On December 21, 1975, the German shepherd entered Mexico. She arrived in Mexico City and became a dog of the twentieth parallel north. Yes, her: Goodnight.
Finally she had left that enormous space called “America.”
Two months and ten days had passed since she had stopped being a dog of the twenty-first parallel north.
And then there was the other dog, Cabron’s child, who had also returned alive to Mexico City. Yes, Guitar.
Guitar knew. He understood that Goodnight was his second mother.
And the Hellhound knew. He understood that he should keep the two dogs together, treat them as mother and son.
Guitar had lost his true mother, lost his father, and acquired a second mother. There on a roadside on Tutuila Island he had regressed into an infantile state, lost all memory of his first six months. He believed his second mother had suckled him, and she, too, believed that he was her true child, the true fruit of her womb. It had seemed unlikely, given the shocks Guitar had endured—two sudden deaths in just six months—that the profound psychological wounds he had suffered would ever heal, but they did. The love of mother number two, pure and overflowing, enabled him to forget those two traumas. Two minus two equals zero. At the same time, Guitar never did forget the special ability he had learned. That ability, that power, had been pounded into him, and he clung to it. It was his father who taught him that, his father Cabron—no longer of this world, no longer present even in Guitar’s memory—who had himself acquired the ability as a sort of trick only because of his fixation on a certain bitch. The bitch, a Labrador retriever who belonged to the Mexican Federal Police, and whose talents as a drug-sniffing dog were without peer. How sad to think of that poor bitch, her life snuffed out on the first Sabbath of August 1975, then erased as well from Guitar’s memory. And yet that power of hers lived on.
Guitar didn’t just keep this power, he honed it. There was no surprise in that. All sorts of drugs—marijuana, heroine, cocaine, speed, and various new products—were constantly being carted into the estate and then whisked back out. Guitar smelled them all as a matter of course. And identified them. Because the custom was the same at home: Guitar would smell the drugs, tell the pure from the impure, and when he was right his master would praise him.
His master. The Hellhound.
So Guitar became two. The Hellhound’s second alter ego. Cabron’s son, a drug-sniffing dog like his father. His talent in this department was an undeniable sign of his twoness. And as it happened, two was better than one—in very little time, he had surpassed his father. Indeed, he even surpassed his true mother. 1976. Guitar was the Hellhound’s alter ego, and the Hellhound was Guitar’s alter ego.
The Hellhound’s business was growing. First, things started happening with his associates. The Asian organization, whose boss the younger of the Samoan twins was still serving as a “secretary,” was active across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Its operations were based in the so-called “Islamic world.” But of course not all Islamic countries were brothers. Far from it. Take Pakistan, for instance. Pakistan’s western border ran up against Afghanistan. The line had been drawn by the British in 1893, splitting the traditional homeland of the Pashtuns in two. The British had completely ignored the history and distribution of local ethnic groups. So Afghanistan insisted that the rest of the Pashtun area, in Pakistan, was really Afghan territory as well, and this led to all kinds of disputes. Pakistan was first established—after its independence from Britain—in 1947, and within two years the countries had broken off diplomatic relations. The fact that both nations were Islamic didn’t help anything. Something else thawed the ice, though: in 1973, Afghanistan ended its monarchy and emerged as the Republic of Afghanistan.
Early on, the new republic’s foreign policy aligned closely with the USS.R, but within two years it began drifting away. At the time the international situation was very complex. The Cold War, between the USSR and the US, was playing itself out. At the same time, relations had grown tense between the USSR and China. In 1969, these two states engaged in armed conflict. China and India were enemies. They fought in the Himalayas in 1962. India and Pakistan were in a state of constant tension, and in 1971 the third Indo-Pakistani War broke out, leading to Pakistan’s defeat—for the third time. Having India as a common enemy brought China and Pakistan together. Since Afghanistan had been moving toward the USSR, the US decided it would be good strategy to get in with Pakistan. Pakistan, which was now friendly with both China and the US, necessarily came to view the USSR as an enemy. Then, in 1976, as the Republic of Afghanistan distanced itself from the USSR, the president reached out to the prime minister of Pakistan to explore the possibility of improving relations. He ended the border dispute—the argument over the line dividing the Pashtuns’ lands, that is. From that point on, Afghanistan and Pakistan began having all sorts of interactions. The most visible were those between the president and the prime minister; the least visible were those related to the drug trade. Poppy fields and purification plants across Afghanistan were “opened” to the population east of the national border. All at once. Huge quantities of high-quality hashish started flooding across as well. Previously the largest drug-producing region in Asia had been the so-called Golden Triangle on the border of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. The situation was different now. The criminal center, as it were, had shifted from Southeast Asia to Central Asia. And the organization the Hellhound had become tied up with was getting in on the game. In 1976 alone, the traffic didn’t merely double—and even that would have been incredible—it quadrupled. Bam, just like that. And so, again, in 1976, Guitar was the Hellhound’s alter ego, and the Hellhound was Guitar’s alter ego.
Guitar checked twice as much drugs, four times as much drugs. He took all the experience he’d accumulated so far and multiplied it by two, then multiplied it by two again. He became the best drug-sniffing dog the world had ever known.
