Far Pavilions (140 page)

Some of this Ash already knew, for the Peshawar Conference had been in session before he had left for Gujerat, and the issues that had been discussed there had been known and hotly debated in every British mess, Club and bungalow throughout the northern Punjab and the Frontier provinces, in addition to the streets and shops of cities, towns and villages – the British taking the view that the Amir was a typically treacherous Afghan, who was intriguing with the Russians and planning to sign a treaty of alliance with the Tsar that would permit free passage through the Khyber Pass to his armies, while Indian opinion held that the British Raj, in typically treacherous fashion, was plotting to overthrow the Amir and add Afghanistan to the Empire.

But once Ash had left the Punjab behind him, he had found that men talked less of the ‘Russian menace’ than of their own affairs; while from the time he reached Bombay and boarded the slow train that chugged and puffed along the palm-fringed coast towards Surat and Baroda, he had hardly ever heard it mentioned, let alone seriously discussed despite the fact that the two leading English-language newspapers wrote an occasional leader on the subject, criticizing the Government for its failure to take action, or attacking ‘alarmists’ who talked of war.

Insulated by distance and the slower pace of life in Gujerat, Ash had soon lost interest in the political wrangling between the High Gods in Simla and the unhappy ruler of the Land of Cain, and it had come as something of a shock to him to discover from Zarin that here in the north men took the matter seriously, and spoke openly of a second Afghan war:

‘But I don't suppose it will come to that,’ said Wally, not without a tinge of regret. ‘Once the Amir and his advisers realize that the Raj is not prepared to take “No” for an answer, they'll give in gracefully and let us send a Mission to Kabul, and that'll be the end of it. Pity, really – No, I don't mean that of course. But it would have been a terrific experience, fighting one's way through those passes. I'd like to be in a real battle.’

‘You will be,’ said Ash dryly. ‘Even if there isn't an all-out war, the tribes are bound to start some sort of trouble before long, because if, there's one thing they really enjoy, it's taking a slap at the Raj. It's their favourite sport – like bull-fighting is to the Spaniards. We being the bull. A peaceful existence bores them, and if there happens to be a shortage of blood-feuds, or some fiery mullah starts calling for a
Jehad
(holy war), they sharpen up their tulwars and shoulder their muskets, and
Olé
! – they're off again.

Wally laughed, and then his face sobered again and he said thoughtfully: ‘Wigram says that if the Amir does agree to let a British Mission go to Kabul they'll take an escort with them, and he thinks that as Cavagnari is almost certain to be a member of it, the chances are that he'll see to it that the escort is drawn from the Guides. I wonder who they'll send? Faith, what wouldn't I be giving to be one of them. Just think of it – Kabul! Wouldn't you give anything to go there?’

‘No,’ Ash's tone was still dry. ‘Once was enough.’

‘Once…? Oh, of course, you've been there before. What didn't you like about it?’

‘A lot of things. It's attractive enough in its way; especially in the spring when the almond trees are in bloom and the mountains all around still white with snow. But the streets and bazaars are dirty and the houses tumble-down and shoddy, and it wasn't called the “Land of Cain” for nothing! You get the feeling that savagery is near the surface, and could break through at any moment like lava from a dormant volcano and that the line drawn between good-will and bloody violence is thinner there than anywhere else in the world. Not that Kabul belongs to the modern world any more than Bhithor does – in fact they have a lot in common: they both live in the past and are hostile to change and to strangers, while the majority of their citizens not only look like cut-throats, but can behave as such if they happen to take a dislike to you.’

Ash added that in his opinion, it was perhaps not so strange that a city reputedly founded by the world's first murderer should have a reputation for treachery and violence; or that its rulers should have been faithful to the tradition of Cain, and indulged in murder and fratricide. The past history of the Amirs being one long tale of bloodshed: fathers killing their sons, sons plotting against their fathers and each other, and uncles disposing of their nephews. ‘It's a grisly tale, and if it's true that ghosts are the unquiet spirits of people who died terrible deaths – and that there are such things as ghosts – then Kabul must be full of them. It's a haunted place, and I hope I never see it again.’

