by Phil Halton
“No, my friend, you are both a mullah and a guest in my tent.”
“You are like my elder brother, Jan Farooq. I insist.”
Rather than decline a second time, as would be polite, Jan Farooq nodded and ducked inside the tent, taking the most prominent seat for himself. The Mullah gestured to the other elder men of the district, who followed and took the seats closest to Jan Farooq. The Mullah entered just ahead of the general press of men from across the district. He seated himself near the other men, but not at the focal point of the space.
The men settled in, sitting in tight semicircles radiating from where Jan Farooq sat. Lala Chai had brought a heavy pot of tea from the chai khana and was passing between the rows of men, pouring short glasses of strong black liquid. As he rounded a corner between rows, the heavy pot got the better of him, and he stumbled, spilling a few drops of scalding tea on a heavy-set man in a dark shalwar kamiz.
The man drew back his hand to strike him. “Watch what you are doing, little fool.”
Lala Chai put down the teapot and raised his fists. “I will show you who is the fool, fatty.”
The man stood up and grabbed for Lala Chai’s neck. No longer burdened by the teapot, the boy skipped quickly backwards, out of reach. Rashid and Umar waded through the other men from where they had been sitting at the edge of the tent, quickly positioning themselves between the man and Lala Chai. Rashid placed a warning hand on the man’s chest. “Our little brother apologizes, cousin.”
“No need for this to get out of hand,” said Umar. The man brought his hands down to his sides, sizing up Lala Chai’s protectors.
“Enough,” said Jan Farooq, irritated by the delay. “Sit down, and let us begin. You can fight the tea boy later, cousin.” The crowd laughed, and the man sat down, red-faced. Jan Farooq beckoned for the Mullah to move forward and sit beside him. Room was made, and the Mullah picked his way through the seated crowd of curious men watching him closely. As the Mullah was taking his seat, Jan Farooq stood up and took control of the noisy meeting.
“Cousins, cousins!” The crowd quieted down. “We Hotaki are here today for a serious purpose. We are here to build peace within our tribe.”
The Mullah did not stand to speak, but his voice carried weight nonetheless. “Cousins, we are here to discuss wrongs done against the people of this village, but also against our whole community.”
“To reach agreement is the way of our people,” said Jan Farooq.
The Mullah then stood and addressed the crowd more emphatically. “Tarak Sagwan has lost his way. He threatens families so that he can marry their daughters. When he marries, he does not pay a mahr. When he is done with the girls, he divorces them and gives them nothing. His men rape and rob and terrorize this district. He drapes their actions in a dark cloak by calling them a police force.”
Jan Farooq regarded the Mullah coolly. “These are serious allegations, my friend, not yet proven. But we will come to the truth of the matter and agree on what must be done.”
The Mullah continued, ignoring Jan Farooq’s comments. “Tarak must be brought to heel. Every one of you who is a true Muslim knows that this is the case.”
Jan Farooq smiled and calmly took a seat. He left the Mullah standing awkwardly, alone in his passionate display. Jan Farooq’s voice was melodious, reasonable. “My friend, let us hear from others in the community, as well. Truth, like a river, is made drop by drop.”
The Mullah nodded his assent and sat down. Everyone began speaking at once. Eventually, one man had enough listeners to establish himself as the speaker. He stood, and everyone listened. “Like many of you, I was a mujahid. I fought alongside many of these men who now control the roads. It is no longer possible to make an honest living, I tell you …”
As the man spoke, Rashid quietly slipped out the back of the tent and began walking back to the checkpoint. By the time he reached the highway, his limp had become pronounced. He paused for a moment to rest, surveying the countryside around him, breathing deeply. After a few minutes he moved off again, giving a wave to Wasif and Amin as he approached the checkpoint.
Wasif called out to him. “Is the jirga over already?”
“It has barely started,” said Rashid.
“Don’t you want to be there to help make the decisions?”
