A Beggar at the Gate (18 page)

“ ‘I will find the beggar who gave me my magical carpet,’ he said to himself. ‘I will give him my last coin, and then I will ask him the way to the fragrant garden of my beloved. For if I cannot return there, I will die of grief.’

“For days, the prince searched fruitlessly. As time went on, he began to look like a beggar himself. He grew weak and thin, but he would not use his coin to buy food, for he could think only of finding his way back to the lost garden of his dream.

“One evening, as he sat, ragged and starving, near the door of the little teashop, he saw a child covered with sores, her hair matted and unclean, trying to beg for food. After some time in which no one but the prince seemed to notice her, she dropped the filthy little hand she had been holding out and crept to the corner of a stairway, where she lay down, a small bundle of misery, and closed her eyes.”

A wispy little girl in front began to snuffle. As Safiya went on with her story, a woman draped an arm about the girl's thin shoulders and murmured into her ear. Mariana dropped her eyes, imagining Hassan sitting tired and distracted on the teashop step, exiled from Paradise. Surely Safiya did not mean the divorce

“The prince took the little coin in his hand, the same coin he had hoarded even to starvation, believing that nothing could be more important than finding his way back to the garden of his beloved. But now he saw that he could never reach that fragrant paradise at the cost of a child's life.

“Stooping from weakness, he entered the shop, bought bread and tea, and carried it carefully outside.

“As the little girl sat up and took the first swallow of tea and the first bite of bread, the beggar he had sought for so long appeared beside the prince.

“ ‘O prince,’ he rasped, ‘Allah Most Gracious forgives all who repent.’

“ ‘O beggar,’ sighed the prince, ‘I had hoped to give you my last coin, but now it is spent, and I have nothing to offer you.’

“ ‘There is no need,’ replied the beggar. ‘For you have used your last coin wisely. When you first came to this city, you spent one of your two coins each day, without greed, for your own sustenance. The other you gave in charity, and with kind words, to the least of your father's subjects. In return for this good use of your coins, you were shown a little of the Garden of Bliss.

“ ‘To travel upon the Straight Path is to seek the Face of the Beloved, the Sender of Blessings, the Satisfier of Needs, the Lover of His Good Servants, the Transformer of Hearts. You were traveling on the Path until, following your own desires, you forgot charity and lost your way. Now you have returned, humbling yourself and feeding a starving child with your own hands.

“ ‘Therefore,’ said the beggar, taking one thing after another out of the basket on his back, ‘wear this princely robe, and eat these savory dishes, for you alone are wise enough to rule your father's kingdom.

“ ‘And Prince,’ he added, drawing one last gift from his sack, ‘you have earned the return of your magical carpet. Offer your prayers upon it, and every night without fail you will visit the Garden of Bliss. In time, when you have journeyed far, far along the Straight Path, you will indeed, if Allah Most Gracious is willing, see the face of the Beloved.’ ”

As she said those words, Safiya turned and gazed into Mariana's eyes.

Mariana breathed in, her head full of nightingales and musk, jasmine and splashing fountains. Perhaps the story been told for her benefit, but if so, why? Surely Safiya did not think her ignorant of the values of charity and courage

Perhaps the story was an Oriental parable of some kind, containing a mystical secret that she must unravel for herself.

“An-nah!” Saboor appeared from nowhere and leaned against her shoulder. “What are we going to do now?” he inquired insistently, his face against hers.

T
hat same afternoon, from his vantage point beneath an ancient mango tree, Dittoo jerked his chin toward a tall, black-clad Englishman who paced alone near a bed of rosebushes, his hands clasped behind his back. “That man is to blame,” he declared. “It is he who is responsible for the mad English plan to leave Saboor here in Lahore, and then take poor Memsahib to Afghanistan. It is he who wants to ruin her life.”

He turned to Ghulam Ali. “Should the Political Agent decide what family Memsahib belongs to? Is it his affair that she is guardian of Saboor Baba? I have known her for more than two years. She would never leave Baba, and she would never harm another human being. It is they who are forcing her into this shameful separation.”

He hunched his shoulders. “There is something cruel about that man. I know for a fact that two Afghans were arrested on the road after spending hours in his presence, and that he then went to the city to watch them executed. One of our cooks saw it all. But they got away, those two Afghans. Two other men arrived on horseback and saved them.

