Текст книги "A God in Every Stone"

Автор книги: Kamila Shamsie

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18 January 1929

V. R. Spencer

Senior Lecturer

University College

London

Najeeb Gul

Indian Assistant

Peshawar Museum

Peshawar

18 January 1929

My dear Najeeb Gul

My memory needs no aid in recollecting you. It gives me such pleasure to know that the young Pactyike has found himself a position at the Peshawar Museum – and at such an early age. The last fourteen years of my life have involved less dramatic changes than yours (Taxila!) but I have kept myself well occupied. In addition to the lectureship post at University College I have catalogued several museum collections and taken part in a few digs: the Borg in-Nadur Temple in Malta, with my former teacher at UCL, Margaret Murray; Roman sites in Wales with my former classmate from UCL, Tessa Wheeler, and her husband Mortimer; and, most recently, the Fayum with my former student from UCL, Gertrude Caton Thompson. (Well might you think I am part of a UCL cabal!) At present, though, England is by far the most interesting place to be as my old friend Mrs Mary Moore, a local councillor, plans to run for Parliament in the next elections, which will be the first to allow women voting rights on equal terms with men. I daresay this all seems very odd to you.

But to come to the point. At the time of its publication I read the Archaeological Survey Report of 1919–20, and learned that Shahji-ki-Dheri had been returned to cultivation.The news was not as distressing to me as I would have imagined and after some consideration I realised that I didn’t truly believe the Circlet is there (though, yes, when in Peshawar I had great hopes). I was in some state of agitation when I came to Peshawar – wanting to believe impossible things – and I must apologise if in that state of mind I said or did anything that led you to believe, and hold on to, falsehoods. Of course you were just a child then. But how can the Assistant of Peshawar Museum (BA) really imagine that an artefact (circa 515 BC) from Caria, last heard of during the Hecatomnid era which ended in 334 BC, might come to be buried in Peshawar during the visit of Sung-Yun somewhere between ad 515 and ad 520? (There is only so much we can lay at Alexander’s door.) I can only assume Mr Hargreaves shares this view else there would be no need for a privately funded dig.

Don’t allow me to lead you astray any further. You are at a most privileged place and time in the history of archaeology. Concentrate your mind on what can realistically be sought after, and found.

Yrs.

Vivian Rose Spencer

15 March 1929

Najeeb Gul

Taxila Museum

Taxila

Qayyum Gul

Rose Door House

Next door to Hari Das Cobbler’s

Off Lahori Gate Road

Peshawar

15 March 1929

Lala

Thank you for sending the letter from England to me. Yes, the sender Miss V. R. Spencer is Miss Spencer from long ago. She is the one who I had hoped would lease the land at Shahji-ki-Dheri, but it seems it isn’t just girls who grow into women as caterpillars grow into butterflies but in the case of the English when the butterflies age they enter a cocoon. I will try once more to convince her, but I’m not hopeful.

I know you don’t understand why this means so much to me. How can I explain how it feels to hold an ancient object and feel yourself linked to everyone through whose hand it passed. All these stories which happened where we live, on our piece of earth – how can you stay immune to them? Every day here in Taxila I dig up a new story. And, yes, I’m grateful to the English for putting this spade in my hands and allowing me to know my own history. But to you history is something to be made, not studied, so how can you understand?

I have received permission from Mr Hargreaves to stay with the dig in Taxila a little longer so will not return to Peshawar until the end of the month. I hope all the wedding celebrations are going well.

Your brother

15 March 1929

Najeeb Gul

Taxila Museum

Taxila

Miss V. R. Spencer

Senior Lecturer

University College

London

15 March 1929

Dear Miss Spencer

I write to you from Taxila where a museum has recently opened to house the great findings of our excavations. I am here for a few weeks to advise on some teething problems, and am also taking the opportunity to participate in a dig. It is truly a privileged position to work both on the excavation and the curation of Gandhara artefacts. They are undoubtedly the most beautiful statuary created by human hands.

