Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You met her in England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet until today you have said nothing about her?’

  ‘I wanted no irrelevant discussions.’

  ‘Are you already married, according to English law?’

  ‘No. If I had been,’ he added bitterly, ‘I should never have returned to Afghanistan.’

  ‘So there is still time, Abdul?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Time for you to wash this nonsense out of your mind. I did not think my son would ever think of forsaking his country, and his family, for the sake of a white belly.’

  He winced at that coarseness, so characteristic of his mother when she was angry.

  Gulahmad clapped his hands. ‘Do not let us get angry with one another,’ he said. ‘Why should Abdul not marry the feringhee? She can live with us in the new house. And I am sure she will have money. We Afghans are already a very mixed nation. It is a good thing.’

  ‘She is not rich,’ said Wahab.

  ‘Compared with us, she will be. You have told us that in England the man who sweeps the streets earns more than the Principal of a high school here.’

  So he had told them; and, good God, it was still true, even when he himself was Principal.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sediqa. ‘Will she come to live with us?’

  They waited for his answer.

  He gave it boldly. ‘She would,’ he said. ‘She wishes to; but I do not wish it.’

  He raised his hand, and for another moment their teeth, already bared, were kept from his throat. These are, he reminded himself again, my people, my father and mother, my sisters, my brother and his wife and child; not only are they of the same race as myself, they are of the same blood. Why then do I persist in likening them to wolves? It is not enough to answer glibly that wolves too are Afghan, roaming in packs through the vast woods in the north and even in winter slinking into the snowy streets of Kabul itself after dark. No, the reason is more fundamental: in the human heart, after thousands of years of civilization and religion, brutish selfishness still reigns.

  The verdict of course condemned him too; they who savagely demanded were wolfish, he who tenaciously refused was wolfish too. With everyone involved there seemed no remedy.

  Yet was not this a shocking pessimism for a man in love, not with a woman only, nor with his country, nor with humanity, but with the whole of life? Love, outraged, took its revenge; suddenly it dazzled and dismayed him with an unbearable vision. His eyes filled with tears, but the vision would not be obscured. These now shouting angrily at him were not wolves; they were his people, and why should they not be angry, when it was true that, though human beings and in God’s image, they were being forced in their journey from eternity to eternity to suffer the degradations and humiliations of poverty? And did they not represent millions of others similarly degraded and humiliated, not only outside this house under the Afghan stars, but all over the world, in Asia and Africa, yes, and in Laura’s England too?

  Karima was digging her red nails into a cushion as if it was his face. ‘Am I to live like a pig, while your milk-faced whore lives in luxury?’

  ‘What about my son?’ howled Gulahmad, pressing his cheeks hard with his hands. ‘Did you not say yourself it was the duty of us all to see that he grew up in an Afghanistan worthy of him?’

  Their mother yelled for silence. She smiled at it when it came; then she said, quietly: ‘I am your mother, Abdul. I gave you birth. At these breasts you had your first sustenance. You were my first-born. Therefore I have loved you with a special love.’

  He had never thought so; Gulahmad had always been her favourite.

  ‘I do not think you will now throw dirt on my gray hairs.’

  They were not as gray as Laura’s.

  Suddenly she laughed. ‘I know what you intend to do,’ she said. ‘Everyone is certain you will become an important man. You have found good friends, such as Prince Naim.’

  ‘And Dr Habbibullah,’ added his brother.

  ‘If you are careful, they will help you to become rich.’

  ‘I would like to remind you, mother,’ said Wahab, ‘that the salary of a Cabinet Minister is only twelve hundred afghanis per month.’ That was about eight pounds.

  As he had expected, she laughed again, and the rest joined in. Everyone in Kabul knew that perquisites were better than salaries, and the higher the post the greater the perquisites. That was as much a fact of life as eating or excreting. There was no reason to be shocked. Those who suffered from the swindles were the first to grant the swindler his right to perpetrate them, provided he did it discreetly. After all, had they been lucky enough to be in his place they would have done the same. They were too mature in the world’s ways to expect a man to stay poor if he had the chance of becoming rich.

