A week later the Haha Man was in business.
Beneath the churning clouds so dark and red, the molecules in his mind were melding into each other. Strange fusions took place. On a deeper level, inside the clouds, at the core of the maelstrom, a light arced across the void striking at the spinning electrons. Radiant sparks, blue, cerulean then sapphire, showered outwards to be swallowed by the livid heart of smoke and clouds. Pressure building then another discharge searing through the turmoil. A pulse. Intolerable pressure and another jolting discharge. Against all odds the molecules linked and for a moment the electricity flowed. The noise of the storm broke up into particles of sound. Separate tones. Words. The voice of the imam thundering words he recognised.
‘So each We punished for his sin. We sent down a violent storm, and of them was he whom the rumbling overtook.’
The synapses flared and failed. The neurons, hungry for connection, constructed impossible bridges, discarded them, tried again and abandoned their attempts, lapsing back in sullen silence.
The voice intruded.
‘And the stupor of death will come in truth; that is what you were trying to escape.’
Blue not water. But there is water. Not rain but water on his tongue and dry cracked lips. He tries to swallow but the pain is too great.
‘Gently, brother.’
Surely this is an angel speaking. The words flow over him like a breeze. It is his father’s garden, the hour before dawn and the scent of limes drifts like liquid from amongst the groves. Or is it jasmine, heady, sticky with promise? But the vision fades and the burning light is shadowed as a hand wipes a cloth, cool, across his face. The hand withdraws and leaves him bathed in such an intense light that he feels pain and cringes. Yet his eyes are closed. Not squeezed, not clamped, but immobile. He is blind. Then light is sensed through eyelids. Rose-water not jasmine. His mind jumps. His father brings him cool rose-water. All day he has been working in the orchards picking fruit. He is seven years old and happy.
‘Have you a name?’ the angel asks.
He tries to move but finds he cannot. His arms are numb, constrained. There is a rustling sound and he senses the angel move him and his hands and arms feel cooler air circulating around them. There is choking, debilitating panic until he finds that he can flex his fingers, move his arms. Painfully he forces the inactive muscles to respond. He raises his hand towards the space where his eyes should have been. It takes so long for the movement to begin. Then he feels a hand on his face. It is his own. Yet the touch is alien. Again he tries and this time recognises both touch and being touched. He traces his finger over the rough terrain of his face and pulls his eyelids free of caked blood and dirt and cries out as the brilliance of sunlight reaches his now open eyes.
‘I am called …’ The voice that emerges from his throat is no more than a whisper, cracked and tremulous; a stranger’s voice. He stops as he senses he can control his eyes, and glances up into the face of not an angel but a young man. ‘I am not dead.’
To him the statement is deeply profound, but inexplicably the young man grins, displaying uneven yellowed teeth.
‘I am Hassan,’ the young man says. ‘And you can thank Allah you’re alive.’
‘I am Karim,’ he croaks, but the effort is too much and, suddenly freezing cold, he plunges back into the darkness.
He must have slept again, for the next thing Karim knew it was dark. His head was pounding and for a moment he feared that this time he really had gone blind, but as he moved to sit up a candle floated towards him through the icy air. He squinted and saw it was being carried by a young boy. He couldn’t remember the boy’s name. Painfully he turned his head sideways and looked around. By the soft glow of the candle he saw he was in a small tent constructed of rough-hewn poles and tattered canvas and plastic. The thought flashed through his mind that he had been taken prisoner by the Taliban. Karim’s face must have registered fear, for as the boy crouched beside him he spoke softly, his words accompanied by puffs of steam as his breath condensed in the cold air.
‘It’s me, Hassan.’
Out of the darkness he produced a glass of water and lifted Karim’s head so he could drink.
‘You have been very ill. We thought you would die.’
Karim sipped slowly. There was something miraculous about the taste of water in his mouth and throat. He felt it spilling from his mouth and down onto his chest, but could do nothing to stop it. He looked at the boy. He could be no more than seven or eight but the eyes had already seen too much. They were the eyes of an old man.
