues, students of Isban College, in one word, fellow Afghans, no one knows better than I what a great honour has been done me by being appointed Principal of this, one of the best schools in our country. Yet I do not look on it as a personal honour. There was a time, not so very long ago, when the Principals of our four institutions of higher education were foreigners. Habibiah had an American, Esteklal a Frenchman, Nejat a German, and Isban here an Englishman. It was believed then that we had neither the knowledge nor the ability to manage our own schools. Slowly that changed until today, not only do we feel ourselves competent, we are also convinced that under Afghan control an Afghan school, with Afghan teachers and students, will be the equal of any school anywhere in the world.’

  By this time he had worked himself up to the necessary pitch and was shouting and gesticulating in that impassioned way so convincing to the Afghan mind. A man speaking calmly was unsure; but a man with spittle of passion on his lips and with his hands clawing down the sky was a man worth listening to, even if his subject was merely the iniquity of a ghoddy horse which had pissed all over the carpets he had brought fifty miles to the market to sell.

  So the teachers and pupils began to pay heed to Wahab just at the very moment when he himself completely lost faith in what he was saying. It did not leak slowly out as water did from the famous Istalif blue jars; no, it gushed out as if the bottom had been broken; and during the rest of his address, which became so impassioned at times as to seem demented, and which was frequently greeted with roars of approval, he was working hard far within, first to mend the bottom, and then refill. This was a task of almost impossible difficulty, because every howled boast, every shrieked prophecy, was shattering so that he was destroying and mending at the same time. No wonder that when he finished, with sweat all over and the knuckles of his right hand grazed where he had struck them against one of the stone pillars, by accident of course, he felt as if he were inside a cement mixer which had just stopped. When Naim shook his hand and congratulated him he wanted to whimper that he wasn’t fit to be Principal, but instead accepted those royal congratulations with firm sincerity, and the others, the professional ones of his colleagues, with an impressive mixture of authority and camaraderie. Outwardly towards the pupils he felt and looked like an elder brother who had been away travelling the world in search of experience and wisdom and had now returned to restore the fortunes of his family. Inwardly he felt them to be hundreds of young lions who would in the next few weeks tear out his guts.

  A few minutes later Naim had gone. Wahab rushed upstairs to his room, padlocked it from the inside, and sat down at his desk to bite his nails and brood upon two things: first, the reorganization of the school that he had so vaingloriously promised; and second, the Garden Party at the British Embassy that afternoon, to which it was hardly likely any other guest would arrive by bicycle.

  More amazing even than this impudence, gushing up in him like oil in Persia, was his ability to control it. He marvelled himself at this mastery; it must surely be that he was destined for some high and powerful post. For instance, in seeking how to avoid the ignominy of cycling up to the great gilt-crested gates of the British Embassy, choked by the clouds of dust thrown up by the limousines of ambassadors, it did occur to him to appeal to Prince Naim – not to be so rash as to ask him for a lift in his royal car, but to hint that, if a Ministry car were available, perhaps Wahab might have it to take him there and back. Even with his hand on the telephone, ready to pick it up, he smiled and agreed with the astute politician within him that to
have invited the Prince to his installation was enough for one day. Where patronage was the ladder to success, it was as well to remember that the rungs were rather widely spaced; where wealth and influence were, they were almost too close together; and of course ability itself was merely the frame, with the rungs missing. Therefore when he did lift the telephone, and dialled a number, it wasn’t Prince Naim’s, but Harold Moffatt’s; and while he was waiting for a reply he shouted to the boy outside to run and fetch Maftoon. Maftoon was the young teacher who had grinned so maliciously when Naim had presented Wahab to the school.

  It was Moffatt’s servant, the small cheerful one called Sofi, who answered. Wahab spoke to him with such quiet command that there were no impertinent chuckles, only submissive respect, and the information that Sahib had left for the University. ‘And Mrs Moffatt?’ She had gone to the International School. ‘Very well, I shall ring up the University. Thank you.’ As he put down the receiver he could have sung as he pictured Sofi, so insolent with the glass of orangeade at the Club Dance, now cringing and cautious. This was surely the sweetest thing about rising in the world: to do nothing, not so much as move a finger, and yet watch those, previously indifferent or rude, be as careful as a cat in the presence of a barking dog. He contrasted the policemen who had humiliated him by deflating the tyres of his bicycle with those in Naim’s garden who had saluted him. A thrill pierced him, such as even the thought of making love to Laura could not equal. As he sat thinking of all those, beginning with Maftoon, still to undergo that transformation before him, the thrill kept surging through him.

  He telephoned the University, was told Mr Moffatt was lecturing, replied that he was aware of it, and suggested that nevertheless the Englishman ought to be summoned at once. The Dean, for it was he, more doddery and fearful than ever, quavered that it would be done at once. Wahab placed the telephone on the table and went over to unpadlock the door. Maftoon had already knocked three times with gratifying meekness.

  ‘Come in, Maftoon,’ he said. ‘Sit down. I won’t be a minute. I am on the telephone.’