An Afghan in America

by Achmed Abdullah

 

AN AFGHAN IN AMERICA

The Incident of the Wise Old Man and the Mouse-Haired Woman

By Achmed Abdullah

MY father's wireless was a shock to me: “Expect me New York Monday. Steamship Afghanistan.” I am a Moslem. Islam is said to teach two things at least to its followers: Utter resignation to Fate, and respect for one's parents. But, somehow, when I read that telegram I felt that both of these painfully acquired virtues were slipping away from me.

My father had never before been to America. He had been educated in Europe in the good old days when it was still fashionable for Afghan princes and Hindu Rajahs to know the difference between the teachings of Spencer and those of Comte, and to prefer a hirsute German professor's latest philosophic extravaganzas to the ancient, solid wisdom of the Vedas and of Moslem doctors. He knew the old Europe well: The London of Gladstone and Disraeli, the Paris of Cora Pearl, Madame Paiva, and the July Monarchy. I, on the other hand, had America to thank for whatever Occidentalizing I had experienced. And I liked America. Liked the zip of it. Also the bang. Mostly the bang. And then I liked Her. So I felt nervous. For my father would surely sneer at her. All elderly Orientals sneer. And then I would lose my temper. All young Orientals lose their tempers.

THEN I decided that I would not lose my temper. Not at all. For my father remits promptly, vastly, and regularly. He also remits between-times. He can be counted upon in the hour of need. In Afghanistan he is the head of a large corporation. He is the corporation itself ... a business organization which makes a specialty of helping itself to the lands and goods of other weaker chiefs and tribes. Also I had to think of her.

“Her” was a widow. She was older than I. I had been warned against her. Her hair was dangerous. In fact, everything was in her favor. I wanted to marry her ... at times. She shone, socially. She shone like the planet Khizr. So did her sisters.

So did all of her family.

They were, in fact, a constellation. She used bistre-brown face powder which smelt distressingly of red Jamaican jessamine. Her hair mated Ysabel; it also was every-day mouse-color. More mouse than Ysabel.

I liked her house. Some day I meant to live in it. The second floor was charming. It combined a nuance of Florentine distinction with all the latest American creature comforts. So I decided that the second floor would do for my private apartments ... after our ... yes ... after our...

THE first ball of the season was to be given two days after my father's arrival. “Her” was giving it. My father arrived at his hotel in New York in due course of time, and went to the ball with me. I told him that it was given in his honor. I lied to him. (I studied the art of lying in Kashmere, the home of deceits.) I do not think that my father believed me. (He, I forgot to say, had also studied the art of deceit in Kashmere.)

OF course I danced with “her” ... my hostess. For she could dance. The rhythm of her lithe body reminded me of Petrarch twanging his melancholy lute in the gardens of Vaucluse. And, as we swung together to the cadences of the latest Argentine tango, I was mentally composing verses to her in my native Persian. I am somewhat of a poet in my own modest way. One started like this:

Thy feet are like twin-blossoms scampering in the wind of desire;
Thy throat is the soft throat of the passionate kokila-birds

and so on. Never mind. The dance was over. I returned to my father who had been watching us with the sneering expression of a cross-grained Buddha.

CAPTAIN SYYED SHAYKH ACHMED ABDULLAH
Madir Khan el-Idrissyeh el-Durani

“I saw you dancing,” he said.

“I am fairly good at it, don't you think?”

My father lit a cigarette.

“When I was your age I lived in Kabul,” he said. “I did not dance with women. I had women dance for me ... for me,” he repeated, with a rising accent. “And I paid 'em out of hand. Now there was one little Nautch girl: my cousin sent her to me as a Ramazzan present. Her name was Khaizr'an...”

It is not good for the old to shock the young. I pointed at the crowd.

“Over there, father, is a man who has just made a million dollars out of Standard Copper ... all in a week ... and the little chap talking to him ... that's the man who made such a furore last year at Newport. He gave a dinner party at which the farmyard animals were represented by the guests, and ...”

MY father interrupted me. My country is a strange, barbaric country. There the old can interrupt the young.

“When I was your age I did not bother about financial affairs. By the way, my son,” he drew pencil and paper from his pocket. “What's the name of the stock you spoke about? Standard Copper? Still going up? Thanks. Yes ... we didn't bother about sordid financial details. We left that to Hindu bankers. Also to Armenians. Also to Greeks. Also to pigs.”

Then he began reminiscing again. He told me anecdotes of the friends of his youth in Paris. I could not stop him. He spoke of M. de Montalembert, M. de Falloux, Mgr. Dupanloup, about Jules Simon, whom he hated ... and then he spoke at length about the old Duke de Broglie.

I tried to change the conversation. The only Falloux I knew was a shirt-maker on the Boulevard des Italiens who had invented a soft-rolling cuff, and the only Dupanloup I had ever met was not a Monsignor of the Church. On the contrary, she lived in the Rue Nouvelle.

THE hostess came up to us. She was very beautiful, as I have explained. She smiled at my father ... and by the red pig's bristles! the old war-horse smiled back at her.

He turned to me.

“Being in an alien land I must conform to alien customs. I shall dance with her.”

He danced with her the rest of the evening. He did several new steps...

He also drank forbidden spirits. Many of them.

I had great difficulty in putting him to bed. He was babbling about dancing, about forbidden spirits. He murmured that an Asian gentleman should observe the customs of alien lands.

“Yes,” he muttered as I got him into his bed, and he looked at me with a stern expression, “it is good and just. Labid considered it right. And Mahommad el-Darmini, the great sage, specially recommended spirits in alien lands. Tell the wallah to call me early. The mouse-haired woman has asked me to lunch...”

IN the morning he addressed me:

“Tell me, my son. You know this great land and its quaint customs. In writing a little note to a mouse-haired woman, would it be thought graceful to employ the beautiful Afghan term of endearment, 'Blood of my Liver'? Or would it be better to use the charming Pukhtu, 'Wind of my Nostrils'?”