“And there is more. Ever since you left for the walled city, bad-looking men have been coming daily to see Clerk Sahib. Our people think they are spies.”

“Spies?” Ghulam Ali raised bushy white eyebrows.

“Yes,” Dittoo replied firmly. “The other servants are saying that Clerk Sahib is plotting some treachery against the Sikh court behind the backs of the other English. For all we know, his scheming may cause terrible damage. But one thing is certain. We should leave Shalimar now, and remove ourselves from danger. If these kings and queens want to kill each other, it is no concern of ours. If there is serious peril, we should bring Memsahib and Saboor Baba away with us for a short time, but when it is safe, she must return to the Waliullah family.”

Ghulam Ali shrugged. “Whatever happens, there will be no need for her to leave Qamar Haveli. It is very strongly built.”

He picked up a small stone and turned it over in his hand. “And if she refuses to separate from Hassan Sahib,” he said carefully, afraid to let his eagerness show, “will you, too, come and live with us? Of course you will serve only the men, but there will be Saboor Baba to care for, and Hassan Sahib is a good—”

“No.” Dittoo shook his head as they watched the Political Agent stride away toward his own tent. “Memsahib is the only person I want to serve. If I cannot serve her,” he added, his voice roughening, “I will return to my village.”

As he turned away to wipe his eyes, the small stone fell from the albino's fingers and dropped to the ground between his feet.

A moment later, Ghulam Ali stood and banged dust from his clothes. “I must go back to the city,” he declared with his customary abruptness, pointing to a pair of donkey carts that waited inside the main gate, one loaded with oranges, the other with pomegranates. “They are expecting me. It does not ordinarily take this long to fetch the fruit.”

“Be careful on your way back,” cautioned Dittoo. “The villages along here are full of cholera. Two of our soldiers are ill with it already.”

“Wait, Ghulam Ali!” A starched-looking servant hurried up, waving a folded paper. “Memsahib's uncle wants you to take this message to her.”

As soon as the servant was out of earshot, another man appeared. “You, courier,” he ordered, planting himself in front of Ghulam Ali.

“Go at once to the Political Agent Sahib's tent. You are to deliver an urgent letter to Memsahib in Lahore. You are then to wait for her reply, and return with it.”

“Memsahib is no spy,” Dittoo insisted, as Ghulam Ali pushed aside a basket of pomegranates, and climbed onto one of the donkey carts. “She will never aid Clerk Sahib in his treachery, whatever it may be. You will see for yourself how bravely she refuses.”

Wedged between two baskets, his pink, blistered feet dangling from the back of the cart, Ghulam Ali watched the dusty walls of Shalimar recede into the distance. He, who had seen Hassan Ali's wife looking out of her tent after the Englishman attacked her, did not share Dittoo's point of view.

Brave she may be, but Ghulam Ali knew too well that, being an outcast, she had little protection against the evil of others. As a child with only a poor mother to protect him, he himself had been a thief in the walled city, apprenticed to a man with a fierce grip and a wicked leather strap, until he made the mistake of snatching a bunch of grapes from a barrow in the Kashmiri Bazaar just as Shaikh Waliullah emerged from a nearby shop.

He himself had been fortunate, but who would intervene on behalf of Hassan Ali's wife? Bound by pride and shame, she would never take her troubles to the only people who could help her: the Waliullah family themselves.

He reached for the railing as his cart jolted over some loose stones. That trusting uncle of hers knew nothing about the second letter. The Political Agent, a powerful, devious man, had seen to that. How, then, could she stand up to such a man? How could she refuse to spy? She could not, and Clerk Sahib knew it.

Ghulam Ali sighed. When the Waliullah family discovered what she was, they would hasten the divorce and send her away as swiftly as possible.

That morning, eating alone as usual in the kitchen courtyard, he had allowed himself to imagine that she would stay, and that his first real friend would soon be there, to sit companionably beside him after the meal, talking of her as he always did, his hands moving in grand arcs as he spoke, as if she were indeed the stuff of legend

Ghulam Ali snatched a pomegranate from one of the baskets and flung it, hard, into the road.

But he had no right to complain. His return to Lahore after a six-month absence had produced no hero's welcome, but he had been treated with more respect than he had anticipated. The guards had wished him peace after he pounded in his usual impatient fashion upon the carved haveli doors. The Hindu carpenters at work in the elephant stable had looked up and nodded as he passed.

