Kara Kush

  The night before he was to leave Moscow, his colleagues from Directorate S gave him the customary farewell party, at one of Moscow’s best restaurants: the Uzbekistan. He was touched by their comradeship, the warmth of their concern for him, and their dedication to their ‘life task’, as the KGB called it. None asked any details of his mission.

  The Uzbek found himself at Moscow Airport the following morning, dressed in military uniform, with a ticket and papers identifying him as Anis Madrunovich Urokov, rank serzhant, assigned to Afghanistan for ‘linguistic duties’.

  As he walked to the check-in desk he heard a voice and saw an attractive, blonde woman-member of the Aeroflot ground-staff standing beside a pillar, smiling at him.

  ‘This way, please, gospodin Major.’

  Nurhan frowned. He had indeed been promoted to major: the day before, in fact. But this was either a trick or a very serious failure of security.

  ‘Niet. You are looking for someone else. I am Sergeant Urokov …’

  The girl in the trim blue uniform nodded pleasantly and came closer. ‘Well done, Comrade. Just a check.’

  ‘Spasiba, thank you.’

  ‘Pazhalsta, not at all.’

  He felt himself swelling with pride. They were testing him to keep him alert, so that he would not make mistakes under active conditions. People told tales of the chivalric knights of long ago. They were mere exploiters. But this, the KGB service, this was a true elite.

  The Uzbek checked in and sat down in the departure lounge to wait for his flight. Aeroflot never announced delays or cancellations, so it might be several hours before the next flight to Tashkent, although it was scheduled for departure in thirty minutes’ time.

  He was inhaling deeply on his fifth unfiltered Byelamor cigarette when a bent old babushka, wielding a brush and clucking at him for spilling ash all over her marble floor, spoke into his ear.

  ‘Comrade, there is much temptation, in the outside world, to be seduced by capitalism. Some have succumbed. Just remember that, just as I could kill you now, you would never be safe if you deserted. Your closest Western friend, or your American debriefing officer, could well be a Chekist.’ It took all Nurhan’s training not to goggle at her. The thought of defection had never occurred to him; but now he saw very plainly – and was glad – that for traitors there was never any real escape.

  The crone held her hand over his head as if in blessing, gave him her own version of a friendly smile, and limped away, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  A Chekist. The KGB used to be called the Cheka, and the half-million present-day members still used this term for one another. Again the feeling of pride came to Nurhan. His organization left nothing to chance. After all, if he had had any ideas about deserting to the capitalists, this experience would have straightened him out. The Committee for State Security was, in reality, a fatherly entity. He doubted whether, even for the rich, the capitalist West had anything equivalent, any strong reassuring sense of communion, to offer its elite.

  3 A Passport for Tezbin, Carpenter

  Moscow/Kabul

  JUNE 2–11

  Nurhan Aliyev flew to the huge Bagram Airbase near Kabul, in one of the great Antonovs of the air bridge which shuttled between Logistics Command near Termez in the USSR and the Afghan capital. The KGB, he noted with admiration, had drilled him perfectly and had avoided giving him any special facilities.

  As a sergeant he had some privileges; better gruel than the men and an inflatable mattress instead of straw. But he still had to line up for hours at a time: first to board the transport and then for his documents to be processed at his destination. But none of the real sergeants seemed to realize that he had been ‘in the army’ for no longer than three days. The crash-training was perfect.

  At Bagram his movement order was stamped and he was assigned a place in a military truck for Kabul. Once there, he was decanted, still in uniform, at the Pul-i-Khishti Bridge. It was exactly as it had been described at the Balashika Training Centre. It took him only half an hour to part-exchange his uniform, for two hundred afghanis and a shabby civilian outfit, with one of the Afghan old-clothes men standing there. At first the sight of so many Soviet soldiers selling equipment unmolested puzzled him, but the Afghan hawkers obviously regarded it as normal. They showed no suspicion about him which, in present circumstances, was all that mattered.

  Still, all those Soviet soldiers, peddling things in the street …The Uzbek was looking too closely at one young conscript, who mistook his attention for customer interest. He called out to Nurhan in broken Dari, brandishing an army belt.

