Caravans Page 5

  The old warrior put his arm about me and said, “Monsieur Miller, concerning the Jaspar girl. We do have one bit of additional information. Perhaps I shouldn’t call it information. Nothing but absurd speculation, I suspect. Anyway, it’s so bizarre, really, that I won’t suffer myself to repeat it. Perhaps it represents what happened, but when you get to Kandahar you’ll undoubtedly hear the rumor. So you judge for yourself.”

  “You won’t tell me?” I begged.

  “I would abhor having in your file my name even remotely attached to such a rumor. I’ve my reputation to consider. But you’re a younger man. You can risk such embarrassments, and I wish you Godspeed.” I was always astonished to rediscover that Muslims shared our God in exactly the form we used Him. There it was, old Shah Khan wishing me Godspeed, and there could be no doubt that he was referring to the One God.

  “Papers authorizing your travel to Kandahar and wherever else you may have to go in the area will be at your office in the morning,” the old man assured me.

  “Thank you, Shah Khan,” I replied, and when he opened the door leading to the waiting jeep I saw his son, Moheb Khan, once more upon the white horse, leaping and twisting and roaring off across the snow. As he disappeared in a cloud of flakes I thought: That must be the only horse in the world branded with a W for the Wharton School in Philadelphia.

  In Afghanistan almost every building bears jagged testimony to some outrage. Some, like the walled fortress now owned by Shah Khan, were built to withstand sieges, and did so many times. Others were the scenes of horrible murder and retaliation. In distant areas, scars still remained of Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan or Tamerlane or Nadir Shah, of Persia. Was there ever a land so overrun by terror and devastation as Afghanistan?

  Yet of all the buildings which testified to acts of violence none was more evocative than the group that huddled within the British compound, for here scenes of terrible defeat and massacre had taken place, here loyalties were betrayed, here brave men died with daggers across their throats, and the fact that the British still maintained friendly relations with Afghanistan was tribute to English resilience.

  In 1946 the British compound was probably the most civilized center in Afghanistan, a fortress of its own well out into the country, with its private gardens, tennis courts and restaurants. It was here that the European community, in which the Americans were grudgingly included, met on long winter evenings to read plays. Tonight, fresh from the typewriters of the English, Italian and American embassies, in that order, the play was to be Born Yesterday, a boisterous comedy which had opened in New York only the month before. Ingrid, a stately Swedish girl, was scheduled to read the part of Billie Dawn. An Englishman who imagined that he could talk like an American gangster was to be Harry Brock, and I was to read the part of the New Republic reporter.

  Italians, Frenchmen and the Turkish ambassador’s wife completed the cast, and looking back upon such readings I am still impressed by the intellectual pleasure we had when the snow was so high in Kabul. We were, in a very real sense, cut off from everything that civilized men and women had come to take for granted: books, magazines, theaters, hotels, music. All we had were our own personalities, with what understandings and memories we had acquired through the years; and it was reassuring to discover what a vivid social life was possible under those circumstances. Never have I known better wit nor more exciting conversation than in the crowded little rooms of Kabul. Never have I known a group of people to be so self-sufficient, so enchanting as human beings. In those years I used to see the same two dozen people night after night, and they were rewarding beyond expectation, partly because any escape from them or their individualities was impossible.

  On this night our reading—in which we were peremptorily handed pieces of paper we had not seen before and directed to read specific parts, growing into them as the night progressed—was delayed because Miss Maxwell, from my office, was late in arriving, and since she had typed Act Three and was to read one of the minor parts, we felt the least we could do was to wait for her. However, our host, the British ambassador, found Miss Maxwell’s tardiness embarrassing since he was at the moment entertaining Sir Herbert Chinnery, the stiff, mustachioed Inspector Ordinary for Asia, whose duty it was to report on conditions at the British embassy in Afghanistan as he had just done for the embassy in Persia, and it was important that Sir Herbert be pleased.

  “Don’t worry,” Sir Herbert said graciously, putting us all at ease. “I’ve learned that Americans are rarely punctual.”

