Siro

by David Ignatius

  “You must have an opinion.”

  Munzer shook his head. “Why you ask all these questions about Uzbekistan?”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Psss.” He waved his hand dismissively.

  “Really, I’m interested in Uzbekistan. It’s one of my hobbies. I’d like to learn about your people’s struggle against the Russians.”

  “This is a very sad story, my friend. Too sad for me. We talk about something else, please.” He put his hand over his heart, as if it hurt just to talk about his country.

  Taylor said nothing. If Munzer Ahmedov really wanted to change the subject, he figured, he could do so himself. But the Uzbek returned to his pipe, and neither man said anything for what seemed like several minutes. A waiter brought the food, and still neither man talked. Finally Munzer broke the silence. He turned to the American, studying his face, his clothes, his hands.

  “You not sell rugs,” he said.

  “No.”

  “You not real friend of Sheikh Hassan.”

  “No.”

  “You CIA.”

  “I work for the government,” said Taylor.

  Munzer shook his head. He took a deep breath, as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

  “You people no good for me,” he said. “You go back to Washington, my friend. Don’t bother Munzer no more.”

  “I’d like to talk with you. It’s important.”

  “Yeah. They say that thirty years ago, and what we get? Nothing. Now I smarter.”

  “I’ve come a long way to see you, Mr. Ahmedov. As I said before, it’s very important. You must believe me. You’ll be making a terrible mistake if you send me away. Not just for yourself, but for your people.”

  “Yeah. Sure. My people. I hear this before, too. Why you come back and bother Munzer now after so many years?”

  “Because I need your help.”

  “What for, please?”

  “To work for your people.”

  “Psss!”

  “I mean it. This is serious. It’s not the same as before. Things are changing in Washington.”

  “What is different? What you do for Uzbeks now?”

  “Let’s go somewhere private where we can talk about it. Not here.”

  “We eat now,” said Munzer. “I think about it.”

  They ate in silence. Munzer chewed each mouthful slowly, as if chewing over the sad history of his people with every bite. His eyes were fixed on an unseen spot in the distance, out beyond Masada Used Cars. He didn’t look at Taylor again until he was finished with his food, and his deliberation.

  “You come to my house, please,” said Munzer at last. “We talk there.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Six o’clock.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “2138 Sixty-eighth Street, Brooklyn. Between Twenty-first Avenue and Bay Parkway.” He took out a pen and wrote out the address in the neat cursive script he had been taught a lifetime ago in a Russian school in Tashkent.

  “Thank you,” said Taylor, shaking the Uzbek’s hand. “I am happy that you will see me.”

  “I see you, but that all. Tonight I explain story of my people, and you understand everything. Why I not want to work with you CIA ever again.” He nodded and smiled politely and waited until Taylor had left, then sat down and lit the nargileh again.

  25

  Munzer’s home was a neat row house on the edge of Bensonhurst. It had new aluminum siding on the front and a 1975 Cadillac sedan in the driveway. The lawn was mowed and there were chintz curtains in the windows. To Taylor, it looked pretty much like every other house in this neighborhood of middle-class immigrants.

  For all his bitterness toward the U.S. government, Munzer Ahmedov was in most respects an American success story. He drove his almost new Cadillac to work in Queens each morning, to a small storefront in Astoria where he sold electrical equipment. He was surrounded by other immigrants who, like him, had chosen American-sounding names for their businesses. “Delta Fashion, Inc.” “Clover Jewelry Corp.” Munzer had named his company “Utopia Trading Co.”

  Munzer had gone into business in the early 1960s, when his heart was full of pain and betrayal. His specialty was small, high-value items—batteries, film, small stereos and television sets—things that could get lost in the vast hull of a freighter or fall off the back of a truck. Munzer was scrupulously honest himself, but he didn’t ask unnecessary questions. He had made it into a good business, buying at the cheapest prices he could find and charging what the market would bear. It was America.

  He was, by now, a pillar of the Uzbek-American community. He had long ago become an American citizen, reading the books about Jefferson and Lincoln that his children brought home from school. He had sent his three sons to college, and two of them to graduate school. He went to the mosque each Friday and once a month gave an envelope full of cash to the mullah to accomplish good works. He had learned, above all, the American middle-class secret of keeping to himself, staying out of harm’s way, nursing his wounds in private. And for nearly twenty years—until that very day, in fact—the strategy had worked.

