‘Anyway, since they’ve taken our phones and there’s no getting out of here tonight, I’m going to sleep. Can’t think why they’ve left me in here with you girls.’ He was looking at me as he added, ‘Must think you’re my sisters.’
I soon found myself wondering if he were right. I needed to feel there was a way out, but Jasper had taken that fragile security away, making it seem as though there wasn’t any hope. I fell asleep imagining the walls would close in on us while we dreamed our lives away.
n
The winter morning light stretched yellow fingers across my donkey bag, forcing one of my eyes open and then the other. Jasper was already awake, examining rugs in a corner of the shop. He glanced up as I stirred.
‘Glad to see you’ve joined the land of the living.’
‘You could call it that.’
‘These carpets are well made. Come and see.’ As I crawled to where he was kneeling, he turned one of the carpets over. ‘See, double-knotted too.’
‘You know much about carpets, Jas?’
‘Maybe too little not to get ripped off, but enough to enjoy them.’
‘Whenever Dad bought a carpet, it was like a full-scale campaign. It took days. Once he was treated to a feast. He bought that man’s carpet. I don’t think there was any way he could get out of it. He gave it to Mum; she loved the flowers on it. It had the same design as this one, but the border on this is slightly different. I thought each particular design was supposed to be identical.’
‘Only Allah can make something perfect,’ Jasper said and I grinned, relieved he was in a better mood than the night before. ‘You’ll find a mistake in every one of them, put there purposely so He won’t get angry.’
‘This whole border pattern is different though. It can’t be just a mistake.’
‘They are made here—in Peshawar.’ Sonya’s voice sounded muffled as though she was in the middle of a yawn.
‘Here?’ Liana echoed. ‘But a true Turkmen carpet should be made in Afghanistan, surely?’
‘A true one, yes. But that is a copy. Once they were made by refugees in the camps, now by Pakistani workers here. If the carpet dealer is honest, he will tell the customer and charge less.’
‘And if he’s not honest?’ Liana queried.
Sonya shrugged her shoulders.
We heard the sound of brass in the lock and there was Sohail silhouetted in the doorway, a tray balanced on one hand. Some moments stand out more in the memory. That was one of them for me. It was as though we were all part of a frozen tableau and I could see all the others’ faces at once. Liana’s mouth was open. She looked like I must have when I saw Suneel, a Chitrali guy, before we left Pakistan a year ago. I think it’s the thought of the unobtainable that makes some guys from different cultures so attractive. Sohail seemed more Liana’s age too.
Sonya, strangely enough, took one quick look upward and promptly stared at the floor, all before he would have had any eye contact with her. She didn’t look scared, yet demure was the last word I would have used to describe her. Her behaviour mystified me.
Jasper, beside me, looked as if murder was about to be committed. I hoped he could control himself long enough for us to eat breakfast. I was hungry.
Sohail set the tray down without saying a word and glanced around the room before departing. I watched him duck his red-capped head under the carpet hanging above the door as he went, and I knew, without checking, that Liana had watched him too.
‘Breakfast,’ she murmured, as if from far away.
‘At least he left the door open this time,’ I prattled on, trying to bring some normality into the room again.
Liana set out the little teacups that looked like miniature Chinese bowls. ‘Hey, there’s jam in the eggs!’
‘Gross! I don’t think I could face that.’ I giggled, which earned me an annoyed glance from Jasper. I wished he’d lighten up. We weren’t being ill-treated; jam in scrambled eggs was a dish served to guests in Afghan households and he should have known that. ‘Could I have a piece of naan please, Li?’
She passed the flat bread across with a cup full of milky sweet tea. Jasper and I were closest to the door, but it was a while before I noticed that he wasn’t concentrating on his food.
‘Jasper?’
He put a finger before his mouth. ‘I’m listening.’
I glanced at the others. Liana was having a one-sided conversation with Sonya. That won’t last long, I was thinking when I realised that Jasper’s ear was cocked to the roof outside. There were more than two men out there and the discussion didn’t seem to be about the cricket.