Later, summoned to the small courtyard, he had been flattered by the length of time the Shaikh had given him to describe his adventures and offer an account of his expenses. His back to the sun to ease his eyes, Ghulam Ali had stood at attention beside the padded platform, softening his harsh voice as best he could while he told the story of his escape from the gang of thugs, and described Calcutta, a city the Shaikh had never seen.

He had, of course, made no reference to the lady, or to her people's shocking determination to see her divorced.

After he finished speaking, the Shaikh had nodded. “You have done well,” he observed, causing Ghulam Ali to flush with pride. “There are few couriers in this city who can be trusted to undertake such a long journey. You are among the best of them.”

After delivering his donkey cartload of fruit to the haveli's kitchen entrance, Ghulam Ali made some inquiries and then forced his way through the busy streets until he reached a small teashop near the Golden Mosque.

Inside the shop, on a carpet-covered platform with teapots and glass tumblers in front of them, sat Hassan Ali Khan, his friend Yusuf, and two Afghan traders whom Ghulam Ali had seen before. Unlike Hassan and Yusuf, the Afghans appeared perfectly relaxed.

“I only give him the same bazaar gossip he hears from everyone else,” the pale-eyed trader was saying. “Why should I tell him anything more? Do you think I did not see the son of shame in the crowd, gloating over my countrymen who were to be blown from cannon? Do you think I did not see him recognize us, then run away when you came to our rescue?”

“Then why call on him at Shalimar?” Hassan's face had hardened. “What sweetness, what trade, does the Englishman offer, Zulmai, that would cause you to swallow your hatred of him and go there?”

The Afghan smiled broadly, revealing even, white teeth. He glanced at a quartet of elaborately decorated
jezails
that stood, barrels pointing upward, against the teashop wall. “My hatred of him is unchanged, brother. But if I do not visit him, how can I discover his plans? How can I help you?”

“What, then, are his plans? What help are you offering us?”

“I cannot tell you just yet, but as soon as I know, I will come to you. Do not worry, my friend,” the Afghan added softly, signaling to his young companion. “I will not fail you.”

With one swift movement he stood and picked up his guns.

Ghulam Ali waited until the two men had disappeared into the crowd before he stepped forward and offered his salaams. “I have come from Shalimar,” he told Hassan and Yusuf as he reached into the courier's pocket hidden in his clothes. “As I was leaving, I was given two letters. Both are for your wife, Hassan Sahib.”

“Who wrote these?” Hassan asked sharply. He stared at the folded papers, each one labeled with foreign-looking scratchings.

Ghulam Ali pointed. “This one is from the tall Englishman who wears black all the time. The other is from Memsahib's uncle.”

Unable to bear the expression on Hassan Ali's face, he left the shop as hastily as he could.

YUSUF WATCHED Hassan push the folded letters into his coat pocket. “Why do you care if these British are spying?” he asked. “It is Sher Singh, after all, who is marching toward us, bent on seizing the throne. What threat does that foreigner offer, with his puny, cannonless escort?”

“He offers no threat now, but I tell you, Yusuf, these British are ambitious and arrogant,” Hassan replied. “They want to possess all of India. When we have exhausted our energy in fighting each other, the British will take the Punjab for themselves.” He sighed. “I see the Political Agent's hand in everything around me—in the slaughter of Afghans, even in my wife's attempt to dissolve our marriage.
Why
has he written to her, Yusuf? What could he want from her?”

Knowing how fiercely the Waliullahs clung to their dreams, Yusuf hesitated before answering. “What he wants is information,” he said, stating the obvious as gently as he could. “The Political Agent wants your wife to repeat what she is hearing in the ladies’ quarters, and what she learns from her conversations with you.”

Hassan shook his head. “With me? Why would I discuss these matters with my wife? I never speak of private court business with anyone but my father.”

“Of course you don't.” Yusuf shrugged. “But in any case, you should let her receive the letters without knowing you have seen them. When you meet her again, listen to her. See if she questions you. You will learn easily enough if she is a spy. If she is, then by her questions alone, she will reveal much of the Political Agent's plans. And if she is not,” he added softly, pained by Hassan's stricken face, “you will have no further need to worry.”

Hassan dropped his head into his hands. “All I know now,” he murmured, “is that we must, from this moment, regard the British as our bitter enemies.”