The Ink Bridge (28 page)

‘A bit of a waste of money, wouldn't you say?'

‘No.'

‘What was the point?'

‘I wanted to see it fly,' she says.

The Landmine Museum is beside Ghazi Stadium. Arezu nods to the stadium. ‘They play soccer there now. Back when the Taliban were in power it was used for stonings and executions. They chopped off the hands of thieves.'

Arezu continues, ‘In Khandahar in 2000 a team from Pakistan were in the middle of a game when the Taliban marched in and arrested all of them for wearing shorts. They were deported after having their heads shaved as punishment.' She shrugs as if to say,
At least it was only their
hair
.

The grounds of the Land Mine Museum are filled with old warplanes and helicopters. One of the choppers is painted with a mural of camels crossing green fields, men dancing with outstretched arms.

‘Weird,' I say pointing at the chopper.

‘It's an internet cafe. The OMAR institute have an education program here for kids. See that plane.' She points to a bomber with pictures of de-miners at work and a slogan:
Destruction
of one landmine is to shut the door of poverty, disability and
begging
. ‘It's a classroom. They teach schoolkids how to recognise mines, where not to play, what to do if they find a mine.'

We go into the museum. Around the walls are display cabinets filled with munitions. There are mines from every corner of the world. Afghanistan has been the most favoured marketplace for the landmine industry.

‘See these cute things,' says Arezu. She points to brightly coloured plastic toys as big as the palm of my hand. ‘Butterfly mines. Beautiful name, don't you think? They flutter down from planes and land in village fields. Kids are attracted to bright colours.'

I pull out my journal, flip it open, and write:
It is hard to
imagine the shock that a child must feel as a toy removes her
arm
.

Arezu holds her finger on the glass of the display case. ‘Can we see this one?' she asks as if she wants to try on a ring. The museum guide removes a yellow mine and hands it to her. She passes it to me.

There is something heavy about it that its size doesn't convey. Its plastic fins are attached to a cylinder that holds its payload. It is simple and deadly. Designed by a man who hated life or was so removed from it that he didn't care. I hand it back to our guide. He takes it without emotion and slips it back under glass.

There are Iranian copies of Italian mines, Russian mines like wooden pencil boxes, Chinese and Pakistani mines. Our guide tells us that between the Russians, the mujaheddin and the Taliban, twenty million mines were seeded into Afghan soil.

There is a mujaheddin IED on a table. An Improvised Explosive Device. It is an old pressure cooker, stuffed with twenty-five kilos of explosives, and wrapped in cloth. It was made around 1985 and found and defused nineteen years later by the OMAR mine-clearance team. These things are still being made and buried below roads. Sometimes they find military convoys. Sometimes they do not. Now the bombs come with remote detonators that are triggered by mobile phones. Which is why the foreign armies have jammers that block the signals from phones while they are passing.

‘Here's one of my faves,' says Arezu. ‘It's a cluster bomb. Made by us, the Guardians of the Free World. They drop it from planes and it opens to release these bomblets. They float down softly on little parachutes. And when they're picked up, when they're shaken. Boom.' Her fingers spring apart in front of my face.

On the wall are photos of kids without limbs, of plastic legs and crutches. I am ashamed of my disgust. Of the revulsion I feel at these withered stumps. The final product of all this technology.

‘This is death,' says Arezu, sweeping her arms around the room. I think of the dove, how it circled above the Kabul River.

‘Life and death come so close together here. The average age for a man in this country is forty-three.'

‘It's depressing,' I say. There seems nothing else to add.

‘It is if you let it be. Me, I feel anger. That makes me want to do something.'

‘But how can you change a whole country?'

‘I can't. But maybe I can change one person's life. Maybe then it is all worthwhile.'

My new
shalwar kameez
is ready in the morning. It is delivered to my room by Ghulam Ali. I try it on and Arezu and I walk down to the tailor, laughing as we go. He is a skilled craftsman and proud of his work. He slips a waistcoat on me while we take a photo. We pose side by side, leaning towards each other like twin towers, like the sides of an arch.

In the afternoon, Arezu takes me to Chicken Street to buy a
pakul
hat and a scarf. This is where the hippies came in the sixties and seventies when the trail was open from Europe to India. It would have been a happier time for Kabul and I picture my Mum as a flowerchild meeting Dad over mint tea and a sheesha pipe. But, of course, it never happened. Mum was fifteen in 1970 and went to Jan Juc for her holidays. Dad would not have been seen dead in flares or a headband.

A bunch of street kids follow us, selling photocopied Taliban books, guides to Kabul and bad maps.

‘I wanna be your bodyguard,' says one.

‘You're too little,' says Arezu.

‘Then you take two. He is my friend and very strong. You take two for one price.'

‘I don't think we need a bodyguard,' I say as he holds his tiny biceps up for me to squeeze.

‘Sure. Every foreign lady and man need bodyguard. It is the rule. There is danger in Chicken Street. Taliban.'

‘Taliban?'

‘Sure. Taliban. You work for UN?'

‘Nope.'