‘I thought I was dead.’ This time Karim recognised his own voice.
‘My father picked you up from the side of the road. You were badly injured but the Taliban were coming and we didn’t want to leave you.’
‘I can’t repay you —’
‘None of us get our rewards on this earth,’ the boy said solemnly.
Karim knew he was repeating a phrase picked up from his father. He smiled. ‘Where are we?’
‘Jalozai.’
‘Jalozai?’
‘Jalozai refugee camp in Pakistan.’
Karim looked at the boy to see if he was joking.
‘God is great! We are in Pakistan.’ The boy’s face broke into a grin.
‘God is great,’ Karim echoed softly. Pakistan. It was a double blessing — alive and out of Afghanistan.
‘Just before we got to the Torkham border crossing, we wrapped you in a winding sheet and told the guards we were bringing you home to bury you.’ The boy chuckled. ‘It was nearly true, I think.’
‘Pakistan.’ The name had a sweet sense of release and he allowed it to lull him back to sleep.
Although, according to Hassan’s father, Taher, his head wound was less serious than first thought and there was nothing more they could do for him, it was two days before Karim felt well enough to move. When he did leave the tent it was to emerge into a world he didn’t recognise. He crawled out of the flapping canvas shelter into another picture from hell — a vast plain covered in makeshift tents. Slowly he turned around and found it stretching away as far as the eye could see in every direction. Even though it was supposed to be spring, a chill wind whipped paper and plastic through the air and the few people that moved across the landscape were stooped and huddled against the cold. To his right a makeshift toilet block was ringed by mud fouled with the sewage overflow. Even in the cold the place had the smell of death. The image reminded him of something he had read at university in England: the ninth circle of Dante’s hell. England … that seemed a lifetime away. From a nearby hut he heard a child crying. That such a landscape was possible sickened him. That adults were forced to live here incomprehensible. But children? No, that was obscene. He staggered to the toilet and relieved himself then retreated to the tent. But though he shut the flap and buried himself back under the blankets, the images would not go away. He could shut out the cold but he couldn’t hide from the image frozen into his mind. There is no place to hide, his father had once said, from Qiamiat — from Doomsday.
‘How many people live here?’
Hassan crouched in the tent’s entrance and wrapped his shawl tightly around his shoulders. At his feet was a small bundle of twigs that he had somehow managed to scavenge. ‘Too many. Some people say fifty thousand.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘And who runs it?’ Karim asked.
‘Runs it?’
‘Who’s in charge?’
‘I don’t know. The various groups have chosen their numaiandas — representatives — and they have some sort of system where they pick inzebat or security officials but they are really only kids with sticks. They think they’re tough.’
‘And this place …’
‘Jalozai.’
‘Jalozai. Where exactly is it?’
Hassan thought for a moment and then scratched in the dirt with a twig. ‘Here is the border at Torkham, and about fifty kilometres to the east … about here …’— he made another
mark in the dirt — ‘… is Peshawar. And just over here, to the west, is Jalozai. About an hour by car.’
Karim squinted at the lines in the dirt. ‘I have to get to Peshawar. Is Taher’s truck still running?’
Hassan nodded.
‘Then tell him in the morning we will go to Peshawar.’
‘He has very little fuel left.’
‘Enough to get to Peshawar?’
‘Yes.’
Karim grinned and patted the boy on the shoulder. ‘You may not get all you deserve in this life, Hassan, but you and your father will be rewarded with more than a full tank of diesel once we get to Peshawar.’
‘You know people there?’ The boy looked doubtful.
‘Better than that. I have an uncle and my family has a bank account there.’
‘I’ll go and tell my father,’ Hassan said and pushed his way past the canvas opening. The twigs, so carefully collected, lay forgotten on the ground.
‘You might jump out and I would be left with nothing.’
‘I give you my word.’
‘Words don’t buy food.’
‘You are looking into the face of an honest man.’
‘Hach guli ba char mast,’ Taher countered. No rose is without thorns.
