The Warlord's Son

by Dan Fesperman

  “You’ll probably be okay staying here if you want,” he said, with less certainty this time. “But I’ll be out most of the day. And if we somehow get permission to go with Razaq, then we’ll be busy rounding up supplies.”

  “You’ll also have to update your little ISI friend, Tariq.”

  “He’s not my friend. If you only knew.”

  “Maybe I would know, if you’d tell me. I’ve confessed every detail of my family’s blowup. All about my exile and the boy I almost married. But you’re hoarding your biggest mystery: the banished son who won’t say why. Too much of your past is like a big blank space on a map, and now you’re about to travel back into it. For all I know, you’ll disappear altogether and I’ll never have the slightest idea of why.”

  She was right, of course, and if there were anyone he would entrust with his secrets, it would be Daliya. And what if he did somehow disappear into the Khyber? Or into Afghanistan? Who would miss him but her, yet she wouldn’t even know where to inquire for him, or what to tell the authorities. So he at last told her of his betrayal, haltingly at first, then easily. It surprised him how quickly the words tumbled out once he finally unlocked the door that had remained closed for so many years.

  When he finished, she was silent. She stroked his cheek, then pulled him close. He was relieved she didn’t seem to think less of him for it. Indeed, she seemed grateful, if only for his trust, and he spoke before she could reply, the words again coming slowly.

  “If I ever do just ‘disappear,’ ” he said, holding her gaze. “Out there, I mean. Out in the Khyber, or across the border.” She nodded gravely. “It won’t be because I want to. Remember that, because you might be the only one who would ever want to find me.”

  “And where would I even look for you?”

  “Bagwali. My home village. The one and only place to start. If I was to be taken in the Khyber, they would be the people who would claim me.”

  “And if you were to go missing in Afghanistan?”

  “Still Bagwali. Unless I was dead. They’d be the only people with enough influence to make sure I was sent back.”

  “And they’d use that influence?” She seemed to flinch. “Even after what you’ve done?”

  “It would be a matter of pride. Of blood. But having retrieved me, I doubt they’d be inclined to turn me loose.”

  “So I just catch a bus, then, and come take you away?”

  Najeeb smiled grimly. Everyone knew how hard it was for outsiders to travel in the Tribal Areas, especially on your own. Even men found the going dangerous, and for women it was virtually impossible. Foreign aid workers didn’t go without armed escorts. So Najeeb went to his desk and then returned with a scrap of paper. He had scribbled a name and a telephone number.

  Daliya took the paper in hand as if it were a treasure map.

  “It’s a number for my mother, Shereen. You can’t reach her directly. My father would never permit that. And there’s no cell phone made that works out there. But this will get you to the PTT office in Bagwali, and you can leave her a message. The regular operator is a friend of my uncle’s, and keeps her messages a secret.”

  This only raised more questions, and Daliya was quick to ask them.

  “I thought that you were never in touch with your mother. And who is this uncle?”

  Najeeb wearily shook his head.

  “Not tonight. Too much ground to cover, and not enough time to cover it. Right now what we need is rest.”

  Daliya turned away from the window and began putting on her clothes.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said with some bitterness. “I should cover myself, in case one of your admirers is out there watching. I don’t feel like sleeping now, anyway.”

  He moved to follow as she headed for the bedroom door, but she dismissed him with a wave.

  “Go back to bed. You’ve got a long day ahead. I need time to think. Besides, the way things are going I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow for sleeping.”

  NAJEEB AWOKE to the sound of the loudspeakers, calling out the day’s first prayers in the dark. Daliya was back next to him in the bed. He should rise, wash himself and pray. But it felt as if doing so would reveal them both to the outside, so he snuggled against her back, sacrament enough for the morning. He got up a few minutes later to brew a pot of tea, carrying the cups to the bedside table. Then he stood at the window to watch the horizon brighten, and as Daliya joined him it stirred memories of a time long ago in America, a morning in Chapel Hill when he had first experienced the pleasure of awakening next to a woman; a frosted winter sunrise and the excitement of heading out together to breakfast, warming his hands on a mug of coffee while she read the paper across the table of a cafe, conversations buzzing at nearby tables as if this were the most normal thing in the world. At the time he had wondered how such a deep feeling of calm and well-being could possibly result from an act of sin, an act against God. Now he pondered the question anew, here where the stakes were so much higher.