Rashid squatted down beside the boys and picked up a handful of sand from the roadside. “Make the decisions?” Rashid’s tone was weary and discouraged. “Our men scurry around, talking, making decisions as if we were in charge. And then the hand of God sweeps them all away as if they had never existed.” As Rashid spoke, he blew the sand from his hand. “Once gone, it is as if they were never there.”
Amin refused to be discouraged. “Jan Farooq is a powerful man. They say that he and the Mullah fought the Russians together. And nearly every man in the district is there in that tent right now.”
Rashid shook his head. “We’re all just fooling ourselves.” He smiled faintly at the boys, but with nothing more to say, he walked away and headed back to the madrassa.
“What does he mean by that?” asked Wasif.
“He’s just tired,” said Amin.
The two boys fell again into silence, tightly gripping their rifles.
Inside the jirga, the day wore on, the men talking over each other endlessly. They variously argued as well as agreed, the jirga providing entertainment and diversion for all the men there. As darkness began to fall, some of Jan Farooq’s men hung lanterns along the edges of the tent, casting a meagre light on the meeting. It was only as daylight turned to dusk and Faizal admitted that he had run out of tea that the crowd became restless, the discussion even more disjointed and rowdy.
The Mullah rose again, gesturing with his hands for silence. When he spoke, it was with an authority that had grown over the course of the day. “Friends. Cousins. Brothers. Like many righteous men here, I, too, fought the Russians to protect our homes. After many years of war, do we not all now deserve to live in peace and security, free from the terrorizing of bandits?”
Jan Farooq cleared his throat. “Tarak Sagwan is also a mujahid. And did not the Russians then call all of us mujahideen ‘dushmen’? Is he not deserving of respect also?”
The Mullah did not reply to him, but addressed the crowd. “It is enough for now, then. The day is coming to a close.”
Jan Farooq spoke loudly, his voice sounding slightly rough after a day with much talk. “This has been a good day. We have much yet to talk about, but we will resume again in the morning, insh’allah.”
“And so to bring blessings upon this gathering and this day, let us all pray together,” said the Mullah.
Jan Farooq smiled, baring his teeth, and his voice dripped like honey. “Of course, Mullah, of course.”
The men began to head outside to wash, using water drawn from the stream in buckets by Faizal and Lala Chai. Each man poured water from an ewer over the other’s hands, taking turns.
Once each man had completed his ablutions, they lined up in rows to pray. The Mullah took a position at the front of the crowd, and all eyes turned to him for the signal to begin. He raised his hands to the sides of head, cleared his mind, and focused on the prayer he was about to offer. When he spoke, his voice was deeper and more melodious than the men recalled it having been during the jirga.
“Allah-u akbar.”
The Mullah led the men through the prayer. To finish, he turned his head to the right and left, speaking the words of the taslim with deep sincerity. “May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.”
As each man completed the prayer, he stood and looked around him. The crowd began to dissolve into little knots of friends and relatives. Jan Farooq approached the Mullah. “Where can I find you tonight? I have a few men I wish to speak with, and then I would like to speak with you alone.”
The Mullah stood and stretched his legs. “I will be sleeping in the madrassa, as always.”
Jan Farooq smiled and embraced the Mullah, who stood
stiffly, arms at his side, until he was released. “Very good, my friend. Until later.” Jan Farooq wandered a short way off and joined a small group of other elders, who turned toward him respectfully as he approached. He took the eldest man by the hands, and leaned in to speak to them all in quiet tones. He said something the Mullah could not hear; the old men laughed. They followed Jan Farooq as he moved on to speak to other men in the crowd.
The Mullah and Umar began to walk back to the checkpoint. Umar reached out and held the Mullah’s hand. Umar had two prayer mats over his shoulder, steadying them with his free hand. “Is this what you expected from the jirga?”
The Mullah was distracted. “What do you mean?”
Umar sighed. “Everyone gossiping and ignoring the problem at hand. Insisting on having the opportunity to speak and then saying the same things that had already been said. Every man talking over the other, and no one agreeing to anything.”
