No Good Men Among the Living

by Anand Gopal

  It was a quiet day at the shop one Saturday afternoon when a customer stopped by and conversation turned to the elections.

  “I don’t think they were a good idea,” the man stated.

  “Why?” Musqinyar asked.

  “They’re expensive. Who can pay these days?”

  Musqinyar did not understand.

  “They charge you money for not voting, but it wasn’t even my fault. I was traveling,” the man said.

  Musqinyar still did not understand and probed further. Slowly, the truth came out. Police officers were going from village to village announcing via loudspeaker that whoever hadn’t voted had to pay a fine.

  Musqinyar could not believe it. He visited other shops and everywhere the story was the same. You had to prove you’d voted, or cough up the fine—and an ink-stained finger did not suffice, only a punched voter registration card would do (a step some polling centers had neglected).

  For all his diffidence, Musqinyar did not conceal anger well. He strode over to the compound of Hajji Obaidullah, the district governor, stormed past his secretary, marched through the antechamber with its waiting supplicants, and barged right into the governor’s office. “You need to do something about these police! They’re out of control!” he shouted. The men seated around the room stared up at him, astonished. There were stacks of registration cards on the floor and a few farmers waiting in a corner. A police officer had a hole punch in his hands. Musqinyar had caught them red-handed.

  “How does this concern you?” Governor Obaidullah snapped. “We weren’t bothering you in your election work.”

  The two broke into a shouting match. A second official joined the fray. The farmers, there to surrender their fine, looked on, perplexed and fearful. Men from the hallway came to check on the commotion. The two sides were near blows when finally Musqinyar said, “If you don’t stop this, I’ll go to the UN. I’ll go straight to Kabul.”

  Governor Obaidullah shrank back. “Look, you’re making a big deal out of this. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of it.” He waved his hand. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

  Musqinyar stormed out. As he left, he noticed a man sitting in the corner watching him. It was Police Chief Zahir.

  When Heela heard about the fracas, she was beside herself. “Do you know what they do to people who cause problems?” It was true, and Musqinyar couldn’t deny it. As soon as he’d reached his car he had realized his mistake, but it could not be undone. Or could it? Heela begged him to go and apologize, but he thought it would seem cowardly, unmanly. No, he would let the matter rest, without reporting anything to the UN. It would all go away.

  The next morning, a friend who worked in the police department came by the pharmacy to see Musqinyar. “Zahir’s been asking about you,” he said quietly. “You need to be careful.”

  That evening, Captain Andy Brosnan, head of the American forces stationed nearby, invited a number of officials, as well as Musqinyar, to dinner at the base. Zahir was there, and Musqinyar could feel his eyes on him the entire night. When Brosnan asked Musqinyar about his plans for the coming week, Musqinyar replied directly in English, so that no one else could understand. Zahir chewed silently and watched.

  After dinner, Musqinyar climbed into his old white Corolla and headed for home. The wind was strong outside, the sky already dark. As he pulled away from the bazaar, there was not a light anywhere for miles. No cars, either. He pulled onto the shoulder near the turnoff to his village and sat thinking. He couldn’t get Zahir’s stare out of his mind. Suddenly he turned his car around and headed back toward the pharmacy. Better to play things safe, he told himself.

  He slept that night in the pharmacy. Early the next morning, he headed out over the cratered dirt road running toward the village. Nearing a culvert, he spotted a white station wagon, almost identical to his, sitting by the roadside. He pulled up to take a look. The car had been shot up like a sieve, its windshield spiderwebbed. Inside, lying in their own blood, were three bullet-ridden bodies.

  He glanced around. Not a soul in sight. He jumped back in his car and sped home.

