Refugees (4 page)

Dawn went to the kitchen and loaded a grocery bag with apples, crackers, half a loaf of bread, and the rest of the cheddar cheese. She added two sets of silverware, a can opener, and a thermos of water. She even remembered to get soap and a washcloth from the front powder room. She had no clue when her next bath might be.

When her pockets and the grocery bag were full, Dawn thought of one more thing and ran up to get it. The garnet ring. It was Dawn's birthstone and had become a good-luck charm at music recitals.

She stared at the crimson jewel. Dawn pictured Louise's eager face as Dawn had opened the ring box last year. Then she recalled how just a couple of days later she and Victor had gazed out of the airport window and watched Louise's plane get smaller and smaller, carrying Louise to tornado victims in Texas. It wasn't that Dawn begrudged the victims of calamity, but there was something just too easy about giving a ring.

She blinked to clear the stinging in her eyes and hoisted the pack onto her shoulders. Dawn slipped the ring on her finger and walked out of the crud-colored house, slamming the door behind her.

J
ohar and Daq unrolled their pattus and knelt side by side as the sun dropped from its perch and dusk's chill cooled the rocky soil.

Johar bowed, raised, and then bowed his head in the prayer ritual called the namaz. His thick black hair curled in waves around his woven skullcap. When he finished his prayer for protection, he whispered a few extras. “Allah, let our sheep survive the winter snows. Bless Daq. Help him hold his temper. Bless little Bija and Aunt Maryam. Allah, help me to quiet the rumblings in my stomach so that our rice stores last until spring.” Marqa licked salt from Johar's toes. “Bless sweet Marqa too.”

Daq and Johar rolled their pattus and led the sheep down through the narrow paths, past the rusted Soviet tank
whose red Cyrillic lettering glowed in the dark orange light, marking the halfway point to home

Turbaned shepherds filed by, followed by a woman balancing a jug on her head. Johar knew from the three rips at the hem of her blue burqa that it was his neighbor, Zolar. She would get into trouble with the Taliban if she was caught walking outside without a male relative, but none in these rebellious hills would tell. Zolar was a widow and needed drinking water like anyone else. The brothers lowered their eyes as she passed.

When they reached their mud hut Johar counted the sheep while Daq prodded them—twelve in all—through the gate and inside the high stone enclosure. One never knew when a thief or starving farmer would creep over the wall at night for a taste of even these bony sheep.

Poor Marqa was getting lame, although she could still produce wool and even a jug of milk now and then. Marqa's last yearling carried a lamb in her own belly. The yearling was so thin that Johar worried she would die before giving birth, so he often searched the passes for extra handfuls of grass to feed her. Johar hurried in to help Daq hide the wool they'd sheared today. Soon they would face a long winter. The Afghanis they received for this would see them through the snowy months if they were prudent, and if luti did not rob them on their way home from market. For now, the wool was safe in a deep crevice dug into the dirt floor.

“I'm stopping at the chaikhana on the way to Aunt Maryam's,” Daq announced. He tightened his checkered turban as they walked toward town. Already it was evening, and although Johar feared the street for its thugs and bandits, his biggest fear was the Taliban. One could be
thrown in jail for the slightest provocation—a glance at a woman, or even owning a child's doll.

“We must hurry to Maryam's,” Johar protested. “Must you see that traitor?”

“What traitor?” Daq grabbed Johar by his shalwar. “I trust you're not referring to Naji.” Daq's eyes were as hard as agates.

“Naji's words are crazy,” Johar retorted when Daq released his garment. “He is trying to brainwash you.”

“Then go to Aunt Maryam's alone,” Daq replied. “You're not cut out for the chaikhana anyway. You belong in a woman's house, watching children.”

“I belong in the field. I'm as good a shepherd as they come, and you know it,” said Johar, presenting a strong front even though Daq's words had cut him. It was true that he loved to tell Bija stories as she sat on his lap with her mouth agape, but so what? Daq would tell Johar, “You are like a fool who speaks in poetic riddles, or a young girl who moons over her wedding.” Riddles? Pah! Poetry formed the moral and spiritual base of rule, from the ancient tribal leaders to the caliphs and pirs. Maryam had taught him this. Verse documented events—the history of mystics practicing in the desert, of nine hundred scholars studying in the court of Mahmud of Ghazny, of the workings of the overland spice trade. Johar would become a teacher and hand down what he had learned. Someday Daq would understand.

