The Ink Bridge (33 page)

They stop eventually and give way to great tugging sobs which in turn leave me breathless. In the distance, a great string of goats files over the wide plain. Nomads moving between pastures. Just looking at them makes me feel tired. How can they stand such endless movement?

I rub my eyes dry on my scarf. Sameer is looking at me out of the corner of his eye as though I am the biggest pussy he has ever seen. I feel in my pack for the book of Pashtun women's poetry that Dad gave me at the airport. I open it at one of the
landays
, the two-line poems of love and war:

Oh my love, if in my arms you tremble so. What will you do when a thousand lightning bolts flash from the clash of swords?

I am not built for this land. I feel small and a long way from home. Arezu still has my hands clasped to her as if I may be grabbed by the wind at any moment. As if I am a kite or an autumn leaf. Does she believe in this version of courage, I wonder? That it is wrong for a man to cry or to feel fear or sadness? What sort of a man does she expect? My tears have soaked into her shirt. Does this bond us or does it push us apart?

A flash of brilliant blue appears between the folds of hills.

‘Band-e Zulfiqar. The Dam of Hazrat Ali's Sword,' says Arezu.

Out of the car, the lake looks like a slice of sky caught in the teeth of the mountains. I want to be there. The water reminds me of home, of days at the beach.

I write in my journal:

Shells and sunscreen. Mum turns cartwheels on the hard-packed beach. A blue-ringed octopus Dad captures in a jar. Beach huts and sleeves of ice cream. Pockets of sand migrate to the suburbs.

Can it possibly be that these memories are losing some bite? That one day I will be able to think back on my childhood and only feel happiness? Maybe the tears on the side of the road were like the aloe Mum would smear on my burnt calves
.

I jump back in the car and beep the horn.

‘What's your hurry?' shouts Arezu. ‘Sameer is taking a leak.'

It's true. He is squatting down in Afghan peeing style, trying to hide himself behind a rock. ‘Come on, Sameer!' I yell. He shouts something back in Dari and Arezu laughs, but I don't ask for the translation.

The road is slowly being rebuilt and as we get closer to the lake, it peters out into a maze of small tracks improvised by cars trying to get around the works. Here the transformation from Toyota to donkey is complete, with the little car bucking and braying its way down to the lakes. It is like driving through talcum powder – a dust so fine it creeps into the car even with the windows shut. I am sweating and my face is streaked with mud.

We come to a fork. ‘Band-e Pudina, Band-e Panir, this way,' says Sameer. ‘This way Band-e Haibat, Qadamjoy Shah-e Aulia.'

‘What?'

Arezu translates. ‘Qadamjoy Shah-e Aulia means the Place Where Ali Stood. Shah-e Aulia is one of Hazrat Ali's names, it means King of Saints. There is a shrine to him by the lake.'

‘That's where we want to go. To the shrine.'

We head down the hill and cross the bridge below the dam wall. There are families picnicking here, spreading their carpets and blankets and roasting
kabob
over wood fires. Kids jump in the shallow streams and pools leading from the waterfall. The dam wall is over fifteen metres high and streaked yellow with sulphur.

We walk from the car park, leaping small streams until we reach the shrine. By the shore, plastic pedalos in the shape of swans wait for customers. There is a speedboat called
Donald Duck
parked by the track. We sit on the wall in front of the shrine, above the trinket sellers and bathers exposing more flesh than I have seen the whole time I have been in Afghanistan. And I unfold my fortune from Baba Singh.

The paper is completely blank. I turn it over and flick it with my finger as if, by some miracle, words will appear.

‘I paid a thousand afs for a blank bit of paper!' I say to Arezu. ‘No wonder the Russians knocked out that old charlatan's teeth.'

‘
Charlatan
?' mocks Arezu ‘How very
Anne of Green Gables
, how very
Sherlock Holmes
.'

I ball up the paper and throw it towards the water. A dog ambles up and sniffs it.

‘That's littering,' says Arezu. ‘This is a national park, you know.'

I have come here for answers. For an end to this story; Omed's story. If I can just see him one last time I can ask him everything. We can finish this story together. Slip that keystone into the arch. Complete the bridge we began all those years ago.

‘Hec, I know this is hard for you. You set yourself an impossible task, finding one person in a country that is in chaos. A country where everyone is missing someone.

‘I know you thought there would be some kind of great reunion with Omed. Maybe there still will be. But even if you don't find him, don't you think you have enough to write his story? You have walked where he walked. You talked with Leyli. Maybe it's enough.'

She looks out at the lapis lazuli of Band-e Haibat. ‘Do you know the story of how Hazrat Ali created these dams?' she asks.

‘Arezu, I don't need another story right now.'

‘I think that is exactly what you need, Hec. Now listen.' Arezu takes my hands in hers and looks into my eyes. I wonder if we should be holding hands, here at the shrine of a saint. An old woman comes to the door of the shrine to watch.

‘There was once a king called Barbar who ruled this land with an iron fist. For many years he had tried to get his slaves to build a dam so his city could have water. But try as they might, the slaves could not complete the dam. At the same time a young man owed a great sum of money to the king that he could not repay. Barbar had the man's wife and children imprisoned until he could come up with the money. So the young man went in search of Hazrat Ali.

‘Together, the young man and Hazrat Ali came up with a plan where he would tie up Ali and offer him to Barbar as a slave.

‘Well the king agreed to buy the slave for his weight in gold. But there were three conditions.'

‘There are always three conditions,' I say.

‘The first was that the slave had to build the dam. The second was that he had to kill the Dragon of Bamiyan and finally, Hazrat Ali should be shackled and brought before him.'

‘Sounds simple enough.'

‘For Hazrat Ali maybe, but the king put one more condition in place. All of these things needed to be done in one day.'

