The Places in Between

by Rory Stewart

  Yuzufi no longer tried to find Persian equivalents for this new jargon. English thrust up through the ornate surfaces of his sentences: "U fekr mikonid ke Internet broadband access khub bud"

  "Please, your question." Yuzufi pointed to a French journalist, who spoke in English.

  "I would like to know if Mister has any military aid from Iran—"

  Yuzufi interrupted, "His Excellency, not Mister."

  "I would like to say," said Ismail Khan, "that before we came there was no furniture here—the Taliban was against furniture. We've bought all this furniture in the last two weeks."

  Ismail Khan disagreed with the Taliban more about furniture than about Islam. He believed in the jihad and hated atheist foreigners interfering in Afghanistan. He had encouraged women to return to schools but believed they should be well covered and should not speak to men to whom they were not related. He was about to order new "vice and virtue" squads to raid the arcades I had seen and burn the DVDs. He had implemented laws requiring women to wear head scarves and forbidding men from wearing neckties. Women who met men to whom they were not related could be forcibly examined in hospitals to determine whether they had recently had sex.7 But I was not sure how many of the people in the room understood his vision of an Islamic state. He was certainly not going to share his views on women with the reporter from Television France 2, who had not covered her blond hair.

  "Now, Mr. Stewart," said Yuzufi. I looked up from my notebook, where I had been trying to scribble down what I wanted to say. Before I could speak the woman cut in. "If I can just interrupt," she said, smiling. "Can we have a private interview?"

  Ismail Khan looked at her and then said, "Of course, why not? Come tomorrow."

  There was a mutter from other journalists whose interview requests had been refused.

  "Mr. Stewart..."

  I leaned forward. "Agha Ismail Khan," I said, and paused. I wanted to speak in Persian, but I felt self-conscious in front of the interpreters, so I continued in English. "I am a British writer, focusing on the history and culture of Afghanistan." Yuzufi nodded encouragement. "I am planning to walk on foot to Kabul, via Bamiyan, not using a vehicle. I would like to thank His Excellency Yuzufi for his support." I glanced at Ismail Khan. He was looking at a Koranic inscription on the wall. I skipped a few sentences. "I am following the route of the Emperor Babur, who did this journey in the winter of 1506. I am hoping that I can show my people what a wonderful place Afghanistan is."

  There was a long pause. The journalists stared at me. Ismail Khan turned to Yuzufi, who whispered something. Then the governor looked at me. "A big journey, which I would like to support. Tell me please if there is anything I can do to help. But"—he paused, apparently confused—"this journey is not possible in the winter. I know this. I have fought in the region at this season."

  I wondered whether I could ask him to tell the Security Service to leave me alone, but Yuzufi had raised his hand as though to tell me to stop. "Thank you," I said. The governor smiled broadly and the audience was over.

  Yuzufi insisted I travel in his van back to the hotel because it was after curfew. "You are very lucky," he said. "What the governor said is more important than you know—I will write a note saying you are under his protection. Now you will be stronger with the Security Service." Yuzufi seemed relieved by how the press conference had gone. I said I thought his job must be a difficult one.

  "Ah, Rory, how you understand me," he said, laughing. "This morning a woman came in from a New York journal..."

  "My friend Carlotta from the New York Times?"

  "Perhaps. She said that it is 'the most important newspaper in the world' and I must arrange a private interview with His Excellency. I almost believed her but another woman came here. From CNN. Apparently that is also 'the most important in the world.' Who can I believe? Now I have canceled them both and told them to come to the press conference with"—he paused—"Newsday, the Christian Science Monitor. Have I done correctly?"

  Before I could answer, three men stepped into the center of the road and pointed their automatics at the van's windshield. They were the curfew guard. After Yuzufi got out to explain who we were, we were allowed slowly forward. "It must be satisfying to have this much influence," I said.

  "Not for me. Although I admire His Excellency I would like to go to England to study a master's degree and to serve as an ambassador overseas," said Yuzufi. He looked out the window. The power had been cut and Herat was dark. Another group of policemen stopped us. Yuzufi paused before speaking to them. "Nothing changes in Herat," he said.

