Free Caravans by James A. Michener Page A

Siddiqa’s uncle, Moheb Khan, and I knew that it would never happen that I should marry Gretchen Askwith, no matter how inevitable our courtship. I longed to see the hidden face of Siddiqa Khan. I was mesmerized by the flowing movement of her chaderi, by the exquisite sense of sex this child had somehow managed to evoke.
    Sir Herbert repeated his question: “Isn’t
Outward Bound
a British play?”
    “I don’t know,” I replied. “I always supposed it was by a sentimental American who wanted to sound British.”
    “You may be right,” Sir Herbert replied with the thin smile that served him as a laugh.
    The reading of Act Three recaptured the intensity that we had created in Act Two. The laughter at our jokes was rather more explosive than it should have been, and my courting of Miss Ingrid more emotionally received. A good many people in the room were wondering what was going to happen to Ingrid—the person, not the character—and it gave our play an adventitious prurience to haveme, one of the unmarried men, attracted to her, even in make-believe.
    As we ended our reading there was genuine applause. Our audience was grateful that for a few hours we had provided them with escape, and when the snowy winds whirling down from the Hindu Kush whistled outside, the gratitude increased. I knew there would arise, as had arisen before, a longing not to shatter the illusion of the night, and that we would sit around for hours and talk, hoping to extend the human warmth we had created.
    We were astonished, therefore, when Moheb Khan said rather explosively, “Miss Ingrid, may I drive you home?”
    The Swedish girl smiled graciously at the Afghan and replied, “Yes.”
    Within a moment Moheb had his coat and hers. He summoned his driver from the kitchen quarters where all the Afghan drivers were resting, and from the manner in which Ingrid nestled into her fur coat and then onto the arm of Moheb Khan, we intuitively knew that she had allowed the part she had been playing to influence her normal personality. There could be little doubt that Moheb and Ingrid would be bedded down that night. When the door opened and we caught the snowy blast and saw Ingrid move even closer, that last little doubt was erased.
    When the door closed, one of the Frenchmen asked, “But isn’t Moheb Khan already married?”
    “He has two wives,” one of the Englishwomen volunteered.
    “Both Afghan?”
    “Of course. He wanted to marry an American, but it didn’t come off.”
    No one could have anticipated where this line of conversation might lead, but it was forestalled, and properly so, by Sir Herbert, who said, rather petulantly, I thought, “We really ought to read
Outward Bound.
I’ll offer myself as the bartender.” There was an immediate flurry of casting and a determination as to which secretaries would type out the required copies of which acts. Miss Maxwell, indestructible American that she was, offered to do the longest and others fell in line.
    Then Sir Herbert said, “For the young lovers we’ll have Gretchen and Mark.” The audience looked at us as if we had been set apart, and my former sensation of the inevitability of love in Afghan surroundings returned. Gretchen smiled, a wonderful British smile with white teeth and flushed cheeks. There was a moment of painful indecision, which I fractured by suggesting, “May I drive you home, Gretchen?”
    My question was so parallel to Moheb Khan’s, the situation was so transparent, that Gretchen flushed again, then laughed prettily and said, “Sir Herbert, you must keep them from talking about us, too.”
    Sir Herbert grew red, looked at Lady Margaret, then said, “I think you should know by now that in Kabul any pretty unmarried girl is fair game for all sorts of speculation. Are you riding with Mark?”
    “Yes,” Gretchen snapped saucily. “Yes, I am. Just the way Ingrid went with Moheb.” She did not yet have her coat on, but she grabbed my arm possessively.
    Sir Herbert