The Places in Between (33 page)

Khalili's soldiers lined the steep ridges, silhouetted against the bright sky above the old cells of the Buddhist monks. Overweight security officials with radios and Russian hats wandered through the thousands of spectators now gathered up the slopes and along the cliff walls to the north. On the south side of the arena, a team of foreign soldiers in civilian clothes carried large guns, and above them, on the hospital roof, chairs were arranged for Khalili.

Abdul Qoudus, like many of the jockeys, was wearing a new American brown all-in-one thermal combat suit as his jodhpurs. He had wrapped gray felt bandages around his calves and, before jumping into his saddle, swapped shoes with his groom—taking off his white, battered baseball boots and slipping into a pair of highly polished brown tasseled loafers.

The ground was more suitable for a steeplechase than polo. Qoudus joined the other riders, who were exercising their horses at full gallop—clearing ditches, furrows, field boundaries, rocky ground, and drystone walls, their bodies leaning almost horizontal, swept back into their saddles.

More of Khalili's security forces stepped down from pickup trucks. Rumor held that BHL—Bernard-Henri Lévy, the celebrity French philosopher and now the French prime minister's special representative to Afghanistan—was to arrive by helicopter from Kabul and watch the match, but he didn't make it.

The game began with the teams converging on the body of a goat. At a gallop the pack leader leaned out of his saddle till his right hand nearly touched the ground, grabbed the goat by its hindquarters, lifted himself back into the saddle, and, wrapping his leg around the carcass for extra grip, turned his pony on its back legs and spurred for the opposition's goal. He had the goat for only a few seconds before a man from Nayak tore it from his hand and raced off in the other direction. A mass of horseflesh plunged after him, spectators running from the flailing hooves, till the pack turned fast toward the other side of the pitch.

Commandant Yawari, who was not playing but circling the pitch on his gray, called out for his jockey to be swapped. This was against the rules. The man cantered up to the edge of the crowd; a Buzkashi whip had opened his face from ear to chin. He tumbled off, another jockey vaulted into the saddle, and soldiers holding rifles ran up to stop the horseman from reentering the game. The jockey acknowledged neither their threats nor the crowd's cheers, but frowned in concentration, his eyes fixed between the ears of Commandant Yawari's best horse. He spurred toward the soldiers, driving them back on either side. When he was through, he held his hands above the saddle pommel as though in prayer, touched his heels to the horse's flanks, leaned back in the saddle, cast his eyes up to the ridgeline, and released his horse into a gallop. Beneath him, the horse's legs pounded toward the sand cloud and the screaming pack.

As the north wind moved the dust, I could see the quivering hindquarters of Abdul Qoudus's white horse backing out of the knot and then being squeezed in again with the thighs of its roaring rider. Just as Yawari's jockey reached the tumult, Karaman emerged, at a canter and then a gallop, pressed against a man from Shaidan. They both clutched a leg of the goat. The loudspeakers shouted, "Karaman, Karaman," and the crowd shouted, "Karaman, Karaman," because no one knew the name of the other man and, to justify their cries, Karaman broke away with the goat and dropped it neatly for a goal.

***

The next morning, I got a letter of introduction from Aziz, a friendly and intelligent official in Governor Khalili's office. I took Babur for a final walk. After a day's rest, he was again curious and active. We climbed onto the plateau next to the remains of the great Ghorid fort, and he trotted beside me marking tree after tree along the small canal. When he ran in front, I called him back. He ignored me and I gave chase. As he reached an old tank, he slowed enough for me to catch him by the scruff and to see what had excited him. Tied to a track was a young Asian wolf about half Babur's size. His rib cage was visible and he was turning desperately from side to side. A group of young soldiers sat nearby, smiling at his exhausted struggle. They said they had trapped the wolf as a cub and would sell him to a general.

I turned and walked away, pulling Babur. He looked up at me warily with his yellow wolf's eyes. He was only half a domestic animal. Although he had chosen to follow me and trusted me to touch him and feed him, I would never own him. He never begged or tried to endear himself, and nothing would induce him to chase a stick or sit on command or come when called. I released him. He ran ahead and rolled in the dust, and as I approached he ran ahead again. This was a game he enjoyed. When I reached him, breathless, for the fourth time, he rolled over for me to tickle his stomach.

