Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he cried. ‘No doubt I am a liar and a hypocrite, a coward and a fool.’

  ‘Go and drive a camel, Wahab.’

  ‘Go and kiss one.’

  ‘Go and kiss one’s behind.’

  Now they were becoming juvenile, but they were also beginning to laugh: so many different kinds of brown Afghan faces, thick-lipped Negroid, thin-lipped Caucasian, slant-eyed Mongolian, white-eyed Arabian, and hook-nosed Semitic, all young, good-hearted, courageous, and beautiful in their laughter.

  Then from some of the boys at the entrance came screams of warning. Too late, though, for seconds after into the hall charged about a dozen policemen armed with long truncheons and led by a huge officer with a cruel obtuse face. Straight for Wahab they rushed, knocked over his chair, sent him flying, shattered his spectacles, jabbed him with their batons, and kicked him as he lay stunned on the mud brick floor. Yet he was smiling, for the last thing he had seen through his spectacles before they were hurled from his face was Rasouf slinking off to become lost in the crowd.

  The boys had gone very quiet and watchful, though a few tittered nervously at the policemen’s ridiculous mistake. Some escaped out into the playground, but most remained. Through them Maftoon now came pushing, shouting peevishly to the policemen that the man they had knocked down was the Principal. They looked surprised, but not apologetic; they had never been at school themselves, but had learned to despise those who had.

  Wahab was dragged up and planked down on the shaky chair. He felt sick and ached all over, especially in the groin where the end of a truncheon had poked too fiercely. Without his spectacles, too, he had to strain to see, and that seemed to add to his nausea.

  The big officer was explaining to Maftoon, whom he knew. His men weren’t to blame. They had been urgently summoned to subdue a rebellion. When they had come in Wahab had been on the chair addressing the boys, like an inciter. It was always good tactics to strike at once; now and then the innocent might get hurt, but in his experience they deserved it, as they were always fools.

  Wahab’s wits were clearing, though he still felt sick. He staggered to his feet, and in a voice that kept rising to a shriek in spite of his efforts to keep it low and dignified he ordered the policemen out of his school.

  Maftoon whispered into his ear: ‘It would be better if we let them take Rasouf away and one or two of the others. They wouldn’t hurt them; they’d just keep them locked up for a day or two.’

  ‘If they take any of my pupils away,’ yelled Wahab, ‘they will have to take me away too. You had no right to send for the police, Maftoon. I did not give you permission.’

  ‘You do not understand, Wahab. You are too simple. This is a very critical time. It is important that Voroshilov is given an enthusiastic welcome. The people are with us, but they must be shown that we are with them. Do you want Mojedaji and his friends to win? You know they are against the teaching of science, the freeing of the women, the spread of enlightenment. They want to keep the situation unchanged. Do you want that?’

  ‘I do not want changes produced by fraud, force, and cruelty.’

  ‘Sometimes there is no other way, Wahab.’

  ‘Yes, there is. The trouble with you, Maftoon, and with all those who think like you, is that you have no faith in your fellow human beings.’

  Maftoon gazed into the fatuous, earnest, peering, swollen, and bloody face. ‘Do you have such faith, Wahab?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I have. I would not have accepted the Principalship of this school if I did not have.’

  Meanwhile the policemen were leaving. They went slowly, grinning but furious. Quietly the boys hissed.

  With the help of some Twelfth-Class boys Wahab got up on the chair again. One of them whistled for silence. It was quickly given. Many boys could not help smiling as they saw how he had to keep dabbing at his nose, from which blood kept trickling.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he cried, with passion, ‘I am sorry our school has been polluted by such visitors.’

  They paused, and then began to cheer and clap wildly.

  ‘You know why we were to meet here this morning,’ he cried, when they were quiet again. ‘We were to march to the airport to welcome President Voroshilov. Very well, then. Those of you who wish to go to the airport, remain here in the hall; those who do not wish to go to the airport, are at liberty to return home. Do not be afraid. No names will be taken. The choice is left entirely to you.’

  They were astonished, excited, amused. Then one cried: ‘What do you advise, Abdul Wahab?’

  ‘No. I shall not advise you. The choice must be your own.’

