A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story

by Qais Akbar Omar

  That night we all slept together. My mother and father lay in the middle with my little brother between them. I was next to my father, and my sisters next to my mother. We all clung to each other to stay warm.

  * * *

  Two and a half months had passed since we had come to Bamyan. We worried all the time about everybody, and worried even more because we had no way of getting news. We heard reports of fighting in Mazar and Kabul, so we knew it would not be safe to go there. We settled into our caves, where we had developed our routines. Every day included time with schoolbooks, with my mother teaching us reading and writing, and our father teaching us arithmetic.

  My father became very friendly with many of the men in the town. He went with them to their mosque on Fridays, though they were Shi’a and we are Sunni. But a mosque is a mosque and anybody can pray there. People with good hearts can always rise above narrowness.

  When they heard that he was a teacher, they asked him whether he would teach their sons physics and chemistry when school opened again in the spring. My father told them that he was happy to help them.

  We heard rumors about a terrible battle that had been fought somewhere north of Bamyan near a place called Doshi. We had driven through Doshi on our way to Bamyan. We did not want to believe it. It had been such a peaceful place.

  “Mazari’s troops attacked Masoud’s troops and were defeated badly. Masoud’s troops are coming to Bamyan.” We heard this from men, women, kids, everyone. The people in Bamyan were afraid of Masoud. He was a Tajik from the Panjshir Valley. His soldiers had treated many Hazaras very cruelly. Mazari was a Hazara commander who had gained the reputation of a cruel warlord. His forces had clashed with Masoud’s in other places, such as our old neighborhood in Kabul, but so far there had been no fighting in Bamyan.

  Though we are Pashtuns, we had been treated very well in Bamyan by everyone there. Whenever another one of the refugee families in the caves cooked something special, they sent some to share with us. We did the same for them. The shopkeepers in the main bazaar were all Hazaras. When I went to one of their shops to get something we needed, I told them that my father would pay them later that day or the next day. They did not mind.

  It felt like our old neighborhood in Kabul, where everyone respected my father. Even now, when the divisive brutality of war was threatening to overtake us again, none of our neighbors ever failed in their hospitality even for a moment.

  But there was a feeling in the air, a look of worry that settled into people’s eyes. There was only one topic of conversation anytime anyone met. My father and the other men would gather in shops, and in the caves, and in the mosque, sometimes listening to a radio with its poor reception because of the mountains, sometimes speculating what might or might not happen. If a newcomer came to Bamyan, everyone wanted to know what he knew, and then whatever he had said would be talked about for days after.

  People said that Kunduz was peaceful. It was back across the Hindu Kush mountains, almost on Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan. My mother was born there, and we had lots of relatives there. Some of the other refugees had already decided to go there. My parents talked about whether we should try that ourselves.

  With all our moves, I began to wonder whether Wakeel and Grandfather would ever find us. The day we had left Haji Noor Sher’s house, Wakeel had said that he would go to Mazar by himself and join us there. Had he gone? Was he there looking for me? Had something happened to him? There was no way of knowing. I had no information about him or Grandfather, only a great worry.

  I became very sad and went to talk to my friend the monk. He had always answered my questions so wisely. I wanted to ask him why men always want to kill each other.

  “Everyone has a purpose,” he replied. “Everyone has to be good at something to feel fully connected to this cruel world.”

  I did not understand. “But they kill thousands of innocents,” I said.

  “Warriors are born with certain skills. But still, the warrior has a mind, too, and knows the difference between bad and good. Those who kill the innocent are confused. They are men with damaged souls,” he said.

  “Do you feel connected to this cruel world?” I asked.

  “There is a time for being connected to this world,” he replied, speaking slowly and choosing his words very carefully, “and a time for not being connected.” We sat quietly for a few moments. We both knew that if Masoud’s forces reached Bamyan, they might kill him.

  “Will you stay here if the warriors come, or will you go somewhere to save your life?” I asked.

  “I will do what is best,” he said.

  “You mean you have a place to hide?” I queried.

  “Of course I do,” he said.

  “Far from here?” I asked. “Is it in Afghanistan?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  “You will never leave this Buddha, will you?” I said knowingly.

  “As a candlewick drowns in its own wax, and a moth flies around it till it dies, I want to drown in Buddha’s knowledge and die at his feet. To tell you a hard truth, even the king when he is away from his home is like a beggar.”

  “It is the last time I’m seeing you,” I told him. “We’re leaving here for Kunduz tomorrow.” I asked his permission to go and stood up. He also stood and laid his right hand on my head.

  “Go well, tomorrow and always. Never hesitate to do good things. I’m sure you will be successful in your life,” he said. He shook hands with me as a gentle smile spread across his full, wrinkled face.

  * * *

  That night, we made a fire to light our cave as we organized our few belongings. The fire crackled in front of us, and from time to time a spark jumped out, as if trying to escape. I wished we could escape from Afghanistan like the spark from the fire, but there was no way out. All the paths were blocked; all the doors were slammed against us.

  * * *

  Early the next day we packed the car and prepared to leave Bamyan. It was snowing, and all the mountains were covered. It was very beautiful to see, but very cold. The Buddhas did not mind cold or heat. They had been standing there days and nights for centuries.

