He was dead because of her. Wherever she went in the world, whatever she did, this would always be the truth at the core of her life.
BOOK II
Twentieth-century Herodotus
19 November 1928
Najeeb Gul
Rose Door House
Next door to Hari Das Cobbler’s
Off Lahori Gate Road
Peshawar
Qayyum Gul
Guest of Sher Mohommad Yusufzai
Shahbaz Garhi
19 November 1928
Lala
How long will your friend’s wedding celebrations go on? My footsteps are an intruder in the silence of the house. You should come back soon — not only for your lonely brother but because of what it must cost your hosts to keep you well fed. How much you eat, Lala! I never noticed it before but our sisters are sending over half the quantity of food as when you’re here and most of it still goes uneaten. You must have gobbled up half the chickens of Shahbaz Garhi in the week you’ve been away.
(I know your expression right now — one side of your mouth a smile, the other side a scowl.)
Remember when the owner of the sugar-cane fields at Shahji-ki-Dheri died and one of the men who worked his lands told you the son who had inherited showed some regret that such bad feelings had existed between his father and the English over the matter of leasing the land for excavation? Now it seems an artefact that first entered my dreams in childhood might be beneath those fields. Will you find out the best way to approach the new owner for leasing the land — directly or in a roundabout fashion? With flattery, gifts or a straight gaze? Nothing has ever been more important to me than this.
I hope many people have come for the wedding celebrations, and they are going well.
Your brother
Najeeb
19 November 1928
Najeeb Gul
Peshawar Museum
Peshawar
India
Miss V. R. Spencer
University College
London
Great Britain
19 November 1928
Dear Miss Spencer
Please forgive this intrusion. You may remember me from your time in Peshawar in 1915 when I was your student. I certainly have not forgotten you. You introduced me to the world of Scylax and Herodotus, and set me on the path I have continued to follow. (I accompanied you the first time you went to Shahji-ki-Dheri, if that aids memory.)
Following on from my degree in history from Islamia College in Peshawar I have had the good fortune of working with Dr John Marshall. I spent two years with him at Taxila before being offered the position of Indian Assistant (the role formerly known as ‘Native Assistant’) at the Peshawar Museum, from where I now write to you. Mr Hargreaves is Superintendent and was the one to tell me you could be reached at University College, London.
You must be wondering why I’m writing to you after so many years. It concerns the matter of Shahji-ki-Dheri. Several years ago Mr Wasiuddin — who was Native Assistant here during your time — told me you had tried to obtain permission to excavate the stupa site. I understood then that you truly did believe the Kanishka Casket and the Sacred Casket to be one and the same, and must also have deducted that the Circlet was buried there during the visit of Sung-Yun, whose ‘mission was not that of theft’. It is entirely understandable you didn’t wish to reveal as much to a twelve-year-old boy. Perhaps you already know that, due to the protracted dispute with the owners of the site, the excavation was levelled in 1919. There is nothing but wheat fields now where once we walked among the broken stupas and cross-legged Buddhas.
I have, only this morning, been examining the records of Dr Spooner’s original excavations, and came upon a detail that may interest you. In one of the trial pits, to the south-west of the main stupa, were found fragments of white stone and a broken finger ‘the size of which suggests a statue of some enormity’. Miss Spencer, I sincerely believe this to be the eighteen-foot-high white statue which you, as I, must surely have surmised to be the Great Statue of which Kallistos writes. White stone was found nowhere else on the site, and from my examination of the detailed site drawings it seems that the trial pit in question is roughly one hundred paces to the south-west of the stupa, assuming the paces are those of a small man.
I would not bring this up if I thought there was no hope of further excavations. It’s true that within the Department there is no interest in returning to Shahji-ki-Dheri which yielded so little beyond the Kanishka Casket and caused such headaches, but the owner of the land with whom there were legal disputes and considerable bad blood has now passed away and his son is a man of gentler temperament. If it were possible to undertake a privately funded dig I believe he would be willing to lease out the land at a reasonable price.
I apologise again for this intrusion. It has often occurred to me to write to you but I have not wanted to presume. But now it gives me great pleasure to have occasion to thank you for all you did for me, and to hope the news I bear is welcome.
Yours sincerely
Najeeb Gul, BA (Islamia College)
Pactyike
22 November 1928
Shahbaz Garhi
22 November 1928
Najeeb
The first rule of approaching any man: do not insult his appetite in one sentence and ask for his help in the next. (The chickens of Shahbaz Garhi are safe, and the goats are delicious.)
I have had more success here than I anticipated in promoting Ghaffar Khan’s ideas of reform, due to the support of my host who is held in high regard. He has advised me against using your translations of Asoka’s rock inscriptions when I talk to the men here, even though he was the one to take me to that rock for the first time when I returned from the war. Already there are rumours put about by the English and the mullahs that Ghaffar Khan’s ideas of non-violence are Hindu beliefs taken from Gandhi, so it is best to talk of the Prophet only, and not confuse matters by bringing a Buddhist king into it. But before you scowl too much — I went to the rock and read the translated words while I stood in front of it, and felt a powerful peace which I know to come from Allah, no matter which of his Messengers he used to spread it through the earth.
If you go to the fields at Shahji-ki-Dheri and ask for Afzal, son of Allah Buksh, and say you are my brother, he will tell you everything you need to know about the owner of the land. I am glad for your sake that you believe you’ve found something valuable to you, though I wonder what this artefact is, placed into your dreams by the English who teach you their version of history.
Your brother
Qayyum
This letter is being brought to you by a man I trust. If you send a reply by his hand write freely — otherwise, speak only of wedding celebrations.
18 January 1929
V. R. Spencer
Senior Lecturer
University College
London
Najeeb Gul
Indian Assistant
Peshawar Museum
Peshawar
18 January 1929
My dear Najeeb Gul
My memory needs no aid in recollecting you. It gives me such pleasure to know that the young Pactyike has found himself a position at the Peshawar Museum — and at such an early age. The last fourteen years of my life have involved less dramatic changes than yours (Taxila!) but I have kept myself well occupied. In addition to the lectureship post at University College I have catalogued several museum collections and taken part in a few digs: the Borg in-Nadur Temple in Malta, with my former teacher at UCL, Margaret Murray; Roman sites in Wales with my former classmate from UCL, Tessa Wheeler, and her husband Mortimer; and, most recently, the Fayum with my former student from UCL, Gertrude Caton Thompson. (Well might you think I am part of a UCL cabal!) At present, though, England is by far the most interesting place to be as my old friend Mrs Mary Moore, a local councillor, plans to run for Parliament in the next elections, which will be the first to allow women voting rights on equal terms with men. I daresay this all seems very odd to you.