Caravans (33 page)

So I dashed into the middle of the fracas, where I accomplished nothing until a north-of-the-Oxus Kazak broke loose with what was left of the goat and headed in my general direction. It was apparent that unless I stopped him, the game was over, so I tried to turn him back into the mob, but the Russian decided that he could scare me into yielding ground, so he drove directly at me, and so far as I was concerned his strategy would have worked, for I was willing to withdraw, but Moheb’s horse had been trained for just this kind of challenge and, ignoring my reins, leaped ahead seeking contact. We struck the Kazak with stunning force, spun him around and caused him to drop the goat, which to my surprise I caught.

But before I got started for the Russian goal, I caught a glimpse of Shakkur bearing down on me and in order to escape him tried evasive action. He anticipated my move and with his left arm clubbed me across the back so violently that I nearly pitched over my horse’s head. In attempting to regain control I exposed the goat, which Shakkur grabbed, literally tearing it from me. He rode off with the body; I was left with one leg.

Dazed from his blow, I started in pursuit, but
the chase was fruitless, for Shakkur had a clear run for the goal, and even though one of his own Kazaks tried to knock him from his horse, the big sharif defended himself by clubbing the Kazak in the face with the bloody goat. Thus ended our game of polo, the sport of gentlemen.

Of the eighty players, more than half had substantial contusions and cuts, and of these, twenty-two were injured seriously enough to require help from Dr. Stiglitz, who set broken bones, pulled broken teeth and applied antiseptic to several square yards of flesh from which the skin had been abraded in sliding falls across the rocky field. This year, however, there had been no deaths.

As we finished treating the last of the cripples and listened to the sounds of festivity in the tents, where the game was being celebrated, I could not resist observing to Ellen, “Sort of like Saturday night after the Yale-Harvard game, isn’t it? Or the country club in Dorset after a golf match?”

She had a good answer for this, I’m sure, but she was prevented from giving it by the arrival of the old Hazara, who had come by to congratulate me: “Your play was a credit to Zulfiqar and he should be pleased. A year ago I warned him, ‘In 1946 I shall retire. If you act wisely you could be my successor.’ Well, everything he’s done this year has been correct and your presence and the young lady’s”—he smiled at Ellen approvingly—“has helped him very much.” He bade me farewell and rode back to the yurt.

When he was gone I saw that Ellen was trembling, partly from outrage, partly from apprehension. “He’s been plotting this for a whole year,” she
muttered, her composure gone. “He’s used us most shamefully. I wonder what he’ll do now?”

I should have been sympathetic with her, but for some reason I wasn’t, and an irreverent thought possessed me, which I ungallantly shared: “Rather neat trick he pulled, picking you up at Qala Bist and keeping you on ice for ten months.”

She glared at me, but ignored the joke. “What do you think he’ll do’?” she asked nervously.

Toward me, at least, his friendship increased. The day after the polo we rode to see the Russians dismantling the administration yurt and watched as a colorful procession of Uzbek, Tajik and Hunza caravans wound slowly to the east, heading for the crevices of the Hindu Kush. A visible sadness seized the Kochi leader and he turned on his horse to say, “If they do die, these caravans …” He paused, then said quietly, “Who could believe Qabir if he had not seen it? Son”—he had never called me this before—“I wanted you to see this plain with four hundred caravans. I saw it when I was a boy … no, when I was an infant too young to see anything. This is how men should live.”

But each day we became more lonely. The Nuristanis next to us had departed and so had the Tajiks to the west, and a very real sense of doom enveloped our camp. I was constantly expecting retribution to overtake Ellen and Dr. Stiglitz, and I am sure they were too. In fact, I became so jittery that I began spotting where the guns were, and the knives, in case I was myself attacked, for it seemed to me that the brooding figure of Zulfiqar was everywhere.

Finally even Shakkur the Kirghiz departed with
his eighty camels, and our caravan was alone on the high plateau. I overheard little Maftoon complaining to the other cameleers, “If we don’t start soon for Balkh, on the return trip the snows will trap us.”

