The Miracle of Yousef: Historical and political thriller

by Gonçalo Coelho

  “You must do something, Yousef, but you must act on your own recognizance and at your own risk. I will not be able to defend you, and it is best if I do not even know of your actions. But go now and act. Act quickly.”

  6

  One day, Nasser (for that was the name of the traveling companion with whom Yousef had struck up a conversation on the journey from Peshawar to the Jaji encampment) went looking for Yousef when he had gone off by himself for a spell lost in thought. He found him sitting on a rock in reflection, surrounded by the harsh, pale and rugged mountains. The very bright sun seemed to have laid a giant white tin sheet on all the colors of the landscape, turning pale even the tiniest specks of dust borne on the breeze. The Pashtun tribal areas, the little village of Jaji in the vicinity, the muhajeddin, and the other Afghans and Soviets all seemed to lie scattered by the mountains.

  “Is everything all right with you?” asked Nasser, gauging Yousef’s reaction, his sharp eyes alert. “If you are praying I won’t interrupt you.”

  “No, you’re not interrupting me. I’m just reflecting.”

  “It’s important to reflect. I see that you reflect a lot, and you’re probably very good at it. It’s hard to subdue this yearning to see some action, don’t you think? We came here to fight, after all, and apart from being made ridiculous by the lack of any real action, we still haven’t done anything worth mentioning.

  “That’s not what’s bothering me. I know that our path is the right one. The little things don’t bother me.”

  “You think our joining this fight on behalf of our Afghan brothers is a little thing?

  “I just think of this war as a little jihad, a very little part of something infinitely greater, the big jihad. I know that’s where the power comes from that will carry us to certain and incontestable victory, regardless of our death. And indeed our death, when it comes, will be a glorious honor, divine and irreplaceable in the life of a man.

  “So that’s what you’re reflecting on?”

  “No. It’s the desperation to get into combat immediately that’s worrying me. This generalized impatience.”

  “You know, I realize this isn’t true, but...” Nasser sat down beside Yousef. At the high point where they sat they could see a great distance to the horizon, across an inhospitable landscape over harsh mountains sprinkled with a few shrubs and stubborn cedars and pines that endured the fierce winters as well as the stifling summers. It was the perfect spot for thoughts to disperse and unfold freely, arising from the depths of abstraction. “…some people say that you are afraid.”

  Yousef kept his eyes locked on the horizon, not betraying the slightest reaction. He neither confirmed nor denied Nasser’s words cast to the wind, thereby reinforcing his indifference.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. A lot of people here can only see what’s right in front of their nose.”

  “That’s certainly true.”

  A short silence followed. Only the wind could be heard.

  “Is that why you withdraw from them?” Nasser replied.

  Once again silence and no answer.

  “It’s something else that’s bothering you, then... Does it have to do with Bin Laden’s absence? Or your conversations with Sheik Omar? Everyone here knows how he trusts you, how openly he behaves with you as if you were his protégé. I noticed yesterday you went off with him on the mountain to talk alone. He always shows himself to be a good leader, but that’s not an honor he grants to any of us.”

  “He’s not just a good leader, he’s the best we could possibly have! And he needs help. Bin Laden also needs help. The Egyptians surround him on all sides. They realize he’s powerful and they want him on their side as a trump card to promote their own objectives. And everyone else wants to seize the opportunity to go into combat now that he’s away, against his express orders that there are not to be any military engagements in his absence, just to show that they are brave and willing to suffer martyrdom at any time. Sheik Tameem as well, though at least he is open, and I know he is a good man at heart and full of faith. He just wants his martyrdom. But in the coming days I know he is going to keep insisting on launching an assault on the enemy for its own sake. He has already convinced a group of men to go along on a foray without Bin Laden’s consent, and the Egyptians may end up going along as well.”

  “Is that what your talk with Sheik Omar was about?”

  “I have a special regard for you, but do not press the point. I cannot reveal to you what we talked about.”

  “Of course. Forgive me if I spoke out of turn.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “So what’s worrying you is the mission you’ve been entrusted with. You needn’t confirm or deny it for me. You can trust me.”

  “I’m not here to selfishly march off to an honorable martyrdom. That does not serve our cause or the Afghan people or Allah. The only thing that serves our cause is the war that can be waged in the name of all Islam, the true, smashing victory over the communist infidels and the imposition of the purest Sharia from the very origins of Islam on one united Arab world. And building that starts right here in Afghanistan! Here the united Arab world will show its strength to the great Soviet bear! That’s what we’re here to do.”

  “You’re right. Tell me what must be done.”

  “You must listen to the Egyptians as much as possible. Try to find out what they’re planning.”

  “And Sheik Tameem?”

  “We don’t have to worry about him.”

  “I’ll stay alert.”