‘Well, you will if there's war,’ observed Wally, ‘because the Guides will be in it so they will.’

‘True –
if
there is a war. But speaking for myself…’ the sentence ended in a yawn, and Ash settled himself back in a crotch among the tree roots and closed his eyes against the glaring day, and presently, feeling relaxed and peaceful because he and Wally were together again, he fell asleep.

Wally sat watching him for a long time, seeing the changes that he had missed to begin with, and other things that he had never bothered to notice before: the vulnerability of that thin, reckless face, the sensitive mouth that accorded so ill with the firm obstinate chin, and the purposeful line of the black eyebrows that were at odds with a brow and temples that would have better befitted a poet or a dreamer than a soldier. It was a face at war with itself, beautifully modelled and yet somehow lacking cohesion. And it seemed to Wally that, in spite of the deep unyouthful lines that scored it and the faint scar of that old wound, the sleeper, in some ways, had not really grown up. He still saw things as wrong or right, good or bad, and fair or unfair – as children did, before they learned better. He still thought that he could do something to alter them…

All at once Wally felt deeply sorry for his friend, who thought that because a thing was ‘unfair’ it was wrong and ought to be changed, and who, being unable to look at any problem either from a strictly European or a wholly Asiatic standpoint, was deprived of the comforting armour of national prejudice and left with no defence against the regional bigotries of East and West.

Ash, like his father Hilary, was a civilized and liberal-minded man with an interested and inquiring mind. But unlike Hilary, he had never grasped that the average mind is neither liberal or inquiring, but is in the main intolerant of any attitudes except its own firmly entrenched ones. He had his own gods, but they were neither Christian nor pagan. And he was not and never had been the dashing, romantic and wholly admirable hero of Wally's early imaginings, but was as fallible as the next man – and because of his unorthodox beginnings, possibly more prone to error than most. But he was still Ash, and no one, not even Wigram, could ever take his place in Wally's affections. A hoopoe flew down and began to probe for insects in the hard-packed earth, and Wally watched it idly for a moment or two before following Ash's example and drifting off into sleep.

By the time they awoke the sun was well down and the countryside around them full of shadows. Ash fetched water from the stream, and with this and the food that Gul Baz had left them they made a frugal meal, deciding as they ate that Wally should spend the night at Attock dâk-bungalow after visiting Fatima Begum's house to meet Anjuli, and return to Mardan in the morning.

They had arrived at the house in the dusty amethyst twilight, where the gatekeeper received them incuriously and in answer to Ash's question said no, Koda Dad Khan had not come – oubtless his son, the Risaldar-Sahib, had been able to prevent his father from setting out. He took charge of the horses while Ash sent a message to the Begum, asking her permission to allow his friend, Hamilton-Sahib, to enter her house and meet his wife.

Had Anjuli been a Muslim the suggestion might well have drawn a shocked refusal from the Begum, who by now regarded herself as standing
in loco parentis
to the girl. But as Anjuli was neither a Muslim nor a maiden, and her so-called husband not only a Christian but a foreigner, the proper rules could not be expected to apply, and if Pelham-Sahib was prepared to let his men friends hob-nob with his bride, it was no concern of the Begum's. She therefore sent a servant to conduct the two men to Anjuli's room and to tell Ash that if they desired to eat together, the evening meal would be served in a few minutes' time.

The lamps had not yet been lit, but the
kus-kus
tatties had been rolled up and the high, white-washed room was palely luminous with the last of the daylight and the first glimmer of a full moon that was rising above the low, dun-coloured hills beyond Attock.

Anjuli had been standing by an open window, looking down onto the garden where birds were flocking home to roost among the fruit trees while bats flitted out from a score of dark hidden crannies to greet the night. She had not heard the footsteps on the stairs, for the sound had been lost in the chatter of quarrelling birds, and only when the door opened did she turn.

Seeing Ash, but not the man who stood in the shadows behind him, she ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. And that was how Wally had first seen her. A tall, slender girl running towards him with outstretched arms, and with such a blaze of love in her face that for a moment it seemed to him that a light shone on it. She had taken his breath away – and his heart with it.

