The Bookseller of Kabul

My Mother Osama

Tajmir holds the Koran up in front of his forehead, kisses it and reads a random verse. He kisses the book again, sticks it in his pocket and gazes out of the window. The car is on its way out of Kabul. It is headed east, towards the restless borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there is still support for the Taliban and al-Qaida, and where, according to the Americans, terrorists are hiding out in the inaccessible mountain landscape. Here they comb the terrain, interrogate the local population, blow up caves, look for caches of weapons, find hiding places, and bomb and kill a few civilians, in their hunt for terrorists and the trophy they all dream of – Osama bin Laden.

This is the area where ‘Operation Anaconda’, the spring’s major offensive against al-Qaida, took place, when international Special Forces, under US command, fought hard battles against Osama’s remaining disciples in Afghanistan. Allegedly, several al-Qaida soldiers are still to be found in these border areas, areas where warlords have never recognised a central authority, but still rule according to tribal law. It is difficult for Americans and the central authorities to infiltrate villages that lie in the Pashtoon belt on either side of the border. Intelligence experts believe that if Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar are still alive and in Afghanistan, then this is where they are.

Tajmir is trying to find them. Or at least find someone who knows someone who has seen them, or thinks they have seen someone who resembled them. In contrast to his fellow traveller, Tajmir hopes they’ll find absolutely nothing. Tajmir hates danger. He hates travelling into the tribal areas, where trouble can erupt at any moment. In the back of the car are bulletproof waistcoats and helmets, ready for action.

‘What are you reading, Tajmir?’

‘The holy Koran.’

‘Yes, so I see, but anything special? I mean, like a “travel section” or something like that?’

‘No, I never look for anything in particular; I just open it at random. Just now I got to the bit about whoever obeys God and his messenger will be led into the gardens of paradise, where streams trickle, whereas whoever turns their back will be afflicted by painful punishment. I read the Koran when I am frightened or sad.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ says Bob and rests his head against the window. He sees Kabul ’s filthy streets through squinting eyes. They drive into the morning sun and Bob closes his eyes against the glare.

Tajmir thinks about his assignment. He has been given the job of interpreter for a large American magazine. Previously, under the Taliban, he worked for a charity organisation. He was responsible for the distribution of flour and rice to the poor. When the foreigners departed after September 11 he was left in sole charge. The Taliban blocked all his efforts. The distributions were halted and one day a bomb destroyed the distribution depot. Tajmir thanked God that he had stopped the deliveries. What might have been the outcome if the place had been full of women and children in the desperate food queue?

But it now feels like an eternity since he worked with the emergency relief. When the journalists streamed into Kabul the American magazine picked him up. They offered to pay in one day what he was normally paid in two weeks. He thought about his poor family, left the aid work and started to interpret, in an imaginative and artful English.

Tajmir is sole provider for his family, which, in the scale of Afghan families, is small. He lives with his mother, father, stepsister, wife and one-year-old Bahar in a small flat in Mikrorayon, close to Sultan and his family. His mother is Sultan’s elder sister, the sister who was married off to provide money for Sultan’s education.

Feroza was the strictest of mothers. From the time Tajmir was a little boy he was rarely allowed to play outside with the other children. He had to play, quietly and calmly, in the little room under Feroza’s observant eye. When he was older he was made to do schoolwork. He had to return from school immediately, was not allowed to go home with anyone or have anyone home to play. Tajmir never protested, it was never possible to argue with Feroza; because Feroza hit him and Feroza hit hard.

‘She’s worse than Osama bin Laden,’ Tajmir tells Bob when he has to make excuses for turning up late or having to break off early. His new American friends hear terrible tales about ‘Osama’. They imagine some sort of a shrew hidden beneath the burka. But when they met her, while visiting Tajmir, they saw a smiling little woman with searching, squinting eyes. A large gold medallion, inscribed with the Islamic creed, hung around her neck. She bought that with Tajmir’s first American salary. Feroza knows exactly how much he earns, and he hands everything over to her. She gives him a bit of pocket money in return. Tajmir shows them all the marks on the walls where she has thrown shoes or other objects at him. He laughs now; the tyrant Feroza has become a funny story.