“Zulfiqar will tell us when to move,” they assured him.

“He’s not thinking of the snows,” Maftoon lamented.

The next morning I heard a shouting at Zulfiqar’s tent and I rushed over to find him standing with dagger in hand, towering over Dr. Stiglitz, who was unarmed and terrified. In his baggy Afghan trousers and dirty turban Stiglitz made a pitiful contrast to the powerful Kochi.

“Give him a dagger,” Zulfiqar commanded, and when there was hesitation he shouted at Maftoon, “Give him yours. It killed a man in Rawalpindi.”

Fumbling, Maftoon placed his dagger into the trembling hands of the doctor, who knew no more how to use it now than he had that morning in the caravanserai: he held it in both hands, pointed out from his chest.

I fought my way to the front of the circle and shouted, “Zulfiqar! No!”

“You be still!” the huge Kochi roared, and men grabbed my arms.

At the doorway to the tent Racha and some women held Ellen Jaspar, and I looked beseechingly at Mira, who refused to look back at me. Then Ellen screamed and I saw Zulfiqar, with a quick lunge, dive at Stiglitz, who, in a response born of despair, managed to escape the flashing blade but took no steps to attack his adversary.

Zulfiqar whirled expertly and drove at Stiglitz from the opposite direction, but again Ellen screamed and the doctor jumped aside just in time. He was terrified and was obviously about to be killed, except that Ellen, who had convinced him that death was of no consequence, now shouted, “Otto! Protect yourself!” And with this cry the insignificant man wanted to live. He became wary.

What followed occurred with dreadful swiftness, but each motion was etched on my mind. I shall never forget. I thought: I hope Stiglitz wins. I despised him, both for what he had done and for what he represented, but now that he was close to death at the very moment he had found Ellen Jaspar to restore his life, I wanted him to survive. Dear God, I prayed, let the German live.

A roar went up as Zulfiqar made a savage lunge at Stiglitz, who drew himself in so that the Kochi dagger missed, then stabbed at Zulfiqar as the latter flashed by. Stiglitz had drawn blood and the crowd murmured in astonishment.

I never knew whether Zulfiqar realized he was hit or not, but with a roaring leap he struck his opponent with both boots and knocked him to the ground. Like a cat he pounced upon him and wrenched away his dagger. Applying his knees to the doctor’s arms, he stared down at the terrified face.

Ellen screamed as Zulfiqar’s dagger flashed in the air and I was caught with horror as I watched it speed downward. I heard the crowd sigh. Then I heard voices.

Zulfiqar had driven his dagger into the soft earth, less than an inch from the pudgy doctor’s
neck. The powerful Kochi left it there as he pushed himself up, loomed over the fallen man and carefully spat in his face.

“Leave the caravan!” he cried in a terrifying voice.

He then stalked to the doorway of his tent and grabbed Ellen away from the women. With a cruel swipe of his hand he knocked her off her feet. Contemptuously he spat in her face and repeated his order: “Leave the caravan!”

Then he stepped across the two stupefied westerners and grabbed me by the throat with his left hand. With his right he gave me a blow that sent me staggering backward in the dust. “Get out!” he roared. “Get out!”

Finally he grabbed little Maftoon and lifted him off the ground. “They’re your friends,” he shouted scornfully. “Take them to Balkh. Now! Now!”

In a storming rage he tore into his tent and began throwing out all the possessions that Ellen had accumulated. This done, he rushed to my tent, where he did the same with everything belonging to Stiglitz and me. The doctor’s bag landed on one corner and popped open, spilling medicine which the silent Kochis began greedily grabbing.

“Put it back!” Zulfiqar shouted. “We want nothing of theirs.”

In this manner he continued, with blood reddening his back, until he saw us packed, with white horse saddled, and Maftoon ready with the camel Becky, who carried a tent for us, and a donkey whose panniers contained some food.