  Mansour’s horse cart clopped into motion below, a few minutes behind schedule this morning. Another day was coming to life, and out there somewhere among the groggy and the pious were all the people he now had to deal with, one way or another. There was the faceless messenger, perhaps with a knife stained by Daliya’s blood. There was Tariq, who for all he knew was still in the windowless office, handing out new orders to the Clerk. And of course there was Skelly, the itinerant scribbler, itching for a field trip into Afghanistan with Najeeb as his guide.

  But it wasn’t the prospect of a journey across the border that troubled Najeeb. It was the passage through the Khyber itself, six miles of it across land where his father’s word was law. As long as they stuck to the main highway any such trip would almost certainly proceed without a hitch. No one but the frontier police would even know Najeeb was there, not until later anyway, when word might filter back from one source or another—his father had eyes and ears in every office of the provincial government.

  It had been more than seven years since Najeeb had set foot on those lands, and he wondered if the place would still feel at all like home. And if so, what then? And if not, might that even be worse?

  He sipped his tea, urging the day onward.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SKELLY HAD ARRANGED to meet Najeeb in the morning at the offices of the Frontier Report. The cab driver took twenty minutes to find the place, and there was of course no meter. When Skelly grumbled the man answered in Urdu, as if no longer able to comprehend English. A string of wooden worry beads clicked against the rearview mirror as they swerved and bounced, at last pulling into a dirt alley by a crumbling four-story building.

  “Here you are, sir,” the driver announced in perfect English. “The Frontier Report. Five hundred rupees.”

  “One hundred,” Skelly huffed, flicking a folded bill onto the front seat and slamming the door. “I didn’t ask for the tour.” Aggrieved shouts pursued Skelly to the entrance, where a bored policeman inspected his satchel, then nodded him through.

  The newspaper was on the fourth floor, up a dingy courtyard stairwell past the offices of insurance brokers, travel agents and money changers, none of which seemed to have any customers. He was five minutes late, but Najeeb hadn’t arrived. Not a good sign, but hardly disastrous. While promptness was a virtue in a fixer, in some places it was a cultural impossibility. Perhaps Pakistan was one of those places.

  The Frontier Report’s office looked like newsrooms everywhere—a proletarian jumble of scuffed, undersized desks piled with papers and obsolete computer terminals. The walls were covered with torn maps, and Skelly especially coveted one for the North-West Frontier Province, with its markings for dirt roads and obscure mountain passes. The seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas, highlighted in yellow along the border, offered at least a dozen unpaved entries to Afghanistan. But of course you needed a pass just to enter the Tribal Areas.

  Taped to desks and walls here and there were the usual cartoons an
d jokes. Someone had posted an oddsmaker’s picks on upcoming cricket matches, and Skelly wondered if it was part of an office betting pool, just like the bracket competition for March Madness. He experienced a stab of nostalgia, not for the States but for his previous career on the road. For twenty-two years running Skelly had clipped NCAA tournament pairings from the International Herald Tribune and mailed his picks to the home office from whatever war or insurrection he’d been patrolling. The last two years it hadn’t been half as much fun delivering the entry in person. By next March he supposed he’d be home again. Or maybe he’d be working for Transgas. To his continuing surprise the idea was still appealing.

  “Sir?” A polite voice from behind. It was the clerk who’d ushered him in, who’d been answering the phone almost nonstop. “Some tea for you, sir?”

  “Yes, please. Thank you.” Skelly took the steaming cup, although there would probably be another gallon of the stuff to drink at Razaq’s. But where the hell was Najeeb? Ten minutes and counting. At least Skelly’s headache was fading. The Murree was to blame, and to make matters worse a blanket of smog had crawled in through his open window. When he’d emerged from his morning shower the room had smelled like a bus garage.