The Mullah gave a short, dry laugh that was uncharacteristic of him. “Is that how you see us Hotaki? As endless arguers?”
“Your words, Ma’alim, not mine,” said Umar.
“On the first day of a jirga, everyone wants to be heard,” explained the Mullah. “No one wants to reveal what he will agree to or not agree to. In this case, though, the eventual outcome is clear.”
Umar was surprised. “Truly?”
“No one will support Tarak. Not if they are true Muslims. They are just maintaining their dignity. It would appear weak to give in and agree on the first day.”
“So tomorrow, then?”
The Mullah shook his head. “Get your rest. If not tomorrow, then the day after. Perhaps the day after that.”
As the two reached the checkpoint, Amin and Wasif greeted each in turn. Umar briefly embraced each of them, but the Mullah stood apart, gazing up the mountainside.
“I shall stay here with the boys for a while, Mullah. Will you join us?”
“I have things to ponder,” said the Mullah, and he turned from them and began to walk uphill to the madrassa.
Umar watched him for a moment, thinking, before turning back to the boys.
“What was decided?” asked Wasif.
“To meet tomorrow,” said Umar.
The boys looked confused. Umar smiled and sat down on one of the crates that they used as seats. “I will tell you all about it.”
Jan Farooq sat sullenly in the passenger seat of his rusty GAZ. He picked from a few pistachio nuts that he held cupped in one hand, spitting out the shells after peeling them apart with his teeth. That jirga seemed to last forever, he thought.
People trumpeted about the equality of all men under the Pashtunwali. Every man in the jirga was entitled to speak, and honour could be held by all in equal measure. He let out a laugh. Nonsense. The equality of men has never been true, not since the beginning of time.
As they say, the five fingers are brothers, but they are not equal. Why God chose that it would be so is a matter for others to debate, but it is clear from birth that not all men are equal. Some are stronger than others. More eloquent than others. Richer than others. More powerful than others. Even the biggest fools can see it plainly, if only they care to look.
Jan Farooq lit a cigarette and stared out the window.
The jirga was not a place for men to be equal, but a place to provide an equal footing for men to demonstrate their power. It was an arena for the powerful to duel, and the remainder to watch. Jan Farooq believed this with every fibre of his being.
The Mullah did well today, he thought. Although he was until recently unknown to the others, his speech was simple and convincing. He made men blush at the thought of their own lack of piety. He was the holiest man that any of them had ever met, and he was there, in their own village, asking them to deal with Tarak Sagwan. It felt to these men like an epic poem in the making.
But what the Mullah hadn’t counted on was something that almost all men knew. Fear. The village men feared the wrath of Tarak Sagwan more than the holiness of the Mullah. Jan Farooq had seen that when the jirga ended for the day and word began to circulate that Tarak knew who had gathered and what they had said, the group began to dissolve. The jirga was only binding once consensus was reached — for now, every man but the Mullah could leave without having opposed Tarak and with his own petty honour intact.
Jan Farooq smiled. Not one of these farmers had the imagination to consider what they could gain from this conflict. He bid his driver to start the engine, and cursed his people for being fools. The driver looked doubtfully up toward the top of the hill where the madrassa sat.
“Am I to take you up there to speak with the Mullah?” he asked.
Jan Farooq scowled. “We’re done here.”
The GAZ drove off from the village, the tent used at the jirga already folded up in the back. Jan Farooq spat out the window again.
“I’ve had enough of this place,” he said, “and this Mullah, as well.”
CHAPTER 9
The evening air had begun to cool. Rashid walked through the scrub along the ridge overlooking the highway, avoiding the path that was being worn along the straightest route from the checkpoint to the madrassa. As much as he felt at home with the Mullah and the others, he valued time alone, to walk and to think. He thought through the events of the day, eyes scanning his surroundings as a matter of habit. A slight movement where there should not have been any caught his eye.
