The Mulberry Empire. Philip Hensher

Amir, the arrival of the new European in town was like the dropping of a rock into the opaque pool of water which was the city, ruffling the surface immediately in ordinary and predictable ways, but disturbing the substance and mass beneath in a manner which could not be seen, or predicted. The Amir sat on the steps of the throne room, with the nobles and the clergy, and listened, noncommittally nodding his head from time to time, as if he were hearing nothing more than gossip.

      ‘His hair is red,’ the Newab Mohammed Zemaun Khan said. ‘Red, red as the devil’s is.’

      ‘And he wears the clothes of the country people,’ the Newab Jubbur Khan cut in. ‘He came from the East, from India, but he has been to many, many places. He speaks to everyone about the places he has been, and asks everyone, down to the smallest child, a thousand thousand questions.’

      ‘A wise man, then,’ the Amir said, pretending to reprimand the court. The Newab Jubbur Khan was a poor fellow, the Amir’s brother, and if Mohammed Zemaun would one day amount to something, for the moment he was no more than the Amir’s gawping boy-nephew.

      ‘A spy, Pearl of the Age,’ a mullah said. The Amir Dost Mohammed Khan turned, not recognizing the voice; it was the Mir Wa’iz, the teacher of Kabul, speaking through a mouthful of food.

      ‘A spy, Holiness?’ the Amir said; the Mir Wa’iz had not, quite, recovered from his display of asininity, weeks and weeks before. He had, after all, allowed the English to question holy doctrine over the question of the faithful Esquimaux, and could still be savagely teased on any subject. ‘But what enemies can I see on the most distant horizon? Do we not live in peace and plenty?’

      ‘A fool, then,’ Mohammed Zemaun said. ‘Or a mere scholar.’

      ‘He came from the East,’ the Mir Wa’iz insisted, in his best holy inscrutable manner.

      ‘A scholar, I expect,’ the Amir said. ‘But we shall spy on him, a little, shall we not?’

      In truth, Dost Mohammed felt and knew that the arrival of the new Englishman was, in the end, going to prove to be more than gossip, but for the moment there was no reason for the clergy and nobles and wives to know such a thing, and his nodding head was intended to soothe the city into a mood of mere curiosity about the interloper …

      … and down there, in the city, in a hired house, the Amir could almost see the interloper in his absurd and extravagant disguise, writing like a poor scribe, his head down to the page, his tongue almost out. When the Amir concentrated, he could see the arrival, beginning to write, concentrating, his mind on what he was doing, his sudden and uncontrolled movements betraying the angry impatient European fool as he put one word after another down. Like all Europeans, he would be writing about himself, setting down the ease and mastery with which he had come to this point, and the ease and mastery with which he had persuaded the city of what he was. His name the Amir did not need to imagine. He knew it: Masson. And down there in the city, in the far-off distant serene concentrating gaze of the Amir, Masson, the new arrival in his inadequate disguise, started to write …

      The nobles and the clergy stirred among themselves, restlessly. They were dressed splendidly, and in their thick brocades they seemed to whisper, although nobody spoke. Against them, the Amir looked like an angel, come down from heaven to reprimand them. Today, as every day, he was resplendent in his white muslin; a six-foot angel with a broad curving nose and bad teeth.

      ‘The Sikhs,’ he said finally. It was the end of a train of thought which had begun with the interloper, Masson, and ended with a British-funded invasion of the Amir’s empire. The angel, bad-toothed, imperial in white, looked into the middle distance of the throne room, and saw the far locked doors being flung open by British soldiers, each a fat little red-faced replica of Burnes, armed to the teeth; beyond it, the Amir’s empire, so carefully subdued and brought together, like a basket weaved of Jew’s-hair thread, was being trampled through by an endless line of similar red-faced replicas, backed up by the filthy stupid – the Amir pursued his own indomitable line of thought, and came to a single sounding conclusion. ‘The Sikhs,’ he said.

      ‘The Sikhs, Pearl of the Age?’ the Newab Mohammed Zemaun Khan said. None of the heavy crowd of nobles understood what the Amir meant; a moment ago, he had seemed to be talking, or to be about to talk, about the Englishman, and to have dismissed the idea that he could be a spy. And now he had moved on to the Sikhs, the thorn in the side.

      ‘I am talking about the Sikhs,’ the Amir said, calmly. ‘Did they send the English spy? What is he here to find out? Who sent him, if not the English? Why, may I ask, do you come here laden with gossip to weary the ears of women, and have no knowledge, no conclusion, nothing, nothing, nothing, of interest for your Emperor?’

      Just at that moment, a hammer struck on metal, somewhere, three rooms away, and the court, with thanks, admitted silently that it had nothing to say about the Sikhs. In a moment, more food came in, borne at shoulder height; it was ceremonial food, and everyone gratefully arranged themselves around it. No one was hungry; everybody ate. It was easiest.

      2.

      ‘We need to know about the English,’ Dost Mohammed said.

      The English? It was an unspoken question around the court. These abrupt changes of subject were familiar in the inner chambers of the Bala Hissar; the court took them as they took the vapid maxims of the mullahs. They demonstrated the workings of a profound mind. When a mullah emerged from deep thought to pronounce that Life is a dream, and therefore, a dream is life, he commanded a general flaccid assent. No one would contradict him, not knowing what thoughts had led to a conclusion so perfectly meaningless. Talking to the Amir was rather like that, except that the workings of his mind usually emerged in the end. His brief peremptory comments could be difficult to link, since they were only fragments of a brilliant, involved, silent analysis of a large subject. But the court fell silent when he made these remarks, and observed the Amir, eyes lowered, in respect.

      ‘We need to know about the English,’ the Amir said again. ‘So send a boy down to the spy.’

      The spy? The Mir Wa’iz went so far as to cast a gaze at the Newab Jubbur Khan, raising an eyebrow; perhaps the Newab would know what his brother the Amir’s intentions were. The Newab’s inscrutable way with a fistful of lamb, however, was most likely due to bafflement. Naturally the Newab would not want to admit that he, too, had no idea. But in a moment the Amir took pity on them.

      ‘We can hardly talk to the English about their ambitions,’ the Amir said. ‘And we will not talk to the Sikhs, to find out who is the tool of whom, like the tale of the monkey on the elephant’s back. But we seem to have a spy here. Very badly disguised, and he has made no attempt to come and speak to Us, so – a stinking spy it is. Gentlemen!’ The Amir clapped his hands, three times. His voice had shrunk to a whisper, and the noise in the bare throne room was explosive as gunshot. The gentlemen of the court came running at the handclaps, like birds magically called back to a branch. ‘Take this away. No food is required.’

      The court froze, mid-chew; it was the grossest breach of etiquette to eat while the Amir had refused food, and they were left, suddenly, with cheek pouches full of meat, to swallow slowly without any evidence of chewing.

      ‘Send a boy down to him. Does he like boys? Not a commonplace boy, a boy of parts. Does he like boys?’ The Amir, now, was businesslike.

      ‘Yes, Pearl of the Age.’

      ‘Have one sent. Not too young. A remarkable boy. We will wish to talk to him afterwards. How old are your sons, Khushhal? How old is the most beautiful of them?’

      The least of the nobles, called forward suddenly from the back of the crowd, twitched, terrified, at this direct appeal. His betters parted, let him through, gazed at him with solemn disbelief. He stuttered, nervously, unprepared.

      ‘In my eyes, Pearl of the Age—’

      ‘Yes, yes,’ the Amir interrupted. ‘Yes, very estimable, Prince. You know the son I mean.’

      ‘Hasan