Caravans (35 page)

“The rules?” she asked quietly. “They don’t permit you to make love?” She moved close to me and I saw her in the moonlight, as beautiful a girl as I would ever know, more provocative a dozen times than Mira. “The rules won’t permit you?” she repeated.

“Not with Mira over there,” I fumbled.

“In the morning? Won’t you feel like an idiot?”

“How do you suppose I feel now.” I grasped her hands and said, “You’re marvelously beautiful, Ellen.”

She was pleased that I had done this, and returned to her former imaginings. “Why didn’t we meet two years ago?” she asked softly. Then, more desperately, she cried, “Miller! Why didn’t you come to Bryn Mawr that spring! In your clean white uniform? With your courage and your hopes?” She dropped my hands and asked quietly, “Why weren’t you there?”

I left her and dodged among the mounds until I could present myself casually among the others. Improbably, they had not missed us and soon Ellen slipped inconspicuously back into the group she had been prepared to abuse. Once I caught sight of her unpacking the donkey, and as the night wind tugged at her hair she looked as if she had always been a part of these harsh, impersonal steppes.

It was now about three in the morning, and we made a little tea and pilau before going to bed, and as we sat about the fire Ellen said, through either accident or perversity, “Only a few miles up there is Russia.”

A visible chill came over Stiglitz, but no one remarked upon his fear, so Ellen added, “Wouldn’t you love to see what Samarkand looks like? They say its public square is the most exciting in the world.” No one responded to this, so after a while she said languidly, “I think I’ll go to bed,” and Stiglitz dutifully followed her.

To share the tent with her that night would have been impossible, so I dragged out my sleeping gear
and Mira lugged along a pillow, but before we had left the camp Maftoon took me aside and like a conspirator slipped me his dagger: “You must keep this, Miller.”

“Why?”

“Because the German…”

“What about him?”

‘When you and Ellen were in the dunes, he crept over to listen.’ The little cameleer sucked his teeth, then added, ‘And remember, he has Zulfiqar’s dagger.’

I felt dizzy. “Does Mira know?” I asked.

“It was she who asked me to give you my dagger,” he explained. “She watched Stiglitz following you.” And he was oft.

When I rejoined Mira she said nothing, but ran her hands across my clothes till she felt Maftoon’s dagger. “It’s safer,” she said.

There was nothing I could reply, so we looked for a sleeping place and after a while she observed quietly, “You and Ellen are the best friends I have. All I know about being pretty she taught me. She’s a wonderful girl … like a sister. I told you, Miller, that she was hungry to sleep with you, but you laughed. After I go back with my father, why don’t you and Ellen …”

I took her brown hands and kissed them. “I’m here because it’s you I love,” and I told her of the discovery I made while being expelled from the Hindu Kush without her: “You will be part of my life forever.”

“Go to sleep,” she said. “We have not many more nights.”

The sun was well up when scraggly-bearded
Maftoon hurried to where we slept and warned me. “Important government car from Kabul. Man to see you, Miller!”

I assumed this must be Richardson of Intelligence, so I dressed hastily in order that he should not see me with Mira, but when I reached the tent area I found that it was Moheb Khan looking very official in a tan sharkskin suit and silver karakul cap. He was patting his stolen white horse, behind which, to my surprise, I saw Nazrullah, come north to reclaim his lawful wife. Instinctively I felt sorry for him, and because I had not seen him since his forced trip across the Dasht-i-Margo I hurried first to him, embraced him warmly and asked, “How was the desert?”

“As always, hateful.”

“We kept our fingers crossed.”

Now Moheb Khan interrupted, speaking with severity: “How’d you get my horse?”

I couldn’t tell whether he was truly angry or merely joking, so I temporized: “Mira bought him in Kabul.”

Moheb brushed dust from his suit and asked, “You certainly knew it was mine. Didn’t you guess it was stolen?”

“Was it?” I bluffed.

Moheb was unable to continue the pose and began laughing. “You know how it is. You find a pretty girl. You roll over thinking, ‘This is going to be a night of passion.’ And you find that your white horse has been stolen.”

“Don’t punish her.”

“Did she steal it for you?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s you I curse. For eight weeks you ride and I walk.”

I replied, “You know how love is. Roll over again. There’s your white horse, well fed and cared for.”

