“So can you read all of the Koran?” Skelly asked. “A lot of Muslims I’ve met only knew a few prayers. They didn’t have enough Arabic for the rest.”
“You have just described my entire family. My entire village, for that matter.”
“But not you?”
“I learned Arabic later. In the States.”
Skelly chuckled. “Now there’s irony.”
“Yes. Taught by an infidel, no less. Probably with the wrong accent, too. But I learned to read it pretty well, and the Koran is good practice.”
“Is it as beautiful as everyone says? The English translation isn’t. I tried reading it once, only got about halfway. Too much smiting and damnation. Very Old Testament, pardon the expression. But I’ve always wondered how it reads in Arabic.”
“It is beautiful. Poetry.”
“I guess that makes it easier to be devout.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it would have if I had learned Arabic here, instead of in America. By then I was already a backslider. I had discovered your country’s holy trinity.”
Skelly looked astounded. “You converted?”
“Not that holy trinity. I meant supermarkets, libraries and women. Three heavens of such plenty that I gave up religion for a while just to worship them.”
“That’s my kind of backsliding. We’re more alike all the time.” He settled himself onto a large, flat stone with a nice view, although by now the town of Azro was barely visible in the deepening gloom. In the silence that followed Najeeb expected their easy mood to die away, overwhelmed by their worries. But somehow it lingered, as if Najeeb’s prayers—some of them, at least—were being answered.
Najeeb wondered how Skelly must view all of this—all these tribesmen with their Stone Age amenities and their warriors on horseback, living by firelight on bread cooked in clay pits, then cast upon the floor. The American would doubtless use the word “primitive,” which was how home had sometimes seemed to Najeeb on his return trips from Chapel Hill or, once, from a post-exam visit to New York, with the city’s noises still ringing in his ears, a thrilling symphony that had roared up out of steam grates and down from towering glass summits. Yet here they were now, ever deeper in the world that had produced him, in a valley where the power grid was smashed and water was still hauled from the ground by the bucketful.
“How did you fare with American women?” Skelly asked, breaking the silence. “I bet you were a big hit. The Omar Sharif look. You must have been fighting them off with a stick.”
“It was not like that at all. Or maybe I was just never greedy about it. They took some getting used to.”
“The way they flirted, you mean? All that Western assertiveness?”
“Not that.” Najeeb smiled again, recalling his college years. Two smiles in ten minutes—a new cross-border record for him. “It was the way they talked. All of the questions, like an interrogation. ‘What are you thinking, Najeeb?’ ‘A penny for your thoughts.’ I had to stop myself from saying, ‘None of your damn business,’ the way people from my village did whenever someone asked a nosy question. For a while I was certain I should have been offended, that they were only asking because I was a curiosity, their little brown pet.”
“Oh, no. It’s what they want from all of us. And it never stops. If you’d stayed any longer you would have learned that. Unless you start telling them what you’re really thinking. Then they’re usually so appalled they never ask again.”
This actually drew a laugh, and Skelly joined in, although they kept it subdued, not wanting to draw attention from farther uphill. And with that unspoken realization threatening to topple the moment’s frail structure, Najeeb rushed to steady it.
“So you make up some of your answers, too?” he asked.
“Don’t we all, at one time or another? What was your approach?”
“I always thought they were expecting me to be soulful, the sage of the East. So I gave them soulful. Long, contemplative answers about home, about growing up in a rough land of bullies and tyrants. But sometimes I think that is what I really did have on my mind. So maybe they were right to pry.”
“Or maybe you were just homesick.”
“Maybe I was.”
Silence for a few seconds more, but Skelly wasn’t finished.
“What about the women here? What did you say your girlfriend’s name was?”
“Now you are being like a woman, wanting to know too much.”
Skelly conceded the point, as if realizing he’d crossed the line. But Najeeb decided to answer anyway, albeit in a quieter voice.
“Her name is Daliya. She seems a million miles from here. She asks questions, too, but always waits for the real answers. So I tell her the truth, maybe because she has earned it. She has had to give up even more than I have for us to be together.”
“Must be scary, having to go to all that trouble just to have a date.”