‘What’re they saying?’ I hoped Jasper wouldn’t shush me again.
‘It’s in the papers this morning.’
‘About us?’
He nodded without looking at me. ‘Even the English one. We were followed from Islamabad.’
‘Who by?’
He didn’t answer.
‘They’re saying they have to go now, it’s not safe.’
‘Why? Who for?’
‘They’re saying you and Sonya look alike.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
Jasper lifted a hand for quiet. The older man began talking. I bent closer to ask Jasper what the man said, when he clutched my hand. I was so surprised, I couldn’t say anything. Then I saw that Jasper’s mouth was open. The hand holding mine clenched even tighter.
‘Jasper!’ He was hurting me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’ve heard that voice before.’
‘Whose?’ He was so exasperating, and then he was staring at Sonya. I followed his gaze and even I was mesmerised. She was busy dunking naan in her tea. I’d only seen Afghans do that.
‘How on earth did she learn to do that?’
A shadow fell across us then, and we looked up at the doorway.
‘Assalamu Alaikum, peace be to you,’ greeted the older Pakhtun standing there, smiling at us all.
‘Wa Alaikum Assalam,’ Jasper answered, even though he scowled. In captivity, the rules of hospitality were still observed, it seemed.
The man crouched onto his haunches in the centre of the room and poured himself a cup of tea. ‘It seems to me that we must make a journey,’ he said in Urdu after his first mouthful. ‘I want you to understand that this is for your own safety.’ He wiped his beard with his hand and looked directly at Jasper. It was interesting how in Pakistan the most important decisions were made between the men, or was it only out of respect for our feminine persons that he didn’t look directly at any of us girls? I thought Sonya would have protested but she sat looking at the floor, as demure as any Pakistani girl. I couldn’t make her out. She seemed to have undergone a character transplant.
‘I also want you to understand that there will be no thoughts of escape.’ He sounded like Dad warning my brother Andrew about ‘monkey business’ on a picnic. ‘If I am to look after you, I must have your full cooperation. Do you understand?’
We girls nodded. Jasper sat stunned as though he’d been hit over the head with a mallet and hadn’t started slipping down the wall yet. The man pulled up his great frame. ‘We leave in fifteen minutes.’ Then he smiled. It was very confusing for he didn’t seem evil at all.
‘You may call me “Uncle” when you refer to me.’ He looked pleased with his own benign gesture. ‘Ma yarega warra!’ Strangely he seemed to be looking in Sonya’s direction when he said that though it was in Pakhtu. I was about to ask Jasper what it meant when the man translated it into Urdu himself. ‘Do not be frightened, children.’
Jasper was staring at him walking out through the doorway.
‘Are you all right, Jas?’ He didn’t answer straight away and when he did, it changed everything.
‘I remember where I heard that voice.’ He glanced over at Sonya again.
‘Where?’<
br />
‘It’s the voice I heard with Sonya. In the carpet shop.’
‘He was there?’ I shifted so I could see out the door too. Sohail had just handed a Kalashnikov to ‘Uncle’ to hold and, as he turned and smiled at his son, it was then that Jasper stiffened.
‘I’ve seen him too. He’s the one!’
‘Who, Jas?’
‘He’s the Pakhtun posing with my dad in the photograph I saw in the carpet shop.’
11
Jaime
The next day I was beginning to feel more like my old self again—the way I used to be when we lived in Pakistan. The last year in Australia had made me feel like a cushion with the stuffing knocked out of it. By the end of the year, I had finally begun feeling as if I belonged there, but I still had a long road to travel.
Now that I was back in Pakistan, even though I’d never expected my holiday to turn out like this, it was still my known world. It was weird, but I was thinking that morning, as the Pakhtuns bundled us into a faded blue Ford van, us girls clad in blue burqas to match, that I’d rather die here where things were familiar and I understood the cultural cues.
Liana didn’t seem so sure; she looked like she’d had a premonition of disaster. Though, whatever she may have been feeling, I believed she was stronger than she used to be years ago and I gave her a nudge to dispel her thoughts.