Feroza’s burning wish was that Tajmir would grow into something important. Every time she had some spare cash she would enter him for a course: English classes, extra maths classes, computer courses. The illiterate woman, who was forced to marry to provide her family with money, was going to turn into an honoured and respected mother through her son.

Tajmir saw little of his father. He was a kindly and rather timid man and suffered from bad health. In the good old days he travelled as a salesman to India and Pakistan. Sometimes he would return with money, sometimes not.

Feroza might beat Tajmir but she never touched her husband, in spite of there being no doubt as to who was the stronger of the two. Over the years Feroza had grown into a buxom woman, round as a little ball, thick glasses balanced on the tip of her nose or hanging round her neck. Her husband, on the other hand, was grey and emaciated, weak and brittle like a dry branch. As the husband crumbled away Feroza took over the role of head of the family.

Feroza never had any more sons, but she never let go her hope of having more children. After having given up on becoming a mother again she went to one of Kabul ’s orphanages. Here she found Kheshmesh. Her family had left her outside the orphanage, wrapped up in a dirty pillowcase. Feroza adopted her and brought her up as Tajmir’s sister. While Tajmir is the spitting image of Feroza – the same round face, the large stomach, the rolling gait – Kheshmesh is different.

Kheshmesh is a tense and unruly little girl, thin as a rake. Her skin is a lot darker than that of the other family members. Kheshmesh has a wild look about her, as though life inside her head is far more exciting than the real world. At family reunions, to Feroza’s despair, Kheshmesh runs around like a frisky filly. Whilst Tajmir always obeyed his mother’s wishes when he was a little boy, Kheshmesh is always getting dirty, always tousled, full of scrapes and cuts. But when she is in a quiet mood no one can be more devoted than Kheshmesh. No one gives their mother such tender kisses or strong hugs. Wherever Feroza goes, Kheshmesh is not far behind – like a skinny little shadow in the wake of her buxom mother.

Like all children, Kheshmesh quickly learnt about the Taliban. Once Kheshmesh and a friend were beaten up by a Taleb in the stairwell. They had been playing with his son who had fallen and hurt himself badly. The father had grabbed them both and beaten them with a stick. They never again played with the little boy. The Taliban were those people who never let her go to school with the boys in Mikrorayon, they were the people who forbade singing or clapping, stopped people dancing. The Taliban were those people who prevented her from playing outside with her dolls. Dolls and furry toy animals were banned because they portrayed living creatures. When the religious police searched people’s homes, smashed up the televisions and cassette players, they might well confiscate children’s toys if they found them. They tore off arms or heads, or crunched them underfoot, in front of the eyes of stunned children.

When Feroza told Kheshmesh that the Taliban had fled, the first thing she did was to take her favourite doll outside and show her the world. Tajmir got rid of his beard. Feroza sneaked out a dusty cassette player and wriggled around the flat singing: ‘Now we’ll make up for five lost years.’

Feroza never had any more children to look after. No sooner had she adopted Kheshmesh than the civil war started and she fled to Pakistan with Sultan’s family. When she returned from the refugee existence, it was time to find a wife for Tajmir, not to look for abandoned baby girls in the hospital.

Like everything else in Tajmir’s life, finding a wife was also his mother’s prerogative. Tajmir was in love with a girl he met at English classes in Pakistan. They were sort of sweethearts, although they never held hands or kissed. They were hardly ever alone, but nevertheless, they were sweethearts, and they wrote each other notes and love letters. Tajmir never dared tell Feroza about this girl, but he dreamt of marrying her. She was a relative of Massoud, the war hero, and Tajmir knew his mother might fear all the problems that could involve. But regardless of who might be its object, Tajmir would never dare confide in his mother about his crush. He had been educated not to ask for anything, he never talked to Feroza about his feelings. He felt his subservience showed respect.

‘I have found the girl I want you to marry,’ Feroza said one day.

‘Oh,’ said Tajmir. His throat tightened, but not a word of protest escaped him. He knew he would have to write a letter to his pie-in-the-sky sweetheart and tell her it was all over.

‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘She is your second cousin, Khadija. You haven’t seen her since you were small. She is clever and hard-working and from a good family.’

Tajmir merely nodded. Two months later he met Khadija for the first time, at the engagement party. They sat beside each other during the whole party without exchanging a word. I could love her, he thought.

Khadija looks like a Parisian jazz-singer from the twenties. She has black, wavy hair, parted on the side, cut straight across the shoulders, white powdered skin and always wears black eye make-up and red lipstick. Her cheeks are narrow and her lips wide, and she might have been posing for art photographers all her life. But according to Afghan standards she is not very pretty; she is too thin, too narrow. The ideal Afghan woman is round: round cheeks, round hips, round tummy.

‘Now I love her,’ Tajmir says. They are approaching Gardes, and Tajmir has given Bob, the American journalist, his entire life story.

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘What a story. So you really love your wife now? What about the other girl?’

Tajmir hasn’t a clue what has happened to the other girl. He never even thinks of her. Now he lives for his own little family. A year ago he and Khadija had a baby girl.

‘Khadija was terrified of having a daughter,’ he tells Bob. ‘Khadija is always frightened of something and this time it was about having a daughter. I told her and everyone else that I wanted a daughter. That above all I wanted a daughter. So that if we did have a daughter no one would say, how sad, because after all that is what I had wished for, and if we got a boy no one would say anything because then everyone would be pleased no matter what.’

‘Hm,’ says Bob and tries to understand the logic of it all.

‘Now Khadija is worried she won’t conceive again, because we are trying but nothing’s happening. So I keep on telling her that one child is enough, one child is fine. In the West many people have only one child. So if we never have any more, everyone will say we didn’t want any more, and if we have some more then everyone will be pleased no matter what.’

‘Hm.’

They stop in Gardes to buy something to eat. They buy a carton of ‘hi-lite’ cigarettes at ten pence a pack, a kilo of cucumbers, twenty eggs and some bread. They are peeling the cucumbers and cracking the eggs when Bob suddenly calls out: ‘Stop!’

By the roadside about thirty men sit in a circle. Kalashnikovs lie on the ground in front of them and ammunition belts are strapped over their chests.

‘That’s Padsha Khan’s men,’ Bob cries. ‘Stop the car.’

Bob grabs Tajmir and walks over to the men. Padsha Khan is sitting in the midst of them: the greatest warlord of the eastern provinces and one of Hamid Karzai’s most vociferous opponents.

When the Taliban fled, Padsha Khan was appointed Governor of Paktia Province, known as one of Afghanistan ’s most unruly regions. As Governor of an area where there is still support for the al-Qaida network, Padsha Khan became an important man to American intelligence. They were dependent on co-operation on the ground and one warlord was no better nor worse than any other. Padsha Khan’s task was to ferret out Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers. His remit was then to inform the Americans. To this end he was supplied with a satellite telephone, which he used frequently. He kept on phoning and telling the Americans about al-Qaida movements in the area. And the Americans used firepower – on a village here and a village there, on tribal chiefs en route to attend Karzai’s inaugural ceremony, on a few wedding parties, a bunch of men in a house, and on America’s own allies. None of them were connected to al-Qaida but they had one thing in common – they were enemies of Padsha Khan. The local protests against the headstrong Governor, who suddenly had B52s and F16 fighter planes at his disposal to settle local tribal scores, increased to such an extent that Karzai saw no other solution but to remove him.

Padsha Khan then started his own little war. He sent rockets to the villages where his enemies were holed up and warfare broke out between the various factions. Several innocent people were killed when he tried to regain his lost power. In the end he had to give up, for the time being. Bob had been looking for him for ages, and there he is, sitting in the sand, surrounded by a bunch of bearded men.

Padsha gets up when he sees them. He greets Bob rather coldly but embraces Tajmir warmly and pushes him down beside him. ‘How are you my friend? Are you well?’

They had often met during Operation Anaconda, America ’s major al-Qaida offensive. Tajmir had interpreted, that was all.

