Part 8 (1/2)
”We must give him something-attar, honey from the Safed Koh, or a bag of walnuts. He lives,” he added, ”on the offerings of people such as yourself.”
As they prepared to continue their journey, a long file of camels with bulging loads pa.s.sed by, each animal swaying from side to side, in the manner of a kafila on the move. Uzbeks in striped silk chapans chapans strode alongside their swaying charges, frowning as they marched, as if walking itself were a serious occupation. Like everyone else on the road, they gave no sign of having noticed Mariana and her companion. strode alongside their swaying charges, frowning as they marched, as if walking itself were a serious occupation. Like everyone else on the road, they gave no sign of having noticed Mariana and her companion.
”Why are you walking like an old lady?” Nur Rahman demanded a quarter of an hour later, as they crossed a narrow pedestrian bridge leading directly over the Kabul River and into the city. ”Everyone is looking. They can see your big foreign boots.”
”I did not ask to cross this horrible bridge,” Mariana snapped as she advanced wide-legged across the trembling planks, her twigs clutched in cloth-covered arms. She jerked her head. ”Why have we not taken the brick one over there?”
”You complained so much,” he replied reasonably, ”that I took the shorter route.”
By the time they entered the city, Mariana was too hot and irritated to speak. In front of her, Nur Rahman flitted along the wall of an enormous walled garden; he hurried from twisting street to street, his twigs balanced gracefully, moving easily past the doorways of houses and through the city's various bazaars, where goods were displayed in colorful heaps.
The crowds were dense. Slight men in embroidered caps walked shoulder to shoulder with wild-haired country folk and n.o.ble-faced old men in elaborate turbans. Donkeys, horses, and camels pa.s.sed by, loaded with riders or goods. A few women pa.s.sed, some holding brightly colored shawls over their faces, some in chaderis, all following a few paces behind their men. Two tall men in dark blue strode past, the skins of snow leopards thrown over their shoulders.
For all Mariana's annoyance, it was fortunate that Nur Rahman had agreed to come with her. Without him, she would have needed Theseus's ball of string to find her way about this labyrinthine city.
After pa.s.sing through the wood market with its sounds of rhythmic chopping, they turned into a long, straight bazaar full of armorers, saddlers, and bookbinders, and a shop selling tiny bottles of heavily scented oil. There they stopped. At Nur Rahman's direction, Mariana bought the most expensive one. A trace of it perfumed the back of her hand, where the shopkeeper had put a single drop. Its complicated sweetness made her think of Ha.s.san.
They turned a sharp corner, pa.s.sed through a medieval-looking doorway with great metal studs, and entered a lane so constricted that the sunlight did not reach the dusty cobblestones, although it was only eleven in the morning. If she reached out, Mariana could have touched the walls on both sides of the alley. She held her skirts aside from a burbling waste gutter that ran at the alley's edge.
”We are in the mohalla mohalla of Bagh Ali Mardan Khan.” Nur Rahman's voice lifted with happiness. ”This is where I used to live. Haji Khan's house is close by here.” of Bagh Ali Mardan Khan.” Nur Rahman's voice lifted with happiness. ”This is where I used to live. Haji Khan's house is close by here.”
Mariana peered right and left through her peephole. The buildings were made of unbaked mud bricks between tall wooden uprights. Many had elegant balconies, held up by wooden posts, and elaborately carved doors. All had latticework window shutters that moved up and down. The upper windows stood open in the heat. A shadowy figure appeared in a doorway, then drew back inside. A battered-looking, long-haired cat slunk along one wall. Mariana smelled sewage, charcoal smoke, and burning fat.
A moment later, Nur Rahman stopped short. ”This is the house.” He pointed to a high wooden door with a heavy lintel.
He hammered on it, balancing his twigs with one hand.
For a time, no one came. Fearing someone would appear asking questions, Mariana glanced behind her. ”Perhaps we should have-”
Nur Rahman's only response was to hammer more energetically.
The door swung inward. An old man wearing broken shoes looked them up and down. ”Peace,” he offered, a hand over his heart.
”Peace,” Mariana replied, craning to see inside. The man stepped back and let them into a small, cobbled courtyard. A cow stood tethered to a tree in one corner. A nightingale in a wicker birdcage swung from a branch above its head. It was not a rich man's courtyard, but it offered peace, along with the smell of cow dung.
To her left, under a vine-covered portico, a door stood open. Beside it, a pile of discarded shoes indicated the presence of a number of men. A few long-barreled jezails with curved, decorated wooden stocks leaned against a corner. Two or three fierce-looking knives lay on the portico floor.
