Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  He returned to the desk and picked up the telephone. There were still only the wheezings of the Dean.

  Scratching the side of his head with the instrument, Wahab stared at his squirming subordinate, who was not squirming enough.

  ‘Are you married, Maftoon?’

  Maftoon, now seen to be intelligent as well as cunning, nodded. He was surprisingly well-dressed, but his face was quite hideously pockmarked, so much so that Wahab’s own face grew hot. He hated being reminded of his few faint scars, not merely for personal reasons, but because whenever he tried to imagine a typical Afghan he could not prevent his having cheeks like Maftoon’s.

  ‘And have you any children?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Three? They must be very young surely.’

  ‘The eldest is three.’

  ‘In that case, I take it the youngest is very recent?’ Because, though Afghans bred like rabbits, owing to lust and a lazy refusal to use contraceptives, they still had the same gestation period as other people. Was Maftoon’s wife, like Mussein’s, beautiful? How shameful it would be to help Maftoon to win promotion and in return demand intercourse with his wife.

  ‘My second son is three weeks old,’ said Maftoon.

  Wahab saw that morsel of Afghan flesh as if it were his own and Laura’s. Yet Maftoon had one of the darkest Afghan complexions; perhaps his wife, like Wahab, had one of the lightest. In so mixed a nation, it was a matter of luck, that was all; but it could also be used as a matter of prestige. He had read, with horror and contempt, of American Negroes buying preparations that would take the kinks out of their hair. Now, as he stared at the almost black Maftoon, he remembered how he himself a short time ago in that very room had admired the paleness of his own hand.

  Then the telephone spoke. ‘Moffatt here.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Moffatt,’ said Wahab, very suave. ‘How do you do? This is Abdul Wahab. We have met.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘How is your charming wife?’

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  And how, Wahab could have added, is your fair-haired big-bosomed paramour? You apparently failed that evening, but no doubt you have succeeded since. Instead he said, crisply: ‘You must forgive me for taking you away from your class. The truth is, Mr Moffatt, I have a favour to ask of you.’ And, Mr Moffatt, he added, though to himself, please understand that I, yes I, Abdul Wahab, whom you despise and into whose eyes you flung whisky, have it in my power to have you expelled from my country.

  ‘Well,’ Moffatt was saying, in a surprisingly friendly voice, ‘if I can help, I’ll be pleased to.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Moffatt. This afternoon there is at your Embassy the Queen’s Garden Party. Is that not so?’

  ‘Yes, but – if it’s an invitation you’re after, I’m afraid I can’t help. I’ve got no influence there you know; rather the reverse. You could have mine if it was any use to you.

  ‘Are you not going, Mr Moffatt?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. My wife wants to go.’

  ‘Certainly. Why should she not? It is the function of the year. I understand the ladies wear hats and beautiful dresses. But none will be so beautiful as she. I have an invitation.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You sound a little surprised.’

  ‘Well, no. Why should I be?’ But in the Dean’s room, with the old man cracking his fingers in his white beard, Moffatt was grinning. Only the day before he had asked Alan Wint if Wahab had been invited, and the reply had been: ‘For Christ’s sake, Harold old man, this is an important occasion, whatever a bolshy like you may think.’

  ‘An invitation was sent to me,’ said Wahab.

  It must have been a mistake, thought Moffatt; but such mistakes must be welcomed and cherished. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘How are you going?’

  ‘I have my bicycle.’

  Both laughed.

  ‘Would they let me pass the gates if I arrived on my bicycle?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘But it was made in Coventry.’

  ‘Why not come with us?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Moffatt. Let me, with what you consider untypical Afghan frankness, admit that that was my purpose in telephoning you, to cadge a lift. Cadge is the right word?’

  ‘It’ll do.’ Moffatt could be heard laughing. ‘Why not join us at lunch while you’re at it?’

  ‘I should be delighted, if you are sure I shall be no bother.’

  Does he know, wondered Wahab, that he is in my power? But surely his affability sounds genuine.

