Companions of Paradise (29 page)

The old man took his grandchild into his arms, raised his eyes to an upstairs window of the ladies’ quarters, and met his sister's worried gaze.

THAT EVENING, Zulmai put his head back and swallowed the last of his tea. “You are wrong, Hassan,” he said decisively. “I saw it happen. Yusuf waited too long to kill the boy assassin. Before he pulled the trigger, the child got off a shot and alerted the guards, who fired at both of you.” He spread his hands. “How is that your fault?”

“He thought I would shoot.” Hassan sighed from his place on the other side of the fire. “But I could not.”

Zulmai smiled. “Yusuf knew you would never do it. So did I. No,” he concluded, “it was Yusuf's fate to hesitate at that moment, and then to die. My father used to say,” he added casually, “that he who takes responsibility for God's work is arrogant, while he who blames it on another man is an idolater.”

“I have not told you all of it,” Hassan added. From the way he stared into the fire, Ghulam Ali understood that they would never hear the rest of his story.

It had to do with the English lady, then. Otherwise, Hassan would have told it all.

From his vantage point near the tent doorway, Ghulam Ali watched Hassan lift his maimed hand, as if to put it into a pocket in his clothes, then change his mind and drop it onto his knee. “We are traveling too slowly,” he said abruptly.

Zulmai leaned over, reached into his saddlebag, and pulled out a brass water pipe. “We will smoke before we sleep,” he announced, in the way of a friend who knows not to pry.

He filled the water container half full, then dropped tobacco into the shallow, perforated bowl that rested on its top. He scooped a burning ember from the fire onto a perforated brass dish, and laid that over the tobacco.

The coal glowed as he sucked, his fist clenched around the mouthpiece of the pipe. The water gurgled gently as the smoke entered it, then rose in bubbles to the surface, to make its journey through the mouthpiece.

“Ah.” He sighed, blowing out a stream of smoke as he handed the pipe to Hassan. “That is good.”

The next day, as they sat before their cooking fire at Khushi, the Place of Delight, he gestured expansively. “This place is beautiful in summer,” he offered, ignoring the food freezing on his plate. “Everything is green and beautiful here, and the grapes are the sweetest you ever tasted. Khushi is a paradise in the desert.”

“Beautiful it may be,” Hassan replied shortly, “but it will not keep me here. I am going on alone. I can no longer bear to travel at this slow pace.”

“Not alone, and not yet.” Zulmai shook his head. “You will start after we cross the Logar River, and you will take two of our best-mounted guards. Your horse will easily carry you to Kabul from there, if you start before dawn and stop only to offer your prayers. We will meet in Kabul, at the Pul-e-Khishti bridge, three days after you leave.”

January 2, 1842

I
know
I agreed to do this,” Mariana said wearily, two days later, her voice muffled by her chaderi. “It is just that I'm not—”

“There is no other way,” Nur Rahman insisted. “You must do it now.”

Together, they peered north along the Kohistan Road. In the distance, five figures on horseback picked their way toward them, down the nearer Bibi Mahro hill.

“I told you they would not stay in the village for long.” Nur Rahman lifted the flap of his chaderi from his face. “The old man with the gray beard is the one you must ask for panah,” he said. “He will be riding in front.”

“Surely there is another solution,” she murmured. “Surely, if we go back to the cantonment, we can think of a better plan.”

The boy shook his head forcefully. “There is no better plan. You must act today, before it is too late.”

Desperate to find a way out of Kabul, Mariana had asked Nur Rahman to disguise her family and servants and send them to India with a nomad kafila, but the boy had refused. They would be impossible to disguise, he had said flatly. None of them resembled Afghans in anything they did, or any gesture they made. Her uncle threw back his head and guffawed when he laughed, something Afghans never did, and her aunt's gestures were too careful, as if she were holding something back. The Indian servants moved slowly, bent forward as if in deep thought, unlike his people who walked swiftly, their backs straight, their eyes on the horizon.

Mariana, he had added tactlessly, had only escaped notice because Afghan men did not waste their glances on women.

Of all the members of that household, he had said firmly, only Munshi Sahib could be hidden in Kabul until the storm blew over. Even Yar Mohammad could not pretend to be speechless forever.

“You must ask a tribal chief for panah,” he had announced.

She had agreed with him then, but now, trembling at the side of the road, she felt her courage fail.

The tribesmen were closer now, their leader riding the same bay animal Mariana had seen once before. They were terrifying to look at, swathed in heavy leather and wool, the shawls they had thrown over their turbans rendering their faces barely visible.

