Soldiers of God

breezes rolling over a yellow-green steppe. On each side of us as we plodded through fields of tall, withered grass was a long, low wall of chocolate-black hills. In the distance, like a two-dimensional cutout, was a crude mud brick fort with a square tower leaning slightly to one side as though it might tip over. I was tired, thirsty, and hungry, and the closer we came to that leaning tower, the farther away it seemed. Then suddenly we were passing it, and other mud brick forts — exactly like the first one and painted a fabulous golden yellow by the late afternoon sun — loomed ahead, punctuating the bleak, abstract landscape. The shrill sound of the wind in the grass was strangely deafening in the otherwise silent terrain. The grass thinned away and we were encased in a mist of fine dust. I felt I was dreaming, and in my dream I was traveling along the Silk Route of western China with Marco and Maffeo Polo. Had they also been struck by the alienation of the central Asian plateaus?

We marched steadily until late evening across flat stretches of land broken every so often by a landslide several hundred feet deep, which we had to walk down and then up again on the other side. At dusk the sky turned a nacreous, heavenly white for a few moments before going purple and black. Groups of Afridis in white turbans were leading their sheep and mules to stagnant pools of water to drink before disappearing behind the walls of those massive fortresses. We avoided their suspicious glances. Like Lurang and Jihan-zeb, they were all armed with assault rifles. I watched enviously as two Afridi boys hauled up a bucketful of water from a well. Sensing my thoughts, Wakhil tapped me on the shoulder, clucked his tongue, and shook his head at me. Instead, the four of us rested by the muddy bank of a pool after the Afridi shepherds had gone. Lumps of animal dung floated in the water; Wakhil, Lurang, and Jihan-zeb drank heartily. I filled my canteen and dropped an iodine pellet inside when the others weren’t looking. According to the instructions, I had to wait twenty minutes before drinking. Lurangjerked my shoulder with an open palm, gesturing to me to slurp directly from the pool, as he did. When I politely refused, he turned his head away in disgust, as though there were no hope for me. As night fell and guns began going off in the distance, we started walking again. I couldn’t believe that the hike through Tirah Bazaar had been much different for Alexander’s soldiers over 2,300 years ago.

An hour later, in pitch darkness, we reached our first chaikanah, a mice-ridden wooden platform with benches and jute beds where tea and biscuits were sold. A boy of about nine poured the syrupy-sweet green tea into ceramic cups on a rush mat. I had a pounding headache from thirst. Carefully, I gripped the cup’s rim but it was still too hot for me to hold. I was so thirsty that I got down on my stomach and tried sipping the tea with my chin resting on the ground, but it was so hot I jerked back in pain. Almost in tears, I waited the long minutes for the tea to cool just enough to slurp it, scalding my tongue, until the boy refilled the cup. The biscuits were stale and dry. They must have been in their wrappers for years in the hot sun. After a few cups of tea I felt better and could enjoy the pleasant breezes and feeling of absolute peace and silence that overtook me, despite the echoing pop of rifles coming from over the border — not far away now, I hoped.

“We will spend the night near here and cross into Afghanistan in the morning,” said Wakhil.

The tea boy led us to an Afridi fort a few hundred yards away. Wakhil explained that this particular Afridi family was of a clan that had a truce with Khalis’s mujahidin, who were allowed to stay with them while passing through the valley. So the fact that we had interrupted our journey at this point was no accident.

Inside the mud brick walls of the fort was a dirt courtyard with rooms off to the side. Along the inner wall, jute beds and brass water pipes were set out. My mouth was choked with dirt and dust.

“Salaam aleikum” shouted the dark, turbaned Afridi elders, who gripped each of us hard and took my gear off to a corner by the wall. They told us to sit on the jute beds and cross-examined us. Lurang and Jihan-zeb knew these men from previous trips. There was a distinct air of tense, exaggerated friendliness, in the way enemies and rivals in all cultures compensate for their hostility when meeting face to face. One of the Afridis, an obese fellow who never stopped coughing, spitting, and blowing snot out of his nostrils with two bare fingers, kept harassing me with the only English phrase he knew, which he bellowed over and over again: “How dooo you dooo! How dooo you dooo!” I was too tired and dirty to appreciate his awkward attempts at amicability, though, and I just nodded back at him with a forced smile. Before leaving Peshawar I had promised myself that no matter how physically awful I might feel during the journey, I would try my best never to act irritable in front of the mujahidin. This man gave me my first challenge.