  CARAVANSERAI, WHOSE PORTALS...

  Two days later in the desert, Yuzufi, the journalists, and Ismail Khan seemed remote. Qasim and Aziz were finding walking increasingly difficult. Qasim kept saying we should travel by bus.

  At dusk, we saw a fortified building on the plain to the south and beyond it a village. Since we had no tents, I suggested we find somewhere to sleep. Qasim replied that there were bad men in the village and they wouldn't receive us. I said I'd often walked into villages without an introduction. Abdul Haq shrugged and turned off the footpath, striding across the desert toward the building. For a moment I considered walking in Abdul Haq's footsteps to avoid mines, but I was embarrassed to let him take the risk alone so I walked beside him.

  "Do you understand what I am saying?" Qasim shouted from behind Abdul Haq. "I have been a Mujahid for twenty-two years. When walking you must stay on the roads, not walk in the fields."

  "But this is a shortcut," replied Abdul Haq.

  "If you please! We must walk on the road."

  "Don't talk like that," said Abdul Haq. "Our guest will lose confidence in us."

  "Don't worry; he can't understand what we are saying."

  Abdul Haq began to goose-step across the sand, swinging his right arm in front of his chest and kicking up dust with his heels. Then he launched into a guerrilla song that opened, "Welcome, Ismail Khan, Welcome, Commander." For the next ten minutes he chanted his welcome to every comrade he could think of. He had just reached "Welcome, Qasim, Welcome, Commander" when we arrived at a path and met a man who confirmed we could stay in the building. "Someone will take you in," he said. "It contains thirty families."

  When we reached the building, with its high mud walls and its single corner tower, I realized it was a medieval caravanserai—a way station for merchants on the Silk Road. Because caravanserai were built a day's walk apart, I had used them for accommodation when I walked across the Iranian desert between Arak and Isfahan. This one was surrounded by a shallow moat. A broad wooden bridge led to a three-arched portico large enough for a loaded camel. Abdul Haq knocked on the wooden door, and while we waited I photographed the three men. Abdul Haq flashed his broad grin. A dark band of evening shadow rose fast up the coffee-colored brick. We were all tired and relieved to have found shelter.

  When I had the idea of an Asian walk five years earlier, such legacies of the Silk Road had fascinated me. There would once perhaps have been lapis lazuli here, carried west from the mines of Afghanistan to make the blue in medieval Sienese paintings, and amber cut from tree fossils in the Baltic and brought east for Tibetan necklaces. Even more mysterious objects had moved down such trading routes: diamonds that could make you a king, Buddhist texts on birch-bark scrolls in characters that could no longer be deciphered, Chinese astrolabes to mystify the Vatican. But now that I was walking, I found it more difficult to be interested in the Silk Road. Such things had little to do with modern Afghanistan and I doubted whether the people who lived in this building had a clear idea of its past.

  A delicate-featured boy of eight appeared at the gate and said no one was at home. Qasim told him to have a second look. After some minutes he reappeared. The sun had sunk and we were beginning to feel cold. The boy looked at us with his dark, steady eyes and said, "No. There is no one here."

  Qasim snapped, "Don't lie, boy. You have been told to say this. I know there are people inside. Look again." Anoth
er child appeared. He was slightly smaller, with spiky black hair, and was wearing a faded red shalwar kemis.

  "Tell them I am a meman [guest], mosafer [traveler]," continued Qasim. "Muslims cannot refuse hospitality. We're from the government. We have a right to enter."

  The first boy stared at Qasim and then at me and said, "No. There is no one here."

  There was a pause and suddenly Abdul Haq grabbed the boy by the collar and began to push him through the medieval arch toward the courtyard.

  Qasim shouted, "Stop, don't go in there. This was an al-Qaeda place. You'll both be shot."

  Abdul Haq bent down, looked into the boy's eyes, and pushed him roughly away. The boy stumbled backward but did not fall. "Tell them now that we are going to come in," said Abdul Haq.

  "There is no one here," the boy repeated.

