“Welcome my friend. I am so sorry for your loss.”
Jaz, tongue-tied: “Thank you.”
“You must be tired having flown so far.”
“A bit yes. Well no, not really.”
“You have been in London – alone.”
“Yes,” said Jaz looking down.
“Any family there at all?”
“No.”
“The mosque then.”
“Not really.”
“It’s good for a young man to rely on himself, Jasir,” the sheikh said switching to Baluch. “You are a credit to the Chamak people. And to yourself.”
The colonel, who from his time with Chamakis could understand Baluch but not speak it, looked on with admiration as the sheikh talked. The old fox has worked out Jaz in about 30 seconds flat, he thought to himself. Turn the boy’s loneliness into strength. Say what you like about hereditary rule, but some of these tribal types just had it in the genes.
The sheikh turned towards him reverting to English. “And Colonel, did I read in the papers that you distinguished yourself at a wedding recently?”
The colonel chuckled: “I don’t think everyone would see it that way.”
“Speaking truth to power,” the sheikh resumed after a pause that felt like a full minute. “Always appealing.” And then just in case any of his diners got the wrong idea: “but I don’t encourage it.”
The sheikh’s power rested on many pillars. The election that followed his father’s death when he was just 14 was a sham: the outcome of the show of hands at a tribal jirga never in doubt. But it did lend him a useful air of democratic legitimacy in an era when that was becoming ever more fashionable. Not in the mind of the sheikh, of course, but in the minds of just about everyone else. And there was more. On the recommendation of one of his deceased father’s closest counsellors, the young boy had consented to combine his youthful rule with attendance at a madrassah, an Islamic seminary, until his 18th birthday. So, even though he had little time for religion, he enjoyed spiritual as well as temporal authority.
A boy walked up to each guest placing ornate copper bowls on the ground. Then tilting the curved spout of a tall jug, another poured water onto their outstretched hands. As the cool liquid dripped into the bowls below, a third produced a cloth so that they could dry themselves.
Ignoring his own advice, the colonel felt compelled to fill the silence.
“The last time I saw you, you were having problems with the United Nations.”
The inevitable pause as the sheikh calculated his possible responses like a chess player thinking three moves ahead.
“I was.”
“So what did you do?”
The sheikh, whose sense of natural authority found physical form in an overbearing, dominating posture, somehow managed to raise his head another inch higher.
“They come here these men and women – I never meet them anymore by the way – consultants, aid workers and so on, the UN crowd, normally in their early twenties. Fornicating and drinking. And they then tell us how to live our lives.”
Thinking this could go on for a while the colonel reached forward and, trying to restrain himself from loading his plate with food, restricted himself to some lamb, the grey meat hanging loosely from the bone.
“Of course I have never claimed the right to tell them how to conduct themselves. But they take a different view. They have read many books and seem to think that gives them the right to tell us that centuries of tradition are wrong. As you know Colonel – you must have met their type in the drawing rooms of Islamabad – they are, on the whole, inexperienced, ill-mannered, and arrogant.”
Another pause. The colonel dribbled down his shirt as he tried to suck the marrow from the bone. “What did they want?” he said his voice muffled by the food in his mouth.
The sheikh continued as if he had not heard. “I know Britain. And America. Most of the ones they send to us come from mediocre families and, as soon as they live here, start behaving like little princes. They lecture me not even as an equal but as if they were my superior!”
Silence.
“I told the cooks to give them sheep’s eyes and braised buffalo penis. Nothing else.” The corner of the sheikh’s mouth twitched as he tried to stop smiling at the memory. “And I told my officials to tell them we were building schools for girls and God knows what. Not that I ever will. All they want is for me to educate my people to their way of life. Why should I?” And then: “What do you think young man?”
Jaz was unsure what the sheikh wanted him to say. “Dunno really. If they are aid workers do they bring food and stuff?”
“Just their opinions.”
