(THE FRUITSELLER FROM CABUL)


My five years' old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I
really believe that in all her life she has not wasted a minute in
silence. Her mother is often vexed at this, and would stop her prattle,
but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I cannot bear it
long. And so my own talk with her is always lively.

One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of the seventeenth
chapter of my new novel, my little Mini stole into the room, and putting
her hand into mine, said: "Father! Ramdayal the door-keeper calls a
crow a krow! He doesn't know anything, does he?"

Before I could explain to her the differences of language in this world,
she was embarked on the full tide of another subject. "What do you
think, Father? Bhola says there is an elephant in the clouds, blowing
water out of his trunk, and that is why it rains!"

And then, darting off anew, while I sat still making ready some reply to
this last saying, "Father! what relation is Mother to you?"

"My dear little sister in the law!" I murmured involuntarily to myself,
but with a grave face contrived to answer: "Go and play with Bhola,
Mini! I am busy!"

The window of my room overlooks the road. The child had seated herself
at my feet near my table, and was playing softly, drumming on her knees.
I was hard at work on my seventeenth chapter, where Protrap Singh, the
hero, had just caught Kanchanlata, the heroine, in his arms, and was
about to escape with her by the third story window of the
castle, when all of a sudden Mini left her play, and ran to the window,
crying, "A Cabuliwallah! a Cabuliwallah!" Sure enough in the street
below was a Cabuliwallah, passing slowly along. He wore the loose
soiled clothing of his people, with a tall turban; there was a bag on
his back, and he carried boxes of grapes in his hand.

I cannot tell what were my daughter's feelings at the sight of this man,
but she began to call him loudly. "Ah!" I thought, "he will come in,
and my seventeenth chapter will never be finished!" At which exact
moment the Cabuliwallah turned, and looked up at the child. When she
saw this, overcome by terror, she fled to her mother's protection, and
disappeared. She had a blind belief that inside the bag, which the big
man carried, there were perhaps two or three other children like
herself. The pedlar meanwhile entered my doorway, and greeted me with a
smiling face.

So precarious was the position of my hero and my heroine, that my first
impulse was to stop and buy something, since the man had been called. I
made some small purchases, and a conversation began about Abdurrahman,
the Russians, she English, and the Frontier Policy.

As he was about to leave, he asked: "And where is the little girl, sir?"

And I, thinking that Mini must get rid of her false fear, had her
brought out.

She stood by my chair, and looked at the Cabuliwallah and his bag. He
offered her nuts and raisins, but she would not be tempted, and only
clung the closer to me, with all her doubts increased.

This was their first meeting.

One morning, however, not many days later, as I was leaving the house, I
was startled to find Mini, seated on a bench near the door, laughing and
talking, with the great Cabuliwallah at her feet. In all her life, it
appeared; my small daughter had never found so patient a listener, save
her father. And already the corner of her little sari was
stuffed with almonds and raisins, the gift of her visitor, "Why did you
give her those?" I said, and taking out an eight-anna bit, I handed it
to him. The man accepted the money without demur, and slipped it into
his pocket.

Alas, on my return an hour later, I found the unfortunate coin had made
twice its own worth of trouble! For the Cabuliwallah had given it to
Mini, and her mother catching sight of the bright round object, had
pounced on the child with: "Where did you get that eight-anna bit? "

"The Cabuliwallah gave it me," said Mini cheerfully.

"The Cabuliwallah gave it you!" cried her mother much shocked. "Oh,
Mini! how could you take it from him?"

I, entering at the moment, saved her from impending disaster, and
proceeded to make my own inquiries.

It was not the first or second time, I found, that the two had met. The
Cabuliwallah had overcome the child's first terror by a judicious
bribery of nuts and almonds, and the two were now great friends.

They had many quaint jokes, which afforded them much amusement. Seated
in front of him, looking down on his gigantic frame in all her tiny
dignity, Mini would ripple her face with laughter, and begin: "O
Cabuliwallah, Cabuliwallah, what have you got in your bag?"

And he would reply, in the nasal accents of the mountaineer: "An
elephant!" Not much cause for merriment, perhaps; but how they both
enjoyed the witticism! And for me, this child's talk with a grown-up
man had always in it something strangely fascinating.

Then the Cabuliwallah, not to be behindhand, would take his turn: "Well,
little one, and when are you going to the father-in-law's house?"

Now most small Bengali maidens have heard long ago about the
father-in-law's house; but we, being a little new-fangled, had kept
these things from our child, and Mini at this question must have been a
trifle bewildered. But she would not show it, and with ready tact
replied: "Are you going there?"

Amongst men of the Cabuliwallah's class, however, it is well known that
the words father-in-law's house have a double meaning. It is a
euphemism for jail, the place where we are well cared for, at no expense
to ourselves. In this sense would the sturdy pedlar take my
daughter's question. "Ah," he would say, shaking his fist at an
invisible policeman, "I will thrash my father-in-law!" Hearing this,
and picturing the poor discomfited relative, Mini would go off into
peals of laughter, in which her formidable friend would join.

These were autumn mornings, the very time of year when kings of old went
forth to conquest; and I, never stirring from my little corner in
Calcutta, would let my mind wander over the whole world. At the very
name of another country, my heart would go out to it, and at the sight
of a foreigner in the streets, I would fall to weaving a network of
dreams, --the mountains, the glens, and the forests of his distant home,
with his cottage in its setting, and the free and independent life of
far-away wilds. Perhaps the scenes of travel conjure themselves up
before me, and pass and repass in my imagination all the more vividly,
because I lead such a vegetable existence, that a call to travel would
fall upon me like a thunderbolt. In the presence of this Cabuliwallah,
I was immediately transported to the foot of arid
mountain peaks, with narrow little defiles twisting in and out amongst
their towering heights. I could see the string of camels bearing the
merchandise, and the company of turbaned merchants, carrying some of
their queer old firearms, and some of their spears, journeying downward
towards the plains. I could see--but at some such point Mini's mother
would intervene, imploring me to "beware of that man."

Mini's mother is unfortunately a very timid lady. Whenever she hears a
noise in the street, or sees people coming towards the house, she always
jumps to the conclusion that they are either thieves, or drunkards, or
snakes, or tigers, or malaria or cockroaches, or caterpillars, or an
English sailor. Even after all these years of experience, she is not
able to overcome her terror. So she was full of doubts about the
Cabuliwallah, and used to beg me to keep a watchful eye on him.

I tried to laugh her fear gently away, but then she would turn round on
me seriously, and ask me solemn questions.

Were children never kidnapped?

Was it, then, not true that there was slavery in Cabul?

Was it so very absurd that this big man should be able to carry off a
tiny child?

I urged that, though not impossible, it was highly improbable. But this
was not enough, and her dread persisted. As it was indefinite, however,
it did not seem right to forbid the man the house, and the intimacy went
on unchecked.


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