Kara Kush

  ‘She said, “Are you not the man who once owned the house in which I live?”

  ‘He answered her, “I am Ibrahim Khan, of the Musa-khel, and my dwelling is the one known as Flower Fountain!”

  ‘She said, “Yes, that is the house. Can you help me?” He said, “What help do you need, woman of dimokrasi, from a kabob-seller in the Kabul streets? Your people say that they rule this land, and they should help you if you seek it. Are you not nufus-dar, ‘one who has people?’”

  ‘She said, “Yes, I have people, but I cannot trust them. My husband is dead, and I have no money. I shall soon be sent back to Rousiyya, and there I shall be poor. But I have heard that there are jewels buried somewhere in the Flower Fountain garden. Do you know this legend from long ago? Can you help me find them? If you do, I shall reward you.”

  ‘The elder of the Musa-Khel said, “Let it not be said that someone asked Ibrahim Khan for help in vain. I shall come with you, lady.”

  ‘To summarize. He went to the house and took up a spade. Then he asked himself, “Where would I hide jewels in this garden if I had any?” His instinct answered him. He began to dig and presently he unearthed a large clay pot, filled with wonderful gold and jewelled ornaments, which had been buried there at the time of the second British invasion. He gave the treasure to the Russian woman.

  ‘She said, “Ibrahim Khan, you and I are now rich. Take as much of the treasure as you wish, and my thanks with it.”

  ‘And Ibrahim Khan told her, “I am Ibrahim, son of a chief and a man of the Musa-born. I answer the cry of distress of a woman, and I help her. Shall it ever be said of me that I have profited from the misery of a woman?”’

  The old man gave the travellers, one by one, a penetrating look. ‘And my answer to you, Maryam Jan, is just the same.’

  ‘Well said, Son of Qais!’ shouted Zabardast. ‘And I, on our journey, shall see that the lady knows the tale about the man, his guest and his horse, for she may not have heard it yet.’

  ‘With faith in God.’

  ‘I entrust you to God.’

  They went on their way again.

  The northward journey from Jalalabad to the stronghold of the Yusufzai chieftain was no more than a hundred and twenty miles as the crow flies. Across these mountains, however, and through these deep valleys, at times almost as desolate as a moonscape, it was half as far again. The little party forded rivers, their horses splashing gratefully through the crystal waters, while the June sun beat down upon them, and the dust-laden, singing wind sprang up, viciously scouring their faces and hands, then dying, suddenly, into an eerie silence.

  Maryam found, in Fazli Rabbi and his wife, an infinite source of folklore, general information, songs and stories – and contemporary knowledge. As they rode, Maryam adapted slowly to the outdoor life of the Afghan borderland and they talked continually: about everything under the sun.

  She soon saw that this was no country bumpkin and his woman, wayside innkeepers interested only in gossip and profit. Nor were the pair merely relating things that they had heard; they knew a great deal, in depth, and Maryam was soon sure that Fazli Rabbi and Inayat were deeply involved in the freedom struggle.

  ‘It is obvious,’ the Pashtun said when they were sheltering from the midday sun on the fourth day in the wilds, ‘that you are an Afghan. But you are a shahri, a city-dweller, and somewhat soft. This journey will correct that: you are already riding your horse like a veteran, not like someone out for exercise because she has eaten too much pilau the night before!’

  She was getting used to the Pashtun raillery, the half aggressive, half humorous way in which these people treated one another. Fazli Rabbi was including her in his community by speaking like that. It was, she supposed, something of a compliment.

  Did he know how the border people felt about the puppet government? There had been rumours that the tribal chiefs were being bribed by the Karmal regime to keep quiet, to let Kabul rule the settled parts of Afghanistan. Maryam felt well enough established with her host to sound him out.

  The huge Pashtun’s face cracked into a smile. ‘The tribes, collectively, are both part of Afghanistan and not part of it. Part of it because most of the people in the country are Pashtuns. Not part of it because we were here before there was an Afghanistan, and millions of us live outside, in the Free Land, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Millions more live in what is now known as Pakistan. When you meet more of us, as we get deeper into our free territory, you’ll see other differences.’