Now Mira appeared on one of the mounds lugging our sleeping gear, which told its own story, and when she saw Moheb Khan, from whom she had stolen the horse, she dropped the bedclothes and started running for the tent, but I caught her by the wrist.

“Little thief!” Moheb snarled.

Mira was like me. She didn’t know whether Moheb was joking or not, but her irrepressible nature asserted itself—or perhaps she remembered Moheb in some earlier pose—for she broke out laughing and pointed with derision at the handsome Afghan. Making involved gestures, which could only be interpreted as the pantomime of her escape through a bedroom window to steal the white horse, she soon had Moheb laughing with her.

But then Mira saw Nazrullah and recognized him by his beard. “You’re Ellen’s husband!” she cried in dismay, and the involuntary manner in which she moved protectively before the tent proved that Nazrullah’s wife must be inside. Slowly, step by step, Mira retreated, bowed ceremoniously and ducked into the tent.

“Is Ellen there?” the engineer asked me.

“Yes.”

He started for the tent but I stopped him. “Is the big Kochi with her?” he asked suspiciously.

And suddenly I realized that whole new cycles
of adventure had engulfed his wife, none of which I fully understood but some of which I was myself involved in. At any rate, I couldn’t explain these new developments to Nazrullah, so I stammered, “Look, this is going to be difficult to get into focus. But that big Kochi…”

I was spared by the appearance of Ellen and Stiglitz. What kind of hateful truce they had patched up during the night I couldn’t guess, but in the morning sunlight Ellen Jaspar was dazzling, and if her husband was still determined to win her back, I could sympathize, for when I saw her in daylight I had to say, against my own conscience: It’s you she wants to leave with, you idiot. Move in. Move in fast.

Nazrullah was bewildered by the facts before him and refused to accept their implications. As if nothing had happened, he stepped forward to greet his wife. “I’ve come to fetch you,” he said. “You remember Moheb Khan. Moheb, this is Dr. Otto Stiglitz.”

The tall diplomat bowed gracefully and shook hands. “We’ll drive you back to Qala Bist,” he said to Ellen with a studied air which seemed to say: We’re going to give you one chance. Don’t mess it up.

“I’m not going,” she said firmly, whereupon Moheb Khan shrugged his shoulders and withdrew from the conversation. He had made a conciliatory offer and it had been rejected.

It was Nazrullah who took over. “Please, Ellen. We have the car waiting.”

Stiglitz gave the answer: “She’s to stay with me. I’m sorry, Nazrullah.”

The engineer was determined not to surrender his wife and appealed to Moheb for support, but the diplomat ignored him and asked me, “Is this what happened? Stiglitz?” My nod triggered a dramatic barrage of decisions announced by Moheb.

First he blew a whistle, which was answered by a group of soldiers who had followed him in a truck. “I want that horse taken back to Kabul,” he ordered. “This man,” he snapped, indicating Stiglitz, “Is to be kept here under arrest. The American woman is not to leave this tent. You, Miller, get in the car. I want to interrogate you at headquarters in Mazar-i-Sharif. Nazrullah, come along.” And while the soldiers moved quickly in response to his commands, he led Nazrullah and me to the car.

We sped toward Mazar-i-Sharif, which lay some twenty miles east of Balkh, but as we reached the city our car was impeded by an extensive camel caravan which was setting forth to central Russia, and we had to wait while some eighty lumbering beasts went by, poking their ungainly heads toward our car and grunting at us as they adjusted to the heavy burdens which they were to carry north. The camel drivers, an unusually dirty and unkempt gang, stared at us like their camels and Moheb remarked with some irritation, “Of all the people you meet in our country, ninety-four percent are illiterate. Are we crazy, trying to build a modern state from such rabble?”

I looked at the camel drivers, barely out of the bronze age, and said to the two impatient men beside me, “If I were an Afghan, I’d certainly make the effort.”

“I wish we had a million Afghans like you,”
Moheb replied, as the last camel went by, leering at us. And then I saw, riding a sturdy black horse, the master of this nondescript caravan and I understood why his cameleers had looked so filthy. Their owner had wanted them to look that way lest his camels give the impression of carrying some unusual wealth which might attract brigands.