  ‘No bother at all. In any case I owe you some amends. Right, then. We’ll be looking out for you about one.’

  ‘I am much obliged, Mr Moffatt.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. Well, I’ll have to get back to my class now. They’ll be writing rude words on the blackboard. Cheerio till one.’

  ‘Cheerio.’ As Wahab, trembling with happiness, restored the telephone, he saw those rude English words; he knew them all; he was therefore in the game; he was manly, accepted by men; he was a mature human being, capable of taking his place in any society.

  He was whispering the magic monosyllables under his breath when he turned to stare at Maftoon, the father of three infants, all begotten in lustful haste.

  ‘What subject do you teach, Maftoon?’

  ‘Geography.’

  ‘A useful subject.’

  ‘I think so. But I’m afraid I don’t have as much success in my teaching as I would like.’

  ‘Indeed. What teacher does? But what is the particular reason in your case?’

  ‘I have not been allowed to use the map room.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard some talk of this. Why?’

  ‘It appears Sadruddin, our custodian, told Abdul Mussein no one must use the map room, lest maps or globes be stolen.’

  ‘I see. Are there any maps in your classroom?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Of Afghanistan?’

  ‘No. Of England.’

  ‘England?’

  ‘Yes. I do not know how it came to be there. It must be a relic of the days when the school was under the domination of the English.’

  ‘Do you dislike the English, Maftoon?’

  ‘I suspect them. But this map, it is old and dirty, and I think it must have been used once to cover a hole in the window; there are great patches of damp.’

  ‘Rather appropriate. Some parts of England are very wet. I understand the map room is well supplied with maps.’

  ‘It has maps of almost every country in the world.’

  ‘But not one of Afghanistan?’

  ‘There is a small one.’

  ‘Yes, very small.’ The United Nations had for their own purposes drawn a map of the country; it was the only one in existence. At present a team of Japanese geologists was preparing a geological map, showing the whereabouts of the great mineral deposits. ‘I understand Mohammed Wali also teaches geography?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Has he been allowed to use the map room?’

  ‘No. But he has not cared. He is not as conscientious as I. He is ignorant of his subject. I asked him to go with me to Abdul Mussein to complain, but he refused.’

  ‘You are ambitious, Maftoon?’

  ‘For my pupils, yes.’

  Is he really, wondered Wahab, using my own kind of hypocrisy against me? Is it then not so uncommon? Is the whole country full of young men keen to reform it, ostensibly for others’ sakes but really for their own? If so, the struggle might well become bloody.

  ‘Maftoon, when Prince Naim presented me this morning, you grinned.’

  Maftoon grinned again; there was slyness in it this time. ‘I am sure I did, Abdul Wahab.’

  ‘Why? What was there so funny and contemptible about my being presented as Principal.’

  ‘Oh, but I was not smiling for that reason. I was delighted when I first heard of your appointment. I agreed with every word you said. Did you not notice there were tears in my
eyes?’

  ‘No.’ This was a cunning fellow indeed.

  ‘There were. What you said has needed to be said for years. It is high time we believed we are as good as any other nation and that our pupils are as gifted.’

  Wahab was almost sure this too was hypocrisy. Yet why should he believe it to be so? Did he not want allies?

  ‘I intend to introduce a number of reforms,’ he said, rather coldly. ‘You and Wali will be allowed to use the map room.’

  ‘I am very grateful; but I do not think he will be. He will only consider that an excuse for inefficiency has been taken away from him.’

  ‘I shall find these things out in my own way, Maftoon. His salary is higher?’

  ‘You should know, Abdul Wahab, that none of us, including yourself, is paid a fair wage.’

  ‘It is not for you, Maftoon, or for me, to question the policy of our superiors. Our country is not wealthy. Granted teachers are not paid high salaries. Are there not millions of our fellow citizens far worse off than we? Indeed, compared with the majority, are we not fortunate?’

  ‘I am thinking of the minority.’