Afterwards, sitting alone in the moonlight on the verandah of the dâk-bungalow, he found that he had no clear recollection of what she looked like. Only that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen – a princess out of a fairy-tale, fashioned from ivory and gold and jet. But then he had never before seen a well-born Indian woman, and knew nothing of the wealth of grace and loveliness that is hidden away behind the purdah screens and jealously guarded from the gaze of all strangers.

Few foreigners were privileged to see or know these women; and those few tended to be the wives of senior British officials, whose views on the charms of ‘native women’ were apt to be lukewarm, or at best, tinged with condescension. So that when Ash had tried to describe his wife, Wally had made due allowance for a man in love and supposed, indulgently, that the bride might be tolerably good looking – as were one or two of the more expensive courtesans of Ash's acquaintance, whom Wally had met in those early, carefree days in Rawalpindi: brown-skinned women who painted their eyes with
kohl,
chewed
pan
and stained the palms of their slender hands with henna; and whose supple, small-boned bodies smelled of musk and sandalwood and exuded an almost visible aura of sexuality.

Nothing that he had so far seen of India had prepared him for the sight of Anjuli. He had expected a little, dark-complexioned woman, not a long-limbed goddess – Venus Aphrodite – whose skin was paler than ripe wheat, and whose beautiful black-lashed eyes were the colour of peat-water on the moors of Kerry.

Strangely, she did not suggest the East to him, but rather the North, and gazing at her, he had been reminded of snow and pine trees and the cool fresh wind that blows in the high mountains… and of a line in a new book of poems recently sent to him by a doting Aunt – ‘
And dark and true and tender is the North
…’ Dark and true and tender; – yes, that was Anjuli. All the heroines of fiction had come true in her – she was Eve, she was Juliet, she was Helen…! “
She walks in beauty like the night, of cloudless climes and starry skies. And all that's best of dark and light meet in her aspect and her eyes,
” ’ declaimed Wally, drunk with unreasoning happiness.

He no longer blamed Ash for marrying in haste, for he could imagine himself doing exactly the same thing if he had had the luck to be in Ash's place. There could not be many women in the world like Anjuli, and having found one it would have been madness to lose her for the sake of a career. And yet… Wally sighed, and some of the euphoria of the last few hours left him. No, he would probably not have done it – not if he had been given enough time to realize what it might mean in terms of the future, because the Guides had come to count so much to him. Besides, he had cherished dreams of military glory for as long as he could remember; it was something he had grown up with and by now it was too much a part of him to be rooted out and replaced by love for a woman – even such a one as he had seen that night and lost his heart to.

All at once he was filled with gratitude towards Ash and Anjuli: and to God, Who had been good enough to allow him to meet the one woman in the world, and yet put her beyond his reach; so that by losing his heart to her he was saved for ever (or at least, for a long time to come) from falling in love with some lesser star and getting married and domesticated and losing his taste for adventure and with it, inevitably, some part of his enthusiasm for his profession and devotion to the men of his own Regiment.

Now that Ash was about to rejoin the Guides, life would be perfect, and the only cloud in Wally's sky was the fact that there were still three weeks to run before Ash returned to duty. The thought of having to wait another twenty-one days after waiting so long was suddenly unendurable – yet it would have to be endured; and at least there was work and Wigram (who was now Adjutant and a Captain) to help him through it and make the time pass quickly. He had asked Ash if he could tell Wigram about Anjuli, and been pleased though not surprised when Ash had agreed. Everyone liked Wigram, and there was no denying that it would be a relief to be able to tell him about Ash's adventures and his romantic, secret marriage, particularly now that he himself had met the bride and so felt qualified to speak in the couple's defence and persuade Wigram to take a lenient view of the whole affair…

Wally rose from the verandah chair, and having searched for something to throw at a pi-dog that sat yelping monotonously by the compound gate, discharged a well-aimed flower-pot and went in to bed humming ‘Fight the good fight with all thy might’. Which, in the circumstances, was a healthy sign, for it showed that he was returning to normal after the stresses and strains of that emotional day.