In your letter you asked how I can imagine that an artefact from Caria, lost to history in 334 BC, might come to be buried in Peshawar eight centuries later. This is how:

From Caria, Alexander took the Circlet with him to India, and gave it as a gift to Nearchus after the latter followed Scylax’ route down the Indus. After Alexander’s death, in the wars fought between his generals, Nearchus found himself on the opposite side to Seleucus Nicator who, following his victory over Nearchus’ forces at Gaza, claimed the Circlet for himself. A few years later, when Seleucus lost control over most of Alexander’s territory in India, he was forced into a treaty with the king Sandracottas who demanded the Circlet as part of the treaty terms. Sandracottas – or Chandragupta Maurya – was, as I’m sure you know, the grandfather of the great Buddhist king Asoka. When Asoka converted to Buddhism he had stupas built all across the length and breadth of his kingdom; each Buddhist stupa had a treasury, and the energy of the stupa was derived from the objects in the treasury. Is it unreasonable to think that he might have sent the Circlet from the palace treasury to a stupa treasury? And there it stayed through the centuries as Buddhism flourished in Gandhara and beyond – until the White Huns under Mihirakula overran Gandhara, burning stupas, pillaging their treasuries. Hearing of the approach of the Huns, a bhikkuni (that’s a Buddhist nun) called Maya escaped from a stupa complex, carrying the treasure of the great Asoka, determined to save it from the marauders. She travelled to the Great Stupa of Kanishka, and there she met the Chinese traveller Sung-Yun. When he refused to take the Circlet to safety, she buried it beneath the Great White Statue of Shahji-ki-Dheri, trusting that the soil of that sacred place would be an even safer hiding place than its treasury if ever the Huns should attack it. And watching her was a young boy who took the story with him and kept it alive in the world until, centuries later, it reached Kallistos – but that is a story for another time.

What is history without imagination, as Herodotus teaches us? I hope this might convince you to lay out the funds for leasing Shahji-ki-Dheri.

Yours sincerely

Najeeb

18 March 1929

18 March 1929

Peshawar.

Najeeb

Of all the fantastic tales you’ve ever told none is more fantastic than that of the kindly English who dig up our treasures because they want you to know your own history. Your museums are all part of their Civilising Mission, their White Man’s Burden, their moral justification for what they have done here. As for the spade they place in your hand, the honours they shower on you – the English are too few, we too many and so they see that it is necessary for there to be a class of Indian who will revere them, feel honoured by them, benefit from their presence and, ultimately, serve them because if our numbers turn against them to say ‘Leave’ there is no way for them to stay. Our numbers are turning, brother – and even while I rejoice at this I fear for you who will one day wake from your illusions and see you are nothing but a subject, a yoked Pashtun who thinks the yoke is a silk cravat and that a silk cravat is as much yours to wear as a turban.

I bear no hatred for the English. It is our weakness that is responsible for the state we are in. How dishonoured a people we were to allow the men of a small island who burn at the touch of the sun to come here and be our masters. And when the English leave, as they must, I will welcome them back into our house as visitors and show them all the courtesy and hospitality of the Pashtuns.

Do not attempt again to convince the Englishwoman to become part of your plans. We will play supplicant no longer, kiss their hands in gratitude for the favours they choose to bestow no longer. This is an elder brother’s command.

Your Lala

21 April 1929

V. R. Spencer

14 Doughty Street

Bloomsbury

London

Najeeb Gul

Peshawar Museum

Peshawar

21 April 1929

My dear Herodotus of Peshawar

If imagination can shape reality then it is you, not your invented Maya, who has placed the Circlet of Scylax beneath the soil of Shahji-ki-Dheri. I picture the boy you were circling the old excavation site, believing a miracle exists there, beyond your reach for reasons of mere finance. Having placed the dream in your mind myself, and understanding something of its grip, I see I have an obligation to at least ask: how much would it cost?

If the sum is not prohibitive I will gladly arrange for a transfer of funds and regard it not as a favour to you but as the spur to my long-held intentions to return to India. Perhaps in exchange you’ll accompany me to Taxila and Mohenjodaro, which I have a great wish to see?