‘Can you imagine what Ayesha would say if she could see us in these Afghan burqas?’ I knew I must have looked like a blue shuttlecock, clad from top to toe in pleated cotton.
‘Poor Ayesha,’ Li said. ‘She tries to be more Western than we are, even though she’s Pakistani.’
‘Maybe it’s the lure of something different.’ I lifted up the hem of the burqa and breathed in deeply as I leaned forward to stare out the window of the moving van. Even though it was winter, the heavy material made me feel as though my air supply was squeezed off, and I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.
Swiftly, Sohail loomed towards me from his seat opposite. I’d forgotten about him momentarily. ‘Put the veil down!’ he hissed in Urdu. ‘Immediately!’
Startled, I did as he said, and slowly settled back into my seat next to Liana. I glanced across to Sonya but she seemed to be asleep. ‘So much for that,’ I murmured in a flat little voice and when I saw Sohail staring at me from across the van, I made a face at him behind the mesh of the veil. It was childish, but satisfying. I could see out but no one could see in. I chuckled when I realised there was a worthwhile use for burqas after all.
‘I suppose they gave us these to wear so nobody would recognise us,’ I suggested to Liana, trying to make conversation.
‘Guess you’re right.’ She didn’t sound annoyed exactly, just dry—I’d said the obvious and she didn’t want to be reminded of it. That was enough to keep me quiet for a while. At least I could see through the window from where I sat. The bazaar was crowded and even in winter, Peshawar was a dusty, dirty place. Street vendors sold their wares, trying to outdo each other, shouting their prices and the merits of their products. Men sat in groups outside the teashops, listening to radios or watching TVs. The cricket, no doubt. Children, wrapped in torn shawls, playing by the side of the road, seemed unaware of the traffic and only moved aside in response to the sharp blast of a horn.
Suddenly, I stood up, clutching hold of Liana’s shoulder. ‘Hey! Isn’t that Uncle Jon’s jeep? Jasper, you know Jon Harris. Isn’t that his car?’ I was trying to get closer to the window, stumbling over the rolled carpets underfoot, when a hand shot out and pushed me down abruptly, and there was Sohail breathing into my burqa. I didn’t dare move a muscle for I couldn’t tell if he could see me that close.
‘Have you gone mad? You fool! You could spoil everything!’ I stared at him, speechless. What could I spoil? Their plan to abduct us? Wasn’t that my job? Yet he made it sound as though I was putting everyone in danger.
I held my breath as Jasper moved towards Sohail. It was barely noticeable but, like a jungle cat, Sohail swung round, picked up the assault rifle, and sat back in his seat with the gun levelled at the other boy. Jasper’s eyes, like mine, were on Sohail’s finger as it rested on the gunlock. It all happened in a moment, and Jasper slowly leaned back. I breathed again. If looks alone could kill, Sohail would have been flapping like a landed fish on the floor, gasping for his last breath.
After a while, Sohail lowered the rifle and threw a command at the driver. The same cultured Pakistani accent from the night before gave judgements on cricket players’ performance and stats. Younis Khan was heading for a century. I was beginning to realise that besides guns, Sohail’s other passion in life was cricket. I turned to Liana.
‘Pity the series wasn’t playing here in Pakistan; we could have got a message back to Australia—through the cricket team. I could’ve sent my bangle with a note.’ I wasn’t serious, just trying to lighten everything up. It didn’t work.
‘I hope you’re joking,’ she said. ‘Our handsome Pakhtun here wouldn’t let you near the window, for a start. And, secondly, if anyone got their hands on that bangle, they’d pawn it in the bazaar. Most probably keep their whole family clothed and fed for a year. Anyway, it’s the embassy that has to do something. Maybe the school has notified them by now.’
‘Yeah.’ And that was when I saw the Khyber Pass spread out before us. It was just like the photos in travel books: a huge road meandering between the mountains like a serpent. Dad had never been able to take me when we were living there. There was so much red tape and you had to hire an armed guard to protect you while you drove through to Afghanistan.