  I replied that I was sure Miss Maxwell must have met with some misfortune—temporary, I hoped—for she had that very morning risen at six in order to type her share of the play and had then, at some risk to herself, insisted upon delivering it to the Italian embassy, to which Signorina Risposi could testify. “As a matter of fact,” I concluded, “in performing her duty Miss Maxwell was subjected to harsh treatment at the hands of three mullahs …”

  “The usual?” Sir Herbert asked.

  “Spitting, jostling, curses in Pashto,” I explained.

  “That’s the second time it’s happened this week,” the ambassador said.

  “I’ve a mind to advise Whitehall,” Sir Herbert confided, “that all English girls in Kabul go into chaderi immediately.”

  “Oh, dear, no!” squealed a peaches-and-cream English girl called Gretchen Askwith. “Oh, Sir Herbert. No, I beg you.”

  It always seemed to me that the British went a little far in their coyness, but Gretchen Askwith was quite the loveliest of the unmarried white girls in Kabul, and it ill behooved me to think poorly of her, for although there were six or eight eligible young European men among the various embassies, I appeared to be the one most likely to win Gretchen’s attention … that is, if she didn’t discover that I was Jewish, a fact which none of the ferangi embassies yet knew.

  There was not good blood between the British and the Americans in Afghanistan. The English tolerated us, and that’s about all. Captain Verbruggen was thought to be a great bore and unlettered as well. Our secretaries were too pretty and too highly paid. Our Marines were undisciplined. And men like me were much too brash. In fact, about the only thing American that impressed the British was my ability to speak Pashto, but this was diminished by the fact that three of their chaps did too, including one chinless young man who spoke Russian and Persian as well. Still, we were tolerated because our kitchens served excellent food and our bars were generally open.

  “There she is now!” Sir Herbert cried, with that boyish excitement that even the oldest Englishmen often retain, but when the door opened it was not Miss Maxwell but an unexpected guest, Moheb Khan. He was now dressed in a blue Bond Street pin-stripe worsted, with handsome brown leather shoes and a London shirting. He had transformed himself into a most proper diplomat, and in this guise presented himself to the ambassador.

  “On three occasions, sir, you’ve asked me to these readings. May I choose my own time?”

  “My dear fellow, you honor us!”

  “I hear the play’s very funny. I’d not have known about it except that I stopped by the Italian embassy and was told of its merit by Signorina Risposi.” He bowed toward the Italian typist, who was quite plump.

  “She told you the truth,” Sir Herbert interrupted. “Our man in Washington saw it last month. Laughed so much he airmailed me a script.”

  There was a moment of emptiness, into which the Swedish girl said loudly, “Couldn’t we start? Miss Maxwell doesn’t participate until Act Two.”

  “I think it would be better if we waited,” Sir Herbert insisted. “After all, the dear girl did much of the typing, Mr. Miller informs me.”

  Miss Askwith added, “And after her bout with the mullahs …”

  “Do you think the mullahs are gaining ground in their battle for control?” Sir Herbert asked Moheb Khan.

  “No,” the Afghan replied cautiously. “On the other hand, they’re not losing ground, either.”

  “Some time
ago there was talk of discarding the chaderi,” Sir Herbert suggested, and our discussion proceeded from that point. I had found, even in my short stay, that Afghanistan had two topics of conversation which, were positively guaranteed to excite participation: the chaderi and the latest cure for diarrhea, for with the kind of drinking water available in Kabul, this latter scourge was sooner or later bound to infect everyone. Sure enough, not long after the chaderi was disposed of I heard Signorina Risposi advising the group.

  “A German doctor has invented something much better than entero-vioform. It’s called sulfas, I believe. Developed during the war.”

  “Does it work?” the Swedish girl was asking.

  “My theory,” Sir Herbert interrupted, “has always been to fill the lower bowel with some bland bulk producer like one of the new mucils. You’d be surprised how this slows down the bowel action.”

