by Jamil Ahmad
“Since the idea was something entirely new to our people and I was not clear about how it would work, I sent frantic messages back, asking for more time to sort things out. The reply I received astonished me. I was told that the practicability of the idea should be assumed as sound, because it had originated from a man who lived in Germany and was himself an Afridi. The letter also told me who the Afridi was.”
Mehboob Khan looked at me. “It was your father, son. He had deserted from the British to the Germans during the war and was working for them. That was the only time I heard from him after we went our separate ways. I never saw him again, but seeing you has brought joy to me. Though I did not entirely believe in the scheme, I tried to see that it worked. I visited the leading mullahs and explained to them how the clans and the whole tribe needed to be organized if we were to resist the British in a better way than we had been doing in the past. After a lot of talking, we decided on a number of measures. They included electing a king for Tirah who would have his headquarters at Bagh, making people agree to providing the king with some funds. It was agreed that he would receive a pound of opium out of every fifty pounds sold in the area, and that a small select body would be created in every clan who would look after their particular standard, bring it out, and persuade people to rally around it. It took quite a few days to make all the decisions, but we were ready for the flags when they arrived at Bagh.
“The flags entered Tirah before the snow had started falling in the hills. They were accompanied by two foreigners, and the plan almost failed because of this foolhardiness. The British were waiting for this party. Their agents started heavy sniping as soon as the party entered our territory. We had to send the two foreigners back quickly, or the tribes would have risen against us for betraying our homeland to outsiders. As soon as the foreigners left, our people and the men who were siding with the British sat down to talk things out. Do you know who was leading the other side?” he asked me. I was not expected to reply, so I kept silent.
“It was Ghairat Gul, the man sitting next to you. He had me in real trouble then.”
Ghairat Gul gave a low laugh and cracked a few toe joints. He was enjoying the warmth of the fire.
“Those were frightening days for me,” Mehboob Khan continued reflectively. “I had to argue my case before the assembly of the tribes, while Ghairat Gul’s party argued theirs. I knew clearly that if I lost, not only would my reputation suffer, but I would be completely destroyed. I would have to leave my country and live as a lonely outcast wandering in the cities, cut off from my people. I had to keep desperation out of my countenance and to hide my turmoil from the world. I had to sit and laugh and talk, to combine the qualities of an orator—and a witty one at that—with that of a schemer. I had to move at night to win as many friends as I could who would listen to my side of the case the next day. And all this while, I had to slaughter lambs and throw feasts for the assemblage. The jirgas went on. One day, there would be a tilt in my favor. Next day, they would lean in favor of Ghairat Gul. My money was almost gone, and I dared not borrow from others.
“My luck seemed to have run out. However, the decision could not be put off much longer, because already the winter migration of our clan had been delayed and the women and children were feeling the bite of the cold.
“The jirga gave its decision suddenly one day, in my favor. Two things had swayed the assembly—the standards had verses from the Holy Koran inscribed upon them, and they could not be disgraced; and Ghairat Gul would not, in any case, lose face, because his party had already evicted the two foreigners by force from Tirah.”
The old man smiled. He looked at me and said, “It was Ghairat Gul himself who tried to bail me out this way. Do you know why he did it?”
“I cannot even guess,” I confessed.
“It is simple. Ghairat Gul did not wish that I be destroyed. His value to the British would have lasted only as long as I existed as a danger to them. Without me, even Ghairat Gul would have been reduced to an ordinary poor Afridi.
“It was a happy outcome for the both of us. The British were pleased with Ghairat Gul. The Germans and Turks with me. The tribes were also pleased, and took to the standards with enthusiasm. They were like children, and wanted to raise them for the simplest things. We had difficulty restraining them and telling them that the gathering of clans must not be treated as a light matter.
“After this, we had the happiest and the most joyful year of our lives. We had money, and we bought land—both Ghairat Gul and I. People talked about us with envy and respect, and children, as they grew, would dream about how they would grow up into another Ghairat Gul or another Mehboob Khan. Of course, all this changed years ago. When men started making fortunes through smuggling or through trading in opium and hashish, boys no longer dreamed about us. They hoped for different things.”
He turned to Ghairat Gul. “Do you know,” he asked, “our washerman, whose children used to run after scraps, his son is now the richest man in Tirah?”
“I know,” replied Ghairat Gul.
“His womenfolk refuse to do the waxwork on the dresses any longer, and they were the only ones who knew how it is done.”
Ghairat Gul continued: “Yes, those were good years. The British had won the war. Germany had lost, and Russia was on its knees. Once the British had no worries in their own areas, my work did not end. In fact, I became even busier, and at times had to wander outside the country, undertaking tasks which they set for me.”
Ghairat Gul got up and went to a corner, where some dried poppy stalks were lying in a bundle. He broke off a few pods and crushed them between the palms of his hands. They made a crackling sound. He rubbed the mixture between his hands and blew on it to separate the seeds from the shell and started eating them as he walked back to the cot. A couple of other men followed his example, and one of them brought me some seeds, too. I thanked him.
