Dust on the Paw

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Squash, please,’ whispered Mrs Mohebzada, shy as a child among grown-ups.

  ‘Me too,’ said Paula, ‘with a dash of gin in it, if you don’t mind, Lan, please.’

  ‘Would it be too much trouble,’ asked Laura, ‘if I had tea? I understand it is the drink of the country.’

  Somehow, thought Paula, no remark could have been more ominous.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Lan. She gave the orders to her servant, who had been waiting for them with a great grin. It wasn’t every day his terrace was filled with white women, two of them at least so well worth sleeping with.

  ‘Did you have a pleasant journey, Miss Johnstone?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Yes, thank you. But I was glad to arrive.’

  ‘Yes, travelling can be so beastly exhausting, can’t it?’

  ‘It wasn’t that. You see, I felt I was coming home.’

  Then, while Paula was flicking her nose in patrician surprise, Liz Mohebzada burst into tears. She turned her head away, she covered her face with her freckled hands, she tried to control herself; but the weeping went on, and the thin body in the faded green and white dress shook. She kept trying to say something in explanation and apology, but all Paula could make out was the word home, embarrassingly reiterated. (She remembered then how Colonel Rodgers months ago used to go about the Embassy murmuring that someone ought to do something about getting up a subscription to pay Mrs Mohebzada’s fare home. That had been before the baby’s arrival; now of course it was too late. In any case no one had got up the subscription.)

  Maud had arisen and stood by the girl, with a hand on her red hair.

  Even Lan did not know what to do, but Paula had to concede her helplessness was patient and becoming.

  Miss Johnstone, well aware of her responsibility, did not get up; she sat leaning forward a little, with an eager-stranger expression on her face; it did not lack sympathy, but neither did it avoid condemnation. Paula was reminded of a Russian film she had seen here, in Kabul. In it there had been a woman judge who had looked at the prisoner, a girl accused of strangling her own baby, with this very expression. Paula had been impressed then, against her will, and now she was reluctantly impressed again. It was doubtless true, as Maud had said, that Miss Johnstone was without sexual attraction, but she seemed quite capable of discovering and using efficiently some substitute for it. What such a substitute could possibly be Paula refused even to think about. But into her mind for a moment strayed a sympathy for Wahab; next moment of course she chased it out again, but its intrusion left its mark.

  Mrs Mohebzada had recovered sufficiently to mumble apologies and turn sobs to long sighs.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Johnstone, ‘I used that word. In the circumstances it was inconsiderate of me. But, you know, Mrs Mohebzada, there is in England today such a materialism, selfishness, smug contentment, and disgusting disregard for the millions in the world not so fortunate, that it was for me personally no hardship to leave; on the contrary, it was a relief. I think I have already got rid of a great deal of my own share of the guilt. I realize I shall have to work hard to get rid of the rest, but I mean to try.’

  The effect of that brief speech, delivered so solemnly, was so shattering that it hurled into Paula’s heart a sister feeling for Mrs Mohebzada. For it was the latter who, while Maud sneered, screamed in the defence of her fellow countrymen. Paula could hardly make out what she said – the vulgar London accent being exaggerated by anger – but she was obviously claiming that the English were in every way far more humane than the Afghans. Paula cried: ‘Hear, hear!’ At the end, perhaps out of breathlessness, perhaps from inspiration, Mrs Mohebzada achieved an extraordinary calmness and lucidity. ‘I’ve been told, Miss Johnstone,’ she said, ‘that this man you’re going to marry is a politician. In this country politicians become rich, if they’re not shot.’

  Miss Johnstone smiled as one might to a distracted child. ‘You are mistaken, my dear. Or you have been misinformed. My fiancé is a schoolmaster.’

  ‘He’s been made principal of his school.’

  ‘And why not? He has excellent qualifications.’

  ‘Qualifications don’t matter here. He’s one of the Brotherhood. They have the support of the Russians. Everyone says either they’ll seize the country, or they’ll all be shot.’