  He gave a huge, bellowing laugh, which so alarmed his horse that it whinnied. ‘You see, we don’t like being “administered”.’ He spoke the word with a scowl that would have wiped the smile off the face of a plaster saint. Pashtuns being administered was obviously a very serious matter.

  ‘The British came here, as you know, armed to the teeth. They drew a line on a map and had a conference with the Kabul government. The parties agreed –’ he lapsed into direct speech – ‘“this is ours and this is yours.”’

  Fazli Rabbi stared at Maryam’s eyes and bared his teeth. ‘They said, “On this side is Afghanistan, and this side – India.” They made one serious mistake. And what was that mistake, Maryam Jan?’

  Maryam said, ‘They cut the Pashtun land in two.’

  ‘Yes, Maryam, they did: but only on the map!’

  He looked at her triumphantly. ‘You see, neither the Afghans nor the British actually ruled the area. Perhaps this is the first time in history that people, probably through vanity, took into their territory a nation whom they did not – could not – administer!’

  ‘How could that happen?’ Maryam asked.

  ‘Very easily. The Afghans of Kabul were afraid to say that they could not rule the tribes. The British were the same. Sir Mortimer Durand was their man. The two got together and could not admit to one another that neither of them could rule the clans. So they drew a map. Drew a map! And the line was called, still is, “The Durand Line”.’

  Fazli Rabbi laughed and shook his head. ‘Drew a map …

  ‘Maryam Jan, that was about ninety years ago. The Pashtun tribesmen had always descended into India, in search of loot; their own land was often poor, mountain ranges and near-desert. You know the saying about why India was there?’ He pointed his finger at Maryam.

  ‘Yes, Fazli Rabbi. We’ve even heard it in Kabul. It runs, “If Allah had not intended the Pashtuns to have fat money-lenders to rob, why would he, in his wisdom, have placed them so near at hand, in India!”’

  ‘Well said, girl! But there is more to it than that. The Pashtuns always used to enter the service of any conqueror, including their own leaders. You have heard of the Pashtun kings of Delhi, our own Raj, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, more recently, the British were afraid that the Russians would foment the wildness of the tribes and persuade them to descend on the British domain in India. And the Kabul Afghans feared that the Pashtuns would attack them. In fact, of course, the Pashtuns have always fought to preserve Afghanistan. So long as they were on the southern and eastern flank, Kabul was safe against invasion.’

  ‘But,’ said Maryam, ‘the Kabul rulers have always had to keep the tribes sweet. That is the talk of Kabul. People are always complaining that they send food, clothing, money and arms to the Pashtuns.’

  ‘Certainly, and the British did exactly the same. The Pakistanis do it, too. But remember, we do not call this bribery. It is tribute from weaker peoples!’

  Fazli Rabbi gave another huge laugh. Maryam had heard some of this before. The names of the warrior clans, and of their ruling families, were as well known, and as feared or respected in Asia as any elite elsewhere. Their war cries, usually the clan surname, echoed through the hills – Afridi, Waziri, Orakzai, Khattak, Mahsud, Shinwari, and a dozen more.

  ‘It is natural,’ Fazli Rabbi was saying, ‘that when Babrak Karmal was brought from the communist lands into Afghanistan as a Russian puppet, he should be mortally
afraid of us, the ten million Pashtuns.

  ‘Karmal continued sending the customary presents: money, trucks, radios, food. The money from Kabul was known as the “watch and ward allowance”, and was paid out of the policing budget of the Ministry of Tribes.’

  Maryam said, ‘Did Karmal’s money pacify the tribes, or reconcile them to the communist regime?’

  ‘At first, I do admit,’ Fazli Rabbi scratched his head, ‘we kept out of Kabul affairs, as we always do. But, when murder without reason, atrocities – acts beyond anything sanctioned by law and custom – carried out by Russian miscreants, became widespread, we thought again.

