A Beggar at the Gate (27 page)

Z
an as! It is a woman!” When a male voice beside the doorway had hissed those Persian words, Mariana's attacker had flung her forcefully away from him as if in disgust, then turned and lunged outside, past the yellow doors and into the lane, a long knife ready in his hand.

When he returned and stood before her, his shadowed face was unreadable. “Who are you?” he demanded in accented Urdu.

“Before I tell you,” she replied, still breathing hard through the folds of Akhtar's chador, “I must know if you have hurt that man outside.”

“I have not. Now, who are you?”

“I,” she said, drawing herself up as regally as she was able inside Akhtar's filthy chador, “am the wife of Hassan Ali Khan Karakoyia.”

He took a step backward, a hand on his heart. “My name is Zulmai,” he offered. “Please forgive us. We were not expecting—”

“Where is my husband?”

“This way.” He pointed toward a faintly lit doorway fronting the courtyard.

A rapid clicking sound filled the square, low-ceilinged room where the tall Afghan had pointed. In the center of the floor, a single earthen lamp threw shadows onto the ceiling, its exposed cotton wick burning like a candle flame. Holding the chador across her face with one hand, Mariana stepped inside and saw that the walls of the room were lined with a dozen squatting, heavily armed men.

The air was heavy with the smell of unwashed bodies. Suddenly exhausted, she looked for somewhere to sit, but there was no furniture in the room other than an occupied string bed in one of its corners.

Her eyes closed, she begged herself not to give in to the dangerous whirling in her head.

Beside her, Zulmai shifted his weight, as if he expected her to say something.

“How badly has Hassan been—” Her own voice seemed to come from very far away. She tried to focus her gaze upon the long figure that lay, shivering, on the bed. She must act, but first—

An unexpected force suddenly pressed her hard against the wall. Her body felt heavy and immovable. Each of her eyelids seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

Why did male voices murmur around her, then turn silent?

One of her wrists had begun to ache. She opened her eyes and saw to her shock that she lay not against the wall, but upon the floor, her cheek resting on bare, gritty tiles. Mercifully, she had not knocked over the oil lamp as she fell. It stood, still lit, beside her elbow.

She raised her head. Zulmai and the other Afghans must have rushed away in embarrassment when she fainted, for she was alone, save for the man on the string bed.

Too weak to stand, she crawled to the corner, grasped the bed's wooden edge with her good hand, dragged herself to a sitting position, and studied the trembling figure in front of her.

For all his wounded lack of elegance, there was no mistaking Hassan Ali Khan. Above his broken nose, his eyes were open, but he did not seem to see her. One leg of his
shalwar
had been cut off above the knee, revealing a tangle of bandages on his left thigh, from which blood dripped unsteadily onto the floor. The clicking sound she had heard came from the convulsive chattering of his teeth.

She laid a cautious hand on his forehead. He was not hot yet, but with a wound as severe as this, the fever would soon arrive.

His shaking, then, was due to his loss of blood, and the icy temperature of the room.

She wanted to speak to him, to beg his forgiveness, but she suddenly could think of nothing to say. Instead, she let her chador drop to the floor, pulled the beautiful Moghul shawl from her shoulders, and spread it over Hassan's body.

It was all she had to offer, and he needed much more: a brazier of hot coals at his feet, heavy cotton-stuffed
rezais
to cover him, someone to clean his wound and stop the bleeding …

With luck, he might be saved. She was no doctor, but she knew that all Hassan's hope lay a few hundred yards away, at Qamar Haveli.

She wrapped herself once more in the thin chador and turned toward the door. “Water,” she called through the dirty fabric.

A moment later, a fresh-faced boy stood in the doorway, a brass vessel in his hand, while behind him, several hawkish-looking men craned to see inside.

Mariana raised herself to her knees, took the vessel, and poured a few drops of water between Hassan's shaking lips. “Where are the people of this house?” she asked, her own teeth beginning to chatter with cold. “Surely they can help us.”

“All three families that were living here have run away,” replied Zulmai, who had materialized inside the room. “There is no
rezai,
no cooking pot to be found in the house. One old watchman remains. He let us in. Your husband is lying on his
charpai.”

She set the water vessel on the floor and pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. Behind Zulmai, the other men stood waiting, their eyes on Hassan's trembling form. Some of them were old, some were young. Most were dressed in half-torn clothing and turbans with long tails. Each one had a thin shawl draped over his shoulders. Like Zulmai, each one carried knives, and at least one
jezail.

An unarmed man, the old watchman, perhaps, stood apart from the others. When she looked at him, he offered a respectful salute.

“There is no time to lose,” she said, reaching out to steady herself against the wall. “We must take Hassan to Qamar Haveli at once.”