  Abdul Haq looked at the other two men and then turned and walked with them back across the moat bridge. I followed. When we reached the end of the bridge, Abdul Haq nodded at Aziz, spun, dropped to one knee, and brought his rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the boys. Aziz did the same.

  The first boy leaped behind the door. The other stood motionless in the archway and began to cry, waiting for the shot.

  I paused and then stepped toward Abdul Haq. He glanced at me and I laid my hand over the rifle sight, smiled, and said, "No." The first boy ran out, grabbed his friend, and pushed him behind the door. There was a pause. I dropped my hand. Abdul Haq laughed and we walked off toward the village. I fell back. I did not want to walk alongside these men.

  On the outskirts of the village they found a man squatting behind a wall, possibly hiding from them. He stood up and bowed and seized the hands of Abdul Haq and Qasim, ignoring me. Qasim went through the elaborate chain of greetings and then asked where we could stay.

  "Over there."

  "Lead us," barked Qasim.

  "No," replied the man, turning away, "I really..."

  Abdul Haq grabbed his wrist and Aziz pointed his rifle at his chest and the man said, "Of course, of course, I will come with you."

  We entered the village and saw three old men sitting with their grandchildren on the platform beside the mosque. One white-bearded man advanced with a broad smile. Qasim was becoming aware of how nervous everyone was. He made his greetings particularly polite and lengthy, adding, "No need to be afraid. We just wondered whether we could find some bread, a place to sleep. We are not asking you to kill a sheep for us."

  "Ah, yes," said the old man. "Yes. I'm afraid it is such a pity. We simply have nothing at all." He smiled even more broadly. "Nothing at all."

  "Just a little," said Qasim, smiling back.

  "I'm so sorry," said the old man. "I wish I could help."

  "Right," shouted Abdul Haq. "That's it. We'll sleep in the desert. This is your Muslim hospitality ... how you treat guests ... I see it now. If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. Look, you idiots. You stupid, old ... idiots. Look." He pointed his rifle at them. They all stepped back and the old man stopped smiling. "Bahh," Abdul Haq roared, imitating the sound of the weapon and the recoil on his shoulder, "Bahh, Bahh..." And he walked off.

  "No, no, please come back," said the old man, "stay with us."

  "I would never touch your bread."

  "Please," shouted the first man. "Stay with me."

  "I'm never staying in this village. You are men without hospitality and without honor..."

  "It's just the weapons," said the old man. "We were just a little afraid. Can't you understand? Many have been killed in this place."

  Suddenly Qasim stepped in, grabbing the younger man's arm, talking calmly, restraining him, reasoning with him. Another villager offered his house and we moved toward his door. On the threshold, Abdul Haq pointed at me and shouted, "Look at this man. This man is a foreigner. Look how disgustingly you have behaved toward him."

  ***

  Inside, we sat on the floor and put our legs under the low kursi table. There was a coal brazier beneath the kursi and over it a thick felt blanket, which we pressed down over our knees to keep the heat in. Abdul Haq took off his baseball cap, ruffled his hair, and, perhaps worried about revenge from the people he had bullied that afternoon, pulled out his hand grenades and ostentatiously screwed in the firing pins. Qasim stacked Kalashnikov magazines neatly beside him and removed two bullets he had hidden in his collar. Aziz curled up in the corner and fell asleep. Our host was silent and kept his eyes on the weapons. I was used to walking alone, observing subtle changes in the landscape and scraps of ancient history. Villagers usually took me into their houses willingly. I did not feel I understood these sudden happenings or such people.

  On the wall a Technicolor poster depicted the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, who died in the seventh century. The poster made Ali look like a Hollywood sheikh with sparkling pale eyes. This part of Afghanistan had been conquered by the Arabs while Ali was still alive. But it took Islam another four hundred years to spread a week's walk east to Ghor. This was a Sunni area and the poster showed our host to be a Shia Muslim. Abdul Haq started to tease him about being a Shia and Qasim joined in, but when he didn't respond they gave up.