Taher, still unsure that Karim would honour his end of the bargain and pay them for the trip into Peshawar, finally agreed as long as Karim sat in the middle seat. Hassan grinned happily, waited until Karim was squeezed around the gear shift and slammed the door. It shut on the second attempt.
The truck took even more coaxing but eventually coughed and spluttered into life and, after discharging a cloud of black smoke into the morning air, shuddered and moved forward. There was a large hole under the dashboard that allowed an unrestricted view of the motor and, though noisy and smelly, this soon provided a comforting level of warmth. The noise of the engine curtailed conversation, though Karim suspected that Taher was in no mood to talk anyway. It suited Karim, because already his mind had leapt ahead to Peshawar and meeting his uncle. For the first time in months he was feeling genuinely elated — not just because he had escaped from Afghanistan, but because he was going to see his favourite relative.
They had met frequently over the years, either on family trips to Peshawar or when Javed Hussain Mazari made his journeys to Mazar-i Sharif to purchase old rugs for export. As the political situation had deteriorated he had visited less often and reluctantly allowed Karim’s father to purchase on his behalf, even though he swore that he bought from a gilam jam — a carpet thief. ‘He doesn’t have the eye for rugs,’ he would grumble. ‘I wanted the red rugs that the Turkmen weave. Look at this! This rubbish you were tricked into buying was made by some Farsiwan or a Tajik with fat fingers! Feel the wool. What dog did that come off? And this? This new flatweave you couldn’t sell to a blind mullah. Even a gilam jam would spit on it.’ Then he would hold up a traditional red rug with the octagonal gul or traditional elephant foot or filpai design. ‘Now this is a rug!’
As a child Karim had learned to see behind the gruff facade that Javed presented to the world. For his part, Javed had developed a soft spot for Karim and would slip the boy a boiled sweet then, just to maintain appearances, cuff him over the ear. Karim spent hours exploring his uncle’s warehouse, searching through the piles of rugs, the boxes of cheap jewellery and collections of artefacts being prepared for export. Long before he had gone overseas himself he had looked at the addresses on the packages and fallen asleep dreaming that amongst the rugs was a magic carpet that would take him up into the skies and to the lands whose names he could barely pronounce. And late in the evening, as Uncle Javed sat with chai and his favourite hookah, he would tell the child Karim stories of the places his rugs flew to.
‘I hope you know where we are going.’
Karim had dozed off. He looked around, taking a moment to get his bearings. He glanced across the broad street and immediately knew where they were. That was the Saddar — the Cantonment area — neat, clean, laid out with parks and gardens.
‘Straight ahead. This is Khyber Road and we turn right at the Fort.’
‘That is Balahisar?’ Taher asked as they passed under the shadow of the building. His face was a picture of awe. ‘I have heard of this.’
‘It’s so big!’
Karim turned and looked at Hassan. The boy’s eyes were wide with wonder. As a child Karim had found the huge battlements and ramparts too big to comprehend and now as an adult he still found the massive frowning structure overpowering. Uncle Javed had told him stories of the Balahisar Fort and its builder, Babur, the first of the Mughals, and he had sat open-mouthed as his uncle wove together the threads of history — threads that ran from ancient times through to the British who had built the Saddar.
‘When I was your age I was scared I would be locked up in there,’ Karim smiled. ‘Now the tourists pay to go inside.’
They turned left into Railway Road and immediately ran into heavy traffic heading in the direction of the Old City. Mule drivers and taxis competed for room with trucks, cars, bicycles, bullock carts, tongas, rickshaws and even a camel train. Taher slowed to a crawl and added the truck’s horn to the cacophony around them. The streets were so crowded it took another half-hour for them to navigate their way past the Kabuli Gate to where the Khyber Bazaar became Qissa Khawani, famous for having once been the Street of the Storytellers. The street had changed beyond recognition since Karim’s childhood but it still filled him with delight. Gone were many of the ubiquitous tea stalls; in their place ready-made clothing shops competed for attention with colourful fruit-stalls and sweet-shops. Small wayside restaurants sold a bewildering variety of kebabs, grilled meats and freshly baked unleavened bread. To his amazement the old University Book Agent was still in business. Through the truck windows came a melange of heady aromas. Tea and cardamom seed scented the air, mingling with the fragrances of sandalwood, incense, hashish and tobacco. Vendors proclaiming the virtues of their wares switched deftly between languages. Karim heard Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi and English all spoken with equal fluency. Then, as they crept forward, he recognised another familiar landmark.