“Impossible.” Zulmai shook his head. “People are looking for him, with orders to shoot him on sight.

“We were in the Hazuri Bagh this morning,” he added, before she could ask, “to stop an attempt upon Prince Sher Singh's life. One of the assassins nearly got off a shot at the Prince. Hassan's friend killed him in time, but the guards saw the musket flash, and opened fire. They wounded Hassan, and killed his friend.”

Behind Zulmai, the other men murmured their agreement. “I could do nothing,” Zulmai concluded, “but carry Hassan away before he was finished by the guards.” He sighed. “The Prince must now believe Hassan is a traitor. If so, he will offer a fortune to the man who brings him Hassan's severed head.”

Sickened, Mariana squeezed her eyes shut. “Soldiers tried to storm the haveli this afternoon. They were shouting something about ‘enemies of the Prince.’ ”

“Then?” Zulmai shrugged. “How can we take him there?”

“How can we fail to? He will certainly die if he remains here.”

“We passed by the house this afternoon,” he replied patiently. “The doors were closed. People were waiting outside, while soldiers rampaged everywhere. We could not risk Hassan's being seen, so we came here. By now, his enemies will be watching the house. They will kill him at his own door.”

So these were the Afghans who had passed by her in the square, carrying their bleeding burden. If only she had known …

Hassan's enemies certainly were watching the house—at least a hundred of them—but she would not tell Zulmai that disturbing fact. Instead, she held the tall Afghan's eyes. “News has arrived at the haveli,” she said firmly, “that Hassan is dead. Guards are at the door, waiting for his body to arrive. There is a signal. The man who waits outside knows what it is.”

A gray-bearded Afghan stepped forward. “If soldiers have attacked Qamar Haveli once, they will attack it again. We should be inside, waiting for them, when they come.”

“Yes,” agreed a younger man, whose greased hair fell to his shoulders beneath his turban. “We will see how they attack the house of Hassan Ali Khan.”

Zulmai nodded. “Well then, we should leave now, before it becomes light.” He turned to Mariana. “The bed must be turned sideways to get through the doorway. Your husband must be carried into the courtyard by two men. Will you excuse us?”

“Yes, but you must give me a moment.”

As soon as the men had gone, Mariana reached inside her clothes to where Safiya Sultana's silver
taweez
lay against her bare skin. She tugged the black cord over her head, then bent toward the string bed.

Still shuddering as his blood pooled beneath the old
chowkidafs
bed, Hassan did not seem to notice her lift his head and slip on the amulet. His eyes were open, but he did not seem to see her as she opened his dusty shirt and tucked the silver box carefully out of sight beside his gold medallion with its delicately executed Qur'anic verses.

Crude it might be, compared to the work of a master goldsmith, but Safiya's
taweez
had artistry and power of its own

“O Allah Most Gracious,” Mariana whispered, a hand on Hassan's chest, “please protect my dear Hassan.”

As she waited outside near the yellow doors, a series of heavy groans broke the silence behind her, followed by staccato whispers and the shuffling of feet. A moment later several men appeared, carrying the string bed, with Hassan twitching upon it, followed by Zulmai, the fresh-faced youth, and the old watchman.

“Be careful. The doorstep is high,” someone whispered.

Mariam's bride gift,
Shaikh Waliullah had said,
has already been arranged. She now owns a house near the Delhi Gate. It has a yellow door….

Unable to help and too exhausted to weep, Mariana joined the procession and passed through the doorway of the little haveli that might have been hers.

The streets were silent as the little procession made its way to the square in front of Qamar Haveli. Mariana looked away from the unclothed dead, who lay huddled against the doors of houses and the steps of small shops. Trying not to notice how cold she was, or how weary, she avoided broken doors and shutters and the splintered wood and shards of pottery that carpeted the alley, passing her own deserted palanquin that now stood stripped of its cushions by the wall of a house.

At the square, they found the hundred soldiers encamped on the high, broad steps of Wazir Khan's Mosque.

This time all of them seemed to be asleep.

Zulmai gave Mariana a glance she could not read in the half-moon's light. Now, without another word to her, he turned to the other men.

“The signal is to knock twice,” he said.

At once, the other Afghans moved forward. The gray-bearded man hitched his two
jezails
higher on his shoulders. “I will go,” he said. “Only cover me with your fire.”

“No!” Mariana did not need to point out that once the soldiers on the steps began to shoot, it would be impossible to get Hassan into the house. Instead, before the gray-bearded volunteer had time to start for the doors, she gathered her chador about her and with the last of her strength, stumbled ahead of him and into the square.

The soldiers on the steps did not move as she approached the house. Praying that the guards inside had not fallen asleep or forgotten the signal, she struck the great doors once, then again, the sound of her fists thudding hollowly around her.