  After dinner Qasim told us he had executed five Taliban in Herat but he seemed a little bored by the story, perhaps because he had told it too often, and he did not tell it well. Abdul Haq said he had been at Ismail Khan's shoulder when he attacked the city.

  "Well, you are a big man," said Qasim, and they all laughed.

  Then Abdul Haq looked at me, smiled, and put his arm around me. "You are my brother. You would be dead without me. You are, like me, a fighting man," he said. "Other people don't like you because you are not Muslim but I don't care. I can see it in your eyes. We are both men of honor. We have had the same lives. We are the same."

  I moved to the corner of the room to prepare for bed. I had covered my pack with a plastic rice bag to make it look more like something a villager would carry and this made getting into the pockets difficult. From one side I took out a plastic bag containing a small, limp yellow towel and my toothbrush. In the main compartment were warm clothes, a sleeping bag, and a yellow MRE ration pack, marked "From the People of America Not for Resale." It had probably been dropped from the air as emergency food relief. My friend Peter Jouvenal had bought it in the Kabul bazaar and given it to me in case I got stuck out in the snow. Another pocket contained antibiotics for dysentery and infections, which I had collected from five Asian countries without prescriptions, and morphine tablets in case of a broken leg. I laid my sleeping bag in the corner and spread out my white cotton turban as a pillowcase.

  Finally, I reached into the damp-proof container—a smaller rice sack wrapped in masking tape—that held my passport, a translation of the Koran, and an excerpt from Babur's diary. I took out four photographs to show my host. One showed a white-haired man sitting on a bench. Standing behind him were two women and a girl with Down syndrome, who was smiling more broadly than anyone. It was my father and my three sisters, although the Nepalis had assumed that one of my sisters was my mother. The Iranians had found the second picture of my father in his kilt particularly funny; Hindus had admired his lurcher dog in the third; and a family of Shahsevan Turks had assured me that the two-humped camel on which my mother sat in the fourth had been theirs—they would recognize it anywhere. The camel was photographed on the Great Wall of China.

  My host glanced at the pictures and then pointed to the wall where a photograph of his son was hung, with a garland of plastic flowers around the frame. He had been killed by a tank shell seven years earlier.

  TO A BLIND MAN'S EYE

  I lay down reflecting on my first full day of walking—the gravel underfoot, Qasim's lies, our host's dead son, the old man who had scrutinized Abdul Haq, the terrified boy. The abrupt episodes and half-understood conversations already suggested a society that was an unpredictable composite of etiquette, humor, and extreme brutality. I dozed off, thinking of the stubby shadow of Abdul Haq's Kalas
hnikov: a weapon designed by Russians, made by Iranians, and now used by Afghans on the American side. In this room the weapons were, I thought, the only piece of machinery that could connect us to the modern age. Except for the radio. It woke me with a burst of static and the hint of a Hindi song. Two hours had passed and Abdul Haq was lying on one arm in the dark, smoking a cigarette. Aziz was coughing. For two weeks I had been away from villages and I had forgotten how little villagers slept, how early they woke, and how much noise they made. I went outside to relieve myself. Despite the money our host had spent on his neat mud buildings and clipped hedges, he had not invested in a latrine. I was usually locked in a village house before dark. This was my opportunity to see the night sky and to be away from my companions. There were a few stars and a three-quarter moon and I sensed the silent, invisible desert outside the high courtyard walls. I squatted in the corner.

  At dawn we immediately rolled our bedding away for morning prayers, but only our host prayed. We were given sweet tea and bread. As we were eating, five village elders came to apologize for the night before and to escort us to Gawashik. They were led by the District Commander of Pashtun Zarghun, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man with a thick black beard and a large nose. He told me he had visited Pakistan during the war to procure weapons and he repeated some phrases in Urdu to prove it. Qasim and Aziz hobbled beside him, coughing and pulling their checked scarves around their scraggly beards.8 I had become used to the way they moved, but beside this large man with his fine silk turban they looked particularly fragile. The commander walked with his arms stiff by his side, so that the green prayer beads in his left hand swung back and forth like a pendulum.