The Opium Prince Read online

  He could hear a man and a woman arguing inside. The quarrel escalated as he came closer. Afraid for the woman, he pounded on the door and pushed in without waiting. He came upon an impossible scene. A girl was arguing with a gray-haired man who complained loudly about the bad service he had received. She shouted that she had done her best. She wore a chaderi, but she’d lifted it up to her neck, bundling it around her head like a billowy cloud. Faceless, she stood with her naked body exposed. The hair between her thighs was dyed henna-red and trimmed into a tidy triangle, like a traffic sign warning of risks up ahead. She was cursing.

  A fat man with an earring stood behind her, ham-hock arms out to the side, ready to intervene on her behalf. Daniel asked if she was all right. She pulled off the chaderi entirely, threw it to the floor, and turned to look at him. Her face startled him. She was no more than sixteen. Daniel reflexively looked away as her shouts gave way to tears. The gray-haired man had told her she was too old, she said. Daniel felt sick. It was one thing to read about this in Communist propaganda and another to see it in real life. No, they were not wrong about everything. Maybe this was the place he’d read about six months ago, where a group of urchins had been found dead in an unspeakable suicide, their bodies arranged in a star shape on the floor beside empty jars of bleach.

  The customer rushed past Daniel and out the door. The fat man with the earring said, “What do you want?”

  Daniel couldn’t answer. He wanted so many things. To turn back time. For his wife to come home. Right now, he wanted to take this teenager away from here, but she gestured sharply for him to leave. He gave her money, assuring her it was hers to keep, no service required. She threw him out. The stillness of the street rang in his ears. Sherzai had once told him, When a cause is really lost, don’t waste time looking for it. He wondered how many causes in his life were lost. He kept walking, nearly in a daze, until he discovered he wasn’t far from the Khushal. Had the girl led him here? Had she understood something he had not about the importance of going to see his friend and his wife? He quickened his steps. At the desk, the clerk greeted him warmly, asking if he had come to book a dinner reservation. Daniel only wanted the number to Peter’s room. On the third floor, he heard Peter’s voice before reaching the door. He was talking about currency exchange rates, surely not a topic to entice Rebecca.

  Daniel knocked, his hand awkward and heavy, a chilly sweat forming over his skin. His body was rigid. What would he say? He didn’t know, but if Rebecca was falling back in love with her old flame, he would fight for her. Losing Rebecca wouldn’t be like losing a limb. It would be like losing his center.

  “Daniel!” Peter said as the door flew open. “Come in.”

  Seated at a small dining table picking at pastries, Rebecca and Laila leaned out to see Daniel for themselves. They greeted him sweetly with similar expressions, their heads held to the side, eyes wide. They almost looked sad. Did exchange rates warrant such melancholy, or had his arrival brought this on? The fragrance of tea and coffee filled the room. A basket held muffins and bread, crumbs scattered on the three surrounding plates.

  “We meant to call you,” Laila said. “You look terrible.”

  “How long have you been here?” Daniel asked Rebecca.

  She told him she’d woken up and found herself alone and had phoned Laila.

  “I had plans for breakfast with Laila,” Peter said. “She brought Rebecca with her.”

  Laila smiled almost too brightly. “I thought since Becca was by herself, why not join us?” More likely, Laila had made plans with Peter and then changed her mind about meeting a man alone. Daniel felt a great burden leave him.

  When Rebecca excused herself to the bathroom, he followed, leaving Peter and Laila to a vigorous discussion about local bistros and bookshops.

  “Why did you answer the phone in here?” he said.

  “That was you? Why did you hang up?”

  “You go first.”

  “Peter and Laila were looking cozy. I didn’t want them to have to stop talking.”

  “I’m not sure I trust Peter with her. Why are you trying to push them together?”

  “I don’t have to, in case you can’t tell. This is good for her. She needs this.”

  “And you’re the judge of that?”

  “No.” Rebecca glanced toward the table. “She is.” Peter was standing behind Laila, showing her something in a book as she nodded enthusiastically.

  “All right,” he said. He reached for her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “How are you feeling?”

  “Can I ask you a question now?”

  Daniel braced himself.

  “That man from the desert. Why was he in our house?”

  There it was. By way of reply, Daniel said, “Did you know the whole time that Peter wasn’t going to a conference?”

  “I forgot.”

  “I forgot Taj was coming.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t bullshit me.”

  “It turns out Taj knows a lot of the farmers in Fever Valley. He was interested in helping us. I thought he should meet Greenwood. I should’ve told you, but I didn’t think he’d come.”

  It astonished Daniel how easily the lie formed. It was as if those hours he had spent re-creating the Gulzar file had unearthed a side he hadn’t known he had.

  “Laila said he was odd,” Rebecca said.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “What else should she say?”

  “You tell me. You know her better than I do these days.”

  “So you just met this man the other day and he knows all the farmers and is a swell guy who just wants to help you plant rice?”

  “Wheat.”

  “All I’m saying is, that’s not how he came across at the police station.”

  “Becca, the day of the accident, I think Taj was trying to help.”