Someone unfurled a large carpet in the middle of the courtyard, sending up small clouds of dirt. It might have been a cheap machine-made rug bought in Peshawar or Landi Kotal, but in the gas-lit darkness, surrounded by all the dismal earthen shades of dust, dried mud, and dung, it seemed magnificent. Round loaves of flat bread were thrown down, and a boy came around with a brass pitcher and bowl so we could wash our hands before eating. I’ll never forget the damp, mildewy reek of the towel he gave me. It must have been wiped by hundreds of pairs of hands since it was last washed. We turned up our palms toward the starscape, moved them down over our faces in unison, and said “Allahu akbar,” thanking God for the meal we were about to eat.

Except for a bowl of shriveled, overdone fried eggs swimming in thick oil, there was nothing on any of the plates that I could identify: no meat, chicken, or curd even. All the other bowls contained only oil and grease of differing shades of brown and green into which everyone dipped their bread. After green tea was poured from a blackened kettle, everyone said prayers again and the plates and carpet were quickly removed from the ground. One of our hosts filled a water pipe for the men to smoke while lying on the jute beds. There was a sweet, acrid odor to the tobacco; perhaps it had a trace of hashish in it. Wakhil, Jihan-zeb, and Lurang took only one or two puffs and then declined to smoke more. The Afridis then withdrew naswar from their shirt pockets — a potent Afghan chewing tobacco laced with opium and other stimulants. Several months later I tried some. One pill-sized ball placed along my gums was enough to make me dizzy and nauseated five minutes later. I never used it again.

The moon rose over the mud walls of the fort and shone into the courtyard like a searchlight, disturbing my sleep. Finally, I drifted off to the sound of distant gunfire, wild barking dogs, and Afridis coughing up and spitting the tobacco a few inches away from my head.

“Afridis bad people, very dirty people,” Wakhil muttered while washing his feet, before saying his last prayers of the day.

The relationship between the mujahidin and their Pathan cousins the Afridis was full of so many layers of intrigue and games played within games that at times it seemed that every commander and malik (tribal headman) had his own foreign policy with regard to KhAD, the KGB, and the Pakistani intelligence service. Truces were so short-lived and based on such a degree of subtlety that each new fact or insight I gained seemed to contradict much of what I had heard before. After a while I gave up and realized that this whole tribal system I was studying was just what the dictionaries called anarchy.

To begin with, the Afridis are divided into eight separate clans, or khels. One clan, the Adam Khel Afridis, controls the weapons market at Darra. Another, the Kuki Khel Afridis living in the Valley of Tirah Bazaar, had made pacts with Na-jib’s Communist regime in Kabul, hence the danger of transporting an American journalist through their area (though it was yet another, rival clan who had put us up for the night).

The pro-Communist Kuki Khel Afridis were led by Malik Wali Khan Kuki Khel, a man in his fifties with a dour expression stamped permanently on his face. I met him once briefly in Peshawar. When I asked him about accusations concerning the kidnapping of Khalis mujahidin by the Kuki Khel in the Bazaar Valley, Wali Khan Kuki Khel gave me a syrupy smile and said that such acts were rare and those responsible had had their houses burned down as punishment. Abdul Haq and his brother Abdul Qadir claimed that this was nonsense and that the malik was a liar.

“Kuki Khel people — stupid people,” Abdul Qadir had said. “Wali Khan is a stupid man. He has the face of a rat coming out of mud. He is an agent of KhAD and KGB.”

Qadir himself had the delicate, distinguished features of a Durer portrait, enhanced by white sideburns and a fine gray beard. His eyes glowed with an intelligence that reminded me of a Talmudic scholar. But when it came to Afridis or other Pathans who had sided with the Soviets, every trace of humanity left him.

“In 1986, Kuki Khel people in Maidan Valley get nine hundred guns from Najib in Kabul,” Qadir had told me. “They make trouble for mujahidin and mule caravans bringing supplies into Afghanistan. So I say to Wali Khan Kuki Khel, ‘If you want to make trouble, I have artillery on this mountain and that. Mujahidin there will blow up your houses and your mosques and your schools.’ So we bomb some houses of Kuki Khel and then there is no more trouble for our mujahidin passing through this valley. Kuki Khel become very easily afraid.” Qadir sneered and spat a gob oinaswar on the ground.