  ‘It should be easy for you in a short time to afford two houses,’ said his mother.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I betray my pupils?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If I make use of my position, and of my friendship with men like Prince Naim and Dr Habbibullah simply to enrich myself, then I betray not only my pupils but every child in the country.’

  ‘What nonsense, my son!’ cried his mother. ‘If you become rich and powerful, your pupils will be very proud. They will say afterwards, Abdul Wahab used to be our Principal.’

  ‘No. My students are too intelligent for that. It is no doubt true they expect to be betrayed, because always in the past betrayal has taken place; but there is always hope in their hearts that some day someone, some Afghan who has the opportunity to enrich himself by betraying them, will refuse to take that opportunity.’

  ‘And are you going to refuse?’ shrieked Karima.

  ‘You must be mad,’ howled his brother.

  ‘You will be thrown aside like melon peel,’ wailed his father.

  Even the baby, his nephew, began to whimper fretfully. Suddenly he had a feeling, souring his blood and crushing his bones, that they were right thus to attack him like wolves. Theirs was the attitude ratified, if not sanctified, by thousands of years of social relationship, whereas his was that of the bleating lamb deserving to be devoured.

  He had to be at school early to organize the distribution of the little Afghan and Russian flags supplied by the Ministry. When he cycled through the gate he was disquieted to find the courtyard almost empty. True enough, the boys had been told to assemble at nine and it was now only eight, but still he could not get rid of an apprehension that few or none would turn up for the procession to the airport to welcome President Voroshilov. Maftoon had already hinted several times that there was an underground movement among the pupils, led by some troublemakers in the Twelfth Class; its purpose was opposition to progress as represented by Soviet Russia, and, so Maftoon also said, it was encouraged by Mojedaji. Wahab had been sceptical: he did not want to believe that the young could ever be the enemies of progress and the friends of conservatism; but nevertheless he suspected many of them instinctively were.

  Therefore when, having carried his heavy bicycle up the stairs lest it be stolen, he arrived panting in his office he was alarmed and astonished to find, seated in one of the pink armchairs, Mojedaji, so still and quiet that flies were skiing undisturbed on the slopes of his turban. Ever since his promotion he had tried to avoid the fat, sinister mullah.

  Mojedaji opened his eyes, to reveal them bleary and bloodshot. When he smiled, too, his gold teeth seemed dimmed, and as he pointed to the door the gold ring among the black hairs no longer sparkled so arrogantly. The way he sat emphasized the fatness of his thighs and the repulsive bulge of his genitals. His turban was almost grubby.

  ‘Lock the door, Wahab,’ he said hoarsely.

  Wahab obeyed. Then, avoiding those dark hungry eyes, he hurried to his desk at the window. When he was safely seated in his chair of authority he tried to meet that gaze boldly, but he could not help shuddering.

  ‘You are ea
rly, Mojedaji,’ he said, trying to smile.

  ‘I wanted to speak to you, Wahab.’

  Glancing out of the window Wahab noticed more and more boys were arriving. He felt cheered, until he remembered Maftoon’s warnings about subversion.

  ‘I understand,’ said the mullah, ‘that the Englishwoman arrived in Kabul yesterday.’

  ‘Yes, she did.’

  Suddenly cheering was heard down in the playground. Wahab craned to see. A group was being harangued on the volleyball field by a tall youth standing on a shaky pile of bricks; he recognized him as Rasouf of the Twelfth Class, usually an eager boy, with a quick smile.

  Wahab pulled the window open.

  ‘We are Afghans,’ Rasouf was screaming. ‘There was civilization in Kabul when Moscow and New York were inhabited by savages. Now what have we become? Beggars. We are laughed at in the world, because we have sold our independence for roubles and dollars. In our history books does it not proudly tell how our forefathers gave their blood to save our country from the imperial British? Now we are like a beggar with both hands outstretched, one towards the East and the other towards the West. I say, let us rather stretch our hands first upwards, to call on God’s help, and then downwards to the earth. Look, it is dry and barren; but we can make it fertile by the sweat of our brows.’

