Sabir told me today that several villages around us have been attacked. The smoke is from the homes that have been burned in the bombings. He knows this because the smoke tells him. And I know that 5,000-pound Bunker Busters and CBU laser-guided bombs are meant to destroy entire villages, just like Daisy Cutters are meant to clear forests, and that B52 bombers carry 1,000-pound CBU-87s as well as wind-corrected CBU-103s for soft targets and that these have a 20 percent fail rate and that the little bomblets in the Mother Bomb are her children, shining like a diamond, bringing death in a little soda can.
I know, because my friend Gary told me this before his head rolled off his neck. He was still smiling when he handed me the soda can and said: Here’s a Ramadan present for you, Johnny!
eleven
I am not eating that camel stew anymore. When the camel asked me to join his head and neck together again, I looked at the deep cut along his throat and I saw the small, white creatures wiggling even then. I have always known that camel was full of worms; and now I’m certain those maggots are still alive and that they will burrow tunnels in my gut and live there forever.
The fat woman who cooks keeps bringing me a bowl of the vile stuff but I just turn my face away and pretend not to see her. I cannot let these people know that I have other plans, so I try not to let them see my eyes where my thoughts live and breed like ferrets.
The old man with the broken glasses (which I fixed and which he keeps in his pocket) tells me not to turn away God’s bounty. So I spat in his face and told him to put his bounty where the sun don’t shine.
Where on earth is his treasure? He tells me to see with the eye of the heart, and I tell him that hearts don’t have eyes and eyes don’t have hearts.
I tell Shorty to ask the old man this, tell him that maybe if we were to find it before we leave this place, we would be rich enough to buy a house and an SUV and a big-screen plasma TV and then all I would do is watch the football games and not have to work ever, to go to war ever, to leave home ever.
Shorty says the old man doesn’t talk much and tells him only that he has great sympathy for me, a Firangi so far from home and everything that is familiar to me. I know he can’t even see me without his glasses and that his eyeballs have actually fallen out of their sockets, so how can he pity me and think me crazy and pathetic? He’s the blind man around here, not me.
Oh God, another one of his stories. I’m sick to death of these stories. These people here have nothing else to do except tell stories, tales made up in their endless boredom. That old man gathers the others around him and tells them about the birds and the trees and the fruit of his country, and I want to tell him to shut the hell up and stuff the birds. But he just goes on and on and I want to smash his head against the wall so that I don’t hear his whiny little voice anymore.
My sons, it appears my time is near.
Yeah, about time too. And I’m not your son, thank you very much.
I must tell you about that journey my father and I took so many years ago through the valley of light, where the only sounds were the breeze passing through golden wheat fields and the cooing of pigeons in the lofts of mud houses dotting the foothills. We passed through wide avenues lined with mulberry trees and listened to the unfolding of apricot blossoms on a spring morning. We saw the clay drying on the potter’s hand till even he didn’t know which was his skin and which was the fine clay.
We crossed the Reg Ruwan and arrived in Begram, which overlooks the low land of Kohistan and the three rivers that cut through the land. The place we rested at was known by some as Kaffir Killa, Fort of the Infidel, and by others as just Boorj, or Tower. This place was at an elevation, like Tarasmun, my sons, near the foot of the passes that lead to Tartary. Within a few miles of it lay the great mounds, curious remnants of former ages. These were called Topedura and Joolga and that is where we found the treasure, my sons.
Inside these earthen mounds were coins which were from another time. There were thousands of them, in boxes and spilling out onto the earthen floor. My father picked up a few—I wanted to fill my pockets with them so that we could eat well and possibly rest at a travelers’ inn, a sarai, on the way to the summer palace, but my father did not let me. He said these were from another time, they were of no use now, and that we must not disturb the belongings of the dead, much as we would not want the living to desecrate our graves. He said that the earth is actually made up of the bones and blood of our ancestors, and that the soil is the real treasure, not the coins.
My father scooped up some of the soil and placed it in his tobacco pouch which needed to be replenished. He whispered the words, Khak e Watan, soil of the homeland, and kissed the small pouch. And then we continued on our way.
I was hungry, so my father stopped beside a river and fished for me. Fish were abundant in these waters, as much as ducks and birds inhabited the sky as if it was a home to all flying creatures. My father told me there were almost fifty kinds of birds in this area, from the large red duck to the kujeer which when stripped of its feathers has a rich, soft down left on it. My father said that if we were lucky enough to hunt a kujeer, we would have a good meal that evening and I would have a warm posteen to wear in winter.
There were so many birds there, my sons—there was the kubke e duree, a bird somewhat smaller than a turkey, belonging to the species of the red-beaked partridge. Then there was the dughdour, a kind of buzzard, hunted by the most skilled men in the land. And there were animals with fur, the gor-kun, or gravedigger, and the moosh-khurma, like a small fox or maybe a large cat. The most sought after was the dila khufuk, a large gray weasel with a white band around its neck. And then of course there were the lesser creatures, the huzura rat that has no tail, and the spiky-backed khar pusht, and cats with long noses, short legs, and stripes down their backs.
