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It’s 7:56 in the morning. Qekhed Eshekh sits in the café in northern Herat and stares forward. He is soaking wet, and subsequently the waitress gives him an odd look when she takes his order: just coffee. He is trying not to, but he’s still shaking. With some difficulty, he manages to light a cigarette and holds his head in his hands for a moment. A government truck with a shouting driver races past outside and he jumps a bit. He tries to just keep breathing, and pulls his wallet out, looking for the picture of his little nephew Ali. He finds it. The picture helps him relax.
Qekhed is an accountant. He works for the party-controlled West Afghan Central Bank, or at least he has been. He is responsible for managing investment funds for the Department of Education. He speaks several foreign languages, and he has to because of his regular contact with foreign markets.
On Friday they’d told him to oversee a funds transfer into an account for the electrical maintenance of the two new schools in the 1st Shindand District. He hadn’t known why they were making him do something so mundane, but when the money disappeared later in the day, after he’d made absolutely sure the transfer had gone through cleanly, he had followed up on it. That's his job.
And now Qekhed is shaking inside a café, clutching a photo of his nephew, soaking wet. How was he to know he would discover the money had been rerouted into a private account in New Zealand? The cash was a bribe, so he knows now, a bribe for someone in the UN; the thugs who’d bound him and dumped him in the river had given away that much. That’s about all he knows.
Why? he thinks. Do I really need to know? The UN has paid little attention to Western Afghanistan since independence, and understandably so; the country’s too small and too economically weak to be of international concern. So who is wiring cash to people in the UN and then trying to kill accountants who accidentally find out about the transfer? He looks out the window at the Islamist protesters who have just begun to march past and it hits him.
As much as Abdullah Dukhirahiq talks about democracy, the protesters walking past outside have a moderately large chance of being thrown in jail and tortured, or worse. Why did the UN CEWA give a favorable government classification in their report, when the international community was expecting otherwise? Why have other, less heavy-handed anarcho-syndicalist regimes been so heavily sanctioned and Western Afghanistan has received such a soft treatment? How does the fishing industry create so much revenue and yet no one seems to get richer for it? Bribe money?
The waitress brings him the coffee. He takes a large swig. He takes a breath. He looks at the picture of Ali again. He takes another breath.
They’re going to kill him when they find him anyway. He might as well tell the world.
He finishes the coffee quickly and stands up.
(to be continued) |
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Western Afghanistan |
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The truck rattles like a horrid musical instrument underneath him. The roads, uncared for in years, are in total disrepair, and it's getting so rocky in the bed that Qekhed is starting to feel like he has to vomit. The old retired military sergeant drives faster.
"Federal republic." That's what the UN report reads under 'government type.' Qekhed laughs to himself cynically. A federal republic wouldn't be under the control of an invincible 10-person council that hasn't changed in 24 years.
Behind the truck, the countryside speeds past. They've just left the small town of Lukhuj. To his right, and up, Qekhed can see the snow on the craggy hillside of the Khorughani Plateau. Soon he'll be there, he thinks. It's a beautiful sight, and Qekhed stops worrying for a moment.
He looks left. What 20 km back had been a river was now a stream. Qekhed isn't sure; they are moving fast; but he thinks he sees a little boy pulling something out of the water- it only occurs to Qekhed later that it was the remains of boy's dog.
This was Western Afghanistan- a country built on principle and proud of socialism, and yet tragic and collapsing.
The truck rattles towards the border.
Herat:
The door opens so hard it almost comes off its hinges. A large Pushtun man drags someone into the room by her hair. She's crying. The room is silent for a moment, with the woman's sobbing slowly dampening.
Finally, the wiry but aging man in the corner stands up from his prayer rug, hanging it on the wall and strides over to the desk, in front of which the woman kneels. The man sits. Adjusts his turban. Lights a cigarette.
"Thank you Amir, that'll do."
The tall man leaves.
The room is quiet.
"How long have you been involved with Sgt. Farid Bajad?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"I don't know ma'am. It's your choice."
She's caught off guard. But she understands what he really means when she sees him casually winding and unwinding a rope around his hand.
"Please."
"How long have you been involved?"
"Please."
"Don't you remember?"
"Please."
"Or perhaps you remember, but you know what the penalty for marital unfaithfulness is, and so you're pretending you don't."
"Please."
"Your husband doesn't have to know."
There's a pause.
"But you do have to tell me where he said he was going, and why he left this morning in his rusted out army truck with an unknown person in the back." |
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The Nojikan border is five miles away. Qekhed is terribly nervous. The bed of the truck has become cold as night has fallen, and the sky is cloudless and freezing. Because the old sergeant in the driver's seat had told him to, he'd crawled under a tarp, which was just as well because it kept him a little warmer.
The terrain was no longer something worth looking at. They'd just passed through Andkhoy, and the town was nothing but an oasis in the barren dry hillside of northern Faryab. They were on a long dark plain now, racing along a road in as awful shape as any they'd encountered yet, with cracks forming from the heat and cold.
The truck slowed. Qekhed's heart raced. They had reached the first checkpoint before the customs office. The sergeant had absolutely promised that they wouldn't be searched, but Qekhed was still frightened.
An officer was speaking. Qekhed couldn't hear what he was saying. The sergeant loudly called back, "Nope, nothing!"
The officer muttered something. There was silence. A mobile phone faintly rang in the distance to the right of the truck. The pause lasted several minutes; Qekhed supposed they were checking IDs or something.
"All right, Farid!" This time he could understand the checkpoint officer.
"Thanks," the sergeant called back, and then they were moving forward again, tearing across the empty terrain.
There was a sound like a roman candle, and then a loud blast. |
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