  ‘Pryazhka, buckle, friend?’ Nurhan shook his head. The soldier turned to a man with a basket, ‘Two eggs for belt and buckle? Have you frukt, fruit? Give me tabak, tobacco …’

  Another member of the Fraternal Limited Contingent sidled up to Aliyev, opening his greatcoat to show a pair of excellent army field-glasses. ‘Binok, binok, see far with binok, Afghanski?’ A tall Pashtun glimpsed the glasses and pushed forward.

  ‘Militar – armiya – are they military, from the army?’

  ‘Da, da! Ookraddyenniy – stolen!’ He added, to Aliyev’s amazement, ‘Soovyeneer, souvenir.’

  This could not really be true: the gallant, all-conquering troops of the Soviet Red Army selling equipment, desperate for eggs and tobacco. And the KGB’s secret centre, Balashika, instructing Nurhan to trade there. The Uzbek concentrated hard, until the explanation came to him. Of course: they were all agents. Very clever; the Army had obviously sent them out to trap black marketeers. No doubt all these thieving Afghans would soon be behind bars. Nurhan felt better now, and decided to have a cup of tea.

  Not far from the bridge he found a small café, and sat down beside the huge samovar. At the same table was a Russian private, talking to the café’s owner in fairly good Dari. ‘Not only are we badly fed, hungry, but the officers have stolen all the vodka that was supposed to be stored for the Great October Revolution celebrations on 7 and 8 November, five months away. That’s why we are trying to get a little money in, tovarish …’ Nurhan closed his eyes. This was palpable nonsense. Everyone knew that the men were well fed in the army, and that the officers were good men. Obviously he was another agent provocateur, entrapping a suspect. The soldier seemed to be overplaying his part, but perhaps it was because the Afghans were unsubtle, stupid …

  The café proprietor gave the man a hundred afghanis and took a handful of what looked like Kalashnikov cartridges from him. When the soldier had gone, he looked at Nurhan, shrugged, and started to talk. ‘They’re getting worried, friend. They haven’t got over the matter of the poster yet, and that was three days ago!’

  ‘The poster? What poster?’

  ‘If you haven’t heard, you’re the only person in Kabul who hasn’t. Where have you been?’

  Nurhan spread his arms. ‘I’ve just arrived from the north, looking for work.’

  ‘Ah, that explains it. But the poster was one of the funniest things in years. Want to hear about it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Afghan sat down opposite him. ‘Well, four days ago a shabnama, a clandestine leaflet, came out. It said “When you see a Nikolai vehicle with several men in it, shout the following phrase, which is Russian for ‘you can’t park here’. They may not understand your accent, so throw a grenade inside, and they’ll get the point of the joke!”’

  The Kabuli tittered, then shook with laughter, wiping the tears from his eyes. Very crude, an incitement to terrorism, Nurhan thought. Not even funny. But he remained silent.

  ‘Now, my friend, comes the good part,’ the man continued. ‘Because one of the leaflets fell into the hands of Nikolai GRU, Army Intelligence, their counter-atack was to put up posters all over Kabul saying: “It is forbidden to tell any Soviet soldier that he must not park his vehicle!” Everyone wanted to know what it meant, and so those who had seen the shabnama told those who hadn’t! The funniest thing for years.’ He slapped his thigh and went over to the s
amovar to get Nurhan another cup of tea. ‘Here, northerner, have this one on me!’

  He took a crumpled piece of poor quality paper, evidently the leaflet, from his pocket and read out: “‘Zdrastvoytye – hello in Russian”.’ Then : ‘“Stayanka zdyes zapryeshena – you can’t park here!’” He was almost helpess with laughter now.

  Nurhan threw some money on the table and walked out. He didn’t want to be found here when the police raided the place. Word would surely soon get around that there was a capitalist-imperialist agent and agitator running a teahouse in this area …

  Following the Kabul River upstream, Nurhan saw a knot of youths twenty yards ahead, dressed, as he now was, in baggy trousers and waistcoats over long shirts. They might direct him to a lodging house. As he came closer to them, he noticed that they were carrying guns. They looked arrogantly at him as he came abreast, and one of them spat. As if in answer to his unspoken question, one of them shouted ‘Guardians of the Socialist Revolution! The Militia of the Fatherland Front!’

