— Please go back to the Cantonment.

— I’m more sorry than I can say about what happened here.

— You don’t know what happened here.

The door to the thana opened again and this time the entire Congress and Khilafat delegation came out, and behind them men who Qayyum hadn’t seen go in — the prisoners, in khaddar and red shirts, so great a number of men it was impossible to make out each face. They opened the prison gates and stepped into the street and a great roar went up around the Walled City: Inqilaab Zindabad!

— Najeeb! Qayyum shouted over the roar. Najeeb!

A hand on his shoulder, he spun, his heart so light with relief it might fly out of his chest. But it was Abdul Hakim, shaking his head.

— I’m sorry, the lawyer said. I’m so sorry, he’s not there.

The prisoners streamed past him, embracing men on the street. Inqilaab Zindabad! Qayyum held out his arm to steady himself against something and what he touched was cloth, a shoulder beneath which didn’t flinch.

— Najeeb? the Englishwoman said, her voice carrying barely any sound. Please, not the lorries?

— No, Qayyum said, no. There was no one in a frock-coat. Someone would have seen him in his frock-coat.

The sentence gave him some strength and he repeated it, removing his hand from the woman’s shoulder.

— Of course, she said. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.

— You know about the lorries?

— Yes. But, Najeeb. Where is Najeeb?

— Do you know where the lorries went? Where they took the bodies?

— No. If I did I’d say so, of course I would. That poor woman, I can’t imagine what it must be like. Where is Najeeb?

— Which poor woman?

— There was a woman at the Museum yesterday. You must have seen her when she came in. She said her sister-in-law had been taken away in a lorry.

Now he remembered the figure with her head covered, the height of her.

— Did she have green eyes? he said.

— Yes. You know her?

— Why did she come to the Museum? Her sister-in-law had just died. The gates of the Walled City were closed. Why, how would she be at the Museum?

— I don’t know.

He looked down the Street of Storytellers towards the balcony on which deer chased each other between borders of roses. Without a word to each other both he and the Englishwoman in a burqa started to walk towards it.

It was impossible to keep pace with the Pathan without walking like an Englishwoman. Viv allowed him to stride ahead of her, surprised when he stopped near the carpet-seller’s door to wait for her.

— I can’t go in and ask to see a woman, he explained, knocking on the door. A young servant boy answered and said the family wasn’t back from Kohat yet, all mourners were being asked to come back the next day when they’d all be here. They aren’t all in Kohat, Mr Gul said, and the boy replied that his sahib had gone to Shahji-ki-Dheri.

— Shahji-ki-Dheri?

The boy’s expression grew alarmed at the sound of Viv’s accent, but he answered all the same.

— Yes, he’s gone there for a grave. Even if there isn’t a body there should be a grave.

He held up his fist which was wrapped in a gauzy blue dupatta, a faint scent of coconut oil rising off it, his eyes filling with tears.

What have we done here?

Mr Gul was looking at her and she knew she had to be the one to ask for the green-eyed woman.

— Tell your begum-sahib I’m the Englishwoman she spoke to about the lorries.

— Come with me, the boy responded. Come upstairs.

They followed him into an enclosed courtyard of coloured glass windows and delicate lattice woodwork, and from there up one of the corner stairways, and into a cavernous room she’d been in years earlier as a customer. The boy opened the shutters, and left the room. Along the length of one wall rolled-up carpets were arranged by height like schoolchildren. She remembered the kindly, bearded carpet-seller showing her a rug which had seemed no more than ordinary. I don’t think that’s quite what I had in mind, she’d said. He’d smiled as if he had wanted such a response and with a single flick of his wrist, as though turning the page of an illuminated manuscript, flipped over the rug to reveal sharply delineated arabesques of reds and blues, deep as blood and twilight. Viv’s delight was as much an appreciation of the salesmanship as the rug itself. Now the finely knotted arabesques were laid out in her study in Bloomsbury.

— Do you want to take the burqa off?

— Yes.

Mr Gul closed the shutters, and stood with his back to her while she removed the burqa and smoothed down her dress.

— All right, she said, and he walked away from the shutters and switched on a Tiffany lamp. A dragonfly lit up the gloom and, genie-like, a voice emerged from the lamp:

— What do you want?

Qayyum moved away from the door which had opened just feet away from him, almost tripping on a raised crease in the carpet. His imagination had claimed the woman so entirely, exaggerating the greenness of her eyes, the angle of her cheekbones, that she seemed reduced, disappointing. It was the Englishwoman she was addressing, not him.

— I’m sorry, the Englishwoman said, in English. Then, in Pashto: Forgive me, I can’t find out where the lorries are. They won’t tell me. But there were lorries, I know that for certain. A man named Caroe gave the orders.

— Why have you come here? Do you think I need you telling me what I already know to make it true? If you don’t know where she is, get out. I don’t need an Englishwoman coming in here with her ‘forgive me’s. What forgiveness do you deserve?

All the rage of the Walled City in her voice, and all the grief of a single heart breaking. My life would be better if I knew you — the thought was entirely out of place, and he hoped his face didn’t look as flushed as it felt when he cleared his throat so she would know he was there.

— We were also involved in what happened. My comrades, my brothers, the men of the Walled City.

— The Municipal Commissioners. I know. Why do you keep telling me things I know? Where is Diwa? There is no other question in the world.

He couldn’t look at her. Not because she was uncovered, not because desire might strike him, not because another man might see him looking where he should not. He just couldn’t look at her. And the Englishwoman across the room, he was sure she couldn’t look either.

— Take this.

He felt something thrust at his chest. When he looked up and placed his arms out to take it he saw it was the blanket she’d been holding under her arm. Without explanation she walked through the door and he heard a key turn in the lock on the other side.

Miss Spencer walked across to him. What is it? Just a blanket, he answered, his voice catching. The Englishwoman placed her hands on the upper layer of the folded-over cloth, took hold of its corners, her knuckles grazing Qayyum’s shirt, and stepped back, unfolding the dark fabric. Between her arms and his a frock-coat stretched out, prone, lamplight shining through the bullet-shaped hole in Najeeb’s chest.

On the Street of Storytellers

23 April 1930

Najeeb Gul imprints his hands with the rose carvings on the wooden door, his fingers catching in the deep whorls of a petal, and breathes in the intensity of attar. The rose-scent of springtime Peshawar — could any other city possess a season of such headiness? In England, he knows, the season of choice is autumn with its mists and mellow fruitfulness. ‘Mellow’. Only an Englishman would offer up such an adjective as a delight. It speaks to their subtlety of character. He steps back, allowing himself to feel pride at the ornately carved door, paid for with his salary from the Museum, which signals prosperity. If only his parents had lived to see it.