  To Paula’s amazement Miss Johnstone then reached forward to try and take the younger woman’s hand; that it was snatched away did not discomfit or annoy her. ‘You ought not to listen to envious rumours, my dear,’ she said. ‘I am sure I know Abdul Wahab better than anyone. Yes, he has faults, as we all have. But he is as good a person as I have ever met. He is utterly devoted to his country. If he does enter politics and accepts a position of trust and authority, it will be for the public good.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ retorted Mrs Mohebzada. ‘Did you expect him to tell you he was in it for what he could get out of it? You’ll learn that Afghans only tell the truth when it suits them.’

  ‘I am sorry to find you so cynical, Mrs Mohebzada. I am proud to say I trust Abdul Wahab, and I hope to be at his side to support him.’

  For about the third time Paula noticed an exchange of glances between Lan and Miss Johnstone; Lan’s was amused and quizzical, Miss Johnstone’s haughty and defiant. Was it possible that what the latter was now saying so high-mindedly was a contradiction of what she had been saying previously in private, before Paula and the others had arrived? Had not Alan, usually so perspicacious, come to the conclusion that this Johnstone woman must be a Communist of some kind? Otherwise why should she be so discontented with her own country as to leave a good position in it to come here to poverty-stricken Afghanistan? There could be no doubt now that he had been right.

  Maud Mossaour, provoked by the distress of her protégée, was openly antagonistic: ‘I notice, Miss Johnstone, you say you hope to be at his side.’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘You are adhering to your original plan then, of regarding your stay here as experimental, to begin with?’

  ‘Yes. I take it you have some purpose in asking these questions?’

  ‘Yes, I have. As headmistress of the International School I have put your name down as a possibility for next session’s staff. That, I take it, is your wish?’

  ‘Yes. I wrote you to that effect.’

  ‘Exactly. I make the appointments, but they have to be confirmed by a Board of Advisers. I doubt if they would confirm yours if you were married to an Afghan.’

  ‘Indeed? Will someone tell me what the name of this country is in which we are sitting at this moment?’

  ‘I’ll tell you its name,’ cried Mrs Mohebzada. ‘It’s called Hell!’ And she began to weep again.

  ‘The point is this, Miss Johnstone,’ went on Maud: ‘If you marry Mr Wahab you will become an Afghan subject.’

  ‘Proudly so, I assure you.’

  ‘Surely you’ll try to retain your British nationality too?’ interposed Paula. ‘I understand Mr Gillie, the consul, always advises that should be done.’

  ‘What good did it do me?’ sobbed Mrs Mohebzada.

  ‘The Afghans demand that the wife of one of their nationals must make a declaration forfeiting her original nationality,’ said Maud.

  ‘There will be no need to demand in my case, if I do marry Abdul Wahab.’

  ‘Miss Johnstone,’ said Paula, ‘I really must protest against these insinuations.’

  ‘What insinuations, Mrs Wint? I am merely saying that if I marry Abdul Wahab I shall most willingly accept his nationality, just as I shall accept his country’s poverty. By so doing I may, it appears, lose whatever opportunity I might otherwise have had of buying Scotch marmalade out of the Embassy shop; but this is a sacrifice I am quite prepared to make.’

  While Paula gasped, Maud pressed on coolly with her point: ‘What I am trying to make clear to you is that the Afghans will probably not allow one of their nationals to teach at our school. At present they allow no Afghan chi
ld to attend it.’

  ‘If I become an Afghan, Mrs Mossaour, is it not more likely that I should wish to teach in an Afghan school?’

  Maud smiled, astonishing Paula who had thought her worsted in this swordplay of wills. ‘You are very wise, Miss Johnstone, to keep reminding us, and yourself, that it is all conditional.’

  ‘I must suggest, Mrs Mossaour, that you are now trespassing on what is private between myself and my fiancé. However, let me add this. Mrs Moffatt, I believe, will confirm its truth. I keep saying if because I am not convinced that I am worthy to be Abdul Wahab’s wife.’

  Paula was startled by the adjective into remembering the Langfords. Not that either of them of course had ever admitted such unworthiness. But for some reason their predicament flashed into her mind: each in his or her own way so intelligent and charming, yet together creators of hell. She even felt sorry for Miss Johntone then, but it seemed so superfluous a pity that she almost apologized aloud for it.

  ‘I hope none of you think,’ said Liz Mohebzada then, ‘that I hate my husband.’

