The Ink Bridge (2 page)

I remove my hand but the imprint stays for a moment
– a ghost of a time that has already passed. Like our stories –
his and mine.

Hector Morrow
En route to Kabul

Contents

Part One: Omed

1

2

3

4

5

Part Two: Hec

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part Three: Across the Bridge

1

2

3

4

5

Author's Note

Acknowledgements

part one
Omed

OMED NOORI WAS FROM BAMIYAN and had always known the two statues. They were carved into the mountain and had once borne the faces of his people, the Hazara – eyes like
badam
kernels, the soft, high cheekbones. They had stood for over fifteen hundred years and had seen the coming and going of many invaders who hacked at the stone and plaster with swords as they passed. The Taliban were just another annoyance.

Omed shifted so he could get a better look. If he was seen, he would be shot and left as a warning to others. The Talibs were boring holes – in the ragged stone feet, in the rock behind the heels, up higher in the long folds of stone clothes. The men, local Hazara pressed into the dangerous work, swarmed like bees, slipping in little parcels of poison, hanging on ropes tied round their waists, spinning down, chins grazing the pebbled rock. There was Tahir, the father of Hamidullah and Zohra. And the baker, Sadiq, whose family were killed in their beds.

The Talibs lounged in the niches and doorways, and in the gloom of the ancient caves with the paintings of flying gods. They picked at their teeth with their fingernails and aimed their rifles at the men on the ropes. Omed had seen them in the
chaikhanas
, the small teashops in the main bazaar, with their greasy turbans marking the walls, sucking at glasses of tea through small, hard sweets. They would get boys to dance for them and they would smoke hashish and opium. They were not as pious as they pretended to be.

The statues stood as they always had, silently taking in the broad sweep of hills and the broken bricks of town, waiting like mutes about to taste a stick. Years before, tourists would come from America and Germany to stare at the Stone People. Omed and his friends would offer themselves as guides, pulling them by their sleeves up the narrow staircase that led behind behind the statues. At the top the foreigners would point and click at Bamiyan – the fields of vetch and wheat, the tall poplars that lined the streams, the blue minaret of the mosque that was a bright eye among the dusty buildings. Above everything rose the snow-covered mountains of the Koh-e Baba range; heroic saints with their long white beards.

He would take the money he earned home to his mother and the words –
bitte, danke schon
, please, thank you – he would present to his father.

But as the troubles grew worse, the tourists had stopped coming, and the river of their ideas and language, the pebbles of money, had ceased. The Talib had closed Omed's school, leaving only the madrassas with their endless teachings of the Qur'an.

Now there was nothing to do but eat the dust and wind, so Omed and Zakir had come here to the feet of the Stone People to find out what the whole town was talking about.

Each Talib, with a beard longer than a fist, was bent over fuses. Their fingers moved quickly, twisting and pushing tapers, occasionally wrapping the loose ends of their black turbans back into place. They were absorbed in the work of God. They had cleared the poor people who lived in the surrounding caves, shouting that they would remove the abominations from the mountain side.

Omed could see one of the cave people, Anwar, rolling wire between the charges. Anwar lived alone between the great statues. He had a goat, and a roll of old carpet on which to sleep. Although he was not very old, his beard was greying and he had a habit of chewing on the loose end of his turban so it was always soggy.

In the mornings, after he had fed the animals and swept the yard, Omed would squat beside Anwar as he washed from an old pink watering can, rubbing the freezing water over his face and neck, blowing his nose into his hand. Anwar would brush his teeth with his forefinger and then his thumb before taking a long look out at the valley.

Omed would come for the soft flat bread Anwar cooked in an oven dug into the ground in front of his cave. Anwar would slap an oval of dough against its wall and pick out the sparks that clung to his eyebrows and beard. The bread was the best Omed had ever tasted. The stories he listened to out of politeness.

‘The two statues are called Salsal and Shahmama, the father and mother.' Anwar passed Omed a slab of bread, hot from the oven. Omed tossed it from one hand to the other to cool and then took a bite. It tasted of smoke and wheat, the breath of harvest.

Anwar continued, ‘The father's face was once made of wood and covered with gold so it shone like the sun. Such was its brilliance that it was covered with a cloth. The father's eyes were made of rubies, the caves behind them, lit with fires. In the evenings men would chant behind the mask and the cloth would be removed. Salsal's eyes would pierce the whole valley with their light.'

The bread was good and Omed wanted more, but he could see that Anwar had only made two and was about to eat the second. Anwar rose off his haunches. ‘Come, we will go inside where it is warmer.' He swung the blue curtain aside and they went into his cave. On the back wall were the remains of an old painting. Omed touched the curve of lips in the lamp glow, feeling the soft plastered surface next to the rough rock. The soul had been removed from this one with a quick blow from a hammer. Anwar poured tea from his battered kettle into two glasses.

