Caravans (30 page)

“When you see the world for the pathetic thing
it is”—at the moment I was at the window, inspecting one of the most glorious views in Asia—“my mother used to tremble with gratification when we bought a bigger car than the one before or a college missing the whole point of education but congratulating itself on a million-dollar dormitory …” She was trapped in a sentence from which there was no escape and laughed nervously. “You decide to turn your back on the whole thing and find some simpler base. I thought Nazrullah was simpler than Dorset. Zulfiqar was simpler than Nazrullah. And now Otto Stiglitz is simpler than all.”

“How can you say that? The man’s an M.D. from a good university.”

“He’s simpler because he’s a non-man. In Munich he descended into hell. He’s carried the memory of it halfway around the world. He’s fought free of the world and its burden. He’s a non-man … the thing from which we begin all over.”

“Do you really believe this nonsense?” I pleaded.

“You’re the way I used to be, Miller,” she said condescendingly. “You honestly think that someone up there is keeping score on your life. If you learn fifteen new birds, you get a merit badge. If you study calculus, you make the junior honor role. If you keep your nose clean in the navy, the old man signs a favorable letter. If you obey the ambassador, he may sign another favorable letter. All these little credits are entered in a big book by what some sportswriter called the Divine Scorekeeper. It’s a comforting theory … made my father very happy. He built up points and got a bigger car. Because he had the big car he was entitled to a bigger house. He won the house, so he was voted into
the country club. And because he was in the country club his daughter was welcomed at Bryn Mawr. See where it leads? If his daughter does well at Bryn Mawr she’s entitled to marry Mark Miller, who by the same series of tricks earned the points to enter Yale. Now see what happens? His daughter and Mark Miller have got to start collecting their points, and if they don’t, the old folks will be scared stiff.

“No, Miller, you’re betting on the wrong game. There’s no scorekeeper. Nobody really gave a damn whether or not you kept your nose clean in the navy. And when we reach Balkh and you walk out on Mira, the Divine Scorekeeper ought to kick the living bejeezus out of you and set your score back to zero for having been such a swine. But He won’t. Because the Scorekeeper, supposing there is one, will be laughing at what’s happened and observing to His cronies, ‘That boy Miller’s a damned sight better kid than when he joined the caravan.’ And at Balkh, when you leave Mira, I too shall leave … but I’ll go with Otto Stiglitz.”

I looked at the old lecture hall in which we sat; from here wisdom had been poured to the ends of the nations, as they then existed, and I felt morally certain that every lesson propounded in this classroom, this curious cell in the beehive of the monastery where men spent years surrounded by rock, out of touch with the earth until their passions were burned away and their vision clarified—almost every lesson had refuted what Ellen was saying. The wisdom of the world, whether Buddhist, Muslim, Christian or Jewish, insisted that there were desirable ends, that society was worth preserving
no matter how badly scarred at a given moment in time, and that there was a Divine Score-keeper, man himself perhaps, who did judge some deeds as better than others. To the ancient lessons which came to us from this lecture hall in the cliffs of Bamian I was committed, and if Ellen Jaspar was not, the more pity I felt for her.

“Have you slept with Stiglitz?” I asked bluntly.

“No, but I shall when he asks me.”

“I suppose you know that Mira’s afraid Zulfiqar might kill Stiglitz… or you.”

“That’s of no consequence to either of us.”

“It is to me,” I countered.

“But you tried to kill Stiglitz yourself.”

“I’ve grown beyond that.”

“Miller! That’s what I mean. That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said on this trip. Now can you understand me when I say that Stiglitz and I have grown beyond your prejudices? We have, Miller. We are cleansed of this world, and whether Zulfiqar kills us or not is of no significance.”

“Might it be of significance to Zulfiqar?” I asked.

Ellen grew grave and said, “That’s a difficult question. I had no moral right to intrude on Nazrullah, but I excused myself by remembering that he had a wife and a daughter.”

“He now has a son, too.”

“Oh, Karima must be so happy!” she cried spontaneously. “He wanted a son so much. Well, I also admit I had no right to intrude on Zulfiqar, but he can stand it. He has a good family and a caravan which couldn’t exist without him. But Otto Stiglitz has nothing … hardly even a job. It’s through his regeneration and mine that the world has a fighting
chance. Frankly, Miller, with men like you and Nazrullah and Zulfiqar the world neither gains nor loses. You’re of no moral significance whatever.”