“I'm coming,” Johar said firmly, hurrying to catch up. They passed through a checkpoint, and two Talibs who asked where they were going. Satisfied that the boys held no forbidden goods, the men let them pass.

The dirt road widened. People on foot and on donkeys
made their way toward the bazaar. Merchants called out their wares from roadside stalls. Johar saw dented pots and pans, chipped bowls, a tarnished samovar. The brothers walked on past ragged sections of walls and damaged light poles whose protruding wires flapped in the wind. Mostly men roamed these streets, and around thirty-five of them haggled over the most valued goods—naan, potatoes, melons, chai. But, further on, burqa-clad women crouched along the curb with their hands outstretched. Their children, with tangled hair under dirty hijabs, played or sat listlessly by their mothers. As they looked at the lanes of crumbling structures, it wasn't hard to see that Afghanistan had been at war for an exhausting twenty years.

Soon Johar and Daq were at the chaikhana. They strode up to its mud-brick walls and entered. The pungent odor of sweat and kebabs hit Johar's nose. The place was filled with men eating and smoking, their guns resting at their sides. This was one of the places where all men mixed, even though there were Taliban spies.

Afghanistan was made up of clans. Pashtuns stood in the majority and aimed to keep it that way. The Taliban had risen from the most conservative element of the rural Pashtun tribe, which had its spiritual center in the southwest town of Kandahar. Tajiks held many businesses in the northeast. Massoud, the great Alliance general who was fighting against the Taliban, was a Tajik from the Pansjir. Hazaras grouped in the central villages of Bamiyan and were rumored to hail from the legendary invading armies of Genghis Khan. Hazaras, with their strongly Asian features and Shi'a way of worship, were the Taliban's special scapegoats. Most Afghanis were Sunni Muslims. The Shiites had been persecuted almost since the inception of
Islam, when they insisted that all imams following the Prophet Mohammed must be direct descendants, while the Sunni branch believed that caliphs should be elected, not conferred by heredity.

Daq's old friend Zul called them over to sit on a patterned rug. Zul was a Tajik from Baghram, like Johar and Daq. He was tall and spoke with a lisp through the wide space where his two front teeth had once been. Bearlike Farooq, the Hazara carpet seller's son, was there as well, and to his left sat Naji, a black-turbaned Pashtun.

Naji had attended school in the early years, until his father pulled him away to work in the family fields. The fields had long since burned from the drought and Naji had vanished for a long while, returning suddenly only last month. Etched into his left cheek was a long scar, which Naji claimed was a badge of honor from fighting off an armed bandit.
Just another one of Naji's many conceits,
thought Johar whenever he heard the tale.

When they were younger, they had all played together in the hills around Baghlan, tag and mansur—a game shooting pucks across a board made slick with powdered chickpeas. But since the local commanders had locked teeth like jackals over who would lay claim to each village, and the ethnically divisive Taliban had risen, Pashtun, Tajik, and Hazara had become suspicious of one another. Despite this, these boys, now young men, clung to their old friendships.

“Chai?” Zul asked. Daq and Johar nodded. Zul poured black-leaf chai from a steaming Russian samovar in the center of the patterned rug. He handed a cup to Daq and passed another to Johar, who clutched it between his cold hands to warm them.

“Kebabs?” asked the proprietor, who had come along
with a handful of meat on metal skewers. Johar watched hungrily as Farooq bought one and bit in, the greasy juice dribbling down his chin.

Johar's belly rumbled mercilessly. He could've eaten six kebabs, but he didn't have any money.

Daq put his hand in his pocket and pulled out only a single coin. “No kebabs today,” he mumbled.

Naji pulled a handful of Afghani from his vest pocket and threw them grandly on the table. “Four kebabs for these two!” he said to the proprietor. The man returned with meat on blackened skewers. “Eat,” Naji said, laughing.

“Thanks,” Daq replied between bites.

Johar ate one kebab quickly. He hadn't allowed himself any precious meat in days. He wrapped the other and slipped it in his pocket.

Naji leaned in close, massaging his long scar. “Daq, if you became a Taliban warrior, you'd have more coins in your pocket.”

“But our sheep—”

“Your sheep will be fine,” Naji said. “Think about it.” Naji lowered his voice conspiratorially. “A lucky few of our Taliban soldiers trained at the Arab camps.”

