by Phil Halton
The Mullah spoke loudly, and looked around at all the men to see that his message was being heard. “Everyone knows that a man’s pasture extends no farther than his shout can be heard. This is our law. That grassland on the other side of the river is not ours. And God has given water for all men to drink.” The Mullah clapped his hands on the man’s shoulders. “They cannot steal from us what we do not own. We will settle whatever our small differences may be tomorrow.”
The Mullah ended the discussion by walking back up to the highway. Umar and Rashid followed him closely. The Mullah looked back and gestured for Rashid to come closer, leaning in to speak to him. “Have one of us watching across the river at all times,” he said. “And make sure he is armed. If there are any problems, come and find me.”
Early the next morning, the Mullah stood at the riverbank again, making sure that he could be seen before he crossed so that he would not surprise the Kochi. Lining the near side were the men of the village, watching closely to see what he would do. On the far side of the river were dozens of black tents and countless sheep. Satisfied that he was expected, the Mullah pulled up the legs of his shalwar and waded across the river. Aside from the grazing animals, no people were in sight.
Two huge dogs, the type called jangi spai, circled around one of the tents and began to growl and bark at the Mullah as he approached. He stopped and picked up a stone, first threatening the dogs with it and then throwing it, narrowly missing one of them. The two dogs held their ground, heads low and growling as they watched him.
He backtracked away from the dogs and carefully walked along the riverbank toward one tent, no larger than the rest, which had a dozen camels resting in its shade. The dogs followed him, tracking his movement and staying between him and the rest of the tents. As he got closer, a harsh voice called out from inside the tent, stopping the dogs in their tracks. They lost interest in the Mullah and trotted back to the shade from which they had been watching their flock. The flap of the tent opened, and a man stepped out.
This man was roughly the Mullah’s age, but taller and thinner. His beard was streaked with grey and coloured red with henna, and his eyes were rimmed black with kohl. The Mullah saw that the man tied his turban like any other Pashtun, its free ends running past his shoulder, and he relaxed slightly. The man stepped forward until he and the Mullah stood face to face.
“Asalaam aleikum,” said the Mullah.
“Wa aleikum salaam,” replied the man.
The Mullah waited for the other man to speak further.
“Sit and drink tea with me as my guest,” said the man.
The Mullah nodded. The man called back to his tent, and soon two boys came out carrying a large carpet over their shoulders. They rolled it out in front of the Mullah and quickly returned to the tent. One emerged carrying an armload of cushions, the other with a tray of food and drink. The Mullah and his host took seats on the carpet facing each other. The Mullah waited in silence again.
“I am called Gol, son of Rahman, son of Barak,” said the man.
The Mullah cleared his throat. “And I am —”
Gol Kochi interrupted him, laughing. “Everyone has heard of you, Mullah. I have been looking forward to this meeting.”
The two boys served the food from the tray. One spread sweet butter thinly across a piece of flat bread for each man. He then placed a bowl of sheep’s milk yoghurt between them. The second boy rinsed two glasses with hot tea from a pot. Before the boy could fill the glasses, Gol Kochi took the pot by the handle and poured two glasses himself, the first for the Mullah and the other for himself, grasping it between his thumb and forefinger.
“The people of this village are concerned,” said the Mullah. “They want to protect their lands from being misused.”
Gol Kochi’s face became serious. “Their lands? These pastures belong to no one and to everyone. And is it misuse to graze animals on grass?”
“They plan, in future, to irrigate and plant them,” said the Mullah.
Gol Kochi turned away from the Mullah and spat off into the long grass. “Our ways are the ancient ones. We have travelled between the high pastures in the north and the lush river lands of the south for over a thousand years. Neither kings, nor war, nor anything else has ever stopped us.”
“So you do not intend to stay?” asked the Mullah, grasping at a point of potential agreement.
Gol Kochi laughed again, this time more deeply. He held out his glass to be refilled by one of the boys, and then swirled the tea with one finger. “If you offered me the whole of Kabul, I would never consider giving up this life. To stay in one place, for us, is to die.”