I asked, “You know that Stiglitz could be extradited … and hanged?”

“Yes. For that very reason he needs me most But one of the good aspects of living in a non-nation like Afghanistan is that they don’t extradite non-men who have already died.”

“At Baikh we’re only a few miles from Russia. He could be kidnaped.”

“Civilized nations don’t kidnap,” she argued, and I thought it indicative that she rejected civilization when it suited her philosophy to do so, but fled to it for protection of her desires.

“You forget—or did he tell you?—that he kept day-by-day records of his experiments. ‘I’m a real scientist,’ he boasted, ‘I keep records.’ The English have those records, you know. He’s a prime war criminal.”

“You’ve stated my case for me, Miller. He’s already convicted and dead. I’ve rejected all the lives I’ve known, so I’m dead too. I can live only at the bottom … at the bottom dregs of an insane world. Where hope is being reborn. Does this at last make sense?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s strange you’re so obtuse,” she reflected sorrowfully. She rose and went to the far end of the cave, drawing her burnoose about her as if it were an academic robe. “Every honest teacher who stood on this spot lecturing to his students is listening now to what I’m saying. They’re applauding. They know that society becomes corrupt and that
men must reject it if they are to remain free. They know that life, to replenish itself, must sometimes return to the dregs, to the primitive slime. The men who stood here know that I am right, even if I can’t make you listen.”

As she left the cave, she waved to the unseen do-cents who had instructed generations of Buddhist monks in this rock-girt university, those savants who were already dead and buried centuries before America and Dorset, Pennsylvania, were known. They’ll understand,” she whispered, and smiling left them.

On the second day north of Bamian I had finished checking the caravan on my white horse and had ridden off casually to explore a lateral valley, when I saw two figures climbing over the rocks above me. I was about to hail them but stopped, for when I rode closer I saw that they were Ellen Jaspar and Dr. Stiglitz, and I sensed intuitively that this day they did not wish either companionship or surveillance. I became sure of this when they turned a corner which would hide them from the caravan and ran to each other in hungry embrace. In a moment the German started undressing Ellen, and I withdrew unseen.

I would have returned to the caravan, except that as I rode away a pebble fell from the rocks and struck me, and then another, and I realized that someone perched on the high ledges overlooking the lovers was trying to signal me. I reined in the horse, scanned the rocks above me, and spotted a figure in red dress and pigtails. It was Mira, who, having anticipated the intentions of the lovers, had gone into the valley before them to sequester herself at a vantage point from which she could observe the proceedings.

I waved to her angrily: Get off that ledge! But
she pressed her fingers against her lips, cautioning silence; then, after watching the lovers for some minutes, she raised her hands triumphantly above her head and made the Kochi sign for successful sexual intercourse. And so the four of us remained gripped in the mountains, Ellen and Stiglitz in their long-delayed passion, Mira spying on them from the overhanging ledge, and I watching her gestures from the valley below. It was one of the most erotic moments I had ever known, but it was colored by a sense of tragedy, for I was convinced that if Zulfiqar discovered their passion, Ellen and her German doctor were self-committed to disaster.

After the lovers rejoined the caravan, I signaled Mira to scramble down from her ledge and join me on the white horse. “You mustn’t mention this to the others,” I warned.

“They know,” she laughed, gripping me about the waist as we galloped back to the caravan.

“How could they know unless you tell them?” I demanded.

“Anybody can look at those two and know,” she insisted.

And she was right. By noon, when Zulfiqar halted the caravan, it was known throughout the clan that the long-predicted encounter had taken place and we awaited the consequences. Since Zulfiqar was much larger than Dr. Stiglitz and could presumably strangle him if he wished—I thought it incredible that any woman should trade in the great Kochi for the insignificant German—I supposed there would be a savage beating if not a murder, but to my surprise nothing happened. In the succeeding days Ellen became an increasingly
beautiful woman, lovelier even than her high-school photographs or my first sight of her in the caravanserai. Her smile grew more warm. Her freedom of movement was enhanced. Even the manner in which she wore her long gray burnoose became more feminine and alluring, but I remember best the way her blue eyes sparkled during the long uphill hikes.

When Zulfiqar failed to react to their affair, the lovers grew more bold. They began sleeping in the doctor’s gear under the stars, along the edge of camp, and in the afternoon Stiglitz no longer went to sit with Zulfiqar and Racha beneath the tent awning. The effect of this upon the German was profound and with one exception good. He was no longer so obviously preoccupied with himself, and often when he fumbled with matches while lighting his pipe, he smiled. His nervousness disappeared and he would sometimes lean against the pole in our tent and actually relax.

