What Changes Everything

by Masha Hamilton

  "These men are illiterate," Shahpur says. "They are animals. They all believe their swords must be reddened."

  "They are our Pashtun cousins," Najib insists.

  "This is not a fairytale. These are Talibs. You are too smart to be fooled by them," Shahpur says. "You have cursed the mujahideen, but these fighters will make the mujahideen seem like princes."

  "They have honor, I"m sure of it." Najib paces toward the window. "At least some. And besides, perhaps there is still time for…" His voice trails off, as if he himself can no longer believe his optimistic words. He drops into a chair and his shoulders slump in a way Amin has not seen in all these years.

  "Perhaps," Shahpur offers in a tone of appeasement, "they will put you on trial, hoping to legitimize their government in international eyes."

  "You think they care about international eyes?" Then Najib straightens. "You remember when we organized the protest, and threw eggs at Spiro Agnew? Perhaps they will throw eggs at me." He laughs, but it is not a Najib laugh. It is weaker.

  "Those were more innocent times. We ourselves were more innocent."

  "You want innocence?" Suddenly Najib grows animated. "Remember when we

  decorated the camels in Peshawar, you and I? Bells and ribbons! They made music when they walked, and Father said: 'There is no holiday. You have decorated them pointlessly." But Mother said, „A decorated camel is never pointless."" Najib laughs, stronger this time. "Remember the game we used to play, trailing after Father as he wound through the old marketplace to visit his friend at the goldsmiths, or the man who sold spices? How we pretended to be invisible, and convinced ourselves we were because he did such a good job of ignoring us. Finally he would turn and shoo us away, and we would giggle and run. We never tired of that game. Remember the light in the Khyber Pass—oh, Shahpur—and the golden sand, and the way the dust would coat our skin? Magic. I used to hate to wash it off." He takes a deep breath and his voice becomes quieter; Amin leans forward to hear. "Remember Mama"s hands at the end, how they grew so soft and clumsy. But we held them, you and I, together that final night, Shahpur. Another ending, and we were together then as well."

  "What"s all this memory?" Shahpur asks, and he laughs, but his laughter sounds fearful.

  "There are still things I can do; I can control my thoughts. I want to think of those times. You are given the task of helping me. Can you recite some lines of poetry Father taught us?"

  "Now?" Shahpur spreads his hands helplessly. "I am honored to be your brother, but I have not your wit or willpower."

  "All right then, we"ll make music. A thing they would forbid, those foolish boys. Join me, brother." Najib begins to play the arms of his chair as if they were drums, and he sings—at least it is intended as song, Amin knows, and meant to summon bravery. But it emerges as a wordless, wide-mouthed tune from deep in the belly, from a soul in sorrow. Shahpur drops his head in his hands, and Amin himself cannot bear it anymore.

  He should have stepped forward then, out of the shadows. He should have offered an escape route again; the plan was no longer ready for immediate launching but the two men might have followed him home and hidden there until something, something could be done. He doesn"t repeat his offer. The depth of his emotions, the complexity of the moment and his undone plans defy him. This, then, is his failure. Unable to think or to see through the water of his eyes, he hurries into the night. He believes he has witnessed history enough.

  Epilogue

  In the predawn hours of September 27th, 1996, Taliban rebels fought their way into Kabul and, while most Kabulis slept, overran the UN compound, dragging Dr. Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai and his brother outside. They castrated and tortured Najibullah, dragging him behind a car through Kabul streets before hanging him from a concrete post in Aryana Square, in front of the city"s most luxurious hotel. Residents found his mutilated, bloated and blood-soaked body the next morning, with rolled up Afghani bills stuck in his nose and mouth and between his fingers, his brother hanging beside him. Their bodies remained on display for two days.

  Najibullah spent ten years, from 1965 to 1975, getting his medical degree from Kabul University. During that time, he was jailed twice for political activities. In 1980, he was appointed head of KHAD, the secret police. Under his leadership, thousands of Afghans were arrested, tortured and executed. Appointed President of Afghanistan in 1985, he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet soldiers in 1989. He continued to rule Afghanistan until April 1992, when he agreed to step down as part of a UN-brokered agreement that involved him handing over power to an interim government and leaving the country. But before he could depart, Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, his former ally, blocked his safe passage.

  Burhanuddin Rabbani became president, with Ahmed Shah Massoud as military chief. For the four years and five months before the Taliban takeover, the United Nations gave Najibullah refuge in Kabul while Afghans turned their weapons on each other, destroying large sections of the capital city and killing some 50,000 people.

  Massoud was murdered in September 2001, days before the events of 9/11, by two men posing as journalists who had hidden explosives in a camera and a battery pack belt.

  Rabbani died ten years later, in September 2011 in another suicide bomb attack, this involving two men claiming to be Taliban representatives, one of whom had explosives hidden in his turban.

  Dostum has managed to revise or reverse his political views in keeping with the time, at one point serving under President Karzai as a deputy defense minister.

  After Najibullah"s death, his wife and daughters continued to live quietly in exile in Delhi. In November 1998, his brother-in-law Mohammed Hashim Bakhtiari, who had condemned the Taliban for killing the former president, was gunned down outside his home in a suburb of Peshawar, northwest Pakistan. No one was ever charged for the murder.

  "Destiny is a saddled ass; he goes where you lead him."

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