I was about to tell Jasper, when he saw it too. I noticed the muscle tighten in his cheek and wondered what was wrong. Then I remembered that it wouldn’t be anything remarkable for him; he’d probably seen it before. It was Liana who sounded the alarm.
She turned to Sohail. ‘You’re taking us to Afghanistan!’ I knew she was upset as she spoke in English.
‘He can’t understand you.’ Jasper sounded weary and looked as if he were about to translate into Pakhtu when Sohail spoke.
‘On the contrary, I am understanding.’
There was a silence. So many things had gone wrong that I hardly knew what to deal with first. I wanted to know how come he knew English. At that point, I wasn’t fully aware of the other danger.
‘How …?’ I didn’t get far.
‘I attended school in Kabul. I studied English there.’
All of a sudden I felt annoyed and stupid. I tried to remember how many times I’d used the wrong Urdu words to explain things when all the time he could have understood my English.
‘Then why didn’t you say so?’
‘Your Urdu is better than my English,’ he snapped. ‘There was no need.’ His voice faded in dismissal but I wasn’t finished with him yet. I didn’t believe my Urdu was better than his English and suddenly he seemed more vulnerable, more part of the things I could understand. I glanced across at Liana for moral support, and the strained way she was sitting made me remember her words about Afghanistan. I persisted.
‘You are, aren’t you? Taking us across the border. Isn’t it dangerous? There’s still fighting. Mines. No Westerners without permits are allowed near the Khyber Pass, let alone across the border. We’ll never be found …’ I realised what I’d said and shut my mouth.
Sohail smiled politely at me. He was obviously used to ladies in burqas. He treated me exactly as if there was nothing on my face at all.
‘I see you are an intelligent girl. That is good.’
I turned towards Jasper, hoping he’d back me up. He must have known I was looking at him, but he ignored me. There was nothing he could do anyway; the gun was still trained his way. Sonya was quiet behind her veil. There was no way of working out what she thought of it all, nor did I feel like asking her. She had a habit of not hearing me when I spoke to her.
The
re was nothing else to do except look out the window. There was one good thing: I was finally getting to see the Hindu Kush up close. They were what I called ‘forever’ mountains; the type that must have existed from the beginning of creation and always would. I tried surreptitiously to lift my burqa so Sohail wouldn’t notice. I needed more air. Then I inched a bit closer to Jasper. He looked so frustrated. He was brought up in a country where men protect those in their care. By then I was sure Jasper thought of Liana and me in that light and I felt sorry for him. He looked like Superman confronted with kryptonite and I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to take such a load on himself.
‘Jasper,’ I whispered. ‘Are you okay?’
This time he sort of grinned. ‘Guess so.’ I was relieved as I wasn’t sure any more what reaction I’d get from him.
‘You look so worried.’
‘I am. I’d like to get some answers out of that great hulking Pakhtun. But he hasn’t come. He got Junior to do the dirty work.’
‘Do you think they’ll let us go later?’
‘I don’t know. But I do know kidnappers are the lowest of the low. I’ve heard about what happens …’ He stopped as though he’d said too much. I was glad. I didn’t want to hear what he’d heard. For some strange reason, I didn’t feel totally kidnapped. Maybe it was my mind helping me through, maybe it was my belief in a God who works things out for the best, or maybe I was just naïve. I stared out at those mountains and all I saw was their beauty. They weren’t covered in pines like the ones near our school, but they were magnificent in their snowy starkness.
‘They look cruel,’ Liana murmured, following my gaze.
‘Who?’
‘The mountains.’
It made me think it was beliefs and attitudes that make people strong, and I hoped I could stay positive through whatever lay ahead. Liana again kicked back the carpet that had rolled out from under our seat. I helped her as the van swerved round another sharp bend. ‘Why are they bringing carpets into Afghanistan anyway? I thought the market was in Pakistan.’
The War Within Page 6