The only ill effect occurred on the march, for whenever Zulfiqar rode by on his brown horse, Stiglitz tensed himself in case the big Kochi should leap upon him with dagger unsheathed. No amount of inner glow could halt this involuntary reflex, and I thought: They started this mountain-top love affair as non-people indifferent to Zulfiqar, but the deeper they fall in love, the more scared they become.

The march from Bamian to Qabir required eleven days along the most spectacular portion of the caravan route: we were penetrating the heart of the Hindu Kush, and while there were taller mountains in Asia—indeed, the Pamirs, the Karakorams
and the Himalayas were all higher—none surpassed these mountains of Afghanistan for their combinations of rocky grandeur and valley charm. Sometimes we would swing around the end of a ridge and see before us ten or fifteen miles of green valley without a single indication that men had ever been there before. At other times the trail would narrow to an ugly defile down which a river tumbled, and the trail would halt abruptly against the face of a cliff, but a rickety bridge built years ago by nomads would carry it across the river and send it onto higher land. It was exciting, fresh, magnificent.

One aspect of the Hindu Kush reminded me of the desert On the fifth day north of Bamian we rounded a corner on the trail to see before us a valley of some magnitude. At the far end, say four miles away, rose a striking mountain, and I thought: We’ll probably camp under that mountain at noon. But when noon came, the near-at hand mountain was a few miles away. On the next day we resumed march and at noon the elusive peak was still a few miles distant. So on the following day we plugged along until the mountain was almost near enough to touch, but when another day arrived, the damned mountain was still ahead of us! It finally took us four full days and fifty miles of marching to reach a spot which at first had looked as if we would overrun it before lunch.

During the days when we were trying to reach the mountain I saw little of Ellen Jaspar, for she and Stiglitz were so preoccupied with their burgeoning affair that I had no wish to intrude, and we spoke only occasionally when we met lugging
our sleeping gear to and from the tents. Then on the day we finally reached the mountain, Ellen came to me as we were unpacking and made the comment which first set me wondering about her basic sincerity. She said, half in earnest, half in jest, something which I could have taken as an honest concern in my future but which for some reason, I didn’t: “Miller, this caravan is bound to end one day. Don’t injure yourself by taking Mira too seriously.” This seemed a most inappropriate comment from a girl whose own love affair with Stiglitz was so intemperate that it could incur even murder, and most contradictory to the things she had said about Mira and me during the trip to Bamian. I was about to question her on these incongruities when Mira came to help me, and Ellen moved on.

“I think Ellen likes you,” Mira observed casually, but I was so captivated with Mira herself that I forgot her words.

It was no wonder. For each night we slept under the stars in a series of the most spectacular boudoirs two lovers had ever known: the mountains hovered aloft to protect us, the rivers brought us music, the moon was our night lamp, while not far away the sounds of the caravan reassured us. When we finally went to bed beneath the elusive mountain, Mira was especially adorable, a crazy, elfin thing with an unpredictable insight into human affairs, and the majesty of our surroundings and the knowledge that soon we would leave the Hindu Kush and perhaps the loveliest weeks of our lives forced me to consider what might happen to both of us at the end of the caravan trail. I say
forced me to consider because a young man who lives with a girl like Mira slips unconsciously, day by day, from first rapture to deepening realization to the gnawing suspicion that she has become an inescapable part of his life, not to be dismissed easily nor forgotten ever, and he does not willingly explore the future. To my surprise, Mira was willing to do so and with frightening accuracy anticipated each problem that disturbed me. The nimble fingers of her thought ransacked my mind to uncover my most sensitive apprehensions.

When I asked what Zulfiqar might do to her when I left: “He can’t do anything. Who would inherit his camels?”

When I asked if she would be able to find a husband within the caravan since all the men knew of her love for me: “If I have the camels, I have a husband.”

When I asked what might happen if she had a baby: “What happened to those children over there? Some mothers are dead. Some fathers are unknown.”

When I asked what she wanted in life: “In winter Jhelum. In summer Hindu Kush. Any better in America?”

And when I asked her if she loved me: “I bought you a white horse, didn’t I?” She kissed me and added, “Go to sleep. It is the woman’s job to worry about these matters. After all, we have the babies, not you.”