“Arab camps?” asked Farooq, noisily slurping his chai.

“The Al Qaeda camps in Kandahar,” Naji replied. “I studied at one for several weeks. Their soldiers gave me these.” He lifted his feet to reveal black leather boots. Daq touched them with reverence. Johar and Daq both wore cracked sandals on their feet. “You see?” Naji sat back, looking proud.

Zul's brows furrowed in a black arc. “It is pathetic how the Pashtun Taliban pander to the Arabs who flock in from Egypt and Saudi lands. Just because these outsiders have
Taliban backing, they act as if they own our towns.” Zul was a Tajik who stood squarely behind Massoud's resistance.

“Watch whom you're talking to,” said Naji. He slapped his cup down, sloshing chai on the carpet. “I am Pashtun and a Talib.”

“Of course,” said Daq. “But you are different.” His tone hardened. “A Pashtun warlord from Hizbi Islami killed my father.”

Naji nodded solemnly. “Allah bless him, my brother. But all Pashtuns are not the same. Besides, there were many clans in the Hizbi Islami. You can't blame one man's cruelty on the whole group. Now again we have a common enemy. Tajik and Pashtun must band together, like the Taliban have with Al Qaeda, whose Arab fighters are simply trying to help them keep peace.”

Band together? Keep peace? Johar was confused. The Taliban were waging a bitter fight against General Massoud's Tajik-led Alliance for control of the northern provinces at this very moment. “Which new enemy?” he asked.

“The Americans, who else?” growled Naji. “They got what they wanted when they came here to arm our mujahidin against the Soviets—Communism was squashed. Instead of helping us rebuild, they left Afghanistan in ruins—kharab!” Naji stabbed a stray piece of lamb with his skewer.

“Huh?” Johar frowned.

“Is this confusing you?” asked Zul.

Johar shook his head. “No, but the American part—I don't get it.” Poetry was clear, but politics… well, he'd never fully understood the entire chain of events.

“The Soviets invaded back in '79,” Zul explained.
“When that happened, the Americans sent in troops to help stop the spread of communism. They supplied munitions and helped turn our Afghan mujahidin into skilled fighters.”

Daq cut in. “They invited Arabs from the Middle East and Pakistani fighters to help as well. In 1989 we finally drove out the Roussi dogs.” Everyone chortled.

“The Americans couldn't wait to leave,” snorted Naji. “And they left a real mess. Our local commanders took up the slack. They had to, because the villages were in ruin. They drew up factions, fought a hellish civil war.”

“You can't blame the fighting in the villages on the Americans,” said Zul. “It was the fault of the greedy commanders—the crazed mujahidin factions who burned entire fields of wheat, raped women, switched sides on a whim.”

Johar turned to Daq and said, “One of those commanders was our father's killer.” Daq nodded. Even Farooq was quiet; he paused in his loud chewing.

“It got worse,” said Zul. “Arab fighters kept pouring in. They took advantage of our weakness to set up training camps against the West, their new enemy of Islam.”

“Tell the whole story, Zul,” hissed Naji. “America broke their promise to rebuild. We would have been better off without them. When the Taliban gained control in '96, Afghans cheered. Finally we had a strong government to stop the rampage.”

Johar said, “I guess everyone has their own selfish agenda.”

“Self
less
agenda is more like it.” Naji said, and spat on the floor. “America crept in like a whore who takes a man's money and leaves him the gift of syphilis. They taught our
women indecent ways of dress and brought us only television and godless music.”

“I saw an American television program once, at my uncle's compound,” Johar said. “I laughed so hard, I almost started crying. It was pretty clever.”

“Which one was it?” asked Farooq eagerly as he picked up another skewer. “I saw
Back to the Future.
Was it
Back to the Future
?”

“That's a film, not TV,” Zul replied, whistling through the gap in his teeth. “As far as films,
Titanic
was the finest.”

“You see, Daq, my friend?” Naji shook his head in disgust. “Corrupted minds.”

“It's good the Taliban enforce limits,” Daq agreed. Even Johar admitted that since the Taliban had overtaken the local commanders, people weren't as quick to rob in broad daylight, but fear was one thing, morality another.

“You forget that the Taliban blasted the ancient Buddhas off the mountain face in Bamiyan,” said Farooq.