The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [554]
Ash had learned those prayers long ago. It had been necessary that he should know them (and be seen to say them), during the years when he had helped to track down Dilasah Khan through Afghanistan – and more recently, when he had gone back there at Wigram Battye's instigation in the guise of an Afridi. He had said them daily at the proper times, since they were as much a part of his disguise as the clothes he wore or the language he spoke, and to neglect them would have invited remark; so that now, instinctively, seeing Zarin begin the ritual, he too rose to face Mecca and automatically began to murmur the familiar prayers. But he did not finish them. Zarin broke off, and turning his head said angrily: ‘Chup! You are safe here. There is no need for play-acting!’
Ash stopped, open-mouthed, startled into attention by the look on Zarin's face rather than the anger in the harshly spoken words. It was a look he had never seen there before, and had never thought to see, a mixture of revulsion and animosity that was as shocking as it was unexpected, and that made him feel curiously breathless, as though he had walked into a solid object in the dark and winded himself. He was aware that his heart had begun to beat heavily, thudding like a drum in his chest.
Zarin turned abruptly back to his prayers, and Ash stared at him, frowning and intent, as if he were seeing something he recognized but had never conceived of finding here…
Because he had always known that to Hindus, whose gods were legion, caste was all-important, and that the only way to become a Hindu was to be born one, he had accepted the fact that as far as they were concerned he would always remain on the far side of an invisible line drawn by religion and impossible to cross. But with Koda Dad and Zarin and others of their faith (who worshipped one god only, were prepared to accept converts and had no inhibitions about eating and drinking with anyone, irrespective of creed, nationality or class) there had seemed to be no similar barrier; and even though their Koran taught them that the slaying of Unbelievers was a meritorious act rewarded by entry into Paradise, he had never felt less than at home with them. Until now…
That look on Zarin's face explained many things: the Mogul conquest of India and the Arab conquest of Spain, and all the many Holy Wars – the Jehads waged in the name of Allah – that have drenched the long centuries with blood. It had thrown a white light on something else too: something he had always been dimly aware of but had not troubled to think about. The fact that religion has not brought love and brotherhood and peace to mankind, but, as was promised, a sword.
The bond between Zarin and himself had been strong enough to withstand almost any strain that could be put upon it – except the stroke of that sword. For though on one level they were friends and brothers, on another, deeper one, they were traditional enemies: the ‘Faithful’ – the followers of the Prophet – and the ‘Infidels’, the Unbelievers to whose destruction the Faithful are dedicated. For it is written ‘kill those who join other gods to God wherever ye shall find them, besiege them, lay in wait for them with every kind of ambush’.
Zarin must have known that he, Ash, would for his life's sake have had to observe every ritual of the Mohammedan religion as part of his disguise, even though he had never actually seen him doing so. Yet now, seeing it for the first time – and when the necessity for it had passed – he saw it only as sacrilege; and Ash as an Infidel making a mockery of the True God.
It was strange, thought Ash, that he should never have realized before that between himself and Zarin there yawned a gulf as wide as the one that separated him from all caste Hindus, and that this too was one that he would never be able to cross.
He turned away, feeling strangely bereft, and more shaken by that sudden revelation than he would have believed possible. It was as though the very ground under his feet had disintegrated without warning, and all at once the pearly