  Nasser took some dried fruit from his pocket and shared it with Yousef. They continued talking until nightfall.

  7

  Sheik Tameem managed to round up about a dozen men to attack the Soviets. The Egyptian who had been temporarily entrusted with the military command of the group at first resisted, but ended up giving his endorsement to Sheik Tameem’s initiative, which consisted of an attack on a nearby Soviet outpost. The moment he found out about this, Nasser told Yousef, who confided to him his firm intention to go on foot to Jaji in order to find some way to get in touch with Bin Laden and let him know what was going on in his absence. Yousef categorically refused to let Nasser accompany him.

  “It’s much too big a risk for you. They’ll think that you’re deserting, just like me, which could prove to be a very dangerous game. They’ll say that you’re a coward, just as some of them are already saying about me. I know very well that they are beginning to suspect me, and I don’t want to put you in that position. At this point there’s nothing Sheik Omar can do for me ... or for you if you don’t listen to me and insist on coming with me.”

  “I don’t care. I’m sick of being stuck here in this encampment doing nothing. And to hell with whatever they may think of me!”

  Faced with Nasser’s unyielding insistence, Yousef relented, and that night the two of them went down through the mountains and hiked several kilometers to Jaji. As they made their way through the rocks along trails they could barely make out in the dark, it seemed that all the eyes of the night were following and judging them. There were a number of missteps, a foot going in the wrong place here and there, several night noises that startled and spooked them, but nothing that could make them turn back. At last they reached the outskirts of the tiny village of Jaji, and at this point decided to wait for the sun to come up. They found shelter in a solitary granary and settled in to wait.

  “You can get some sleep while I stay on guard,” Yousef suggested.

  “I’m not sleepy. You can get some sleep, if you like.”

  “I’m not sleepy either. It’s best to keep in mind that when we get back to the encampment we’ll have to keep our eyes wide open, since they’ll be suspicious of our every move.”

  “I’m not worried. What we’re doing is more important,” Nasser replied. “The group as a whole and its purpose cannot be placed at risk because of the selfishness and heedlessness of a few.”

  “Did you come here directly from Saudi Ara
bia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you studying?”

  “I was going to go to university.”

  “So you abandoned university and your family, just like me.”

  “More or less.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mother had already died. In any case, I was not my father’s favorite, he’s got three other wives. My closest brothers are all married already and they are all quite a bit older than I am, so I never had much to do with them.”

  “Don’t you have anyone you feel, let’s say, closer to?”

  “The person I feel closest to is my sister, and I help to provide for her. I send her what money I can, because, with my mother dead, my sister, being a woman and way too proud and temperamental for her own good, is looked upon by everyone as an enormous burden, as you can imagine. If she were a man things would certainly be different. In any case, to me she is the most admirable woman I know, and I want to help her finish university. She’s very intelligent but she’s always getting into trouble with my brothers and my father because of her rebellious spirit. So they have a very bad opinion of her and are always having to punish her.”

  “I understand. That’s how it is with women.”

  “Yes, but my sister isn’t just any woman.”

  “And if you should happen to die in combat, which is quite likely, what becomes of her?”

  “It looks pretty bad. She’ll be even more dependent on my father and my brothers, which will be awful for her. As I told you, they’re always punishing her, and all the more harshly because of her disrespect. If it were up to them, she’d never set foot on a university campus.”

  “She must be worried about you.”

  “She has no idea that I’ve gone off to war. I never told her. I don’t want to worry her unnecessarily, besides which, why should a woman know about these things, even if she is my sister?”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  They went on talking a while longer until the pale light of dawn began to spread through the barn, showing them it was time to act. Surely they would find some way to get through. Before leaving the barn, Nasser called Yousef and took a picture out of his pocket, which he unfolded and showed to him. The picture had deep creases in it, indicating it must always be folded up in Nasser’s pocket.

  “This is my sister,” he said.

  In the foreground the photo showed the pretty face of a girl of pale complexion with enigmatic eyes of a grayish blue, sparkling like the eyes of a cat. The black hair that fell to her shoulders shone in the sunlight. Her nose and lips were traced in fine careful brush strokes. The expression on her face, however, was grave and unsmiling. Yousef perceived immediately what had happened.

  “This picture was taken without anyone else knowing, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, you can tell, can’t you. But I don’t care. It’s the only picture ever taken of her without a veil. Perhaps the only one that anyone will ever take. My father demands more of her than of any of his other daughters, precisely because she is such a rebel. He almost always scolds her twice as much. He would never let her have her picture taken without her veil. I took it secretly with a friend’s camera.”

  “It turned out very well.”