  “Really?” the Turkish ambassador’s wife pursued. “I’ve relied on entero-vioform, and it seems to concentrate rather effectively on the upper bowel. But when it fails, it fails.”

  The dialogue now switched to French, for one of the scientists in that country had developed a radically new drug which the French ambassador’s wife was explaining, and I thought: This must be the only capital in the world where a sophisticated international audience can discuss with all seriousness the control of the upper and lower bowel. Yet no aspect of Afghan life was more significant than this, for when the virulent Asiatic diarrhea, known locally as the Kabul Trots, struck, it was not like a stomach ache back home. It was a sickness which nauseated, embarrassed, debilitated and outraged the human body. In a land where toilet facilities were not excessive, diarrhea was a scourge, and I was willing to gamble that not a single person in that softly lit room, lined with books, was without his or her secret vial of pills and even more secret roll of personal toilet paper.

  “What do you do for the disease?” the French ambassador’s wife asked Moheb Khan in French.

  “It’s very simple,” Moheb replied in lilting English. “You Europeans are always shocked at our open water supply into which little boys urinate. Or worse. But what happens? From drinking such water most of our children die, and that’s neither a curse nor a blessing. They die and that’s that. So the life expectancy in Afghanistan is about twenty-three years. But that figure doesn’t mean what it says, not really. For if by chance you are one of the babies who does not die, you are inoculated against positively everything. Look about you. See the large number of our men who live to an extreme old age. With the women, I can assure you, it is the same. If you drink our water till you are seven, nothing can kill you but a bullet.” He thumped his chest and laughed.

  A rotund English doctor, on temporary duty in Kabul, said quietly, “You know, of course, he’s not teasing. Take poliomyelitis, which strikes so many children in an antiseptic country like America …”

  “Here no child gets polio,” Moheb Khan insisted. “But you Europeans who come to us later in life, when you’ve not had the inoculations our water imparts … How many cases have we had of polio among the Europeans?”

  “Many, even in my time,” the fat doctor concurred.

  There was a sound at the door, and in a moment Miss Maxwell appeared, flushed from the deep cold and from some experience which had left her stunned. “It’s too much!” she cried in a kind of wild exhilaration.

  “What happened?” many voices cried.

  “This morning,” she said excitedly. “The three mullahs screaming at me.”

  “We know about that unfortunate affair,” Sir Herbert said consolingly.

  “I didn’t mind it,” Miss Maxwell said. “I left Omaha to see Afghanistan, and I love it.” Seeing Moheb she ran to him and took his hands. “What do you suppose I just saw? Not two hundred yards from the embassy?”

  “More mullahs?” Moheb asked quietly.

  “Wolves!” Miss Maxwell reported. “Yes, a huge pack of wolves. They were running across an open field where the snow was thick.”

  “The storms have driven them down from the mountains,” Moheb Khan explained. “At this time of the year …”

  “Would they attack … a man?” someone asked.

  “They’re ravenously hungry,” Moheb replied. “In the morning you may hear … Well, they are wolves, down from the Hindu Kush.”

  The concept of wild wolves, running in a pack through the outskirts of Kabul, running until they found a straggler, either animal or human, cast a spell of terror over the group that had gathered to read a comedy. We felt chilly, and Sir Herbert directed his Afghan houseboy to throw on more logs. We felt very close to each other, and our group became more compact. Miss Maxwell, I am glad to say, did not try to monopolize the center of attention. She simply reported, “They were not at all like the wolves in Walt Disney. They were animals, great shaggy, terrifying animals.”

  “Did they have long teeth?” Signorina Risposi asked.

  “I don’t know. At such a moment… You know, they dashed right at our car. If I’d been driving I don’t know what I’d have done. But our boy, Sadruddin, was in charge and he blew the horn sharply. Like one huge animal with many legs they swerved away and disappeared.”

  “Where?” the Swedish girl asked.

  “Toward town,” Miss Maxwell said, pointing toward where we all lived.

  “It’s one reason why we built high walls,” Moheb Khan reflected in French.

  “This is a land of startling contrasts,” the French ambassador agreed.