Then in 1977, the boss of the Asian organization suddenly passed away, and the Hellhound took over the organization’s territory. The younger of the two Samoan twins became his local representative—in essence, he had been promoted, becoming the organization’s next Muslim boss. And so the Hellhound had two Samoan right-hand men: one to the west and one to the east of the Pacific Ocean. Two places, two men. The Hellhound supervised the two regions with equal care. In that one year, he made more than ten trips among Mexico City, Karachi, and Islamabad.
As did his alter ego.
Guitar, that is, flying with his master.
You, Guitar.
ME?
That’s right—you turned one, and then two, and in 1978 you turned three, and in 1979 you turned four. Isn’t that right?
THAT’S RIGHT.
Your mother accompanied you on those trips across the Pacific, from that side to this side and back again. Your alter ego, the Hellhound, was a true dogman. He understood how your mother felt (he understood her feelings as a dog, as a dog who was also a mother), so he never separated you. The Hellhound, who was your alter ego and also your master, all but worshipped your mother, Goodnight. She was his Madonna. And so there you were. You and your mother, flying over the Pacific, from this side to that side and back again—and again, and again. Your mother told you, didn’t she? I KNOW THE SIZE OF THIS OCEAN, she said. I HAVE FELT THE TRUE IMMENSITY OF THIS OCEAN. She spoke the truth. In the entire history of the twentieth century, there was only one dog who, having survived an inconceivably hellish period adrift on its waters, ever grasped the vast reality of the Pacific Ocean itself.
Listen, Guitar, in all humility.
OF COURSE.
Do you promise?
Woof! you bark.
And so you and your mother became dogs of both sides of the Pacific. Your sense of smell, Guitar, and your ability to use it to sniff out and appraise drugs, grew more sensitive with every day you spent on the
front lines, where deals were struck and where the drugs were produced, and more sensitive with every year. In 1978, a coup d’état toppled the anti-Soviet Republic of Afghanistan and a new communist Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was created in its place. This political change did surprisingly little damage to your alter ego’s affairs. Why? Because the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan went overboard. For example, the previous flag had been heavy on green, the color of Islam, but now, all of a sudden, it was changed to a solid field of red, the symbol of communism. It was a bit too much. This “democratic republic” started oppressing antigovernment elements. Anticommunist members of the previous government, intellectuals, religious leaders—huge numbers were thrown in jail, executed. This was way too much. Armed rebellion broke out all over Afghanistan. The rebels declared that they were engaged in an Islamic jihad. They referred to themselves as mujahideen. Often these antigovernment organizations established their bases in neighboring countries…in Pakistan, say. And often they funded their activities with drug production and smuggling. As a result, from 1978 to 1979 your master doubled the quantity he trafficked once again. The mujahideen organizations began using him to funnel drugs from all over Afghanistan out of the country.
You gained twice as much experience as the year before. Two times two times two.
Day by day, month by month, the front lines, the territory where you worked, shifted further to the west, toward Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.
And at last, Guitar, we come to the fourth year. Exactly four years had passed. December 1979. Four years since you and Goodnight had become mother and child. You and your mother, and of course your alter ego, the Hellhound, and the alter ego of the Hellhound’s right-hand man in Mexico, the younger of the two Samoan twins, left the North-West Frontier Province to come even further west, to the FATA. To the region the Pashtuns administered themselves. You would never forget this land. You would never forget the FATA’s hilly terrain.
Because this was where your mother would die.
Goodnight.
Listen. Looking back, you can see how fickle your mother’s fate had been. In 1967, she had been denied the chance to go and fight on the battlefields of the Indochina peninsula with her brother DED. She played no role in the Vietnam War. Southeast Asia had nothing to do with her life. Now, in 1979, here you both were in Central Asia. You and your mother were standing in the Pashtuns’ traditional homeland. A line just like the one that had split Vietnam into North and South had divided the Pashtuns. You and your mother were on the front lines. Your mother was about to be swept up in the Afghan Wars.
To die in the Afghan Wars.
A little more Afghan political history. The few months leading up to December 1979. All of Afghanistan had plunged into civil war. The confusion the mujahideen had bred was exacerbated by power struggles within the communist government itself. The president placed great faith in the Soviet Union, but the second in command—the deputy prime minister—was more of a nationalist. A nationalist communist. He was focused on the potential negative effects of reforms carried out too suddenly and decided it would be advisable to loosen restrictions on religious freedom—restrictions, that is, that had been placed on Afghanistan’s traditional, local forms of Islam. Hoping to establish Afghanistan’s independence from the Soviet Union, he secretly initiated communications with the United States Embassy in Kabul. The president, working with members of the Soviet intelligence team, plotted to assassinate him. The plot was put in action on September 14, but the deputy prime minister struck back with help from the Afghan army and intelligence agency. The president was taken prisoner. On September 16, his resignation was announced, and the deputy prime minister became the president. A few days later, the former president was “taken care of.” And so the elimination of the pro-Soviet faction within the government began.
A purge.
Yet another purge.
And once again, adrift from the USSR.