“Yes. Sometimes it is.”
“Must be nice, too, in a way. I’m not sure any woman would do that for me.”
“Not your wife?”
Skelly shrugged. “Maybe. But look at me now. Off on the far side of the world while my wife is stuck at home. Who’d take a risk for someone like that?”
“Your marriage sounds very Pashtun, you know. The man goes where he pleases, the women are stuck in purdah.”
“The American Midwest as a sort of purdah.” Skelly grunted with amusement. “Works for me. Not sure how they’d feel about it in Illinois, though.”
A voice from behind broke the spell. It was Bashir, carrying a lantern, and he wasn’t alone. Beside him was a small boy, maybe ten or eleven. Bashir held the reins of a packhorse loaded with the generator and satellite phone.
“It is time,” he said. “This one will lead you.”
“He’s our guide?” Skelly asked.
“He is from Azro. He knows the trails.”
“Even where the mines are?”
Bashir muttered something to the boy, who thrust out his right arm to reveal a skinny rounded stump where a hand should have been. He grinned, crooked teeth stained a deep brown. He wore a small white skullcap and a gray wool kameez drooping nearly to his ankles.
“As you can see, he has experience with mines. So he will take extra care to avoid them. Give him your flashlight, and you will be on your way.”
Skelly complied. Najeeb glanced around, as if some means of escape might suddenly reveal itself. But no further prayers would be answered tonight, it seemed, and when the boy flicked on the beam every route but the one toward Azro was plunged into blackness. The boy made his way forward. It was time to go.
“Remember to deliver my message,” Bashir said. “Take it to Razaq personally.”
“And will we see you again?” Skelly asked, his voice tightening in the darkness. Najeeb wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear.
“I cannot say. All is in God’s hands now. Tomorrow will tell.” That didn’t strike Najeeb as good news, either for them or for Razaq. Escape still sounded like the best option. But even if he had known which way to go from here, he wouldn’t do it now, not on a mined path. And not without Skelly, either, he realized. Another new rule for this landscape, he supposed—looking out for someone else. A foolhardy way to live, but he would have to try. Then he took the reins of the packhorse in hand and faced downhill toward the dim lights of the town. The boy was looking back over his shoulder, waiting for the signal to proceed.
“Okay,” Skelly said, in a husky voice. “Let’s get going.”
They began picking their way down the slope, moving with care, Najeeb straining his eyes in the darkness for anything that looked like a mine or a wire. The going was slow but certain, and the boy’s movements exuded a reassuring confidence. Halfway down the hill the boy stopped, directing the flashlight beam at a small green box, which Najeeb recognized right away.
“Mine,” the boy said, as matter-of-factly as if he’d just pointed out a flower.
“See it?” Najeeb as
ked Skelly. “There’s a wire coming out of the left side.”
Skelly nodded grimly, then stepped left, giving the mine a wide berth. Najeeb stayed close in his wake. Their progress brought an animated cry from the boy.
“No, no!” he squealed, the light dancing back and forth. They stopped dead.
“There!” he hissed. “Another one. You see?”
Najeeb translated the warning for the frozen Skelly, then watched the narrow beam probe like a searchlight before settling on a second green box just ahead. Two more steps and Skelly would have tripped it.
“Jesus!” Skelly hissed, gingerly backing away while Najeeb tried to control the horse, which still wanted to move forward.
“Easy,” he cooed, patting the horse on the neck.
“What’s that biblical verse about passing a camel through the eye of a needle?” Skelly said. “Now I know what it meant.”
Najeeb kept his eyes on the horse’s hooves, watching them clop on the stony ground like clumsy hammers. But they managed to get safely past both mines, plus two more during the next hundred yards, the boy pausing to illuminate each as if they were stops on a guided tour. Then he spoke up, delivering good news.
“He says that’s the last one,” Najeeb said.
“Good. Now we worry about the guns.”
They’d come to within a quarter mile of the town, where a few windows were lit dimly by kerosene lamps and cookfires. Najeeb smelled wood smoke, the char of grilled meat. A moment later a voice called out in Pashtun from just ahead, and the boy froze, raising the stump of his left hand in a signal to halt. The mines hadn’t frightened him a bit, but now his whole body was rigid. He shouted back in reply, the voice shrill and tight in the cold air.
