Part 34 (1/2)

Yea, enter thou My Heaven!”

After murmuring the proper blessings, she folded the book into its silk wrappings, and stood up.

As she lifted it to its accustomed place on a high shelf in her room, a terrified wail came from the end of the corridor, where the children were waiting for their breakfast.

A moment later, a twelve-year-old girl pushed Safiya's door curtain aside, and carried Saboor into the room.

His screams were deep and throaty. His face was slick with tears. His eyes were focused inward. Beads of perspiration dotted his hairline.

He did not seem to notice Safiya bending over him. He stared through her, as if she were not there.

She made no effort to soothe him. Instead, while his trembling cousin held him, she gripped him by the arm. ”Who is it, Saboor?” she demanded, shaking him. ”Is it your Abba? Is it Ha.s.san?”

His mouth stretched wide, he shook his head.

”Is it your An-nah?” she insisted. ”Is it Mariam? Speak Speak, Saboor.”

He nodded.

”Put him down, Ayesha,” she ordered.

When he was on his feet, she took his hand. ”Come, child,” she said decisively, ”we have work to do.”

Only then did Saboor stop screaming.

”Call all the ladies and older girls,” Safiya ordered, as she led him, still gulping, into the sitting room. ”I need all of you.”

The women crowded around her, staring at the child. ”Why do you need us, Bhaji?” they asked. ”What is wrong with Saboor?”

Without replying, Safiya took her accustomed place on the floor and drew the child down beside her.

When the ladies had seated themselves, murmuring with curiosity, she cleared her throat.

”Today,” she announced, wrapping a stout arm about Saboor's shoulders, ”we will perform the Uml of Lost Persons for Saboor's stepmother Mariam.

”Because Saboor is, by Allah's grace, able to see what we cannot,” she added, ”we have come to know she is in danger.”

The ladies cried out. Safiya gestured for silence.

”His gift also allows us to act swiftly on her behalf, so we may hope that our help arrives in time.

”While the preparations are being made,” she went on, ”you will all learn a phrase in Sindhi which is part of the uml. It does not matter whether or not we speak the Sindhi language, but we must p.r.o.nounce the words properly.

”If we perform the uml correctly, we will, Inshallah, save Mariam from whatever peril she is facing. In any case, we will, in due course, learn the truth of her circ.u.mstances.”

Safiya's gap-toothed sister-in-law spoke for the ladies. ”Never before,” she said formally, ”have we been asked to partic.i.p.ate in an uml. We are proud to do so, and will try our very best.”

”In the meanwhile,” Safiya announced fiercely, ”no matter how curious we may be to know his story, we may not not upset Saboor by asking him what he has seen.” upset Saboor by asking him what he has seen.”

Two servants were sent to bring a tall spinning wheel from one of the downstairs storerooms. Under Safiya's direction, it was set up in an unused chamber, and prepared with a continuous skein of cotton leading from the big wheel to the small wheel, and back again.

Other servants found a heavy curtain and hung it in the doorway, to shut the room off from the rest of the ladies' quarters.

A straw stool was set in front of the wheel.

As soon as room and wheel were ready, the ladies began their work.

One by one, instructed by Safiya Sultana, they drew the curtain aside, slipped into the room, and took their turns at the wheel, whispering the strange message that called the lost person home. One by one, after their long, difficult turns, concentrating on their recitations, never allowing the wheel to stop, they withdrew to lie down until their turn came again.

”How long will it take?” asked Ha.s.san's gap-toothed aunt, when her turn was finished.

”I do not know, Rehmana,” replied Safiya, ”but I can tell you this. For Mariam, the result of our work may come quite soon, but since she is far away, the news of her whereabouts and condition may take time to reach us. Until then we must perform the uml without stopping. It is difficult work, but it must be done.

”And now,” she added, ”let us wash for our afternoon prayers.”

FIFTY FEET from Nur Rahman's body, two Indian soldiers had fallen together, their arms and legs entwined in death. What might be a bundle of rags near them was, Mariana knew, a frozen woman with an infant in her arms.

Nur Rahman's chaderi was still beneath his head. Mariana removed it and spread it over his body.

An elderly red-coated straggler toiled past her, his head drooping. He was a native officer with gray, snow-encrusted mustaches. He looked old enough to be Mariana's grandfather.

Beyond him lay Harry Fitzgerald and the now-abandoned gun.

Before she could go to Fitzgerald, half a dozen Afghan riders appeared from a grove of leafless trees and trotted toward the old sepoy, who trudged on, ignoring them.

”Look out!” she cried, but it was hopeless.

The first horseman bent casually from his saddle, and in one graceful, backhanded motion, sliced the old soldier nearly in half.

He fell, spurting blood, without uttering a sound.

Numb with terror, Mariana watched the hors.e.m.e.n cut down another male marcher, then another. One by one, freezing, starving, and ignored, the wailing women sank to the snow.

Desperate for a place to hide, Mariana turned back to Nur Rahman's shrouded corpse. She threw aside his chaderi, then tugged at his body, her teeth gritted, until she had wrested it out of its sheepskin cloak.

She spread the poshteen open on the snow, then took off her own, covered herself with it and rolled into a lonely, frightened, poorly hidden ball.

If she survived, she would find her way back to the city. To do so, she would have to retrace the army's b.l.o.o.d.y march, and risk being killed by pursuing tribesmen. But even if no one cut her down, how would she fare, alone in this bitter cold? It must be at least six miles to Kabul. Her hands and feet had already lost their feeling. She had not eaten since the previous afternoon.

Desperately cold and frightened, she waited for someone to come, s.n.a.t.c.h away her protecting sheepskin, and cut her throat, but in time, the shots ceased, and the cries of the wounded tapered off.

The hors.e.m.e.n seemed to have gone, perhaps to follow the column, looking for more people to kill.

When she sat up, an icy wind burned her ears. She got back into her sheepskin; then, in spite of Nur Rahman's warning, she flung her chaderi over her head, needing its thin cotton to keep out some of the cold.

Praying that the hors.e.m.e.n would not return, she toiled over to Fitzgerald.

He had been shot through the neck. He lay faceup in a scarlet pool of frozen blood, his beard encrusted with snow, his eyes half open.