A rasping voice came from within. ”What you have not understood, Hashmat Jan,” the voice decreed in Persian, ”is that Paradise is for the soul soul, not the body. body.”
”True.” A different, warmer voice intoned a few verses of rhythmic Arabic, then s.h.i.+fted to Persian. ”In Sura Ha Mim Sura Ha Mim, it is written: ”Therein shall ye have All that your souls Shall desire; therein Shall ye have all That ye ask for!”
”I already know what I desire,” put in a third, young-sounding voice. ”I have been promised virgins and wine-”
”Virgins! Wine! You, Hashmat, are a fool,” rasped the first voice.
”Haji Khan,” the doorkeeper announced, ”guests have come!”
”Oh, you who stand outside,” said the voice, ”enter.”
Mariana put down her twigs and pulled off her riding boots. She had intended to tell Nur Rahman to wait outside while she met privately with Haji Khan, but such a meeting was clearly impossible. Judging from all those shoes and weapons, the room was full to bursting with Afghan men.
She would never be able to ask her question now.
She stepped over the threshold on stocking feet, and found herself in a windowless chamber, whose only illumination came from the open doorway behind her, and from a small, filigreed copper lamp at the back of the room.
The lamp shone weakly onto the faces of a dozen turbaned men who sat shoulder to shoulder upon a floor covered with layers of tribal rugs. Some of the men looked like the fierce, ragged men she had seen walking on the road. Others, who wore clean, starched clothing, looked like Afghan versions of Ha.s.san's family members. One or two of the group seemed to carry a special authority. Perhaps they, too, were Followers of the Path.
She hesitated in the doorway. The gatekeeper had failed to say she was a woman. Was she really welcome among all these men?
Certain she was not, she glanced quickly about her, taking in as much as she could before she was asked to leave.
Embroidered hangings of every conceivable hue, some new, some rotting with age, covered the walls of the room. One or two of them were decorated with great wheel-like patterns. Others were thickly covered in triangles of bright silk st.i.tching. Still others had been sewn with small, irregularly shaped mirrors that gleamed in the lamplight.
A heavy, sweet scent, akin to the one she had bought in the market, hung in the air, eclipsing the smell of the courtyard.
At the back of the room, a spa.r.s.ely bearded man sat cross-legged upon a string bed. His face was soft-featured, not sharply boned like those of the men who crowded around him. A smoking chillum stood beside him on the floor.
Where his pupils should have been, his eyes were white.
He beckoned to her. ”Come closer,” he ordered.
The men moved aside without speaking to let her pa.s.s. The blind man pointed to a straw stool beside him.
The room was very hot. Not knowing what to do with her tiny gift, she laid it hesitantly on a square of cloth beside him. She groped for her handkerchief and mopped her face under her veil.
”May peace be upon you, Haji Khan.” Nur Rahman's pleading voice came from the doorway. ”May I pay my respects?”
”Pay them from where you are standing. You have no need of me. But you, Khanum,” the blind man turned to Mariana, ”you have something to ask me.”
For all the harsh sound of his voice, the man wore a benign expression. He tilted his head, as if he could imagine her face by listening to her breathe. Behind her the Afghans s.h.i.+fted and murmured. The pipe beside her gave off a bitter smoke.
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Confusion, not embarra.s.sment, stopped her from asking, in that male and public company, whether Ha.s.san still loved her, and if he did not, whether she should marry Fitzgerald. Those questions, so urgent when she had embarked on this adventure, now shrivelled to nothing before the sightless Bengali in his odd, perfumed chamber.
Prompted by Haji Khan and his surroundings, another more pressing question arose in their place. Powerful and inarticulate, it tugged at her, begging to be asked.
She had no idea what it was.
Haji Khan closed his eyes. ”You are not yet ready, Khanum,” he said, moving his head to and fro, ”to know the answer to your question. But do not worry. It will come to you of its own accord, at the proper time.”
Your question. Which one? She opened her mouth to ask, and saw that he had turned away from her. Which one? She opened her mouth to ask, and saw that he had turned away from her.
Behind him on the wall hung an open cupboard, divided into small compartments, each one containing many small rolls of paper. He felt among them, his fingers fluttering, then pulled out a paper and laid it next to Mariana's little bottle of perfume.
”Read this eleven times every morning, and every evening,” he said as he drew back his hand. ”Your answer will come in due course.”
But which answer was that? ”Haji Sahib,” she asked quickly, ”please tell me-”
”You may visit me again,” he added, as if she had not spoken.
Had she been dismissed? Mariana took the little paper and glanced behind her. Nur Rahman beckoned urgently from the doorway.