I wondered whether he might not be strong enough to walk the four days to Kabul, but I wasn't prepared to risk it so I scratched him one more time and then led him back to the MSF compound, checked his water, and confirmed that Didier was willing to take him to the capital. Then I tied Babur to a post, pulled some dried mud out of his dusty coat, put my pack on my back, and walked out.

KHALILI'S TROOPS

I was now entirely alone for the first time since I had met Babur at Dahan-e-Rezak. Snow was falling past the empty niches where the Buddhas had once stood. At three check posts on the road out of town, Khalili's soldiers stopped and questioned me.
⁶²
They were mostly boys from distant villages, with new uniforms from America and salaries from Iran. They didn't care who they stopped. I was frustrated; my pack was heavy, and I had forty-five kilometers to walk that day. On the outskirts of town, an older man ran out of another guard post.

"Who are you?" he shouted.

"I am Rory from Scotland."

"Where are you going?"

"To Kabul."

"Why are you alone? Why are you not in a vehicle? Come here." Twenty Hazara with rifles had appeared behind him.

"I'm sorry, I've been stopped at three check posts already—I don't have time for this. I have letters from Khalili and I have permission to walk on this road."

"I said, 'Come here.' Now, boy!" shouted the commander.

"Good-bye." I turned and walked on.

I had gone twenty yards when I heard running behind me; my sleeve was grabbed; I turned to shake the man off and he punched me in the face, his knuckles striking my cheekbone just below the eye. I stumbled and then turned around with my fists ready. He stepped back and we circled each other, me feeling clumsy under my pack.

The commander and the rest of his men had now run up and were gathering around us. I was only just aware of the others. All my attention was on the man who had punched me and who was looking for a chance to punch me again.

"What are you doing?" I shouted. "I am a
mehman
in your country, a
mosafer.
"

As I spoke the man lunged for my walking stick. We struggled for a second and then he ripped it from my hands. I couldn't believe this was happening. My reactions seemed stupidly delayed. I felt like a baited bear. The man swung the stick at me, slowly enough for me to move back. He was taking his time and the crowd was watching to see how he would hurt me. My cheek stung and I was very angry. He wasn't. He seemed excited instead, turning the stick in his hand, thinking about how and where to hit me next. He looked at the older man, who nodded at him from the crowd. Then he announced, "I'm going to knock you down."

"Stop," I said. "This is wrong. I'm a Briton. I am a guest of your Governor Khalili. You have just punched me in the face. I'm a very important man; you can't do this to me. What is your name?"

The man wasn't listening. He feinted with the stick. I stepped back. He feinted once more, slowly enough for me to duck. He was just getting the feel of my stick. His pupils were dilated, and his hands trembled slightly. His mouth was fixed into something between a grimace and a smile. The way he moved the stick from hand to hand was practiced, even graceful. He'd done this many times before and the other men had watched.

I glanced at the crowd and saw an interpreter I had met in the MSF house. "This man," I shouted. "He knows me. He'll explain."

The commander interrupted, "Do you know him?"

There was a pause, the man with my stick turned to look at his commander, and then the interpreter said, very distinctly, "Yes, he is the foreigner who has walked here from Herat."

"Why is he walking? Foreigners drive Land Cruisers."

While they were talking, I swung my pack off, opened the top compartment, and drew out the letter from Khalili's representative. I handed it to the interpreter because I assumed the men were illiterate. "Listen to this," I shouted at the commander. "Khalili asks you to help me. Not punch me in the face."

The interpreter read the letter in a calm, neutral voice: "The governor requests his commanders to assist and protect the historian of the Hazara people, Rory Stewart."

"Why didn't you show us the letter earlier?" the commander demanded.

"I told you about it," I shouted back, "and you wouldn't listen. You're coming with me to the palace to tell Khalili why you assaulted his guest. You will lose your job."

"I advise you to forget this," the interpreter interjected firmly. "They didn't realize you were a foreigner."

"The fact that I'm a foreigner is irrelevant. They shouldn't do this to anyone." The soldiers laughed. Hitting people was their job. "What are you all laughing at? You are evil men ... thugs."