  For a few minutes they discused it among themselves. Some consulted Maftoon, others Mojedaji who had at last appeared from upstairs. Other teachers, without the hockey sticks, stood shame-facedly about; no one bothered to consult them.

  Finally boys began to stream out. About as many remained in the hall.

  Neither Maftoon nor Mojedaji was pleased; both seemed to think Wahab had played a clever trick on them, and both agreed he wouldn’t keep his position as Principal very long.

  Listening to their bitter mutters, he made his aching face smile. He was sure now that while he did remain in command he would know what to do, and would not hesitate, through fear, to do it.

  To Mojedaji he said, handing back the packet of notes: ‘I have found I cannot be bribed. You are surprised? I am surprised myself. But it is true.’

  ‘What do you propose, Wahab?’ asked the mullah, with a grin. ‘I do not think you are fit to accompany the boys to the airport.’

  Maftoon murmured that it would be better for him to go home and rest.

  ‘No, I shall go, otherwise what must only be an act of courtesy will be turned into a political demonstration. But first, there is a telephone call I must make.’

  He could tell from their faces that they were wondering whom he intended to telephone. Perhaps Mojedaji thought it was Habbibullah and Maftoon thought it was Naim. If so, they were both absurdly wrong; he was going to telephone Laura. He had meant to do it first thing that morning, but finding Mojedaji in his office had driven it out of his mind.

  After giving orders to the teachers to distribute the little paper flags and have the boys lined up ready to march off, he hurried upstairs, or at least he tried to hurry, finding by the second step that it was impossible, so excruciating and crippling were the stabs of pain in his groin. Therefore he had to creep up, supporting himself against the wall. Some boys ran to offer their help, but he smilingly refused it. When he reached his office he had to collapse into the very chair Mojedaji had occupied. With trembling fingers he undid his fly buttons and looked to see what damage had been done. There was swelling all right, some laceration, and a great purple bruising. Fear pierced him that he had perhaps been emasculated, and in the midst of that terror a fondness for Laura and an overwhelming need of her brought tears again into his eyes. Getting up, he limped to the telephone, and the difficulty of his every step made him realize how inadequate had been his sympathy for her, whose every step all the long way from childhood had been difficult.

  It was Mrs Moffatt who answered.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Moffatt,’ he said. ‘This is Abdul Wahab.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He was surprised by her curtness. ‘I wanted to ask how Laura is this morning. I hope she is better.’

  ‘She isn’t.’

  He felt panic. ‘What do you mean? I know she was not well last night, but it was only tiredness, I thought.’

  ‘It was more than tiredness.’

  ‘Is she really ill? Has she been poisoned? Did your servant not boil the water? Have you sent for the doctor, the British Embassy doctor?’

  ‘We are looking after her, Mr Wahab.’

  ‘Is she too ill to speak to me now?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  To hell with the procession, he thought. ‘Tell her I shall come immediately.’

  There was a pause. ‘No, don’t do that.�
��

  ‘But why? I want to see her, and I’m sure she wants to see me.’

  ‘No, she does not.’

  ‘She does not?’

  ‘That is so. Here is my husband to speak to you.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Moffatt, sounding much too cheerful.

  ‘What is this your wife has just said?’

  ‘That Miss Johnstone isn’t feeling too well?’

  ‘Yes, yes. But also that she does not want to see me.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘But why? What is the reason?’

  Moffatt paused. ‘I really don’t know. I thought perhaps you might.’

  ‘What do you mean? No, the truth is, you have all been poisoning her mind against me.’ Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t true.

  ‘What happened yesterday?’ asked Moffatt.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When you went to see your new house.’

  ‘What has she said?’

  ‘Nothing to me. But she’s said something to my wife.’

  ‘Your wife has not told you?’

  ‘No. Apparently she promised not to. But I can guess. So I’m sorry, Wahab, but in the meantime there’s no point in your coming here.’

  ‘Not ever, I think.’

  ‘Well, that may be so. What did happen?’

  Now, needing to weep more than ever in his life before, he found he could not. He looked at the cold black mouth of the telephone, and he had a vision of himself rotted in his grave. ‘I made love to her,’ he whispered.

  Moffatt’s voice was rough. Were there traces of sympathy and amusement in it? ‘I know it’s none of my business,’ he said, ‘but – was she willing? After all she couldn’t have been more than six hours in Kabul. Wasn’t it a bit hasty?’

  ‘Yes, it was hasty, Mr Moffatt, though I’ve longed for her for months, no, years. It was filthy, too. It was unforgivable.’ Yet afterwards had she not asked him to kiss her, and had she not said that he was worthy?

  ‘I think she’ll get over it, Wahab,’ said Moffatt, ‘but you’d better wait and see. Good-bye.’

  Wahab’s hand shook so much he could scarcely replace the telephone on its cradle. As he sat crouched over his desk, feeling again the agony in his groin, he thought, with an attempt at a smile, that the policeman who had struck him there had not been summoned by Maftoon at all, but rather by someone far mightier than Maftoon and far less scrupulous. No, he assured himself, as he pulled himself slowly to his feet, I still do not believe in God, but how am I to endure a life that contains neither God, nor self-respect, nor Laura?

  At the door two teachers shyly met him.

  ‘The boys are ready,’ one said.

  ‘They have their flags,’ said the other.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘They want you to march at the front.’

  The teachers looked at each other, but could find nothing to say.

  Boldly, in spite of the pain, Wahab proceeded downstairs.

  Behind him it occurred to Rahim, a small, timid, gray-haired man, to suggest humbly that the Principal ought to wash off the blood encrusted on his nostrils, but he decided not to, safer to keep silent and let some more daring colleague take the risk.

  Twenty-Three

  THE previous night, after Wahab had gone and Laura was at last asleep, the Moffatts had discussed their guest.

  ‘She’s like a spring that’s been too tightly wound up for months,’ said Harold, ‘and it’s suddenly snapped. What did happen between her and Wahab today?’

  ‘No, I promised her I wouldn’t say.’

  ‘I think I can guess.’

  ‘I prefer to see her simply as a woman who for months has placed far too many hopes on a man whom she now realizes isn’t worthy of them.’

  He noticed again that rather pedantic sharpness of judgment which Lan had lately developed, ever since, he supposed, his public humiliation of her. She had slipped off as neatly as a snake its skin her former imperturbable charitableness, and in its place had quickly grown this promptness to judge and lack of reluctance to condemn. She had gone further: toward people malicious towards her she was prepared to show in return a malice more intelligent and therefore more effective than theirs. She had decided to become like the people among whom she lived, and so, though she gained in companionableness, she had certainly lost in distinction. It seemed to him she was getting ready to protect the children to whom he at last had agreed. He even imagined that in so short a time she had grown a little stouter, a little thicker in the neck, outward physical signs of the deliberate coarsening of spirit. She laughed oftener and more loudly, but that secret smile which had seemed to him to have concentrated in it so much mystery, beauty, and compassion, was now seldom seen. Her friends, more at ease in her presence, liked her better, and he himself supposed that on balance it was preferable to have this shrewd, ready-witted, popular woman as his wife than the enigmatic priestess; but he would be haunted for the rest of his life by that lost serenity.

  Now, discussing Laura and Wahab, she was as femininely commonplace as Paula Wint could have been.

  ‘And she was actually weeping?’ he asked.

  ‘Like a child.’

  Laura indeed had clung round Lan’s neck as she sobbed out that incoherent, horror-stricken, yet fascinated account of what had happened at the house that afternoon. She had mentioned swans, and Lan had supposed she must have seen some in the fields by the river Kabul on the way to the house. Listening, Lan had recalled the evening when she had bathed Wahab’s eyes, and had heard for the first time about Laura’s lameness. She had been sure then that his protestation of love had been sincere, and she was still sure now: an outburst of impatient lust could not disprove nor even much dishonour love.

  ‘It’s easy enough to see what’s happened,’ said Harold. ‘Judging from what we know of him, he’d no sooner get her into the house than he’d start tearing the clothes off her and flinging her on to the bed. Mind you, I think she would be ready for it, but no doubt he didn’t use the patience and finesse that the books say are necessary in such cases. You know, of the two I’m more sorry for him. Laura doesn’t strike me as ever having been an easy woman to love. After all, the Mancunians seem to have found her resistible enough.’

