The Mulberry Empire - Philip Hensher

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give you money for it with cries of delight like a monkey’s howl, and then spend long minutes staring at it before opening his book and scribbling down in it. The boys in the bazaar abandoned themselves in merriment, the soles of their feet to the sky, at this last incredible detail. But he did not seem like a holy man, since he drank a good deal, a shocking amount, and the whole of Kabul, from the storytelling beggars crouched outside the limits of the bazaar to the gossiping nobles in the august silent halls of the Bala Hissar itself, knew precisely what he liked to do after nightfall with whatever boys presented themselves smiling at the gate of his secluded little house. Everyone knew about him. It was true that few had seen him, since he stayed inside like a woman, sending out for his needs; but everyone knew about him. There was an incredible party trick half a dozen boys could now perform, an incredulous account of his gabbling fantastic Persian, complete with the wildest gestures. Hasan was a slow serious boy, not given to laughter, always sitting wide-eyed and solemn while his companions retailed one hilarity after another. But he had laughed at the gulping mania of the impersonation, and hoped that now, brought up against the original of what was currently the city’s favourite joke, he could keep himself from hilarity.

      He went directly down the hill from the fortress, ignoring the calls which came his way, and out through the great bazaar. He had lived here all his life, and could burrow through the deep entangled streets as well as any ragged urchin. They called out to him, knowing who he was, wondering at this boy in dazzling imperial white, this boy with the lovely cross face. They knew who he was – his dress proclaimed him – but there was already something in him, despite his blank simplicity, his effortless blank visage, which made the street hang back. They called out to him, but, awed, cast their eyes down before he could respond. They did not want to be the sort of people who called out to Hasan, son of Khushhal, the famous angel of the princely house, and they cast their eyes to the floor, dazzled, in modesty, before he could speak back to them. But he did not respond to their calls, and never had. Even those who called out to him knew this, before they made a sound. He was untouchable, virtuous, noble; the sun shone between the road and the soft pale soles of his feet. He was too good, they said, to walk the earth, and yet he walked the earth, which knew his virtue.

      Hasan passed on through the parting crowds. The long twisting call of the muezzin was just beginning, like a great bird singing its inscrutable vowels, and, soon, Kabul would turn with regret from Hasan and, summoned, go to wash, and pray for its own sins. Hasan walked on, into the street of the shoemakers. Here it was that the Englishman had his house. He had taken it from the widow Khadija. The main artery of the quarter, now quickly emptying, was broad and fine, shaded with limes. Every thirty paces or so, a small half-street, blind-ended, like a three-sided courtyard, where the houses were. In the fourth of these was the widow Khadija’s house. The houses in this quarter of the city barely had windows or doors onto the street; they were built for the summer’s heat, the winter’s cold, to withstand a siege. They were solid houses, but not large. Behind the thick walls there was only a small garden and a few square rooms, Hasan knew; his old fencing master had lived in one. But as he stood there, he felt that behind the heavy coarse wall and deep-set tiny door, there could lie anything at all. He stood in front of the Englishman’s door. Silly! It was like any other! He felt no nerves. Nervousness was not part of him, but as he stood there, with his innocent cross face, he surely felt something, the barefoot emissary of the Amir with a dagger in his belt, the lovely ambassador between empires. He served an unknowing purpose, a purpose opaque to everyone. He served the implacable veiled purpose of the Emperor’s marvellous mind. There was a chatter, from within, like the chatter of birds, of monkeys, of women. But it was not the noise of birds. Hasan raised his soft princely hand to his soft pale face, just once. He pushed at the door. It gave; and, making no noise, he entered the house of the Englishman.

       SIX

      1.

      THIS IS THE WAY THAT Charles Masson came to be in Kabul and how he came to talk the way that he talked, which was the first thing anyone noticed about him.

      Five years before, in an army camp in Calcutta.

      The parade ground was a desert of musket parts. The company sat, cross-legged, red and sweating, each surrounded by his own little puzzle of greased iron to put back together.

      ‘Now this,’ Suggs, the Sergeant-Major, was saying through his horrible grin, ‘is the locking bolt. The locking bolt.’ He was holding up a small iron object between thumb and forefinger.

      The Company, together, grunted a four-syllable noise with their heads to the ground, a masculine grunt which satisfied Suggs. He seemed to think they had replied with what he had said; they could, in fact, have said anything at all.

      At the back of the platoon, his gun now in forty pieces scattered, a hopeless archipelago, on a greasy blue cotton tablecloth, sat Charles Masson. He scratched his head. Sweating profusely in his shirt and breeches, contemplating the nightmare iron picnic in front of him, he wondered merely what delicacy to go for next.

      ‘And this,’ the Sergeant-Major said, grinning sadistically at this further element of bafflement, ‘is the barrel-loader. The barrel-loader.’

      There again, that grunting noise, five syllables this time, a downward scale, like a bouncing ball. Masson said nothing, not seeing the need to say an object’s name to commit it to memory. In his case, he was as likely to forget the horrid little object after saying its name as before. And he had decided that this was not the sort of information he wanted cluttering up his brain.

      A distant door opened and shut. Shimmering a little in the late-morning heat came the figure of Florentia Sale, the commanding officer’s wife, her jutting jaw and purposeful stride in no way modified by the pink and white parasol, her virginal dress. As she approached, the men who had seen her started to struggle to their feet. Not Masson.

      ‘Don’t get up, I pray you,’ called Florentia, dragging her panting little dog after her. ‘Ignore me, ignore me. I should not be here, merely the shortest route, tiffin, you know.’

      She flashed a steely smile at the men, and strode onwards. Masson silently wished rabies on her dog and – a moment’s contemplation after – on her as well. The Sergeant-Major said nothing, and it remained a half-hearted tribute, as the men who had risen got no further than a bent-knee stance before sinking down again to their morning task. Too absorbed in their task; not very interested, either, in Florentia Sale, their commanding officer’s commanding wife, a greedy old woman who was more accustomed to tell people not to trouble than she was to receive unsolicited tribute. She passed on, anyway.

      ‘This,’ Suggs went on, projecting to the far corners of the empty parade ground, ‘is the musket’s thumb-grip. A great help when you come to fire the bleeding thing.’ He too must be suffering; his great red face twitching and glistening in the heat, his eyes rolling and yellow with the long hours in this steamy blaze, in a uniform suited only to a damp European climate. But he seemed to gain energy from the furious heat, and not to be exhausted by it; his instructions, his striding energy, actually increased as the day went on. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

      ‘A thumb-grip, Sergeant-Major,’ they chorused dully, the small diversion of Mrs Sale’s stately passage now dissipated.

      Something had led Masson to this point, sitting on a parade ground, sweating into his Company-issue underwear, staring at wing-nuts. A long sickly childhood in a Devon farmhouse, and tales of an uncle who went to sea, bringing back incredible tales of the East. Told and told again. That had been it, surely. There was no desire for money in Masson; he had no wish to go back with his thousands to acquire a country house and respectability. He had no wish to go home.

      That was odd, because the urge that had led him here was as hungry and unfilled in Calcutta as it had been in the grey square unwindowed farmhouse ten miles from Porlock. There, it had been his three young brothers standing between him and what he wanted; here, it was the Company, and his duties, and the wing-nuts. Masson had come to the East in the only way he could. It was not long before the means of his

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