“He says,” explains Abdul Aziz in a matter-of-fact whisper, “the problem for Afghanistan is foreigners. He says they try to exploit us and Islam is the only true religion.”
“Oh.” I smile weakly at the men on the bench opposite, but they only give me stony looks in reply.
When the man has finished his speech, he takes Khan’s right hand in his, and presses it to his lips, which prompts a click of Abdul Aziz’s teeth.
“Tskk!” he hisses. “What this man is doing is wrong. In Islam, you should only kiss the hand of your mother, your father, or your teacher.”
Had I wanted to kiss Khan’s hand myself, when I am summoned to sit beside him, the look of it would have turned me off. It’s hairless and alarmingly pink, as if its outer skin has peeled away.
“We fought against the Russians,” he says, gesturing with that hand to include most of the gathering, “because we were against Communism. We were Afghans, and Muslims, and we wanted freedom.”
“But why,” I ask, thinking of my conversation with the poet Jalali, “didn’t you stop fighting when you had your freedom?”
“Because as soon as the Russians collapsed, Pakistan interfered. They didn’t accept for Afghanistan to be a strong military country. And we were strong, because we had weapons from the Russians, so Pakistan was afraid we would hurt it.”
He is referring to the Taliban, who were created under Pakistani auspices and are seen by many Afghans, especially the non-Pashtuns, as representative not of their own country but of their meddling neighbor.
“It is very hard to live under the power of ignorant people,” says Khan, “especially for us here in Herat, because this is the most cultured province in our country. They hanged our people on the lampposts, they took away our education so now we have many young men who are illiterate, but the people of Herat are resourceful. Whether they were distributing pamphlets or secret poems, they never allowed the Taliban to control us.”
It’s a surreal conversation. One moment he’s fulminating against the Pakistani secret service. The next we are debating the gender of pronouns in application to countries (can you call Afghanistan a “she”?). I bring up Ferdowsi, hoping he’ll quote from one of the poet’s battle stories, but he gives a brief smile before enumerating what he’s achieved for the culture of Herat.
“We have done a lot,” he says. “In the war many streets and homes were damaged, but we rebuilt the schools and now we have ten faculties and our own books.”
When I mention the rumors he was funded by Iran, he responds with an arch of brow and a flash of eye.
“There are a million Afghan refugees in Iran, and we share a long border. Of course we should have good relations. But we are different—our culture is different. We are Afghanistan!”
So much for the cultural unity suggested by the writers I’ve met: With politicians, it’s all about the differences.
There is one more thing I want from Khan—advice for my forthcoming journey. A battle-hardened war hero like him—he should be able to give me all sorts of useful information. Maybe it will be the magic detail that could end up saving my life. But he is still in politician mode and is reticent about dishing out advice.
“There are still many Taliban making difficulties,” he says. “There is peace in some provinces. But not in all of them.”
This has already been confirmed by one of his mujahideen. Tea glass chiming against his rifle’s stock, he inquires where I am planning to go next.
“Ghazni!”
The word is passed along the row like a live grenade.
“But that’s in Pashtun country,” he says. “You must wear Afghan clothes or they will shoot you.”
“Don’t listen to him,” says another mujahid, shaking his head. “He’s just trying to scare you. They will only kidnap you and ask for some money.”
For my plans to be considered dangerous by men who fought the Russians, and bear the wounds to prove it, is a little disconcerting. But as I wander around Herat in search of advice for the journey to Ghazni, these turn out to be some of the most positive appraisals I receive.
“If you go to the places you are talking about,” says one of the teachers at Abdul Aziz’s school, “then they will kill you. If the evil ones see you or hear about you, they will kill you.”
I am sitting in the staff room with several of the teachers. Having just taken a class, I’m hoping for their goodwill—but I’m struggling to receive any encouragement for my journey.
“What if I find someone to go with me?” I ask.
“And where,” comes the response, “will you find anyone crazy enough to do that?”