“For how long will you stay, then?”
“Only to gather and water our flocks,” said Gol Kochi, “and then we move north. We will spend the summer in the Hazarajat.”
“But if this is an ancient way,” asked the Mullah, “how is it that no one in the village has ever seen you here before?”
“As I have said, nothing in history has stopped our journey. But we are like water, and seek the simplest way to flow from here to there. A peaceful valley such as this is like sweet water to a thirsty man.”
“The people here will still be concerned, even if you do not intend to stay.”
“Their concern,” said Gol Kochi, “is no concern of mine.” He drew a small leather bag from the pocket of his vest. Untying it, he pulled out a roll of leather. He spread the leather out on the carpet in front of him, revealing worn writing inked onto the skin.
“This firman came from the Amir himself. It gives us the right to graze and water our animals in this and all the surrounding valleys on our way to and from the Hazarajat, until the end of days.”
“From which Amir?” asked the Mullah.
“The Iron Amir. He gave that firman with his own hand to my father’s father’s father’s father,” said Gol Kochi.
The Mullah lifted the leather firman reverently in his hands and quickly read it. He suspected that Gol Kochi could not do so, but only knew the contents of the document by heart. As the Mullah finished reading, he could see plainly that Amir Abdur Rahman Khan had granted rights to these lands, and many others, to the Kochi sons of Barak. The Mullah was convinced that the firman was real. He gently rolled it up and returned it to Gol Kochi.
“Sons of Barak, we will greet you with an open hand. And we will govern our disputes by the ways of our people, Hotaki and Barakzai,” said the Mullah.
“And let there be no disputes to govern,” added Gol Kochi as he signalled to one of the boys to come forward. In the boy’s hands was a small package, wrapped in cloth. Gol Kochi unwrapped it to show the Mullah. “A gift for you. Tea, matches, and sugar from Pakistan.”
The Mullah took the gift in both hands. “Mash’allah,” he said. “We shall have peace. You have my word.”
The two men stood up, their meeting at an end. Gol Kochi stepped forward and embraced the Mullah, who accepted the gesture stiffly. He spoke in the Mullah’s ear. “I trust that you can convince your people of this, as well.”
As the Mullah walked back toward the river, he spied movement out of the corner of his eye. Lying behind a seated camel, hidden in the shadow of a tent, was a Kochi man with a rifle. The Mullah made no sign that he had seen the man, though he assumed that if he looked harder he would see armed Kochi hidden in every fold of ground, every shadow, all around him. He stood straight and did not look back as he waded through the cool stream of mountain water. This time, no shots were fired.
Every man in the district was crowded together in the chai khana, which Faizal had recently expanded by adding more walls made from wooden crates and plastic sheets. The men had been speaking for some time already, mostly to express their dislike and distrust of the Kochi people.
“A man’s honour is tied to his land,” said one. “What honour has a man with no land, or a man who cannot protect what land he has?”
“Kochi are nothing more than robbers in disguise,” said another. “T
hat is why they keep moving!”
“My grandfather said that a Kochi cannot be trusted,” added a third man. “Who will say that he is wrong?”
The Mullah listened in silence for over an hour as the discussion went in circles. When he finally spoke, the room fell silent. “It is true that these Kochi are not like us. They travel great distances, moving with the seasons. They measure their wealth by their herds, not their land. But remember that they live as our own people did, a thousand years ago, perhaps more.”
The men in the room accepted this grudgingly.
“But it is also true,” continued the Mullah, “that these people are exactly like us. They are Pashtun. They are Muslim. They wish for peace.”
This time, the Mullah’s words were unwelcome, and the sounds of grumbling came from the men in the back of the room.
The Mullah stood up to look at those men directly. “What is the alternative to peace? Would you start a war with them? Their tents and animals may seem unguarded, but I have been across the river. They are watching and waiting to see what we do.”
