The Places in Between (8 page)

It was difficult to assess him. I had met his Security Service, which still tortured opponents with electric crank generators. He was rumored to receive nearly a million dollars a day in customs revenue and passed none of it to the central government. But his human rights record was better than those of many of the ministers in Kabul, and instead of pocketing the customs money he seemed to spend it on rural development projects. Many Heratis were pleased to have a modest and pious local man running their affairs. Kabul, however, worried that he was trying to create an independent kingdom, supported by Iran. He was said to have taken the title "Emir of the West."

I needed to be able to tell people that I had met Ismail Khan. Every person I met in the next month of walking would be defined by their relationship to him. He had appointed the governors of all the neighboring provinces, and the district commanders for two hundred kilometers were all now his allies—even if they had been his enemies in the past.

"If your own interpreters wish to translate that is fine," said Yuzufi, opening the meeting in English, "but I will retranslate." Ismail Khan nodded. He spoke good English, but during this meeting he would only speak Dari. He was facing television cameras from BBC, CBS, and Television France and journalists from most of the largest international newspapers. This was probably the first time he or Yuzufi had spoken to so many foreign journalists at once. Ismail Khan may have wanted the retranslation to give him time to prepare his answers. "In your questions please," continued Yuzufi, "only call His Excellency, 'Your Excellency,' never 'you.'"

In six weeks Ismail Khan must have learned a new way of thinking and talking. For twenty years, Iranian clerics and American intelligence officers had lectured him on political Islam and anticommunism and rewarded him for killing Russians or Taliban. But now American intelligence officers pressed him on "international terrorism, narcotics, organized crime, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Diplomats and uniformed military pushed for new political and security structures. The United Nations and the relief and development agencies gave him cash and grain according to World Bank—inspired "Needs Assessment Process" and "Quick Impact Projects for Afghan Reconstruction." He seemed to impress those he met.

Yuzufi no longer tried to find Persian equivalents for this new jargon. English thrust up through the ornate surfaces of his sentences: "U
fekr mikonid ke
Internet broadband access
khub bud
"

"Please, your question." Yuzufi pointed to a French journalist, who spoke in English.

"I would like to know if Mister has any military aid from Iran—"

Yuzufi interrupted, "His Excellency, not Mister."

"I would like to say," said Ismail Khan, "that before we came there was no furniture here—the Taliban was against furniture. We've bought all this furniture in the last two weeks."

Ismail Khan disagreed with the Taliban more about furniture than about Islam. He believed in the jihad and hated atheist foreigners interfering in Afghanistan. He had encouraged women to return to schools but believed they should be well covered and should not speak to men to whom they were not related. He was about to order new "vice and virtue" squads to raid the arcades I had seen and burn the DVDs. He had implemented laws requiring women to wear head scarves and forbidding men from wearing neckties. Women who met men to whom they were not related could be forcibly examined in hospitals to determine whether they had recently had sex.
⁷
But I was not sure how many of the people in the room understood his vision of an Islamic state. He was certainly not going to share his views on women with the reporter from Television France 2, who had not covered her blond hair.

"Now, Mr. Stewart," said Yuzufi. I looked up from my notebook, where I had been trying to scribble down what I wanted to say. Before I could speak the woman cut in. "If I can just interrupt," she said, smiling. "Can we have a private interview?"

Ismail Khan looked at her and then said, "Of course, why not? Come tomorrow."

There was a mutter from other journalists whose interview requests had been refused.

"Mr. Stewart..."

I leaned forward. "Agha Ismail Khan," I said, and paused. I wanted to speak in Persian, but I felt self-conscious in front of the interpreters, so I continued in English. "I am a British writer, focusing on the history and culture of Afghanistan." Yuzufi nodded encouragement. "I am planning to walk on foot to Kabul, via Bamiyan, not using a vehicle. I would like to thank His Excellency Yuzufi for his support." I glanced at Ismail Khan. He was looking at a Koranic inscription on the wall. I skipped a few sentences. "I am following the route of the Emperor Babur, who did this journey in the winter of 1506. I am hoping that I can show my people what a wonderful place Afghanistan is."

