A Carpet Ride to Khiva: Seven Years on the Silk Road

by Christopher Aslan Alexander

  The night sky lit up with shelling between the resurgent Taliban and Western forces, reminding us that the political situation was far from peaceful. Taliban entered the city for the first time since their retreat in 2002, and our hasty departure was considered prudent. The roads were too dangerous, so we booked seats on a tiny plane laid on for development workers.

  Airport Road was notorious for suicide bomb attacks and I spent most of the journey with just my eyes peeking from under my headscarf, hoping to look as inconspicuously foreign as possible. We turned off the main road where the airport and its surroundings had mushroomed into a giant army barracks – aggressive Western teenagers in uniform eyeing our vehicle with visible hostility. These were the NATO peace-keeping forces.

  Posted signs all over the airport politely reminded us, ‘No weapons please’. Our plane waited on the runway. One of the pilots – an American – lounged against a wing, wearing shades, his fingers curled around a belt sporting a large buckle with ‘No more gun laws’ emblazoned on it. Incensed that anyone who actually lived in a place with no gun laws could really be stupid enough to wear something like this, I was about to engage in ‘dialogue’ but thought better of it, remembering the journey down – and also that this plane was our only option for getting out of Kandahar.

  * * *

  After Kandahar, Kabul seemed positively Western. Young men loafed in buttock-hugging jeans and tight T-shirts. In place of the beards a mandatory fist long required under Taliban rule there were trendy sideburns and slicked-back hair. Before Kandahar I’d noticed only the women in burkas. Now I realised how many women wore just a headscarf – teenage girls wearing it Iranian-style, so far back as to be a token gesture. I wondered how the powerful Pashtun tribes of the south felt when visiting the capital, and whether such rapid change would provoke a conservative backlash.

  The General called, inviting me for supper. I was to meet his driver outside the parliament building and could bring a friend. I wore my sweat-stained shelwar kamiz, determined to show my respect for traditional garb. The General greeted us, clean-shaven and wearing a dapper designer suit, smiling indulgently at my dishevelled clothing. I introduced him to my English friend Will, who spoke some Dari, and the General asked after my mother.

  ‘You know Mr Chris, your mother, is also like to my mother. She is a very good, very kind, very wonderful person. Come, I will show you the room I am building for her.’

  We walked next door with an entourage of armed soldiers covering us from every angle. The General was building an opulent mansion which he had designed himself. He would rent out this mansion but was building a second, smaller mansion where he planned to live. I was shown my mother’s room.

  ‘She is very good and trustworthy person,’ he explained, ‘so she can to stay up here in the family quarters with my wife and with my childrens.’

  We were driven to the General’s current home, full of mock-baroque furniture and gilt-framed paintings of shepherdesses, in marked contrast with the ethnic Afghan rugs and Nuristani chests found in the homes of most Kabul expats. I’d mentioned on the phone that I was vegetarian, just in case the General was planning to slaughter a sheep in my honour. The entire banquet was meatless, and the General insisted on serving us food personally, playing the role of host to perfection as course followed course. Both Will and I felt slightly overwhelmed and humbled by the effort he had gone to. Afterwards we sat replete, drinking green tea with cardamom, and asked the General about Massoud and what he was like.

  Smiling dreamily, he described the dead Northern Alliance leader – a man he loved more than his own father and would happily have died for. Massoud was fearless, wise, humble, strong, and the future of Afghanistan. News of Massoud’s assassination by Al Qaeda reached the General in the Panjir valley where he’d been fighting the Taliban. At first it was unclear whether Massoud was dead or badly wounded. Overpowered by grief, the General was entrenched in the battlefield and unable to return to his commander. He never saw Massoud again, and had not been present at his deathbed – a fact that grieved him greatly. For days afterwards the General avoided journalists, unable to control his emotions, afraid of what he might unleash.

  Talking about it now was still painful, and the General’s eyes flicked up regularly to the gilt-framed portrait of Massoud, incongruous among the shepherdesses. I changed the subject, asking the General about his escapades against the Red Army, and he was soon entertaining us with tales of bloodshed.