She willed herself not to look toward the steps of the mosque.

They will make perfect targets when we kill for sport.

Footsteps behind the door announced the arrival of the guards. The bolts rasped, and one of the tall doors creaked open.

“Quickly,” she whispered as she limped hurriedly inside, nearly bowling over a surprised guard, “open both doors fully. Hassan Ali Khan Sahib is coming!”

“Get inside, inside!” shouted someone behind her. She stepped out of the way in time for the men bearing Hassan's string bed to rush past her into the stable courtyard, followed by the rest of Zulmai's men, Ghulam Ali, and the old
chowkidar
from the haveli with the yellow doors, all of them running.

As the great doors swung shut again, musket fire erupted behind them.

Mariana looked about her. Having rebolted the doors, the guards now stared after the Afghans as they carried their wounded companion through the low gate and into the inner courtyard. The family servants, who had been sleeping, swathed in quilts, near the stable doors, sat up and rubbed their eyes. Someone spoke sharply by the Shaikh's platform, where scores of sleepless men had been telling their prayer beads by torchlight as they waited for the arrival of Hassan's dead body.

Moving like a sleepwalker, Mariana followed the solemn procession through the low gate, then stopped to watch as Ghulam Ali stepped to the front, his pale beard gleaming proudly in the torchlight, to announce the arrival of Hassan Ali Khan, gravely wounded but still breathing after being rescued by his foreign wife. She turned away only when the Shaikh's guests turned toward the gate where she stood.

Leaving the assembled men staring after her, Mariana toiled her way up the spiral stairway, toward Safiya Sultana, warmth, and comfort, then stood, swaying, in the sitting-room doorway.

“Hassan Ali Khan has come,” she croaked, not bothering to remove her one remaining slipper. “He has been badly wounded, but perhaps he can be saved. He is very cold. Please tell Saboor that—”

Her knees gave way. As she sank to the tiled floor, Mariana saw the ladies of Hassan's family rise, as one person, to their feet.

T
he air in the dimly lit room smelled of burning charcoal and incense. Sleeping, quilt-wrapped children lay scattered about the floor, deserted by the excited women who now crowded about Mariana's collapsed form.

“Hassan is alive?” they cried, bending over her. “Alive? How have you learned this?”

“Saboor told me.” Mariana blinked tiredly into their faces. “He said that Hassan had been hurt, and then he kept repeating ‘the Delhi Gate, the Delhi Gate,’ but I did not understand what he meant until I saw that same house in a dream. It has a yellow door. I went there and found Hassan. …”

Her voice trailed away. Where was Safiya Sultana, the one person she wanted to see?

The women gazed down at her, their astonished faces puffy from recent weeping.

“You went
out?”
they cried.

“In the
night?”

“To the
Delhi Gate?”

The gap-toothed aunt peered skeptically into Mariana's face. “Where is Hassan now?” she inquired.

“He is downstairs, with Shaikh Waliullah.”

Old and young, the women turned and ran to the windows.

“I see him!” An old lady pressed herself against the filigreed shutters. “He is alive! Allah is Great!”

“May he live a hundred years!” cried another woman.

“I do not understand what has happened,” announced the gap-toothed aunt as Mariana stumbled, shivering, into the room and dropped dazedly onto a bolster. “How is it possible for Hassan's wife to have gone out alone at night, into the streets? How is it possible that Hassan is now covered with the very same yellow
ja-mawar
shawl that Mariam was wearing this afternoon?”

A decisive voice issued from the crowd at the window. “Mariam's activities of tonight will be explained soon enough,” intoned Safiya, who, alone of the women, had not first rushed to Mariana's side. “In the meantime, she is to warm herself, and rest. As for Hassan, there is much to be done. Firoz, have grooms clear the way to the kitchen, and tell the cooks to light the stove and put water on to boil. Akhtar, bring me all the
neem
leaves we have in the house, and two dozen yards of clean muslin.”

A bright-colored quilt lay in a heap near Mariana. As she pulled it to her chin, pounding feet in the verandah heralded the appearance of young Yahya at the doorway.

“Hassan Bhai should be kept downstairs,” he panted, “in case there is another attack upon the house. Lalaji has said we should stay in the underground room tonight.”

“But we haven't used that room since the hot weather ended,” protested a girl with knee-length hair. “It will be full of—”

“Yahya, you must awaken the sweepers.” Safiya looked about her, frowning. “Tell them to clean the underground room at once, and then send four menservants up here to carry down the carpets, the floor sheets, and enough
charpais
for all of us. We will bring the linens and the
rezais
ourselves. And Yahya, take the brazier downstairs,” she added over her shoulder as she approached Mariana, “but do not try to carry it as it is. Make sure you empty the burning coals into a bucket first.”

