Caravans (37 page)

I broke the spell by turning away and going to Mira, but I was unexpectedly halted by Moheb, who grabbed my arm and said, “You, too, Miller. We start for Kabul … now.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Shah Khans orders.”

“I’ve got to say good-by,” I protested, bringing Mira to my side.

“Say it. In five minutes we go.”

“What about my gear?”

“You,” he shouted at Maftoon, “pack his stuff. Hers too.”

I led Mira away from the tent to one of the mounds of Balkh, from which we could see the foothills of the Hindu Kush, where we had been so happy. “I hoped we’d be here for a week,” I began.

“You will look after Ellen,” she replied. “She talks strong but she needs help.” She was about to speak further when her nomad boisterousness took command and she cried, “Look at that crazy camel.”

We left the mound and walked to where Aunt Becky was searching for grass. Her droopy eyes, ungainly feet and preposterous lower jaw kept her a comedian, even at this painful moment, and in gratitude for her having brought us so far I reached out to pat her in farewell, but she was not one to be tricked by sentiment. She interpreted my gesture only as a preamble to being loaded with burdens and withdrew uttering loud protests, and we were left alone.

“Mira, Mira,” was all I could say, for in these last precious minutes there was so much we should have said and so little capacity for speech. Our parting had come so suddenly and was accompanied by so much ugliness that any chance for a decent farewell had been destroyed.

“Qabir, Bamian, Musa Darul,” she recited. “When we are at those places …” She looked at me, deeply ashamed of the tears forming in her eyes. She blinked them away, laughed, and said, “Without you the caravan will be a marching of ghosts. You were very handsome on your white horse.”

At the car Moheb was blowing the horn.

Then I remembered the warning which Stiglitz had sounded in the black tent:
Leaving this nomad girl is going to be a different experience from what you imagine.
But to leave her in this manner … a
part of my conscience, of growing up, was being torn away.

“Inshallah,” I mumbled.

“Inshallah,” she replied.

Unable to look back, I hurried to the car where Moheb sat at the wheel with Ellen beside him and Nazrullah in the rear. The engineer, ignoring his former wife, sat gazing through field glasses at the foothills of the Hindu Kush.

“It’s uncanny,” he mused. “How could she have seen such a distance?”

He handed me the glasses and I saw that Mira had left the ruins and was striding purposefully toward the mountains, out of which her father’s caravan had appeared, following those ancient trails which soon the nomads would travel no more.

On the drive back to Mazar-i-Sharif no one spoke. Ellen’s presence, following the charges against her that Stiglitz had broadcast, was more than we could cope with at the moment. Besides, I was affected by real suspense concerning her future, for I could not guess Moheb’s plans, and he drove in imperious silence, his firm jaw locked in self-counsel. I supposed that when we reached Mazar we would deposit her at the government building, but we did not.

To my surprise we drove straight through the city and picked up an ancient road, thousands of years old, leading to the northeast. Along it plodded a camel caravan, insensitive to our intrusion, and as I looked ahead I saw on his black horse Shakkur, the Kirghiz gunrunner.

“Ho, sharif!” Moheb called from the car, and the Russian galloped up and dismounted.

He saw me sitting gloomily in the rear seat and asked seriously, in broken Pashto, “You taking the criminal out to shoot him?”

“No,” Moheb laughed. “We have a passenger for your caravan.”

Now the big Kirghiz saw Ellen, with whom he had danced that night at Qabir, and intuitively he grasped the situation. “This one?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“She have papers?”

“Yes.” From his portfolio Moheb took Ellen’s green passport and handed it to the sharif. In Arabic, Cyrillic and Roman writing, signed jointly by Shah Khan and the Russian ambassador, it was stated that the bearer had permission to transit Russia on her way home to America. On a special page, for me to see, was the official notice that Ellen Jaspar, having been legally divorced from her Afghan husband, was free to exit the country. Ceremoniously Moheb Khan handed Ellen the precious document and announced, “Madam, you are being kicked out of Afghanistan.”

