by Eric Meyer
Chapter One
It was harder this year. Bitter snow tore through the mountain passes, bringing a light covering of snow to the barren fields. Afghanistan was a land scarred by endless wars, now enduring a winter of fragile peace. A strange calm that brought hunger and cold in its wake.
Ahmed Durani’s father, Ghulam, bore the suffering of his children with stoicism, although not without cost. There was never enough produce from the hardscrabble fields, and this year it was worse. As a result, his days were a waking nightmare, haunted by the faces of his starving children.
His farm had suffered the full brunt of the winter’s icy fury. The rotting stubble of his crop poked out through the thin blanket of snow. There would be insufficient produce to feed them when the spring thaw arrived. Then the engine of their old tractor, an ancient, battleship gray Fordson Model F, refused to start. A neighbor came to look, and the prognosis was dire. His father had no choice but to ask if there was enough money in their dwindling funds to pay for a repair. Ahmed checked through the figures. Unlike the rest of his family, he could read and write, and he made the daily entries in his father’s worn out account book. He knew the cupboard was bare. They were broke. Yet he managed to find the money, knowing they would be even hungrier as a result.
He watched his father working on the rusting, dented tractor. The elder Durani was short and emaciated after a lifetime of thankless toil. He was bald and his bearing stooped from overwork. His clothes did little for his appearance. A patched robe, and underneath, surplus combat pants, probably bought from an Afghan Army deserter. On his feet, homemade sandals did little to protect him from the biting cold or the rough terrain.
He looked what he was, a sick old man bent by the weight of too many burdens, although he had yet to reach forty. His tractor was ancient, bought by his great grandfather, a man who died defending the homeland against the invasion of the communist infidels.
They called in a skilled mechanic who pronounced the old engine beyond repair. Instead, he fitted another, more powerful unit. The old engine was a twenty horsepower, which gave the decrepit Fordson a top speed of six miles an hour. The man assured them the new motor was thirty horsepower. The dealer removed it from a wrecked Russian vehicle. He claimed it would enable the Fordson to reach an unheard of ten miles an hour, enough to plow the fields faster and make the farm more efficient. Yet after he left, the wondrous engine refused to start. His father had to search for a spare carburetor, which their neighbor said would make all the difference. The carburetor had arrived, and now they had to put it to the test.
Ahmed contemplated their gloomy future, as he looked down at his worn clothing. It was better than his father's was; the older Durani always gave his children the best he could afford. His robe betrayed only a couple of repairs, and he wore Western jeans on his legs. Patched, to be sure, but they were jeans. His father had given him the secondhand denim pants on his thirteenth birthday, saying, "You're a teenager now, Ahmed. It's time you wore something modern, like some of the boys wear in Jalalabad and Kabul." On his feet, he wore leather boots. Once owned by a foreign soldier, he didn't know which nationality, there'd been so many. At least they still had some wear in them.
He knew why they and so many of the local people had so little. A long succession of wars had left land ruined and wasted. First, the Soviet invasion, then the bloody interregnum of the warlords, followed by the brutal medieval rule of the Taliban. The Americans then came with their NATO allies. At first, they’d assumed Afghanistan would at last enjoy a period of peace. Families would have food and shelter, and women would no longer suffer torture and imprisonment. Before, the Taliban were apt to slaughter them should they commit the slightest infraction of Sharia law.
Now the foreign troops were going home. Those who replaced them, the army and police of the Afghan government, had so far given people little grounds for optimism. Ahmed inspected the bullet holes in the fenders and engine cover of the ancient vehicle. The Fordson had seen more than its fair share of warfare. Once, an RPG had narrowly missed the engine block and exploded in the ground, spraying shards of metal over the fields while they sheltered behind the tractor. It was a miracle the Fordson had survived so many near misses. It would be an even greater miracle if his father could coax the new thirty horsepower engine into life.
"Ahmed, pass me the two-inch ring spanner."
"Yes, Father." He handed him the rusted tool. They measured every tool in old-fashioned inches for use with the old Fordson. He knew they called the system of measurement Imperial. He thought it was something to do with the old British Empire even though they'd made the Fordson in the U.S.A. Tools were often hard to come by, parts next to impossible, until now. The dealer who sold them the engine had discovered a workshop in Peshawar, across the border in Pakistan. They used to manufacture assault rifles for the various factions fighting inside Afghanistan.
Lately, business had slowed with the arrival of the uneasy peace. They resorted to constructing spare parts for out of date agricultural machinery, tractors, and harvesters, to enable the population to harvest their crops. These old vehicles were life and death, the sole bulwark against starvation in the wrecked infrastructure after the foreign soldiers had gone home. With the replacement carburetor, they hoped the engine would start. Then they could make the farm profitable. After they'd paid the bill for the new carburetor.
They looked up as a ramshackle, ungainly jeep painted dark military green came toward them. A Soviet built GAZ 69, another relic of that bloody fighting. The driver was Grigory Blum, who everybody knew as Greg. Ahmed looked forward to spending some time talking with him. He was always interesting, always brought the latest news from around the country, and on occasion a small gift, chocolate or a bag of candy. At one time, Ahmed thought candy tasted so good, only Allah could have made it.
The Russian didn't look like a farmer. Everyone called him the Russian, although he was born in Afghanistan. His clothes were always too good, too stylish for the humble peasant lifestyle. He sported a long, brown leather coat, winter or summer. When he'd asked about the magnificent garment, Greg told him it was what the senior Soviet officers used to wear a long time ago. His feet were always resplendent in high, brown leather jump boots, with his denim jeans tucked into them. When he went inside the house and removed the coat, his shirts were always smart and clean. Never patched, never repaired.
Even his face was smooth, handsome, and unlined in a country that exacted such a toll on its citizens. He had ice blue eyes, yet they were humorous, not cold. He always had a smile on his face when he called around. Ahmed often wondered how he managed to look so good, and why he was so happy. Whatever he did to have so much, it certainly didn't come from farming. Perhaps he could talk to Greg one day and ask him if he could do the same.
The Russian owned a few fields nearby. His father had been a Spetsnaz soldier, captured by the Taliban after they'd ambushed his unit. Offered the alternatives of conversion to Islam or death, he embraced the Koran. Shortly after, he married a local girl and she gave birth to a son. After their deaths, Greg stopped attending the local mosque. Some suspected he’d become an apostate. They also said he spent too little time harvesting his crops, for his fields were a disgrace. They didn’t ask how he earned his living. Afghanistan was a land riven by feuds and disputes, so why start another by asking awkward questions? Even so, he was a good neighbor, always willing to offer his help.