“Get out!” he bellowed, and as we crept away down the river trail toward the confluence where
he had gained glory in the yurt, I saw him rip off his shirt to inspect his wound. It was not deep and he yelled for Racha to wash it. That was the last I ever saw of Zulfiqar or his wife Racha.

We formed a pathetic caravan as we moved out of the Hindu Kush. Stiglitz, shaken by his approach to death, was allowed to ride the white horse, which he did in silence. Ellen was in a state of unbelief: her jaw was sore and her vanity abused. Confusion was increased by the effect of her gray burnoose, which made her look soft and feminine while her words made her harsh and unlovely.

“How dare he strike me?” she asked several times. “And spit at me? He’s no better than an ignorant mullah. I should have killed him myself.” She was shaken with anger at the memory of her humiliation, and as I studied these bedraggled lovers I was willing to concede that they had converted themselves into non-people, those rejected dregs on which the world rebuilds, and I was sure they felt confirmed in this claim.

Little Maftoon was equally disturbed, because when he got rid of us at Balkh there was no escape: he would have to rejoin the caravan, and it had been his knife that had wounded Zulfiqar, his friendship for me that accounted for his being with us. The scar-eyed cameleer found no pleasure in this caravan, nor did his enemy Aunt Becky, who like all camels protested any trail that descended,
since it threw unaccustomed burdens on her awkward front legs. She growled and gurgled so much that pretty soon somebody in the caravan had better undress and let her fight his clothes or there would be serious trouble.

Nor was I exempt from the sense of melancholy which had been closing in on me for days. I had lost Mira, the elfin spirit of the caravan, and I could imagine her trapped in the mountains by her father’s hatred of me. In my loneliness I was forced to admit, for the first time, that I loved her without reservation. On the high plateaus she had laughed and teased her way into my heart, and she would remain a part of me as long as I lived. To have lost her without even a farewell was intolerable. But I had also been abused by her father, who during the preceding weeks had been treating me as his predilected son, sharing with me thoughts he would not confide to others. He had gone out of his way to help me with my mission, introducing me to the Kirghiz sharif, and from watching him at work I had grown to admire his cool calculations and mastery of politics; yet our friendship had ended with his knocking me down, cursing me and throwing me out of his camp. Frankly, I couldn’t understand what had happened.

In fact, if one considered the entire complement of our cut-rate caravan, the only member not spiritually wounded was the donkey. He plodded along with panniers banging his sides, content to know that if he didn’t work for us, on this trail, he would have to work for someone else, on some other trail.

We had proceeded thus for two silent hours when I heard Maftoon cry, “Miller Sahib! Look!”

I turned to see what new misfortune had befallen us, half expecting to find that Aunt Becky had broken a leg, but instead I saw Maftoon pointing back along the trail we had traveled, and there came Mira, in red skirt and pink blouse, running to overtake us.

“Her father will kill her,” Maftoon lamented.

She was more than a mile away, a marvelous little hummingbird skipping across the meadowland, and I started running back to meet her. “Take the horse,” Stiglitz offered, but I was already on my way.

Out of breath we met on the trail and rushed into a long kiss, which convinced me of how desperately I needed her, how ashamed I had been at being forced to leave the caravan without speaking to her. I think that as we finished our embrace she was weeping, but I do not know, for in these matters she was proud and she buried her face in my shoulder as I lifted her and carried her along the trail.

The others came back to meet us, all except Aunt Becky, who, when she started downhill, turned back for nothing. We looked at her gaunt brown figure plopping across rocks and began to laugh. It was so joyful to be with Mira, and cockeyed Maftoon, and the lovers and the beat-up old camel.

As I put Mira down, Ellen ran to embrace her as if they were schoolgirl roommates, and the affection between the girls was real, for to Ellen Mira owed her dress, her manner of doing her hair and her few English sentences; and it was obvious that
she was pleased to be with the American girl again.

But Maftoon warned in a doom-laden voice, “You should not have done this, Mira. Your father will kill you.”

To our astonishment Mira replied, “He told me to come.”

“He what?”

