This Shall Be a House of Peace

by Phil Halton

  The Mullah turned over with a start and woke quickly. He stood, already dressed, and pulled the pistol from the pile of belongings next to where he had lain. He checked that it was loaded and handed it grip-first to Amin. “Take this, and stay here. I trust you to watch over the other boys.”

  Amin nodded, unsure of what to say. The Mullah looked him in the eye and hesitated, words caught in his mouth. He quickly turned away and left the madrassa.

  The other students had begun to wake, and they turned to Amin for answers. The only thing truly distinguishing him from the others was the pistol that he held in both of his small hands. “Go back to sleep, brothers,” said Amin. “The Mullah is not here, but I will watch over you.” He settled the other boys as best he could and found a place to sit near the front of the classroom, facing the entrance. A blanket pulled tightly around his narrow shoulders, he began to recite the Quran under his breath, eyes fixed on the doorway, the pistol held out in front of him.

  The Mullah hurried down the hill and straight to the checkpoint, where the lantern that customarily burned at night had already been extinguished. Rashid and Umar stood alert in the darkness, gripping their kalashes, and straining to see or hear any movement around them. The bandit had his hands tied behind his back and was now lying face down on the ground on one side of the road. Rashid did not turn to greet the Mullah as he arrived, focusing on the task of scanning the countryside in all directions for the approach of the bandits. Umar walked up to the Mullah and held out the newly captured rifle for him to take, but the Mullah waved it away.

  Without turning away from where he was looking, Rashid gestured at the bandit with one hand. “I found him watching the checkpoint from up on the hillside. You already know him.”

  The Mullah crouched near the bandit’s head, recognizing him in the pale moonlight. He spoke in a reasonable tone: “Why are you back?”

  The bandit did not lift or turn his head other than to keep his mouth out of the dirt as he spoke. “Tarak told you he’d be back.”

  “Where is Tarak now?” asked the Mullah.

  The bandit gave a short laugh. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Umar gave the bandit another hard kick, this time from behind, deep in the groin. The bandit squirmed and dry-heaved in pain, but said no more. Umar drew his foot back to kick him again, but the Mullah waved at him to stop. His tone once again was reasonable, even conciliatory, as he questioned the bandit: “Tell me. How does he plan to attack?”

  The bandit answered between clenched teeth. “He doesn’t have a fancy plan, and he doesn’t need one. He’s just going to swat you aside like flies.”

  Umar laughed. “What, all of us? Nearly every able-bodied man in the district is here.”

  The bandit said nothing; he just grinned and closed his eyes. At that very moment, Wasif came running up the road, shouting. “The elders! Everyone! They’re all gone! They must have left as soon as it got dark!”

  “Is there anyone left?” asked Umar.

  “No!” panted Wasif.

  Now the bandit began to laugh at them. “I told you to run away.”

  Rashid muttered a curse under his breath. “Chyort poberi!”

  The Mullah gave Rashid a sharp look on hearing the foreign sounds. He seemed about to say something, but remained silent, instead gathering everyone around him. He stayed crouched on his haunches.

  Before he could speak, Umar interrupted. “This is the moment of judgment. We must place ourselves in God’s hands. Our success will be a sign of his favour.”

  Rashid was less convinced. “And if we fail?”

  “Then who are we to question it?” replied Umar.

  When the Mullah spoke, the others were still. “Fighting them head-on is not necessary. There is another way. A better way.”

  Rashid spoke again. “No matter what you propose, we have only two kalashes and a rifle. Those are not good odds.”

  Umar’s eyes burned brightly. “God favours the righteous.”

  Rashid countered. “And the clever.”

  The Mullah turned to face Rashid. “Hear what I propose.” As he drew a diagram with one finger in the dust at their feet, the men squatted down and listened to him intently.

  In a small village farther down the valley, chaos reigned. A pickup truck, flanked by three motorcycles, was parked at the edge of the village. Bandits ran riot from house to house, followed by the sounds of screaming and gunfire. Tarak stood in the centre of the village.

