by Jamil Ahmad
During this time, three more kirris had reached Fort Sandeman, and all around the settlement there was a girdle of camel herds and flocks of sheep. Dawa Khan was growing restive. With the increase in the number of animals, the grazing was depleting very fast, and already there had been occasional flashes of temper when the herds of one kirri encroached on the rights of another.
The message sent by the General reached Fort Sandeman late in the evening. A dusty old man, wheezing with asthma, brought it, descending from a ramshackle bus while people rushed off to fetch Dawa Khan. When Dawa Khan arrived, the messenger passed on the communication hurriedly, as the bus was waiting for him and the driver was blowing the horn impatiently.
After the bus left, the men started walking back to the encampment. Torak broke the silence: “Did you notice one thing, Dawa Khan? The General has sent no clear directions and no advice.”
“We all did,” replied Dawa Khan quietly. “He has left it to us to decide what to do. It is for us to make up our minds.”
“It is not like him to act thus,” Torak insisted. “The General has always made the decision.”
“I know, I know,” Dawa Khan soothed him. “But this time he wants us to decide. Let us not pass our own burden on to someone else. Let us decide for ourselves. We shall meet after the evening meal.”
When they assembled after the evening had turned into night, Dawa Khan told the men about the news he had received from the General’s messenger. “The General has sent no word beyond what I have told you. He has sent no instructions and no advice, and he clearly wishes we make a decision ourselves. The decision is not an easy one, but decide we must, as we have overstayed our welcome in this town and the grass is giving out. We have to move, whether it be forward or backward. If we move back toward Afghanistan, we will be wandering aimlessly until the winter is over and the snow melts in our highlands. These winter months will be bitter for us and our herds. We will not earn anything, either through trade or labor, and our animals will have to go hungry, as they shall be denied the pastures in the plains.
“Then there will be those among us who will argue that we have traveled far and it should not be without purpose. They will say to themselves that the plains are only a short distance away, and once we, our herds of camels, and our flocks of sheep move into the plains, we can scatter and no one can round us all up and take us back. If we manage to do this, they will also think we will be able to pass one year, and who knows what might happen the next year. To them I will only say that we must think carefully. Our journey from now on will not be carefree and easy, like a farmer wandering in his fields or like an eagle wheeling in the sky. From now on, all eyes will be on us, and we shall be like a thief running in a city street with a mob after us. He cannot hide himself, because on either side of him are brick walls or closed doors. In such a case, friends, if the poor thief finds a brick wall standing in front of him, he dies. The mob kills him. This is the situation. Between us and the plains are two forts. They shall be waiting for us. They must have clear orders by now, and it shall be their business to stop us. What say you?”
There were indeed two options, but to the men sitting huddled together with the firelight flickering across their faces, the first option did not exist. Hope does not die like an animal—quick and sudden. It is more like a plant, which slowly withers away. There was no voice raised in favor of the first choice. If there was anyone who had doubts, he kept them to himself. So it was decided to move forward.
The next morning the caravan ostensibly turned back, on the road toward Afghanistan.
Then, a few miles outside the town, they wheeled back toward the route leading to the plains in Pakistan. The maneuver seemed to work, because they were not pursued. After two days of traveling, while still short of the first military fort, they found a line of soldiers drawn up in front of them, blocking their path.
“You cannot cross,” the soldiers told them. “We have our orders.”
“What happens if we try?” asked the Powindas.
“We have been told to shoot, if necessary. The orders are very clear,” said the subedar in charge dole-fully. “Don’t make it difficult for us.”
“It is difficult for us, too,” remarked Dawa Khan.
“Our animals have been without water for more than two days, and they will not last if we turn them back now. Let us water them at the springs near the next army fort, and then we shall turn them back.”
“I cannot let you do that,” said the subedar. “I have to do as I am told.”
“But our animals will die without water. You don’t want to kill them.”
“I tell you I have no choice. I cannot let you pass.”
“All right,” said Dawa Khan. “We have heard you, and you have heard us. We shall camp here for the night.”
That night the caravan rushed past the fort. The officer in charge was dismissed through a wireless message the very next day. There was now only one fort left between the Powindas and the plains, if only they could cross it. Dawa Khan’s leading kirri reached the fort before first light, but the soldiers were ready for them. The moment they heard the movement of the herds, they started firing star shells.
A voice from an amplifier announced, “This is a warning. Turn back. Move forward at your own risk.”
“All right, all right,” Dawa Khan shouted back through cupped hands. “Let us water our animals and we will turn back.”
“Oh, no, you shall not!” returned the amplifier. “We will not be taken in by your tricks.”
“We shall turn back. I promise you,” shouted Dawa Khan. “Our camels should not die without water.”
“You cannot move forward. If you do, we fire. Understand that clearly,” roared back the amplifier.
