American Taliban (24 page)

Beyond the stone gates, clusters of businessmen, travelers, and families gathered with their luggage. Keeping a low profile, John looked for the others and found them farther ahead on the road toward Jalalabad, under what might have been the only tree. They were sipping fresh mango juice and directed him to a cart across the road. John went to get himself a juice and a chapli kebab, a burger made of lamb and spices. He sat and ate and watched.

Boys pushing wheelbarrows served as luggage porters. From where he sat, John followed the strange procedure. The boys unloaded packs and sacks off the taxis and minivans on the Pakistani side of the gate, wheeled the heavily heaped wheelbarrows through the gates while the travelers walked through and hired a taxi on the Afghan side. Then the boys loaded the luggage into the trunk and received some change for their service.

It took another hour for the unit to regroup. Tameel, traveling with two of the youngest recruits, who were not yet seventeen, arrived last. They were hungry, and John recommended the chapli kebabs from the cart across the way.

They’re the best I’ve ever had, he said.

Amin laughed. That’s probably because you were the hungriest you’ve ever been. Believe me, there’s better. Much better.

But he complimented John’s stamina. You’re strong, Attar. Despite the thinner air, you weren’t out of breath, not even on the steepest climbs.

Dusk descended. The mountaintops went from bright to dull orange, their outlines grew darker and more defined, and Tameel thought it best to get out of Torkham before nightfall. He went to find a willing driver.

By the time they were on the road, it was too dark to see, and John regretted that so much of this journey was traveled at night.

Don’t fret, Tameel assured him. You’ll see a good part of Afghanistan before you’re through.

Hadda was quiet. They got out on a sort of main square crowded with shabby small guesthouses that looked as if they’d been built in a hurry, with no time for trim work or even complete paint jobs. The street had a transient appearance, a place no one stayed long enough to care for. Whatever grass grew was trodden down. If there were once trees, they’d been lost to construction and neglect. The front walks were dusty, the entrances unremarkable, with only a bare lightbulb dangling above each one.

Where’s everyone? Iksander wondered, and Tameel went to find out.

He returned with Yakub, who introduced himself as the man in charge of new recruits. He directed them up the street, toward a small white guesthouse that was no different than the others, and John wondered how Yakub differentiated between them. He unlocked the front door, led the way into a small kitchen, and, from a cabinet, produced a tin of biscuits. He filled a kettle and put up water for tea.

We served dinner early today, he said, because we had an important lecture by a visiting dignitary scheduled. He’s just finishing. Why don’t you wash up, get some sleep, and I’ll see you at breakfast.

IN THE MORNING
, after prayers and a breakfast of tea and mahalabiyya, the new arrivals were ushered into a room to wait for their interviews. Tameel went first and stayed. Yakub came to escort Amin. After Amin, Jamal went, and John understood that they were interviewing the more experienced volunteers first. They’ll ask where you’re from, Amin said when he got back. Who your father is, where you went to school, where you trained. Questions you’d expect.

When John’s turn came, Yakub blindfolded him with a black strip of cloth. For security, he explained. They walked down an echoing corridor into what felt like a room. When the blindfold came off and John could see again, he found himself momentarily confused, facing three men in full dress, white shalwar kameez, white vests, and white turbans. In the dim light, the white of their clothes and the whites of their eyes glowed. All three were seated on cushions, legs crossed in front of them. To avoid their hard eyes, John looked around at the craggy cave walls. This was not a dream. He was really about to be interviewed in a Hadda cave. By mujahideen fighters. Had their experiences as fighters, he wondered, turned them into finer essences?

Tameel, who sat to the left of the men, also on a cushion, cleared his throat and started introductions. John concentrated on their faces, largely camouflaged by bushy beards. Though they were all probably only in their early thirties, their beards belonged to older men. One of them—his name, Tameel said, was Qari Ziaur Rehman, a cleric’s son
from Kunar Province—had a way of keeping his head lowered while still maintaining hard eye contact. Which was scary. No one in his right mind, John thought, would ever disagree with him. Darim Sedgai had a rounder face and redder beard, and he wore his turban wrapped wider somehow, to suit him. The third man was introduced as Noor Islam, and John wondered briefly whether this was his real name. He had a long scar on his face, sort of like Burton’s, but why would a fighter take a woman’s name? John nodded to acknowledge the man, each of the men.

Attar, Tameel said. These men want to hear your biography. They want to know what brought you to Islam and Pakistan. And how and why you started training at Tangi. They’re concerned about your ability to train with a Pashto unit. Speak in English. I’ll translate as needed.

John swallowed. This wasn’t going to be easy. He didn’t know where to begin. He took a deep breath and introduced himself as the only son in an American family living in D.C. My parents, he said, read philosophy, psychology, science, and law, but not much religion. At school, I signed up for a class in world religion, and I became interested in Sufism and the Prophet Muhammed. I began reading Arab history and Muslim poetry, but if I wanted to really understand what I was reading, I needed some knowledge of classical Arabic. John paused. Did they really want to know all this?

Darim Sedgai signaled for him to continue, and John went on. And finished: From surfing and skating and Walt Whitman, I learned how to lean and loaf. Islam invited my soul.

Well done, Tameel mouthed, when John was finished.

Noor Islam addressed him directly, in Pakistani English. Why shouldn’t we believe you’re a spy and slice your head off right now?

John imagined a long jeweled knife in Noor Islam’s hand. This man, he thought, might be capable of doing exactly that. And he was waiting for an answer.

If I were a spy, John said, I’d have arrived speaking perfect Pashto.

Darim Sedgai nodded, and John hoped that was a smile behind Noor Islam’s beard.

BARBARA WAS ANXIOUS
. She’d had no e-mail from John, no call, which wasn’t what they’d agreed on, wasn’t like him. Even if a connection was hard to come by, after September 11 he would’ve and should’ve gotten himself to one. He should’ve written. He should’ve called.

He must have found what he needed in the hills, Bill said to calm her, but at his desk in the evening, he e-mailed Khaled, with apologies up front for the intrusion. We haven’t heard from him, he wrote. Please let us know what you know, anything you know.

Twenty-four hours later, Khaled informed Bill that John had signed on for meditation at a camp outside Tangi, stayed there for three weeks, then took a trip higher into the mountains. He probably has no access to e-mail or a phone, and he might not even know about 9/11, Khaled wrote. He’s missed his first few weeks of fall classes. I hope he gets back soon.

Your son, Bill told Barbara, is becoming a yogi, and yogis aren’t known for staying in touch with their mothers.

His report hardly served to calm Barbara’s fears. The country was on high alert, and second and third attacks were expected. On the subways, planes, in cities. Nuclear plants and water supplies were reported vulnerable. Even regular first-class mail wasn’t safe.

You know what, one of Barbara’s oldest friends suggested. Right now, John might actually be safer overseas.

They were dining out, and Barbara was agitated. Maybe so, Bill agreed, hoping to calm her, though he knew better.

The U.S. Army, he knew, was gearing up for war in Afghanistan, and the mountains above Peshawar were no place for an American. He engaged a law firm in Islamabad to file a missing person claim.

The North-West Frontier Province, the head of the law firm informed him, is an ideal place for an adventure. Unfortunately, it’s also where people disappear. Without telling Barbara what he’d heard, Bill e-mailed all John’s friends, asking them to forward their most recent correspondence with his son.