  His face was impassive. A frightened villager, blood on his clothes, was dragged through the dust and dropped at his feet. Tarak spoke to him as he would a slow child. “Where is your neighbour and his daughter?”

  The man stammered out an answer. “I don’t know, they left.”

  “I want my bride!” shouted Tarak as he casually shot the man in the leg and walked away. The others ignored the wounded villager as he clutched his bloody thigh and rolled in pain. A walkie-talkie in Tarak’s pocket crackled, the voice calling urgently. “Tarak. Tarak.”

  Tarak took it in his hand and answered. “Haji, this is Tarak. Did it work?”

  “They are waiting for the jirga to start again, and so they are all there. You know what to do.”

  “How many men does he have?” asked Tarak.

  “There are just a few men at the checkpoint. They have only two kalashes.”

  “And does this Mullah have my bride?”

  There was a pause. When the voice came over the radio again, it was firm and direct. “Do as I have asked, and we will find your bride afterwards. I am well out of the way. Begin when you wish.”

  Tarak’s eyes gleamed at the thought of the Mullah sprawled at his feet, dying slowly. “Where exactly is he now? I will go there directly.” Tarak listened closely, and began to wave his free hand over his head to gather his bandits for the attack.

  The Mullah, Umar, and Faizal lay behind a hastily stacked pile of rocks partway up the slope, overlooking the road. Rashid and Wasif rushed up to join them, out of breath.

  Rashid handed one of the kalashes to Wasif, and picked up the old semi-automatic rifle he had taken from the bandit. He found a comfortable position to fire from, adjusting the rocks in his line of sight to make a rest.

  Faizal carried a long cloth sack that had sat untouched in the back of the chai khana for years. As he settled into position behind the rock wall, he pulled out an ancient jezail, covered in oil. Its long barrel, brass fittings, and curved buttstock made to fit under a horseman’s arm marked it as having come from another era. When the others saw it, they couldn’t help staring at his outlandish weapon.

  “It was my father’s father’s,” said Faizal. Rashid sniggered.

  Settling in behind the protection of the rocks, the men lay close together, shoulders touching, and waited. Rashid lay still, his rifle braced upon a stone rest and tucked tightly into his shoulder. Umar adjusted the position of his legs over and over, trying to get comfortable. He whispered to the others. “I don’t understand. Where are the rest of the villagers? The guests in the chai khana? The men from the jirga?”

  “There is no one sleeping in the chai khana. They’ve all evaporated into the night. No one else wants any part in this,” said Faizal.

  “With their help, we could easily win this fight,” complained Umar bitterly.

  “We will win, with or without them. These other people, they just want to survive,” said the Mullah. He was unarmed, lying just above the others behind a rock pile of his own, observing the road.

  The silence as they waited drew longer, making most of the men nervous. Only Rashid and the Mullah seemed unperturbed, simply waiting for what they knew must come. Each man seemed lost in his own thoughts, no one speaking, when the noise of someone scrambling through the brush behind them caused them to start.

  Umar rolled over onto his back, weapon pointed at an odd angle toward the sound. Wasif did the same, though the rifle was so heavy that he had to rest the butt on the ground to do so. Rashi
d tucked himself into a crouch, eyes straining to see what was behind the noise. He began to slowly move along the slope, rifle at his hip.

  The sound grew louder, more like a wild animal moving heedlessly across the rocky ground than a man. A few small rocks rolled down onto the road, dislodged by whatever was moving along the slope, and Rashid brought his rifle to his shoulder to fire.

  Bursting out of the darkness came Lala Chai, carrying a battered pot in one hand and a stack of glasses in the other. “I’ve brought tea. To make you strong!” he said.

  Rashid lowered his rifle and laughed.

  “We might have shot you,” warned Umar.

  Lala Chai ignored him, looking at the others. “Where is my gun? I want to fight.”

  “Be quiet and get back to the chai khana where you belong,” said Umar as he rolled back over to face down the road.

  Rashid reached toward Lala Chai and tugged on the corner of his kamiz. “But first pour me a glass of that tea.”