Padsha Khan is used to ruling the region as though it were his own backyard, together with his three brothers. Only six weeks ago he allowed rockets to rain down over the town of Gardes. Now it is Khost’s turn. A new Governor has been appointed, a sociologist who has lived for the last decade in Australia. He has gone to ground, for fear of Padsha Khan and his men.

‘My men are prepared,’ Padsha Khan tells Tajmir, who translates while Bob scribbles in his notebook. ‘We are just now discussing what to do,’ he continues and looks at his men. ‘Do we take him or do we wait?’ Padsha Khan goes on. ‘Are you headed for Khost? Then you must tell my brother to get rid of the new Governor quick as a flash. Tell him to pack up and bugger off to Karzai!’

Padsha Khan uses his hands to mime packing up and sending away. The men look at him, then at Tajmir and then at blond Bob who is frantically noting everything down.

‘Listen,’ says Padsha Khan. There is no doubt who he thinks is the legitimate lord of the three provinces, the provinces the Americans are watching like hawks. The warlord uses Tajmir’s leg to illustrate what he means, drawing maps, roads and frontiers on his thigh. Tajmir receives a slap on the thigh for every utterance; he translates automatically. The largest ant he has ever seen is crawling over his foot.

‘Karzai is threatening to send in the army next week. What will you do about that?’ asks Bob.

‘What army? Karzai doesn’t have an army. He has a few hundred bodyguards who are being trained by the British. No one can beat me on my territory,’ says Padsha Khan, looking at his men. They wear worn-out sandals and ragged clothes, and the only polished and shining bit about them is their weapons. Some of the handles are covered in colourful rows of pearls, others have painstakingly embroidered borders. Several of the young soldiers have decorated their Kalashnikovs with stickers. One pink sticker bears the words ‘kiss me’.

Many of these men fought on the side of the Taliban only a year ago. ‘No one can own us, they can only hire us,’ the Afghans say about themselves and their rapid change from side to side in war. Today they belong to Padsha Khan; tomorrow the Americans might hire them. The most important thing to them now is to fight whomever Padsha Khan considers to be his enemy. The Americans’ hunt for al-Qaida will have to wait.

‘He’s mad,’ says Tajmir when they are back in the car. ‘People like him are responsible for the fact that there is never peace in Afghanistan. To him power is more important than peace. He’s mad enough to jeopardise the lives of thousands just so he can be in charge. I can’t imagine why the Americans want to co-operate with a man like that,’ he says.

‘If they were to work only with people whose hands are clean they would not have found many in this province,’ says Bob. ‘They have no choice.’

‘But now they no longer care about hunting the Taliban for the Americans, now their weapons are aimed at each other,’ Tajmir protests.

‘Hm,’ Bob mumbles. ‘I wonder if there will be any serious fighting,’ he says, more to himself than to Tajmir.

Tajmir and Bob disagree fundamentally about what constitutes a successful trip. Bob wants action, the more the better. Tajmir wants to return home, as quickly as possible. In a few days he and Khadija celebrate their second wedding anniversary and he hopes to be home for that. He wants to surprise her with a wonderful present. Bob wants violent action in print; like a few weeks ago when he and Tajmir were nearly killed by a grenade. It didn’t hit them, but got the car behind them. Or the time they had to take refuge in the dark because they were mistaken for the enemy on their way into Gardez and the bullets whizzed past them. Even though he is dead scared, those things make Bob feel he is doing an important job, while Tajmir curses ever having changed his. The only plus about these trips is the extra danger money; Feroza knows nothing about that, so he keeps that money for himself.

To Tajmir and the majority of Kabul ’s inhabitants, this part of Afghanistan is the one they identify with least. These areas are considered wild and violent. People live here who do not conform to national authority. Padsha Khan and his brother can be in charge of whole regions. It has always been like this. The law of the jungle.

They pass barren desert landscapes. Here and there they spot nomads and camels, which slowly and proudly sway their way across the sand dunes. In a few places the nomads have erected their large, sand-coloured tents. Women in billowing, colourful skirts walk between the tents. The women of the Kuchi tribe are looked upon as the most liberated in Afghanistan. As long as they kept away from the towns, not even the Taliban forced them to wear the burka. But these nomadic tribes have also suffered enormously in the past years. Owing to the war and the mines they have had to alter their centuries-old routes, and they now move about on much restricted territories. The drought of the last years has resulted in the death of much of their livestock, their goats and camels.