“Salaam-o-aleikum,”
Mariana offered weakly from her bolster, as Safiya arrived at her side.

“And peace be upon you, daughter.” Safiya Sultana bent to study her in the lamplight. “You are not well,” she said. “Rest now. We will hear your story later. You have much to tell us,” she added, looking hard into Mariana's eyes. “You have not yet explained to us your previous absence, when you vanished the day before yesterday.”

“Wait. Please.” As Safiya turned away, Mariana caught at her sleeve. “I must know …” she whispered, too frightened to say the words aloud, “if Hassan will live.”

She must be allowed to beg his forgiveness, to atone for her stupidity, her accusations

“I have not seen his condition yet,” Safiya replied gently, “but, Mariam, only Allah Most Gracious can save Hassan. If it is His will that Hassan should live, he will live. If it is not, he will die. We must remember that without Allah's permission, even you and I cannot take our next breath.”

MARIANA LAY on a
charpai
against a wall of the windowless underground room, her eyes too heavy to open, as the Waliullah family worked to save Hassan's life.

Murmured Arabic prayers surrounded her, filling the air, half-covering the sounds of tearing cloth and splashing water, of Safiya's whispers of encouragement and Hassan's groans of distress.

“You must drink this, my boy,” Safiya said in a firm undertone. “I will give you opium for the pain in a moment, but first you must drink this. …”

Throughout the remainder of the night, Yahya and the women servants came and went, following orders, bringing news. When a man's voice, light but full of authority, returned the ladies’ greeting, Mariana knew the Shaikh was in the room.

He must have sat down, then, for Hassan's bed creaked beneath someone's weight.

“Abba,” Hassan sighed.

“Here I am, my darling,” replied that pleasant voice, so much like Hassan's own.

“Akhtar, go and bring tea for Shaikh Sahib,” Safiya Sultana ordered. “Wali,” she added in a businesslike tone, “lift Hassan's shoulders while we turn him over.”

Later, when Hassan grew quiet, the Shaikh and his family spoke softly of his bravery in trying to halt the assassination. They mourned the ill fortune that had caused his wound, and the death of his oldest friend, Yusuf. They lauded the courage and tenacity of the Afghans who had rescued him from the Hazuri Bagh. Lowering their voices, they discussed Hassan's grave symptoms, the muscles now torn from his outer thigh, his clammy, pallid skin, his terrible weakness, and later, his rising fever.

From time to time they mentioned Mariana's name, but too softly for her to make out what was being said.

Desperate to help Hassan, longing to touch him, she tried several times to rise, but found she could not lift her head from the pillow. Even when Saboor was brought to her and laid, sleeping, beside her on the bed, she did not have the strength to stroke his curls. Instead, she lay unable to move, her thoughts racing, while the conversations and the prayers rose and fell around her.

What was the use of hoping for Hassan's forgiveness, when she had done everything wrong? Why had she accused him of treachery? Why had she ignored Saboor when he tried so desperately to save his father? Why had she waited so long to go to the haveli with the yellow doors?

Now, with his life hanging by a slender thread, there was every chance Hassan would die before she could even speak to him.

Only Allah Most Gracious can save him,
Safiya had told her.

If only there were one more thing Mariana could do before it was too late—one more service she could perform that would finally atone for all her sins, tip the scale, and allow Hassan to live

IN HER mind's eye, her donkey's ears bobbed in front of her as it trotted along the gritty upward-sloping path that ran between folded, brown hills. Aching from the difficulty of riding without a sidesaddle, she shifted on the animal's back, her feet nearly sweeping the rock-strewn ground.

She was not alone. Other people walked or rode along the same path, under the bright blue sky, keeping her company, a few in front of her, but many more behind. Because she dreamed, she was unsurprised to find her old language teacher behind her on another donkey. Shaikh Waliullah's elderly friend, her
munshi,
whom she had sent home to the Punjab from Calcutta so many months ago, now gripped his animal's saddle with knotted hands, while Mariana's tall, trusted groom, whom she had also believed was lost to her, strode at the donkey's head, its reins held loosely in his hand.

Behind them all plodded a long file of camels, some burdened with huge panniers of foodstuffs, some carrying tents and other equipment.

Mariana wept as she rode, making small, miserable sounds to herself, her tears leaving prickly pathways down her cheeks.

Behind her, as thunder began to rumble in the sunny hills, she heard the sound of running feet. Whoever the runner was, he was both strong and determined, for he had already passed the rest of the caravan.

He was running alongside her now. “Wait, Bibi!” he gasped, holding something out to her. “I have been sent to give this to you….”