  Taylor rang the doorbell and Munzer immediately opened the door. He didn’t shake the visitor’s hand, didn’t offer a greeting, didn’t say a word. Instead he led Taylor silently down to the basement, closing the door behind him. The basement had the musty air of an old library. Bookshelves lined two walls; they were filled with volumes in Turkish, Uzbek Turkish, Russian, German and English. In the dim light, Taylor saw what looked almost like a shrine at the other end of the room. It was a large framed picture of an Oriental-looking gentleman with a thin mustache, dressed in a black frock coat, bearing the unmistakable Mongol eyes and high cheekbones of Central Asia. On each side of the portrait stood a lighted candle. Taylor walked closer to get a better look.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “The leader of our movement, Mustafa Chokay. A great man. Come, sit down and I tell you about him, and many other things. What you like to drink? Tea? Coffee? Beer maybe?”

  “Coffee.”

  Munzer shouted a guttural word upstairs. A short while later, a heavyset woman clambered down the stairs bearing a pot of Turkish coffee and two small cups. Mrs. Ahmedov, apparently; Munzer didn’t bother to introduce her. She poured the thick coffee into the cups with a practiced hand and then disappeared upstairs again.

  “To Turkestan,” said Taylor, lifting his cup. Munzer narrowed his eyes. He said nothing in response. He took his coffee, slurped some of the dark black foam into his mouth, and then pointed to the face flickering in the candlelight.

  “Mustafa Chokay,” he said, “was leader of all Turkestani peoples. Uzbek peoples. Kazakh peoples. Tatar peoples. All peoples. If you understand story of Mustafa Chokay, you understand everything.”

  “I would like to understand.”

  “So I tell you. You listen. You want cigarette?”

  “Sure,” said Taylor.

  Munzer shouted upstairs again and the older woman returned with a new carton of Marlboros. A mere pack wouldn’t do in an Uzbek household; it would seem inhospitable. Munzer took out several packs and pressed them into Taylor’s hand.

  “Thank you,” said Taylor, lighting up.

  “So, Mustafa Chokay was a Kazakh, from a very noble family of Middle Horde. You know Kazakhs? They have Greater Horde, Middle Horde, Lesser Horde, Bukey Horde. Chokay was Orta Zhuz, Middle Horde. Okay? So in 1906, when he young boy, sixteen, Chokay read famous poem of Mir-Yakub Dulatov, ‘Wake Up, Kazakh.’ It tells truth for all Turkestanis, not just Kazakhs. You know this poem?”

  “No,” answered Taylor.

  “I have English translation. You read it.” Munzer pulled down a volume from one of the bookshelves and handed it to Taylor, who read the poem aloud:

  “ ‘Every year our land and water grow smaller,’ ” read Taylor. “ ‘They are taken by the Russian peasants. The tombs of our glorious ancestors are now in the middle of the st
reets of their villages. Russian peasants destroy them, taking the stones and the wood for their houses. When I think about this, my heart is consumed by sorrow, like fire.’ ”

  “That’s a very sad poem,” said Taylor when he was finished.

  “Ach!” said Munzer, putting his hand on his heart. “So Chokay, he hear this poem, and like all men of Turkestan, he want freedom and independence. But still he hope maybe some good Russian men can help Turkestani become modern men, too. So he go to Russian Gymnasium in Tashkent and to Rechtfakultät, faculty of law, at St. Petersburg to be like Russian men. And later he join Russian Duma and serve as secretary for Turkestani affairs until revolution begin in February 1917.

  “And that is first great tragedy of our Turkestani peoples. Because Chokay and others believe Russian men when they promise to help. Kerensky promise in 1916, during Great Uprising in Turkestan, that he will make reforms. But when Kerensky get power in February 1917, what he do for our people? Nothing. So Chokay begin to look to Moslem men and Turkish men. He start newspaper called Ulug Turkistan—Great Turkestan—and another called Birlik Tuuy—Unity.”

  “Flag of Unity,” corrected Taylor.

  “Allah! You speak Turkish?”

  Taylor nodded.