  “That’s just what I said to her, but she thinks she’s too serious. She said that one day she’d really like to see her picture, with no veil and a lovely, untroubled smile on her lips, displayed on an ID card. It saddens her that she’s never registered for one, as men do. One day she repeated to me a thought she had read somewhere that she said captured perfectly the way she sees things: since women are never registered in Saudi Arabia from the time they’re born to when they die, it’s as though they never existed, and never died. And since she doesn’t exist, she says that one day she’ll flee the country and no one will ever find her. In her saddest moments, she says that her greatest dream is to be able to die so she can be born again anywhere in the world but not in that city, in that house, in that family. Anyway…that’s my sister. Now you know a little bit about her.”

  “She has dangerous thoughts. Above all, dangerous for her. She shouldn’t waste time thinking these things. It would be better for her.”

  “I tell her the same thing, but I’m very fond of her, and since I know she needs a lot of protection, precisely because she is the way she is, I help her anyway I can.”

  “Is she older than you?”

  “Just one year.” Nasser gazed tenderly at the picture, kissed it and put it away. “What about your family?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it. I won’t and can’t live my life based on them. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to talk so much about what we left behind in Saudi Arabia, considering our circumstances.”

  “You’re right. I won’t talk about it anymore. It’s already daybreak. Let’s do what we came to do.”

  Yousef looked at him and undertook to set things right.

  “Forgive me for speaking so harshly. I don’t have a sister who makes me feel what you feel, and as for my family, it doesn’t bother me to leave them behind. I know that what I’m doing is the most important thing, and that’s enough for me. Now let’s try to find some way to do what we came here to do.”

  8

  Sheik Tameem started down the mountain on horseback escorted by his entourage, en route to a confrontation with the enemy at a forward Soviet outpost a few kilometers away. He was drawing closer to the planned assault as well as the martyrdom he so longed-for. Each meter traversed could be interpreted both as one meter less in the distance to the enemy outpost, as well as one meter less towards the paradise located on the far side of death, according to the beliefs of this group of men. Perhaps the image of Sheik Tameem’s father, a famous Palestinian poet, passed through his mind, perhaps certain stray words from his poems, memories of the days when his father insisted to the young Tameem, starting at the age of fifteen or sixteen years, to wear his beard long against his will, or his scorn for the nationalism and socialism in vogue in Jerusalem, since in his view there was never any place for any of that in Islam. Both Tameem as well as the other Arab warriors going down the mountain now were bound to follow the overwhelming pull of their religious and metaphysical convictions, deeply ingrained in their spirits, of the sort that men concoct in the antechambers of the imagination and the subconscious (which do not prevent fear but bring a flood of courage), inasmuch as they are the most fervent convictions that men can harbor in their souls, the product of a process of transformation of reality in the mind that can project its result into our thinking in such an intense and forceful fashion that it blinds us and completely covers over the naked, raw reality that lies before our eyes. This mental product is nothing more than reality transfigured by interpretations, fears, yearnings, passions, hatreds and the like. Reality, moreover, whether physical or abstract, always emerges from nothing more or less than our thoughts, through which it must always pass, and is thus always susceptible to the mind’s filterings and transfigurations, as well as our very notion of ourselves, leaving us with the task of supervising this process, and so giving birth to that which is our own reality.

  As they went down the mountain, Sheik Tameem and his followers were inevitably focused on the approaching combat, mingling this with the powerful state of the spirit born of their fervent faith, and in this state of mind, they must have felt a fierce tug deep inside when the gruff voice of their interim military commander erupted from the walkie-talkie, which must have sounded like the buzz of some bothersome insect, followed by its sting. Nervously, the Egyptian commander stated that Bin Laden had just returned to the encampment and ordered Sheik Tameem to fall back immediately. The Sheik resisted. He felt with total certainty closer than ever to the paradise on the far side of life. It would be terribly painful for him to fall back. He argued as vehemently as he could. But the order was unshakeable, and the Sheik and his men had no choice but to fall back. They turned around and went back up the mountain, carrying
the weight of their weapons of mediocre range and power. A hawk or vulture passing by would see a cluster of some dozen men lazily turning around and climbing back up all the way that they had just come down minutes earlier, without any of these contrary movements providing any visible indication of anything other than sheer physical exhaustion. So it is with people. To accomplish an advance, usually several retreats are necessary, even when the objective is to reach the highly uncertain paradise that abides after death – uncertain since, to this day (and perhaps forever), we have no solid knowledge of what abides on the far side of life. Any sort of pessimism or optimism with regard to death must be uncertain at the very least, and completely open to question. While it is certain that it will come, it is also certain that it will always be for us, the living, an undiscovered country, just like the Americas were for Europeans prior to the discoveries. Anyone of us can honestly say that it’s all or nothing, or even both at the same time, which, all things considered, isn’t half bad, since it’s always good to hold in reserve one final undiscovered country to be discovered and tamed at the end of all of life’s experiences.