“What’s happening?” Skelly whispered.
“Razaq’s sentries. The boy’s telling them there are three of us, all unarmed.”
After a pause that seemed interminable, the sentry gave the all-clear. The boy dropped his handless arm to his side and continued, and by the time they reached the edge of the village a welcoming party had assembled—five bearded men in skullcaps and turbans, each scowling and holding a gun, indistinguishable from the fellows who’d been traveling with Bashir.
One came forward, and Najeeb recognized him as Razaq’s younger brother, Salim, who had greeted them at the warlord’s house in Hayatabad. Salim, too, was scowling, but at last he spoke up, keeping everything in Pashto for a few sentences before he turned and stalked away.
“He’s gone to tell Razaq,” Najeeb said.
“Did you tell him we’ve come from the rear guard?”
“I think we had better break that news to Razaq himself.”
“What do you think he’ll do with us? Kick us out? Send us back up the hill? I’m sure as hell not going without a guide.”
“He won’t kick us out. Not tonight. It wouldn’t be permitted.”
“By who?”
“By every law he was ever raised with. Pashtunwali, the code of the Pashtun. He is obligated by malmastiya to show us hospitality, because now we are his guests.”
“Uninvited guests.”
“Guests all the same. We will be safe here.”
“As long as Razaq is safe, you mean.”
“Yes.”
They said nothing more until Salim returned, nodding for them to follow.
The town of Azro looked just like Jaji, but the presence of Razaq’s men seemed to have cleared the streets of the requisite crowds of boys and animals, and the place was quiet. Salim led them to a brightly lit doorway where a hissing camp lantern hung from a hand-carved wooden pillar. Two sentries slouched at the entrance, barely stirring as Skelly and Najeeb followed Salim into a long room of whitewashed walls. Heavy dark beams were slung across the low ceiling.
Razaq squatted on the floor, legs crossed, at the end of a red rectangular Oriental rug. Six other men were seated around it—some sort of jirga must have been in progress. Piled in the middle were the remains of a dinner, platters and bowls of rice, tomatoes, braised chunks of mutton. A stack of bread sat near Razaq. The entire village had probably contributed, even if it meant giving the last scrap from the larder. That, too, was tradition.
There was an empty tea tray with a blackened pot, and Razaq gestured for a refill, then turned to Salim for an explanation, although by now it was obvious that he recognized his visitors. Razaq nodded as he listened, but at the conclusion he did not rise to greet them, nor did anyone else. A bad sign, Najeeb thought, doubting that Skelly realized it. Then Razaq addressed them in English.
“This is quite a surprise, Mr. Kelly, and although you are welcome here as my guest, I cannot say that it is a pleasant surprise. But as long as you are here, please.”
He gestured to his right, where two of the men scuttled away on their haunches to make room. Razaq stood, and Skelly approached clumsily with outstretched hand. Razaq seemed reluctant to shake it, but finally did, and when Skelly then placed a hand over his heart Razaq followed suit.
“My apologies, gentlemen,” Razaq said in Pashto to the other six. “But I must speak with our guests alone. We will finish our business later.” They stood without a word, eyeing Skelly suspiciously as they filed toward the door.
Najeeb settled into place while Skelly took out his notebook.
“I must say, Mr. Kelly, that I seem to have vastly underestimated you. But tell me, if you will, by what route you came, and who was your escort? Or did you simply come alone, with your tribal friend here?” Razaq took a bite of bread, glancing significantly at Najeeb, who suspected that Razaq knew plenty about him and his past. Had the man learned some of the juicier details from Tariq at the ISI, perhaps? Or from his American friends?
“Well, actually . . .” Skelly hesitated. “We came with what we were told was your rear guard. A little more than twenty men. We’ve been following you since early yesterday.”
Razaq stopped chewing. Skelly seemed on the verge of an apology, but Razaq’s stony expression stopped him. The man’s mood seemed quite grave now that the parlor trick of the journalist’s sudden appearance had turned into something more complicated.
