American Taliban (18 page)

Yusef propped the bike on its kickstand in front of a low white concrete structure. The only bright colors were on a clothesline, strung from a window to the tree. A gaggle of kids surrounded them, admiring the gauges and levers, the seat, the pedals, firing questions about
speed and horsepower, which Yusef tried to answer. They knew him; they’d seen his bike before.

Someone their age approached. Yusef embraced him, and they kissed. My cousin Jalal, Yusef said, and they followed Jalal indoors.

Inside, John’s eyes went straight to a stack of rifles in the corner, and he understood that this was a training camp.

For target practice, Jalal explained.

He busied himself making tea. He plugged an electric wand into what looked like a small generator, unrolled a small brown bag, and shook out a handful of loose black tea leaves.

Our students come from all over, Jalal explained in precisely articulated British English. From Pakistan, Afghanistan, sometimes England and Germany. We also get Americans, of Pakistani heritage.

Jalal’s manner was both familiar and not. In appearance, he and Yusef could have been brothers, but Jalal was more reserved, or perhaps he was just older.

John asked Yusef if he’d trained here.

Of course, Jalal answered for Yusef with pride. More than once. He makes his annual taqahqur here.

The water boiled. Jalal unplugged the wand, poured three small decorative glasses, and John realized how thirsty he was. He could suck down the whole pot in one long gulp, though sipping slowly out of pretty glasses in this remote place was awesome. Civilized living but of an ancient variety. Roman or Greek. Would Jalal offer to wash their sandaled feet next? Here the biblical fetish for washing feet made sense, and John found himself wanting his feet washed, his unbearably dust-covered gritty feet. But Jalal only refilled his emptied glass.

Jalal told Yusef about a new aspect of training that was making him happy. We had an Iranian Shia mystic here. He led the boys in breathing and meditation and the results were impressive. Somehow he quiets even the most restless ones. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is seeing the twitching and shifting and noisy breathing stop.

If I had more time here, John said, I’d sign up for that.

You should make time, Jalal said. Come, he said, taking John’s hand, I’ll show you around.

He led them through the main hall, then out through a back door. Our shooting range, Jalal said. Yusef stepped onto the small platform, picked up an SKS, sighted down the barrel, and fired.

John jumped.

Jalal walked up to the target and reported: Practically bull’s eye.

Yusef’s a good shot, Jalal said. One of our best. Would you like to try?

John hesitated.

Come on, Yusef said. You can’t be Richard Burton without basic shooting skills. He placed the rifle in John’s hands, guiding the butt into the soft spot of John’s inner right shoulder, his left arm under the barrel, and his right hand on the trigger. Keep your elbows with your body, he advised, tucking them in. Like that, he said, and stepped away. Now, look down the barrel, and when your eye is on the target, exhale and pull.

John looked, adjusted his arm, his elbows.

Look through these two sights all the way to the target, Yusef advised. And pull the trigger.

John sighted, but the rifle moved; the target wavered.

Steady, Yusef said.

Breathe, Jalal reminded him.

So he inhaled. He exhaled. Inhaled. Exh—still the target danced. He squinted to keep it in place, but it shimmered. He exhaled again, and there it was, standing still, but when he went to move his finger, it disappeared again.

Ready, go, pull, Yusef commanded.

John felt the resistance of the trigger, and pulled. And though he’d braced himself, the rifle kicked back, the shot cracked loud, and the bullet—they didn’t know where it went. It was nowhere on or near the paper.

On its way to Peshawar, Yusef joked. I can see you’ve never held a rifle.

The visit was over. It was time to go. Yusef had to pick up his sister. Jalal shook John’s hand and finished with the triple kiss. Come back, he invited. Perhaps when your classes are finished you can stay with us for a few weeks. He brought his palms together, bowed his head. Im’sh’allah.

HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
John asked, when they were on the bike again.

It’s free. Sometimes it’s the only education local boys get.

The trip home was downhill and faster, and soon they were passing through the refugee camps again. This time Yusef pulled over, and kids surrounded them. John tried following the Pashto. The kids were asking Yusef whether he had brought them something.

What do they want? John asked.

They’re hungry.

John took a Zone bar out of his backpack, broke it in half, and gave it to two children.