  ‘I am not so tall, which is also very good if bullets flying at your head. It is also very nice for approaching the tanks and putting the bomb and then running. I don’t know how many Russians I killed. Many, many. But I am not a murderer. I never killed prisoner or torture. On the battlefield, it is different. It is like the race – you both trying to kill the other and who will be first?’

  We left late that night, with promises to visit again and an armed escort back to our accommodation.

  Three days later the General called to say that some friends of his were having an evening of concert music. Would Will and I like to come? This time I dressed in my least scruffy Western clothes. We were picked up by the General’s driver and taken to the home of another distinguished general. Four or five other generals were already present, and we’d barely sat down before three more arrived. Our General wasn’t among them, but we managed stilted conversation over green tea, feeling conspicuously aware of our un-generalness. It became clear on our General’s entrance that he was held in the greatest esteem by the others. It was only after he arrived that we were ushered upstairs, to the quiet rustle of women hurriedly vacating the dining area.

  Here a huge banquet had been laid out on a giant dasturkhan. The layout was much the same as in Uzbekistan, although here it was permissible to step on a corner of the dasturkhan and there were no bottles of vodka congregated in the middle.

  After the banquet, we were led to the basement. This was the best place to host domestic concerts – a new tradition established during Taliban rule when music was outlawed. A tabla player adjusted his two drums and began a hypnotic beat. One of the generals played the accordion and another sang mournfully.

  ‘It’s about love,’ the General whispered to me, somewhat superfluously. The song was followed eventually by another and another. The lilting melody combined with a recently consumed banquet created a powerful soporific effect and I soon found my eyes growing heavy. Our compound’s curfew time came and went and the music continued. Finally, at around midnight, one of the generals begged leave.

  ‘Please excuse to my friend,’ the General requested. ‘Now he must to sleep. Tomorrow he will be to Kandahar to fight Taliban.’

  I explained that we too should leave, as our nightwatchman would worry at our absence, having missed curfew. The night drew to a close.

  * * *

  The following day Madrim arrived in Kabul, exhausted and traumatised. He had been stripped naked on the Uzbek side of the Uzbek/Tajik border. The guards then discovered $200 he hadn’t declared, taking this from him without a receipt and relieving him of his remaining 50,000 som as a ‘fine’. I had yet to witness such rapacious border guards anywhere else. He had to borrow money from the Operation Mercy office in Dushanbe to continue his journey.

  Seeing Madrim again was wonderful. It felt like a triumph over the Uzbek government that borders couldn’t contain our friendship. For the first hour or so I had to reach for words, my Uzbek rusty, but soon we were chatting away as I caught up on the goings-on in Khiva. My Uzbek family were doing well and sent their greetings. Malika, my Uzbek sister, was expecting her first child. The workshops were running OK, but there were still lots of problems and Madrim missed me, finding it lonely being a director, shouldering most of the worries and stresses. Aina had also been told to leave by the authorities. But hearing news from home was exhilarating. Every now and then one of us would break off our conversation j
ust to sit and grin at the other, still amazed at our reunion.

  I still didn’t know why I’d been deported, and speculated on this with Madrim. He thought it was because a guide I’d upset had connections with the secret police. Equally possible was that an informer had been present at an illegal gathering of Uzbek Christians in Urgench where I’d led the singing. There was no way of knowing for sure. What I hadn’t known was that the Tashkent authorities had demanded a letter of recommendation from the Mayor before considering my case. Koranbeg and Madrim waited outside his office for hours, hoping for an audience. He finally emerged and they chased him to his car, begging him to sign a letter of recommendation, but he refused.

  * * *

  We began our dye workshop in Dashti Barchi with the assistance of a local Uzbek boy who translated into Dari. A few days previously I’d bought huge copper cauldrons perfect for dyeing. It had taken us months to find just one of that size in Uzbekistan, but in Kabul these cauldrons were sold in towering stacks. It was our first time dyeing with wool, but the resulting colours were vivid and strong and the six apprentices seemed keen to learn.