‘There! Turn left at the corner.’ Karim pointed to a shop selling copper and brass, above which a sign announced humbly that it was The Shop of Poor Honest Ali. ‘My uncle’s warehouse is just along here on the right. There’s an alley at the side where you can park the truck.’
‘Nobody told me the whole world lived in Peshawar,’ Taher yelled over the noise. Despite sounding the horn continually, he was being ignored. A grubby-faced urchin jumped onto the running board and thrust a handful of cigarettes through the window.
‘Fresh rolled,’ he said in Pashto.
‘Get off!’ Taher yelled.
‘Hazara-e-mushkur!’ the boy spat and vanished back into the crowded street.
Taher glanced at Karim. ‘What did he say?’
Karim laughed. ‘He called you a mouse-eating Hazara.’
Taher grunted and went back to the task of turning the truck into the densely packed side street.
In Karim’s childhood The Street of Partridge Lovers had been the heart of the bird market, but now all that remained was a single bird shop that looked as though it was struggling to survive amidst the stores and shops selling exquisitely engraved brass and copper ware. Javed Hussain’s shop was easy to see. From its doors poked rolls of cloth and carpets. From the balconies on the two floors above was draped an even more colourful display. Just below the tangle of electric and phone cables was a small sign jutting out at a right angle to the street: Ancient Rug Emporium.
Karim pointed to a small tea shop just ahead.
‘The alley is there.’ He turned to Hassan. ‘Jump out and tell those people to move.’
The boy looked dubious but his father nodded at him to do as he was told.
‘Say we are delivering important merchandise for Mr Mazari,’ Karim added.
‘Okay.’
Hassan slipped out and began
what looked like an unequal debate with a group of peddlers selling knives, cheap radios and belt buckles from a shawl laid across the stone paving. At first they appeared reluctant to move and eyed the truck suspiciously. But at some point Hassan must have mentioned the Mazari name, and the mood changed. The men gathered up their merchandise and shifted to one side.
‘Come with me,’ Karim told Hassan as he jumped from the truck and turned towards the rug shop.
Just inside the door stood a fierce-looking Pashtun dressed in a shalwar qamiz. He was cradling an M-16 rifle. As Karim and Hassan entered he eyed them up and down, then, deciding that they posed no threat, went back to watching the street. Javed had always employed one or two guards, not so much because he feared being robbed, but rather, as he put it, ‘It makes people think my carpets are worth what I charge for them.’
Karim ignored the guard and shepherded Hassan into the gloom of the main showroom. From floor to ceiling were carpets, rugs and bolts of cloth in every conceivable material and colour. A small table was buried in an assortment of samples and small cushions and the only chair was being used to display a length of bright yellow silk. Towards the rear of the shop and to one side of a narrow passageway formed by rolls of large carpets was his uncle.
Javed Hussain was sitting in his favourite spot, atop a pile of carpets, deep in conversation with two of his young workers. For a second Karim experienced a disconcerting sense of déjà vu. His uncle was exactly where Karim had last seen him. He still wore the flat-topped pakol, the Chitrali cap that had been his affectation from as far back as Karim could recall. The family had long since given up their attempts to persuade him into more suitable headgear; Javed always insisted it was his head and he would wear what he damn well liked. The moustache was just as luxurious but no longer the dark black that Karim remembered; now it was silver.
For a few seconds Javed didn’t recognise the two people silhouetted in the shopfront doorway. He sipped at his chai and beckoned them to come inside and inspect the stock.
The Haha Man Page 8