  God, cried Paula within, this must be the end. Even if I do get my behind pinched again, better walking about the bazaar then sitting here listening to this craziness.

  She rose therefore, with the kind of gestures she made when practising in front of the mirror for the time when Alan would be an ambassador. She felt herself blushing as her composure fell to pieces like a blown rose.

  ‘I must really be going,’ she said. ‘I was right at first, you know, Lan. This was intended to be a private conference. I’m sorry I butted in. Still, it has been very interesting. May I wish you success, Miss Johnstone, in whatever it is you wish to do. I must say, though, I’m not sure what it is! And I hope your dear little baby gets better soon, Mrs Mohebzada.’

  ‘He is better, Mrs Wint.’

  ‘Yes, of course. So you told me. I am so glad. Good morning, Maud. You and Pierre must come to visit us soon. No, Lan, really there is no need to see me to the gate.’

  Nevertheless she hoped Lan would, not because there was anything to be said between them, but because she needed reassurance; any sympathetic human company would have done.

  Lan, however, took her at her word. ‘I am sorry you could not stay longer, Paula,’ she said. ‘Please give my regards to Alan.’

  ‘Thank you, I will.’

  At the gate, which the grinning servant held open for her, she turned anxiously to wave to the four women on the terrace. They had already, it seemed, forgotten her. She must have waved four times before one of them, Mrs Mohebzada it was, noticed her and waved back. The others turned too and waved, but briefly, impatiently almost, as if they wanted her to hurry away and let them concentrate on what mattered to them far more. She suspected she was being unfair to them and to herself, but she could not help it. Her loneliness then was so acute that even Alan’s presence would scarcely have alleviated it. As for her own children, Annette and Paul, whom she loved as much as Mrs Mohebzada did her child, she found herself wondering if they really did exist, far away in England.

  Outside the gate she felt as if she had stepped inside a great beast’s hot stinking mouth. Behind her dark glasses she gasped for breath. Sweat poured down her face and body like shame; she was almost lame with its damp clinging indignities. She should have sent Lan’s servant for a taxi; now she would have to walk along until she found one.

  The little herd-boy, who had been dozing in the ditch, woke up, shouted to her, and waltzed beside her, playing his pipe merrily. When he shot out his small dusty paw for money, she had no will to order him away; instead she took a few coins out of her handbag and flung them behind her on the road, as one might buy off an importunate dog with a biscuit. Down on his haunches indeed he went and hopping in the dust picked up the money. She saw his little naked testicles, so like a dog’s, and she felt sick. Who was it had said, that after all the poetry, all the religion, all the grand spouting about humanity, it came just to these?

  Walking slowly with her thighs sticking together with sweat and the stench from the park almost noisy in her nostrils, she tried to remember who had said that. Not the Ambassador, fond though he was of such songs as ‘The Ball of Kirriemuir’. Not Alan, for whom poetry, religion, and humanity were all concentrated in his love for her, so gloriously sexual. Not Bob Gillie, a prig who wore silk underwear, married to a prude who wore cotton. Not Howard, despite his liking for bizarre quotations from Ezra Pound. Not the Colonel, who, as Alan and she had agreed, probably approached the conjugal bed, like one of his own model guardsmen, with sterile rigidity. Not John Langford, who had slept apart from Helen for years and who surely, in his monk’s bed, had learned there was more to life than the means of procreation. And none of the junior staff would have had the impudence to refer seriously to sex in her presence. Who then could it have been?

  She wondered why she should be sweating so much. Had she contracted some horrible Asiatic fever? The heat was considerable, but not any more so than yesterday when she had spent a delightful day in her garden, sipping iced beer and reading an Agatha Christie. Those damned women must have done it; how, she did not know; but any one of them, and especially the Johnstone creature, could set up as a witch.

  I’m being silly, she thought, as she stood opposite the mosque, waiting for a taxi. A ghoddy came along and she almost took it, although Alan, fearful for her precious bones, had forbidden her ever to travel on one. An aeroplane began to be heard, at first as a faint whirr, then in a minute or two as a hum, loudening suddenly to a roar. Glittering beautifully, it passed low overhead, gliding down toward the airport. It had four engines and its silvery wings bore red Russian emblems; it was the aeroplane from Russia, bringing Voroshilov.