  “That was meant for you!” Heela said. Musqinyar didn’t say anything. Finally he told her to ignore it, that it was just a coincidence. Trying to put it out of her mind, she went into the kitchen to chop vegetables for dinner. Busying her hands, giving herself a task, had always put her at ease. It was then that the realization struck her: after Musqinyar had denounced JMK at that meeting of tribal elders, he had mentioned to her that Zabit had been present—the same Zabit who had spread rumors that Heela was running a prostitution center. Could he have informed Zahir of Musqinyar’s comments? He was also linked to a group of Afghans who had a long-running dispute with the family over land. A constellation of thoughts lit up as she jumped from one possible enemy to the next. Again Jamila’s warning echoed in her head: “No one will see a single family member of yours alive.”

  She went back to her husband and stood in front of him. “We have to get out of here.”

  Musqinyar demurred, insisting the car shooting was a tragic fluke. Heela burst into tears. “What if something happened to you? What would I do? I couldn’t live.”

  They ate dinner in silence. Then Heela grabbed him once again and pleaded that he flee now, even if she and the boys couldn’t. Musqinyar threw up his hands. “Leave? You want me to leave? You want me to catch a flight out? Is that what you’d like? Fly to Kabul? Are you crazy? How can I leave? There’s no airport here, there’s nothing.”

  “Then drive!”

  “You want me to drive away? After what I saw on that road?”

  That evening a neighbor knocked on the door. For years Musqinyar had parked his station wagon on the neighbor’s side of the river that ran through the village, since there was no room on his side. Now, the neighbor politely asked him to remove the car.

  * * *

  The ground shook. Heela was standing in the front yard, tending to her apple tree, when she heard a roar. It was nighttime, but she could see a faint white light from the southwest, the direction of Mecca. It grew brighter, and then a second explosion rocked the whole landscape. A yawning chasm opened in the earth, and from it emerged swarms of men running toward her. Now she stood alone in the desert. She ran desperately fast, but the men were gaining ground. They drew so close that she could hear their panting. She turned. “There were armed people coming from all directions,” she said. “Some of them had American uniforms, some of them had a terrible scowl. One of them was so thin he had no flesh on his cheeks. His face was just a skull. I screamed and screamed to dear God, looking for my husband. I couldn’t find him. One of the men reached out and grabbed me.”

  She snapped awake, panting, lying in her own sweat. Next to her, Musqinyar lay fast asleep. She muttered a kalima, an Islamic prayer. Her thoughts returned to those three unfortunate people murdered by the roadside. The Taliban had officially been denounced as the perpetrators, but she knew that wasn’t the case.

  She headed for the front yard. Looking to the horizon, she traced the outlines of the dark mountains that stretched far in both directions. She hated them. They were a reminder of the unconquerable distance to Kabul, of the unforgettable fact that this would never be home.

  It was now three days since Musqinyar’s outburst, and she knew that she’d have to do something. In the moonlight, she started filling empty wheat sacks with sand and soil and stones, lining them up against the windows. Then she piled one sack atop another in the front yard, the beginnings of a bunker. I won’t let anyone touch my family, she told herself. I won’t. I won’t.

  In the morning, Musqinyar laughed off her paranoia. He wasn’t just any old farmer, her reminded her. He was a paid employee of the United Nations, a friend of the Americans, always welcome at their base. An all-around well-regarded member of the community. “You have too much imagination,” he said. He took the children to school and Heela decided to busy herself with housework.

  Musqinyar returned at sun
set. As the family seated themselves around a dinner of broiled lamb and rice, there was a knock on the door. It was his uncle. Someone had stolen a gun from his house, and he asked Musqinyar to come investigate. Heela asked him not to go, but he promised he would return soon.

  Now alone with the children, Heela cleared the dishes and put the boys to bed. It was about eight, and the sun had slipped behind the mountains. She set about lighting candles and the oil lamp, then went to check on their new dog, leashed in the front yard.

  A little past nine. Heela was reading by candlelight when the dog started barking. She had forgotten to feed the poor thing. She stepped outside and tossed it some bread and set aside a bowl of water.

  Ten o’clock. The dog was barking again. Musqinyar had still not returned. Running low on oil, she snuffed out the lamp and the candles, letting the darkness settle. Her eyes adjusted and she used the moonlight to make her way around. The barking was incessant. Was the leash too tight? She would have to let the dog run loose.