Jaz felt uncertain what to do so said in Baluch: “Well the Brits hate foreigners. Unless they become totally British. They only care about themselves. And America.”
“Well you are right. But you are grieving young man. And I should let you do so in your own time. Forgive me, Jaz. You remind me of myself when I was young.”
And when, in later years, the colonel thought back on Jaz and the sheikh and all that happened, he believed it started then. The use of the nickname Jaz, rather than the formal Jasir that would have come more naturally to the sheikh. The expression of confidence and of humility too; asking for his views; the display of simple courtesy. Putting Jaz at his ease, understanding his awkwardness and diffidence. That was the moment the colonel reckoned the sheikh began the process of reeling him in; of bending the young man to his will. That and the visit to Jalalabad.
“Colonel,” the sheikh resumed after an interminable silence, “I think we should take Jaz to Afghanistan . There is something I want to show him there. Do you think you could be ready tomorrow morning at six?”
After a lifetime in the army the colonel knew that tone of voice. It wasn’t a question. It was a command.
*****
They flew in the sheikh’s own plane. For the pilot, formerly with Pakistan International Airlines, it came as something of a shock. In two years of employment by the sheikh this was only the second time the boss had flown. Not that the plane lay idle. Each month he made a monthly delivery of some rather heavy packages – he guessed what was in them but never asked - to a strip down south by the coast, west of Karachi. And from time to time he had to ferry the sheikh’s boys to and from Karachi itself. But for the sheikh to fly. That was unusual.
“Welcome to Chamak Airlines!” the pilot joked as Jaz and the colonel stepped out of one of the sheikh’s pickups and walked towards the plane. The sun reflected from the white fuselage dazzled Jaz’s eyes and he shielded them with his hand. The bright light revealed a faint trace of two large blue letters - UN - that had at some point been painted over.
“Where’s the runway?” Jaz looked about him at the flat stony desert.
“Well we try not to mark anything out too clearly. Wouldn’t want to land a jumbo on it, but it will serve our purposes.”
The colonel tapped Jaz’s arms and pointed to the right: “Look there; where the stones have been cleared.”
“Lush,” Jaz said. “This is all new since I went to London. His own airport!”
“He doesn’t want to rely on Islamabad for anything,” the colonel said. “He says Pakistan gives him one lousy green passport - hated around the world - and he is not asking for anything more.”
“Fair enough,” said Jaz.
Turning to the pilot the colonel enquired: “How the hell can we go to Jalalabad? Isn’t the Afghan border monitored?”
“Don’t worry about anything, sir. It’s taken care of. We are delivering vaccine to a Jalalabad hospital. Emergency delivery because the cold chain broke down.”
The colonel looked confused.
“You know. They have to keep the vaccine below a certain temperature all the way from the factory to the hospital or it goes off. The cold chain. And who would stop replacing bad vaccine?” He grinned. And then turning to the plane he opened the door and extended the shiny metal steps that led to the
cabin. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
To the colonel’s relief once the sheikh arrived and they had taken off, the engine noise made conversation impossible. Instead he spent the one-hour flight trying to work out what the sheikh was up to.
Beneath him the parched Baluch landscape flitted by. Villages sited for their defensibility rather than agricultural convenience clung to terraced mountainsides. Each house standing proud within high walls.
It was about Jasir, the colonel reasoned. The sheikh seemed taken by him, but what did he want of him? And who did he want him to meet in Jalalabad? It was all rather opaque. And a bit frightening too. Because the sheikh had the power to crush them both. Jaz was impressive in his way. He looked fit and bright. And he’d managed London well enough. But the colonel thought him vulnerable too. He was going to have to take care. For the two of them.
Having skirted the huge American airstrip five miles east of Jalalabad the pilot brought the plane down at another indistinct strip north of the city and then stayed behind whilst his passengers were driven towards the town. While the pilot had given the Pakistani and Afghan authorities the formal explanation for the flight, the sheikh had instructed his 16-year-old son Akbar, who was back in Chamak, to make the real arrangements by satellite phone. The young man had called his equivalent in the Shinwari tribe that controlled territory around Jalalabad.