‘UNHCR?'

‘Nope.'

‘Red Cross?'

‘Nope.'

‘Whaddyou do in Kabul then?'

‘I am a writer.'

‘Writer?'

‘You know, writer.' I pull out my journal and show him the pages.

He screws up his nose. ‘Journaliss?'

He thinks he has me trapped, but I wriggle free. ‘No, I write books.'

‘Ah, book. You wanna buy book. I sell you Taliban book bess price in Kabul.'

‘In here, Hec.' Arezu pulls me into a shop. We take off our shoes.

‘I wait for you here, Mister Hec,' says my bodyguard and bookseller, dodging the shopkeeper's stare.

The shop is piled with carpets and jewellery, old muskets and hats. There are three men sitting drinking
chay
, a saucer of boiled sweets between the cups and pot.

‘Hello, sir,' says the youngest of the three. ‘Can I help you with some hats or carpet today. Some is flying. Same price, you choose.'

‘We're just looking.'

‘And looking is, of course, free.'

He gets up and whisks the covers from a display cabinet. ‘Silver, turquoise, lapis from Badakhshan from mines of Sar-e Sang. Use for Tutankhamen's death mask and for paints in old Europeans. Rubies, diamond. I have all.'

‘Coloured glass,' whispers Arezu in my ear.

‘Maybe ring for your wife.'

‘She's not
. . .

' ‘Carpet,
kilim
rug.' He rolls out a carpet, displacing his cross-legged friends. ‘From Herat this carpet. Fine quality. Number wan.'

‘I need a hat.'

‘Ah, hat. How many two, three, you take ten, I give you wan free.'

‘Just one. For my one head.' I point to my head.

‘Wan?' He clucks his tongue at my cheapness. ‘Okay, no problem. Mazari bead hat? This one nice design.'

‘
Pakul
,' says Arezu.

‘
Pakul
?'

‘
Pakul
,' I echo. It sounds like a bird at the bottom of a well.

He brings out a stack of
pakul
. ‘Number wan quality, seven dollar.' He jams it on my head.

‘It doesn't fit.'

‘No problem, sir.' He stretches the cap over his knee.

‘It's the wrong colour.'

‘We have many-many colour. Too many.' He deals
pakul
onto the ground, in suits – oatmeal, camel, brown.

‘This one is nice.' Arezu puts it on my head. She nods approvingly.

‘And, of course, scarf to stop dust out of noses and mouthess.' He pulls a wad of scarves from behind him, draping them round my neck one by one.

‘How much?' I ask.

‘How many you want?'

‘Just one.'

‘Wan?' He looks at me as if I am out of my mind.

‘One.'

‘Three dollar best quality.'

‘Five for the hat and scarf,' says Arezu.

‘No profit. How will I eat?' His brow wrinkles with the pressure. ‘I give you disgown one dollar.'

‘Six.'

‘Eight. My final price.'

‘Seven.'

‘Seven I cannot do. I will be hungry. My wife and children will be hungry. My widow mother will be hungry. Come, eight dollar.' He grabs a plastic bag.

‘Come on, let's go.' Arezu gets up.

‘But—'

‘Come on,' she grabs my elbow and yanks me to my feet.

‘It's only one dollar,' I say.

‘Wan dollar!' screams the shopkeeper.

Arezu drags me from the shop. The shopkeeper follows. ‘Okay, okay. Seven dollar. Okay. Take it.'

I hand over the seven dollars and get my hat and scarf. ‘One dollar,' I say to Arezu.

‘It's the principle,' she says.

The bodyguards are still waiting. I buy them all a cold drink. It costs me two bucks.

‘Let's do coffee,' says Arezu and she takes me to Kabul City Centre. We pass through security, a metal detector and a frisk. There are male and female guards and Arezu is patted down behind a screen. A sign on the wall says ‘No guns'.

Inside, the place is glass and mirror, top to bottom. The cafe is on the ground floor and from here the glass elevators carry rich security workers, NGO staff and privileged locals up to the heavenly heights of the Safi Landmark Hotel. Near the stairwell, bearded men touch their foreheads to red carpets while their friends keep watch on Kabul's youngest and brightest, flirting in front of the Mehak Valley Beauty Shop.

We order lattes and a slab of carrot cake to share. On the next table, teenagers sip juice and text their friends. Businessmen do deals. A hawker cruises the cafe selling phone recharge cards. Turbaned men from the provinces ride the escalators.

In my journal, I write:
Like Crown Casino without the
gambling.

‘What you writing?' asks Arezu, sipping foam from her upper lip.

I shut the cover. ‘This is not Afghanistan,' I say.

‘There's more than one Afghanistan,' says Arezu. ‘It's more complicated than you think. The foreign media might characterise it as full of fundamentalist crazies, deserts and burqas. Sure, they are all here, but there is a lot more besides.'

Back outside kids roast corn in basins of hot sand. Men sit for hours smashing the husks from almonds and placing them in neat piles. Trucks full of quivering bull carcasses rumble by. Outside it is hot and dusty as it has always been and will always be.