The landscape is increasingly empty; below them desert, above them mountain, all in a variation of brown. Up on the mountainside there are black zigzagging patterns, which turn out to be sheep, cheek by jowl, seeking food on the mountain ledges.

They approach Khost. Tajmir hates this town. Here the Taliban leader Mullah Omar found his most loyal supporters. Khost and the surrounding area hardly noticed that the country had been taken over by the Taliban. To them there was little change. The women had never gone out to work or the girls to school. The burka had been worn for as long as they could remember, not prescribed by the authorities, but by the families.

Khost is a town without women, at least on the surface. Whilst in Kabul during the first spring following the fall of the Taliban women were starting to throw off the burka, and one could, from time to time, see women in restaurants, in Khost women are rarely seen, not even hidden behind the burka. They lead a life closed in behind the backyard, they never go out, shop, or even visit. The law of purdah reigns, the total segregation of men and women.

Tajmir and Bob make their way to Padsha Khan’s younger brother, Kamal Khan. He has occupied the Governor’s residence, while the newly appointed Governor has placed himself under house arrest with the chief constable. The Governor’s flower garden is flush with men loyal to the Khan clan. Soldiers of every age, from slender young boys to grey-haired men, sit, lie or walk around. The atmosphere is tense and rather exhausting.

‘Kamal Khan?’ Tajmir asks.

Two soldiers show them up to the commander, who is surrounded by men. He agrees to the interview and they sit down. A small boy arrives with tea.

‘We are ready for battle. Until the spurious Governor leaves Khost and my brother is reinstated there will be no peace,’ says the young man. The men nod. One man nods vigorously, he is the second in command under Kamal Khan. He sits on the floor, legs crossed, drinks tea and listens. All the time he is fondling another soldier. They are closely entwined and their entangled fingers lie in the lap of one of them. Many of the soldiers send Tajmir and Bob fawning looks.

In parts of Afghanistan, especially in the southeastern part of the country, homosexuality is widespread and tacitly accepted. Many commanders have young lovers and one often sees old men followed by a bunch of young boys. The boys adorn themselves with flowers in their hair, behind the ear or in a buttonhole. This behaviour is often explained by the strict purdah practised in the southern and eastern parts of the country. It is not rare to see a gaggle of mincing, swaying boys. They paint thick kohl lines round their eyes and their movements remind one of transvestites in the West. They stare, they flirt and they wiggle their hips and shoulders.

The commanders do not live as homosexuals only; the majority of them have wives and a large brood of children. But they are rarely at home and life is lived amongst men. Often major jealous dramas develop around the young men; many blood feuds have been fought over a young lover who divided his favours between two men. On one occasion two commanders launched a tank battle in the bazaar in a feud over a young lover. The result was several dozen killed.

Kamal Khan, a good-looking man in his twenties, maintains self-confidently that it is the Khan clan’s right to rule the province.

‘The people are on our side. We’ll fight to the last man. It’s not that we desire power,’ Kamal Khan says disarmingly. ‘It’s the people, the people, who want us. And they deserve us. We’re only following their wishes.’

Two long-legged spiders crawl up the wall behind him. Kamal Khan takes a little bag out of his waistcoat. In it are some tablets, which he swallows. ‘I’m not well,’ he says with eyes begging for sympathy.

These are the men who oppose Hamid Karzai. These are the men who continue to rule according to the law of the warlords, and who refuse to be dictated to from Kabul. If civilian life is lost, it matters little. It is power that matters, and power means two things: honour – that the Khan tribe maintains power in the province; and money – control of the flourishing traffic in smuggled goods and income from customs duty on items that are legally imported.

The reason why the American magazine is so interested in the local Khost conflict is not primarily because Karzai threatens to set the army on the warlords. That will probably not happen, because as Padsha Khan said: ‘If he sends in the army people will be killed and he will get the blame.’