Candy? one asked.

John nodded. Close enough, he said, but better for you.

One boy broke his half in half and shared it with the little girl beside him. John reached into his backpack for two more bars, broke them into thirds, and passed them round. Nine skinny kids would have a small dose of protein and vitamins. But he worried about the others. He wished he’d brought more. He’d ask Barbara to ship packs of these, and he would deliver them. If she could commit to sending Power Bars on a regular basis, he could at least help feed these children.

More hopeful kids arrived, with younger siblings in tow. More kids needing nourishment. And he had nothing to offer. He promised to come back, to bring more. Next week, he said, feeling the inadequacy of such a promise. They were hungry now.

THEY RETURNED
by way of Jamrud Road, but Yusef passed the main gates of the college and turned off into the Christian Cemetery through an entrance grown over with lichen. The gravestones were mossy, and covered in ivy. And the trees, mature apricots and plums, provided shade. Mishmish, Yusef said, reaching up to the nearest tree to pick a blushing apricot. He opened it with his fingers, removed the pit, and bit into it. Like honey, he said, and gave John the other half. With his toe, Yusef lifted thick green moss off the nearest gravestone and read:
HERE LIES CAPTAIN ERNEST BLOOMFIELD, ACCIDENTALLY SHOT BY HIS ORDERLY, MARCH 2
^ND
1879. WELL DONE, GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT.

They laughed.

When John got off the bike, he regretted it. Perhaps it was the physical proximity to another body or the engine’s continuous rumble, or the heat, but now it was too late to hide the pogo stick of a fact. Yusef had noticed and he refused to avert his eyes.

Well done, John said, trying to make light of it.

Yusef smiled, stretched out on the ground between two gravestones, and patted the ground beside him, an invitation. Afraid, John found a spot between the next two stones, keeping a dividing headstone between them.

Yusef remained silent, eyes closed. What did silent Yusef want? John wondered. He hoped Yusef wasn’t getting any wrong ideas about him,
his sexuality, because he was definitely not homo, had never been sexually attracted to men, he’d always liked girls. Uncomfortable in Yusef’s silence, John talked.

Burton, John said, used to compose such epitaphs for entertainment, and one day he made one up for his colonel: Here lieth the body of Captain Corsellis / The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in hell is. Needless to say, Corsellis hated it.

Yusef opened one eye. What do you think is your hero’s best achievement?

If you mean most lasting, John said, then I’d say his translations. The
Kama Sutra
and
Arabian Nights
. But really his whole life was an achievement. He studied and lived hard. Spoke twenty-nine languages. Was initiated as a Sufi. Went to Mecca.

Pakistanis think of him as more playboy than hero, Yusef said. Some people say he was a British spy and blame him for Pakistan’s problems.

Burton was a lot of things, John said. His arms itched. They felt sunburned. I’ll remember this summer as one long thirst, he said.

Yusef smiled. Nice, he murmured. He found John’s hand, slipped his own into it, and spoke dreamily. Baba Wali Kandhari lived on a hill nearby, and when Guru Nanak traveled here, he sent his disciple Mardana to ask for water. Baba Wali declined, but the guru sent Mardana back to ask again. Again Baba Wali declined. Again the guru sent his disciple back. Mardana climbed up and down the hill three times. When he returned without water a third time, Guru Nanak struck the ground with his staff and water began to spurt. In the meantime, up on the hill, Baba Wali found that his well had dried up. In anger, he pushed a huge boulder at the guru and Mardana, which the guru stopped with his outstretched arm. You can still see this boulder with Guru Nanak’s handprint at Hasan Abdal on the road out of Islamabad.

But, Yusef finished, since I can’t produce water with a stick, I’ll take you to a tea shop on Qissa Khwani where your thirst will be quenched. Avoid sweet tea, and you’ll feel better. Ready? He stood and offered John his hand.

On the bike again, they entered the old city by way of Jail Bridge Road, turned left at the first intersection, entered into the Khyber Bazaar, and slowed to a crawl. Only after-hours, at night, could you ride through the bazaars at a decent clip. In daytime, during business hours, shopkeepers, lawyers, accountants, artisans, doctors, dentists, and baskets and crates of glistening fruit and vegetables, alongside piles of rotting produce and the stench that rotting vegetation produced, all
existed together in a maze of narrow winding alleyways. They arrived at Kabuli Gate and entered Qissa Khwani the back way. Yusef skillfully wound his way to the tea shop. He locked the bike in the alleyway between shops and asked for the small table at the back where it was darkest.