  I bowed in front of our Buddha as I had seen those monks do and said my goodbyes. I felt sorry for leaving the Buddha there alone, especially after we had been made to feel so welcome living somewhere inside of him. But he did not mind, or maybe he did. But I could not see it. A few minutes later we were in the car heading toward Kunduz, all shivering from the cold.

  * * *

  I had always expected I would see our Buddha again. But the storm of ignorance that has been raging in Afghanistan for so many decades smashed him to bits before I could return. I once lived inside his head. Now he lives in mine.

  10

  Borderlands

  After about six hours of driving over the Hindu Kush once more, we made our first stop in a place that was in the middle of nowhere and surrounded on four sides by mountains.

  We could not see a track, or a road, or an animal footprint, or anybody to give us directions. We had not used any of the regular roads, since we did not know where the front line and its fighting was. We had followed several old dirt tracks that seemed to lead in the right direction and which we hoped were too small for the factions to use with their trucks full of guns. But now we were lost, and had no earthly idea where to go next.

  Also, in these few hours, we had gone from winter to summer. Bamyan is very high in the mountains, and we were now nearly a mile below it. The weather had changed completely. The sun glowed orange, the sky was perfectly clear. We had left the snow behind and could see heat rising from flat stones.

  A couple of hours before, we had packed away our fur and felt coats, and now we were in a desert, sweating. The water we had brought from Bamyan was long gone; we had expected to be in Kunduz by now and had not used it as sparingly as we should have. Our throats were dry, and we kept hoping that our route would go past a brook or a stream. But there
were none.

  My father parked the car under the shade of a mountain rock. Dragonflies hummed all around. He let the car engine cool for a while, then with a small pipe he took some water out of the radiator. It did not look very good, but it was the only thing we had to drink. Everyone wanted the first drink. There was not enough for all of us to have as much as we wanted. He gave us one sip only, not more, and in the end, there was nothing left for him.

  We were desperate to find someone who might know the road to Kunduz, but there was no one, only the dragonflies, and we could not speak their language to ask them.

  Finally, after an hour, when we were happy just to be out of the car, we saw a man on a mule making his way slowly down the side of the mountain. My father and I ran to him to ask him where, in fact, we were. If we knew that much, perhaps we could find our way.

  “This place is called Nahreen,” he said from atop his mule. “And this mountain in front of us is called Mongol’s Mountain. If you continue driving to the north for four hours, you’ll get to a town called Shekamish, which belongs to Takhar Province, then after another four hours you will reach Khan Abad, which belongs to Kunduz Province, and then another two hours will get you to Kunduz City.”

  The man told us that the roads were not good, but that came as no surprise after what we had driven over. He also warned us not to stop for anyone, “not even for little children, because they are all robbers and killers.”

  We thanked the man and got everybody back into the car.

  Now we had another ten hours of driving ahead of us. We had wanted to get to Kunduz before dark, because of the robbers. My father started driving as if he were in a race. He hit every bump of that very bumpy road with too much speed, and the car jumped off the ground, squashing us against the ceiling. In the wild ride, we forgot our thirst and hunger. As we flew along, my father kept one eye on the road, and the other on the gas gauge. We had not seen a gas pump in hours, not even a village. About an hour after leaving the old man, we saw a little boy with a few gallons of petrol standing along the road. There was no pump station in sight, just the boy. We were afraid to stop, thinking he might himself be a robber. But we had no choice.

  My father told us to stay in the car with the doors and windows locked, and be ready to go in an instant if anybody else came along. Even my father did not get out of the car, he just rolled down the window and spoke to the boy. The boy charged my father twice as much as we usually paid, and he was very slow about putting the petrol in the tank. Every set of eyes in that car swept the landscape around us as he did so, looking for the first sign of trouble. But no one came to bother us, and my father gladly gave him the money.

  That was the only stop we made. In several other places small kids waved at us to give them a ride to the next town. We sped past as the old man had told us to do. As we did, my sisters and I saw men come out from behind big rocks nearby with their Kalashnikovs hanging from their shoulders. That was how it worked in those places. If you stopped to help a little kid who looked poor and desperate with torn clothes, guys with guns would jump out from hiding places and rob you, and maybe rape the women, too.

  It took us two hours longer than the old man had predicted for us to get to Kunduz. We arrived long after dark, exhausted, hungry, and very, very thirsty.

  * * *

  We went straight to the home of my mother’s brothers. They were extremely surprised to see us at one in the morning, but woke everyone and welcomed us to their compound. Their wives and daughters quickly set about making a meal for us, and bringing us jugs of water and pots of tea. The men and the boys showed us their houses, which were each surrounded by good-size courtyards that had doors connecting one to the other. Quickly, they arranged spaces for us to sleep, and some of the older boys carried our belongings from the car.

  There were so many cousins I had never met before. They looked a lot different from my cousins on my father’s side in Kabul, whom I knew well. They had bigger eyes with darker eyebrows and crinkly hair. They were a little shorter, and had narrow shoulders.