No, the magazine is interested because of the American forces in the region, the secret American Special Forces who are impossible to get close to, the secret agents crawling around in the mountains hunting for al-Qaida. Bob’s magazine wants an article, an exclusive article, on ‘The hunt for al-Qaida’. Most of all the young reporter wants to find Osama bin Laden. Or at least Mullah Omar. And cover the hunt. The Americans hedge their bets and work with both sides in the local conflict. The Americans give both sides money, both sides accompany them on missions, both sides are given weapons, communications equipment, intelligence equipment. They have good contacts on both sides; on both sides are former Taliban supporters.

The Khan brothers’ arch-enemy is called Mustafa. He is the Khost chief constable. Mustafa co-operates with Karzai and the Americans. When one of Mustafa’s men killed four Khan clan men during a shoot-out recently, he had to barricade himself in the police station for several days. The first four to leave the station would be killed, the Khans warned. When they ran out of food and water, they agreed to negotiate. They negotiated a postponement. That means little; four of Mustafa’s men have a death sentence hanging over them, which can be implemented at any time. Blood is revenged with blood and the threat alone, before the killings have been carried out, is torture.

After Kamal Khan and younger brother Wasir Khan have described Mustafa as a criminal who kills women and children and who must be eliminated, Tajmir and Bob take their leave and are followed to the gate by two young boys who look like beautiful South Sea Island girls. They wear big, yellow flowers in their wavy hair, tight-fitting belts round their waists and they stare intensely at Tajmir and Bob. They don’t know which of the two to look at, slender blond Bob or powerful Tajmir with the creamy face.

‘Look out for Mustafa’s men,’ they say. ‘You can’t trust them; they’ll betray you as soon as you turn your back. And don’t go out after dark, they’ll rob you!’

The two travellers make straight for the enemy. The police station is a few blocks away from the occupied Governor’s residence and doubles up as a prison. The police station is a fortress. The walls are several metres thick. Mustafa’s men open up the heavy iron gates, and they enter a backyard; there too the beautiful scent of flowers greets them, but from flowering trees and bushes, not from the men. Mustafa’s soldiers are easy to tell apart from the Khans’. They wear dark-brown uniforms, small square caps and heavy boots. Many of them wear a scarf covering their nose and mouth and dark glasses. Not being able to see them makes them look more threatening.

Tajmir and Bob are led up narrow stairs and passages in the fortress. Mustafa sits in a room in the innermost part of the building. Like his enemy Kamal Khan, men and weapons surround him. The weapons are the same, the beards the same, the looks the same. The picture of Mecca on the wall is the same. The only difference is that the chief constable sits on a chair behind a table, not on the floor. In addition there are no flower-power young men there. The only flowers are a bunch of plastic daffodils on the chief’s table, daffodils in fluorescent yellow, red and green. Beside the vase lies the Koran wrapped in a green cloth, and a miniature Afghan flag flies from a plinth.

‘We have Karzai on our side and we will fight,’ says Mustafa. ‘The Khans have ravaged this region long enough, now we will put an end to the barbarism!’ Round him the men nod agreement.

Tajmir translates and translates. The same threats, the same words. Why Mustafa is better than Padsha Khan, how Mustafa will make peace. He is really outlining the reason for there never being real peace in Afghanistan.

Mustafa has joined the Americans in many reconnaissance sorties. He recalls how they watched over a house which they were sure contained bin Laden and Mullah Omar. But they never found anything. The American reconnaissance work continues but they are hedged around by a lot of secretiveness, and Bob and Tajmir are not enlightened further. Bob asks if they can join them one night. Mustafa laughs. ‘No, that’s top secret, that’s how the Americans want it. It won’t help how much you beg, young man,’ he says.

‘Don’t go out after dusk,’ Mustafa commands them strictly when they leave. ‘Khan’s men will get you.’

Thoroughly warned by both sides, they visit the local kebab house, a large room where cushions have been laid out on long benches. Tajmir orders pilau and kebab, Bob asks for boiled eggs and bread. He is frightened of parasites and germs. They eat hastily and hurry back to the hotel before dusk falls. In this town anything can happen and one is well advised to take precautions.