"You're the evil man," shouted the commander. "What do you expect? You can't just walk around alone..."

To my relief, the MSF administrator had now appeared as well. I told him the story. He seemed a little embarrassed. I could imagine how I must look—a dirty foreigner sweating and shouting after a brawl with some soldiers. "Who exactly punched you?" he asked.

I looked down the row of men. My stick had been dropped. I was certain it was the tall man, but I was unsettled by his calm, martyred expression as he stared at the ground. "This man...," I said, and then I was fed up with the whole thing. "Forget it...," I muttered. I picked up my stick and walked off. I was so angry I could think about little else for the next two hours. I had insulted the commander in front of his men, threatened to report him to the governor, and then set off alone down an empty road. There was nothing to stop the commander from sending his men after me or radioing the check posts ahead.

For the next ten kilometers, I turned around at every noise and considered cutting sideways into the hills. But after two hours passed and nothing happened, I concluded he couldn't be bothered with me. In India and Pakistan, security forces had acted worried about the possibility of hitting foreigners, being reported to superiors, or losing their jobs. But these men didn't seem to care. They probably thought the governor wouldn't mind their assaulting a traveler. Khalili's main priority (encouraged by millions of CIA dollars) was catching Taliban and al-Qaeda escapees, and I might be one. Nevertheless, they hadn't killed me, and I wondered whether that was because I had shown them the letter from the governor. The incident seemed to prove that despite the traumas of the last twenty-four years, Hazarajat was still in some ways an orderly society. If you had a letter and weren't a direct threat, people largely left you alone.

I saw three more check posts over the next twenty kilometers and I held out the letter before I reached them. The first guard snapped that I was an infidel but let me pass. The guard at the second check post did the same. The third post was at the base of the red fort of Zorak. This had been a large Ghorid fortress. Here Genghis Khan's favorite grandson was killed by an arrow, focusing Genghis's fury on the mountain kingdoms. The check post guard read the letter, questioned me, let me go, called me back, read the letter again, and then, when I was on my way, called me back. The commander announced he was driving me to the headquarters in Bamiyan—fifteen kilometers back down the road I had been walking on for three hours—for further questioning. Despite having resolved only three hours earlier never to defy a policeman again, I lost my patience.

"No, I refuse," I replied. "I am a guest. I am a close friend of the governor. I stayed in his guesthouse. He has given me permission." None of this was true. I walked on ignoring the angry shouts behind me, and to my relief no footsteps followed and the shouts faded. I turned up a narrow gorge toward the snow peaks, and saw no one for four hours.

AND I HAVE MINE

At dusk I came to the village of Lower Kalu near the edge of the Hazara district. In a couple of days I would reach Pashtun territory. I climbed a steep mud slope to the castle, past a crater made very recently by a coalition bomb. I was aware of the familiar smell of human feces outside the houses. I hammered on the gate, making the iron chain rattle on the dark wood. After a minute, an old man appeared.

"Peace be with you," I said.

"And also with you," he replied. He looked at the bruise on my cheek and then said, "Come in."

I followed him through the courtyard to the guest room. He did not suggest I sleep in the mosque. He put a cushion under me, gathered twigs, fed the fire, and blew on it till it flamed fiercely. Then he asked if I would give him my socks so he could dry them. I did so gratefully. Then he left and returned with a pot of sugared tea and sat cross-legged in silence watching me drink. When I had finished, he brought plates of rice and spinach and said, "We are still the commandants in the valley, but the Taliban killed our flocks, so I am sorry that I can't give you meat. This food has been given by foreigners."

Only when he saw I was warm and had finished eating did he lean forward and ask, "And who are you? And where are you from?"

I answered and asked him about his family. Nasir-i-Yazdani said he was one of the chiefs of the Besut tribe of the Hazara, related to the great Begs I had met in the Sar Jangal valley two hundred kilometers away—the Sang-i-zard chiefs of the Blackfoot and Zia, the young Katlish chief of the Nauruz Beg. They were almost all descendants or relations of the great Hazara leader Mir Yazdan Baksh, and called themselves Mir Bache-ha (Children of the Mir). On the orders of the Afghan king Mir Yazdan Baksh had been executed beneath the Buddhas at Bamiyan at the end of the nineteenth century.