One of the farmers who had grumbled the loudest stood up, arms outstretched as he appealed to the Mullah. “You drove off the bandits who threatened us, and you protect us now. We give zakat, and we feed you and your men. Protect us now from these thieves of Barak who have settled on our land. What else can you expect us to ask you to do?”
The Mullah shook his head. “These Kochi do not wish to take your lands. They are travelling north to the Hazarajat. They will rest and water their animals for a few days, a week at most, and then they will move on.”
The discussion in the room became loud and heated. The Mullah continued, “They have goods to trade with us brought from Pakistan — tea, sugar, matches — things that are hard for us to find. If we keep the peace, in a few more days they will be gone.”
Pahzman stood up and waited for everyone to be silent again. “We must listen to the Mullah,” he said. “He not only defeated the bandits, but he brought peace to our village. The Mullah and his men will watch over and protect us, if we trust them.”
The Mullah spoke loudly, “We will protect you as always.”
There was muttering among the men, but no further disagreement. Pahzman sat down, and the meeting would perhaps have ended then, when Jan Farooq stepped into the room, followed by his two men and a weeping farmer.
“This man’s daughter has fallen ill this morning!” declared Jan Farooq.
The Mullah responded. “This is sad news, but we speak now of the Kochi.”
Jan Farooq took a prominent seat beside the Mullah, leaving the others who had come with him standing. He held up a hand for a glass of tea, waving for Faizal to hurry. “As do I, Mullah, as do I. You don’t find it unusual that a healthy girl falls suddenly ill? She became sick after collecting water from the river this morning.”
A man in the back called out, “What is wrong with her?”
“It is the evil eye!” declared Jan Farooq. “She has been cursed by one of these Kochi!”
The discussion in the room became heated again.
“Kochi are famous for sorcery!” shouted one man.
The Mullah quickly lost control of the discussion. The men resumed their argument about whether the Kochi could be trusted, and whether they prayed to djinn, or practised sorcery, or even if they were really Muslims at all.
The Mullah listened again for a while, but then stood. “Let me be clear. There will be peace. I have given my word. I will protect this village but I will not attack the Kochi to do so.”
The Mullah walked out of the chai khana and returned to the madrassa on the hill.
Gol Kochi sat by the smoky fire in the centre of his tent. His wife and daughter sat nearby, both stitching complex patterns onto pieces of clothing. Flowers, rivers, seas of grass — these were the things they knew, and so these were the shapes they embroidered on the cloth. His daughter sang a song, softly, about a young man who longed for a girl who lived with another tribe. The lovers arranged to draw water from a communal well every day to see each other without their parents’ knowledge.
He should have disciplined her for singing this song, he knew, but instead he sat silently, listening to her voice and to the sounds of the night outside as they grew louder. He heard the animals shuffling about while they looked for somewhere comfortable to rest. The camels grunted and huffed like old men as they tried to settle. He heard the occasional sound of a bird that he knew did not live in this valley — young boys calling out to each other while they tended their flocks.
Life such as this had continued for centuries.
And yet, much had changed.
The Russians had tried to make them give up their tents and live in houses. They promised schools, hospitals, jobs, all of the things of which the Kochi had none. Some went and lived in those houses, and so ceased to be Kochi. The Russians bombed the tents of those who remained, claiming that they contained dushmen. The dead women and children could not argue with them. Flocks of animals found minefields meant for men, and soon the transit from summer to winter pasture was fraught with death.
With the Russians gone, chaos reigned. The Kochi fought the Hazara to keep their pastures, fought other Pashtuns to pass through their lands, and slowly, tent by tent, his people grew fewer.
Gol Kochi reflected on the strips of wood burning in the hearth. They curled and twisted as the flames licked them, but none escaped the fire for long. In the end, all were destroyed.
His people had slipped between the cracks in society for centuries, never wielding power but always surviving. Now they had curled and twisted for almost as long as they could.