‘I still reckon Ali will do it.'

‘Everyone laughed and laughed at the king's joke.'

‘Well, it sounds like he was a funny guy.'

Arezu keeps ignoring my heckling. ‘Hazrat Ali wasn't laughing though. He booted off half of that mountain top,' she points to a mountain, ‘and made the dam of Band-e Haibat. Then he sliced off some more mountain with his sword to make Band-e Zulfiqar. His groom built Band-e Qambar. And inspired by Ali, the slaves finally finished Band-e Gholaman. A nomad woman offered a cheese to Ali for his great work and he placed the gift in the water to form Band-e Panir. And beside it, where mint still grows, Band-e Pudina.

‘But downstream the lands had become dry, so Ali drew his fingers across Band-e Haibat's wall and five streams began to flow. Then he marched off and killed the Dragon and returned to stand in front of Barbar, who was so amazed that he converted to Islam.'

‘Quite a guy.'

Arezu shakes her head at my glibness. ‘See that woman there.' She smiles at the old lady by the door of the shrine. ‘Her ancestor was the nomad who gave the cheese to Ali. Her family looks after the shrine.'

‘Ask her if she knows Omed.'

Arezu speaks with the woman. She shakes her head and points up at the lake. They talk for a time and Arezu places both her hands on the woman's shoulders. Then she comes back over to me.

‘There was a man called Omed from Bamiyan. He hasn't been here for some time.'

I feel my shoulders drop.

‘She said he might have gone to live with the
pir
– the holy man – who lives in a cave up by Band-e Zulfiqar.'

‘We have to go.'

‘It's quite a walk.'

‘We have to go.'

‘Hec, we can't be on the road after dark.'

‘We'll stay here tonight.'

‘Where? I can't stay in the
chaikhana
. It's not safe for me.'

‘I need to talk to this
pir
.'

‘I guess there's no talking you around.'

We buy some water and a slab of
naan
and, leaving Sameer with the car, begin the walk around the lake. At this altitude, the sun tears the skin from your neck and arms. I cover up with my scarf, but it is suffocating. We walk for a long time – the length of Haibat and then up past the shallow ponds of Pudina and to the reedy shores of Band-e Panir, the Dam of Cheese. From there, the track winds up the cliffs towards Zulfiqar. It is rubbly and dangerous. I wonder what would happen if we broke a leg, or worse, out here.

After a while, the blue sword of Zulfiqar appears before us and soon we are skirting its shores. The cave is set high on the cliff overlooking the lake. We get to it by a zigzagging path.

There is a wooden door on the cave and I knock. I hear a shuffling inside. I knock again. The door opens slowly to reveal an old man. This is where the saying ‘as old as the hills' comes from. His skin is the same colour as the hills that surround him, its folds and contours are borrowed from the mountains.

‘
As-salamu alaykum
,' I say.

He replies, ‘
Alaykum asalam
.' And on you, peace.

He beckons us inside. There is a dog living with him and, by the smell of things, it doesn't go outside much. It growls as we sit down and the old man smacks it on the muzzle. He sits smiling at us. We smile back.

‘Ask him about Omed,' I whisper.

‘Shhh,' she says. ‘It would be impolite.'

‘So we just sit here looking at each other?'

The
pir
gets up and, placing some twigs on his mud stove, puts on a blackened kettle. When it is boiled, he uses his woven cap to pull it from the heat. I look around at what he has: a kettle, two chipped mugs, a tin plate, a woollen blanket and a battered copy of the Qur'an.

He pours tea, offering us the two cups, and seems to relax once we bird-sip a little. Without prompting, he begins to talk. Arezu listens intently, and when I ask her what he is saying she just holds out her hand to silence me. He talks and talks, as if he has been storing this conversation for a long time. When he stops, it is silent for a moment in the cave. The dog yawns, its long pink tongue curled like a wood shaving.

‘What did he say?' I ask Arezu.

‘He says, he was born in Herat and was the son of a carpet weaver. He lived all his life there and was happy. When the time came, he was married and had three children. When the Russians first arrived they thought things would be good. But soon the masters turned on their servants and the troubles began. He was asked to join the mujaheddin, but he refused. He had a wife and children. He didn't want to die. But the Russians had spies everywhere. One day your friend was your friend, the next he was turning you in for a reward. They questioned him inside his house. His children were scared. When the soldiers pulled the veil from his wife, he found bravery. He shouted at the Russians, “How can you come to this land and treat it so badly? What have we done to you?” They beat him. They told him to confess to being a mujaheddin or they would kill his family. He thought they were bluffing.'

The old man strokes the dog. He looks straight at me and in his eyes I see the blood and the fire. I see how quickly a piece of lead can enter a body and change the course of everything forever. At every turn a story. And it comes to me quite suddenly that maybe all these stories are perhaps the one story. That possibly these small tributaries I have waded across feed into the one great river that is, that will become, Omed's and my story. I pull out my journal and take notes just in case.

‘Then he joined the mujaheddin,' Arezu continued. ‘And the years became a blur. Sleeping in caves, eating hard
naan
and dried meat. No laughter of women or children. Just the business of killing. And one day they came across a mosque in a village that had been bombed by the Russians. There was a holy man in there, a
pir
, but he had lost a lot of blood. The villagers were weeping and trying to stop the flow with rags. The
pir
gave him a copy of the Qur'an and told him he must stop killing. By then he had killed a hundred men, or more, and not thought once about them. But that night, he snuck away from camp and started walking east. It took him months but when he arrived at Band-e Amir, he stopped walking.'

‘Does he know Omed from Bamiyan? He came here once with his father many years ago, maybe he met him then. Tell him that we think he may have come back here recently.'