To the Kirghiz he explained these matters, handing him a substantial number of Afghan gold coins. “This will pay her passage to Moscow. We’ll cable her parents, and they’ll have the rest waiting there.”

“Christ Almighty,” I exploded, jumping from the car. “You can’t do this.”

“I’m not doing it,” Moheb protested. “She’s doing it herself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came to Balkh with two sets of papers for this girl. One would have restored everything as it was.
The other set kicks her out of the country. I gave her the choice. She made it.”

“She didn’t know what was involved!” I protested, trying to get Ellen to appeal for a second chance.

The tall Afghan turned his back on us and explained to Shakkur, “The poor boy’s in love with her.”

The big Kirghiz smiled indulgently, then asked with caution, “Does my friend Zulfiqar know of this?”

“He kicked her out of his caravan,” Moheb reported. “We’re doing the same.”

Apparently the young leaders of Afghanistan were not afraid of making difficult decisions, but in the case of Ellen Jaspar their decisions were wrong, so I went to Moheb and warned him in rapid French, “This could cause serious trouble between our governments. How do you know what will happen to this girl?”

At that moment Moheb was helping Ellen from the car and he replied thoughtfully, “This girl? Nothing will ever happen to this girl.” And he escorted her graciously to the Kirghiz, to whom he also delivered her pitifully small bundle of clothes.

At this point I had to interrupt. I took Ellen and Shakkur away from the others and asked, “Ellen, do you appreciate what’s happening?”

With infuriating equanimity she ignored me and asked the sharif, “Where are we going?”

Pointing northeast he replied, “We cross the Oxus at Rushan, cut through the Pamirs, then Garm, Samarkand, Tashkent.” It was a trip I would have given a year to take, and Ellen appreciated
this, for when Samarkand was mentioned she smiled at me with deep satisfaction.

“Will we get there safely?” she asked.

“That’s my job,” the sharif replied, and I reflected: For ten weeks I tried every trick in the book to find out how the Russian nomads cross the Oxus. Now the top man tells me.

I said, “Ellen, I could force the Afghan government …”

“I’m not afraid,” she answered, and she looked at me as if she were free and I the prisoner.

I summoned the others and announced, “I want everyone to hear that in the name of the United States government I do protest most vigorously this incredible act.”

Ellen laughed and replied, “You heard him, gentlemen. If he catches hell, we’ll all have to testify for him.” She held out her hands, took mine and kissed me. “I do wish we’d met in America,” she said.

With this speech she intended to leave, but decency would not permit her to go without acknowledging Nazrullah, so at last she stepped before him and said, “Dear friend, I am most sorry.” They looked at each other without moving and I thought again of how, on the desert, he had consulted the stars before assuring me that Ellen was safe once more in Afghanistan. Now he would follow those same stars till he knew that she was safe in America.

Finally she turned away and swung easily into the rhythm of her new caravan, as if she had been traveling with it for many months. I watched as the big Kirghiz galloped back to the head of his
camels, spurring them on; for this caravan, excused from the encumbrance of either sheep or families, did not intend to cover a mere fourteen miles a day. It was headed for towering passes that must be cleared before the fall of snow, and for these travelers to Russia there would be no restful halting at noon.

The last camel passed us and we stood alone on the ancient road, watching the caravan as it lost itself in dust. I last saw Ellen Jaspar with her blond hair and black skirt swirling among the camels, marching east toward the greatest of the mountains.

“It’s barbaric,” I protested weakly, and Nazrullah agreed.

“She would have destroyed you both,” Moheb Khan replied.

The scene of this novel is the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1946. Conditions are described as they existed in that year and as truthfully as research and memory will permit.

The reader may be curious about what has been happening in the intervening seventeen years, and a brief note covering recent developments may prove helpful.

Few nations have experienced a more spectacular growth and change during this period than Afghanistan. Kabul has paved streets (Russian money). Kandahar has an airport (American money). The city of Kabul has a fine public bakery (Russian). And many towns have good schools (American).