“You know,” says Hamid, the Sufi poet I chatted with a few days ago, “the Taliban are offering a free motorbike to anyone who helps them kill a foreigner?”
“A free motorbike!” declares another of the teachers, called Javed, his bright eyes flashing. “I could do with a motorbike. Maybe I should give them a call!”
He bursts into the sort of roar you might expect from an especially amused lion.
“I’m a war child,” he adds, to explain his carefree attitude. “I’m from Kabul. People here in Herat, they had it easy. I saw people burned alive, I saw nails hammered into people’s fingertips. I used to go on the rooftop and watch the Scud B’s shooting into the city. My father got so angry, he’d shout at me, ‘Get down from there!’ I never did! I wasn’t scared.”
“Your point being?” I snap. I’m having something of a humor bypass at this point.
“Do you believe in destiny?” says Javed. “We Muslims—we believe in destiny. If it’s your turn to die, then if you aren’t shot by the Taliban, you will be hit by a car.”
That sounds like Ferdowsi. Fate, he tells us, is like a polo stick: “We, bandied each way / By profit and loss, are the same as the ball.” Maybe this is the time to pull to the side and stop, to follow the advice I’ve been given and call it a day. But I know I won’t. Something has been tugging me toward Ghazni for several months now—ever since the Professor narrated the story of Ferdowsi’s visit to the court of the miserly Sultan Mahmud. Even if there is a bullet with my name on it, waiting in a bandolier somewhere out in Helmand, I’ve come too far to turn back.53 So I decide to do something pragmatic: I send off an e-mail and the next day a note turns up on my door at the Hotel Successful:
Nick, Where are you? Call me—Fereydoun
I have contacted the Sunday Times correspondent, Christina Lamb, who’s put me in touch with her old fixer. He comes along to dinner the next day, in the hotel restaurant, and over oily chunks of lamb kebab I tell him about my plans.
“Really, you are interested in Shahnameh?” he says. “This is wonderful. I met many Westerners, but no one is ever interested in Ferdowsi.”
It’s going well, and we seem to be establishing a rapport: Surely I have found myself a guide! Surely, one more time, Ferdowsi has turned out to be the key.
“I want to help you,” says Fereydoun, wiping his mouth with a napkin, which he drops onto his emptied plate, “because you are a guest in my country. You are a friend of my friend and you are writing about Ferdowsi, who is from my country.”
But then comes a blow.
“I am training to be a doctor,” he says, “so I’ve stopped working as a fixer. I’d love to come with you—but I can’t.”
I can feel a lead weight navigating its slow plunge through my innards. Will I have to go it alone? The thought of traveling unassisted through the Taliban heartland is doing strange things to my stomach. I trudge beside Fereydoun back to his jeep. He turns the ignition, reaches for the handbrake, and as I’m lifting a hand to wave him off, he leans out of the window:
“You know, there is someone who . . . Wait for tomorrow, but I can’t promise . . . ”
What does he mean? What is he talking about? Someone who what? I’ll have to wait until six in the morning. . . .
A rap on my door. Behind it is a man in shalwar qameez, like most Afghans. But there’
s something different about this one. Maybe it’s the polished black brogues on his feet, or the signet ring flashing on his right hand, or the shiny-buttoned blazer he’s wearing over his knee-length shirt.
“I come before you,” he announces in a high rolling voice like a circus ringmaster, “by the hand of Ferrrrreydoun.”
Hassan-Gul hardly looks like the ideal guide for the Afghan badlands. His blazer and the wax on his mustache suggest a dandy, which isn’t helped by his habit, as we sit over breakfast, of dabbing the crumbs off his blazer with a spotted handkerchief. I’ve met plenty of Iranians who were obsessed with their appearance, but the people I’ve encountered in Herat seemed to be a hardier bunch—more Afghan hounds than Persian cats.
Or so I thought. I certainly never expected to meet an Afghan with a spotted hanky. And the fact that the second part of his name, “gul,” means “flower,” doesn’t bode well in a country run by the gun. Is he really the right man to guide me into “Taliban country”? To cross the terrifying wastes of Helmand and set out for the final stretch to Ghazni? A single word confirms that he is:
“Pashto.”