But it was when I had asked no question that I sometimes learned most about this delectable young nomad: I was hiking with Mira, having turned the horse over to Maftoon, who galloped up
and down the file like a Kazak, when without preparation she observed, “Ellen is the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. I would like to look like Ellen. But I would like to be like Racha.” When I asked why, she replied, “All the people Racha touches are made stronger. That is not so with Ellen.”

I objected and pointed to Dr. Stiglitz, whom Ellen had transformed. At this Mira chuckled: “He was a dying man. Any woman with a good pair of legs could have saved him. I don’t count Dr. Stiglitz at all.”

“What’s going to happen to him … when Zulfiqar gets mad, I mean?”

“My father may kill him,” she speculated as before. “On the other hand, my father may be grateful that Ellen has been taken off his hands.”

“That’s an astonishing thing to say,” I exploded.

She ignored my question by saying of Racha, “She helps women in childbirth, and handles the camels well, and knows how to care for sick sheep. You know, Miller, Racha is the only one able to argue with my father in the councils, and he trusts her to put the caravan money in the bank at Jhelum.” She paused, thinking of her mother, and added, “Racha wears gold in her nose and does not comb her hair, but she is the heart of our caravan, and Zulfiqar would be stupid to trade her for Ellen. He knows that.”

“Did he ever love Ellen?” I asked.

Again she evaded my question. “If you stayed with us, Miller,” she promised, “I would be like Racha for you.” At this point Maftoon rode up on the white horse and asked, “Would the Sahib like to have it back?” and Mira snapped, “Yes, you
dirty loafer. It’s improper for you to ride while he walks.” She cupped her hands to make a stirrup for me, and with a quick heft of her tiny body tossed me onto the horse.

As I left Mira, Zulfiqar rode up flashing excitement. “Follow me, Millair!” he cried, and for several miles I trailed him until he reached the crest of the ridge, where he reined in his brown horse to wait for me.

Pointing to an extensive plateau unfolding below us, he said, “That’s Qabir.”

Richardson had told me that this was a place of much importance, but even so I had not guessed its magnitude. Across the great plain two rivers came from different ranges of the Hindu Kush and met to form a stately Y. As far as I could see, along both the tributaries and the main river, nomads had erected clusters of black tents. Estimating roughly, I judged there were at least four hundred caravans like ours, which at two hundred persons per caravan meant …

Startled by my own figures, I asked, “How many people?”

“Who cares?” he asked in boyish excitement. “Sixty thousand? Maybe more.”

It was difficult to believe that for more than a thousand years the nomads had been convening in this remote spot on the confluence of rivers and that no national government was yet sure where the meeting place was, nor who attended, nor how the camp was composed. Now that the war was over, airplanes would soon penetrate the secret, but for the time being this was the last outpost of free men.

“Here we go!” Zulfiqar shouted, and he spurred his horse into a gallop that carried him down onto the plateau and among the gathering caravans. I followed as boldly as I dared, but it was some time before I caught up with my Kochi. When I did, I found him hurrying from one caravan to the next, shouting to old friends, reporting on his winter in India and making plans for trading sessions. It was obvious that he was one of the unifying forces of the encampment.

Finally he remembered that I was with him and crying, “Millair! Follow me!” he galloped along the left bank of the nearest tributary until he found an attractive area as yet unoccupied. “We’ll camp here,” he shouted. “You wait and tell the others.” With this he dug his heels into his horse and sped off to new greetings, but he had gone only a short distance when he reared his horse handsomely, spun him around and came dashing back to me: “As soon as they arrive, tell Maftoon to roast four fat sheep.” The horse reared again and he was gone.

It would be an hour before the Kochis could reach us, and the waiting became one of the most poignant times of my life, for around me swirled the enigmatic caravans from the heartland of Asia. I saw beside me men and women from tribes I had never known existed, camels that had crossed the Oxus from areas a thousand miles away, children with round red faces, and women wearing fur boots and wonderful tanned smiles derived from months spent in sunlight. In the distance, at some caravan up the river, a man played a flute and it was like an evocation of the Arabian Nights or the
music of Borodin that I had heard at the symphony in Boston. As a stranger on a white horse I attracted attention, and some of the nomads even tried to speak to me in strange tongues, but to all I made it clear that this choice spot by the river was reserved for Zulfiqar and I found that people respected his name.