SIkander

by M. Salahuddin Khan

  “Well, the ceasefire’s good until the seventeenth, so even if you’re delayed for any reason, there’ll be more flights. That should be ample reserve,” added Junaid.

  People around the airport apron began gazing toward the sun, now hanging low in the southwestern sky. At this time in its monthly cycle, the thin sliver of a new crescent moon would be setting shortly after the sun, making it difficult to locate against the glare. It had extra importance, as it would mark the start of Ramadhan 2001, if seen. Aside from the canyon cut by the Qunduz River, the plain on which the airport was located continued all the way to some hills in the west, which at that distance, barely rose above the horizon. The airport was thus an ideal location from which to be searching for the crescent moon. As the sun’s last embers disappeared behind the hills, a shout emerged from the main building’s rooftop. The man who had spotted the crescent pointed eagerly in the direction of a ridgeline in the distant hills. Only minutes remained before it would follow the sun below the same hills.

  It was barely visible but as others in the crowd began seeing it too, there was a cheer and a moment of solemnity as people raised their hands in prayer to wish for blessings in this most troubled of Ramadhans in recent times. Sikander and his family did the same and when the prayer was over and everyone had wished each other the appropriate blessings, there was a lull as people thought about all that was going on and how uncharacteristic of Ramadhan the events unfolding around them were. Many quietly rejoiced at the prospect of being out of the place in a few hours or at most a couple of days. Others ruefully reflected on all that they were now walking away from, including their homes, their friends, and their relatives, some of whom had been killed in only the last few days.

  In Qunduz, the direction to face Makkah was in almost perfect alignment with the setting November sun and new moon. The azaan was called and the sunset prayer was performed, after which the group was able to unwind after the long journey.

  Razya was pleased to reminisce with Junaid on the exploits of her late husband while on his many trips to Pakistan. Abdul Majeed and Saleem engaged Iqbal on small talk about the finer points of religious observance. The rest of the group simply relaxed.

  After a little more than an hour, the time for isha came. On this occasion, the customary Ramadhan taraweeh prayer was added, making everyone both thoughtful and weary. Despite the nightlights of the airfield, no one had difficulty sleeping.

  The following day would normally be the first fasting day, but as the people in the airport were all in a state of travel, they could permit themselves to suspend the fast. Many of them elected to do so. An hour before fajr, those who were fasting arose to take their suhur meal with whatever provisions they had remaining and followed it with the usual fasting niyyah. By fajr time, everyone was awake and prayer was conducted in small jamaat gatherings within the designated groups of a hundred and twenty-five. Like most people nestled under blankets and chadors on the open tarmac, Sikander and his companions were hungry. Their stomachs had long forgotten the dried fruit from Pul-i-Khumri and were growling angrily. Sikander’s idea of going into the city to sell the mules and buy some food seemed to be growing wiser by the minute.

  “How much do you think you’ll get for them?” Abdul Majeed asked.

  “Not sure. Two thousand apiece, maybe? But I am sure they’ll be in demand if there is to be a siege,” replied Sikander.

  “Here’s a confirmation note to admit you back into the airport this afternoon,” offered Junaid. “It’s a precaution.” Junaid handed Sikander a letter, signed with his pseudonym of Junaid, his rank, and his serial number. He advised Sikander to be sure to show it to the ISI officers standing guard at the airport entrance as he left and again upon his return. Junaid promised to make sure the ISI people would know to admit him in the unlikely event their flight group left before he returned.

  “If, for any reason, we get split up, we’ll be regrouping at the air base in Peshawar, and we’ll wait for you there,” he explained.

  “Very well, but I’ll back before noon.” Sikander replied.

  Sikander went to where the mules had been tethered, mounted his own, and trailed the others behind him to the airport entrance. He explained what he was doing to the ISI officers, who made way for him to ride out. Taking the airport connector road to the main Qunduz road, and confident with all he had seen so far regarding this evacuation, he decided to use the actual road instead of tracking alongside it.