“You speak it?” I ask.
“Thanks to God, Mr. Nicholas, my tongue is in languages like a bird in flight!”
As I will discover—and as his dress sense implies—Hassan-Gul isn’t impartial to the odd poetic flourish.
“I have many friends in that part of the country,” he says. “When we reach Farah, I want us to place ourselves at the house of my friend Nasrullah.”
“So you speak Pashto and Dari?”54
He wipes another crumb off his mustache and neatly folds up the handkerchief, before fitting it in the top pocket of his blazer. “If I did not,” he says, “then how could you place your feet in your destination?”
We spend breakfast discussing the itinerary and haggling over his fee. Since he is training to be a doctor and has an exam to write in two weeks’ time, he insists on leaving the next morning.
“We must think about your appearance,” he adds, leaning forward to scrutinize my face. Fortunately, I’ve spent long enough in this part of the world for my usual pasty complexion to attract a little color, and my nose is large enough to pass as an Afghan’s. But, Hassan-Gul concludes, there is still plenty of work to do.
“It is possible for you to look like us,” he decides at last, “but you must wear our clothes. And of course you must put your glasses away.”
“My glasses?”
“Yes—you didn’t notice, Mr. Nicholas? Afghan people never wear glasses.”
I take them off and he responds with an encouraging tilt of his head.
“This is much better, is it not?” he says, adding, “and it is good that your hair is dark. And you have a beard, so this is also good. Although I must tell you, Mr. Nicholas, it is not very thick.”
“But you haven’t got a beard at all.”
“That is correct, but it is you who people will be suspicious about—especially when they hear you speaking. . . . In fact, it is better if you don’t speak at all.”
“What? Pretend I’m a mute?”
“A . . . ? Oh yes, Mr. Nicholas, a mute! Yes, this is an excellent idea, this is exactly what you must do. Otherwise they will know you are a foreigner—and I must tell you, that would not be good.”
He looks me up and down once more, like a new suit he’s thinking of trying on, then gives a satisfied nod.
“Your heart is trembling?”
“Nnnno!”
“But if you are afraid, then why are you doing this journey?”
“I’m not afraid!”
He leans forward, patting my wrist with what must be the most manicured male hand in Herat.
“I promise you, Mr. Nicholas, if you do what I say you will be safe.”
To travel incognito . . . there’s something strangely attractive about that—and authentic too. I think of Sarah Hobson, who wandered around Iran in the early ’70s dressed as a man, or Robert Byron, a few years before World War II, daubing his face with burnt cork to visit a shrine in Mashhad. Or even the BBC correspondent John Simpson, scuttling into Afghanistan in a burka on the eve of the American invasion. In a land so full of secrets, Westerners have often turned to secrecy themselves to make their way through it.
Early next morning, the call to prayer has still to be sung when I tie the cord of my trousers and pull on a shirt as long as a nightgown. I wind a turban around my head, strap on a pair of plastic sandals, and wrap my backpack in a bedsheet to look like a local’s bundle. A glance in the mirror in the unlit corridor shows the silhouette, at least, of an Afghan, ready for the journey to the troubled south.
In the taxi to the transport terminal, the driver is chatting away to Hassan-Gul.
“Your friend is quiet,” he says.
His sharp eyes glance at me in the rearview mirror.
“He is my cousin,” replies Hassan-Gul. “He has not spoken since he was a small boy, when the Russians burned down his father’s house.”
He turns to me: “Is that not the truth, Abbas?”
I nod.
PART THREE
IRAN AND CENTRAL ASIA
“My sister, guard your veil;
My brother, guard your eyes.”
—SLOGAN ON A BANNER IN TEHRAN
8
Tahmineh’s Secret
Tehran. February.