  As it disappeared beyond some trees she returned to wondering who it was that could have uttered that terrible yet pregnant remark. Could it have been a woman? She tried to think of any likely; there was none; no woman, not even a whore like Helga Larsen, would ever admit herself shrunk to a mere counter-contrivance. Had she read it in a book? That wasn’t likely, either, as she seldom read anything but detective stories. Was it possible that no one had said it, and nowhere could it be read? That the thought had never occurred to anyone before until it had occurred to her, watching that little boy crawl about like a dog? Or was it a thought that ultimately came to everyone, but which no one divulged, out of horror and shame?

  At that very moment Voroshilov was probably meeting the King and the other dignitaries, among whom was Alan. How impressive and dignified every one of them would be. Saner surely to think about them than about that obscene child with his begging fist and dreary pipe!

  Twenty-Four

  EVEN if there had been no regulation requiring the Principal’s presence in the school for two or three hours per day during most holidays, Wahab would still have gone there, this Jeshan time, as the only place where he would be able to find peace and stimulus enough to enable him, amidst his many anxieties, to drive on with his translation of a physics textbook from English into Persian. His desk covered with scribbled papers, dictionaries, and science reference books, he worked steadily and quite happily, with now and then a sigh, manfully elevated to a rueful smile, or a glance out of the window at the empty playground. His groin was still so sore and tender that once or twice when he involuntarily jumped with pleasure at some felicitous piece of translation, he gasped too a little, with pain. Only Sadruddin the custodian, Nawaz the clerk, and the old bearded janitors, were in the college with him. Maftoon as deputy-principal ought to have been, but he had telephoned to say that he had other more important work to do. He did not say what it was, and from his mysterious tone it might have been simply to play at bears with his three infants, or again it might have been to assist the Brotherhood in its present desperate intrigues. Now that Voroshilov had arrived with promises of millions of rubles, those who believed that their country’s only chance of quick economic salvation lay in absorption by Russia recognized that here, with Jeshan or Inde
pendence Day so close at hand, was an opportunity to win over a multitude of supporters. Maftoon indeed had sounded surprised that Wahab should choose to hide himself away in the college, at such an exciting moment in the history of their country.

  So, convinced that he had deservedly lost Laura, and that his tenure of the Principalship would soon be ended, he found consolation and a little forgetfulness in struggling to give science an Afghan look. Sometimes, however, remembering, he would get up and slowly walk along the corridors. Without the boys’ bright faces to light them up the rooms were dismal, with the mud floors worn away, the walls discoloured by winter damp that had seeped through the mud roof, the glass in most of the windows broken or missing, the desks and benches crude and ugly, the blackboards rough and spiky with nails, and the teachers’ chairs with broken spars or loose legs or missing seats. In England and other enlightened countries, he knew, prisons were more comfortable; but as he moved among the desks, placing his hand on them as if on the heads of the pupils who in term-time sat there, he was far from feeling contempt or despondency; no, what he felt was love and hope. As a member of the Brotherhood, as a guest at the International Club, as a friend of Prince Naim’s, or as a colleague of Dr Habbibullah’s, he had been a ridiculous fraud. No wonder the boys had been provoked to laughter by his boasts. With the unclouded wisdom of the young they had seen through him. But then, had he not always seen through himself, obtuse with stupidity, self-deception, and conceit though he had been so often? As a humble teacher, though, he did not think he was ridiculous.

  He was back in his office, working away, when a commotion at the gate attracted his attention. Really, boys had been gathering there for the past hour, but he had hardly noticed them. Now, however, they came surging through the gate, no doubt having bribed its keeper to unlock it for them, and across the playground, at least a hundred of them. Groaning, he thought that here was another rebellion. This time they had come to burn down the school or to drag him out and pelt him with soft plums which they had bought cheap in the bazaar. He noticed Rasouf in their midst, and other Twelfth-Class boys, including the cheerful Farouq, who liked to cycle into town with him. He could not believe they were his enemies. Then he saw that they were carrying an enormous bouquet of flowers.