How blue is my sapphire

A Story by O C

All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am. (set in talibani afghanistan)

How Blue Is My Sapphire

I wake up, startled - beads of perspiration forming on my forehead. A receding cacophony of the unfinished dream �" a woman screaming as her child is snatched away from her �" still echoes in my head. I struggle to my feet, leaning against the birch tree I took shelter under last night.

The sky is overcast today, swirls of dark nimbus and stratus stretching out in the stratosphere, hiding the morning sun. The cold January wind blows against my face, making my skin erupt in goose bumps. I can’t really make out how long I’ll have to wait for the next bus to Peshawar; it is hard to gauge time in this weather. But it is prudent that I start walking, the farther I am from Kunar, the safer I feel.

There wasn’t much to bring with me. Ever since Mother died, the sprawling cottage had become a shadow of a home. But I packed a spare chapan, a can of dry fruits, a family photo taken years ago when Wazir Kaka had brought along his new camera on his yearly visit, a threadbare blanket and, hesitantly, Baba’s Qur’an into a tattered bag before slipping away. It feels peculiar somehow, without the familiar weight of a Kalashnikov resting on the nook of my shoulder. The thought makes me wince in disgust. They must have sensed my absence. A vision of black clad militants terrorizing the streets of Arazi dances in front of my eyes. They’ll have raided and destroyed our house by now. Maybe, they’ve even sent out jeeps to look for me. I wonder, belatedly, how many innocents will end up wounded.

I am shaken from my stupor by the blare of a horn. There is a truck coming up the road. I haven’t been this pleased to see a vehicle since Baba bought me my first bicycle when I was nine. Running to the street, I wave my hands frantically. It’s only much later, after I have convinced the driver to take me in with wads of cash, boarded it and squeezed myself between a haggard elderly Tajik and a turbaned Pashtun, that I am aware of the shooting pain up my leg. The muscles that were once ripped by shrapnel seem on fire. Pain clouds my mind. Momentarily, I am pulled three weeks back.

It was a windy evening. Patrolling the rugged hills in the outskirts of the village, neither Bashir, my fellow Talib, nor I had realized when the white flash had turned out to be a missile, before it exploded. Three days I had spent unconscious. On the fourth day, I woke up in the General Hospital to Bashir’s death and my left leg -- a mangled mess of flesh, blood and gore �" tied hastily with white gauze.

There is a pair of wide black eyes staring at me. Looking up, I find them attached to a young boy, hardly eleven with a cleft chin and an aquiline nose. He sees my raised eyebrow and visibly swallows.

“Where are you from, Kaka?” he asks, tilting his head curiously.

“Arazi” I answer, smiling, “and what about you?”

“Baba and I” he says pointing at a coarse-faced man parked clutching a bulging sack in one end of the truck, “are travelling from Asadabad.”

“That’s a big city, you must love living there.” I went to Asadabad with the others once, to recruit young Pashtuns. It had rained heavily that day, but the city with its big lanes and imposing buildings remained etched in my mind.

“Yes, but the Taliban looted Baba’s shop, twice. Last week, Pari’s father disappeared. Baba says that we must escape if we want to live in peace” he says nonchalantly.

“Oh” I answer �" voice terse and raw.

It doesn’t deter him. “Have you ever seen them, the Talibs? They �" “

“Saifur!” his father rebukes, perhaps seeing my paling face, “Leave the good man alone.” Reprimanded, he turns away with downcast eyes, leaving me to face my demons in silence.

The truth is I don’t really remember the when, the how and the why. When the black-clad militants who proclaimed themselves the ‘holy warriors of Allah’ took over Kunar and our little village of Arazi became their camping ground, there hadn’t been much of a choice. It was the way to survive and so, it was the right thing to do. When you grow up in a household where money is sparse, the offer of a handsome reward can make you agree to anything. Besides the vision of a peaceful and affluent country that they preached, convinced me to walk up to their camp one Wednesday evening and enlist.