  He jumped down and, copied by dozens of the boys, rubbed his hands in the dust. Then all the hands shot up and their owners began to chant ‘Afghanistan’, many times.

  We are all fanatics, thought Wahab: no wonder a cool disillusioned man like Moffatt laughs at us. Then he saw Maftoon, backed by two other teachers, his cronies, running across to Rasouf, with sticks in their hands.

  With a groan Wahab closed the window, and his eyes too; when he opened these, he found that Mojedaji had got up from the chair and was standing at the desk, with a fat envelope in his hand. This he now set down and pushed across to Wahab.

  ‘I have been authorized to say, Wahab,’ he whispered, ‘that in certain circumstances no objection will be raised to your marriage with this woman, not even if she wishes to be married according to Christian custom.’

  ‘What circumstances?’ Wahab tried to sound scornful, but the result was a bleat of anxiety and complaint. Outside were shouts, screams, laughter, and more defiant chanting. He lacked the courage to peep down to see what Maftoon was doing to Rasouf.

  ‘Open it,’ murmured Mojedaji.

  ‘What is in it?’ But he already knew. Had not his family barked the information to him, last night?

  ‘Look and see.’

  He ought to have swept the envelope off the desk on to the dusty floor, but instead he picked it up and opened it. Of course it was stuffed with notes. He made a gesture as if he disdained to count. Contemptuously he asked how much it was.

  ‘Eight thousand afghanis.’

  About fifty-five pounds, he calculated. Scarcely a fortune.

  ‘And how am I expected to earn this?’ he asked. His throat was so dry he had almost to cough the words out.

  ‘By a simple act of patriotism.’

  ‘Yes, I am a patriot.’ Nevertheless he wished that insane chanting would stop. ‘Better than that, I am an idealist.’

  ‘Everyone knows that, Wahab. You will not spend the money on yourself. You will help your family with it, or you will give it to the beggars in the streets.’

  ‘What act of patriotism?’

  ‘You are to take the boys this morning to the airport?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do not take them.’

  The chanting and excitement in the playground grew louder. He ought to be rushing down to restore order and confidence. His very presence should be enough. As Mojedaji had said, everyone knew he was not inspired by selfish ambition and greed.

  He heard himself laughing. ‘You are asking me to commit professional suicide.’

  ‘No. Nazrullah of Habibiah College has agreed not to take his pupils. Your reason need not be political. You remember what happened when the Turkish Foreign Minister visited Kabul?’

  ‘Yes.’ The boys, then led by Mussein, had marched with flags to the airport road, three miles away. They had taken up their places by ten o’clock as instructed. The aeroplane had not arrived till one, and the visitor, exhausted and ill-tempered, had been taken to the Turkish Embassy by another route. The boys had gone off, singing rebellious songs; many had taken a holiday next day.

  ‘It is the duty of a principal to protect his pupils from exploitation,’ said Mojedaji.

  There was a sudden clattering of footsteps outside, and someone hammered on the door. It was Maftoon. ‘Abdul Wahab!’ he shouted, his voice too angry and urgent for a subordinate’s.

  ‘Yes, Maftoon. What is it?’

  ‘Don’t you hear them?’

  ‘I hear Afghan boys chanting the name of their country.’

  ‘No, no. You don’t understand.’

  ‘You are an intelligent man, Wahab,’ whispered Mojedaji. ‘Show it by choosing the right side.’

  ‘I understand perfectly, Maftoon. Keep calm.’

  ‘Calm! Rasouf and his friends have broken into the storeroom. They are tearing up all the books.’

  ‘Do not think victory can lie with Dr Habbibullah,’ said Mojedaji. ‘Prince Naim is about to withdraw. The King cannot bring himself to trust the Russians.’

  Wahab jumped up, with the packet of money still in his hand. ‘Tell me, Mojedaji. Is it true the shaddry is to be removed next week, at Jeshan?’

  ‘That has not been decided yet.’

  ‘Does your side approve of its removal?’

  ‘No. Not now. Listen to them, Wahab.’

  They listened, and Wahab felt the whole building throb with the passions of his pupils.