  Skelly sipped tea as he continued exploring. They were short on resources here. A reporter on the phone took notes on torn copy paper. No spare pens or pencils lying around. Pens were always one of the first things children begged for in Third World countries, one of those odd shortages that probably had bigger repercussions than any dictator ever imagined.

  He checked out the bulletin board. A memo from a deskman caught his eye: “ ‘Osama Bin Laden’ at first occurrence. ‘Osama’ subsequently. Never ‘Bin Laden.’ ”

  That made him smile. The next one wasn’t so amusing: “The recent amendments to the anti-terrorism ordinance banning Lashkari-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Muhammad prohibit publication of any press statement or public utterance of anyone speaking on behalf of those organizations. Violation of this law is punishable by imprisonment up to six months.”

  Well, now. It never hurt to be reminded of the nature of your working environment. A misstep here could land you in jail, although he doubted they would arrest a Westerner.

  “Anything interesting up there?”

  It was Najeeb, who seemed harried and was fifteen minutes late. “Ready to roll?” Skelly shouldered his bag, trying to convey impatience without scolding. “We’ll go over what I want to ask on the way to Razaq’s. How long’s the ride?”

  Najeeb looked as if he’d rather have a cup of tea first, but too bad.

  “This time of day, maybe half an hour. I am sorry, it was a long evening, then a long morning. Personal complications. I will get us a taxi.”

  They said little along the way, Skelly too intent on bracing himself against collisions as the cabbie careened around rickshaws and buses. One woman darted barely out of harm’s way as the fender flicked the trailing hem of her blue burqa. Skelly had been shocked to see so many women covered head to toe here, having assumed, like most Americans, that burqas were strictly a Taliban obsession. Instead it seemed to be a Pashtun thing, as were all the bushy beards. He wondered if Najeeb trimmed his as some form of rebellion.

  At a stoplight they pulled alongside a motorcycle with a young woman riding sidesaddle behind an older man, probably her father. Her mouth was covered, and every strand of hair was tucked beneath a white chador, but you could see her eyes. She clutched three school-books, holding herself regally amid the chaos of the traffic, then glanced his way, checking out the Westerner in the cab. Her eyes were a deep, moist brown, pools you could swim around in. Skelly tried out a smile—friendly, not leering, he hoped—and a sudden crinkling of her eyes told him she’d smiled back. Amazing. A good omen, perhaps. Or maybe he was being lured into some deep and troubling maze that only the locals understood. The light turned green and the motorcycle sped away.

  “Little Kabul,” Najeeb said, pointing to low-slung shops lining the four-lane road. “In this part of town almost everyone you see is Afghan.”

  As in town, the shops were grouped by specialty. First came the auto parts district—shiny rows of mufflers hanging from low corrugated rooftops, welders and grinders at work in showers of sparks. Next came the poulterers with their bent cages of filthy birds stacked five deep. Then the butchers—skinned sides of mutton hanging from hooks, collecting flies and soot. Then a block of sheds with construction materials heaped in great piles, followed by dress shops with plate-glass windows, giving way to two-story wedding palaces with theater-style marquees.

  “What happens if all these people go back?” Skelly asked.

  “Would you? All you need is one look at the real Kabul. Their nation isn’t really Afghanistan, anyway. It’s Pashtun, and this is their new capital.”

  Your capital as well? Skelly wondered. A few miles later the buildings gave way to a sprawl of low mud huts on their right. Rooftops were made of plywood, logs and sheet metal. Windows were square holes, and smoke poured from makeshift chimneys. Looking down narrow alleys as they passed, Skelly saw seemingly endless streams of people and herds of sheep on lanes of packed clay. They crossed a narrow stream where children waded knee-deep in green water next to women washing clothes or drawing water in plastic jugs and ceramic pots, cheek by jowl with half-submerged cattle. The stench of sewage and animals was almost unbearable, but the place went on and on, the low rooftops stretching as far as he could see. It was like a scene of biblical plague, worse than anything Skelly had encountered even on the West Bank or in the war zones of the Balkans, although several sites in West Africa would give this one a run for its money.