“Don’t know what’s going on,” Akbar had remarked, “just sight-seeing he said. Not that he ever tells me anything. Is it secure just now?”
“We are having some problems,” came back the reply, “but I’ll take care of it. He will be safe with us. You can depend on it. I’ll send some men to meet them.”
They stayed in Jalalabad for less than an hour.
Having directed the car to stop at a spot clearly known to him, the sheikh climbed out and the others followed.
“Can you make sure we are left alone?” the sheikh ordered the driver and the men accompanying them, anticipating that the locals were bound to be curious. The man scanned the area for people who might try to approach.
And then as they walked up a slope towards the remains of a huge stone fort, a garrison big enough to protect thousands of men, the sheikh looked at Jaz: “I want to tell you a story.”
The colonel was an onlooker now. No speaking part required. He followed behind, panting as they ascended. Beneath them, to the right, a convoy of heavily laden trucks heaved its way up a rough gravelled road belching black exhaust
“Food and oil for the American troops,” commented the sheikh looking down and then, “Those trucks have just come through the Khyber pass. The Afridis are making a small fortune out of guaranteeing safe passage.”
“Why doesn’t someone attack them then?” asked Jaz
The sheikh smiled. “What do they say in London? Make love not war. Here it’s make money not war. Or at least make money first and war later.” And then with his white hair rippling in the breeze: “Let me take you back to 1842.”
They were climbing through archaeological evidence of curved turrets, towers and battlements. On the other side of the ruins three men were kneeling on the ground taking apart their guns and rubbing each dismantled piece with spit and cotton cloth. A gaunt old man with legs like twisted wire walked by, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. Beside him a donkey pulled a cart, bells jangling.
“So 1842. The First Afghan War. First of many. About 4,500 British soldiers and 12,000 hangers on. Wives, servants and so on. Retreating from Kabul ...” he pointed to the horizon on their left, “...coming here. For seven days the Afghans attacked. No direct assault but snipers on the valley ridges shooting down into the valley. And then some raiding parties to pick off the stragglers. Not letting them stop for rest. They stole the British guns, they harried and chivvied and harassed the British and do you know the rest of the story?”
Jaz shook his head. He noticed a tea maker at his stall waiting for the arrival of some tourists. The man sat on an elevated dais, everything he needed within reach. There was a small fire in front of him and chipped enamel kettles blue and red, dangled on hooks from the ceiling of his hut.
“This was the British fort to which that army was headed,” the sheikh went on. “But only one man made it. A doctor who appeared on the horizon – over there - slumped, exhausted on his half dead horse. One survivor, spared death so that he could tell the British government what had happened. The soil was soaked with British blood.”
Jaz sat down looking at the ground as if it would still be stained red.
“Why have you brought me here?”
The sheikh fell back on one of his prolonged silences. And then: “You wouldn’t be knowing any Kipling would you?”
Jaz looked up, face blank.
“British poet.” The sheikh recited from memory:
A scrimmage in a border station,
A canter down some dark defile,
Two thousand pounds of education,
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail.
“They have the education; but we have the knowledge, the character, the strength.”
Jaz was engaged now, taking in every word. He looked up at the sheikh’s eyes for a second or two before lowering his gaze to the ground, “I understand,” he said. “What you mean to say is that they don’t always win.”
*****
“I do not like them, Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham.”
A hundred miles to the south-east in Peshawar, it was Natasha Knight’s favourite part of the day. Having wrapped her 14-month-old daughter, Rosie, in soft blankets and placed her in the cot, she read.