  I had just three days left before my ticket expired, and I wanted to extend it to spend more time with Madrim. This proved impossible, but while I was in downtown Kabul I decided to visit Chicken Street one last time. This was where most of the carpet shops were, and I also wanted to pick up some necklaces for my mother. I was rooting through a pile of kilims in one shop when the owner suddenly appeared, urging me to leave immediately as he began frantically packing down his stock. Confused, I left the shop to see the scene repeated up and down Chicken Street. Shop-owners feverishly slammed metal grilles shut and fled. I tried to ask why. No one knew, but they’d learnt to flee first and ask questions later. A sense of fear hung in the air as the street emptied.

  Clearly something was wrong. But I wanted to know what before deciding what to do. I’d arranged to meet friends in the Shah bookshop, so I headed that way, aware that the anxious crowds were all fleeing in the opposite direction. I was wearing Western clothes and a backpack and looked painfully foreign. Passers-by glanced up with looks of pity and bewilderment, clearly aware of my imminent demise. A young man stopped me.

  ‘Don’t you know what’s happened?’ he asked. ‘It’s very bad for you foreigners now. You must get out. Go and hide!’

  Before I could thank him or ask him any questions, he was gone. I offered up a quick prayer and wondered what I should do. A nearby school was emptying and there were fewer and fewer cars on the streets. I retreated back past the entrance to Chicken Street, which had been a popular target for anti-Western feelings in the past. All the shops were now shut up, and it was clearly not a good place to be caught. I tried the next street along but my way was barred by a soldier.

  ‘You must let me pass,’ I pleaded. ‘Please, I’m a foreigner!’

  A nod from his commander and I was through. Scurrying along, scrabbling in my bag for the phone Dave had lent me, I just wanted to know what was going on. I stopped to put the backpack down and rummage properly. A passing Afghan, or possibly an angel, assumed I couldn’t find the doorbell for the building next to me and rang it. A burly, bearded Afghan peered out as I tried to apologise for the misunderstanding.

  ‘What are you doing out here? Are you crazy?’ he asked with an American twang. ‘Get in here now!’

  He beckoned me into a spartan hall, offering me a seat before running off to attend to urgent business. I waited and was offered a bottle of water. He returned fifteen minutes later to introduce himself properly. He was an Afghan American who had recently returned to Kabul as a cultural advisor for the American embassy, and he had just been briefed by the embassy on the unfolding events. I’d found someone who knew exactly what was going on.

  Early that morning, fighting had broken out in a suburb of Kabul and a convoy of American soldiers was dispatched to quell it. They drove in formation, until one of the soldiers – either stoned, drunk, or crazy – broke ranks and drove his vehicle over several civilian cars. As mangled bodies were dragged from the wrecks an angry crowd formed, exchanging insults, stones and then bullets. Whoever fired the first bullet, the Americans were soon firing into the crowd, which dispersed but returned with weapons. The Afghan police, sent to aid the Americans, turned on them once they saw what had happened. As the Americans retreated, the crowd – now a violent mob – began its rampage through the city, targeting anything or anyone connected with the West.

  ‘When will these guys learn?’ he asked wearily. ‘The Soviets actually helped us. All our electricity still comes from the dam and hydro-electric plant they built up in the mountains. Still, the moment they started to behave like they owned the place, we turned on them. Now these kid soldiers think they can run over anyone they like. Kabul is pissed and it’s people like me who are gonna get it. Guests we treat with respect, but occupiers …’ He made a slicing motion across his throat.

  We heard gunfire approaching. My host led me away from the exposed hallway to a courtyard garden sheltered by tall buildings. The walled garden was full of pomegranate trees and flower-beds, with a carefully manicured lawn – an American lawn, I was told proudly by my host. Echoing around the walls were the sounds of gunfire and the angry screams of the mob out on Chicken Street. Soon, bursts of gunfire were punctuated by shattering glass, exploding cars and the deep-throated ‘thump’ of rocket-propelled grenades. Wreaths of gunpowder smoke filled the garden – this tranquil image at odds with the jarring sounds of violence all around us. We took shelter inside.