It was a foolish reason to join, I think now. Peace is a myth when you are holding a gun to someone’s head asking them to kneel.

The soft clatter of the truck lulls me into a fitful slumber. Disjointed dreams of the Afghan terrain, the dusty rundown lanes of Arazi fill my mind. I dream of the days I trained - learning to aim and shoot, to wield the knife against an enemy - in the football field under watchful eyes. I dream of the long afternoons we would sit in dozens in the small damp room, while they taught us the proper Islamic way of life and what punishments awaited each transgression according to the Holy Law. Twenty whips if a woman does not cover her ankles in public, seventeen if she uses cosmetics (cut off her fingers if her nails are painted), a woman’s voice should not be heard by strangers - I could recite them in my sleep. In the dream, I travel back to the day of my first kill �" the crowd had turned violent so our commander asked us to open fire. My third bullet hit a young man between his eyes �" clean kill. His dazed slack jawed expression had haunted my nights until murder became second nature. A vivid image of a bloodstained woman slumped on the ground flits through my mind. Pregnant, she had been travelling to the hospital for a routine check-up, alone -- thirty seven whips.

“You are doing the work of God, son. It is us he rules through” they had said.

Later, when I wake up to the blinding darkness of the tarpaulin covered truck, my mind reflects over these words. This is the first time in five years I find myself questioning all that I had been taught.

When I had joined the ranks, the Taliban made me swear on the Qur’an that my loyalty would die with the last beat of my heart - as loyalty to the Taliban meant loyalty to Allah Himself. But now, I am not sure where my loyalties lie anymore.

The truck jerks to a stop in the middle of the night. Sharp whispers clog the air. Someone is murmuring verses in soft staccatos.

“What’s going on?” I ask the man sitting next to me.

Grimacing, he answers in a low murmur, “It is the checkpoint before Khyber Pass. They will inspect the truck now. “

“Who will?” I ask, certain I know the answer.

“The Taliban” I had once reveled in the dread in his voice as he says those word. Now, it makes my stomach clench involuntarily.

Soon enough three faces poke into the tarpaulin. I can barely make out their faces, but one of them looks like a Pashtun boy I had recruited. The flickering light of the torch focuses on each of our faces before pausing on the face of a woman.

The petite young woman shrinks in on herself in fear, clutching her husband’s hand. There is a snort of derisive laughter before the light dies out. Outside, I hear the shuffling of boots and a murmured conversation with the driver. Before long, the engines rev up and we are travelling on.

We reach Peshawar early next morning. Sunlight washes over my face as I stagger into the thronging marketplace. Fruit vendors, peddlers, customers, shopkeepers �" the din soothes my homesick heart.

The others, who were travelling with me, had a next to kin waiting for them. I don’t belong here. For a moment, I wish I hadn’t left home. But, there is a voice at the back of my head reminding me why I had to. Don’t you remember how they rejoiced at the death of those innocent Americans? How they tortured those young boys? How they put a bullet in your father’s chest and then convinced you that it was God’s calling? How they left you behind when your leg wouldn’t let you walk one more step? How they destroyed your life?

There are soldiers standing around the market. Soldiers, I was trained to kill. I can faintly hear our commander’s voice “Fire now, Armaan”.

I duck my head and continue walking aimlessly until the chant of the namaz makes me stop in my tracks. The warm dulcet voice of the imam reverberates through the crowded bazar. I close my eyes, remembering how Baba used to say his prayers and how we would chant these words before we left for a combat. Involuntarily, the words of the prayer slip out.

All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am.

© 2017 O C

Author's Note

Glossary
Kunar - a province in Afghanistan under taliban control
chapan - a warm coat worn over clothes
Arazi - a small village in Afghanistan
Tajik and Pashtun - different races
Asadabad - a populous Afghani city
Khyber Pass - pass joining Afghanistan to Pakistan
Peshawar - Pakistani city near the border of Afghanistan