Foreigners have been visiting the country with ease and frequency. President Eisenhower was there in 1959, and many Russian leaders arrived both before and after that date. The vigorous struggle between America and Russia for Afghanistan’s affection, referred to in this novel, goes on unceasingly with ultimate victory uncertain. An overriding fact is this: Russia abuts on the northern border for nearly seven hundred unguarded miles, while the United States is nearly eight thousand miles away. Under these circumstances it is remarkable that our side has done as well as it has.

Our victories have been the result of selfless work by dedicated men and women like John Pritchard, the fictional engineer of Chapters Nine and Ten. Apparently, when our country needs such men, there is an endless
supply, but we rarely call upon them or find a worthy place for them when they are called.

The battle between old and new which is a feature of this novel has produced some interesting skirmishes. In 1959 women were allowed, even encouraged, to dispense with the chaderi in public. A few did; many preferred the isolation and protection of the shroud … or more likely, their husbands did. Symptomatic of the future, however, was the plebiscite held in neighboring Iran in 1963 on similar matters of civil freedom and relaxation of mullah rule. In Iran, which is about fifty years ahead of Afghanistan in social change, the vote was on the order of 4,000 to 1 in favor of modernism. Young women wearing no chaderi stormed the streets on election day, begging people to go to the polls. Old-fashioned mullahs interpreted the vote as the end of organized religion, which of course it was not.

The bright young men represented in this novel by foreign-trained Moheb Khan and Nazrullah and by locally trained Nur Muhammad have brought their nation improved administration. They have by no means achieved victory, but they have won a position from which victory is possible. Many such young men find themselves inclining toward Russia; others, thank heavens, see promise in continued links with the West.

The patterns of social life depicted in the novel have changed radically in the past seventeen years. Kabul now has a good hotel, newspapers, radio, a public cinema to which westerners can go, stores other than bazaars, and several restaurants. Amenities in the cities like Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif are also better, but Ghazni remains pretty much as described.

The public punishments described in the novel are no longer common. Since the reader may wonder, I witnessed the first execution, but not in Ghazni; as for the second, I arrived in Kandahar only a few days after it occurred and was given a series of photographs taken by an enterprising man who told me that he had prevailed upon the father to work from the other side because the sunlight was better. Afghan polo, properly
called buzkashi (goat dragging), still flourishes and is both rougher and more fun than I describe.

The great dam on whose preliminaries Nazrullah worked in 1946 is in being—one of the marvels of Asia —and its electricity is eagerly sought. The land opposite Qala Bist which was to have been irrigated was found, alas, to be too full of residual salts to be productive. In a sense, this failure of one aspect of the Helmand Project had unfortunate overtones not dissimilar to those that grew out of the German bridges: Afghans looked at the mighty dam, at the cost, at the partial failure and asked, “Why bother?” The German bridges, when I traveled the road from Kabul to Kandahar, were exactly as described; but the Afghan bridge built by Shah Khan and Nazrullah’s father stood on a different road.

As for the Kochis, restrictions have been placed on them at every turn. They cannot enter Russia. Traders from China can no longer penetrate the Pamirs with goods. Pakistan, the western portion of old India, conducts a running fight with Afghanistan over the nationality of Pashtuns and halts many of the nomads at the arbitrary border. The tents are still black; the women are still superb in their freedom; the fat-tailed sheep are still among the most preposterous of animals; and the camels still protest at everything.

The reader may also wish to check my credentials for writing this novel. My first acquaintance with Afghanistan came in 1952, when I was living in the Khyber Pass and had a chance to scout the Afghan border for many miles north and south of that historic area. It was then that I conceived my determination to visit Afghanistan. It was then also that I came to know several Kochi tribes fairly well—Povindahs, we called them, for I did not hear the name Kochi until later— and decided that one day I might try to write about them.