Will you speak to the landowner yourself? If a financial agreement can be reached, I assume you’re in a position to obtain permission for excavating? I am unable to get away from London until early next year so if – I hasten to stress the ‘if’ – all this becomes possible let’s plan to excavate in the spring. What Pashto I had is largely gone but I will spend the months ahead returning to it (there is a man from Peshawar who works at the British Library – he insists his name is Durand, but of course it’s Durrani).

Yours

V.R.S.

28 May 1929

28 May 1929

To: VR SPENCER

DELIGHTED TO RECEIVE LETTER STOP COSTS FOR LEASE AND DIG TO FOLLOW STOP WILL ARRANGE EXCAVATION PERMISSION

NG

–

12 JULY 1929

To: N GUL

RECEIVED FIGURES FROM SOLICITOR STOP ACCEPTABLE HAVE TOLD HIM TO PROCEED WITH DRAWING UP LEASE

VRS

–

13 JULY 1929

To: VR SPENCER

HURRAH

NG

1 January 1930

1 January 1930

Lahore

Najeeb

I can’t describe to you what happened here yesterday at the Congress meeting on the banks of the Ravi River. Gandhi has called for complete independence from the English and Nehru hoisted a flag of three colours which will be the flag of a free India. My whole body went hot and cold when I saw it and I thought my heart would burst open. I am so proud to be among Ghaffar Khan’s Pashtuns here to celebrate this occasion – you should have seen us dance in celebration. Congress gatherings have never seen anything like it.

It is not all perfect. Many of the Congress Party believe with a certainty which might exceed that of the English that the Pashtuns are good for nothing except war and quick temper. They continue to express doubts that we will be able to follow the path of non-violent resistance when we are tested. But Ghaffar Khan tells us we must be patient and show through example that they are wrong. We will soon have the opportunity to do so. A resolution has been passed for civil disobedience which will go into effect before long. I am going from here with Ghaffar Khan to spread the word and build support for it through the Peshawar Valley – and in so doing, add to the numbers of the Khudai Khidmatgar. And what is this Khudai Khidmatgar, you will ask, you my brother who knows every coin unearthed in the Peshawar Valley and little else? Already I can imagine your distaste at the name. Yes, the Servants of God, Najeeb, we draw our strength from Him and will challenge any of the maulvis who claim Ghaffar Khan’s actions in allying with Gandhi are not those of a true Muslim.

But to explain: It is an unarmed army – you read that correctly – which will recruit unlettered men and bring them into our struggle. Ghaffar Khan says a conversation I had with him in which I talked of the great spirit of brotherhood and discipline in the Army helped him formulate the idea for the Khudai Khidmatgar, which pleases me more than anything else in life. I have said I will be part of the Khudai Khidmatgar. I would rather stand in formation with the unlettered men than sit in committees with men of learning. Though let me confess to you that our uniform of red-brown is far less appealing to the eye than the drab and green of the 40th. But what are we to do? Ghaffar Khan’s thoughts are of dye that is cheap and easily available, not of the vanity of his Yusufzai general. I am to be a general!

While I’m gone will you go to the orchards a few times to make sure Rahim is looking after everything? I trust him, but he can be lazy if he thinks no one is watching. You don’t have to pretend to understand much of farm life. It will be enough for you to go there and ask him how everything is.

Now to my final and most important point. Once this civil disobedience is launched there is no telling how the English will respond. It could become unpleasant – you have not seen the ways in which they attack those they see as an enemy, but I have and there is nothing in the world more cold and pitiless. So let me order, beg, plead one more time. Tell your Miss Spencer not to come.

I am following your instructions and not trying to convince you of the intentions and motives of the English when it comes to matters of archaeology. My point now is a separate one. This is not a time for an Englishwoman with no sense of today’s world to arrive in India. I know you think you understand the world better than your zealous brother, but I am speaking from my heart. Keep the Englishwoman away.

Your brother

Qayyum

15 JANUARY 1930

15 JANUARY 1930

To: N GUL

PASSAGE BOOKED PLEASE HIRE TEAM TO START DIG APRIL 5TH.