  As he rode, Sikander mused over who his customers might be, imagining, in all likelihood, selling the mules to a Taliban buyer. He had never made a secret of not liking the Taliban. However, he had given them leeway in his own mind based on their being poorly educated, often orphaned youth, misguided into an overly austere understanding of Islam with which few Muslim scholars agreed. So he understood something of their situation and they were, after all, fellow Muslims. The ride into the city didn’t take as long as he expected.

  Qunduz was an ancient city, once visited by Alexander the Great en route to his conquest of Bactria, a fact noted by Sikander when he read about it in school in Peshawar. It had registered with him that he’d been named after someone so illustrious, and however childish it might now seem, he was once again feeling a soldierly affinity with the great conqueror.

  Although Qunduz was a Taliban stronghold, it had a mixed population of Tadjiks, Uzbeks, Pashtuns, Hazaras, and others. It was a city on edge, awaiting its fate. Countless wars in the past had demonstrated what a bad idea it was to be on the losing side of any conflict in this part of the world.

  As Sikander rode in with the mules ambling behind him, he asked some Taliban where he might trade them. They pointed him in the direction of a livestock bazaar on the east side of the city, a couple of kilometers away. He rode on to the small open-air market on the main road east out of Qunduz toward Khanabad.

  After some animated haggling with the Uzbek vendor, Sikander eventually settled on twenty-two hundred Pakistani rupees each, which for the nine mules netted Sikander almost twenty thousand rupees in cash. Considering the circumstances, Sikander was upbeat from having seen the animals dealt with appropriately, and now being free to obtain food to take back to the airport. He was famished.

  He turned west on the Khanabad Road back toward the center of the city and before long was greeted by the impossible to resist aroma of a bakery, locating the premises in short order. Sikander tethered his riding mule and ordered ample amounts of bread, kebabs, and chickpeas to make up for his and his friends’ abstinence of the last few days.

  Having performed his last mission of the morning, he remounted his mule and headed down the main southbound thoroughfare toward the airport as he wrapped a naan around a kebab, hastily dispatching the improvised combination.

  His thoughts drifted to everyone back at the airport, anxiously anticipating the aircraft that would soon be arriving on this beautiful, brisk, and sunny morning. The trip had been a success and the prospect of leaving this war-ravaged country filled him with a sense of wellbeing.

  Sikander’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted, however, by a sharp stinging sensation below his left shoulder blade. As the feeling registered, he felt himself losing his balance, and then, blackness engulfed him.

  Junaid looked at his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes, as if repeated examination might reveal some failing in its time-keeping. It was three-thirty in the afternoon. All day long the C130s had been coming in and going out just as planned. The sixth group was next and by now everyone in his family group was consumed by mounting anxiety for Sikander. No one could fathom how he could have been delayed or lost. No one wanted to contemplate the worst.

  “What’s keeping him?” demanded Junaid of the air around him. He, Iqbal, Abdul Majeed, and Saleem peered intently at the airport entrance on the far side, craning their necks to see if they could get a glimpse of a solitary rider on a mule, but without success.

  “Brother Junaid,” said Noor, arising from having
been seated on the ground for too long, “why isn’t he back yet? What do we do if he doesn’t come back in time?” she asked nervously.

  Junaid turned toward Noor leaving Abdul Majeed, Saleem and Iqbal on the lookout. “We’ll have to leave without him, Sister,” he uttered reluctantly. Recognizing, however, that she needed some hope for her son-in-law, he went on to tell her that there were still two more days of airlifting and that she shouldn’t worry.

  “He’s probably had a much harder time of selling the mules than he was expecting. Qunduz is, after all, a big city, so maybe he’s just gone from place to place.” Junaid fought valiantly to cling to a conviction his doubts were doing their best to destroy.

  With Noor wearing her burkha there was no way for him to see her skeptical eyes. He didn’t need to. She was clearly worried, and he had told her nothing to alleviate her concern. Having known Sikander for over fifteen years, Noor understood him to be resourceful and intelligent. Whatever he was dealing with, at least for the moment, she drew more solace from this knowledge than from anything Junaid could say to her. While she pondered several awful possibilities, Junaid strolled briskly over to one of the other ISI officers who had been waving his arm over his head with a two-way radio in his hand.