  Oh, you black, pock-cheeked scoundrel, thought Wahab. I know what you are; you have been planted here to spy on me, worse, to provoke me into injudicious admissions; you are an agent of the Brotherhood, who do not trust me, who do not trust anyone. Naim, they say, is a lover of flowers. How beautiful and fragrant his garden is with them. Yes, but in spite of that he would not be loath to shed blood redder than any of his roses. I have allowed myself to forget the traditional treachery and violence of my race; only it is not called treachery, it is called intelligent readiness to seize every opportunity, no matter how presented. Is it not written proudly in our history books that when an English envoy, during the British imperial wars a hundred years ago, went under a promise of safe conduct to parley with Afghan leaders one of them stabbed him in the back? In peace or war, whatever was most likely to succeed was best, and only a fool would hesitate to use it.

  ‘May I say, Maftoon, that I do not much like your speaking so disloyally of your colleague. And I have noticed that you did not explain why you had grinned.’

  Maftoon looked concerned, as well he might, with a wife, three infants, and a justly displeased superior. Yet it was somehow a spurious concern; behind it, peeping out of every pockmark, was an insolence. Perhaps, though, I am misjudging him, thought Wahab; he may only have an unpleasant face.

  ‘I grinned because I felt uplifted,’ said Maftoon. ‘I may say I have always been an admirer of yours, Abdul Wahab. Ask the others. They will tell you how I have often spoken highly of you. They will tell you also that I used to say you would make a much better Principal than Abdul Mussein.’

  Anxious to accept any ally, however dubious, Wahab still could not forget that grin; if ever a human face had indicated envy and sourness Maftoon’s had then. However this, and many other things, would have to be pondered over.

  ‘Very well, Maftoon,’ he said. ‘You may return to your class. I shall look to you to help me in the improvements I hope to introduce.’

  Maftoon rose and came over. ‘I shall be very pleased to give you all the help I can.’ There was a smell off his breath, but worse was the ruthless glisten in his eyes. Wahab almost shuddered. He might dream of brutality if it became necessary to clear incompetence out of the way – this man, in spite of his three infants, would gladly enact it.

  After Maftoon had gone, Wahab sat for a while at his desk, realizing more and more clearly that he was in all likelihood surrounded by men who hated him for his luck in being promoted over them, but who would, like Maftoon, pretend to admire him until the opportunity came for them to tear him to pieces. If the lion grew sick, then was the time for the jackals. Perhaps he would have been safer and happier if he had remained an assistant teacher.

  Tears came into his eyes as he shook his head angrily, denying that cowardly retreat. I am really an ordinary man, he thought, even if I have a scientific degree and have studied abroad. I am timid and self-seeking. I like flattery better than abuse. I cherish ideals but have the usual instinct that warns me not to try and practise them. I am proud of my nation but am also irritated by the shortcomings of my fellow Afghans. I love Laura but am afraid people will despise me because she is a cripple. In short, I am hardly any different from that camel driver out there. No doubt he smokes cigarettes of hashish whenever he can get them, but then do I not puff as often as I can at the pipe of vanity, which is just as debilitating? Yes, I have my many faults, and I know them, as a cat knows the mice in its house. But my sympathy for my fellow human beings, however flawed by my own selfishness and however stultified by theirs, does exist, and I do not think that I shall altogether betray it.

  It was a kind of dedication, much more sincere than the loud-mouthed public one he had uttered that morning. If he had been religious, he would have prayed. If he had been political, he would have both bowed towards and saluted the portraits of the King and Prime Minister hung side by side on the wall. But since he was none of these, but simply an imperfect lover of his fellow men, he turned and gazed out at the people passing on the street. An old woman, her red bloomers visible under her flowing shaddry, shuffled wearily along, with a bundle on her back. A small dung-gatherer watched passing horses and camels anxiously. Some coolies chatted together in a dialect he would not know; their ropes of their trade were coiled around their tattered shoulders. A tribesman, rifle on his back, pranced past on a fine horse. Several ghoddies clattered by, drawn by horses that were as skinny as their drivers.

