The Mulberry Empire. Philip Hensher

more startling by the day. Arriving at Kabul, however, it seemed wise to admit to what they were immediately, and take their chances.

      Kabul had surprised Burnes. He had read what there was to read about the country, looked with every appearance of care at the drawings, the prints of the city. They hadn’t been wrong, exactly; but still the city was not what he expected. No commentator, no artist, had captured what Burnes saw; it was as if they had seen only the outlines of the city, or rather, as if they, like Burnes, had seen it whole, and only cared to convey the city in part. Burnes tried to think of what it was his guides had left out. He could only think of it in two words: the fragrance; the filth.

      In other cities, the fruit-and-flower smell of the street, the stench of the shit, human, canine, equine and more, would have seemed the inessentials of the city’s life. It had seemed like that to the observers of the city whose work they had so relied upon; they had removed the fragrance and the filth from their gaze as lying above or below what substance truly mattered. Buildings, thoroughfares, population numbers could be set down, and that was what, it seemed, really counted; not the mere smells of this city. It seemed always in danger of turning into an orchard, a stable, or a vast latrine. To Burnes, on the other hand, it was the intangible but overpowering fact of smell which seemed central to the place. Sitting in this half-prison, with all the time in the world to practise the address to the Amir and pursue absurd speculations, he found himself wondering about a map of the city which would convey this sense of his. In his head was a map of Kabul which did not describe the streets and the buildings, but set down the intangible and rich sudden odours of the place; described where a whiff of horse-shit mingled with the heavy perfume of rotting mulberries, where dead dog and fruit blossom competed. He closed his eyes, and there, in his head, was a weighty flush of sensation, a wave like the colour purple, arriving in his head, foreign, uninvited, irresistible. You did not need to walk the streets to map them in this olfactory manner; you only needed to sit by the window, and wait for a breeze. He had seen nothing of the city, in truth, nothing but a few streets as they had arrived, nothing but the few buildings around the house where they now lived, when their guards occasionally escorted them out. The city came to them, its perfumes carried on the wind.

      2.

      They had arrived, and stood there at the wall, for a moment or two, as if their mere stance could announce their purpose. In front of them, there was the city. It was hard to think of it as a prize worth taking, now. Now that it was here in front of them, it seemed very unlike the great imperial jewel London and Calcutta so easily dreamed of. The hills and hollows of the land had been scattered, it seemed, with detritus; rambling, temporary houses, plastered smooth, scattered where they would fall. It was a city set high in the mountains, and the chill at night was fierce. Between the houses of the city paths, roads of packed-down mud ran; between them a thousand pedlars of goods set up their stalls to sell what they would. But it seemed to Burnes, as he stood there with his companions and waited for the Afghans to come and discover what he wanted, less like a city than a great wild garden. The groves of this high city joined, rambled with fruit trees, with what must be mulberries, blotting on the street and casting their high scent to the wind. What had London and Calcutta dreamed of? A city which could turn into an imperial jewel, certainly, a great imperial city, and not this random assembly, like the careless evening settlement of some wandering people.

      Burnes, Mohan Lal the guide, and Gerard had dismounted. They stood there for a while, and it was not long before the curious little boys were succeeded by some more authoritative figures. Mohan Lal had stepped forward, but Burnes spoke first. They had listened to his explanation intently, had exchanged the ritual compliments calmly and gracefully, and, without consulting, had allowed them to remount, and led them into the city. A mounted group approached, shouting hoarsely, wheeled hungrily, curiously, around them like circling buzzards, and, before Burnes could start his explanation again, had ridden off.

      First the customs house. The three of them had been hurried into a low white house, its door barely on its hinges. As the eager crowd of short, beakily-featured men, all shouting, poured into the garden of the house, a flock of magpies rose clattering like knives from the fruit trees. The packhorses were tied up outside, and quickly stripped of their bundles. Inside, an immensely fat man emerged with great state from a back room, chewing and wiping some grease from his mouth with the bottom of his coat. All the Afghans fell abruptly silent. He gazed at them as mournfully as a dog as their luggage was brought in and dumped on the floor.

      Burnes began his explanation. May the sun ever shine, glorious empire of the Afghans, long heard rumours of the wisdom and greatness of the kingdom. All received with gracious nods; tea was called for and brought by two boys of strongly corrupt appearance. Flat sweet bread followed, politely picked at by the Europeans, wolfed by the Afghans. Burnes pressed on. He and his companions were Europeans, returning home from India overland. Long heard rumours of the beauty of Kabul and promised, etc. (A brief pause here as one of the tea boys, after setting down a glass for Burnes, tried to stroke his neck. Burnes pushed him off gently, and the nearest adult hit the boy very hard with the butt of his rifle, to everyone’s colossal amusement.) Hoped to stay in Kabul for a month, and their great dream was to meet and talk with the great and famous Emperor of the Afghans, the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan.

      Burnes came to the end of his speech, and the customs officer gave a brief side-to-side nod of approbation. It wasn’t quite clear what this meant; Burnes, to be sure of indicating what sort of people they were, got out his letters of introduction to the Amir, each carefully prepared in India with a grandiose seal. The official, however, showed almost no interest in them after a quick glance or two. ‘Oh God,’ Gerard said in English. ‘They’re going to search the bags.’ Burnes ignored him; there was nothing to be done about it, and the best way to stay calm was to try not to remember what on earth there was in there.

      ‘My books,’ Burnes said, as they extracted a dog-eared copy of Marmion and flicked through it. A sketchbook he feared might worry them more, but they looked at it cursorily, and set it down.

      ‘Tell me,’ the customs officer said. ‘In your country, it is said that pork is eaten. Can that be true?’

      Burnes was prepared. ‘It is a food eaten only by the very poorest people in our country. I myself have never tried it, but it is said that it has the taste, somewhat, of beef. That’s a sextant.’

      ‘Good, good,’ the customs officer said as the underlings turned the object upside down, trying to force a noise from it. ‘And what is it?’

      ‘It is called a sextant in my language,’ Burnes said. ‘A sort of talisman.’

      ‘Good, good,’ the customs officer said. ‘In my country we have many sextants.’

      It was a long afternoon, but eventually the possessions had all been examined and packed up again. Nothing seemed to excite their interest except Gerard’s bottles of medicine, which they passed around, sniffing at; the maps did not seem to trouble anyone. In the end, Burnes paid the official an enormous bribe in rupees, and gave him a little looking glass.

      ‘I think he was rather disappointed,’ Mohan Lal said. ‘He was probably hoping for more guns or a thrilling sort of dagger, I expect. They are said in my country to be frightfully fond of weaponry, these Afghan fellows.’

      Gerard gave a snort, with which Burnes silently concurred. Mohan Lal had long ago started to seem a tedious companion, with his incessant calm explanations of why things had gone wrong.

      They had been led to a house. The owner of the house had welcomed them as if they were guests, effusively, ordered them to be given food and drink, and showed them their beds. Were they prisoners? Were they guests? The interminable attentions of the Newab Jubbur Khan, the owner of the house, and of the series of small boys who sat in the corner of the room with muskets seemed to point to different conclusions. They had arrived ten days ago, and seemed no nearer achieving what they were here to do.

      What they were was quite a simple matter: two British officers and a native guide. What they were doing there, not even Burnes would, for this moment, quite bring into his mind. If the knowledge was not at the front of his thoughts, even the calmly interrogative