VRS

–

16 JANUARY 1930

To: VR SPENCER

CONFIRMED AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL

NG

–

1 APRIL 1930

To: N GUL

SLIPPED AND FELL AT KARACHI DOCKS NOTHING SERIOUS BUT DOCTOR ADVISES AGAINST TRAVEL FOR A FEW WEEKS STOP CAN DIG BE DELAYED

VRS

–

1 APRIL 1930

To: VR SPENCER

VERY SORRY TO HEAR UNWELL BUT DELAY IMPOSSIBLE

NG

–

2 APRIL 1930

To: N GUL

OH BOTHER START WITHOUT ME WILL JOIN WHEN POSSIBLE

VRS

April 1930

The soil was dense, the work slow. From sunrise until mid-morning Najeeb and his team of men dug through history. A few feet down there was a face of bone, which made the men touch their cheekbones and noses, as if considering for the first time their own skulls. A coin from the early days of the Raj had either been placed in its eye-socket or had tumbled into it from another era. There were other small discoveries – a coin, a copper seal, a fragment of stone with a lion’s flanks carved into it – mixed in with the endless quantities of white powder and white-stone fragments.

Then came the morning when he heard the ringing sound of a spade hitting something solid. The Buddha’s shin, thick as a man’s torso. Najeeb and the foreman used trowels and hands to work around it, revealing the Holy One’s ankle, his bare feet, the slightly flexed toes. By now it was well past mid-morning and the other men departed, but Najeeb continued on, impervious to aches and thirst and the sun searing the back of his neck. He was beyond imagining results, or asking how long he would continue; there was only this motion of his shoulder and arm and the trowel which had become an extension of himself; only soil displaced all around the base of the statue. The metal of the trowel head encountered tiny pieces of rock, a sound felt in his spine. The earth cooled as he dug into it; its composition changed; a worm wound its body sluggishly through the loam. The worm stood on its tail, fleshily pink, swayed in the changed universe of light and heat in which it found itself, and he thought of the adjoining graveyard, shuddered, plucked it out and flung it as far as his arm could throw. Wiped sweating palms on his trousers, continued. The edge of his trowel-head scraped metal. On his knees now; his heart an animal throwing itself repeatedly against the cage of his ribs.

Viv Spencer stood on the roof of the pink palace and watched the rooftop cupolas slide their shadows across the garden towards the statue of Queen-Empress Victoria flanked by lions. A pith-helmeted British soldier, also carved in stone, stood guard at one corner of the property. At least some of the Indian men in the garden must look at the statues and see an enemy; impossible to know which Indians were for Gandhi and which for the King, Viv had been told by Mary’s cousins with whom she was staying in Karachi. Even your Oxbridge man might go either way. There were Indian women on the lawn as well, elegant in their saris; they mainly clustered together but a few threaded their way into the knots of men where they were greeted with great flourishes of delight, which Viv didn’t know whether to regard as appreciative or as a politely coded reprimand.

The palace wasn’t really a palace at all, just the extravagantly named summer home of a prosperous Indian merchant who had built this mansion near the seafront. Mughal architecture, English statuary, and an underground corridor which led to a Hindu temple (and allowed the pious lady of the house to maintain purdah). Perhaps centuries from now students of history would look at this property and see syncretism, but it merely made Viv wish for the statues and stupas of Gandhara. This period of recovering from her back injury, now blessedly almost at its end, had been interminable, and strange. Such stark political opinions; so difficult to know what to make of any of it.

Viv looked over the mansion walls, across the expanse of sand dunes to the pier. A flamingo picked its way fastidiously through the waters of the Arabian Sea; another tucked a leg beneath its wings and twitched its long neck. In the stories of Karachi surely those pink birds had flown out of the stone of Mohatta Palace, leaving the peacocks in the nine domes of the roof to curse their own feathers whose purpose was beauty, not flight. She brought the back of her hand to her mouth, tasted the sea on her skin. How much narrower life would be without all of India poised at the heart of the word ‘Ours’. But if anyone asked her what she thought of India, of Empire, of Gandhi she remained silent. She had learned, long ago, that the easiest way to avoid causing damage was to watch and say nothing, do nothing. ‘Guarded’ was the word people used to describe her, though she preferred to think of it as careful. It was only amidst histories that were centuries old that she allowed her curiosity to become intervention.