Ghairat Gul sat down and closed his eyes. “The food won’t be very long now,” said Mehboob Khan. Ghairat Gul opened his eyes and belched—a harsh, guttural belch. He kept staring at the fire and stirred it with the toe of his leather sandal, frowning all the while.
Over food, I asked Hamesh Gul if our program of going into Bagh tomorrow was finalized. “Yes, we will say our Friday prayers there and will also see the flags being raised.”
“Why are the flags being raised?” I asked.
“To decide the future of our schools.” He realized that I hadn’t understood him, and continued: “You see, our elders had approached the government, and on their request the government sanctioned a few schools for our area and engaged teachers to run them. Some feel that this amounts to a violation of our freedom and independence, and the tribes are to meet tomorrow to decide whether to keep the schools or do away with them.”
“Don’t you want schools?”
“I do not care one way or the other,” he replied. “I am too old to study, anyway, but I shall certainly enjoy being present when both sides argue.”
After dinner, Mehboob Khan rose. He looked Hamesh Gul straight in the face and said, “Do you know that if the elders had not asked for schools, the opposite side would certainly have? They are not bitter about the schools, but their anger is against the elders who presumed to speak on their behalf to the government.”
He turned to me. “Son,” he said softly, “the flags are now with the young people. Tomorrow, they will not be raised against an intruder from outside. They will be raised to humiliate the older men.” He wished the others and me a good night and walked slowly out of the room. The others also started leaving in ones and twos until only my companions and I remained to rest for the night. Every time the door opened, I could hear the splash of water pouring down the roof and the hiss of rain as blasts of wind drove it against the mud walls. The moment the door closed, the thick walls muffled all sounds and provided a feeling of security.
I lay awake for a few minutes, reveling in the warmth and the peace that the room offered before
drifting off to sleep, and it seemed all too soon when I was woken up for my breakfast the next morning.
I opened the door and went outside for a wash. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, but it was still cloudy. All the nearby hollows and depressions were filled to the brim with water, and even the small crevices in the rocks were stained with moisture. I could not account for the feeling of somberness that overcame me, and hurried back to the warmth I had left behind. Even back in the room, the feeling of emptiness remained, and I could not get rid of it. It seemed to affect my companions also. One or the other would make an effort at conversation, but it would die down quietly.
The mood of the previous evening had gone. I was a stranger, and I felt like one as I said my good-byes. As I left, I wished my last memory of this house had been that of the previous evening, and not of the cold despondency of this morning.
The three of us walked, each absorbed in our own thoughts—perhaps feeling a little lost and bewildered but unable to break the shell enveloping us. It took us three hours to reach Bagh. The sky had lightened a little, but the clouds were still thick enough to stop the sun from shining through.
Tor Baz wanted to visit the shrine of a holy man in the area. “You should come along,” he said. “A real unbeliever, a kafir mullah,” he added, as a compliment to the holy man. “I met him some years ago. He was a grand old man.”
We walked down the only street of Bagh slowly. At one of the first shops we came across, Hamesh Gul insisted on having my bruised foot attended to. The person in charge, whom Hamesh Gul insisted on addressing as “Doctor,” opened the previous day’s bandages, washed the wounds, and put a layer of hair pomade on them before rewinding the old bandages around the foot. The street was crowded with small groups of men walking unhurriedly, taking their time to curiously look into every shop and at the other people in the street. One of the busiest shops was next door to where I was being ministered to. The owner dealt in opium and hashish, and a number of men were bargaining with him for a good price for the dark, nearly black bricks of the narcotic. Opposite us was a small shop where a middle-aged man was watching his young son eat a tomato, which he had bought for him after prolonged selection from a basket.
Tor Baz stood close to me. Whenever small groups would pass by, he would whisper in my ear. “That is a neighboring tribe, the Para Chamkanis,” he would say. “Have you seen the leggings they are wearing?” Or, “See, those are the Orakzais. I wonder what brings them here. They have their own Bagh.”
Then he pointed out a group of bearded men walking past. “There you see some Hindus. They are not allowed by the Afridis to wear white turbans, so they wear colored ones.”
He reeled off name after name of the tribes, and of the Afridi clans. There were so many names that they confused me, and after a while I stopped making an effort to remember them. I suddenly began to feel very cold and shivery.
Hamesh Gul, who had been silent for most of the morning, turned to me as my bandaging was completed. “I must go back to Mehboob Khan’s house after the Friday prayers. I am to take the mullah with me.”
I kept silent. “When are you coming back?” asked Tor Baz.
“Tomorrow, perhaps. After the funeral is over.”
“Whose funeral?” I inquired.
“Mehboob Khan’s. He died during the night.”
“Mehboob Khan is dead?” I repeated incredulously. “Why was I not told?”
“Yes, he is dead. His sons did not wish you to be disturbed. A man that is born must die, and only he who dies without sons dies unhappy. I shall be back tomorrow, if God wills.”
“I shall remain with him,” Tor Baz told Hamesh Gul.
My shivering was worse now, and my attendants noticed my discomfort with some worry. They insisted we proceed straight to the shrine that Tor Baz had mentioned, and said that my food would be brought there.