Far from ending the civil war, this actually worsened it. December 1979. You, Guitar, were on the Pakistan side of the Pashtun homeland. You had come with your mother and your alter ego and your alter ego’s bodyguard’s alter ego. A first transaction took place, then a second. On December 25, the Soviet army moved south at a number of different points over the twelve-hundred-mile border with Afghanistan. It invaded Afghanistan’s territory. This was actually the start of the Afghan War, although it took some time for that information to radiate around the country. That same day, you participated in a third transaction. In the days leading up to the war, a few different mujahideen organizations had hosted your master. On December 27, Soviet special forces attacked the Tajbeg Presidential Palace in Kabul. The Afghan president was killed. The USSR immediately established a puppet government. It installed a new leader to replace the old one. On the afternoon of December 29, Kabul fell. Antigovernment forces had been laying their own plans since before the USSR began its “direct intervention,” and the Soviet occupation gave them, in effect, the go sign. At the same time, Guitar, you watched as your master entered into negotiations with a powerful commandant from a mujahideen group, a member of the Ghilzai tribe—also part of the Pashtun confederacy. That was a very busy day. The commandant kept getting calls on his radio. In the end, he and your master decided to arrange another meeting in a remote region even further west in the FATA, almost on the border with Afghanistan. There were four opium purification factories there, disguised as ordinary brick houses, belonging to the commandant. And so the next evening, that’s where you were. Your mother too. And your master—your alter ego. The Samoan had some business to take care of and hadn’t come. He had gone to a smuggling base near Peshawar the day before and would be joining up with you again the next day.
So the Hellhound, your master and alter ego, had no bodyguard.
And so it happened.
Go on, you tell it.
ME?
Sure.
I SAW IT.
You saw it?
I SAW IT. I SAW MY MOTHER DIE. SAW THAT VILLAGE ON THE BORDER BECOME THE PLACE WHERE MY MOTHER DIED. I SAW IT.
What did you see first?
A…CAR.
That’s right. It was a truck, actually, with a canvas tarp. It arrived that evening in the village near the western border of the FATA. That evening—the evening of December 30, 1979. The word TOYOTA was printed on the back. Not that you could read it.
I COULDN’T READ IT. BUT I HATED IT.
You hated the Toyota?
YES.
As well you should have. Because, Guitar, the man who would shoot your mother was soon to emerge from it. At first, everyone assumed it was just another transport truck. They thought it was one of theirs. As a matter of fact, the truck itself was being used by the commandant of the mujahideen organization your master was currently negotiating with. It was supposed to be full of freshly harvested poppy fruit and hashish. The commandant wanted to show your master, the Hellhound, what they could produce. You were going to be part of that scene too. You would smell the raw materials, then accompany them to the factory, where you would smell the finished products…
I NEVER GOT TO DO ANYTHING.
No, you didn’t.
PEOPLE JUMPED OUT OF THE TRUCK. THEY HAD GUNS.
Soviet-made guns. Kalashnikovs. About a dozen men leapt out of the canvas-covered back of the truck, each one carrying a Kalashnikov. They were Pashtuns, but they weren’t from this area. Neither were they part of the organization the commandant ran, with this village as one of his bases. They were Pashtuns in the Afghan army, obeying top-secret orders from the new government—a government that was, of course, no more than a Soviet puppet. The USSR believed it was essential to maintain stability in Afghanistan, now that it had taken control, and that meant thoroughly clamping down on the movements of all antigovernment forces. It meant crushing
the mujahideen. Crushing the jihad. They had a list. Twenty-three leading figures in four organizations were named. The third from the top was the commandant. The list included his true name and seven aliases.
SO THAT WAS IT?
That was it.
THAT’S WHY THEY CAME?
That’s why they came. And they came quickly. They had been ordered to execute their man before the new year. Ordered by the new government—by those who stood behind the new government. These Pashtuns, members of the Afghan government’s army, had formed an assassination squad, and then, on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, they had seized that Toyota you hated. And now here they were, in the village.
I SAW THEM. THEY HAD GUNS.
That’s right. And whom were they aiming them at? The commandant, standing dumbstruck, taken completely by surprise…yes, the commandant of the mujahideen organization. But not only him. Also your master.
AND ME.
And your mother.
YES! MY MOTHER! MY MOTHER!
And who protected the Hellhound at that crucial instant, in the absence of his bodyguard? Your mother. Who, if you could split that first second into a hundred fleeting snippets of time, was the first to respond to the eruption from the truck of that group armed with Kalashnikovs? Your mother. Goodnight. A bitch with an eight-year career as a military dog behind her, and actual battle experience. A dog who had successfully seen missions to a successful conclusion even as shells rained down around her. Yes, your mother—the German shepherd who was your mother—was quicker to see what was happening, moved faster than anyone into combat mode. Just as you could instantly distinguish all sorts of drugs by smelling them, so your mother instantaneously recognized the scent of war. No sooner had she detected it in the air than she was acting, reacting, pure reflex. Your mother gave no thought to her age. She threw herself courageously at those men, went on the attack. She leapt at the Kalashnikov group, one man after the other, to take them down. There were no rules. She made it up as she went along.
Belka, Why Don't You Bark? Page 27