– When the Muslims asked the Prophet, How should we respond to these attacks? he answered, With righteousness and patience. Righteousness and patience. These are Muslim virtues, these are Pashtun virtues.

Qayyum Gul faced the red-shirted volunteers, two dozen or more. On some faces he saw disbelief, contempt. Training, fight, army – these would have been the words that snaked through the farmland adjoining Peshawar, tugging men towards Qayyum’s orchards to join the training camp for the Khudai Khidmatgar. It was unclear if the men hadn’t been told the true nature of the army or if they disbelieved what they heard, but whatever the case almost half of them had arrived with guns and knives. Now they were empty-handed, and blades and barrels encircled the base of an apple tree, gleaming like the anklet of a demon goddess.

– I am not going to tell you that non-violence is compatible with Pashtunwali. I am going to tell you that in the circumstances in which we live non-violence is essential to Pashtunwali. Are you honourable enough to endure. .

A high-pitched whistle carried through the orchards, severing Qayyum’s sentence. He made a sharp gesture and the men scattered, scrambling up the nearest tree trunks and into crowns thick with leaves. Qayyum walked rapidly towards the other end of the orchard, and was inspecting a leaf, pretending to ensure that the white markings had been deposited by small birds and weren’t the start of a fungal infection, when the rent-collector entered from the adjoining plum orchards, which were also Qayyum’s. He thought of the apple and plum orchards as his even though every month the arrival of the rent-collector reminded him that he was merely a tenant-farmer.

Now that reminder strode towards him, beating a walking stick against his own leg, his mouth glistening with apple juice. The rent wasn’t due for weeks but Qayyum didn’t say anything while the rent-collector continued working on the core of the apple, nibbling at the flesh around the seeds.

– Strange rumours around, Qayyum Gul.

– There always are. Which ones have you heard?

– People say you’re using these orchards to train an army for Ghaffar Khan. Of course I reply oh no, he knows the landowner plays polo with the Deputy Commissioner and has a portrait of the King-Emperor in his Peshawar house. He wouldn’t do anything that would force me to come here and tell him these orchards aren’t his to work any longer.

The rent-collector waved his hand expansively around the orchard as he spoke. It was a season of abundance, branches dipping with the weight of their fruit; insects weaved drunkenly between trees, smashing themselves against branches. Qayyum rocked back on his heels, his arms crossed, and nodded to let the rent-collector know he understood.

The rent-collector stayed a few minutes more, talking of weather forecasts and the price of sugar. When he left there was a thud-thud-thud of men-fruit dropping from the trees, and Qayyum knelt on the ground, broke off a piece of turf, and crumbled it in his palm. If this were taken away from him what would his life be – thinned, bounded in. A cloth canopy above his head instead of the branches of an apple tree. The juice of a pen, pale blue, running across his palm where there should be liquid gold, inviting to the tongue. The scratch of a nib and the clamour of salesmen; not the calls of birds, the whisper of leaves. Nothing to compare to that moment when the first fruit of the season, pulled gently, detaches itself from a branch, and rests in your palm. He stood up, faced the men.

– That man came to tell me they will take my land away if I continue to stand here and speak to you. They think they can defeat us with threats. But I will endure what losses I must endure for the sake of freedom. And you? Are you honourable enough to endure, my brothers? For the sake of freedom are you men enough to put down your guns and endure?

– Yes, came the answer, sweeter than apple, more eloquent than ink. Yes!

Najeeb rested a hand on the silver band, its embossed surface. The figures were alternate – one fruit, one leaf, one fruit, one leaf, just as on the Hecatomnid coins. Even uncleaned the delicacy was unexpected, thrilling. In places where the tarnishing wasn’t so extreme he saw veins in the leaves, striations along the fruit. There would have been colour when Darius placed it on Scylax’ head – fig-purple and leaf-green. He spun it. The figs danced, the leaves twirled, Scylax kneeled before Darius and felt its weight settle on him, he dipped it in the Indus with an eye out for crocodiles, placed it on the brow of Heraclides, bloodied from his ambush of the Persians. Najeeb walked his fingertips across the raised surface; a message in Braille, a greeting across the centuries:

Hello, Najeeb!

Hello, Scylax!