There was a long pause. The journalists stared at me. Ismail Khan turned to Yuzufi, who whispered something. Then the governor looked at me. "A big journey, which I would like to support. Tell me please if there is anything I can do to help. But"—he paused, apparently confused—"this journey is not possible in the winter. I know this. I have fought in the region at this season."

I wondered whether I could ask him to tell the Security Service to leave me alone, but Yuzufi had raised his hand as though to tell me to stop. "Thank you," I said. The governor smiled broadly and the audience was over.

Yuzufi insisted I travel in his van back to the hotel because it was after curfew. "You are very lucky," he said. "What the governor said is more important than you know—I will write a note saying you are under his protection. Now you will be stronger with the Security Service." Yuzufi seemed relieved by how the press conference had gone. I said I thought his job must be a difficult one.

"Ah, Rory, how you understand me," he said, laughing. "This morning a woman came in from a New York journal..."

"My friend Carlotta from the
New York Times?
"

"Perhaps. She said that it is 'the most important newspaper in the world' and I must arrange a private interview with His Excellency. I almost believed her but another woman came here. From CNN. Apparently that is also 'the most important in the world.' Who can I believe? Now I have canceled them both and told them to come to the press conference with"—he paused—"
Newsday,
the
Christian Science Monitor.
Have I done correctly?"

Before I could answer, three men stepped into the center of the road and pointed their automatics at the van's windshield. They were the curfew guard. After Yuzufi got out to explain who we were, we were allowed slowly forward. "It must be satisfying to have this much influence," I said.

"Not for me. Although I admire His Excellency I would like to go to England to study a master's degree and to serve as an ambassador overseas," said Yuzufi. He looked out the window. The power had been cut and Herat was dark. Another group of policemen stopped us. Yuzufi paused before speaking to them. "Nothing changes in Herat," he said.

CARAVANSERAI, WHOSE PORTALS...

Two days later in the desert, Yuzufi, the journalists, and Ismail Khan seemed remote. Qasim and Aziz were finding walking increasingly difficult. Qasim kept saying we should travel by bus.

At dusk, we saw a fortified building on the plain to the south and beyond it a village. Since we had no tents, I suggested we find somewhere to sleep. Qasim replied that there were bad men in the village and they wouldn't receive us. I said I'd often walked into villages without an introduction. Abdul Haq shrugged and turned off the footpath, striding across the desert toward the building. For a moment I considered walking in Abdul Haq's footsteps to avoid mines, but I was embarrassed to let him take the risk alone so I walked beside him.

"Do you understand what I am saying?" Qasim shouted from behind Abdul Haq. "I have been a Mujahid for twenty-two years. When walking you must stay on the roads, not walk in the fields."

"But this is a shortcut," replied Abdul Haq.

"If you please! We must walk on the road."

"Don't talk like that," said Abdul Haq. "Our guest will lose confidence in us."

"Don't worry; he can't understand what we are saying."

Abdul Haq began to goose-step across the sand, swinging his right arm in front of his chest and kicking up dust with his heels. Then he launched into a guerrilla song that opened, "Welcome, Ismail Khan, Welcome, Commander." For the next ten minutes he chanted his welcome to every comrade he could think of. He had just reached "Welcome, Qasim, Welcome, Commander" when we arrived at a path and met a man who confirmed we could stay in the building. "Someone will take you in," he said. "It contains thirty families."

When we reached the building, with its high mud walls and its single corner tower, I realized it was a medieval caravanserai—a way station for merchants on the Silk Road. Because caravanserai were built a day's walk apart, I had used them for accommodation when I walked across the Iranian desert between Arak and Isfahan. This one was surrounded by a shallow moat. A broad wooden bridge led to a three-arched portico large enough for a loaded camel. Abdul Haq knocked on the wooden door, and while we waited I photographed the three men. Abdul Haq flashed his broad grin. A dark band of evening shadow rose fast up the coffee-colored brick. We were all tired and relieved to have found shelter.

