There were tourists up here again, white-skinned and brown-skinned, filming.
On the glacier heading back down to our cabin, Irfan snarled, “If this had happened in America, you’d be in jail. If this had happened to the child of a landlord, you’d be in danger, and in debt.” So that’s why our lives had been spared: herders were disliked in this valley. They were considered outcasts. And now, so were we.
I scarcely noticed Wes and Farhana trudging ahead, or the jeeps skating by, or whether the bus that had fallen into the ravine the day before we made our way up had been removed. I noticed broken Coca-Cola bottles, biscuit wrappers, plastic bottle caps.
I didn’t ask how the conversation between Suleiman and Irfan had ended. I didn’t ask if money had been accepted. Or if, when Suleiman spat, he’d spat at me, or about me. I also didn’t ask how damaging this entire sordid episode had been to Irfan’s relationship with the valley and the communities he’d spent so much time with, bringing clean water to their towns. The question he’d spent most of his working life asking himself—do they need it?—had now been answered more brutally than even he might have foreseen. Knowing Irfan, he’d be blaming himself. I dared not speak to him.
Delicate negotiations, I thought. Years and years of delicate negotiations, to build a bedrock of trust. How easily it was spoiled.
An anger began to constrict my lungs.
There was a nagging thought, yes, I could only admit it now, walking back through the gray slush, our footprints ugly in the morning ice. I had no humor for snail-turd imagery, as on my way up. This fury inside me, it was far blacker and thicker than a snail or its turd. It nagged and nagged, though I tried to rub it off like a line of dirt, to tell myself it was only the movement of ice beneath my feet. And then it became a yellow-eyed fish, and I sat on that fish, I said to go down to the bottom of the lake and never again look up at the sun, or rise to the surface, for a sliver of air. But again it appeared, now a mean little fox, racing through the thickest sands of the shiftiest dunes, and I said to never disturb that sand, never kick up soft murky clouds, or shed a hair of that thick, furry tail.
Still my instructions went unheeded! This time it was a seagull, bobbing on a crest of a great, wide ocean, friendly and gay. Follow me! It said, with a flap of its wings. And it happened again, and again, till I had nowhere to hide.
The thought was this: Did Farhana jump in?
She was already in the boat when Irfan pulled me up. Did he pull her up? I hadn’t had the chance to ask; I hadn’t had the nerve. He might say no, she was already in the boat. That proved nothing. She could have hauled herself up. She had the strength. She was also cold and shivering that day … but how cold? How shivering? Was she as drenched as I? I couldn’t remember. Knowing Irfan, that is hardly what he’d have noticed either. Wes? No. He wouldn’t have seen. I remembered him pacing the beach, muttering something in agitation; no one was thinking clearly.
Irfan might also say that she was a woman: she didn’t need to jump in. Just as she didn’t need to be included in the decision to come to Kaghan—it had been for her sake, that’s what mattered—she didn’t need to risk her life. Had she tried, she could never have made a difference.
But she was a stronger swimmer than me. And it was her idea. Her damn return! She’d been warned to leave the girl alone. Instead, her meddling had drowned us all.
But so what if she was a stronger swimmer? Perhaps she didn’t feel strong enough that day. Perhaps it was foolish of me to dive. I could have died. No one wants to die.
I’d fallen behind Irfan on the glacier; I now caught up with him. I asked, my voice shaking, “You have some idea how deep the lake is, don’t you?”
He looked at me as though I’d walked into a mosque with slippers on.
“As deep as Lake Baikal,” he eventually growled, adding, “that’s in Russia.”
“How deep is that?”
“Over a mile.”
I waited, hoping he might add, There’s no way you could have found her. Instead, he checked his damn phone. His way of shooing me away.
Why hadn’t I seen Kiran when I dived? Had I waited too long? That horrible gurgling sound I heard in the water—how could I have heard it in the water? Where had I been? Where had Farhana been?