  Umar shot Rashid an exasperated look as he watched him take a glass from the boy. He kept watch down the road while the others laughed quietly with Lala Chai, but when a steaming glass of tea was passed to him, he didn’t refuse.

  A flash of light from up the road focused their attention back on the highway. Just visible in the distance were the headlights from a truck and two motorcycles. All three sets of lights came rushing toward the checkpoint. As the headlights drew nearer, gunfire flashed from the back of the truck.

  Now the men on the slope could see the bandits firing wildly into the air and hear them shouting. The Mullah’s voice was calm. “Wait. They’re used to intimidating their foes rather than killing them. They will not expect us to fight.”

  As the vehicles approached the checkpoint, they were forced to slow down and weave through piles of junk that Rashid had left in the middle of the road. The men all looked to the Mullah, awaiting his signal to fire. He did not look back at them. Instead, he remained staring down at the road. The seconds ticked by, marked by the clicking of the prayer beads in his hand. When the bandits had nearly come to a stop among a large pile of debris, the Mullah shouted: “Now!”

  Everyone with a gun opened fire at once, the two kalashes pouring bullets toward the bandits on full automatic. Wasif closed his eyes and held his face in a grimace as he fired the whole magazine in one long, chattering burst. Rashid took only aimed shots, choosing each target carefully, one by one. The tight pack of men in the open back of the truck were an easy target as they scrambled over the sides of the truck to find cover. Lala Chai moved into a half crouch behind the Mullah’s men, fingers jammed in his ears while he strained to get a look at the destruction below.

  Wasif opened his eyes for a second, seeing the chaos on the road below where he was pointing his rifle, and shut them tightly again. He could feel the rifle pulsing in his hands as it fired each round, the impact against his shoulder causing a dull ache that got worse with each shot fired. He tried to block out the sounds, the sharp cracks all around him, the shouts of wounded men that sounded like dying animals. Grinding his teeth together, he hoped it would be over soon.

  He was brought back to the moment by a sharp blow to the side of his head. The rifle was pulled from his hands, and when he looked up the Mullah was standing over him. The Mullah cleared the jammed weapon without taking his eyes from Wasif, snapping a fresh magazine in place before handing the weapon back to the boy. Wasif realized then that he had not been firing, so lost in his own thoughts that his blunder had not registered on him.

  Wasif’s cheeks burned with shame, driven home by the Mullah’s words. “We are all counting on you to fight, boy. We are not so many or so powerful that you can fail to carry your part of the burden.” He continued watching him until Wasif aimed the rifle back down to the road and began firing again. Wasif did not look over toward the Mullah, but could feel his teacher’s eyes burning through his kamiz to look directly into his heart. With each shot, Wasif tried to show him that he was worthy.

  Although the fire was not heavy, it was accurate enough that it brought the vehicles to a stop. Bandits pushed at each other in their rush to take cover on the side of the road away from the ambush. The ditch was soon full of wounded and confused men. One of the bandits tried to rally the others, demanding that they give him cover fire as he made a dash for the machine gun mounted behind the cab of the truck. Wild-eyed and hoarse, the bandits agreed. The alternative was to die in a ditch.

  As the bandits scrambled around on the ground to find the best cover, one of them caught his foot on a tripwire made of twine. The twine pulled the pin from a grenade buried in the gravel. After a few seconds’ delay the grenade detonated, along with a cooking-gas canister buried next to it, and they both exploded with a sharp crack. The explosion flipped the pickup truck over on its side, crushing the man who had climbed up to get behind the machine gun. Shrapnel from the grenade and gravel from the road peppered the bandits in the ditch. Their screams were short and pitiful. Rashid kept firing into the ditch until the Mullah signalled him to stop.

  Within minutes of having started, Tarak Sagwan’s attack was over.

  In the ringing silence, Rashid nudged Faizal with an elbow. “Thanks for the gas canister from your chai khana, brother! That worked even better than I expected.” Faizal, still staring ahead, hardly seemed to notice he was being spoken to.