  He wrinkled his nose. Undisciplined, dirty, jeering, disorderly. That was no way for a true socialist to behave. Still, there had been a saying in the old days, during the forced collectivization. ‘The road to paradise must first pass through hell.’ He passed his ideological brethren with face averted.

  The street widened, and Nurhan stopped to buy a mutton kabob from a street-vendor.

  ‘Brother, I’m from Turkestan, looking for work.’

  Aw. Yes.’ The skinny imp presiding over the charcoal took the five afghani piece and tested it with his teeth before dropping it into his sleeve pocket.

  ‘Where can I find somewhere to stay, a bed?’

  ‘First on the right, you’ll see a huge modern avenue, Jady Maiwand. Walk right down it. Don’t be misled by the big shops. Behind them is a warren of streets. They’re full of doss-houses.’

  It certainly was a warren: a part of old Kabul built by minority Shia sectarians as much for defence against their orthodox Sunni neighbours as anything else. They would welcome one of their own. Nurhan stopped at a dilapidated building made of adobe, obviously a rooming-house, and noted with satisfaction the spray-painted slogan on the wall: ‘Long live Ali the Martyr, murdered by the Sunni dogs!’

  Inside the door, a man sat on a prayer-mat. Beside him was a clod of earth on a tray – a souvenir from the Holy City of Kerbala, ready for his forehead to touch in prostration.

  Nurhan took off his worn shoes. With a piece of chalk which he picked up from the rickety table, he wrote on the leather soles the names of the first two Caliphs of Islam: Abu-Bakr, Omar. Many Shias liked to walk upon the names of those they considered usurpers. It was as good as a password.

  The hook-nosed landlord grinned and held out his hand. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘I’m from the north. Need a room.’

  ‘No rooms. Got a bed. Good clean straw.’

  ‘Kho. Good. How much?’

  ‘Twenty afghanis a night.’

  ‘Give you ten.’

  ‘Kho. Three nights in advance.’

  ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Namit – thy name?’

  ‘Kalb-i-Ali, Dog of Ali, Turkestani.’

  ‘Kho.’ The man spat out a stream of tobacco juice.

  The house had held a dozen transients, small artisans for the most part, looking for work in the capital. In a dirty first-floor room they lay on straw palliasses, each with its chalk lines to mark the individual’s territory. The place reeked of goat, mingled with the smell from a tannery somewhere deeper down the alleyway.

  The Uzbek soon made friends with a carpenter, Murtaza Tezbin, from Andkhoi in the Afghan north, also a Turkestani. Nurhan, according to his cover-story, came from Khanabad, hundreds of miles to the east of Tezbin’s village, so they would have no mutual friends.

  Tezbin, with little prompting, told Nurhan a mass of details about his family and home town. His ambition was to find a job as a carpenter in the big city.

  After several days of this friendship, when he thought that he knew enough, Nurhan suggested a walk to a place he had already marked down as suitable. There he killed Tezbin – with a single blow, as he had been taught. He disposed of the body in a deep but dried-up well beside the ruined house where the two of them had sat down to talk.

  Armed now with the carpenter’s papers, Aliyev went to the passport office, whose procedures he knew from reading a study made by KGB agents. It was in the Ministry of the Interior, and the process was simplicity itself.

  He studied the form. No criminal convictions. No political record. Yes, he had the deposit against his ‘behaviour when abroad’ – Tezbin’s life savings alone would more than cover it, and they were in cash. Confirmation of his identity from his local police or gendarmerie office? That was something else …

  The clerk at the hatch was in no hurry. ‘We’ll send it to Andkhoi by post. Come back in about a month.’

  A month. Far too long. ‘Respected sir, that is a long time.’

  The shabby Kabuli took a pinch of snuff, sensing a bribe. After all, the man had cash …

  ‘Haste comes from the Devil.’ Clerks were full of these tags, they used them as a substitute for education.

  ‘Mr Chief Clerk. I want to go to Pakistan …’

  ‘Everyone wants to go to Pakistan.’

  ‘But sir, I beg to say, there is work for me there.’