The women had been listening to this exchange between their men and the soldiers. Gul Jana called out to her husband, “Dawa Khan, I am going forward. The camels must not die. I am going with a Koran on my head. Nothing can happen to me.” She separated about two scores of camels and, with Dawa Khan walking beside her, started herding the animals forward. They had hardly gone fifty yards when two machine guns opened up from either side and mowed down the camels. The firing was indiscriminate. Men, women, and children died. Gul Jana’s belief that the Koran would prevent tragedy died, too. Dawa Khan fell dead in the raking fire.
The Powindas made two more attempts, and more camels died each time. After the third try, the Powindas started their trudge back. By the time they reached Fort Sandeman, hundreds of dead camels and sheep had fallen by the wayside. By the time they reached the border, most of the animals of the three kirris were dead.
They say that the soldiers from the forts had to move out two days after the Powindas departed. The stench from the dead animals was so terrible that it was driving the soldiers mad. They also say that while the camel bones and skulls have been bleached white with time, the shale gorge still reeks of death.
As the General and his son started their journey northward, the air was thick with rumors. They followed them everywhere. Whether on roads, or in villages and hamlets, or in crowded city bazaars, there was no escape.
“The Nasirs have been mauled at Khojak Pass, disarmed, and pushed back,” whispered a camel trader at Pishin.
“The Dottanis almost reached the plains but were rounded up before they could scatter,” claimed a traveling well digger near Gulistan. “Their leaders have been jailed. If this is not true, my wife be considered divorced from me.” He picked up three pebbles and ritually dropped them one by one on the ground, signifying the divorce, and walked away. Rumors buzzed, but the father and son walked on. They spoke to each other only about normal, ordinary things.
“Will you eat?”
“Shall we rest?”
“Hamidzai Lora is in flood.”
“Hailstorms will destroy the poppy crop this year.”
“Prices of wool are higher this season.”
It was when they had finished eating their evening meal
and Naim Khan was getting up to wash the dishes that his father halted him peremptorily. Naim Khan sat down again and waited for his father to speak. “Tell me,” asked the General, “when we breasted our way through the news and rumors, why did you not say to me such rumor is wrong and such rumor may not be right?”
“Because you are the General. The judgments are yours. You need no protection. You provide protection to all.”
Karim Khan looked steadily at his son and then smiled affectionately. “Yes, you did not fail me, nor will our people. There are a hundred and one ways open to a man if he has the will to move.”
The General mused for a while before he spoke again. “Remember, once when you were a lad of only five summers, that I took you to meet Painda Khan, the old man of the Kharots who had crossed his hundred summers? And you sat in the old man’s lap and asked him, how can a person become so old?”
Naim Khan nodded silently.
The General’s voice rolled on: “Remember what the old man said? His face brimmed with laughter as he turned to you and answered in a serious manner. ‘The secret is raw onions. I eat raw onions and I survive.’ And then, over your head, his eyes met mine and we understood each other. What he told you that day was the secret of life itself. One lives and survives only if one has the ability to swallow and digest bitter and unpalatable things. We, you and I, and our people shall live because there are only a few among us who do not love raw onions.”
It was not many days after this incident that Ghuncha Gul called the boy and the mullah to his room in the fort. “I am leaving,” he told them. “I have been relieved of my duties here, and I am going back to my village. I have to start living my life again with my family. There will not be room in my life for an adopted son.”
The boy gazed back steadily at the old subedar, who had been his protector since his companions were executed. The mullah spoke up: “I have looked after this boy for some time now, and I have found in him an intelligence I have rarely seen, and I like him. He can come with me if he so pleases. Where God in his bounty provides food for one person, He shall surely provide for two.”
“Are you leaving, too, Mullah Barrerai?” inquired Ghuncha Gul.
“Yes, I am off on my wanderings again. I have stayed long enough at this place. Do not worry about this boy. His fortune will provide for him what is writ. You can go back to your village unburdened with an adopted son.”
The mullah turned to the boy and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Come with me. Pack your things, we leave in a few hours.”
The boy started to follow the mullah but then turned around and looked back at Ghuncha Gul. As their eyes met, he gave a brave smile. “Good-bye, Subedar,” he said. “May you have all the good fortune in your village.”
“God protect you,” responded Ghuncha Gul, and he noticed that the boy did not address him as “Father,” as he had always done. In less than an hour, the mullah left the fort with the boy walking beside him and the little puppy, who had been with his new owner less than a month, trotting behind.
The subedar stood in the shadows behind one of the embrasures and watched them until they disappeared from view. He was dismayed to see that the boy and the mullah seemed to be in good spirits. They were chattering continuously, and not once did the boy look back, not even for a last glance at the fort where he had spent two years of his life. Such is gratitude, Ghuncha Gul thought.
Boy,” the mullah asked, as they were leaving the fort, “how old would you be?”
“By my reckoning, I should be seven years old.”
“Ah,” remarked the mullah, “this is truly wonderful. Today is the seventh day of the seventh month in our calendar, and you are seven years old. Do you not know that seven is a holy number? There are seven days in a week. There are seven skies. Indeed, there are seven veils between man and God, as also between man and himself.”
“I know not this,” came the confused reply.