  ‘We gave sanctuary to the refugees, and allowed them to go down into Pakistan. We welcomed their fighting men and their army deserters, when they started to come to us, and to form guerrilla bands. But, my girl –’ Fazli Rabbi shot a glance at Maryam to make sure that she was absorbing the lesson ‘– many Pashtuns are vain, like so many other people. Karmal knew this and at first doubled his bounty and sent men to “explain” that the refugees were malcontents, the deserters criminals. I myself saw the beautiful air-conditioned buses, loaded with gifts, which came to the jirgas, the assemblies, of the people presided over by the chiefs.’

  ‘But it was not enough?’ Maryam could see the picture: the greybeards taking the presents but increasingly objecting to the regime.

  ‘It was not enough. Karmal then invited a selection of chiefs and greybeards to Kabul, for a conference. He proposed to explain to them how he, and the “New Order in Afghanistan”, was to save the country and its people from “Zionism and the Chinese, from America and Britain, from Pakistan and India”. Practically the whole world, it seemed from his message, was about to descend upon the Afghans.

  ‘Well, the Maliks (which means “kings”, you know: our leaders are as important as that) either went in person or sent influential representatives. They were regaled with huge feasts, taken to see the wonders of the great city, filmed for television.

  ‘A select number of Pashtun leaders were accommodated in the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, with its soft beds, marble floors, chandeliers and coffee bars. I was there myself, and I noticed that this tourist paradise impressed some of them less when they saw, mounted on the walls, muzzle-loading muskets of the kind which their clansmen had stopped using fifty years and more ago. Telling them that these were there just for decoration only made them laugh.

  ‘Eventually the “delegates” were settled in the large conference hall, film cameras whirring, to hear the harangues of the New Men of the Party, explaining why it was best that Afghanistan should embrace socialism.

  ‘The immense portraits of the man known locally as Korl Morks had been removed. He was too obviously a foreigner.

  ‘After a few warming-up speeches, recited from texts prepared by the Ministry of Information by officials who seemed, to the huge fighting men, to be of suspiciously paltry physique, there was a stir of interest. Members of two or three Pashtun clans got up and spoke, fervently and at length, on the good things of the Karmal regime. In accordance with custom, none of those listening showed any reaction, but they were certainly memorizing faces! Decisions, of course, are not made at assemblies like this. Much consultation had to take place between the elders and the ordinary members of the tribe.

  ‘As a final touch, Babrak Karmal, surrounded by armed security men, stepped onto the platform. He was short, even in his platform shoes, plump and shifty-eyed. He seemed reluctant to look directly at any of the two hundred and fifty men sitting there, silent and appraising. He probably felt a bit like a Christian in a Roman arena, unsure if and when the lions were going to spring.

  ‘Journalists present have said that they actually felt the hair rising on the back of their necks as these warriors and elders looked at the man who was claiming to be their leader. They knew that both his puppet predecessors had been assassinated; and in the past two years, at that.

  ‘Comrade Karmal had given a good deal of thought to his speech. He regarded these men as politically immature: they would not respond to the kind of phrases which he was accustomed to using. He had been trained in Eastern Europe, and knew that many people there – as in the West – responded to meaningless clichés which had somehow acquired magical force: in their ears, anyway.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ Maryam felt compelled to ask. Fazli Rabbi fascinated her.

  ‘I have seen a copy of the speech, in draft form, sent from Moscow. And I remember the text, remember it very well. We are, on the whole, a verbal and not a literate people. That means we have very retentive memories.

  ‘Well, Maryam Jan. That kind of talk would only be likely to “raise the consciousness” of the ten million tribesmen to the fact that the time was nearly ripe to kill him as one of the malahida, the atheist infidels.

  ‘His speech, in contrast to the gibberish he regularly gave to the tame Party men, or the patronizing sneers he bestowed on the unconverted, was a model of courtesy and tact. Afghanistan was threatened by terrible enemies, as in the past. She was independent, Moslem, hopeful of progress. She had a future as great as her glorious past – a past which was largely due to the ancestors of the Pashtun warlords assembled here. “Give me your help against the Zionist-Imperialists, and I shall give you everything!” he concluded, and his assembled platform claque cried their customary HOO-RAA! The Hoo-Raa was just a little subdued, for their eyes were fixed, not on the Leader, but on the unblinking lion-gaze of the frontier men.