We could see these creatures, the wild rabbit which would make a tasty stew and give us a soft skin for a winter cap. We sensed the presence of the bear—I saw a large reddish-brown animal, like a large dog, hiding behind a tree. I don’t know who was more afraid, the bear or me. And there was the red fox, and the sug e kohee, or Dog of the Hills whose young are sought after for they make good hunting companions.
There was the tibbergam, a small animal which took to the ground in winter, and a large bird called unkash which ate the flesh of dead beasts. There were sheep and goats and horses, and my father kept telling me that this was the treasure, the richness of our land, the living bounty with which we have been blessed.
I could not keep any of that treasure, my sons; it was for all of us, for future generations, the sons of my sons. But that is not the way it is now, is it, Waris Khan? Where are all these creatures now? Where is all this treasure that made our land so rich that the Firangi had to come three times to rob us, and now comes again to take away what is left?
The old man looks at me now. He can see me in the dark but I don’t care. I’m wondering if those rats that live in the basement with the dead people have tails.
The old woman with the dirty teeth and foul breath has a tail and she’s going to help us get out of here. She wants me to cut off her braid and attach it to the other woman’s head, the one with the sniveling brat in her lap. I will do this tonight. I know the younger woman with the baby has a hole in her head—I saw it a long time ago. That is what I will tell the old woman, that her hair will live in that gash. I will not tell her that her braid is the only way out of here—that and the camel’s tethering rope and the funny man’s red scarf.
I have described my radio transmitter to Karim Kuchak a hundred times but he still insists on calling it a telephone. I know he’s not going to find a telephone at the bottom of that river outside the wall, so I have to find a way to show him what the radio transmitter looks like. Maybe the Sears catalog that crazy guy with the funny feet gave me will have a picture of it inside.
Karim Kuchak calls me Shah Baba Tilifoon. It means that I am the Revered Saint of Communication Instruments. He tells me that
if we never get out of here, he will build a shrine for me and place the radio transmitter at the head, where people will prostrate themselves and ask my soul to bless them.
Fat chance there is of my dying in here. And even if I do, fat chance I’m going to be blessing any of these idiots from my grave.
Why are these people looking at me like this? Why don’t they just mind their own business and let me be?
I have cut out many pictures from the Sears catalog and stuck them on the wall of the kitchen so that these fools here can see what it is I’m going back to. There are kitchen blenders and women with breasts in sheer brassieres and babies in Mickey Mouse pajamas and electric lawnmowers and cool boxes for beer. I haven’t found a picture of the radio transmitter yet, but there are similar-looking things that should help Karim Kuchak find it.
We have to send him over the wall very soon. I can hear the planes humming overhead, and I know they’re waiting for a signal from me to either land or send down something I can climb up.
I hope it doesn’t snow. And I hope that old woman with the mustache doesn’t wake up when I cut off her braid with the knife she hides under it.
I haven’t eaten for three days now. These people are probably keeping the good meat for themselves and trying to poison me with the maggots. But I know better than that. I’m going to be getting out of here and then they can eat the maggots themselves.
It’s getting colder now. My feet are blue. The shoes the funny boy gave me have fallen apart. He asked me once to get him a pair of hiking boots from home. As if I’m going to be sending him a care package as soon as I hit the highway to Tranquility, California.
I told Karim Kuchak not to eat too much of that awful stew. I’m afraid he’ll get sick and then who will go over the wall? I see him looking at me between spoonfuls, and I’m afraid that his need to eat is greater than my desperation to get out of here. He is a strange-looking creature, with wrinkled skin and the voice of a child.
Karim Kuchak is giving some of his stew to the old woman with the hair. That’s good. This way she’ll be too sick or too sleepy to know when I cut off her braid. And if she wakes up, the poor creature, I will just have to stick that knife into her gut and let her spill all the maggots out onto the floor. That’s what the sergeant did to that girl with the dark eyes and a body the shape of a Coke bottle after he shot her in the head and before he set her on fire so that the seed he’d planted inside her wouldn’t grow and become a sniveling rat who eats human hearts and threatens to take away our way of life.
I can’t believe I’ve done it. It didn’t take much to slice off the braid—much of it wasn’t even hair. There were threads and grass and twigs and birds living in nests made of old socks and torn vests. I rolled up the braid and stuffed it under my shirt. Now all I need to do is to get that stinking piss-soaked red scarf from under that sniveling brat who sleeps next to its mother. If it wakes up and starts to bawl, it will just have to die the way it should have the day Pancake Ears tried to choke the breath out of its lungs.
The One-Legged Man tells me that the planes have bombed many villages scattered in this valley of one-legged men. He says this is the only safe place now. I look at him and see a couple of maggots crawling out of his dead eye, the one which is like a tunnel.
Maybe he’s dead and the worms are consuming him like they would a corpse.
I have to find a way to get to that baby without waking it up. Maybe Funny Feet can help by keeping his huge hands on the baby’s mouth while I unwrap the scarf her mother has swaddled her in.