‘They will kill them you know,' said Anwar.

‘Who?'

‘The Taliban will kill Salsal and Shahmama.'

‘But why?'

‘Because they are like us.'

One of the men looked up from his work and over to where Omed and Zakir hid. ‘Go, you Hazara dogs!' he shouted, and threw a handful of rubble in their direction. They ducked behind the stone wall, hoping that he wouldn't follow with a stick or a foot. Or a bullet.

The Taliban twisted the wires and connected them to the plunger. Omed pointed to one stern-looking man and whispered in his friend's ear, ‘That Talib has a face like your mother.' The man had a long scar that had conquered his nose and lip, tearing them sideways. His single eyebrow was so thick it collapsed on his eyes.

Zakir punched his arm. ‘He looks more like your sister.' Zakir lied – Leyli was beautiful and Omed knew how she and Zakir looked at each other.

Omed wrestled him to the ground, but Zakir was stronger, always stronger, and soon had him pinned.

‘Surrender,' Zakir said as he looked down on him, his long fringe dangling above Omed.

‘Never!' shouted Omed and with a grunt tried to push his friend away. Then the ground shook once, twice, and Zakir slumped onto him. Omed felt slices open on the back of his hands and pieces chip from his scalp. Stones drove into the ground around them and when they finished falling, dust coursed over them like bitter fog. He coughed, fighting for air, pushing his face into Zakir's shoulder to filter out the fine powder.

Eventually, Omed pushed Zakir off and rose to his knees. He felt the back of his head and looked at his moist fingers where blood and dust had mingled to a brown sludge.

It reminded him of the day the Talib shot his father. The bullet had passed through his back and disappeared. Like magic. He had fallen on his face, his nose breaking on a grindstone. Omed had been fourteen.The ground in their yard quickly sipped most of the blood, leaving only a dark stain that the chickens kept pecking no matter how often he beat them with a stick.

Omed smeared his own blood between finger and thumb. ‘Zakir,' he croaked. The world was dim, muffled. He coughed and spat up a dirty lump. ‘Zakir.' He crawled over and shook him.

‘Zakir. It's over. The Stone People are gone. Zakir?' The words were strange echoes inside him.

He rolled Zakir over.

The rock was the size of a hand held flat and was shaped like the head of a spear. One edge reminded him of a seashell he had once seen in the bazaar, sharp and serrated. It had broken through his skull, neatly, allowing in flies.

Omed shook his friend, but he was as limp as a newly slaughtered goat. His tongue slipped from between his lips, followed by a rivulet of black fluid, too dark to be blood, too dark.
No. No!
Omed gripped his own head. Everything burned. He grabbed his friend against his chest. He shook him.
Wake up . . . wake up . . . wake up.

He got to his feet. It was a dream, he knew it. It was a dream and in it he was invincible and terrible and fearless. He climbed over the wall, the piles of fallen stone, shouting at the Talib, calling them pigs, and worse. There was blood in his eyes, behind his brow, in his ears. His temples felt thin.

They looked up from their business – slapping each other on the back, congratulating, pointing with their feet to the fallen gods. Then they turned with curiosity to the screaming boy.

Omed ran at them, the stone in his hand; the same stone that had removed his friend. He brought it above his head as he came, shouting. And for a moment he saw the fear in their eyes and felt the power of it. Their mouths stretched like wire. Muscles on their necks shivering.

He struck the first on the bridge of the nose and felt the bone collapse. With the second, he pulled the stone up in an arc, tearing soft cheek muscle. He bit the face of a third. Then it was only a hazy mess of screaming, stabbing, kicking, spitting, hair and flesh and earthy blood in his throat and the clouds whirling. But when the power left him, five Talib remained.

He spat at them again as they held him into the dirt. He spat and yelled in Pashto, bad words that his father had never allowed. He could hear them muttering about punishment until the tall one with the scar took over.

Hold him.

To Omed it was only a whisper, like wind stripping out winter trees.

The blade was curved and as long as the thighbone of a sheep. It was chipped but sharp, he noticed that as it came closer. That and the metal glint, the patches of rust blooming, the brass hilt turning to green.

His tongue, hold his tongue.

He felt the fingers enter. He tasted steel and gunpowder, and the smell from when the man had toileted and not washed. Omed withdrew his tongue deep inside, but they punched him hard so he lost his breath. And the man drew his tongue out like a worm. As he did, the one with the scar went to work with his knife, carving under with the tip. He felt his tongue break free of its harness, loll on the floor of his mouth. Blood drained into his throat. He drank it, tasting iron and anger. Then he fell heavily into dreams.