  ‘Malik Asaf, one of the most important of the tribal overlords, stood up first, as was his due. All eyes turned to him, and Karmal bowed, wondering whether this man would support or reject him. Everything depended on the next few moments.

  ‘“There is one question to ask,” he said. He was over seventy years of age, six feet four in height, with a hooked nose and a large white turban, crossed bandoliers on his chest, and a voice like the sound of boulders rumbling down the mountainside.

  ‘“Please ask it, shaghali Malik Asaf Khan!” Karmal managed a smile.

  ‘“Mr Karmal, as you know, I represent my people. If they want to know something, I must see that it is asked. It does not have to represent my own views.”

  ‘“Of course, respected Malik.”

  ‘“In that case, as this is a fraternal meeting as you have said, I request that it be put by the man who asked it. He is here, beside me.”

  ‘“Please continue.” It must be some important associate of the Malik, Karmal thought. This might be a good sign; perhaps the Malik was bringing in a friend with influence, to prepare the ground, or to test the water.

  ‘“In the deliberations of the Pashtun and Afghan people,” roared the Malik in what he thought was a soft voice, “all, even the lowest, have the right to speak. It must be the same, of course, in your dimokrasi. So, with pleasure, I call upon Yusuf, son of Suleman, who helps in the kitchens of my fort.”

  ‘The silence seemed to become even deeper. Karmal squirmed, his face wet, both from the heat of the television lights and from anxiety. The Malik had trapped him. He had given permission for the voice of dimokrasi. To deny it now would not only be against Pashtunwali: it would be an insult to the Malik. Even to scorn, publicly, a pot-scrubber, who was also a member of the Malik’s tribe, could start a war. He stood for a moment, then sat down, hard, on the plastic chair behind him on the platform.

  ‘Yusuf, son of Suleman, stood up as if this was his own house; Pashtuns are hardly ever shy. “Mr Karmal. I want to know when the Russian Army, sons of noseless mothers, will leave Afghanistan.”

  ‘Karmal recovered quickly and reached for the stock answer, prepared for him in Moscow. He had repeated it so often that it now sounded quite plausible. “The Limited Contingent of the Red Army will leave Afghanistan when foreign intervention has stopped, and when our borders are secure.”

  ‘He looked around, and resumed the oily smile which had become a reflex.

  ‘The chiefs were slumped in their upright plast
ic chairs, many of them with eyes half-closed. Most were accustomed to sitting cross-legged, and Karmal had in any case ordered too much food for them in the middle of the day. Nobody paid much attention to the youth who stood up again, a young Pashtun of no important rank. Yusuf waited for Karmal to sit down before he spoke. “Your answer reminds me of a tale told among the Pashtun people. Mr Korl Morks might care to hear it, too. Perhaps you could repeat it to him sometime. This is the tale: There was once a fisherman, who caught such a huge and wonderful fish that he thought he must take it to his king. When he was given an audience, carrying his fish, the people of the court were amazed. They knew that the king would have to give, in exchange, a really wonderful present to equal such a gift. As you know, Mr Karmal, a king must always return a gift with something of similar value.

  ‘“The king was delighted, but perplexed, because he was covetous and stingy and a puppet of his vizier, the prime minister. The vizier, as always, was standing behind the king to counsel him in whispers, and the king leant back somewhat to hear what the advice would be. The vizier, whose thoughts were always quick, told the king to ask whether this fish was a male or a female. This the king did.”

  ‘Everyone was absorbed in the story now. The Eastern habit of using parables to make a point was something they almost lived by. Many of them knew the tale, but they wanted to deduce what meaning the kitchen-boy was suggesting for it.

  ‘“But,” continued the youth, “though without power, the fisherman was intelligent. He reasoned that the king and the vizier were trying to fob him off. Whether he said it was a male or a female, the king would tell him to go away and catch its mate, which would be impossible, because there never was another such fish. Thus, he thought, the Court would save themselves the reward, and he would lose face when he failed. By this trick the king and the vizier would appear wise to the courtiers.”

  ‘So he answered, “Majesty, this fish is neither – it is narmada, a hermaphrodite!”