“Of course. I told him, ‘I’d like to go to Balkh with Miner,’ and he said, ‘Why not?’”

“You mean that Zulfiqar …”

“He’s not mad at anybody,” Mira assured us, expressing surprise that we should think so.

“He knocked me down,” Ellen protested. “He spat at me.”

Again Mira embraced her friend. “He had to do that, Ellen. The others were looking, waiting—the whole caravan.”

“He almost killed me,” Stiglitz added, rubbing his neck.

Mira looked almost condescendingly at the German and asked proudly, “If my father had been truly angry, do you think he would have missed with his dagger? His honor demanded that he do something about you, Doctor. But he wasn’t angry. It was only make-believe … in front of the others.”

I caught Mira by the shoulders and shook her: “Are you telling the truth?”

She laughed at me as she broke free. “Miller! When my father said good-by just now he was chuckling. He told me, ‘Tell that damned German he put up a good fight.’ And he sent you this, Dr. Stiglitz.” From her pink blouse she produced the
Damascus dagger Zulfiqar had used in the duel. Handing the silver sheath gravely to the German, she said, “His wedding present to you. My father said, ‘It will remind the wife that her husband was once willing to fight for her … with daggers.’”

Then she took me aside and explained softly, “When you left, Miller, my father went to our tent and threw himself on the rugs. Again and again he said, ‘He was like my son. He was my son. Why did I strike him?’ For a while at Qabir I think he hoped that by some miracle you would stay with us and help him run the caravan.” There was a moment of intense silence, broken by her sharp cry, “There goes Becky!”

The willful old camel had spotted, off to one side of the trail, some grass that she fancied and, having eaten it, now continued straight ahead in the new direction even though it was taking her into dangerous rocky areas. Nothing would stop her, dumb beast that she was, for she would continue plodding ahead until she destroyed herself, unless some human teased her into returning to the trail. By those who know them best, camels are considered the stupidest of animals, and Aunt Becky was out to prove her claim to the title, but she was forestalled by Mira, who dashed after the lumbering beast, cursing her madly, and we fell to laughing as the determined little nomad pursued the huge camel, scrambling over rock and shale until she had maneuvered Aunt Becky back to safety.

This was the tonic our bedraggled group needed, and without fully appreciating what I was doing or its consequences I took Ellen by the hands and teased her in a schoolboy’s way. “Ellen
and her men!” I chanted, waving her arms up and down. “She wants to reject the world, so she runs off with Nazrullah, whose only ambition is to build a big dam. So she drops him for wild free Zulfiqar, who wants to settle down beside the dam. Then she chooses Dr. Stiglitz. Look at him up there grinning on that horse. He’s planning to build a hospital on Zulfiqar’s land beside Nazrullah’s dam.”

“Ring-around-a-rosy,” Ellen cried, joining in the joke. And with a sudden lilt of her body she began dancing me over the trail, her gray burnoose swinging free in haunting beauty. Then I felt the pulsating throb of life in her hands as they gripped mine and realized that this was the first time I had touched Ellen. She was vibrant and her eyes flashed, making her irresistible and quite different from the troubled young college girl we had discussed that wintry day at the American embassy in Kabul. I was caught by an embarrassment which sprang from reasons I did not then fully comprehend, and I let her hands fall, so that the force of her dancing spun her away in lovely gyrations until she collapsed in laughter on a grassy bank.

Dr. Stiglitz leaped from his horse to lift her to her feet, but Mira reached her first and asked with real concern, “Are you hurt, Ellen?”

“I could dance right out of the mountains,” she told the little nomad. Then she reached up and kissed Dr. Stiglitz as he helped her back onto the trail.

