The Strong Man

OUTSIDE, solitude, the purple rush of evening; the dying sun spiking a crimson diadem across the snows of the Himalayas, shooting a wedge of light down the Khyber Pass, straight into the stony, sardonic heart of Afghanistan.

Inside, noise, life; coarse, lawless life of coarse, lawless men who squatted on pillows around tabourets, eating, drinking, smoking, chattering, laughing.

They were a picturesque riff-raff of this turbulent northern Indian border. Afghans, Baluchis, Tartars. More rogues than honest men; nor stewing with remorse for past sins — rather stewing with longing for sins yet to be sinned. Cameleers, caravan guides, stable crimps, horse traders, bazaar bullies. Too, a few soldiers of native battalions in the service of the British Raj, and Red Mustaffa himself, the owner of the coffee shop, nursing his paunch in a fragile, creaking English chair perilously tilted against the door jamb...