He stopped and crouched down low in a small fold in the ground. His eyes focused in on a particular rock in the distance. Rashid looked slightly away from his target, as he had learned long ago, to better see in low light. In the growing quiet of the early night, he waited, watching. After a few minutes he saw the movement again. A figure left the cover of a large rock, moving farther along the side of the slope, to a position overlooking the checkpoint. The figure settled in there, stretching out under a brown patu the colour of the surrounding dust.
Rashid carefully moved out of the fold in the ground and picked his way back and farther up the slope of the hill. All pain in his leg forgotten, he slowly worked his way around the watching figure until he approached him from behind. Carefully choosing where to place his foot at every step, Rashid made slow but silent progress toward the man watching the checkpoint. When he was ten yards away, he stopped.
He could see the man more clearly now, legs and sandals just poking out from the back of the patu. Rashid crept closer, ready should the man hear him and startle. He paused as the man began to inch backwards away from where he could best see the checkpoint. As the man started to raise himself, Rashid pounced.
The blow knocked the man sideways, away from the short rifle that had lain unseen beside him on the ground. Rashid pinned him down, knees on his back and neck. The man grunted in pain and surprise, but Rashid did not yet let him up. His hands expertly ran over the man’s back and sides, searching for weapons. Finding nothing, he shifted his weight onto the man’s neck one last time before rolling back onto his feet, snatching the rifle off the ground as he rose.
The man rolled over and gasped, hands held up to his face. “I mean you no harm.”
Rashid paused, recognizing the man as the taller of the two bandits from the checkpoint. Although he was not proud of it, he had paid taxes then just like everyone else. Rashid pushed those thoughts away and held the bandit’s rifle at the low ready, pointed straight at the man’s chest. “We’ll see what the Mullah decides to do with you. Now get up. Slowly.”
The bandit stood and raised both his hands in surrender. Rashid gestured with the rifle and marched him down the slope toward the checkpoint. Both slipped and skidded on the loose earth, but Rashid was careful to stay behind the man and to stay upright, rifle at the ready. By the time Amin and Wasif saw them approaching along the road, Rashid was limping badly.
As they reached the checkpoint itself, Rashid hit the bandit in the small of the back with the butt of the rifle, driving him down to the ground. The bandit cried out like a wounded animal,
tucking his arms and legs in to form a ball as he lay on the highway. Umar appeared at the door of the ZIL, his eyes blurry with sleep. Rashid gave the bandit a kick in the ribs. “Look who I found scouting our position.”
The bandit rolled over onto his back to face his captors, and held his hands up to protect his face. “A fair warning to you. Run away now. All of you,” he said.
Umar walked over to where the bandit lay, looking down at him with contempt. Without warning, he kicked him, hard, his toe catching him under the ribs. The man curled up in pain again, gasping for breath. Umar stood over the man, watching him intently. “Why should we run away? Surely not from you?”
The bandit spoke through gritted teeth, his body tensed in expectation of another blow. “Fools. Tarak told your mullah that he would be back. Right now, he is preparing to attack you, and when he does, you will all die.”
Umar squatted down beside the man, looking at him with dull eyes. “Will it matter to you if you are already dead? If it’s even true?”
Rashid picked up a bayonet that the bandits had left behind in the ZIL, and squatted down on the other side of the prone man. He looked at Umar. “What do we need to know from him?”
Umar shook his head at Rashid and addressed the boys. “Amin, quickly, run to the madrassa and wake the Mullah. He needs to hear of this. Wasif, wake the elders and the men of the jirga down by the river. They will need to hear this, as well.”
As the two boys ran off in opposite directions, the bandit swore at them under his breath. “You are all fools.”
Amin reached the madrassa faster than he ever remembered having scaled the hill before. He rushed in through the door and straight into the classroom. The entire floor of the class was covered with sleeping boys. The Mullah slept off to one side, breathing deeply and wrapped in his woolen patu. Amin went straight to his side to wake him. “Haji, Haji! Rashid has captured a bandit! He says we are going to be attacked!”