  Noor felt the hand of Razya gently weigh on her right shoulder as she looked down, feeling herself unable to hang onto even a shred of optimism.

  “Noor,” said Razya, “it’s no good imagining the worst. We should be praying for the best for Sikander and that he makes it safely back.” Fatima and Amina also rallied round her but their combined effect only invited Noor to unburden her feelings and she burst into tears.

  The tears stopped abruptly but gave way to a sinking heart when suddenly, one of the others in their flight group cried out, “It’s here!” The orange flashbulb of the afternoon sun glinting momentarily off the windshield of the approaching Hercules had just caught his eye. The aircraft was low in the southeastern sky. Almost immediately, everyone turned to see the black dot of its growing silhouette. Junaid returned to join his companions whose worries had by now multiplied from the urgency of the approaching aircraft.

  “Why isn’t he back? Why?” demanded Noor, continuing to sob. Junaid’s face revealed everything he was thinking; yet he didn’t want to volunteer any answers. This was no time for half-truths, and platitudes.

  “What’s the news, Brother Junaid?” asked Razya.

  “We just have to hope and pray, sister, that Sikander’s all right and can make it for this flight. I have to admit that it looks unlikely, but it could be he’ll be on one of the others in the next two days. Right now we have the choice to stay or go and I recommend that given the dangers here, we should be going. At least you all should.”

  “Dangers?” Noor asked, doing her best to hold back the tears.

  “I’ve, uh, just learned that the Northern Alliance and Americans are beginning their siege this evening and…well…that there could be fighting tonight in Qunduz,” Junaid revealed.

  Crushed, Noor was beyond saying anything. It was now impossible to believe that her son-in-law would be joining them.

  “You said we should all go?” asked Saleem.

  “Saleem, I have to stay here for him.” Junaid replied. “The siege will be on the city itself even though people coming in from the south, as we did, can still get into the airport. I’m afraid he’s going to have a tough time making it here. But if he gets through, I’ll be here for him for two more days.”

  “Well can’t you—can’t we—go look for him?” asked Abdul Majeed. “We can miss this flight, too, can’t—”

  “No! Abdul Majeed, we can’t go look for him.” Junaid was firm, his teeth clenched. “None of us can. The forces surrounding the city won’t permit it. It would put us all at risk. Abdul Majeed, Saleem, and you, Iqbal—you three have to take charge of this group and see them through to Peshawar. I’ll write down the address of Sikander’s home.” He turned to focus on Abdul Majeed and Saleem. “You should find any way to get to it—but Iqbal will be able to help if you have any difficulty. I’ll either bring Sikander with me if he gets here, inshaAllah, or at the very least I’ll tell you whatever I learn. I’m…I’m sorry.”

  Iqbal gave his father a look of worried suspicion.

  “Iqbal, it’s okay. Look, at the very latest, with or without Sikander, I promise you I’ll be on the last flight.” Junaid answered his son’s unspoken question, adding a plaintive expression in Abdul Majeed’s direction to enlist his support for the decision. Reluctantly, Abdul Majeed nodded. He was consumed by guilt—guilt at having been so blinded into following the Taliban into a path of self-destruction; guilt at losing everything that had been accomplished by bringing some semblance of peace to Afghanistan after the Russians left. Above all else, he felt guilt that his cousin-in-law and good friend, who had risked his life to help them all come back as part of a family, might now be paying with his life for this to happen. Deep in such thoughts he couldn’t help turning his gaze away from the rest of his companions. Saleem looked on, similarly overcome.

  The droning of the C130’s engines grew louder as the aircraft approached in a steep descent. Its wheels finally touched down, and almost immediately the pilot reversed pitch on the giant propellers, bringing the aircraft to rest in less than five hundred meters. The pilot retracted the landing flaps and made the turn toward the apron. Everyone in flight group six was asked to stand up, form a line four abreast, and head toward the opening rear ramp door. The engines would not be powering down, as the intent was to be out of there as soon as loading was complete, so the pilot feathered the props to a flat pitch, which minimized any blast that might hinder boarding.

