In Xanadu (28 page)

The atmosphere in the bus was as friendly as the desert outside was forbidding. A crescent of wide-eyed Afghans stared at us curiously. I smiled back for a while, gesturing amicably, then looked out of the window and finally fell asleep.

When I next awoke the bus was deserted; it was pitch dark and very cold. There was no sign of Laura. I pulled on my jersey and set off to see what had happened. It suddenly occurred to me that she might be in trouble.
I
remembered the station manager's warnings. While
I
had slept she might have been stripped, robbed or abducted. She might even have been raped; stranger things had happened, and after all she was the only woman on the bus. For a second I panicked. How could
I
have allowed myself to sleep with so dangerous a crew of cutthroats all around us? How would I possibly explain to her mother, an even more formidable lady than Laura?

My worries proved needless. Jumping out of the bus I saw Laura's hooded form standing a short distance away in the sand. Hearing me behind her she turned around and hissed at me to keep quiet.

'Shshsh.'

'What's happening?'  "Songs of Praise".'

Twenty yards away, in a swirling desert wind, in the pitch dark, a long straight line of Afghans lay prostrated, face down in the sand. They howled the
Kalimeh
to the directions of the mullah who stood facing them with arms raised. The performance lasted over twenty minutes, until the worshippers were driven back into the bus by a sandstorm. We set off and didn't siop again until we drew in to eat at a restaurant standing beside the road, alone in the billowing desert wastes.

We arrived at Zahedan soon after dawn, and spilled out into t ie bus station feeling cold, dirty, exhausted and bad tempered. There was little about Zahedan to cheer us up. It is a shabby place, built of sand, sand-coloured, surrounded by sand and subject to a sand desert's impossible climate. Like Dogubayazit, the last town in Turkey, it exists only as an over-right stop on the way to the border, but unlike its Turkish counterpart it is a relatively recent creation. Historically, there was never a major trade route leading from Persia south-east towards India, for the dangers of the Afghan Pamirs and the Hindu Kush have always been considered less formidable than those of the shifting sands of Baluchistan. Only those
unable
to
take
the
northern
route
from
Meshed
through
Herat to
Kabul
and
Kandahar
-
such
as
the
Mogul
emperor Humayun
fleeing
to
Persia
in
1542
from
an
invasion
of
India by
an
Afghan
army
-
attempted
the
southern
crossing.

But
now,
perhaps
for
the
first
time
in
a
thousand
years,
the northern
road
has
been
closed.
Entering
Afghanistan
from Iran
became
difficult
after
the
Soviet
invasion
of
1979,
but after
the
construction
of
a
high
tension
fence
and
a
formidable minefield
running
the
entire
length
of
the
border
in
1985, crossing
has
become
virtually
impossible,
even
for
the
Afghan
mujahedin.

Even if we had had unlimited
time
it
is
extremely
unlikely that
we
would
have
succeeded
in
following
Marco
Polo through
the
minefields
into
Afghanistan,
and
in
the
circumstances
there
was
no
alternative
but
to
miss
out
that
stretch
of his
journey
and
make
a
long
detour
through
Pakistan.
It would
not
be
until
Tashkurgan,
the
first
town
in
China,
that
I would
rejoin
his
route.
Thus,
during
the
night,
we
had
for
the first
time
since
Ayas
left
the
main
Silk
Road.
About
one
hundred
kilometres
after
Yazd
it
turns
north
towards
Meshed,
and instead
we
had
continued
south-east