  “Whatever you say.” Rebecca seemed to shiver suddenly. She moved closer until there was no space between them and wrapped her arms around him. “You know I love you, right? I’m your family.”

  He held her close. “What’s brought this on?”

  She stroked his cheek, pulled away, and disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, he told her he had a gift for her. He gave it to her in front of the others. She didn’t smile. She held her breath and looked like she might weep. “I love this,” she said.

  As the morning ended, dust particles dancing in the sunlit room, the four drank tea, Rebecca and Laila from the new set. The women gossiped about last night’s dinner guests. Peter bored Daniel, going on about those infamous exchange rates. Even discussing the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire or the tedium of Peter’s work at the Treasury Department would have been more stimulating. Did Daniel know that the dollar had been on the gold standard from 1900 to 1971? Did he know that the afghani was even weaker at the turn of the century than now? Yes, Daniel knew. Peter looked surprised.

  An hour later, Daniel found himself at the Gardens of Babur, an oasis of green that harbored a mosque, the resting place of the last Mongol emperor. It should have been counted as one of the Wonders of the World, if for no reason other than the improbability of such a place in this chaotic, windblown city. Sherzai was waiting for him by the entrance. They strolled onto the grounds, which were laid out as a sequence of rising terraces, a central watercourse running between them. The vice-minister leaned more heavily on his cane than usual, but did not complain. Daniel retrieved cigarettes from his pocket and lit two, handing him one. They walked past mulberry trees, pausing at the marble pavilion at the center of the gardens. Babur’s mosque glimmered like an apparition, its pearly angles and domes silhouetted against the sky. Daniel rarely saw Sherzai outside, their exchanges confined to offices and dining rooms. The man’s face was heavily lined. Like Sayed’s, his features had changed, but not because of drink, only time.

 
“What is this about, my boy? First you rush me to your office on Thursday, and now this?”

  Daniel flicked ashes on the graveled path and told him about a turn of events that was about to flip everything on its head.

  “Turn of events?” Sherzai watched him gravely. “What’s happened?”

  “I’ve been following up on information from an anonymous source, and I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure it was true.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “The kind that changes things.”

  “That’s true of every piece of information that was ever of use to anyone.” Sherzai tossed his cigarette to the ground.

  Daniel helped him onto a bench that was shaded by an oak and hesitated briefly before giving him the file. There was no turning back after this. Watching agha leaf through the papers, he sat on his hands like a child hoping to get away with a lie. Each second was a small lifetime. Lying no longer felt easy.

  He avoided Sherzai’s eyes as he recited his tale, fighting the lump in his throat, explaining that the Gulzar field was more important than anyone thought, and that a new, richer poppy seed had been sown there last spring. The meager-looking flowers held a potent resin many times stronger than the ordinary Papaver somniferum, the outcome of an experimental hybrid, like the growers in Burma and Thailand bred. Worse, a second planting had taken place last month, and an additional crop of poppies was set to bloom in Gulzar in the spring, when the worldwide supply of opium was low.

  Sherzai did little more than scan the file. “What is this?” he said. “This is impossible.”

  Daniel pointed to graphs that showed the anticipated rise in the Gulzar field’s production and yield based on details of the new crossbred poppies. The specifics, such as weight, subspecies, and concentration of opiates, were itemized in a column. On Daniel’s Olivetti, the typebar for the letter n did not strike the ribbon properly, so it hung a millimeter below the other letters. It was a visible flaw that revealed the file as Daniel’s, and though no one would ever guess, he felt that tug of ownership, just like he once did about that nightstand clock.

  “Why didn’t you show me this last week?” Sherzai said.

  “I had to wait for confirmation on this.” Daniel looked into the horizon, because it was easier than meeting his old guardian’s eyes. “We need to turn the soil over before the new flowers come in. We have to start now.”

  “With what equipment? What crews? You can’t reform Gulzar and Yassaman at the same time.”

  “I think the Yassaman field will have to wait until next year.”

  The vice-minister pressed his cane into the gravel and rose. “Next year?” He stood pillar-of-salt still. “Is this a joke?”

  “We can use the equipment Dannaco-Hastings built for Yassaman. Most of it can be modified for the Gulzar field. It won’t be a perfect fit, but it’ll work.”

  A pack of schoolchildren passed, the teacher walking backward, beseeching her bored students to pay attention.

  “Have you told Mr. Smythe? Mr. Greenwood?”

  “I thought I should talk to you first.”

  “What do you expect me to do, batche’m?” Sherzai had gone from moving too little to too much, and his voice was fluctuating, too, rising and falling as he cut the air with the file. “This could be a trick, somebody trying to protect the Yassaman field. Who are these sources of yours?”

  When Daniel insisted that the information was correct but that he couldn’t betray the source, Sherzai interrupted again and again, as if talking were a nervous tic he could not control. “I am a vice-minister in the Ministry of Planning. Do you understand? You serve us, not the other way around. You’re here to help, not decide.” Sherzai breathed deeply, and it sounded not like frustration but like a summoning of untapped power, his lungs filling with something more than air. “Everyone is invested in the Reform, and everyone expects to see the Yassaman poppies destroyed. The army. Every minister that counts. President Daoud.”