A heavy grille in front of the gate to the town’s only hotel is opened and locked behind them. They look out on Khost, a town where shops are closed, policemen are masked and the population sympathise with al-Qaida. A scowling look at Bob from a passer-by is enough to make Tajmir feel unwell. In this region there is a bounty on Americans. Fifty thousand dollars will be paid to anyone who kills an American.

They go up on to the roof to erect Bob’s satellite telephone. A helicopter flies overhead. Bob tries to guess where it is heading for. A dozen of the hotel’s soldiers have gathered around them; they look in amazement at the wire-less phone Bob talks into.

‘Is he talking to America?’ asks a long, thin rake, wearing a turban, tunic and sandals. He looks like the leader. Tajmir nods. The soldiers keep on watching Bob. Tajmir makes small talk with them; they are only interested in the phone and how it works. They have hardly seen a telephone before. One of them exclaims in a sad voice: ‘Do you know what is our problem? We know everything about our weapons, but we know nothing about how to use a telephone.’

After the conversation with America, Bob and Tajmir descend. The soldiers follow.

‘Are these the ones who will kill us once we have turned our backs?’ Bob whispers.

The soldiers are each carrying a Kalashnikov. Some of them have fastened long bayonets to the rifles. Tajmir and Bob sit down on a sofa in the lobby. An extraordinary picture hangs above their heads. It is a large framed poster of New York with both the twin towers from the World Trade Center still standing. But it is not New York ’s real skyline; behind the buildings high mountains tower. In the foreground a large, green park with red flowers has been glued on. New York looks like a small town made of wooden blocks, under an enormous mountain range.

The picture looks as though it has been hanging there for ages: it is discoloured and slightly wavy. It must have been hanging there long before anyone realised that exactly this image would be associated in such a grotesque way with Afghanistan and the dusty town of Khost, and would deliver to the country more of what it did not need: more bombs.

‘Do you know which town that is?’ asks Bob.

The soldiers shake their heads. They have seen hardly anything but one- and two-storey mud huts and it must be difficult for them to understand that the picture depicts a real town.

‘That is New York,’ says Bob. ‘ America. Those two buildings are the ones Osama bin Laden’s men flew the planes into.’

The soldiers leap up. They’ve heard about those two buildings. They point and gesticulate. That’s what they looked like! To think they had passed the picture every day without realising it!

Bob has one of his magazines with him and shows them a picture of a man every American recognises.

‘Do you know who that is?’ he asks. They shake their heads.

‘That is Osama bin Laden.’

The soldiers open their eyes wide and tear the magazine out of his hands. They crowd around it. Everyone wants to see.

‘Is that what he looks like?’

Both the man and the magazine fascinate them.

‘Terrorist,’ they say and point and hoot with laughter. There are no papers or magazines in Khost and they have never before seen a picture of Osama bin Laden, the man who is responsible for Tajmir and Bob’s presence in Khost.

The soldiers sit down and produce a large lump of hashish, which they offer Bob and Tajmir. Tajmir smells it and declines. ‘Too strong,’ he says and smiles.

The two travellers go to bed. All night machine-guns crackle. Next day they wonder how to get about and what story to follow.

Scowling they wander the streets of Khost. No one invites them to join important missions or cave-hunt for al-Qaida. Every day they drop in on the arch-enemies Mustafa and Kamal Khan to hear whether there is any news.

‘You’ll have to wait until Kamal Khan gets better,’ is the message from the occupied Governor’s residence.

‘Nothing new today,’ the police station echoes.

Padsha Khan has disappeared without a trace. Mustafa sits, petrified, behind the fluorescent flowers. There is no trace of the American Special Forces. Nothing happens. Nothing but the crackling of guns every night and the helicopters circling overhead. They are in one of the most lawless parts of the world, and they are bored. In the end Bob decides to return to Kabul. Tajmir rejoices silently: away from Khost, back to Mikrorayon. He is going to buy a huge cake for the wedding anniversary.

He returns a happy man to his own Osama, the little round one with short-sighted eyes. The mother whom he loves above everything in the whole world.