  Lan smiled. ‘Her nightdress,’ she murmured, ‘is transparent.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m not surprised. She’s well up in the theory. Did you notice poor Wahab this evening? He reminded me of Manson Powrie the way his hands kept clasping and unclasping. In Powrie’s case it’s because he keeps remembering it’s not quite the occasion for prayer; in Wahab’s it was just sheer misery. If ever she’s going to have a child, that’s how his hands would go. It’s a cliché at the birth, but rather novel at the conception.’

  Again Lan smiled. Laura had asked if it was likely she would have a child.

  ‘What do you think will happen?’ she murmured. ‘Will they still get married?’

  ‘Why not? Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but it may depend on us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Not only on you and me. All of us: Maud, Howard, Paula, Muriel, everyone who knows about her and Wahab. She’s in a state to be influenced. She’s already asked when the next plane out of Kabul is. So we’ve got to decide again what advice to give her.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong, you know. No one’s going to influence Laura. She’s come, she’s seen, she’s been deflowered, and in her own way she’s thoroughly enjoying herself. All we’ll be allowed to do is to stand by and watch her handle the situation. She’ll tell us when to applaud.’

  Lan smiled and nodded.

  Looking at his wife’s face, still beautiful but blemished by that knowing human grin, he could at last picture her kneeling by her dead sister’s body, with her face transfigured by hatred of the murderers and desire for their punishment.

  ‘Lan, darling,’ he murmured, and took her in his arms, smiling, and realizing that from now on, if ever she had to
be protected against the kind of crass persecution of the two men in the Singapore restaurant, she would be able to do it far more successfully than he. One of the gang now, she knew and applied its ways. For a moment his heart went cold.

  In the morning when Lan went to see how Laura was, she found her awake, lying listening to some woodcutters chopping wood in a nearby garden. She asked what the sounds were.

  ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she murmured when Lan told her. ‘Will they have beards?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact they won’t. Woodcutters are always Hazaras, who never have beards: thin long mustaches sometimes, but not beards.’

  ‘I notice your ceiling is plain wood. Some have carvings on them, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes. Our sitting-room ceiling has.’

  ‘I didn’t notice. This whole country is full of men with faces like Christ.’

  Lan sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Well,’ she said, cheerfully, ‘maybe as far as their beards are concerned.’

  Laura closed her eyes, and looked sad. ‘I have decided to go back.’

  ‘Rome, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Most Western women take months to get used to Afghanistan; some, I admit, never do.’

  Laura’s hand crept out and clutched Lan’s. ‘It isn’t that,’ she whispered. ‘It wouldn’t matter if I never got used to it. I could suffer that. What I could never suffer is the feeling that I was not worthy of him.’

  Lan said nothing.

  ‘For many reasons. Just look at me, and you will see the first. I am older than he is.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Not in England, maybe; but you know it is here. What age is the average Afghan woman when she gets married?’

  ‘About eighteen.’

  ‘Or even younger, sixteen. I am more than double that.’

  ‘But Wahab knew that.’

  ‘Yes, as a sum in arithmetic, but in another more important way, how could he? I didn’t myself, until yesterday afternoon. It isn’t just that I’m thirty-three with gray hairs and a sagging neck; it’s something far more serious.’ The fingers round Lan’s wrist were now stroking it. ‘When he was making love to me, I felt disgusted. I thought it was the vilest thing that had ever happened to me. Please don’t tell me that that’s a common reaction the first time. I am sure it wasn’t with Mrs Mossaour, for instance. No wonder poor Dul was so bitterly disappointed. I knew it would happen. Oh, I’ve read books, I’ve even humiliated myself by writing to a magazine for advice. I know many married couples after a difficult start go on to do it thousands of times, as a habit, like washing their teeth. But a man must find pleasure and satisfaction, mustn’t he? For him it’s said to be the profoundest and happiest communication with the woman he loves. I’ve even read that he feels during it like a kind of god. That’s rubbish no doubt, but still he oughtn’t to be made to feel guilty and belittled.’