  The schoolteacher shot them a look of reproach magnified by thick lenses. Daniel could read her thoughts like they were printed on a flash card: The Gardens are a holy place, not a place where men come to fight. But Daniel could think of no place more appropriate for quarreling than a religious site.

  “I’m the director of USADE now,” he said, “and the United States government serves nobody.” He was reminding himself as much as Sherzai, telling himself he had a right, even a responsibility, to speak to Sherzai as a colleague.

  “You know what else the United States government doesn’t do? Change its mind because an upstart thinks he has a better idea. Mr. Smythe will never agree to this. Dannaco-Hastings will never agree. And what about your staff? Do you want them to think even less of you?” Sherzai immediately looked like he wanted to take back his words, but they were already there between them, spreading like a toxic spill.

  “I can’t worry about what they think of me. You were the one who reminded me of the Scale of Sages.”

  “You understand little about scales and wisdom. But let’s hope you understand this. In Europe, politicians talk about saving the whales because it lets them pretend they’re getting along and listening to what the people want.”

  “Whales?”

  “We need something the country can agree on. And it has to provide a proper show.”

  “You agree with Smythe’s decision to have it filmed?”

  “And have it broadcast on TV?” Sherzai opened his arms as if television encompassed the whole world. “It was my idea!”

  “Smythe thinks it was his.”

  “He thinks every idea is his. Daniel, the best thing you’ve done since arriving is convince Washington that Yassaman is the priority. Those poppies are relentless.”

  Sherzai snatched the file from Daniel’s hands and riffled through the documents until he found the note that had allegedly been scribbled by Daniel’s source. He read it again and again, like a man presented with an impossible fact. “Daniel, I’ve been thinking about something, and I want you to listen.” He stood very close. “Are you sure this is the right place for you? Rebecca isn’t happy here. Maybe you should return to California.”

  “What?”

  “You’re exhausted and half losing your mind, giving me things like this”—Sherzai tapped the folder—“and I think you’d be better off going home. If for nothing else, for the sake of your marriage.”

  “I came back to do a job I believe in.”

  “It’s not going to matter anyway. You’ll see. There will come a point where you won’t want to stay. You’re delaying the inevitable.”

  Though it hurt to think about, Daniel wondered if those neighbors and cousins had been right about Sherzai. Was it possible he was driven by envy? Was it possible he wanted to take over the project himself so Daniel would receive no credit, and he could outshine the Sajadis at last?

  “Agha, you want to push me out?” he asked quietly.

  “I want what’s best for you.” The vice-minister took Daniel in his arms, an old, familiar embrace that had given Daniel strength as a boy.

  “I have to give the order to destroy the Gulzar field,” Daniel said.

  “I don’t take orders from you. Agent Ruby will be used on Yassaman. The poppies will be destroyed in twenty-two days.”

  Daniel lit another cigarette, and when he shielded the match he hid his eyes as well. “You’ve seen the file. The information speaks for itself.”

  “The information never speaks for itself. It is those in power who speak for the information. And you, my boy, are not the one in power.” The vice-minister tossed the file to the ground, papers fluttering in the gathering wind. He pressed toward the exit as Daniel scrambled to collect the documents before catching up. A gentle rain began. Daniel had never been so aware of entanglements of fate. His was entwined with those of his wife and his agency and Sher
zai. And in this web of principles and obligations, those who were no longer there loomed largest of all: Sayed and Telaya and a teenage boy shot to death in Fever Valley. How had it come to this? The dead ruled over him like great emirs.

  Daniel and Sherzai walked along the bustling road, leaving the gardens behind. Sherzai held out his hand for transportation. “I know one thing,” he said as if stating a widely known fact. “This anonymous source of yours. He’s dead.”

  “Are you threatening my source?” Daniel asked incredulously.

  “Your father was like a brother to me.” Sherzai’s eyes were rivers of glinting light. “I remember how disappointed he was the day your headmaster came to the house and showed him the note you forged to avoid school. The one you wrote in your father’s handwriting.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “That’s what you said then, too.”

  “Please,” Daniel said. “Agha, you’ve known me all my life.” He swallowed hard and continued with difficulty. “My father was like a brother to you, and you’ve been like a father to me. You know you can trust me.”

  “I’m an old man, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no one should blindly trust anyone. Your father taught me that.” They stared at each other. “I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing or why you would do this. I always thought of you as an honest boy, Daniel. You are not your father’s son.” Sherzai’s tone was gentle, without the contempt that should have accompanied such words.

  A horse-drawn gadi carriage slowed at the edge of the road, the driver offering Sherzai a ride. He climbed in, his cane clunking against the seat, and lowered himself to the bench while the horse shook its mane and turned its face to Daniel. One of its eyes was covered with a patch, the other crusted with a thick excretion. Daniel stalked ahead, never turning around, the sound of hoofs behind him like a metronome. He rounded a corner and, moments later, stepped onto a bus. He stared at the raindrops that squiggled along the windshield. Some moved horizontally, some vertically, and others diagonally. No matter what path they took, they all reached a dead end at the edge.