  “No, no! Sikander! Zweeeey!” wailed Noor, as she resisted being escorted. Abdul Majeed and Saleem did all they could to reassure her that this was the best thing they could do right now. Shouting over the noise of the engines, they finally prevailed upon her to come with them and join the rest of the women.

  Junaid looked on as the last of the passengers boarded and the ramp door started to close. He couldn’t see his own group as they were too far inside, but he waved nonetheless. He said a prayer of “Fi-amanillah; Allah Hafiz” to them as the pilot reset the pitch, throttled up, and taxied all the way to the far end of the runway. A few moments later, with the flaps set for takeoff, the engines revved to full power, the aircraft lurched forward, gathered speed, and was airborne. Junaid watched as the Hercules gained altitude and headed in the direction of the sun before making a sweeping arc back to the east, disappearing into the darkening blue distance.

  Junaid hung back for the two remaining days and nights. Finally, when the last flight from Pakistan came in, he offered a prayer of hope for Sikander and with a heavy heart boarded it, continuing until the last minute to hope for that solitary figure riding on a mule to come galloping into the airfield. The hope remained unfulfilled.

  Slowly, Sikander peeled open his eyes, while more slowly regaining consciousness. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious or where he was. All he could see was the beautiful crescent of the moon through an opening in the wall to his upper right. He was lying on a simple bed.

  At first, he could barely recall what he’d been doing, where he’d been going, or just about anything of the moments leading up to his feeling the pain.

  Pain! There was pain involved. What was it? Where? He tried to move and as soon as he did, a familiar, searing sensation made known its presence in the middle of his chest. He tilted his head forward and saw that he had been bandaged crudely just above his right fifth rib. He also saw blood. He lowered his head back onto the bed, still reeling from the pain he’d felt a moment earlier. Another pain came into focus behind his head and below his left shoulder and then another all the way down his left side. He cursed the consciousness that was putting him through this agony. He realized now, that he had been shot and the bullet had passed right through him.

  After a few moments, the pain associated with
his minor movement subsided to a level he could just about handle. His attention turned to whatever he might be able to recall. He looked toward the sky through the open window. The moon blinked. A solitary eagle owl had flown across its crescent, catching Sikander’s attention. He noted the relative darkness in the sky and the approximate size of the crescent. Where am I? Who shot me? Will I survive? Survive! Yes! Have to survive! Rabia…children…have to get back. To Pakistan. To Peshawar.

  Threads of memory slowly wove the fabric of awareness back into an increasingly coherent whole. Returning. I was returning to the airport to…to…make the airlift. Yes. It was the fifteenth when the crescent had been sighted. The crescent? Something’s wrong…it—oh, God…it must be two or three days old!

  Another dreadful awareness swept over Sikander. From the beautiful moon had emerged an ugly truth. It had to be November 17 or 18. Sikander had missed his ride out of Afghanistan.

  With these realizations coursing through him, his spirit sank into an abyss of emptiness and he couldn’t help weeping while he worried about his situation and what might now be happening to him.

  Ceasefire. There was a ceasefire! I shouldn’t have been shot! Who did this? Why? Sikander protested as if to some invisible referee. The game hadn’t been played by the rules.

  The strain of all these thoughts and questions were too much for him as he again felt the sting in his lower right torso. Finally it dawned on him that if he was in a bed, someone must have put him there. Someone wanted him alive. But he was feeling too exhausted to analyze why, as he drifted back to sleep.

  The bright daylight was visible through the window but the sun must have been elsewhere in the sky, which was a deep blue at this time. It could have been morning or afternoon, but as it was the light that had awoken him, Sikander guessed it was probably morning. While he was contemplating the time of day, from behind the closed door, he heard voices approaching the room. Whether the result of a drugged stupor or rational clarity, he didn’t feel concerned. If they were the ones who put him there, then he was supposed to be alive. If not, he would die now and get it over with. He was in no shape to put up a fight. The voices became clearer making it apparent they were speaking Dari. Sikander had no idea what they were saying.