The place was collapsing in on itself. Plaster poured down the mud-brick walls, which were patched with scaffolding and canvas sheets, while lime scale was dribbling down the pipes. Somewhere along here, a few doors down from where Reza the ponytailed artist lived, was a house that had been eaten away from the outside. Its facade had been stripped away, revealing the internal workings—pipes, beams, wires—like a body that’s been flayed of its skin but still keeps going. There was a courtyard at the back, where a group of men had zipped up their jackets to keep out the cold. It was the morning of ashoura, the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Hossain. The men’s eyes were alight with anticipation as newspaper was spread on the ground underneath them—they all knew what was about to happen; so did Reza, who was standing beside me.
“This is not something you can see in the north of our city,” he said.
My image of Persian refinement was about to burst wide open. From the moment I saw a tall, curly haired man stepping onto the courtyard, gripping a twelve-inch knife in his hands, I sensed I was in a very different place from the Iran I was used to.
“Oh, Imam Hossain!” exclaimed one of the men.
His voice was urgent, as if he were calling out to someone he’d lost. Others joined in: “Imam Hossain!” they cried. “Imam Hossain!” Soon I was the only one who wasn’t chanting; even Reza was calling out the holy name—the name of the Prophet Mohammed’s martyred grandson.
Two of the men had white cloths around their necks. They knelt down on the newspaper, while the man with the knife stood behind them, catching the rising sun on the tip of the blade. His lips were quivering as he intoned a prayer; the rivet handle shook. There was a flash of light, then the knife rested an inch above the men’s heads. As soon as they stepped away, now hooded in the cloths around their necks, their places were taken by others. It was the same each time—they would step forward, kneel, then disappear inside their bandages. There was only one significant change: The newspapers on the ground were turning red.
“Oh, Imam Hossain!” they cried. “Oh, Imam Hossain!”
Another volunteer took his turn, but this time he seized the knife for himself. He wiped the sweat off his brow before shaking the knife in front of his chest. His eyes were enormous, as if he had fitted matchsticks inside them. As the blade trembled in his hands, an older man dropped to his knees and broke into tears, while there were tears also dripping down the face of his son. A cry of “Imam Hossain!”, the light thud of steel as he sliced into his head, his tears turning red as they mixed with the blood pouring down his face.
“Oh, Imam Hossain!” he screa
med. “Oh, Imam Hossain!”
He stretched out the name like a bandage to keep his wound from hurting. The knife quivered as his blood dribbled onto the green scarf around his neck, turning it an episcopal purple. He was helped into a chair by the scullery, where Reza leaned over him with a cloth soaked in ethanol.
“What do you think?”
Reza was leading me into the living room, where one of the qama-zanis, or “dagger-strikers” as they are known, invited us to sit on the rug, with a pile of dates between us.
“Well, it’s quite . . . bloody,” I whispered.
I expected Reza to agree—he had, after all, been helping to bandage the dagger-strikers’ wounds. But instead his eyes narrowed and the skin bunched above his nose.
“It is passion,” he exclaimed. “Are you not able to understand this?”
I felt bad. I thought of images I’d seen of Mexicans and Filipinos whipping themselves during Holy Week—was it so different from Christian practices?
“You know why we do this?” asked the man who had offered me the dates.
When he struck himself on the courtyard, he had been screaming “Imam Hossain,” his face taut with a savage fervor; the kind of intensity, I imagined, that burned among the battle troops in the war against Iraq. But now he was reaching out his arms, with the plate balanced on his palms, as if we were in a high-society drawing room.
“We do it,” he said, “for Imam Hossain.”
Trickles of blood were spilling down his face, which didn’t exactly boost my appetite. But I was keen not to cause any more offense, so I picked up a date and popped it into my mouth.
“Imam Hossain wasn’t a mullah,” he continued, “he was like us. He was against the mullahs, actually—he was against oppression. When Imam Hossain’s head was cut off, his sister Zeinab hit her head against a date tree and her blood poured out like a fountain. So now we do this act as a symbol of Zeinab’s pain and our love for Imam Hossain.”
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