“But do you know this chief?” she asked for the third time that morning. “Are you certain he will—”

“I do not know him,” Nur Rahman interrupted irritably, “but I can see that he is a man of consequence, with the means to protect you and your household in comfort. That is all that matters.”

She did not move.

He gestured impatiently. “Do you think I would guide you wrong after you saved my life? Can you not understand that I am doing this for your sake, not mine? Do you not trust me?”

“Of course I trust you,” she said doubtfully, her eyes searching his through the hole in her chaderi.

“The graybeard is Pashtun,” he added. “Pashtuns are required to give asylum to anyone who asks properly. If you were holding the severed head of his only son in your hand, he would still accept your plea for protection.

“Step in front of him when he approaches. Take his stirrup in your hand, and ask for panah, as I did when I came to you. And remember, after you have laid hold of his stirrup, do
not
let go. And be honest. Tell him why you need his protection. Leave
nothing
out, or he will not help you.”

She made a small noise inside her chaderi. “Perhaps I will do it,” she murmured. “Perhaps.”

The boy shrugged angrily.

She pushed back the long sleeves of her poshteen and blew on her fingers. She made a clumsy figure, with her chaderi thrown over her heavy sheepskin cloak.

Anonymous and menacing, the horsemen advanced rapidly, weapons rattling. While Nur Rahman twitched beside her, she closed her eyes, willing herself to decide, but felt only a sickening tightness in her middle.

“Go, Khanum,” he said suddenly, and pushed her forcefully toward the riders.

Afraid to look up, weighed down by her sheepskin cloak, she stumbled to the middle of the road.

The group parted. Without seeming to register her presence, they began to ride around her.

The bay stallion with his harsh-faced rider had pulled to her right. Panting with fright and exertion, she lunged awkwardly toward him, and reached for his near stirrup.

The frozen ground felt slick beneath her feet. Her knuckles grazed a filthy boot. Her fingers found a leather strap and gripped it tightly.

The startled animal danced. Mariana stumbled, hampered by her chaderi, her boots slipping, her free hand flailing for balance.

The graybeard did not reach down to strike her, or to peel her fingers from his stirrup. Instead he spoke sharply to his mount, and the horse stood still.

“Panah,” she croaked, unable to look at his pitiless face. “Panah.”

The other horsemen had stopped, their eyes averted from her. Aware of their penetrating curiosity, Mariana stood still, listening to the blowing of the horses, and the clanking of weapons.

There were five riders including their chief, and only herself and—

Still holding the stirrup, she whirled about, searching the road. Where was Nur Rahman? Surely he had not run away….

He was still there, but only barely. Bent double, he had begun to edge away from the horses.

She was about to call out when the graybeard spoke.

“Panah?” His voice sounded strangely hollow. “You want asylum?”

He sat on his mount exactly as he had before: one hand on the reins, the other resting on his knee. His eyes, the same color as his beard, looked as cold as the sky.

“Yes.” She nodded.

Other travelers passed them. Most pretended not to notice her, but several children on a camel pointed, shouting. From the corner of her eye, she watched Nur Rahman move carefully away, abandoning her.

Be honest
, he had said.
If you were holding the severed head of his only son in your hand…

Remembering his own plea for asylum months before, she reached up with her free hand and clutched the muddy hem of the old man's coat.

“I am British,” she announced in her careful Farsi, her fingers tightening on the stirrup and the handful of sheepskin. “My people are under siege. We have committed mistakes since we came from India. I ask for protection for myself and for my family. I ask to be taken back safely to India.”

“And,” he inquired, “which mistakes have your people made?”

Leave nothing out
, Nur Rahman had said,
or he will not help you.

She swallowed. “Without asking the Afghan people's permission, we deposed Amir Dost Mohammad and put Shah Shuja on the throne in his place. We tried to force the Kabulis and others to do our bidding. We taxed the chiefs, we broke our promises, we—”

“Enough.” The old man raised the hand from his knee. Mariana saw that it shook slightly. “You need say no more. How many are in your household?”

If she had won, Mariana felt no triumph. For better or worse, the British were her people, and she had betrayed them to save her own skin. She dropped her hands and stood in the road, her shoulders drooping.

“How many?” the chief repeated in his hollow voice.

“Between twenty-two and twenty-seven.” She forced herself to think. She must leave room for Lady Macnaghten and Lady Sale and her pregnant daughter. And what of those wan, frightened families…

“Perhaps a few more,” she added. “There are children.”

He nodded. “You will come with me. Zarma Jan, take the other one.”

Nur Rahman began to run.

Before she could protest, before she could argue that this was not what she had expected, that she must return to her people first, the old man leaned over, seized her upper arm, and hauled her onto his saddle. Terrified of falling, she swung one leg over the horse's back and threw her arms around his thickly clad body.