  She pushed the door open and went for the animal, then stopped. Something was moving in the front yard. Next to her, the dog stood with its back roached, staring into the darkness. She scanned the yard. The gate was a good twenty paces away. To her right sat the small stand-alone guest room, to her left the tiny thicket of apple trees. Something dark and amorphous appeared to be lurking near the guest room.

  It moved again.

  Somebody’s out there, she thought. She backed into the house. She had no phone, no way of leaving. The children were asleep.

  Musqinyar kept his automatic rifle in the bedroom. The thought seemed crazy, but she was desperate. When she found it, the weight surprised her. She had never handled a weapon before. She came to the living room, where an open window offered a view of the yard. The dog continued to bark.

  At first, she could see nothing. Then a shape—a silhouette—emerged from the guest room. There was no mistaking it. Then she noticed another figure, crouching under an apple tree. And a third near the wall. And another? She picked out four shapes—right in her yard.

  One of them started walking toward the house. The dog whimpered. Now all the shadows were moving. One passed directly by her window. He wore a large black turban and his face was covered. His eyes shone under the moonlight.

  The shadows drew closer. Another one passed the window. Then a third. The fourth, the one crouching by the apple tree, suddenly stood up and walked toward the house.

  Heela gripped the trigger. The shadow turned and paced back in the direction of the front gate.

  She placed the gun on the windowsill and aimed. The frame rattled beneath her hands.

  The figure turned and stared and headed back toward the house again. Straight toward her window.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

  Village life is normally draped in silence. There are no cars, no generators, no televisions, no pedestrians. The shot rang through the valley and shook the whole house. Cakes of dirt from Heela’s mud ceiling fell to the floor. The children came running from their rooms. And somewhere in all of this commotion, Heela heard the sound of footsteps fleeing. When she peered into the yard, the men were gone.

  * * *

  Musqinyar returned home around two in the morning to find Heela ashen-faced. Scouring the front yard by flashlight, he found footprints and cigarette butts everywhere. He looked shaken.

  Heela implored him to leave that very night. He seemed lost in thought for a while, then agreed—but he needed time. “Give me two days to figure this out,” he said. “We’ll find a way to Kabul.”

  In the morning, Musqinyar loaded the boys into his Corolla and drove to work. Alone again, Heela threw herself into housework. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the front yard, however. Not even in daylight.

  Before noon, a group of women arrived at the house seeking medical attention. Their mahrem waited in the yard while the women, with a gaggle of coughing, sneezing children, pressed inside. As Heela examined them, one of the women struck up a conversation. They were, it turned out, Commander Zahir’s wives. Heela looked up, struggling to control herself.

  “How are things?” she asked timidly. “How is your family?”

  “We’re all fine, thanks,” the woman replied. “But you know how things are in the village these days, with security. It’s getting worse.”

  “I heard that a carful of people was attacked yesterday,” Heela said.

  The woman clucked. “The situation is very bad.” She leaned forward and stared a long moment at Heela. “Why are you and your family still here? You’re such good people. Why don’t you leave until things get settled?”

  “Why?” Heela nearly whispered. “Do you think we might have problems?”

  Another wife interjected. “We just think it’d be better for you and your husband to spend some time away, that’s all.”

  Then the oldest, Zahir’s first wife, clasped Heela’s wrist with her bony hand and said, “Our husband beats us. He’s a cruel and angry man.”

  When Musqinyar arrived that evening, he brought news of his own. His friend in the police force had told him about a rumor that Zahir and Jan Muhammad had drawn up a list of “troublemakers” that included “some good people.” It was all he would say.

  There was no getting around it. Musqinyar now knew that they would have to find a way out of Khas Uruzgan immediately. There were three routes from the district. The roads west and north passed through police checkpoints, which meant that the eastern road, through Hazara territory, might be the only option. First, though, he had to contact friends in Kabul who could take them in. He would need a satellite phone, so he’d have to lean on friends in the UN, or the Americans. He would have to work on it.

