Here is a dramatic, hair-raising adventure alive with extraordinary people. As only he can, Michener brings the strange and exotic world of the Middle East to vibrant life in this colorful and suspenseful novel.
“A rattling good adventure yarn.”
Chicago Tribune
“In the grand manner…The Michener trademark—realism and deft, crisp descriptive passages.”
Pittsburgh Press
“An extraordinary novel…The mountains sing and the deserts writhe in a kind of spasmodic horror of deathlessness. The caravansaries come to life; the old nomadic trails across the mountains spring into existence; the wildness and the ruggedness of the land are communicated to the reader… Excellent …Brilliant.”
The New York Times
“Fascinating… An imaginative journey to a barbarous land little changed in centuries, plus a heady mixture of adventure, scenery and sex stirred by a master hand.”
Minneapolis Tribune
“Michener casts his usual spell. He has a wonderful empathy for the wild and free and an understanding of the reasons behind the kind of cruelty that goes with it… Romantic and adventurous.”
Newsday
“Frightening… vivid and colorful. The vast desert with its shifting sands, camel trains and bands of nomads that fires the imagination.”
Columbus Dispatch
By James Michener:
TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC*
THE FIRES OF SPRING*
RETURN TO PARADISE*
THE VOICE OF ASIA
THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI*
SAYONARA*
THE FLOATING WORLD
THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU*
HAWAII*
REPORT OF THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN
CARAVANS*
THE SOURCE*
IBERIA*
PRESIDENTIAL LOTTERY
THE QUALITY OF LIFE
KENT STATE: What Happened and Why*
THE DRIFTERS*
A MICHENER MISCELLANY: 1950-1970
CENTENNIAL*
SPORTS IN AMERICA*
CHESAPEAKE*
THE COVENANT*
SPACE*
POLAND*
TEXAS*
LEGACY*
ALASKA*
JOURNEY*
CARIBBEAN*
THE EAGLE AND THE RAVEN
PILGRIMAGE
THE NOVEL*
THE WORLD IS MY HOME: A Memoir*
JAMES A. MICHENER’S WRITER’S HANDBOOK
MEXICO*
CREATURES OF THE KINGDOM*
RECESSIONAL*
MIRACLE IN SEVILLE
THIS NOBLE LAND: My Vision for America*
With A. Grove Day:
RASCALS IN PARADISE
With John Kings:
SIX DAYS IN HAVANA
*Published by Fawcett Books
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To Baldanza
On a bleak wintry morning some years ago I was summoned to the office of our naval attaché at the American embassy in Kabul. Captain Verbruggen looked at me with an air of frustration and growled, “Damn it all, Miller, two weeks ago the ambassador ordered you to settle this mess about the saddle shoes. Last night the Afghanistan government made another protest … this time official. I want you, by three o’clock this afternoon, to hand me …”
I interrupted to report: “Sir, a much more serious matter has come up. Last night a dispatch arrived. I’ve assembled the data for you.”
I shoved before him a leather portfolio jammed with papers. Across the face of the portfolio was stamped the gold inscription, “For the Ambassador,” and since our embassy owned only two such folders, what went into them was apt to be important.
“Can’t it wait till the ambassador gets back from Hong Kong?” Captain Verbruggen asked hopefully, for even though he was our acting ambassador he preferred to temporize.
I disappointed him. “It’s got to be handled now.”
“What’s it deal with?” he asked, for he was a self-made man who disliked reading.
Carefully folding back the leather cover, I pointed to a cable from Washington. “Senior senator from Pennsylvania. Demands an answer. Immediately.”
Verbruggen, a rugged, bald-headed man in his sixties, snapped to attention, as if the senator from Pennsylvania had entered the room. “What’s he want?” He still refused to do any unnecessary reading.
“The Jaspar girl,” I said.
With a disgusted reflex Verbruggen slammed shut the portfolio. “For seventeen months,” he complained, “this embassy has been plagued by the Jaspar girl. I’m here to help a nation climb out of the Dark Ages, and that’s the job I’m trying to do. But I’m pestered with saddle shoes and Jaspar idiots. There’s nothing more I can think of to do on this case,” he concluded firmly, shoving the papers to me.
But I forced the papers back to his side of the desk. “You’ve got to read the dispatch,” I warned.
Gingerly he lifted the leather cover and peeked at the peremptory message from Washington. When he saw that even the Secretary of State had involved himself in the matter, he snapped to attention and pulled the paper before him. Slowly he read aloud:
“It is imperative that I be able to supply the senior senator from Pennsylvania with full details regarding the whereabouts and condition of Ellen Jaspar. All previous reports from your embassy are judged inadequate and unacceptable. If necessary, detail your best men to this problem as it involves many collateral considerations. Am I correct in remembering that Mark Miller speaks the native language? If so, consider assigning him to this project at once and have him report promptly, sparing no effort.”
Captain Verbruggen leaned back, blew air from puffed-up cheeks and once again shoved the folder to me. “Looks like it’s been taken out of my hands,” he said with relief. “Better get to work, son.”
I lifted the portfolio from his desk and said, “I have been working, sir. Ever since I arrived.”