The pain became much worse, and I had to walk with the support of my two companions. We passed the main mosque, where a crowd was already collecting for prayers, and we entered the shrine next to it. My companions prayed briefly at the graves and tasted a pinch of salt each before coming back to me. One of them touched my temples and turned to the other.
“He is burning with fever.”
“He will not see the flags raised,” said the other.
My shivering did not stop, and I felt ashamed of it. Whenever I opened my eyes, I faced two truck headlights that some devotee had embedded in the cemented grave of the holy man who lay buried here. Sometimes one headlight looked bigger than the other, but I could not keep my eyes open long enough to judge whether one was really bigger than the other.
Out of the darkness that was creeping around me, I heard a crescendo of noise, and I knew that the flags had been raised. I had not been able to see them, but perhaps I would one day. Later, some sounds woke me. I still could not open my eyes, but I could hear a number of people standing and talking around the corner from the room where I was lying. I could not understand most of what was being said, as all the voices seemed to blend into one loud wave of sound. Furious voices were accusing someone of having brought me, a foreigner and an infidel, here and having defiled their land. The crescendo waxed and waned around me. Among the voices, I suddenly heard the voice of Tor Baz.
“Why are you worried about this poor man?” he asked. “Can you not see that he is dying?”
Seven
A POUND of OPIUM
On the leeward side of a high boulder, an old gaunt man sat, warming himself over a low peat fire. He had been sitting patiently for the last few hours, protected by the boulder from the icy blasts of wind that portend the advent of winter in Upper Chitral. The wind came rushing in and out of the crevice and around the corners, splattering gravel and small sharp stones against his refuge, making Sher Beg huddle closer to the smoky fire.
Occasionally, he would gather his long white beard in his left hand, bend down, and blow into the smoke until his eyes streamed. Sher Beg was tall, as most of the men of this area were. He would have been handsome even in his old age but for his neck, which was swollen to a grotesque size because of goiter. Fresh raw goatskin strapped to his legs with leather thongs provided a contradiction to the rest of him—an incredible old man with ragged clothes and a hopeless and tired look in his eyes.
Upper Chitral is a land of stone. Wherever you look, the landscape is full of stone. There is a variety of forms, of color and weathering, but there is nothing but stones. In size, they range from small grains of sand to giants as tall as two-storied buildings. Stones in one way or another occupy the thoughts of men in this area, and Sher Beg’s thoughts, too, were flitting from one mountaintop to another. There lay the mountain in whose shadow he had been born, lived most of his life, married, begotten children. He would also die there. All around him were the crags where he had grazed his animals, and peaks he had climbed in his early years.
Further distant were the massifs that had provided him with a livelihood in his youth. The backdrop to this panorama was the biggest mountain of them all—the giant Tirich Mir.
The major part of Sher Beg’s life had centered on Tirich Mir. He had grown to manhood on its slopes, progressed to head porter after a few expeditions, and was accepted as the key guide year after year. During all these years, Tirich Mir provided him with fodder for his body and for his pride. The climbing seasons were short, but even during the long periods of inactivity, he had dreamed about the giant—planning the routes, the camps, the loads; deciding who to weed out from his teams of porters and who to employ in his stead.
Oh, those were grand years, indeed. When he was not climbing, other men pointed him out to one another and spoke of him as the Tiger. He remembered how his heart had swelled with pride when his wife had insisted on naming their newborn daughter Sherakai—the Tiger’s Daughter. A man is lucky if he has one such year. He was truly favored by God for having so many of them.
Year after year, the climbers came. They would vie w
ith one another for Sher Beg’s help. He would lead them—young men, middle-aged men, and old ones. He would bring them back, their sometimes torn, bruised, and crippled bodies, and see them off only to welcome them back the next year. After each attempt, it was he who distributed any surplus supplies and clothing among the villagers. Boys and girls, women and men, came to him for the castoffs. They were glorious years. How quickly had they passed.
One year the summit of Tirich Mir was finally conquered. Sher Beg didn’t realize what it meant at first. In fact, he celebrated along with the rest of the expedition and was bursting with happiness at the achievement. It was only when he found employment difficult the next year and impossible the year after that he truly understood what had happened. It was not Tirich Mir that had been defeated. It had been his defeat.
A sound interrupted Sher Beg’s reverie. A noise that would have gone unnoticed among the moaning and sighing of the wind if he hadn’t been waiting for it for the last few hours. The familiar cackle of the bird. Very slowly, he got up and carefully unstrapped the small crossbow hanging over his shoulders. Taking a small pebble from his mouth, he fitted it into the pouch.
He moved slowly and silently, step-by-step, and peered around the corner. A plump brown bird was sitting on an outcrop a few yards away. The old man lifted his crossbow and took careful aim.
The small pebble hit the rock on which the bird was sitting and shattered itself into small fragments. The brown bird rocketed up in the air and whirred toward the hillside. Its sudden passage frightened a herd of ibex that had been sunning themselves in a mountain cleft. They scampered up the hillside in mincing steps toward higher ground, accompanied by the small tinkling sounds of stones dislodged by their feet.