  As late as it was, my aunts quickly prepared rice with chunks of meat and carrots, and a big plate of salad and roasted aubergine with some apple juice. We ate while my cousins, uncles, and aunts watched us. There were so many of them. They did not all fit in one room. Some of them were peeping in through the window at the back.

  They were very talkative, all speaking at the same time, like sparrows. There were no rules like those my grandfather had established for us in our house. He used to say, “When someone talks, you listen until he finishes, then you talk. If someone older than you talks, you don’t talk.” But no one knew about that in Kunduz. I could not hear who was saying what. I ate and wished Grandfather were there to teach them the rules.

  Some of them talked to me in Pashto. I found this very strange. My sisters and cousins and I in Kabul always spoke Dari at home, even though we are Pashtuns and can speak Pashto fluently. Sometimes when we had guests who could not speak Dari, we spoke Pashto among ourselves to put the guests at ease. But here everyone spoke Pashto. Maybe they thought I could not speak Dari, as I was a guest.

  A few days later I found out that they could not speak Dari properly. When they used Dari, it was as if they were translating Pashto expressions into Dari. It sounded funny, and they had a strange accent. My sisters and I found that very entertaining. A few times we caught them laughing at our accent. But it did not take us very long to become good friends. We had discovered twenty new cousins our own ages.

  We spent three weeks with them, enjoying living in a house again, though I missed our cave sometimes. We could go out walking in the street. My father finally bought me the ice cream that he had promised me in Bamyan. My cousins went to school, and we helped them do their homework and read their books. Maybe we could live here now, I thought. We will find a way to tell Grandfather and Wakeel where we are. Maybe they were in Mazar-e-Sharif now, waiting for us.

  I saw how happy my mother was. With the restrictions on travel imposed by the Russians, and then dangers from the factions, she had not been home to Kunduz for many years. She spent hours every day greeting old friends and distant relatives whom she had not seen in a long time. Her brothers’ wives did not allow her to do any housework. They gave her some of their very best clothes and treated her like a queen, bringing her tea and fruit. My father had known several of my mother’s brothers when they had been in Kabul studying or working for the government. He went to see their businesses and talked with them all night, with lots of laughing about old times.

  But war never stopped chasing us. Now it came to Kunduz. Small groups started fighting to control each neighborhood, exactly as had happened in Kabul. Both day and night, we heard gunfire, especially Kalashnikovs, as well as rockets and bombs. Kunduz is a very small city; gunfire at one end is easily heard at the other. We knew about war, and we guessed that these fights between factions would soon get out of control as they had in Kabul. Then it would be hard for us to leave. We had never planned to be in Kunduz anyway; our real destination was Mazar. So we decided to leave while we could. Some of our cousins did, too, after they heard our stories of how the war had trapped us in our basement in Kabul while many horrible things happened around us.

  The grown-ups knew the names of all the commanders and the factions, but to me they were all the same, and I shut them out. They were the guys who were keeping me separated from Grandfather and Wakeel. That was all I needed to know about them.

  Now they were about to separate me from my new cousins as well.

  One morning we all got up early to say goodbye to two of my Kunduz uncles and their wives and kids, who were leaving to go over the mountain passes to northern Pakistan. It was a difficult journey, with no certainty of what they would find when they reached Pakistan. They would drive as far as they could, but they knew that they would have to leave the road at some point and go over the mountain pass on foot. They took very little with them, mostly food. We gave them s
ome of our warm clothes from Bamyan. They would need them, along with very good shoes.

  Some of my uncles decided to stay in Kunduz, hoping for the best. Some others were planning to head to Wakhan, the little finger of Afghanistan that points east, toward China, where it is very cold in all four seasons. They had summer houses there. War rarely reached Wakhan even when there was fighting in all the rest of Afghanistan.

  “Let’s go there,” I said. “We can all go together.”

  My uncle was sitting on a toshak cushion, drinking tea. He put down his cup, leaned forward, and gave me a gentle hug. I knew that meant “no,” but I wriggled free from him, though I was very fond of him, because I did not want to hear “no.” But we could not go to Wakhan, my mother said, because we were not used to such cold weather.

  My father had been looking for smugglers from the day we had arrived in Kunduz. Perhaps, if he had had more time, he would have been able to find one. But with the fighting coming to Kunduz, the border crossing to Tajikistan was being closed more tightly than ever, and even the smugglers would have had problems getting us out. The largest bribes that the smugglers paid to the border guards would not be enough with the war raging so near.

  In the end, instead of trying to go north across the mile-wide, swift-flowing Amu Darya River, which separates Afghanistan from Tajikistan, we fled west to Mazar, where my mother had a sister, and which we had been trying to reach since we had left home six months before. We had heard on the BBC that things there had settled down for the time being. We had to travel on a small road that was usually full of bandits. But even they had fled.

  My father drove very fast. I held on to the padded armrest on the door. My mother held on to the little ones but did not say anything, because she, too, wanted us to finally get to Mazar.

  The fighting did not get fierce in Kunduz right away, but in the end Kunduz was destroyed as thoroughly as Kabul. We lost six of our relatives before it ended.

  * * *