“In a very desultory way,” he suggested pleasantly. My boss could never forgo the obvious, which was why he was stuck off in Afghanistan, one of the most inconspicuous nations on earth. In 1946 it was just emerging from the bronze age, a land incredibly old, incredibly tied to an ancient past. At the embassy we used to say, “Kabul today shows what Palestine was like at the time of Jesus.” In many ways, our attaché was an ideal man for Afghanistan, for he too was only just emerging from his own bronze age.
Yet I liked him. He was a rough, wily businessman who had made a minor fortune in the used-car racket, and a place for himself in the Democratic party in Minnesota. Four times he had helped elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, and although I was a strong Republican, I respected Verbruggen’s tested loyalty. He had given the Democrats some sixty thousand dollars and they had given him Afghanistan.
He was almost entitled to it. While still a civilian he had made himself into a rough-and-ready yachtsman, for boating was his principal hobby, and when World War II struck, he volunteered to help the navy manage its shore installations. By merit and drive he had risen from lieutenant to navy captain and had made significant contributions to the building of our great bases at Manus and Samar. He was a tough bullet-head and men respected him; he had courage, and I could prove it.
My name is not really Mark Miller. By rights it’s Marcus Muehler, but in the 1840’s when my ancestors fled Germany they decided with that foresight which distinguishes my family that a Jewish name would not be helpful in America, so they translated muehler into its English equivalent, and henceforth we were Millers.
As usual, my family was right. The fact that my name was
Miller and my face wholly un-Jewish enabled me to succeed at Groton and Yale, so that when in 1942 the United States navy was looking for a few acceptable Jewish officers to avoid having many unacceptable ones forced upon them, they grabbed me with relief and were happy when most of my shipmates never realized that I was Jewish. In how many ward-rooms was I assured by amateur anthropologists, “I can spot a kike every time.”
Captain Verbruggen, under whom I served at Manus, watched me for three weeks, then said, “Miller, you’re the kind of kid who ought to be in Intelligence. You’ve got brains.” And he personally fought with the brass on the island until he found me a good berth. In 1945, when our State Department also became eager to pick up a few Jewish career men with table manners, my former boss remembered me, and in one exciting week he switched me from lieutenant, junior grade, to State Department officer, very junior grade.
Then came the problem of where State should put me, for the typical embassy doubted that I would fit in. For example, I wouldn’t be welcome in Cairo or Baghdad, where the citizens hated Jews, or, as it happened, in Paris, where many of our staff felt the same way. At this point Captain Verbruggen, now serving as naval attaché in Afghanistan, reported that he knew Mark Miller, and that I was a well-behaved Jew who would be a credit to the country. “In fact,” he said in a cable that was passed widely throughout the department, “some of my best friends are Jews,” and he got me. His courage gained the gratitude of President Truman and a nod from the Secretary of State. To everyone’s relief I was working out reasonably well, so that Captain Verbruggen looked on me with a certain pride. I was one of his ideas that hadn’t turned sour, which could not be said for all of them.
“I haven’t been a ball of fire on the Jaspar girl,” I confessed, “but when the cable arrived I got everything together. I’ve reviewed the files and I think I know what’s got to be done next.”
“What?”
“At four this afternoon I’m seeing Shah Khan. At his home. He talks better there, and if anyone knows where the Jaspar girl is, he does.”
“Will he tell you?” Captain Verbruggen countered suspiciously.
“In Afghanistan I expect no one to tell me anything, and what they do tell me, I distrust.”
“You’re learning.” The captain laughed. He looked at his watch and said, “If you’ve already studied the file, and if you’re going to meet Shah Khan at four …”
“I’d better get to work on the saddle shoes,” I anticipated.
“You’d better. Those damned mullahs are off again on a big religious kick.” I was always surprised at Captain Verbruggen’s use of the vernacular. He read widely—magazines, not books—and acquired strange phrases. “The mullahs from the mountain districts stormed into town yesterday,” he continued, “and they got wind, somehow, of the saddle shoes and they’re demanding that our Marine guards be sent home.”
“You aren’t going to let a few mad priests dictate our policy, sir?”
“The one thing I refuse to get mixed up in is a bunch of fanatic Muslim priests. You don’t know them the way I do. Already they’re putting a lot of pressure on the Afghan government. I may have to lose my Marines.”
“What am I to do?”
“You speak the language. Go down to the bazaar. See what’s actually happening.”
“Very good, sir.”
“And, Miller, if there’s any good reason for getting rid of the Marines, let me know right away. Their time’s almost up and it might be a friendly gesture on our part to get them out of here. Placate the mullahs at no real expense to ourselves.”
I was equally surprised at the precise vocabulary my boss could use when he wished to. “I don’t like the idea of placating a bunch of mullahs,” I objected stubbornly.
“You won’t be,” he replied. “I’Il accept responsibility, and we’ll all be further ahead if I do.”
I nodded deferentially and rose to go, tucking the Jaspar papers under my arm, but at the door I was stopped by a command from the acting ambassador. “Let me know what Shah Khan thinks,” he said.