When I had the idea of an Asian walk five years earlier, such legacies of the Silk Road had fascinated me. There would once perhaps have been lapis lazuli here, carried west from the mines of Afghanistan to make the blue in medieval Sienese paintings, and amber cut from tree fossils in the Baltic and brought east for Tibetan necklaces. Even more mysterious objects had moved down such trading routes: diamonds that could make you a king, Buddhist texts on birch-bark scrolls in characters that could no longer be deciphered, Chinese astrolabes to mystify the Vatican. But now that I was walking, I found it more difficult to be interested in the Silk Road. Such things had little to do with modern Afghanistan and I doubted whether the people who lived in this building had a clear idea of its past.

A delicate-featured boy of eight appeared at the gate and said no one was at home. Qasim told him to have a second look. After some minutes he reappeared. The sun had sunk and we were beginning to feel cold. The boy looked at us with his dark, steady eyes and said, "No. There is no one here."

Qasim snapped, "Don't lie, boy. You have been told to say this. I know there are people inside. Look again." Another child appeared. He was slightly smaller, with spiky black hair, and was wearing a faded red
shalwar kemis.

"Tell them I am a
meman
[guest],
mosafer
[traveler]," continued Qasim. "Muslims cannot refuse hospitality. We're from the government. We have a right to enter."

The first boy stared at Qasim and then at me and said, "No. There is no one here."

There was a pause and suddenly Abdul Haq grabbed the boy by the collar and began to push him through the medieval arch toward the courtyard.

Qasim shouted, "Stop, don't go in there. This was an al-Qaeda place. You'll both be shot."

Abdul Haq bent down, looked into the boy's eyes, and pushed him roughly away. The boy stumbled backward but did not fall. "Tell them now that we are going to come in," said Abdul Haq.

"There is no one here," the boy repeated.

Abdul Haq looked at the other two men and then turned and walked with them back across the moat bridge. I followed. When we reached the end of the bridge, Abdul Haq nodded at Aziz, spun, dropped to one knee, and brought his rifle to his shoulder, aiming at the boys. Aziz did the same.

The first boy leaped behind the door. The other stood motionless in the archway and began to cry, waiting for the shot.

I paused and then stepped toward Abdul Haq. He glanced at me and I laid my hand over the rifle sight, smiled, and said, "No." The first boy ran out, grabbed his friend, and pushed him behind the door. There was a pause. I dropped my hand. Abdul Haq laughed and we walked off toward the village. I fell back. I did not want to walk alongside these men.

On the outskirts of the village they found a man squatting behind a wall, possibly hiding from them. He stood up and bowed and seized the hands of Abdul Haq and Qasim, ignoring me. Qasim went through the elaborate chain of greetings and then asked where we could stay.

"Over there."

"Lead us," barked Qasim.

"No," replied the man, turning away, "I really..."

Abdul Haq grabbed his wrist and Aziz pointed his rifle at his chest and the man said, "Of course, of course, I will come with you."

We entered the village and saw three old men sitting with their grandchildren on the platform beside the mosque. One white-bearded man advanced with a broad smile. Qasim was becoming aware of how nervous everyone was. He made his greetings particularly polite and lengthy, adding, "No need to be afraid. We just wondered whether we could find some bread, a place to sleep. We are not asking you to kill a sheep for us."

"Ah, yes," said the old man. "Yes. I'm afraid it is such a pity. We simply have nothing at all." He smiled even more broadly. "Nothing at all."

"Just a little," said Qasim, smiling back.

"I'm so sorry," said the old man. "I wish I could help."

"Right," shouted Abdul Haq. "That's it. We'll sleep in the desert. This is your Muslim hospitality ... how you treat guests ... I see it now. If we wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. Look, you idiots. You stupid, old ... idiots. Look." He pointed his rifle at them. They all stepped back and the old man stopped smiling. "Bahh," Abdul Haq roared, imitating the sound of the weapon and the recoil on his shoulder, "Bahh, Bahh..." And he walked off.

"No, no, please come back," said the old man, "stay with us."

"I would never touch your bread."

"Please," shouted the first man. "Stay with me."