  ‘They all say that. All the Pakistanis have gone to the Gulf oil countries to work, and ragamuffins like you have taken their jobs.’

  ‘Sir, I have friends and relatives in Pakistan – they can get me work, but I have to go very soon, or they’ll find someone else.’

  ‘Well, what do you want me to do, Jan-i-Masum, by the life of the Immaculate One? I am a man of importance, I can’t spend all day with you, Turkestani loafer!’

  ‘Anything which your wisdom indicates.’

  ‘Listen. I have two jobs. When I am finished here, in the afternoon, I have to go all the way to Parwan for my second job, and stay there late into the night.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why, four hundred afghanis wouldn’t compensate me for staying in here and contacting your local police by telephone. And the bandits may have torn the lines down again.’ He looked the Uzbek straight in the eyes.

  ‘Sarkatib seb, I’ll have five hundred left after the deposit. As I would be going to a good job, you are welcome to four hundred.’

  The man held out his hand, and Aliyev gave him the money. In two minutes the clerk, in a better humour, was speaking to the chief of police at Andkhoi.

  ‘Forgive the trouble, Komondon. Ministry of the Interior here, Passport Department. Could you please check the details of an applicant? Registration book AND-7797/J. Name Tezbin. Yes, he’s over forty, so he has a conscription deferment card. Thank you.’

  He held his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the Uzbek, anxious to share his triumph. ‘He’s checking. A police major, actually doing it himself! But they always jump to it when we call them. We’re Kabul, the capital, to these provincials, and the police come under this Ministry. I may be only a passport clerk, but Major Fuzul up there doesn’t know where the query originated. It might even be from the Minister himself …Here he is now.’

  He puckered his face as if that would help him pick up the voice from Andkhoi above the crackling on the line.

  ‘Yes. Turkic stock, black eyes, wheat-coloured face, no pockmarks. Has he people there? Good. Then they could be guarantors for his political reliability? Fine. You’ll confirm by mail? Thank you, Major, so long.’ He deliberately used an over-familiar manner.

  ‘There you are, Mr Tezbin. I’ll just make out your passport for you.’

  Ten minutes later, the booklet was ready, proving that Nurhan was not only Murtaza Tezbin, Carpenter, but that he was a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The passport officer was in an expansive mood now.

  ‘Mr Tezbin, I feel that we are now old friends, and I’ll prove it by giving
you a piece of advice that is worth more than the passport.’

  Nurhan bowed. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘It’s about how to avoid conscription.’

  ‘I’m over age, and besides I have a deferment card to prove it: here it is, see, “Murtaza Tezbin, not liable …”’

  The clerk laughed. ‘Things must be ordered better in the north, you poor thing! Haven’t you heard of a snatch-squad? They have quotas, they’ve got to get so many men a day for the New Democratic Army. They range the streets and shanghai anyone they can find who isn’t deaf, dumb and blind!’

  ‘But the deferment …’

  ‘They ask for your papers. They love deferment cards: soon as they see one, they tear it up and puff! You’re in the back of the truck. The whole of the original army has deserted to the terrorists. Your country needs you. For the New Democratic Order.’

  What a way for his mission to end … Nurhan grabbed the man’s sleeve. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Find out the time of the bus you’re taking to Pakistan, and stay indoors until it’s nearly time for it to leave. Then go straight to the bus station and get aboard, that’s what you do. Even then, the pishkis, conscription squads, may waylay the bus. If they do, give them all your money and they’ll let you go – until the next time. It’s easy.’

  Taking a bus down the A-1, the American-built road from Kabul to Peshawar was easy, too. The passengers sang a song based on the ancient classic, The Lights of Canopus. Nurhan joined in the chorus, although the underlying meaning, which delighted the others, escaped him:

  ‘Thy foe was but an ant – a serpent now is he!

  And on this ant-turned-serpent take sure vengeance now!

  For this snake will else a mighty dragon be:

  If you, through delay, him to live allow …’

  The Pakistani border guards were lenient. They glanced at the Uzbek’s new Afghan passport but did not object – if they noticed – that he had no visa. The Balashika briefing officers were up-to-date on Pakistani immigration procedures, as on everything else.