“In the weeks before coming here,” I said to Irfan, catching up with him again, “Farhana started to change her mind. It had been her idea, yet she grew afraid. You know, because of all the bombings and the kidnappings. I started telling you that, you know, before it happened.” I took a deep breath. “But by then, I was the one ready. She wanted me to call it off but I didn’t want to. She’d already made the proposal so she wouldn’t call it off herself. It was the same way she had doubts just before getting in the boat. Do you remember? It was her idea but then she grew afraid. Did you notice?”
The furrow between his brow sank like a chasm as he opened his mouth to speak. Then, changing his mind, he clamped his mouth shut. When the chasm lifted, he asked, “Did you notice the lake this morning?”
“Yes.”
“What did you see?”
“Calm surface. Clear sky. Malika Parbat’s twin peaks could have been etched in the water. As on that day.”
He nodded. “A lake so clear and bright, but hideous underneath. For months after Zulekha’s death—her murder” (I flinched at the word) “—this lake became a mirror of my own world. Then a voice started to tell me to look for a more hospitable truth. Not everything is as hideous as it doesn’t seem. If I believed in God, I’d say the voice was His. I think it was the lake’s.”
Back at the cabin, we took solitary walks. We cloaked ourselves in shades of green, drinking forest smells. Even at night, I sought my camera. My landscapes of the River Kunhar were cool-headed, as if I’d been the third person in our tent.
Green eyes, green as the leaves of walnut trees, newly shed in the river, before turning black. Green as her bangles, and their incessant chiming.
I never did call my mother from Irfan’s cell.
But I tried to take his advice. I devoted myself to reclothing us, Farhana and myself. I noticed she seemed to be doing the same. At night, we pecked each other quickly on the lips before lights out. When we met in daylight, she’d touch me on the thigh or on my back and the gesture was too deliberate, as if she were trying to recreate a lover she could touch. I’d do the same. I was glad when she followed Wes. She was glad when I followed Irfan. We created phantom foes—the lake, the jinn, the tourists—and phantom friends—each other, Wes, Irfan—but most of all, we created our own doubles. To these we assigned behavior, even roles.
I had dived repeatedly to look for Kiran. So had Farhana.
I had not given up. Neither had Farhana.
I had risked my own life. So had Farhana.
And the entire time, Irfan filled me in on the news. It was the only time he willingly talked to me. Apparently, there were real double agents in our midst, hunting real enemies. I couldn’t have cared less.
I came to think of “him”—this mysterious killer and his double, the accomplice (accomplice to what exactly—a killing in Karachi? So long ago, so far away!)—as some kind of lynx and his shadow. He’d crept down the slopes of Kashmir, kicking up flecks of powdery snow, his footfall a hushed load of velvet, leaping across the crevices of glaciers that might have been growing or receding, this was Pakistan after all, and to a lynx it was all the same. Or he might be a snow leopard from Uzbekistan, lurking low into the new millennium, no longer Soviet or Russian but Central Asian, looking for a skin for his spots. Or a yeti from Tajikistan, slipping into Pakistan from the west, sweeping down to Chitral on a very long tail, before twisting east through Swat and into Kaghan. Or perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction entirely. Perhaps he’d come up from the south, through desert sands that hid airfields for days, a snake mangled by a cluster bomb, a pheasant dropped by a falcon.
What was it Irfan had said, that day he first told me about him? That day. Yes. The
killer’s link to this remote, peaceful valley was an accident of geography. And accidents can happen anywhere. I’d been watching Kiran in a magenta kameez walk up the hill to find her goat, Kola. Farhana had held her hand.
I took my camera to the closest town, the town of Naran. I learned that here he, the killer, was called Fareebi: the fraud, the shapeshifter. He was said to be hiding here to avoid suspicion, since all eyes were on the eastern border with Afghanistan. But Intelligence had tracked him—or was he tracking them?