  “Jesus,” he muttered. “What the hell is that?”

  “The Katchagarhi camp,” Najeeb said. “More than a hundred thousand refugees. These are the ones who will go back. Whether they want to or not. The minute the war is over, the government will start loading them up.”

  “How long have they been here?”

  “A lot of them since the Russians came. Early eighties.”

  The taxi slowed, and the driver signaled for a left turn, away from the camp and up a broad paved lane. A hundred yards ahead was a guardhouse. On a vast cratered mudflat to the right several skinny boys played cricket, running barefoot in their baggy kameez. Dust devils swirled past them in a blazing sun. They’d propped up a narrow stone for a wicket. A barbed-wire fence lined the edge of a field behind them, and beyond it—farther still from the highway—was a green neighborhood of three-story homes built of brick and marble, all of them fairly new. After Katchagarhi it looked like paradise.

  “Hayatabad,” Najeeb said. “Home of the refugee aristocracy. It’s where Razaq lives.”

  “It’s a wonder the people from Katchagarhi don’t just cross the highway and kill everyone in their sleep.”

  “That’s why there’s a guardhouse. In case the thought ever occurs to them. But it would be the same in Afghanistan. Or where I’m from. The Pashtun like to call it leadership.” Then Najeeb stopped, as if he’d already said too much. Skelly got out his press card and passport for the gunman at the guardhouse, who waved them through. Two blocks later they turned right toward Razaq’s place, a few hundred yards farther on the right. Every home was surrounded by high concrete walls, and considering that Razaq’s eldest son had been killed by Taliban assassins two years earlier, it probably wasn’t a bad idea. It was quiet here, the only sound coming from workmen hammering new tiles onto the rooftop next door. Skelly wondered if there were more than just roofers up there, considering the prime vantage point.

  A tall man with an automatic weapon greeted them at a latticed iron gate, passing along their IDs to someone else, who motioned them inside. The place was busy. Five ancient fellows in full beards knelt on the clipped lawn on prayer rugs angled toward Mecca. One had unwrapped his turban and was carefully folding it beside him on the grass. A portable radio blared the news from the tiles of the front porch. Inside was just as crowded. The smell of
cooking wafted from the kitchen on a cloud of steam. Two other older men eyed them suspiciously from the entrance hall, a clean bright place with thick carpet and expensive-looking paintings. A younger, bareheaded man entered and shook their hands before placing his hand on his heart in the local gesture of welcome.

  “Razaq’s younger brother, Salim,” Najeeb said, making introductions.

  “You will have tea?”

  Skelly knew better than to refuse.

  Salim led them down a hallway. More bustle. Younger men now, chattering loudly in Pashto. Skelly caught a glimpse of the kitchen, where there was a crowd around the stove, pots clanging. He had yet to see a female. Presumably the women had their own part of the house. The place had the feel of a way station, a caravansary along the Silk Road. But who were all these people? One last gathering before the big expedition? Or was it always this busy?

  Salim ushered them into a smaller room, where they sat on colorful embroidered cushions along a whitewashed wall, and momentarily a young boy entered balancing a brass tray with three china cups and a steaming teapot. He poured the milky brew, Najeeb gulping it as if his life depended on it. A rough morning, indeed, Skelly surmised.

  “You’re still willing to go if he’ll have us, aren’t you?” Skelly asked.

  “Yes. But our chances are small.”

  “So I’ve heard. Ran into an old friend last night at the hotel. Works for one of the pipeline companies.”

  “Petrotek?”

  “Transgas.” Hartley would have been dismayed that Najeeb thought first of the competition. “He says there’s another fellow going in tomorrow, if this doesn’t work out. Muhammad Fawad.”