  “Do the wolves surprise you?” Moheb asked the general audience in English. “Before we read the play, tell me. Do the wolves surprise you?”

  “No,” the French ambassador replied in English. “When we come to Kabul we expect… Well, we expect the Hindu Kush.”

  “But we are never prepared for what we expect,” Sir Herbert observed. He, too, was willing to postpone the reading of the play. After all, in winter in Kabul it mattered little when a party broke up … ten o’clock, or one, or four. “I remember when I was stationed in India. It was before the war.” He didn’t say, “They were good days, those,” but we knew he intended us to think so. “I was hunting in Kashmir and I announced one day that I was going out with my native bearers to bag me a Kashmiri brown bear.

  “A man in the bar at Srinagar, a total stranger, asked, ‘Are you quite sure you want to shoot a Kashmiri bear, Sir Herbert?’ I replied that I intended doing so, and doubtless my manner implied that I was irritated with his question.”

  The Afghan servant came in to place upon the fire a few precious logs, and each of us drew closer to someone else, for the wind outside was audible. “The stranger rejected my rebuff and asked again ‘Sir Herbert, do you know anything of the Kashmiri bear?’ I replied, with some irritation, ‘It’s a bear. I’ve seen it at the zoo in Simla. Roger Whats-hisname shot one.’ The man pressed me, ‘But have you shot one?’

  “‘No,’ I replied, and the man said sternly, ‘Then you have no right to have an opinion upon this matter. Sir Herbert, you must not shoot this particular bear, really you mustn’t.’ I thanked him for his pains and marched out of the bar, but on the way to the shoot, one of my guides asked me in Kashmiri if I had ever hunted the bears of his country, and when I said no, he suggested that we go back. This so whetted my appetite that I spurred the horses and we came to that part of Kashmir where the brown bears are to be found.

  “We hunted for some time and saw nothing, but toward dusk we came upon a thicket, and although I didn’t get a clear sight on the beast, I could see it was a bear, and I let fly. I didn’t kill the bear, and more’s the pity, for I had wounded it mortally.”

  Sir Herbert stopped his narrative, and for a moment I thought he had undertaken in his telling rather more than he had anticipated. He did not want to continue, that was obvious, but he took a gulp of whiskey and said, “I suppose no one in this room has ever heard a Kashmiri bear. He has a voice like a human being … like a woman in extreme pain. When he is wounded, he beats
his way through the thicket crying like a stricken mother. You can almost hear the words. He moans and wails and is obviously about to die of mortal pain. It is …” He fumbled for words, extended his right hand and punched the air. “It is …”

  From a place near the fire Lady Margaret said, “It is shattering to the mind. Sir Herbert wanted to leave the thicket, but the bearers warned him that he must finish off the bear. That was his duty. So he plunged in—the men told me—but the bear had limped off into the deeper woods.” Husband and wife fell silent, and we listened to the rising wind, blowing down the last of the winter’s blizzards.

  “I tracked that sobbing bear for about an hour,” Sir Herbert said quietly. “It was easy, because constantly the beast screamed and wept. It was positively uncanny. That bear was not an animal. It was all the grieved things that men shoot, the partridges, the deer, the rabbits. I tell you, that bear spoke to me, crying out in its pain. I finally found it exhausted by a tree. Even as I came upon it, it wept new laments. By God, I tell you that bear …”

  “Did you shoot him?” the French ambassador asked in French.

  “Yes. I don’t know how, but I did. Then I rushed back to Srinagar to find the man who had warned me in the bar, but he was gone.”

  “What is the point of this story, Sir Herbert?” Moheb Khan asked. “Surely if tonight we shoot a wolf it will not behave so.”

  “The point is, Moheb Khan, that none of us in this room was prepared for what we expected in Afghanistan. You, Miss Maxwell, didn’t your government in Washington hand you a neatly typed report on Kabul? Mean temperature. Dress warmly. Expect dysentery.”

  “Yes,” Miss Maxwell laughed.

  “And it was all the truth, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”