  “Then you know story of Mustafa Chokay?”

  “No. Until now. I didn’t know a thing about him. Go on. Tell me more.”

  “Okay. So October 1917 Revolution comes and it is second tragedy of Turkestani people. Bolsheviks make Turkestan Council of People’s Commissars in Tashkent. But all fifteen men on council are Russian! Not one Moslem man. How can this be? So one week later—famous day, November 22, 1917—Moslem men meet in Kokand in Uzbekistan for All-Turkestan Congress of Moslems. And they form government of free and independent nation of Turkestan. And Mustafa Chokay is elected president!

  “But this great dream dies. This Free Turkestan last only two months. Bolsheviks send Red Army and Armenian militia to Kokand in February 1918 to destroy us. Turkestani nation have no army. Bolsheviks and Armenians slaughter all Moslem men and burn city three days. Half of Kokand die in this massacre. People wonder why we hate Armenians—what they ever do to us that we hate them so much? So now you know. But Mustafa Chokay—thanks God!—survive and escape to Tbilisi in Free Georgia. And when Red Army invade Free Republic of Georgia in 1920, Mustafa Chokay escape to Turkey to continue fight. He start new magazine in Istanbul, Yeni Turkistan—New Turkestan. And then he move to Europe and publish new magazine in 1929 called Yash Turkistan.”

  “Young Turkestan,” translated Taylor.

  “Yes, very good. They teach CIA man better Turkish now maybe.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So Mustafa Chokay living in exile, but in Turkestan his people dying. More than a million Kazakhs die during 1930s. You hear what I tell you? That is almost half of all Kazakh peoples! They kill everyone. All writers, all teachers, all noblemen, all leaders of all tribes. Nothing left. Poor Mustafa Chokay, his heart is bleeding and he can do nothing. At first British say they will help us fight Communists. In 1920s they send us guns from Kashgar in Sinkiang, to help Moslem rebels fight against Red Army. But British betray Turkestani people. They make deal with Russians—they not help Turkestani fighters no more if Russians stop making revolution in India. Nice deal for everybody, except my dear Turkestanis. So that is third betrayal.”

  “By the British.”

  “Yes, and we never forget how they stab us in the back. But finally, finally, someone give Mustafa Chokay a chance to do something to stop rape of Turkestani people, and he take it. And this begin fourth tragedy.”

  “What was that?”

  “Germany. When war begins, Germans arrest Mustafa Chokay in Paris and bring him to Berlin. At first Nazis call us ‘Asian Jews,’ because Turkestani Moslem men all circumcised. But after the talk to Mustafa Chokay they decide maybe we Asian Jews not so bad. Maybe we can help them find back door to Moscow. So in Caucasus and Central Asia they organize national committees and legions for each region. They have Georgian Legion, Armenian Legion, Azerbaijan Legion, Daghestan Legion, Tatar-Bashkir Legion, Kalmyk Legion.

  “And they have Turkestani Legion, with Mustafa Chokay as head of Turkestani National Committee. And they tell us that when Germans defeat Russians, we Turkestani people be free!

  “But Mustafa Chokay die in December 1941, so he never live to see disaster of this war. New leader of Turkestan National Committee is friend and deputy of Mustafa Chokay. But we make wrong bet. Germans never get to Moscow, and Stalin destroy millions more Moslem people. He call us traitors, because we help Germans. All Crimean Tatars he send away in night. All Chechen-Ingush people he send away in night. All Kalmyk peoples. All dead.”

  “What about you?” interjected Taylor. “Where were you when all this was going on?”

  “I am fighting for freedom of my Turkestani people.”

  “With the German Army?”

  “Yes,” said Munzer quietly. “Turkestani Legion. I not like to talk about this much with American people, because they not understand. Maybe you understand?”

  “Yes. Of course I understand.”

  “Good! So, after war, our people are ruined. Our great leader Mustafa Chokay is dead. We have nothing. Munzer especially have nothing. I am living in DP camp in Germany, in British sector. One day in 1947 British man come to see me in camp. He very nice. How are you, Mr. Munzer. Pleasure to meet fine gentleman like you, Mr. Munzer. He tell me British ready to help me fight for freedom and independence of Turkestan, if I come to England and work with him.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I say hell no. British already betray us once, when they first help Turkestani fighters and then make deal with Stalin to destroy them. Why we need that again? So I say no, thank you, Mr. British man. We have enough tricks from you.

  “But now I come to worst part of my story. Most saddest part. Because it is about America. In 1950, I am still in Germany wondering what I am ever going to do, when I am visited by an American man. Very nice. Sincere. Combs hair. Nice clothes. Like you, maybe. And he tell me that America want to help Turkestani people fight for freedom. And I think this too good to be truth. Thomas Jefferson, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building! This great country want to help little Turkestan? How can this be? But he tell me, oh yes. America very serious now. They form Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, they form Center for Liberation of U.S.S.R. Americans very serious.”

  “But they weren’t.”

  “No, mister. At first they were serious. They start Uzbek-language radio service, and Tatar-Bashkir service, and Chechen-Ingush service, and Azeri service. And they do other things. Secret things.”

  “What secret things?”

  “They train agents. They find men in DP camps in Germany. Men who fought in Turkestani Legion, or in Vlasov army, who only want liberation of their peoples from Stalin. And they train them. And I help.”

  “What was your job, Mr. Ahmedov?”

  “Secret.”

  “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

  “I was spotter in camps. I help them find Turkestani people who are maybe good agents.”

  “And then?”

  “They send these people into Soviet Union. CIA and British send them across Afghan border into Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, and across Iran border into Azerbaijan, and across Turkish border into Georgia. And in north, they send weapons to Forest Brothers in Lithuania, and to Stefan Bandera men in Ukraine. They fly little planes, so low that radar cannot see them. They drop agents and supplies. But you know story. You know how it turn out.”

  Taylor nodded. “Yes. I know the story.”

  “All agents dead. They captured when they hit the ground, or few days later hunted in forest like animals. Or they just give up and confess to KGB, they so scared. All dead. CIA say they are very sorry. Very sorry. They keep sending more men. Men keep dying. But you know story.”

  “Yes. I know the story.”

  “It turn out Russ
ians know everything. They have spies in DP camps. They have spies in General Gehlen organization. They have spies in British intelligence. Maybe even have spies in CIA?”

  “Maybe so.”

  “But honestly, Mr.… What your name, please?”

  “Goode.”

  “Honestly, Mr. Goode, this not what break Munzer’s heart, fact that all these agents die. Everybody make mistakes, even CIA. American betrayal of Turkestani people was something else.”

  “And what was that, Mr. Ahmedov?”

  “Betrayal was that CIA tell us it support great struggle of Turkestani people for freedom and independence. We believe this. Munzer believe this. Statue of Liberty. Thomas Jefferson. But it is big lie. What Americans really want is for Russians to rule Central Asia forever. Only difference is, you just want your own Russians running show in Tashkent, not Communists.”

  “You had better explain that. I’m not following you.”

  “Sure. You bet. I explain to you. In 1952, I am in Washington. CIA tell me to broadcast tribute to Kerensky on Voice of America. I refuse. I say: Kerensky, hah! He break promise to our leader, Mustafa Chokay, in 1917. He tell us he will help but when he come to power, he forget us. So I say: Forget Kerensky. Let us talk about Turkestani people on radios. Let us talk about Mustafa Chokay, and 1918 massacre in Kokand, and freedom and independence. But they refuse. They say sorry, no independence talk for Soviet nationalities. Except for Baltic peoples, them only. Not even Ukrainians can talk about independence. We Uzbeks not allowed even to use old Uzbek words on radio. They think maybe Russians get upset. And then they say sorry, big mistake, and they stop Uzbek service. Pfft. No more.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Taylor.

  “Sorry? They break my heart, these Americans. They break my heart. So now maybe you understand, Mr. Goode, what I tell you in Turkish restaurant. Whole world betray Turkestani people, five times. Munzer had enough. No more trust left. Only tears.”

  The Uzbek put his head in his hands. Taylor said nothing for a long time. He watched the candles flicker around the face of Mustafa Chokay; the neat mustache, the quaint Western frock coat and necktie; the narrow eyes looking expectantly toward the camera. Taylor rose from his chair and walked to the shrine at the other end of the room and blew out the candles. It seemed like giving the Turkestani patriot a decent burial.