  ‘No woman will be safe, Wahab.’

  Wahab was about to cry that, thank God, he had more faith in his countrymen when he remembered his own fondness for seeing women with no clothes on, and also, of course, his own so precipitate and lustful violation of poor Laura. Probably all Afghans, all men indeed, were like him; there might well therefore be rapes and criminal assaults and indecent exposures at every street corner for months.

  Yet it was not confusion or shame that caused him, with his eye on Mojedaji’s pocket, to slip the packet of notes into his own before rushing over to unlock the door and let Maftoon burst in.

  Maftoon flew for the telephone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Wahab. He had shut the door again, appalled by the angry noises that had come through it. Outside the landing was crammed with chanting boys.

  Maftoon had a large lump on his brow; a stone or a whirling heel might have caused it. He spoke with asperity into the telephone, asking to be put through to his brother-in-law Dr Habbibullah.

  Wahab at first wasn’t sure whether it was a family or a business call.

  ‘What’s the matter with the boys?’ he asked. ‘What has made them so excited?’

  ‘Look.’ Maftoon pointed to his lump. ‘They’re out of control. They’ve got to be taught a lesson.’ Then he was speaking to Dr Habbibullah, demanding that some policemen be sent to quell the riot.

  ‘This is ridiculous, Maftoon,’ cried Wahab. ‘There is no need for any police.’

  ‘Go downstairs and see.’

  ‘I shall certainly do so,’ and off he went, leaving Maftoon gabbling cruelly into the telephone and Mojedaji seated again on the pink chair, with his sourest, most sinister smile.

  If the boys are pacified and calm when the police arrive, thought Wahab, there will be no brutality; and he bravely kept thinking that all the way across the wide landing and down the stairs, though these were thronged with boys who crushed against him, struck and kicked him, and even spat in his face. He kept crying that it was all right, there was no need for panic and anger, he was their Principal, their friend, and counsellor who would give his life on their behalf, if necessary. What were their complaints? Like them he too was proud of his country, and ashamed of its present
ignoble acceptance of alms. All that was necessary was for them to work together in faith.

  So shouting, and pummelled all the way by fists and jabbed by elbows and tripped by feet, he managed to reach the great hall below where hundreds of boys were gathered. The door of the storeroom was open, and boys were rushing out of it with armfuls of books which they were tearing to pieces. Rasouf stood by, with his arms folded and a foolish triumphant grin on his handsome young face. Two of his classmates kept close to him. Other Twelfth-Class students kept apart, near the door.

  So excited that he could scarcely speak, with unexplained tears pelting down his cheeks, Wahab struggled fiercely through the mob till he reached Rasouf.

  ‘What madness is this?’ he gasped. ‘Why are they destroying the books? Are you for dragging us back to the barbarous times of Genghis Khan?’

  ‘The great khan fought; he did not beg,’ cried Rasouf.

  ‘Begging is never noble, Rasouf, but sometimes it is better than fighting. You must stop them. The police are coming. Maftoon has telephoned for them.’

  He noticed Rasouf’s two lieutenants exchange glances and then slip off towards the door. Along the corridor he caught sight of several teachers armed with hockey sticks, with which they were prepared to defend themselves.

  There was a chair beside Rasouf; no doubt he had been fomenting the disorder from it. Now Wahab leapt on to it. Unfortunately, being a typical classroom chair, it had one leg loose, and at once collapsed under him. There were shrieks and whistles of derision, which wounded him like swords, but up he scrambled, ignoring his cut knee, and propping the chair against the wall got on to it again, gingerly. There, shaking, he addressed them. The attention he got was sudden and concentrated, but not the kind he wanted or expected.

  ‘Go back to England!’

  ‘Where is Abdul Mussein?’

  ‘What’s happened to Siddiq?’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Hypocrite.’

  ‘Coward.’

  ‘Fool.’

  Those were hooted or yelled at him, and though the tears kept tumbling down his cheeks, and every accusation stabbed like a sword, he also felt proud of his boys, so perspicacious, so honest, and so resolute in support of what they considered justice.