  Without the sound of gunfire, Wasif could tell that his ears were ringing painfully. He opened and closed his mouth, trying to get his ears to pop, though no matter what he did it made little difference. Umar clapped him on the shoulder, speaking loudly over the sound in his own ears. “You’ve done well, Wasif. Your first fight is not one that you’ll soon forget.”

  Wasif smiled and looked to the Mullah for approval. His teacher was not paying attention to any of them there, but was still watching the site of the ambush intently. Rashid had been doing the same, but seeing no movement and hearing no more fire, he turned to the others as he stood up. “I am going down to finish off any survivors.”

  The others rose as one to follow him down to the highway, though the Mullah’s long strides quickly carried him ahead of the others. When he reached the road, he stopped for a moment to take stock of the chaos that they had caused. The site of the ambush was littered with parts of the damaged vehicles and the shattered bodies of the bandits. The Mullah continued to watch as the others moved past him through the wreckage, scavenging weapons and other things of value, illuminated by the burning truck.

  Rashid ignored the vehicles and went from body to body, kicking them or rolling them over with one foot to see if they were still alive. Any that gave a sign of life were dispatched with a single close-range shot. The Mullah followed him from body to body, looking each one in the face, searching for Tarak. He held his fists clenched tightly, the prayer beads hanging limply from his right hand.

  Soon they had collected whatever was worth taking from the wreckage and piled it on the side of the road. Over a dozen kalashes and three times as many magazines sat as a mute tribute to their victory.

  Umar was still scavenging along the side of the road. The others heard him give a shout: “I think this dushka might still work!” Wasif and Faizal came over to where he stood and helped him lift the machine gun and bring it into the circle of light cast by the burning truck. Umar searched the shadows where he had found it until he also found the tripod on which it had sat behind the cab of the truck. He called Wasif over to watch him as he began to brush the dirt from its workings.

  “These machine guns are unbreakable,” marvelled Umar. Wasif gazed at him blankly, until Umar gripped the boy’s shoulder and said, “Much like you, young lion.”

  Wasif smiled weakly and asked in a thin voice, “Umar, is it always like that?”

  Umar was busy with the machine gun and did not look up. “Mash’allah! This was a rare easy victory, my friend.” When Wasif said nothing, Umar gave him a quick glance. “Our battles will not get easier, but you will find
them easier.” Wasif felt sick to his stomach. Anticipating the boy’s thoughts, Umar added, “The Mullah will forgive you, Wasif, if he hasn’t already. Now watch as I show you how to load this gun.”

  The Mullah took a moment to look around him, the scene lit by the harsh light of the fire that still burned. Rashid was calmly sorting through the magazines, separating the loaded from the empty. Faizal was seated on a rock by the side of the road, lost in thought, his ancient musket resting on his knees. Umar and Wasif were leaning close together, the boy listening intently as Umar explained the workings of the machine gun. The Mullah saw that they were good men. Righteous men. He knew that this victory was —

  The sound of three quick shots interrupted his thoughts, echoing down from the distant madrassa. The Mullah’s head snapped around at the sound, his eyes straining unsuccessfully to find the source. Before anyone else had moved at all, the Mullah had grabbed a rifle from the side of the road and was running up the hill, checking that it was loaded as he went. The others followed.

  The Mullah covered the distance to the madrassa with long strides, keeping mostly to the well-worn path that led up the hill. His chest heaved from the exertion, but when he reached the madrassa he rushed in through the outer door without a pause. He skidded to a halt just inside the classroom, rifle held at the ready in front of him. He saw the boys all huddled in one corner around Amin, who stood stock-still, pointing the pistol straight out in front of him. Tarak Sagwan lay face down, dead, at the Mullah’s feet.

  The Mullah kicked his body over, revealing the short-barrelled automatic that he had been carrying and the bloody mess that the pistol rounds had made of his chest. The Mullah placed his own weapon down on the ground and slowly walked toward Amin. Approaching the boy from the side, he gently took the pistol from his small hands. The other students shuffled over to where the Mullah stood and formed a circle around him.

  For the very first time, the Mullah placed his arms around Amin and held him in an embrace.