For this was the caravan of Shakkur, the Kirghiz gunrunner from Russia. He had loaded his camels at Mazar-i-Sharif, and was now on his way to cross the Oxus and the great Pamirs and the steppes of Central Asia. Since his was the most dangerous route followed by any of the major caravans attending Qabir—perhaps this was the last time a caravan of such magnitude would make the trip—he sought to avoid attention.

As he rode by I called to him and he remembered me from the encampment. Stopping his horse near our car, he poked his huge bald head our way and, after studying Moheb with suspicion, asked, “Government man?” When I nodded, he said, “So you were a government spy? I warned Zulfiqar.”

“No,” Moheb laughed. “We’ve just arrested him.”

The big Kirghiz put his left hand over his forehead and cried, “My sympathy to all prisoners,” and he spurred his horse so that he might overtake his eighty camels.

At the government offices Moheb ordered tea and biscuits with honey, reminding me of how primitively we had been eating for the past seventeen weeks; but I was dragged back to present problems when he summoned a secretary—a man, of course—and started arranging papers as he asked,
“Now what shall the official report state regarding that horse?”

“Is this for the record?”

“That’s why I’m here. The horse and the American woman … both stolen.”

“Mira told me she bought the horse.”

“Where would a Kochi girl get the money?”

“She said she got it from the jeep they stole.”

“Jeep?” Moheb repeated.

“Could I strike that from the record?”

“You’d better,” Moheb nodded to the secretary.

Nazrullah interrupted. “What did happen to that jeep?”

“Can I speak confidentially?”

“Of course,” Moheb agreed, nodding again to the secretary.

“While I stood not twenty feet away, those damned Kochis stole every movable part.”

Abruptly Moheb asked, “Who exactly is Mira?”

“Daughter of Zulfiqar,” I explained.

“The same Zulfiqar?” he asked, indicating Nazrullah.

“Yes.”

“Now as to the new developments regarding Ellen Jaspar.”

“It’s difficult to explain,” I fumbled.

“We have plenty of time,” Moheb assured me, pouring some more tea.

“Well, as you know, she ran away from Qala Bist last September. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t sex. Nazrullah wasn’t at fault. Neither was Zulfiqar. When she joined the caravan she didn’t even know who Zulfiqar was.”

“Is that what you’re going to say in your report to the American government?”

“I’ve already said it.”

“Where did she spend the winter?”

“Jhelum.”

“All the way to Jhelum? On foot?” Apparently Moheb knew less about some of his country’s customs than I did.

“Was she ever in love with the big Kochi?” Nazrullah asked.

“Never.”

“Miller,” Moheb asked carefully, “if this secretary has to record one simple reason for Ellen’s behavior, what shall he write?”

I pondered this question for some minutes, reviewing Ellen Jaspar’s motivation as I understood it. It wasn’t sex, because her behavior with Nazrullah, Zulfiqar and Stiglitz had an almost sexless quality; she was neither driven by desire nor faithful to anyone who fulfilled it. I wondered if she might be suffering from some kind of schizophrenia, but I could find no evidence that she was; no one was persecuting her; she persecuted herself. At one point I had thought she might be a victim of nostalgia for a past age, but she would have been the same in Renaissance Florence or Victorian England; history was replete with people like her, and although she despised this age, no other would have satisfied her better. It was true that like many sentimentalists she indulged in an infantile primitivism; if bread was baked over camel dung it was automatically better than bread baked in a General Electric range, but many people were afflicted with this heresy and they didn’t wind up in a caravan at
Balkh. There remained the possibility that she suffered from pure jaundice of the spirit, a vision which perverted reality and made it unpalatable; but with Ellen this was not the case. She saw reality rather clearly, I thought. It was her reaction to it that was faulty. And then I heard the dry, emotionless voice of Nexler reading from the music professor’s report:
I saw her as a girl of good intention who was determined to disaffiliate herself from our society.
This didn’t explain why she acted as she did, but it certainly described what her actions were. I looked at Moheb and suggested, “Put it down as rejection.”

“Name one man she ever rejected,” he demanded.

I preferred to ignore his condemnation and replied, “She rejected the forms and structures of our society … yours as well as mine.”

“It’s about time somebody rejected her,” Moheb snapped. “And I’m the man to do it.”

“Don’t abuse her,” Nazrullah pleaded.

“Would you still take her back?” Moheb asked incredulously.