I laughed. “There must be twelve million people in Afghanistan who would like to know what Shah Khan thinks. I’m sure I won’t be the one to find out.” I left the room, then called back, “But I’ll let you know what he doesn’t tell me.”
In 1946 the American embassy in Afghanistan required no large staff, for in those hesitant days the big lend-lease program that was to mark the future had not yet been visualized. We who did serve in the strange and sometimes forbidding city were forced by circumstance to be a closely knit group, because at that time Kabul provided positively nothing for foreigners: no hotels that we could use, no cinema of any kind, no newspapers, no radio with European programs, no restaurants available to visitors, no theaters, no cafés, no magazines. No public meetings were allowed, nor were we permitted any kind of normal social life with our Afghan hosts, for this was prohibited by the Afghans. We were thus driven in upon ourselves and if we wanted entertainment or social life we had to provide it ourselves, looking principally to the personnel attached to the English, French, Italian, Turkish and American embassies. At the end of a long, confining winter during which the city was snowbound, we searched hungrily for any diversion and were delighted when the people at the English embassy, always the most inventive where living overseas was concerned, came up with the idea of reading plays aloud before informal audiences.
Therefore, when I got back to my office in the two-story white building which served as our embassy, I was not surprised to find our pool secretary, Miss Maxwell of Omaha, typing furiously and somewhat irritated when I asked for the well-thumbed papers on the saddle shoes.
“They’re over there,” she snapped without looking up.
“Could you get them?” I asked.
“Please, Mr. Miller,” she protested. “I’m just finishing the play for tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, finding the papers for myself.
“The reading’s tonight,” she explained, “and I’m responsible for all of Act Three. The British girls are doing Act One, which is the longest, and one of the Italian girls is typing Act Two. She’s finished. I guess they never do any work at the Italian embassy,” she sighed.
“You go ahead,” I said consolingly, and I noticed that she had in her machine not only the original copy but seven carbons as well. “See that I get one of the first three,” I cautioned. “I can’t read those last carbons.”
“On my machine they’re all right,” Miss Maxwell assured me. “It’s the Italian typewriters that won’t strike off seven copies.” I noticed that Miss Maxwell was using a German machine, and it did make seven usable copies.
I took the saddle-shoe papers to my inner office and started to leaf through them, but the top page arrested me, for it said briefly, “Afghan agents have warned us that if the Marines continue to molest the saddle shoes, there will be a murder in the bazaar.” This moved the whole matter up several notches in gravity, so I asked Miss Maxwell to summon my Afghan aide, Nur Muhammad, who came quietly into the room.
He was a good-looking, lithe young man of thirty-two, dressed in a western-style blue suit which fitted badly. He had black hair, dark skin, deep-set eyes, a big Afghan nose and extremely white teeth, which he showed rarely. He was a moody, sensitive person who during the two years he had worked at the American embassy had taught himself to speak English. It was generally known that he was in the employ of the Afghanistan government.
“Sit down, Nur,” I said. With grave attention to protocol he sat in the chair I indicated, smoothed his trousers, then folded his hands in his lap.
“Yes, Sahib?” he said with a deft combination of willingness to help and studiousness not to appear too eager.
“It’s about the saddle shoes,” I began, and Nur Muhammad relaxed. “You’ve heard about the latest intelligence?” I continued.
Nur Muhammad betrayed nothing. He was far too smart to be trapped into admitting that he knew anything.
He insisted that I speak first. Then he would react to what I had said. “What intelligence?” he asked blandly.
I opened the manila folder on the case and looked at the ominous report. “Some of your people have warned us that if the Marines continue to … Well, they say molest. Nur Muhammad, do you think our Marines have molested anyone?”
Before Nur could reply my door was opened by a handsome young American Marine who had won battle stars on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima and who now enjoyed, as his reward, an easy job as one of our two military guards in the embassy. He stepped in smartly, handed me some papers, turned professionally, and disappeared. His uniform, I remember, was immaculate and his shoes were shined.
When he was gone Nur Muhammad replied cautiously, “I wouldn’t say by your standards the young men have molested. But Ramadan is approaching. The mullahs gain more voice each day. It is they who believe there has been molestation and if they believe this, Mr. Miller …”
I showed him the report. At the suggestion of murder he drew in his breath.
“Yes,” I said. “Murder.” Nur Muhammad carefully replaced the paper, then straightened his trousers once more.
“I would not ignore the mullahs,” Nur Muhammad warned. “You see, as Ramadan approaches they wish to reinforce their power. To remind us of that power.”
“Suppose these suspicions continued? Suppose the Marine you just saw did … well … molest?” I added quickly, “You understand, I’m not for one minute granting that any Marine did molest.”
“You made your position clear on that point,” Nur Muhammad agreed effusively.
“But suppose the mullahs thought otherwise? Whom would they murder?”
Without a moment’s reflection Nur replied, “The saddle shoes, of course.”
“The saddle shoes!” I gasped.
“Of course. I must explain, Miller Sahib. In the past the mullahs loved to murder the ferangi, but whenever they murdered a ferangi it caused much trouble for Afghanistan. So they’ve had to quit.”