Читать книгу The Bandit of Kabul - Jerry Beisler - Страница 15

Chapter Eight

Afghan: unruly or untamed.Afghanistan: land of the unruly.

AFGHANISTAN 1972

The house we were lucky enough to find was actually an estate consisting of four acres enclosed within a 24-foot high, 3-foot thick mud wall. A nephew of the King had been sent to Oxford University in England in the 1950s and built it after he returned to Afghanistan when he realized the value of good water. He located the estate where the Kabul River flowed out of the mountains. The home was English Tudor style with two bathrooms that had Japanese bathtubs and regular European-style flush toilets, a welcome amenity in 1970s Afghanistan. On the grounds was a stable area with quarters for a groom as well as a combination gateman and guard’s house. We enjoyed a beautiful garden and grape arbor and there was an area for children to play that had a jungle gym, slide and sandbox. The children of our Western guests were always delighted by the familiarity. The owner was the great-grandson of the original builder and was the current Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan. Our oasis was located on the far edge of Kabul proper, half a kilometer from an edifice that was built to honor the defeat of Alexander the Great by the Afghan people – Jangalak – the battle of 100,000. “Lak” is the Farsi word for 100,000.

Our good fortune continued. The landlord recommended a business known as “The 24 Hour Service” that catered to diplomats stationed in Kabul. Whatever was needed, this service promised to provide it within 24 hours.

I followed our landlord’s instructions to Diplomat Row in Kabul in an attempt to find a cook and other staff to run our estate. The 24 Hour Service recommended a chef named Abdul who had worked at the Intercontinental Hotel. He was fired because he was caught smoking hashish. I scooped him up and brought him out to the house to have him prepare an “audition” dinner and then hired him on the spot. He quickly became one of the most valuable cogs in the wheel of our daily life, contributing to our healthy, happy existence. He was very well trained in German, French and traditional Afghan cuisine. Rebecca taught him how to cook Mexican food.

Also, I met two teenage boys who had done the overland ordeal to Kabul: Mark Krause and Archie Gardner had hit the road within weeks of high school graduation. They introduced me to the Afghans, Sakhi and Ghiaz.

Ghiaz’s story was that he took the train to Iran with as much hash as he could carry. He jumped off the moving caboose into the boarder area no-mans land and walked the herb dangerous into a small village where it was transferred to his European employers. Iranian law meted out a sentence of death by torture for Afghans caught smuggling anything. To Ghiaz, by comparison, the opposite direction through the Khyber Pass was a “walk in the park.”

Sakhi grew up in Balkh. For centuries Balkh was home to the world’s best hashpollen farmers and hand pressers. Sakhi took Mark and me north to show us what he had access to. He carried an old flintlock rifle for protection everywhere we went.

Afghanistan’s national game of buzkashi is well-known around the world and is played with the carcass of a headless, hoofless calf or goat. It is a rough and violent version of polo that tests the skills of man and horse. I set out to find a buzkashi horse to ride. I found a beautiful white stallion and, against the Afghani tradition of naming a horse after its color, I named this one “Sazz” – or music – for his tremendous, strong yet smooth gait. He was perfectly trained. Sazz, only recently retired from the game, became a beloved member of our family. I sometimes thought he missed the games. Sazz certainly loved to run.

The gardener also served as the resident caretaker of the estate and he was happy to continue his role when we rented the house. He lived on the estate and maintained it for the Deputy Prime Minister, who used it primarily for his daughters to romp and play behind the walls in the children’s playground. In an Afghan tradition, I also hired Rustan, a eunuch, to perform the role of a traditional housekeeper and cleaner.

I was able to find a small well-trained, Bamiyan breed of horse we named Red Flame for Rebecca to ride. This led to our first big cultural problem. Women were strictly forbidden from riding horses. On our first horseback ride, we were greeted by a hail of rocks at Karta-i-sah, the first village beyond our home.

After directing Rebecca to head for home and fueled by righteous indignation, as I’d never felt before, I stormed through the village market, kicking over fruit and vegetable stands, pulling down tent awnings and slashing at any and all with my buzkashi whip before galloping towards home after her.

Our next ride through Karta-i-sah village was without incident. However, at Kartasang, the last village before the Kabul River dropped from the mountains, we had another screaming, pelting attack. This frenzied mob even included some women. Rebecca raced off and my response was careful and quick … a surprise taste of village square destruction for Kartasang.

This couldn’t go on, of course, without escalating so I implored my landlord, the Deputy Prime Minister, to hold a jirga, or council, with the headman of each village and explain that my wife was a Western girl and we would be riding through their villages. We would not tolerate being stoned. Both headmen eventually agreed to the Deputy Prime Minister’s superior political pressure; however, we all had to go to each village and conduct a charade where the headmen fervently waved their arms and shouted it was forbidden. The Deputy Prime Minister explained to me, on the way home, that without this theatrical show each man would have signed his own trip to a beheading or the stoning stake.