“A rear guard, you say. And who is leading these men?”
“Some fellow who calls himself Bashir.”
“Bashir? The smuggler who lives in Katchagarhi?”
Skelly didn’t have an answer, so Razaq looked to Najeeb, who nodded.
“You knew he was a smuggler?” Skelly asked, sounding hurt.
“It would be his obvious occupation,” Najeeb said. “Living in the middle of the camp with all those trucks and weapons.”
“And given that he works for Haji Kudrat,” Razaq said.
“Who’s Haji Kudrat?” Skelly asked.
The name was familiar to Najeeb, but only vaguely, as someone to be reckoned with. He had a dim memory of a face from some long-ago council of his father’s. Had Haji Kudrat been some sort of trading partner?
Razaq hadn’t answered, so Skelly asked again.
“This Kudrat,” he said. “I’m presuming he’s not a friend.”
“That remains to be seen. But he is an important man in Nangarhār Province, which is our destination tomorrow. And knowing that his man Bashir is on the road behind us, well, that might explain several things.”
“Such as.”
“This was supposed to be the first of my great rendezvous points, Mr. Kelly. Do you remember all of those visitors you saw at my house?”
“The ones on the lawn?”
“On the lawn. In the kitchen. They were practically everywhere but in the women’s quarters. They were from Afghanistan, mostly. From the north and south of here, in Nangarhār and Paktīā provinces, and also from here in Logar Province. For three weeks these men came to pay tribute, village elders and tribal maliks. Some of them were old fighters who had been with me against the Russians. One was the elder of this town, of Azro, and he gave me his solemn word that he would greet me here today with a full fifty men, ready to join up.”
>
“To join your army that isn’t really an army, you mean?”
“However you wish to put it. Yet I arrived this afternoon to find that he is away on other business, somewhere farther up the valley. A most unfortunate snub. And as a result, do you know how many men have come to join my cause here in Azro?”
Skelly shook his head.
“Seven. Only seven. And now you tell me that twenty others are on the hilltop, looking down on us and our cookfires.”
By now Razaq was smoldering. It probably would have been best to let him ride out the moment in silence, but Najeeb could tell that Skelly had no intention of letting up. The man’s pencil made a scratching sound as he rapidly took notes, flipping a page as he opened his mouth for another question. He was like a sparrow in pursuit of a crumb, and Najeeb feared for him, remembering that hungry sparrows often didn’t notice an approaching predator until it was too late.
“You’re saying you’ve been betrayed, then,” Skelly asked with appalling bluntness.
Razaq glowered, shifting on his haunches. “You speak of betrayal as if it is something dishonorable, Mr. Kelly.”
“How else would you describe it?” Still scribbling, still forging ahead. Najeeb would have placed a hand on his arm in warning, but he was too far away. Although Razaq, to his credit, seemed to be calming, as if he, too, now sensed the absurdity of this foreigner in their midst, peppering the players with nettlesome questions as they postured and preened for battle.
“It is dishonorable only in the sense that a Westerner might understand it,” Razaq said. “Perhaps your friend here, Najeeb Azam, the son of a malik, could explain it for you. He can tell you all about betrayal, and what it means in our culture.”
The words took him aback. Najeeb was now more certain than ever that Razaq knew chapter and verse of his family dramas. But the insult had gone right over Skelly’s head. The American was still in pursuit of his story, pencil poised, eyes imploring. He really seemed to be expecting some sort of cultural explanation, so Najeeb tried to oblige.
“It is complicated,” he said. So was their current predicament, he wanted to add, but didn’t dare. How to explain, for example, that here it was perfectly acceptable to receive two guests with courtesy and generosity, yet still have them tracked down and killed the moment they left your territory? From here on out, Skelly and he might well be in danger from anyone they encountered, no matter who emerged victorious from whatever strange storm was brewing. But look at Skelly, eager to learn yet slouched and uncomfortable on the carpet. He was more accustomed to interviews done on chairs and couches, seated upright at desktops and conference tables with men who lied for different reasons, playing by different rules. Deceit here took shapes he never would have dreamed of.
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