Hussein. Patrick O’Brian

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      Jehangir was exceedingly jealous of Amurath, and he made the smaller elephant’s life quite a misery whenever they were alone together.

      When they had been some time in Haiderabad, Mustapha stiffened quite suddenly. They gave him a pension, and he retired.

      Hussein had Jehangir after that, and Amurath was left in peace.

      Mustapha spent his days in pottering about the elephant lines, and sitting in the sun before his house. He was happy in a mild way, but he was utterly lost without his work. He aged very quickly, and after some months his memory began to fail him: he called Hussein Ahmed, and sometimes he sat for hours in the sun with a book upside down in his hand.

      Zeinab, who was always active, was disturbed. She had never thought of herself as an old woman, for the business of feeding and caring for five men had always kept her very much alive. She said, with a puzzled smile, that it was very like having a baby in the house again.

      One night Mustapha died in his sleep. All the mahouts rent their clothes, and they gave him a great burial, with the elephants all trumpeting the Viceroy’s salute. The women came to comfort Zeinab, but she did not seem to need any comforting. She sat quite still: she seemed dazed, and she did not answer when they praised the dead Mustapha, neither did she loose her hair and wail in the dust: she did not even seem very unhappy, but that night she swallowed enough opium to ensure that her passing should be swift and clean. They buried her beside Mustapha the next day.

      Mustapha’s sons and Hussein mourned long and sincerely, with dust and ashes on their heads in the old eastern way.

      When their first grief had abated they came together to decide what they should do.

      Mustapha had always said that Hussein was to be regarded as one of his own sons, so Amir Khan, who, being the eldest, divided the inheritance, placed the money (in a jar buried under the floor) in four equal heaps, one for himself, one for Yussuf, one for Abd’allah and one for Hussein. It was difficult to divide the rest of the things, but after some time they settled it fairly among themselves. Hussein got all the books. For the full period of mourning they lived on together in Haiderabad, but after Ramadan the elephants which Yussuf and Abd’allah rode (they were all mahouts now) were ordered away to another part of the country. They were very unhappy at the parting, but they had to go. An uncle and three cousins were among the other mahouts who went with them, so they were not without friends. Amir Khan and Hussein moved to a smaller hut, for the older one was melancholy with no one in it. After a little while they began to notice that there was no sort of restraint upon them, and that they could do pretty well what they pleased. Although this was pleasant, there was something very sad in having nobody to tell them not to do things.

      Amir Khan, having little sense, took up with a fast set of young bloods, and he borrowed money from a bunnia: soon he found that he could not pay it back, and he took to borrowing money from Hussein to pay the interest. Hussein put up with it for some time; indeed he did not make much of a fuss even when Amir Khan took his money without the formality of asking for it.

      Sometimes he made tentative suggestions to Amir Khan that he was hard up too, but his cousin would say quite truly that Hussein did nothing in his spare time but moon about with Jehangir or read, so that he wanted no money to spend, and as money was only a danger when it was hoarded, it was much better that one who could enjoy it should spend it.

      ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘some day when you really need it I shall undoubtedly repay you — in fact, it is much the same as if you were to save it now, for I am a man of my word.’ Then he twirled his growing moustache and borrowed three rupees from Hussein.

      For more than a year they lived together in the Haiderabad elephant lines, but one day when neither Hussein nor Amir Khan had any money to pay the interest that was due, the moneylender hauled Amir Khan before the court to make him repay. In the court he became excited and tried to state his case in his own way. Two lawyers tried to restrain him, and he banged their heads together: then a policeman seized him, but he thumped him on the floor of the dock and kicked him in the stomach, for he was a stalwart young man.

      In the tumult he escaped, and came running to his hut, where he hid under Hussein’s bed, meaning to fly into the country during the night. But the police found him and he was sent to prison, after putting up a tremendous fight, in which all the mahouts joined so that there was almost a riot.

      Hussein wrote to Yussuf and Abd’allah; they took leave and came back to Haiderabad. On the appointed day they all went to see Amir Khan in the jail-khana: he was cheerful because he had acquired great izzat by his hardy resistance, but he did not know what to do when he should come out, as the PWD would not have him any more.

      They talked for some time, and then Abd’allah and Yussuf had to go back, for they only had two days’ leave. After a few weeks had passed they wrote to Hussein saying that a friend of theirs could secure a place as a mahout for Amir Khan on payment of Rs.100: they said that they could raise Rs.62 between them if Hussein could supply the rest: he did, by clearing his hoard right out and by pawning Amir Khan’s turquoise-studded ankus, which he had hidden when the bunnia came to take possession of Amir Khan’s other things, so that when his cousin came out of prison he was able to go straight to Sialkot, where his brothers’ friend was waiting.

      He parted very affectionately from Hussein, promising by his hope of Paradise to repay him, and borrowing another five rupees just before he went.

      When he was gone Hussein felt more lonely than he had ever been before, and he turned still more for companionship to Jehangir.

      However, he had made a good many friends among the younger mahouts, many of whom had been children with him, so he was not lonely, except when he wanted to be, as he did sometimes; for he had rather a powerful imagination, and there were times when he loved to be by himself, or with Jehangir, filled with a gentle, exquisite pity for himself, for no very obvious reason. When he felt like this he could sometimes go out beyond the elephant lines into the sand dunes, where he would thump on a tom-tom for hours at a time, singing that melancholy song they sing in Peshawar, of which the refrain goes ‘Drai jarra yow dee.’

      Now the chief of the mahouts had, among other things, a daughter. This daughter was as beautiful as a spotted sand-quail: her name was Sashiya.

      Most of the younger mahouts were enamoured of her, and she had been betrothed as a child to a certain insignificant young man, who kept accounts.

      Hussein’s friend, Kadir Baksh, was particularly loud in his praises of her beauty: one day Hussein asked him whether she could be seen in any particular place.

      ‘Yes,’ said Kadir Baksh; ‘every Friday she and other of Ghulam Haider’s anderun go to the cemetery. They sometimes stay to play with the children among the mounds where there are no graves. I have often hidden with others among the trees, and I have seen her veil blown aside no less than three times.’

      ‘Then', said Hussein, ‘to-morrow we will go to the cemetery.’

      They went and concealed themselves in a bush among the trees at the deserted end of the cemetery. For some time they waited: Hussein began to get impatient when ants began walking over them, but Kadir Baksh assured them that it would be worth it.

      At length some people appeared among the tombs; they walked slowly towards the green mounds where there were no graves, and Hussein saw that they were women, with a few children among them. They all wore chudders, but Kadir Baksh pointed out one who wandered some way to the left of the main group. ‘That is she,’ he whispered.

      ‘She walks like a gazelle,’ said Hussein.

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