After that I took the bike up Circular Road, around the old city walls to the M2, and took that north to the M1 at Pindi and on to Peshawar. Oh, the highways of my native land! Imagine an L.A. freeway’s worth of traffic on a busted two-lane blacktop, and every truck is overloaded and painted like the calliope in a carousel, and the traffic laws are a legend no one believes in anymore, and instead of safety equipment they have inscriptions from the Qur’an painted all over the vehicles. I made good time, though, on Hassan’s hot bike, not almost dying more than thrice, and reached Peshawar in the late afternoon.
To understand Peshawar you have to imagine that the crack wars they had in New York a few years ago never ended but got worse, and then the crack lords took over the whole city, and the main industries became dope, guns, and smuggling. They still get tourists, although it’s one of the few places in the world where armed guards are a major sector of the hospitality industry. Again, I felt right at home.
I stuck to the Kohat Road, avoiding the tangle of the old city, and headed straight for the Cantonment, which is where the old Raj used to hang out and which is now occupied by the new ruling classes. My clan cousin Bacha Khan had bought a huge white bungalow behind a high white wall. When I told the guards who I was they showed me right in, with peculiar expressions on their faces. It’s hard to impress a Pashtun, and I was glad to see what looked like awe on their faces, and that the name Kakay Ghazan was still remembered.
Bacha himself, I saw, remained in contention for the title of Fattest Pashtun. He bear-hugged me and sat me down on his right hand and plied me with mint tea and sweetmeats. After we had paid each other the usual compliments, asked about each other’s sons, and him expressing shock and sorrow when I said I had none, he said, “I swear before God this is like a visit from a ghost. One day you are here and the next you are gone. We thought you were dead. And now, almost twenty years later, you appear at my door. It is like a story, with djinni. Tell me now, where have you been?”
I told him what had happened to me back then and how my life had progressed since. When I was done he said, “So now you fight for the Americans instead of God. Forgive me if I don’t say that is a step in the right direction.”
I said I was leaving the army, maybe leaving America as well.
He grinned widely, and I noticed he’d had a lot of expensive dental work done.
“Are you seeking work, then?” he asked. “Because if you are, I could find an honored place for you in my business. As you see, I am prospering in a modest way.”
He gestured to the room, which was full of the kind of junk-ugly massive gilt furniture, enormous TVs and stereos-that you see across the world in the houses of very poor people who have come overnight into large sums of cash.
“What would that business be, cousin?”
“Oh, you know, import-export, various forms of trading.”
That meant he was a drug dealer, an arms dealer, or both.
“I’m flattered that you should think to include an ordinary soldier such as myself in your business. Gul Muhammed my father would be very pleased, and honored too.”
He nodded and asked, “And your father, he is well?”
“That is a question I hoped you could answer, cousin. It is a source of great shame to me that I have not seen or heard from Gul Muhammed all these many years. And unfortunately, in the times I have been in Afghanistan, my business was such that I could not make inquiries. But from what you say, he is alive?”
“I have not heard of his death, which is not the same thing,” said Bacha Khan.
“Where is he? Do you know?”
Bacha Khan seemed to consider this question for a long time. He slurped tea. He put his cup down and said, “The last I heard he was in a safe place, or as safe as a man with as many enemies as Gul Muhammed can ever be.”
“And can the son of Gul Muhammed know this place?”
I got a genial smile here. “Of course you can, although, you know, I would not like to misinform you. If God still preserves him, Gul Muhammed moves about a good deal. But I can get a message to him saying his son Kakay Ghazan has returned, and he will reply to me saying where and when you will meet. I am sure he will have great joy in hearing this news.”
“I hope so,” I said reverently, and asked, “And what of his son, my brother, Wazir? Is he still among the living?”
He shook his head sadly. “I think not. I think the war ate him-I mean the war after the Russian war. In any case he vanished, who knows how? It was a great blow to your father.”
“Yes, and to me as well. Please, can you tell me where his grave lies? I would like to honor it with a visit.”
He shrugged. “Who can tell? All of Afghanistan is a grave.”
I understood the situation now. Of course he was not going to tell me where Wazir’s grave was because that would be where Gul Muhammed was as well. Bacha Khan was a businessman; information has value, it’s a kind of virtual heroin. He had to decide how best to turn the news of my arrival to his advantage. He was Gul Muhammed’s kinsman, yes, but I had no idea what their relationship was at this point. Cousins kill one another all the time among the Pashtuns, and Pashtunistan has always been a place of infinitely tangled and conflicting loyalties. A man like Bacha Khan had to balance the government, which he bribed, against the Taliban, who more or less controlled the region, and whose various chiefs had to be bribed as well; and then there were the criminal bands, whose alliances and interests had to be considered, and he also had to take into account the various clan and personal vendettas that had been going on since forever. The thought of my American comrades trying to operate among these people made me smile.
My host took this as a good sign, and he smiled too and patted my knee. “I will send the message this very hour, God willing. Now, you will stay with me, of course. I have plenty of room.”
“That’s very generous, cousin, but I regret that urgent business calls me away.”
“What! Not even for two days? Come, reconsider! I will kill a sheep for you; we’ll have a feast, as in the old days of the Russian jihad.”
“Perhaps another time, when my business is done,” I said. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
He stopped smiling now. “What sort of business?”
“Personal business,” I said. “An affair of the heart.”
A smile bloomed again. “Oh, well, then, of course.”
“Yes, and I will need some equipment, cousin. Tell me, does Masoud still keep his shop in Karkhani?”
“You require weapons? I can give you anything you need.”
“Again, you’re most generous, but I have special needs, and besides I would like to see Masoud again and remember our old times. And I would also like to go by Kachagari to see if I have any friends left there.” This reminded him that I was a considerable person and might have connections in the refugee camps outside of his control.
“Well, then, do as you think best,” he said lightly. “But, cousin, you will find things much changed in this part of the world. It is hard to know who to trust nowadays.”
“As opposed to the past, when the Pashtuns were famous for their fidelity?”
A brief confusion on his face, then he laughed, and for somewhat longer than the remark was worth.
After that I had to refuse an armed escort to Karkhani, and we parted good pals. I left him my new cell number and he agreed to call me about Gul Muhammed. Bacha Khan could not actually kill me himself, because he was bound by pashtunwali as my host, but he could certainly sell me to someone else, in the most indirect way possible. Or perhaps he was as he seemed, a kinsman who wished me and my father well. That I could not determine which of these two possibilities was true merely meant that I had entered once more into the chronic insecurity of Pashtun tribal culture. You just live with it; it can even get to be enjoyable in a funny way, especially to an adrenaline junkie like me. As Ghalib says: