The Long Road From Kandahar, page 14
‘Has Fakir seen Hasan?’ Zamir asked.
Jamel shook his head. ‘Fakir and the stranger walked into the village late last night. They went straight to Fakir’s house. They still sleep.’
‘Go back and tell your neighbours to swear Hasan died of some disease or a fall from rocks last year. Stick to your story. Quick, go and do it. Make a cairn of stones on the mountainside. Tell them that is where Hasan is buried. I will take him to the caves. I will tell him what will happen to him if he comes out. Go …’
Zamir found naan bread, water, a large shawl and together, as the sun rose, he and Hasan climbed upwards with the goats to a group of hidden caves buried into the mountain.
As a child Zamir had taken refuge with his father and uncles in these caves during tribal wars. They had hidden weapons from the Russians here. Boundaries and disputes changed with the years, but the caves remained, impenetrable and dangerous for those who did not know the complicated layout of passages into the mountain.
Zamir, having terrified the boy into staying hidden, left him with a tame goat kid for company and told him to sleep. This was one thing the child excelled at, even when he was supposed to be minding the goats. Zamir promised him someone would come for him before nightfall then he made his way back to the pasture above his house.
Jamel had sent two small daughters to mind his goats and Zamir, now exhausted from his climb, made his way back to his house. After he had washed and prayed, Deeba, the old widow next door, brought his breakfast. Zamir sat in front of his house and waited.
Fakir arrived alone. He was limping badly and had two fingers missing from his left hand. He looked older. ‘Assalamu alaikum, Fakir.’
‘Wa alaykumu as-salam, Baba,’ Fakir said. ‘I see word has already come. You are not surprised to see me.’
‘You are certainly no ghost, Fakir,’ Zamir said drily. ‘Was news of your death a mistake or did you need to disappear?’
Fakir opened his mouth in a semblance of a smile that did not reach his eyes. Zamir saw his missing and black teeth. Fakir touched his chest. ‘I was wounded. Better to stay dead.’
‘Not for your wife. Could you not have sent word to Nadira? She could not stay here, a woman alone. She returned to Rawalpindi to find Aneel.’
Fakir shrugged. ‘I did not trust her. I can find a new wife.’
When the widow had brought Fakir refreshment he said, ‘This valley is growing empty of people, of the young. It is becoming a place of ghosts.’
‘What do you expect? People are afraid. They are caught between Talibs, military sweeps, and American drones. They have no choice but to flee to the cities.’
‘Where they will starve on the streets instead of fighting our enemies.’
‘In the cities they have a chance of staying alive. The Taliban promise much and deliver little. You take their sons, promise land, water, electricity, and the hope of something better. None of which is in your power to give. Why have you returned here, to this village, Fakir? Not to see me, I think.’
Fakir’s watching eyes reminded Zamir of one of his sheep. They held not a glimmer of light or warmth.
‘This is my village, Baba. The place I grew up. I know the families who have boys the right age for Jihad. Men that I once played with as a child. Many of these men fight with us. Others, willingly, in Allah’s name, offer their sons when they become of age. It should be the duty of all men and women to sacrifice their children for Islam, to glory in death … after which, naturally, comes their blessed reward in heaven.’
His expression chilled Zamir. There was an edge, a cynicism in his voice that Zamir had never before heard. As if Fakir no longer believed in all the virgins waiting for him in heaven.
Just as Zamir was thinking, My son has become disillusioned? Fakir said under his breath, ‘It is foolish for any man to try to hide their sons or to send them away, Baba. This will only bring trouble upon them.’
Zamir met Fakir’s eyes. ‘Raza is not in hiding. Or gone from us. He is being educated. Only by education will this country prosper, Fakir.’
‘You tricked my little brother. You betrayed him. If you wanted him educated, we, his family, would have found him a Madrassa … Raza’s life was here with us, his brothers, his family. We taught him well. He was a fast learner. He could dismantle a gun and clean it quicker than anyone I know. Raza never forgot what he was taught … His mind was quick. He would have become a leader of men – a Jihadi. His destiny was with us,’ Fakir repeated angrily.
‘If that were true, Allah would have prevented my son leaving Pakistan. The Madrassas are full of mullahs who have hate in their hearts, but little education or true knowledge of the Koran, just the love of power. You say Raza could have been a leader. You mean fighting with the Talibs and dying with the Talibs. In a few years Raza will return to Pakistan an educated man and he will work for his country another way. There have to be other ways, Fakir. Invading forces come and go. At some point you Jihadis will have to sit around a table and do business with governments, men not of your persuasion or liking … Look at our tribal history, look at our changing world …’
As Zamir was speaking he became aware of Fakir listening closely and of some underlying anxiety in him. Fakir was no longer a young man. His body had taken a battering. He did not move so fast or so surely. He did not have the charisma of Ajeet or the intelligence of Raza. His power came from where it always came in the insecure: in brutality, in terrifying those under him who might undermine him. There were constant power battles within Taliban groups. Fakir, now vulnerable, could well be fighting to hold onto his position.
He must see, as he passed through villages, fighting men left with terrible injuries, shattered limbs. Men who could no longer fight their cause were discarded and forgotten. They were left with the nightmare of violence that went on and on unreeling in their heads, along with their abandoned or dead wives and children.
As if he had caught his father’s thoughts from a fleeting expression of pity or a relaxation in Zamir’s stern face, fury seemed to erupt from Fakir, although he kept his tone low.
‘Have you forgotten your duty in your worship of the west? Have you forgotten how you once were, Baba, noble and proud to be a Pashtun? I remember how you used to be when I was a child. You were prepared to fight any threat to our country. You were brave and brought honour on our family … Now …’
Zamir froze him with a look. Fakir stopped, suddenly aware of Zamir’s anger and also of his father’s position and respect in the village. To impugn his father’s honour would have consequences.
This village was not a Taliban stronghold; there were few Taliban sympathizers here. His uncles would happily shoot him in the head in the name of family reputation if he could not hold his tongue. Fakir had the power to have his father killed, if he so wished, but tribal honour and pride still ran deep in his veins.
He said quickly, ‘Baba, I believe you thought you were doing the right thing for Raza, but you did not think of the consequences of sending him to the west. He will absorb into him their values. He will be influenced by their freedoms, but he will never be accepted. I hear that he is not happy in their country. When Raza returns to Pakistan, he will not be happy or accepted here either. He will never be trusted. He will be a danger and in danger. This is what you have done to your youngest son … You have taken from him his home and his country forever.’
Fakir’s last words struck such fear in Zamir’s heart that they suffocated all other emotion, even anger.
Zamir finally made himself look at Fakir. ‘I am pleased that you are finally learning to think for yourself as well as killing the innocent and spouting a selective version of the Koran. This is progress, for you must be getting an education of sorts from the people you are with who cannot all be stupid or unaware. Words, however, should be used carefully. Words can be as powerful as the gun and just as dangerous. Never question my honour again.’
Fakir’s body registered resentment. Eventually, resigned, he got to his feet.
‘They say the boy, Hasan, is dead.’
Zamir nodded. ‘He was a simple boy but loved by his family.’
Fakir was sure Hasan was very much alive, but he turned away. He was not going to battle with this stubborn old man any longer. He had had enough. He nodded at his father and started back down the track to the village.
His bones ached. There were suddenly many questions in his mind. When he and Ajeet had been young their father had been away fighting the Russians. Like Raza, all he and his brother had thought about was joining their father in Jihad as soon as they were old enough. Their mother had been a silent woman; her life taken up with surviving and feeding them while Zamir was away. She died abruptly carrying a load of wood, collapsing into the dry earth as the dust wind whirled and whipped around her fallen body. The hundred-day wind had almost buried her before she took her last grateful breath.
Zamir had changed over the last decade. The father Raza had grown up with was not the same father that he and Ajeet had known. Zamir had been feared and respected by his elder sons, but not loved. When Zamir had put his gun down and settled down to village life with a new young wife, he had grown soft.
For a moment, Fakir let himself imagine how his life might have been. Educated men from Europe, the Middle East, from all over the world had slowly been joining the Taliban in bigger numbers to fight the American and British forces in Afghanistan. Fakir, listening to their fervour, their ability to express intent and inspire confidence, had, for the first time, grasped the importance of learning. To plan, to have a strategy, limit casualties against a superior firepower. To outwit an enemy on the ground or in the air, to cheat them of victory. Most of all, to have the confidence and the knowledge to implement a coherent plan against a vast invasion force, was an enviable skill.
Fakir’s own expertise was incendiary devices. He had started out at 10 making crude bombs, but over the years he had been shown by experts how small, how sophisticated an incendiary device could be; easier to place in the most unexpected places. These devices were the most powerful and lethal weapons they had had to injure and kill in large numbers.
Fakir had learned new bomb-making skills quickly. He never forgot once taught. He never fumbled, lost his nerve, or made a mistake. But he realized that, if he had only learned to read, he could have experimented, practised making his own variations of bombs. Relying on memory was not enough anymore. Sophisticated bombs meant absolute precision. You had to get the mix exactly right or blow yourself up in the process. He was unable to write things down and his memory was now beginning to fail him.
He understood why the mullahs needed young boys uneducated, unquestioning, and fervent, as he and his brother had once been, but at 40 years old he began to question the wisdom of this. He had lost three fingers as well as more serious injury to his body. His bomb-making days were over.
Afghans and Pakistani Talibs of his age who could read, as well as experts from foreign countries, were teaching younger Talibs, from complicated plans downloaded from the Internet. Crude bombs were still widely used and could be assembled by children if necessary, but Fakir wanted to trigger bombs using mobile phones as radios. He wanted to master a more sophisticated and precisely timed bomb to defeat the foreign soldiers.
If he could only understand and identify captured foreign equipment, he could adapt it. He was getting left behind because he was illiterate and could not follow written instructions.
His father had offered to teach him to read as a young adult, but Fakir had not wanted to feel diminished, had been too proud to accept. Zamir would never know how bitterly Fakir regretted this now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Cornwall, 2009
Finn lay in the dark after lights out thinking of Ben in Lashkar Gah. Missing him was always worse at night. He hoped Ben wasn’t too lonely without them all. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and prayed he was safe. He had not had a bluey for a while. He thought about the day Ben had been issued with his army kit for Afghanistan. It had been half-term and Ben had been anxious to pack it away before Hanna and Izzy got home.
‘Can I help?’ Finn had asked.
‘Sure, you can,’ Ben said. ‘We’ll go through the packing list together.’ Ben had got out the black bag and Bergan and laid all his kit out on the sitting room floor. There was a lot of it. He looked at the itinerary that charted clearly what each item was.
‘Boy Scout’s dream,’ Ben said, picking up a holster, blast goggles, glasses, desert boots, and flip-flops and lining them up.
Finn had admired body armour with pouches for grenades and knives and a blast-proof helmet. There were underpants, socks, foot powder …
Finn had put his hand under Ben’s bulletproof waistcoat and placed his fingers over Ben’s heart to make sure it would be protected.
‘What about your legs and arms, Ben?’
‘I need my arms to shoot and my legs to run, old thing. Can’t fight in armour …’
Ben had glanced at his watch and begun to fold his kit up neatly and quickly and put it back in his Bergan. He did not want Hanna and Izzy coming in and seeing his weapons lying on the floor.
The memory lay, indelible, in Finn’s mind. The sudden, visual understanding that Ben was not going away on exercise. These weapons were not a game but a glimpse of war.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ed Dominic stood in front of his class and shuffled the papers in front of him. ‘Last week I asked you all for an essay on “vanished lives”. I told you it could be about anything. A tribe, a species, a country, or merely a way of life, although I did suggest you refrain from endless prose about vanished Cornish tin mines. I asked for the writing to be a personal account or something that touched you or had affected your own life and not merely a list of facts.
‘I expected some pretty good essays from you all but you have exceeded my expectations. I’ve been humbled by the standard of some of your writing. Well done. I’ve got four essays that I would like to be read out in class …’
Mr Dominic pushed back his hair that had a tendency to flop over his eyes. ‘Raza, I was especially impressed by your essay. Well done. It fulfilled everything I asked for in “vanished lives”. I wonder if you would mind reading it out to the class?’
Raza was horrified. The essay had taken him hours. He had lost himself in the writing, but he still found English punctuation baffling. In the end he had given up and just let the stories Baba told him flow.
‘Sir, I cannot. My English is not good enough. Indeed, it is very poor still.’
Ed Dominic laughed. ‘Do you think any of us here in this room could write a long essay in Pashto, Urdu, or any other language for that matter? Raza, this is a fascinating glimpse of a life we don’t know. Please don’t deprive us … You are the only one who can make your world come alive.’
Raza’s friends banged their desks. ‘Come on, Raz, let’s hear it …’
Finn, sitting next to him, said under his breath. ‘It’s okay. Mr Dominic would not ask you to read it out unless it was brilliant.’
‘You said I forget my prepositions …’ Raza hissed. ‘You laughed at my full stops. Indeed, you said they were like little faces I put everywhere that stops a sentence in its tracks …’
Finn grinned. ‘Well, no one is going to see your full stops, are they?’
Mr Dominic smiled. ‘We’re not here to judge your English grammar, Raza, just to hear your story. Please?’
Vanished Lives by Raza Ali
In days of my grandfather many tribes who lived in North of Pakistan near borders of Afghanistan roam free. In summer they live among mountains. Women make small fields for vegetables. These tribal peoples they pick fruit and nuts from the trees in the valleys and store their harvests to sell in the harsh winters when they must feed all of themselves.
When winter draws near leaders of the tribes they must judge when it is time to leave the mountains. It takes many days to prepare their long camel trains for their journey. There are hundreds of women and childrens with their tents and provisions, their flocks of goats and sheeps.
The long journeys back and forth from the mountains down to the plains and valleys are dangerous. Indeed, harsh winds can blow red dust for many days. Mountain passes can freeze, and mists descend to trap peoples into the mountains. Indeed, they have many things to fear. The different tribes sometimes fight each other for what they have harvested all summer.
In a poor country it is said that some tribes believe that no man is thief; that each man has duty look after himself and his family. It is also said that no man must dishonour or steal from his own tribe. Every tribe that roams and crosses the borders of Afghan and Pakistan they have their own ways and different customs.
The Wazir and the Mahsud tribes they can live happily side by side. The Wazir hunt in packs but the Mahsud they will hunt alone. My father, he tell me of these many tribes who wandered the earth freely, even in the days of his childhood and growing up, but I do not remember them all.
Once there were the Siahpads from Killa Kund. There were Mangals, which are a Brahui tribe of Baluchistan. A Baluch tribesman he was very fierce. There were also the ‘foot’ people, the Pawindahs.
The largest tribe was the Kharot tribe. They numbered millions. They travel in huge caravans of sheeps and herds of camels. These are restless peoples who never cease moving from place to place to find work and sweet grazing for their cattle. As soon as grazing is finished, they move on to another place.
My father, he tell me this story. With the coming of one spring a huge caravan of peoples of the Kharot tribe start back for the highlands. The caravans they are piled with food and provisions that the peoples had brought with money from working and trading. The men, women, and childrens of this tribe are happy because they have bought bright cloth and small jewels for themselves. Indeed, it has been a good summer for them.
