The Wandering Falcon (18 page)
Read The Wandering Falcon Online
Authors: Jamil Ahmad
Afzal Khan thought for a while and then spoke out: “I will accept your three thousand rupees. Treat the rest as my marriage gift. It goes against my grain to enter into such a foolish bargain, but let not men say that Afzal Khan was unwilling to lose money when it was required of him.”
The young man's face broke into a wondrous smile. He took Afzal Khan's hands and kissed them, counted out the three thousand rupees, and put them in Afzal Khan's pocket.
“Take me to her.”
Afzal Khan walked with the young man to the small room where Shah Zarina was sitting by herself after the departure of her companion. He called her to come out and made her face the young man.
“I have sold you for marriage. This young man is going to marry you. May God keep you happy.”
She was standing before a man dressed all in black. The end of his turban had been looped under his chin and tucked back into the headband. He was shortâhardly as tall as Shah Zarina herself.
His jet-black beard and a few stray locks struggled free from the confines of his turban. Shah Zarina turned her glance back to Afzal Khan.
“I thank you,” she said simply. “I shall always pray for you.”
The next morning, the buyers and the sellers started leaving as they had come. Singly and in small groups, they scattered, leaving the village behind as they had found itâa sleepy collection of huts with no sounds, no music, and hungry dogs roaming aboutâuntil it would start coming to life with the approach of next Thursday.
On one of the trails, Tor Baz walked along with Shah Zarina behind him, and fingered the small silver amulet that was stitched to the inside of his cloak. He was smiling, as he did most of the time. While he usually smiled about nothing in particular, this time he was smiling about Afzal Khan.
It's almost incredible,
he thought,
that Afzal Khan really believed I would marry this girl, to think of such an old veteran falling for the oldest trick in the trade. The man must really be growing old. Incredibleâincredible, indeed.
he thought,
that Afzal Khan really believed I would marry this girl, to think of such an old veteran falling for the oldest trick in the trade. The man must really be growing old. Incredibleâincredible, indeed.
But then,
he thought, as he walked and remembered the bearded mullah from his childhood nightmares, who had talked about the veils between man and God,
I could settle down with this one. Who but God knows what the future holds for me and for this land? Maybe it is time now to end my wanderings.
he thought, as he walked and remembered the bearded mullah from his childhood nightmares, who had talked about the veils between man and God,
I could settle down with this one. Who but God knows what the future holds for me and for this land? Maybe it is time now to end my wanderings.
Acknowledgments
The publication of this book would not have been possible but for the persistent encouragement of my brother Javed Masud, the relentless efforts of Faiza S. Khan of the Life's Too Short Short Story Prize, and the deep interest manifested by Meru Gokhale of the Penguin Group. I also want to thank Imran Kureshi for his initial editing of the manuscript.
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