I will make a deal with him. I will tell him that he’ll get his boots and his parka and his yellow corduroys if he does this for me. I know it’s easy to persuade people like him—after all, he got taken by a man just for a ride home in a taxi.
Funny Feet is in on the deal. Tonight he’ll put some extra maggots in the baby’s mother’s stew. She’ll eat these and feel drowsy and then not wake up while we take away the red scarf. Funny Feet says the baby isn’t his anyway, so why should he care if it lives or keeps warm or has a mother to feed it?
It’s done. I have the scarf now. It stinks, but it’ll have to do. I will tie it to the camel’s rope and then join both of these to the old woman’s hair and then send Shorty over the wall to get the radio transmitter.
It’s a good thing it’s not a full moon tonight. Funny Feet and I tied Shorty to the rope and then threw him over the wall. He wasn’t even afraid when we hoisted him over our heads and flung him over like a lasso. He knows I’m going to get him a job at the Barnum & Bailey circus once we get home. And there’ll be lots of acts like this for him to do.
Shorty hasn’t gotten back yet. Funny Feet pretends he doesn’t know anything about our escape plan. He doesn’t even look at me in the morning. I know we have to wait until it’s dark again to wait for Shorty to tug at the rope so we can bring him in.
That river outside the wall must be deep. It’s taking Shorty a long time to find the radio transmitter.
He hasn’t pulled on the rope yet. I have to hide the rope in the shadows so that the others don’t see it. So I drag it around the whole damn compound, following the sun. That way the rope can hide in its own shadow and nobody will see it.
Shorty should be back tonight. I can hear the planes again. They’re waiting for me to call them.
When Shorty gets back I’ll ask the Washington Wizards basketball team cheerleaders to do one of their special routines for him. They came to visit us at the base and they were great, signing uniforms, sitting on bombs and having their pictures taken, girls doing their thing for the war. Hot blondes with long silky hair and long silky legs. Wouldn’t Shorty just love to see their underpants when they jump up and down and cheer him?
Give me an S, Give me an H, Give me an O, Give me an R, Give me a T, Give me a Y—put it together and what do you have?
SHORTY!!!! Rah Rah Shorty! Thanks to you we’re all safe in our homes!
One-Legged Man is trying to wake up Sick Dick. He’s gesturing frantically toward the wall.
Shit. I hope they haven’t found the rope. Where the hell is Shorty?
Sick Dick and Funny Feet are running toward the wall. Has Funny Feet told them about my plans? Has he given me away, the idiot?
They have shovels and picks in their hands and I know they’re waiting for Shorty to climb down so they can kill him for helping me get away. They will kill him, they will kill him, they will kill me.
* * *
They are breaking the wall down. Oh God, they will kill Shorty when they find him with the radio transmitter and then they will come for me.
Oh God Oh God Oh God.
One-Legged Man is pushing away the chunks of mud which Sick Dick and Funny Feet have broken off the wall. They are working fast. I have to work faster to get through that gap before they get me.
Shit shit shit shit.
I tried to run. I tried hard to run as quickly as I could. I tried to run even when my feet stopped moving and my breath stopped in my gullet. They caught me at the wall, they grabbed me and held me down, pinning my arms and legs with their own, pushing my face in the dirt. There were so many of them, more than I can remember. There was Pancake Ears and Ferret Face and the boy with the orange hair and bones sticking out of his feet—and all the others who had died and we had buried. But there were others I had never seen—there were children and women and camels and sheep and mules. There were men with no arms and no legs, children with no eyes, women with no hair and no shame. They suckled babies who had no mouths, and the camels had their heads put on backward.
There were so many of them at the wall. They carried little bundles on their heads and on the backs of animals. I could see the chickens and the baby lamb, and I could smell the stink of the sweat and blood and pus that oozed out of wounds on their bodies. They asked for water and Fat Woman came forward with Deaf Boy who carried a bucket on a wooden cart with one wheel missing. Fat Woman told these people to rest in the courtyard under the tree
with all its leaves sprouting and its limbs gleaming. She said there is fresh water in the well with which they can wash the blood from their wounds and the dirt from their bodies. She said that there is enough food to feed them all, that there is enough space for them to sleep, that this is a safe place; this is a place that keeps us out of harm’s way, out of the way of madness.
I listened to her as she spoke to these people, helping an old woman with long hair across the pile of mud where there had been a wall. I listened to the children laughing at the camels which had already found the tree under which they would sleep. I heard the babies crying and their mothers trying to soothe them. I heard the men talk in low whispers about the burning of their homes and the planes that came every night, searching for the enemy, killing so many who never knew what the war was about.
I heard all this, and I felt my head becoming heavy with the thought that there were so many more now in this place, so many more whose graves I will have to dig, even if there is no more space for further burials.
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THE UNCOMFORTABLE DEAD
(what’s missing is missing)
a novel of four hands by Subcomandante Marcos & Paco I. Taibo II
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No Space for Further Burials Page 17