  To all those, and to the students now under his care, he was dedicating himself, so that he stood at the window, with his arms outstretched, like, he thought with a sudden pang of dismay, Maftoon waiting for his infants to come toddling to him.

  Eighteen

  EVERY year the Residence was given a coat of white paint for the Birthday Garden Party, though as Sir Gervase himself remarked, this summer it was hardly bloody well necessary so numerous were the starlings and their droppings, and so ineffective, surely he implied, had been all the Administrative Officer’s attempts to scare or coax them into defecating elsewhere. Gillie took bitter note, but said nothing; nor did he try to defend himself when the scandal of the Union Jacks broke.

  Sir Gervase, prowling on the flat roof, and squinting up at the flag then in use, decided it was too grimy and tattered. Telephoning Chancery, he had supposed there was another one in store. Two, Gillie had calmly replied. But unfortunately when Tom Parry went to the cupboard in which they were kept, it was discovered that mice – at least these were taken to be the culprits – had eaten large holes in them. The results, Howard Winfield had suggested, out of H.E.’s bearing, were surely symbolical: were not many parts of the Empire missing? There was no time to send to London or Delhi for a replacement, and so Lady Beauly, Paula Wint, and Muriel Gillie hurriedly formed themselves into a working party to do some patching. The entire Embassy’s resources were ransacked to find material of the right red colour, and the extraordinary thing was that by far the best match turned out to be an old pair of the Consul’s underpants, which his wife, anxious to redeem him in his master’s eyes, offered without his consent. She did not of course tell her sister patchers the nature of the garment from which the lucky cloth had come. They accepted it eagerly and completed the mending to Sir Gervase’s rather churlish satisfaction. The flag then was hauled up the standard, and it was found that the patches, even when viewed through Colonel Rodgers’ powerful binoculars – used for examining Afghan Russian-built tanks and aircraft – could not be distinguished.

  Flooded for days beforehand, the lawns around the Residence were brilliantly green, and the pet crane as it stalked about on them seemed brighter than usual, as if it had been painted too. Behind the great house the marble staircase, descending by flights to the fountains below, was covered with red Afghan carpets. Down those stairs, after their presentation to the Ambassador and his lady, the guests would slow
ly walk, enchanted no doubt by the lush English beauty of the garden, and perhaps impressed too by the lofty legendary mountains in the distance. Somewhere on the stairs they would be greeted by John and Helen Langford, and at the bottom they would be received by the Consul and his wife, who would point out to them where, past the rose beds, the marquee stood on the grass, full of tables laden with delicacies and watered whisky.

  As they alighted from their cars at the main entrance the guests would be welcomed by Howard Winfield, who would pass them on to Colonel and Mrs Rodgers in the hall, who would in turn give them to Alan and Paula Wint at the entrance of the ballroom. The important duty of the First Secretary and his wife was to carry the guests up to be presented and at the same time announce their names.

  The junior or non-diplomatic staff had their duties assigned to them, too. Katherine Winn and Mary Anderson, the clerks, were stationed in the marquee to see that the servants there were zealous about keeping flies off the cakes, and also to encourage people to approach the tables for food and drink. Hats had to be worn. Katherine did not have one, but half an hour’s ingenuity fashioned something that would, she felt sure, be eccentric enough to win the admiration of every woman but two: she was not at present on speaking terms with Mary, and Lady Beauly was likely to regard the arrangement of basketwork, gauze, and real flowers, as some kind of insult. Katherine had quite forgotten about her sending of an invitation to Wahab. If she had remembered, she would not have worried; indeed, she might have looked on it as another flower in her hat.

  So at quarter past two everyone was in his place, although the invitation had stressed three as the hour of opening. Afghans sometimes came disastrously early, out of gratitude for the hospitality, they would have said themselves, but according to soured foreigners, out of a desire to test the sincerity of their welcome.

  Like a general inspecting the position before commencement of battle, H.E., beautifully dressed in striped trousers and dark jacket, despite the great heat, walked about and addressed grunts of encouragement. Alan Wint walked a yard behind. There was time for a short stroll to inspect the garden too.