“Sam I am …”
She broke off and placed a finger on Rosie’s tiny forehead, moving a lock of hair away from her eyes. “Your little Celtic fringe,” she whispered conspiratorially into her daughter’s ear. It was a reference to the girl’s father, Major Callum Sandies, 1st Battalion, Black Watch and a happy three-month fling. He had been given a liaison role in Baghdad to ensure better communication between the intelligence agencies and the military. As he liked to joke with Natasha, he took his duties very seriously. Natasha pictured Callum’s wife as a rather frumpy, mousy-haired women surrounded by the dogs and children she bred for him and wondered, not for the first time, why even quite promising men seemed terrified of settling down with strong, independent females.
Her maid, Razia, came in flustered: “Madam, there is someone at door.” Peshawar born and bred, she had still not adjusted to her boss’s habit of receiving male guests at home.
“Who is it?” Natasha asked, stroking her daughter’s head.
“Afridi Sahib,” the maid replied.
“Odd,” commented Natasha picking a hair off her blouse. She racked her brain but could not remember agreeing to meet.
“You better take over.” She put down the book. “Can you manage?”
Razia looked at Rosie in the cot. “Yes madam. No problem.”
Natasha looked round the room for a mirror. Her shalwar kameez was just thin enough to reveal glimpses of the outline of her slim body beneath the swirls of material. By local standards the top was low cut revealing not only that her neck was alabaster white but also giving the impression that it was slightly longer than average. As she moved, her head remained still with her chin held high: the combination gave her an air of grace and self-confidence. The only part of her face that moved with any speed were her eyes, which flicked back and forth combining flirtatiousness and apparently constant curiosity. Satisfied, she looked away from the mirror and towards Razia. Natasha comforted herself with the thought that what she lacked in reading skills she made up for with her repertoire of local nursery rhymes. And not for the first time she looked at her daughter thinking: brought up in the foothills of the Khyber Pass to the sound of ancient Pathan tales in your cot. More fun than Surbiton. She left the bedroom, ran downstairs wondering whether she had any crisps or nuts to offer him and made for the sitting room where Aftab Afridi was waiting.
/> Officially the UK’s cultural attaché in Peshawar, Natasha, to keep up appearances, had spent the day trying to accomplish two tasks. The first was to persuade the Cultural Committee of the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa Provincial Assembly to prevail upon the officials in the Cultural Department of the local administration to overcome their instinctive conservatism and accept the British Council’s offer to pay for a Welsh rock band to perform in the city. “A Welsh band would be especially suitable,” she had argued, “as Wales has similar dilemmas to you when it comes to the relationship with central government.”
Lame. She knew it and so did they. And having no interest whatsoever in Welsh rock they had come up with a barrage of questions about the nature of the lyrics; whether she could guarantee that male and female members of the audience would be segregated and, most importantly of all, whether the members of the committee she was addressing could expect a facilitation fee for smooth passage of paperwork required for the proposed concert.
Her mood was not improved by her second task: completing a risk assessment form for a meeting scheduled for the next day. She had made the mistake of telling the office in London that she would be going to have tea in the Pearl Continental Hotel with a University of Peshawar professor. She was hoping he could shed light on the historical roots of a conflict that had flared up between two tribes just west of Peshawar in an area to which she thought British Special Forces could at some point in the future be deployed.
She wanted to see the professor before meeting the two tribal leaders to whom she had already sent messages.
It was never easy to communicate with tribals without the Pakistani authorities getting to know about it. But Natasha reckoned she had found a way: she used a boy, an urchin really, called Ahmed who was 14 years old and apparently homeless, Ahmed had got into the habit of waiting outside her house all day in the hope of picking up small bits of work such as cleaning shoes and fetching firewood or other things she needed. Natasha had grown quite fond of his constant smile and inexhaustible willingness to please. And it did not take long for her to realise that he might be able to run rather more important errands than buying last minute groceries. Being both resourceful and so dishevelled as to be utterly unthreatening, Natasha had found him to be a more than adequate messenger. He seemed to be able to move anywhere without being noticed. She had asked him to carry letters to two tribal leaders involved in the dispute.
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 6