  It was clear that I’d be there for some time, and my host kindly invited me to lunch with the male members of his family. We watched BBC News report that the riot was over as the sounds of warfare continued around us. The phone networks were jammed. No one knew where I was or that I was OK. My host’s nephew – around my age – looked bored and I presented him with some DVDs I’d just bought on Chicken Street, asking if he wanted to watch one. He chose Munich. Soon, explosions and gunfire could be heard both on and off screen. I couldn’t watch, and went out to the garden where the sound of fighting was beginning to recede. I managed to send a text to say I was alright, and another giving the address I was staying at.

  They promised that a van would come and pick me up. Madrim called from the cooperative, oblivious to the rioting which hadn’t affected Dashti Barchi, wanting to know why I hadn’t turned up. I held up the phone so he could hear the gunfire and asked him to be careful when returning to our compound. The General also called to check that I was safe.

  The gunfire died down and the van arrived. I was given a turban to wear and instructed to sit away from the windows. I thanked my Afghan American hosts for their unexpected hospitality. We drove past blackened hulks of cars, looted shops, broken glass and pock-marked walls. I tried not to think what might have happened had a fleeing Afghan not taken time to ring the doorbell on behalf of a foreign stranger – if I hadn’t been offered a garden of sanctuary in the middle of the riot. I offered up a prayer of profound gratitude.

  * * *

  There was a city-wide curfew that evening. A number of Western compounds had been destroyed in the looting, including Oxfam’s. Local staff at the Serena Hotel had been dragged out and gunned down, and this was declared the worst riot in Kabul since the fall of the Taliban. There was nothing in media reports about the Americans opening fire on the protesting crowd, or about the Afghan police siding against them.

  The next day, back in my shelwar kamiz with my face obliterated by a headscarf, I headed to the still-peaceful suburb of Dashti Barchi with Madrim to continue our workshop on dye-making. We purchased more weaving combs and hook-knives for Madrim to take back to Khiva, and I spent an hour in the bazaar finding gifts for my Uzbek family, returning to a rainbow of dripping wool skeins. Madrim was drawing up a couple of new designs taken from the Kabul museum, and I felt we had succeeded in equipping the c
ooperative as best we could.

  The General insisted on one more visit, despite my protests that a curfew was still in force. He waved aside this objection, declaring that he knew the password. We enjoyed another enormous feast and I left laden with gifts for my mother and each member of my family, promising to encourage my mother to visit soon.

  We drove back through deserted streets, an armed soldier accompanying us. At each checkpoint, nervous Afghan soldiers aimed their weapons at the driver’s head – particularly disconcerting as I sat directly behind him. The soldiers barked out the first part of a password, to which our driver responded with the second. Hostility abruptly dissolved into banter, backslapping and wishes for a safe journey. We relaxed until the next checkpoint, where the process would repeat itself.

  As I was to leave the following day, I spent the morning with Madrim. We went for a roadside banana milkshake – a rich blend of bananas, almonds, dates and cream, and our traditional treat in Afghanistan. Everything had already been said, but I repeated the greetings he should pass on and tried to avoid saying anything that might cause emotion. Dave drove us to Dashti Barchi and I said my farewells to the dyers we’d trained. Finally it was time to say goodbye to Madrim. I wanted to say something positive, about my hopes that we would meet again and that we would still keep in touch, but we just embraced without words, only tears. I thought about all the carpets we’d created together, the jobs we’d provided, and the lives that had been changed as a result. I thought about the interweaving of my life with all the people I’d never been allowed to say goodbye to: the weavers and dyers, my Uzbek family and friends, even my ginger cat. This tapestry was far more meaningful to me than our most extravagant carpet or ambitious suzani. Somehow Madrim, my one living link with Khiva, embodied all of this, and I realised that I wasn’t just saying goodbye to a close friend, but also to Khiva and a whole chapter in my life.