In this manner we re-formed our little caravan and, with Mira restoring the levity we had lost, began one of the loveliest journeys any of us would ever know. From Qabir to Balkh was only eighty
miles, which we should have covered in about five days, but we were in no hurry and our patient progress through the mountains became an extended joy. It had been one thing to carry on a light love affair with a bright-eyed nomad girl, built of hasty meetings in rocky enclaves; it was quite another to live with that girl twenty-four hours a day, helping her prepare pilau, watching her as she loaded the donkey and sharing her life as if we intended never to part. Once she said, “We should find mountains where it never snows and get us a flock of karakuls,” and she laughed when Ellen teased, “Can’t you imagine Mark Miller herding karakul sheep on Boston Common?” But her easy laughter did not hide the fact that we were falling deeper and deeper in love, so that our final parting was bound to be a matter of anguish.

At the same time I had a chance to observe Ellen and her doctor as they started their new life freed from the presence of Zulfiqar, and as I watched them I had to admit that there was some substance to Ellen’s confused thesis about the non-people. She and Stiglitz worried about nothing. For them there was no past, no future, no responsibility. The days came and went, and the two lovers existed. They were non-people who on a high plateau in Afghanistan had found each other after a series of improbable adventures, and the days of their rebirth from nothingness were brilliant to watch.

Yet as soon as I have said this, I must confess that it was also now that I became aware for the first time of a dark presence when they were with us in the tent, an element of strangeness, almost of
tangible foreboding. It was Mira who pointed this out to me. For us, love had been a relaxed and easily accepted experience. To be sure, the little nomad girl reveled in an exquisite passion, which she found joy in sharing, and I, although I am no expert in these matters, felt sure at the time that my response was adequate. But on the first night out of Qabir, when the bunks were made and all four of us had gone to bed in the black tent, Mira and I were astonished at the sounds which came from the opposite side of our quarters. It was as if those other lovers feared that nights were numbered and that at Balkh some tragedy would envelop them. Mira whispered, “We better leave the tent for them,” but as we crept away I had the curious feeling that this extraordinary performance in the other bed had somehow been directed at me.

Mira and I walked in the gray light of the full moon, passing the nook where Maftoon slept with the animals, while the white horse, that symbol of leadership and manliness that Mira had brought me, grazed on the hillside. In Pashto Mira said, “I am convinced now that my father was relieved when Ellen started sleeping with Dr. Stiglitz.”

“That’s still an astonishing thing to say.”

“I think he’d had enough of lovemaking,” she suggested.

“With a girl like Ellen? You must be crazy.”

“Do you remember that first morning?” she asked. “At the caravanserai? My father found you fighting and ran out to warn us, ‘Hide Ellen. The American is here looking for her.’ So we hid her in one of the little rooms. But only a few minutes later he ordered me to bring her before you.”

I tried to recall the scene. Zulfiqar had taken our knife and the Kochis had entered, including Mira, whose saucy pigtails I could still see. Yes, Mira was right. Zulfiqar had sent her out specifically to fetch Ellen, and had he not done so, we need never have known that she was with the Kochis. He had intended me to find her.

Mira and I walked for some hours through the great mountains of Afghanistan, then crept quietly back to the tent where Ellen and Stiglitz were asleep, but on the second night the performance in the other bed was repeated and again Mira suggested that we leave, and in this manner my ambivalent feeling toward the other couple developed: in the day they were persons of feeling and judgment with whom I found an increasing sense of identification; but at night they became something strange. One curious facet of this ambivalence concerned Dr. Stiglitz, for I had gradually been forced to concede that he had transformed himself from a Nazi criminal into a man determined to serve humanity. My hatred for what he had done to the Jews in Munich was exorcised; our weeks together, our long discussions, had made him like a brother. I therefore had to conclude that whatever uneasiness I felt about the couple must stem not from Stiglitz but from Ellen.

For example, on the third evening out we pitched our camp in a rocky gorge that would lead us out of the Hindu Kush, and at the end of day Maftoon spread his little prayer rug on the rocks. Estimating where Mecca stood, he knelt to pray, but he had uttered only a few words when Dr. Stiglitz, impressed by the gravity of the mountains
at dusk, joined him, and they knelt as the Koran directed, shoulder to shoulder in that brotherhood which Islam fosters and which is unknown to most other religions.