At the store where I’d bought the Kashmiri shawl for Farhana, only five days ago, the shopkeeper unfolded a heap of shawls while a customer recited a local proverb. Nature instructs every creature to shapeshift in case of danger. Each shawl came in a dual pattern, with no clear front or back. The one I’d picked for Farhana had also been reversible. The customer rejected cloth after cloth, but he volunteered an opinion on the Karachi bombing. The death of seven Pakistanis and one Chinese man was revenge for the missile strikes in the killer’s village.
I listened closely. Though the shapeshifter had sympathizers in Peshawar and Karachi, no one wanted him here, not even those angered by the missile attacks. What did the people of this valley have to do with it? No, he wasn’t only tracking Intelligence but tracking them—the locals and their very way of life—this snow leopard, this snow leopard’s jinn. And this false trail he was leaving, it was a deliberate distraction from some gargantuan avalanche about to hit those who weren’t looking. The army rangers, Intelligence, and everyone else crawling along the valley’s spine were fools for walking straight into the trap. Or else they were working together, to trap everyone else.
There was a cluster of men in the store now, all debating who was trapping whom, and none answered my greeting. I moved on. A-salaam-o-aleikum, I said, everywhere I went. No one answered. Geography may be an accident but no one in Pakistan ignores a greeting accidentally. I wasn’t deaf, neither to the silence nor the whispers. “It’s him.” Of course they’d heard of Kiran’s death. Of course their eyes were accusing, even if their words were delivered into each other’s collars. But I never got used to it. It’s him. Two words that sent my face igniting in shame. Two words that made me look over my shoulder, again and again, for him: the fraud, the shapeshifter. Two words that made me glad the herders had few friends. For otherwise, I would be dead.
I sought relief by immersing myself in the many murky legends of the valley. The one that preoccupied me most was the legend of Kagan, whose ancestry remained shrouded in secrecy.
Even if Kagan had been related to the pagan Kafir-Kalash tribe of Chitral Valley to the west, fact is, Kaghan Valley existed long before she was born. Before her arrival, the valley had been part of Hazara, whose history was a history of raids. Along the way, the story went, Hazara picked up more names than a pretty girl picks up suitors on her walk home from a well. Under Persian rule, Hazara doubled as Aroosa. Alexander of Macedonia pitched a plundered Aroosa to Raja Ambhi, who renamed her Abhisara. Abhisara next fell to Chandra Gupta, and then to his grandson Asoka. Upon converting to Buddhism, Asoka named the valley “Takht-e-Hazara,” the throne of Hazara, and this must have been its name when Kagan arrived—from Chitral or the Caspian steppe or a fairy world—to wow the people with her beauty and black robes. Perhaps it was Asoka who graced the valley with her name. The details are lost. What remain are a cluster of sacred rocks from Asoka’s day, though this may not be all.
According to Irfan, next to the Asokan rock edicts lay another holy site, a secret one. It was the site of a small cult of worshippers for whom Kagan belonged to another world, a world of animals and spirits. The only way to reach her was through the ancient practice of shamanism. They offered her lavish gifts and asked for her aid in keeping jealous jinns away from their homes, and their romances.
Though it was not possible to ask openly about the existence of the site, I could look for it. I took a bus down to Mansehra, near the site of the rocks, unsure how to begin. What did a secret pagan shrine look like? The bus had to pass Balakot, near where Kiran would now be buried, and her family would still be grieving. When we stopped in Balakot, I sloped into my seat. Thankfully, people got off but no one got on.
The Asokan edicts were engraved on three large boulders. I spent the afternoon photographing them, and the grove of blue pine and deodar trees on the stony slopes not far away. At the grove, I dug around discreetly, looking for evidence of goddess worship: burned incense; a small idol; flower petals. I found none. I walked back to the boulders for a last view of the edicts before heading back to Naran. That’s when I noticed the children racing up the hill toward me. I hesitated. I continued photographing the rocks. The younger ones giggled, standing next to the rocks so they could also be in the frame. The older boys were more reserved. One of them, his head shaved and covered in a pristine white skull cap, whispered to another, in Urdu, so I could understand, though by now I’d know it in any tongue, “It’s him.”