“You are ignorant in some ways. Yes, it is so. Know this. Must I also tell you that today one of those veils has been lifted? As each is drawn away, you shall move closer to knowing yourself.”
“I know not these things,” cried the boy in a worried voice.
“I shall teach you such things and many more,” promised the mullah. Thus absorbed in the conversation, the two rounded a bend in the ravine and went out of view of the old subedar.
Four
THE MULLAH
The drums started beating in a Bhittani village late one evening. Their booming notes could be heard throughout the night, rolling over the hills, with intermittent periods of rest to enable the drumbeaters to rebuild their rhythm and energy. As the somber thudding beat of the drums permeated the airless mud houses and hill caves where the families of the tribe lived, the men shook themselves awake, grabbed their weapons, and hurried out into the night, toward the source of the sound. In some cases it was the women who woke first, and it was they who shook the sleeping men, angrily admonishing them for their tardiness, and sped them on their way.
The drums signaled danger to the tribe. One man from every household in the vicinity had to respond to the call, armed and ready to fight. By the morning light, about three scores of men—the entire armed strength of the nearest three valleys—had gathered at the village. The Bhittani chigha, the fighting men, had collected.
The men were acquainted with the reason for the summons as soon as they arrived. A boy who had been sent out to graze his flock had not returned. His relatives had searched for him, but though they had found the animals wandering around, there was no sign of the boy.
The chigha started its search shortly after dawn. They scoured the hills, the dry, rocky ravines, and the gulches. Of the leading group, one was an adept tracker, but the hard, gritty soil gave him no assistance. The spoor of the boy had faded out soon after they reached the spot where his grazing animals had been found.
It was mid-afternoon, when some of the party were already thinking of resting for a while, that the discovery was made. In one of the blind ravines, half surrounded by thorn scrub, a bareheaded, bearded man was sitting on a flat slab of rock. The disemboweled body of the missing boy was stretched in front of him, while another, still alive, was bound to a tree with the man’s turban a short distance away.
The man made no attempt to run as the party approached him. He remained sitting calmly on the rock. There was a glaze of madness in his eyes, and he continued running his fingers through his beard and smiled, although dozens of voices were shouting questions at him. After a while it was clear that the man—whoever he was—had lost his sanity and no longer saw or heard anything.
The relations of the dead boy shot the man in their rage, though once they had done so, they felt terribly afraid. It was believed that madness signified closeness to God, and anyone harming a mad person was inviting His wrath. They then freed the other boy, who had remained bound to the tree while all this was going on. He was young, hardly twelve or thirteen years old, and he wore a small silver amulet on a string around his neck. They assumed that he was another prospective victim of the madman. The boy spoke and understood their language, but his accent was strange and puzzling to them, and they could not place his tribe. Nor could the boy tell them where he had come from so that he could be returned to his parents.
They took back the body of the dead victim, as well as the other boy. The body of the bearded madman was left lying at the spot, hurriedly covered with stones and boulders. The parents of the dead Bhittani boy accepted the newcomer into their family. They gave him the name that their son had borne, Tor Baz—the black falcon.
While he did not tell them anything about himself, he did tell them the dead man’s name.
“He was called Mullah Barrerai,” the boy whispered one day to his adopted mother.
“Mullah Barrerai.” Her voice sounded puzzled. Then a half-forgotten memory struggled to the surface, and she suddenly started shaking with suppressed excitement. She scuttled to the opening of the cave
and called out loudly to her husband, “Tor Baz says that the man you killed was Mullah Barrerai. Barrerai the Accursed, Barrerai the Devil!”
The man rushed into the hut and caught the boy’s shoulder. “Are you sure?” he asked frantically. “Tell us more. Did he say anything to you about his gold? Tell us all you know about him. Did he talk about the past to you, the evil old man?”
Bewilderment showed on the boy’s face. “He spoke of no gold. He spoke of the past, and he was not an evil man. Do not revile him, for he looked after me when I was left with no one. Then the madness struck him. Gold and money meant nothing to him.”
“Ha,” scorned the woman. “Tor Baz, you do not know the mullah. He was the devil incarnate. His greed is a byword among the tribes. He stole our gold. Truly, he cast a spell on you.”
“No,” insisted the boy firmly. “I knew all there was to know. The mullah was not an evil man. May God forgive you for the injustice you do to him.”
Tor Baz lived with the Bhittanis for about two years. One day, his foster father again pressed him hard to reveal his tribe. He remained stubbornly silent. The next day, he disappeared.
Strangely enough, while no one expressed any interest in the living boy, the dead mullah was not forgotten. Long after his death, strangers would visit the Bhittanis to question them about the circumstances of his death. There was also an old Scouts officer who a few months later prepared a proper grave for him. He would visit the grave regularly every year after that, standing for a while and going away without speaking to anyone.
At first the Bhittanis scarcely paid this visit any more attention than they did to the others. But after a few years, when his visits did not cease, their curiosity got the better of them. One year, the Bhittani headman could not restrain himself and accosted the visitor as he was leaving the grave after saying his prayers.