In 1955 I was able to enter Afghanistan itself and made these journeys: First, Khyber Pass to Kabul; second, Kabul to Qala Bist; third, across the Dasht-i-Margo to the Chakhansur, called in this novel The
City, which is perhaps a more appropriate name; fourth, down to Chahar Burjak, one of the worst trips I have ever made; fifth, up to Herat and back down to Girishk; sixth, Kabul to Istalif and the lower Koh-i-Baba; seventh, Kabul to Bamian and on to Balkh; eighth, Kandahar to Spin Baldak and Quetta. And there was a ninth trip, perhaps the most memorable I have ever taken, from Qala Bist along the untraveled left bank of the Helmand River to Rudbar. This took us across the Registan desert in a caravan that camped at night in sand dunes with little water and less food. It was from the experiences on this trip, not referred to in this novel, that I developed my love of desert life.

On one of these trips I was visited by friends of a European woman who sought my help. Some years before she had married an Afghan and had passed into the limbo described in parts of this novel. I asked to see her and was taken to a pathetic hovel where I talked with her for the better part of an hour, but I was unable to help. Later I heard of similar cases and met with people actively concerned in liberating wives of foreign origin. However, in fairness I must add that I also met several European women married to enlightened Afghans, and these wives led normal, happy lives; they wore no chaderi, visited Europe when they wished, and were pleased that they had come to live in Afghanistan. Today, of course, quite a few American girls have been marrying Afghans without encountering difficulties with citizenship or the right to travel.

Qabir is an invented name, but the facts associated with it are not. The massive nomad convocation met at no regular place, and where it did meet bore no proper name, for the land is unbelievably wild, empty and unknown. It was called merely The Abul Camp and was probably larger than I suggest. Also, the subsidiary camps for attendant families seem to have been farther from the trading center than I have indicated. The Abul Camp was for men only. Until 1954 no known outsider had ever visited the camp, so that events depicted in this novel are anachronistic by eight years.
As for a foreign woman’s visiting the camp, there is no record of its having happened.

The archaeological sites referred to—Qala Bist, The City, Bamian, Balkh—are faithfully described. Bamian remains one of the compelling sights of Asia. My notes, penciled hurriedly as we approached from the east, tell the story:

The Caravanserai of the Tongues, its location and its pillar are inventions, but each is true to the spirit of Afghanistan. I camped in many of these deserted caravanserais, great lonely structures scattered over the land, and never failed to be impressed with their mood and their function. It was at one that I met my first Kochis in Afghanistan and jotted down the outline of a novel much different from this one. As for the pillar, I forget where I heard about an event of similar import; possibly it was at Herat, where Genghis Khan is reliably reported to have slain a million people. One contemporary authority wrote that it was a million and a half.

My contacts with Islam have been consistent and varied: Indonesia, Borneo, Malaya, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Near East, Turkey. I have written favorably of the religion, have known many of its leaders, and hold it in both respect and affection. My experiences, as the reader may guess, place me in opposition to the rural mullahs.

Practically every Afghan word, when transliterated into the Roman alphabet, can be spelled in alternate ways (Kabul, Caboul; Helmand, Helmund) and consistency in orthography seems at this point impossible. The editors of this book and I drew up lists of many variant spellings. We consulted numerous experts, some with rather exalted credentials, and in the end found ourselves repeating the lament of Omar, the poet from nearby Persia:

It will be some years before the Roman spelling of essential Afghan words is standardized. Those which offered the most interesting variants include:

I must make it clear that our decision to spell a given word in a given way was never taken without extensive study, but I must also confess that the final decision
was usually arbitrary and that consistency from one decision to the next did not seem possible in view of the conflicts existing among the experts.

For two usages I am alone responsible. In 1946 in this part of the world Iran was known as Persia, the Amu Darya river as the Oxus. If I were writing about today, I would of course use the contemporary forms.

In recent years whenever I have been asked which of the countries I have seen I would most prefer to visit again, I have invariably said Afghanistan. I remember it as an exciting, violent, provocative place. Almost every American or European who worked there in the old days says the same. It was, in the years I knew it, what Mark Miller says: “One of the world’s great cauldrons.”