The dark was a relief from the sun if not the heat. It was too warm here, it was too warm everywhere, and John was beginning to adjust, but in combination, the heat, the sun, and the thirst were exhausting.

You must slow down, Yusef advised. You must slow your walking, breathing, eating, drinking, even your thinking and feeling, and you’ll feel better.

John was beginning to understand. Indolence was a necessity here. Even Khaled’s body, accustomed to Brooklyn, was taking time to adjust to the heat. It was an adjustment best felt, hard to explain. Though he wrote to Barbara about it, he knew she wouldn’t get it. To make it through to the evening, he wrote, the midday siesta is absolutely necessary. In his room, he liked to throw himself spread-eagled on top of his bedcover and feel the warm breeze of the overhead fan on his skin. And soon his eyes closed, soon he slept. He was taking naps every afternoon. Barbara wrote back to ask if everything was okay, if he wasn’t perhaps depressed. Even as an infant, he wouldn’t nap.

Learning to nap is part of this adventure, John wrote back. There’s a Pashto expression here, from colonial days: Only mad dogs and Englishmen are seen at noon.

On this day, though, he had not slept. On this day, he had baked on the bike in the sun, and now he felt it. Water blisters had formed on his upper arms. Rubbed, they let go thin rivulets of warm moisture. He dried himself with the front tail of his shirt.

I wonder how a doctor would explain that, Yusef said.

Probably as sunburn, John said. He brought the cup to his lips, watched Yusef over the rim. Since you’ve brought me to the street of storytellers, he said, tell me another story.

Yusef thought a moment. Okay. Here’s “Sohni and Mahival: A Punjabi Romance.” When Sohni, daughter of a potter, swam across the river to meet her lover, Mahival, she used a pot to help her float. One night her jealous sister-in-law exchanged Sohni’s pot for an unbaked one, which dissolved as soon as it touched water. Mahival, hearing Sohni’s cries, flung himself into the water, but he was too slow to save her. Unable to live without her, he let himself drown and joined her in death.

Jealousy can be fatal, John said.

He asked for another, but Yusef shook his head. Three stories a day is two too many. Drink up and I’ll drop you off.

A story a day then. I’ll hold you to it.

THE EXPERIENCE
of prostrating himself and praying beside another person, and another, and another, and more beyond them, hundreds of men and boys prostrated and praying, was still awesome, though he’d been praying five times a day for months now. Like his roommates, he performed the midday, afternoon, early evening, and late-evening prayers privately, often in his dorm, but he liked starting his mornings with the crowd, where he was alone and not alone. Alone amid solitary hundreds. It was a contradiction, yet it worked. Afterward he felt strangely refreshed and newly expanded. Prayer set things right, made all love possible. He loved his roommates, his fellow classmates, even unknown colleagues at the library. He loved Khaled and Yusef. Noor, Katie, Jilly, and Sylvie. And Barbara and Bill. He loved the world. And he loved himself, too. He was an individual within a larger community, a one but not an only one. After prayer, with heart and mind exalted, in a community of exalted men and boys, he walked to his first class of the day.

Between noon and three, everyone knew to remain indoors or in the shade, out of the sun. John napped in his dorm under the fan, which he had come to think of as a luxury, the only luxury the dorms offered. By the time he awoke, the sun was lower, and it was possible to go out again. Refreshed, he went straight to the library to study. There he met others, Zaadiq or Khaled or Rafael, and they would push each other toward achievement: Work hard and well and we’ll break in an hour. In two hours. After progress.

They frequented the cafeteria and the tea shops nearby, just off campus. Toward evening, when the temperature dropped, a longer walk was possible, and they would stroll, hand in hand, to the livelier tea shops and cafés in the bazaar.

Late one afternoon, leaving the library, John heard the rumble of Yusef’s bike. Yusef waved and rumbled on.

Hey, what about my story? John shouted. You’re way behind.