I was surprised they’d heard about it even as far south as here, in Mansehra, which fell outside the valley.
The younger boy whispered back, “You mean Fareebi?”
And the older one replied, “No. I mean the killer.”
I was considered even worse than the hotel bomber!
I turned around and headed back toward the bus stop. They followed me, a long line of boys, the older ones with hands behind their backs, the younger ones skipping ahead, brandishing sticks, their giggles turning malicious in the blood-red evening.
The bus was getting ready to leave. I raced toward it, only adding to my shame. The boys raced after me. With a chewed end of a pencil, the bus driver was twirling the tape back into a cassette; he didn’t look up at the sound of the jeering crowd. As I stepped on the bus, a shadow slid just beyond the corner of my left eye. I paused, right foot on one step, left foot in the air. The specter slid between the boys: a green satin shalwar, a head of light tawny-blonde hair. As the head turned to face me, I ducked into the bus.
The next day, I stayed in the valley. I told no one what I’d seen the previous day, while hurrying onto the bus. Her, or someone like her. Someone who wore the same green pants. There was nothing special about the pants, and many girls had her hair color. It could also be that I was only imagining it. If I’d thought to photograph her—or it—specters do not have sex—the screen would have come up blank. Just as it had the night before we trekked to the lake. But that vision had been real … I had no idea where my thoughts were leading me and didn’t particularly care to chase after them.
Does a man know when he begins to unravel?
I walked south to the next town, the town of Kaghan, where Kagan was believed to have died. Why did I care? I did not know. It was a long walk. It was the graves dotting the roadside between Naran and Kaghan that I had to see. I had to go there. I did not know why. If I had to find an explanation, I’d say it was a call. It was how I’d felt the night before heading to the lake, when I’d run beside the River Kunhar, and that wretched owl with the girl’s face had cried shreet! I did not want to answer, yet I kept walking.
The graves were said to date from soon after the arrival of Islam, when the people converted willingly or by force, depending on whom you asked. There was a time when some might have said it was by force; not now. Nor would they risk acknowledging a pagan site. I felt their fear as I approached the graves. When I reached them, I saw immediately that the headstones were unlike any Islamic graves I’d seen. The first I came across had two birds joined by a floral wreath. The pattern resembled a peace sign, except the “doves” were more like ducks, with flat, wide beaks. There was a date, too faint to read. I passed a dozen others that were similar, with drawings better preserved than a date or a name. There were also headstones with horses—some arching beautifully toward the sky—pulling chariots of clearly defined wheels. Then came a whole series of headstones engraved with owls. Dozens of owls, some with wings in astonishing detail, others with heart-shaped faces intricately c
arved, the eyes large and fierce.
I took multiple shots of the graves. If the owls vanished from my screen, I’d know I was going insane. Irfan would help, if not with warm stones, then some other magic. Shouting, perhaps. Or a good punch.
Children found me here too. It was almost exactly a replay of yesterday. The younger ones giggled, following me around the headstones, pointing out others with owls. They caught on quickly that these interested me most. But the older boys, once again, stayed aloof. This time it was a boy without a cap and with hair about two days old who did the honors. “It’s him.”
I found myself feeling a little like a girl, and when I asked myself what this meant, I decided it meant hysterical. A growing panic bubbled up my gut and made me want to protest by flapping my hands and thrashing my head. I would have liked to be the size of these vicious children. I would have liked to be small and gay. I would have liked to lie on my back on one of the graves and kick my legs and scream. However, I did none of these things. The children followed me all the way down to the turn-off beyond which my cabin lay securely hidden in the thick palms of a walnut grove.
Their parents were no help. In the bazaar, the restaurant, the bus, even the damn road, eyes followed me long after I met them with my own. I was learning the full impact of the weight of those eyes. One moment they were heavy as clouds, the next, they moved through me like smoke. They could crush me and blow me away. They were a jury unto themselves, and would gladly have strung me from a telephone pole, if revenge on behalf of a herder had been worth it.
Thinner Than Skin Page 15