Gol Kochi took a poker and stirred the coals, making the flames shoot higher. He wondered if the Mullah would keep his word, as few men did.
No matter, he thought. The fire consumes all men, good and evil, just the same.
CHAPTER 15
The madrassa’s yard was full of young boys playing. Some were the orphans taken in at the start by the Mullah, but increasingly they were children sent by families in the houses around the madrassa or in the village below. Asadullah Amin and Wasif now needed Lala Chai’s help to prepare the midday meal. They no longer baked their own rough bread in the tandoor, relying instead on bread donated by the families, but they still cooked daal in the large round pot.
Faizal appeared in the doorway of the school compound. He quickly looked around, peering past the young boys, looking for an adult. Wasif saw him as he glanced around and walked up to greet him. “Salaam,” he said, as the two embraced, repeating the many phrases of their greeting to each other as they did so.
“I need to speak to the Mullah,” said Faizal.
“He is not to be disturbed,” said Wasif.
“He needs to hear what I will tell him,” replied Faizal.
“Do you now presume to give him advice?” asked Wasif.
Faizal’s shoulders fell, and he cast his eyes down to his feet. “That is not at all what I mean. It is simply something that I have overheard …”
“Tell it to me, and I will tell him when he is finished his dhikr,” said Wasif.
Faizal looked anxiously at the boy, but then he began. “It cannot wait. They are going to drive the Kochi out.” When he was finished explaining, Wasif’s face mirrored his own look of concern.
Inside the classroom, the Mullah sat on a small cushion with the Quran on its stand beside him. Eyes closed, he repeated a phrase in whispers, over and over again, in meditation.
“He is Allah, Who is One.
Allah, the eternal refuge, absolute.
He neither begets, nor is born.
Nor is there to Him any equivalent.”
Wasif stepped quietly into the room and watched him for a moment. Seeing that he was still deep in meditation, he stepped out again. Faizal and Asadullah Amin stood waiting for him.
“Did you speak with him?” asked Faizal anxiously.
“His dhikr cannot be interrupt
ed,” said Wasif. “We can deal with this ourselves.”
“Brother, you must tell the Mullah,” said Asadullah Amin.
“This is serious business,” said Faizal.
“Chaiwallah, this is nothing that I cannot solve with my kalash. Come with me, brother,” said Wasif. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, and glancing quickly to see if Asadullah Amin would follow him, he left the madrassa. Asadullah Amin handed the wooden spoon to another of the boys and told him to stir the daal. Then he lifted his own rifle from where it leaned against the wall.
“What choice do we have now?” he asked Faizal.
For a moment Faizal considered disturbing the Mullah, but he hastened to follow the boys. When he caught up with them, Wasif began to question him.
“Who put them up to this?” asked Wasif.
“It was one of the young, hard men who travel with Jan Farooq,” said Faizal, panting slightly.
“People listened to him?” asked Asadullah Amin.
Faizal shrugged. “He told them what they wanted to hear.”
By the time that they had descended to the chai khana, a small crowd had already formed. The villagers were clustered around one of the men from Jan Farooq’s entourage. He was shaggy, with a heavy moustache, and he spoke well, even though the language he used was simple. He carried openly the short-barrelled rifle that normally hung under his shirt. All of the village men were armed, as well, though with farming tools, heavy tent poles, or anything else they could find.
Jan Farooq’s man pointed across the river. “Everyone knows that these Kochi are little more than savages who live like their animals. They are most famous in the world as thieves. Their women are whores who don’t even cover themselves when they walk in public. These Kochi have no honour, and they have no shame.”
Wasif and Asadullah Amin stood in the back of the crowd, unnoticed, as the man continued talking. Faizal slipped around the crowd and disappeared inside the chai khana.
“They will run as soon we strike,” said the shaggy young man. “Their whores will be collecting water and firewood by the river right now. If we move quickly, we can surprise them and take their women and everything that they have stolen on their travels. We will have our land back, and we will be rich!”