Scuffling behind her, followed by a squawk of protest, told her that Nur Rahman had not escaped.

The chief kicked his mount to a gallop.

Never in Mariana's life had she ridden astride. Too frightened to breathe, she clung to the old tribesman, her eyes shut against the whipping tail of his turban, her hands slipping dangerously on the rough leather of his coat.

They rode east toward the looming Bala Hisar, and thundered across a wooden bridge over the Kabul River. As they rode on and on, she felt, rather than saw, the Hindu Kush mountains looming in front of them.

At last the horse slowed, then stopped.

She opened her eyes. All five horses now stood still in front of a square, mud brick fort with heavy, octagonal watchtowers at its corners. An expanse of snow-covered fields stretched away from it, toward the steep hills. Wind rattled the leafless branches of nearby trees.

Shouts came from above. Men gestured over a curving parapet. A moment later the fort's double doors swung inward, and they rode into a large, odd-shaped courtyard with several full-sized buildings jutting into it.

As soon as the door had thudded shut behind them, the men dismounted. A group of small boys in skullcaps had gathered. They stared at her and Nur Rahman. The chief beckoned to one of them and sent him racing off with, Mariana supposed, the news of their arrival.

Before she could ask where they were, or whose fort it was, the men all strode away and vanished into a nearby building, leaving Mariana and Nur Rahman to find their own way off the horses.

Mariana scrambled to the ground, still breathing hard from the journey, but Nur Rahman did not move. He wept, hunched over, in the saddle.

“They will kill me,” he blubbered. “They will cut me to pieces with their long knives.”

“What do you mean?” Fear clutched at Mariana. “You promised me we'd be safe here.”

“I said
you
would be safe.” He wiped his face with a corner of his chaderi. “I will die horribly at the hands of the women of this house,” he whispered, “when they discover that I, a man, have entered their quarters.”

Attracted by their voices, the men on the roof now peered down into the courtyard, long-barreled jezails in their hands.

Of course the women would kill Nur Rahman. And God knew what the men would do. Mariana looked quickly about her. There was no way out now, but even if there were, the flat fields surrounding the fort would offer Nur Rahman no protective cover as he ran for his life.

She hurried to him. “Come,” she urged. “Staying on that horse will only make things worse.”

As he slid to the ground, two women in brown chaderis appeared in the doorway of a second building. They beckoned, two mud-colored ghosts, their thoughts impossible to divine.

Left with no choice, Mariana and Nur Rahman crossed the courtyard and followed the women into an inner building whose own courtyard boasted a tree and several tethered horses and goats.

Nur Rahman's whole body trembled. “Pashtun women have great power,” he confided. “It is they who decide who should live and who should die.”

Ahead of them, the women threw back their chaderis and pointed, smiling, to a corner room whose window overlooked the courtyard. The older of the two said something in Pushto.

Nur Rahman nodded for them both, then crept through the doorway behind Mariana.

The room was bare, save for a single string bed against one wall. They sat down on it together.

“I cannot bear to think of you dying to save my life,” she said in a small voice.

“When I die,” he whispered, “I hope to go to Paradise. It is my only dream, for in Paradise are all the things I have longed for in this life.”

“What you have longed for?”

“Friends,” he said simply. “I want to recline on beautiful carpets with loving companions, to eat the perfect fruits of the Garden and to drink from the fountain of Salsabil.”

The perfect fruits of the Garden.
No one had ever given Mariana such a vivid description of Heaven, not even her father, whom she had peppered with questions when she was twelve, after her little brother's sad death.

“Most of all,” Nur Rahman added, “I long to see the face of the Beloved.”

“The Beloved.” Her God had always been the Heavenly Father. Saying Nur Rahman's words aloud, she found herself filled with longing.

Munshi Sahib had told her once that Christians and Muslims shared the same God. Of course her father would disagree.

From the wistfulness of his tone, the boy had never had a friend. What sort of life had he led?

“But I will never be accepted into the Garden,” he added mournfully.

“What?” Mariana blinked. “Why?”

“I have committed many sins.” His head lowered, he picked at his fingers. “My sins are numerous, and too grave to be forgiven.”

No. This was too cruel. It was true that Nur Rahman looked distressingly unsavory, but what of his kindness toward Munshi Sahib? What of his efforts to save her family? What of his courage at this moment, as he sat uncomplaining in this room with its window onto the courtyard, waiting to die?

“I am certain,” Mariana said decisively, “that God will forgive all your sins. Why would He not? You are young, almost a child. God always forgives children.”