  The next morning, October 21, was the sixth day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and the fifth since Musqinyar had confronted the governor. Heela had been up since two in the morning, as she had been every day that week, because women prepared the predawn meals. Musqinyar appeared in a pressed salwar and plaid black vest, and the family sat down for breakfast. They ate in silence. The muezzin called, and he rose and gathered his belongings for the pharmacy.

  “You aren’t going to work, are you?” she asked.

  He stared back, as if to say, Where else would I be going?

  “You can’t go out there!” She nearly screamed the words. Not in twelve years had she spoken so loudly. Musqinyar ignored her and moved toward the door. Heela stared in disbelief. Stubbornness was one thing; this was too much.

  “No!” she yelled. She threw herself in front of the door. “You have children! You have a son—he’s almost eleven.” She was now in tears. “What will happen to him?”

  Musqinyar grabbed his firearm theatrically and stuck it to his temple. “Do you want me to sit in the house all day like a woman?” he shouted back. “I have a family to support. If I can’t do that, what kind of man am I?”

  He calmed himself. “Look, I need to find a satellite phone so we can get to Kabul.” He swore that as soon as he could arrange everything, they would escape. But it might take a few more days, and until then they needed all the money he could garner.

  After driving the children to school, he headed to the UN office. They did not, however, have a satellite phone for him to use. He then asked if they could at least assign him bodyguards, but they said that with the elections over, he was no longer their employee or their responsibility.

  Meanwhile, Heela unclipped his clothes from the drying line. After months of effort, Musqinyar had managed to read the entire Koran, muddling through the archaic Arabic with an accompanying modern Farsi translation. “I want to wear fresh clothes tonight to celebrate,” he had told her. “And cologne.”

  Musqinyar had also asked her to make halwa, a sweet carrot dish, in honor of the first anniversary of his mother’s death. Families would distribute sweets to the poor as a way of blessing the departed’s soul. When she finished, she stepped into the backyard to tend to t
he garden. She was still avoiding the front yard.

  She kept herself busy until the sun started to slide behind the peaks. It was nearing iftar, the ritual breaking of the daylong fast. A chilled wind gusted across the house, and she wondered if winter might be coming early this year. Lounging in the garden, she listened for the sound of Musqinyar’s tires crunching the gravel of the village road. He had mentioned that he might bring his brother Shaysta to dinner to discuss the plans to flee. Heela had always disliked Shaysta, though she could never put her finger on why. She was hoping, instead, for a meal alone with her husband and children.

  * * *

  After twelve hours of fasting, Musqinyar was eager to get home. Earlier than usual, he locked up the shop and pulled the iron shutter closed. He was with Omaid and Jamshed, and they proceeded to the mosque to offer prayers before iftar. There Musqinyar ran into Shaysta and invited him along for dinner, and then the four set out in the Corolla down the village’s gravel road. Musqinyar parked the vehicle in a clearing not far from the house. After stopping at a small bakery to pick up steaming naan for dinner, they made their way along a donkey path until they reached an opening in the trees. Ahead lay the footbridge home.

  Just then one of the children pointed to some bushes. “Father,” he asked. “Who are they?”

  There, in the shadows, were three men none of them knew.

  * * *

  Dinnertime neared. A gray overcast dusk rolled out over the land and Heela retrieved a shawl to keep herself warm.

  Suddenly, a series of gunshots rang out. “From the moment I heard those bullets,” she recalled, “it felt like they were hitting my heart.” She raced to the front yard. An icy wind rushed in from the direction of the stream, carrying with it the unmistakable scent of discharged firearms. She thrust her head out the main gate but saw nothing. Then she scrambled up a ladder resting on the side of the house and balanced herself on the roof. Standing on tiptoes, she could just see across the stream, a good one hundred yards away. At first the landscape looked blissfully empty, nothing but acacias and fruit trees and farmland stretching for miles—and then she saw it. Just barely visible around a bend, near the ravine, was the glint of Musqinyar’s white car.