almost left the party in protest before the host had the animal taken away. Viv gave the boy a coin and told him she didnât need him. The rising heat of early morning felt like an old friend.
Setting the pen aside, she concentrated on breakfast. Tea and jam and bread in Peshawar. It was all so strange. When she had finished the bearer informed her that a boy had been waiting for her. At first she didnât know what he meant, but there he was, near the hotel entrance, the boy from the train station, with a Victoria driver who knew the way to Shahji-ki-Dheri.
Â
Through the Cantonment the horse trotted, all creaking harness and clopping hooves, down broad streets shaded by plane trees and cypresses, their familiarity an ache. But then the Victoria drove through the arched gateway of the Walled City and Viv rose out of her seat, exclaiming loudly at the glorious colour and noise and exactly-what-you-want-it-to-be-ness of it all. Birds beating their wings against dome-shaped cages, children sucking on molasses pebbles, sugar-cane sellers slicing whistling sounds out of the air to attract buyers, water-carriers with spines curved beneath animal-skin sacks filled with liquid. Pyramids of peaches and plums in wicker baskets, carpets draped over balconies and branches, clothes lines strung between top-floor windows with menâs clothes hanging from them (Native men of all ages could be seen craning their necks in the hope some female garment might have accidentally or â why not believe this? â deliberately been placed in view). There werenât in fact any men craning their necks but she would say there were when she and Tahsin Bey found themselves in each otherâs company again. Sheâd tell him tales of Caspatyrus that would make him smile that smile of exceptional warmth, and he would most certainly agree that the fabrication of stories was a form of tribute to Scylax, whose tales of India included impossible wonders.
The Victoria had stopped for no reason, and the boy â Najeeb his name was â said she should sit down. A white tent floated past, and Viv wondered if the woman within felt disdain or envy at the sight of an Englishwoman standing up in a Victoria, looking around, unimpeded. There were no other women, tented or otherwise, but looking up above the storefronts she saw some movement behind the enclosed wooden balconies; the latticework of the wood was replicated on the mesh of the tented womanâs burqa. Much like the grille in the Ladiesâ Gallery behind which any women wanting to view parliamentary debates must sit so that men wouldnât be distracted by their presence. It must be even more hot and stuffy in those burqas than it was in the Ladiesâ Gallery, which she had once entered on Maryâs insistence to listen to a debate on Votes for Women â that was before her father had set her right on the issue by sending her to listen to the magnificent Gertrude Bell addressing the Anti-Suffrage League. (If all women were like Ms Bell and you, men would fall over their feet in their haste to give you the vote, Papa had said when she came home to report all that had been said.) She sat down and asked the boy if he had sisters. Yes, three. Didnât they get cross-eyed behind a burqa? Their eyes learned to focus differently, he said, and she couldnât decide if this seemed plausible or not.
The Victoria progressed along the famed Street of Storytellers and Najeeb pointed out the Storytellers themselves â men sitting cross-legged on the raised floors of open-fronted stores, audiences seated across from them on rope-beds beneath trees. The stories they told were in the form of poems called badalas , Najeeb said in response to her question, and she repeated the word badala and wondered where she could find a language teacher. Hindko was the language of Peshawaris, Najeeb said, and Pashto the language of Pathans.
â So you speak Pashto, Viv
Setting the pen aside, she concentrated on breakfast. Tea and jam and bread in Peshawar. It was all so strange. When she had finished the bearer informed her that a boy had been waiting for her. At first she didnât know what he meant, but there he was, near the hotel entrance, the boy from the train station, with a Victoria driver who knew the way to Shahji-ki-Dheri.
Â
Through the Cantonment the horse trotted, all creaking harness and clopping hooves, down broad streets shaded by plane trees and cypresses, their familiarity an ache. But then the Victoria drove through the arched gateway of the Walled City and Viv rose out of her seat, exclaiming loudly at the glorious colour and noise and exactly-what-you-want-it-to-be-ness of it all. Birds beating their wings against dome-shaped cages, children sucking on molasses pebbles, sugar-cane sellers slicing whistling sounds out of the air to attract buyers, water-carriers with spines curved beneath animal-skin sacks filled with liquid. Pyramids of peaches and plums in wicker baskets, carpets draped over balconies and branches, clothes lines strung between top-floor windows with menâs clothes hanging from them (Native men of all ages could be seen craning their necks in the hope some female garment might have accidentally or â why not believe this? â deliberately been placed in view). There werenât in fact any men craning their necks but she would say there were when she and Tahsin Bey found themselves in each otherâs company again. Sheâd tell him tales of Caspatyrus that would make him smile that smile of exceptional warmth, and he would most certainly agree that the fabrication of stories was a form of tribute to Scylax, whose tales of India included impossible wonders.
The Victoria had stopped for no reason, and the boy â Najeeb his name was â said she should sit down. A white tent floated past, and Viv wondered if the woman within felt disdain or envy at the sight of an Englishwoman standing up in a Victoria, looking around, unimpeded. There were no other women, tented or otherwise, but looking up above the storefronts she saw some movement behind the enclosed wooden balconies; the latticework of the wood was replicated on the mesh of the tented womanâs burqa. Much like the grille in the Ladiesâ Gallery behind which any women wanting to view parliamentary debates must sit so that men wouldnât be distracted by their presence. It must be even more hot and stuffy in those burqas than it was in the Ladiesâ Gallery, which she had once entered on Maryâs insistence to listen to a debate on Votes for Women â that was before her father had set her right on the issue by sending her to listen to the magnificent Gertrude Bell addressing the Anti-Suffrage League. (If all women were like Ms Bell and you, men would fall over their feet in their haste to give you the vote, Papa had said when she came home to report all that had been said.) She sat down and asked the boy if he had sisters. Yes, three. Didnât they get cross-eyed behind a burqa? Their eyes learned to focus differently, he said, and she couldnât decide if this seemed plausible or not.
The Victoria progressed along the famed Street of Storytellers and Najeeb pointed out the Storytellers themselves â men sitting cross-legged on the raised floors of open-fronted stores, audiences seated across from them on rope-beds beneath trees. The stories they told were in the form of poems called badalas , Najeeb said in response to her question, and she repeated the word badala and wondered where she could find a language teacher. Hindko was the language of Peshawaris, Najeeb said, and Pashto the language of Pathans.
â So you speak Pashto, Viv
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