CHAPTER
THREE
THE
BOY WITH MAGIC IN HIS FINGERS
When
the Kebir twins were born in April 1960 it seemed like their timing
was pretty good. Having hung on to its own unique version of the
Dark Ages for hundreds of years, Afghanistan was finally emerging
into the light like a bear off the back of a long hibernation. They
were lucky to be born and then raised in Kabul which was slowly but
surely finding its feet as a twentieth-century capital city. They
were lucky to born into a liberal family who ran a thriving business
meeting the growing demand for electrical goods. They always had
enough to eat and they were beaten much less than the majority of
their contemporaries.
To
start with, the boys were peas-in-the-pod close. Inseparable and
identical. They wore the same clothes and they did the same things.
They were polite and respectful and like all young Afghan boys, they
loved to fly kites high in the thin mountain air.
In
the early 1970's their paths started to drift off in different
directions. Both were star students in high school. Malik loved to
spend every spare hour in the family shop where he took things apart
and put them back together again whilst his father watched
approvingly. By now Kabul was well and truly catching up with the
rest of the world and everyone craved the kind of goods the Kebirs
had on the shelves. Malik won the Science prize every year and set
his heart on winning a place to study physics at university.
His
twin brother traveled a very different road. For Akram, the mosque
held a much greater fascination than the classroom. He was every bit
as bright as his brother and soon the local Imams were purring at the
boy who could recite the Koran to such perfection.
By
the time the Red Army arrived in 1979, a chasm separated the Kebir
twins. Malik welcomed the Soviets and their determination to frog
march his country into a better future where socialism and science
would replace the repression of the feudal chiefs and the Imams.
Akram held a very different view. He seethed at the infidels who
strutted the streets with such arrogance. He despised the sight of
Kabul's women flaunting themselves in whore clothes. He became an
integral part of the whispered conversations in the mosque.
As
the seventies gave way to the eighties, the twins had drifted so far
from each other it was becoming clear the gap could never be closed.
The family shop was by now a favourite haunt of Red Army soldiers who
had a nearly insatiable appetite for the kind of cheap Japanese
electrical goods the shops at home in the Soviet Union never stocked.
Malik won his place at university and thrived under the idealistic
young Russian tutors who shared his belief in the wonders of science
and their promise of a better future for the world. Malik learned
enough Russian to be able to sell enough of the new Sony Walkmans to ensure the business thrived.
Life
was good. Malik Kebir was living the dream.
Akram's
life was in a very different place. Every day he heard quiet talk of
the Mujahideen fighters who were taking the fight to the Red Army in
the mountains. The Imams lit the fire of Jihad deep inside him and he
yearned to join the fight. Only one thing kept him in Kabul and it
was the same thing which had taken the rift between the twins and
turned it into a deepening hate.
Aleema.
Aleema's
family ran the book shop two doors down from the Kebir store and she
had owned the hearts of Malik and Akram for as far back as either of
them could remember. Both boys urged their father to open
negotiations for her to become their wife. As time passed, it became
obvious Malik would win the race to claim Aleema. Her father had also
embraced the new world with enthusiasm and was more than happy to see
his daughter wear the clothes of the west and walk the streets
plugged into the Walkman Malik had given her as a birthday present.
She was training to be a primary school teacher and she shared jokes
with the young Russians who bought second hand paperbacks in the
family store.
Akram
watched and hated the life she was choosing with such evident
enthusiasm. He urged her to the mosque, but she laughed him off. She
loved the twentieth century far too much to listen to his entreaties
to join him in the sixth. She liked her clothes and her music and
joking with the homesick conscripts from Volgograd and Novosibirsk.
She mocked his piety and recoiled from his burning hate.
And
she made her choice clear to her father who was more than happy to
allow her to make the choice.
She
chose Malik and the date for their wedding was duly set. Something
died inside Akram that day. He left Kabul a few hours later to join
the great Jihad in the mountains.
Soon
the name Akram Kebir started to be whispered in the mosques and
markets. He became one of the stars in the Mujahideen firmament. When
the shipments of American Stinger missiles found their way across the
mountains from Pakistan, the legend of Akram became super-sized. On
four occasions he dropped Hind attack helicopters from the blue
mountain skies. His legend made life hard for his family. Almost
every week Soviet intelligence officers would ransack the shop and
demand to know where he was hiding. Malik was arrested and subjected
to days of torture before his interrogators were willing to accept he
knew nothing about his brother's whereabouts.
The
days in the torture room with the damp peeling walls and the
electrical wires changed Malik. Kabul changed with him. Now there
were no more free spending soldiers in the shop. The locals were
similarly absent as city's economy started to grind to a halt. The
only moment of light in the midst of the growing darkness came in
1988 when Aleema finally produced a son and heir.
Omar.
If
1960 had looked like a pretty good time to be born an Afghani, the
same could not be said for 1988.
The
Russians left and the country descended into bloody chaos. A brutal
civil war was the backdrop to the first years of Omar's life. In 1996
the Taliban finally emerged as the top dog after many years of dog
eating dog. They marched into Kabul swaggering and brutal and they
duly reset the clocks back to the sixth century. And then one baking hot
day in August, a stranger wrapped in weapons entered the Kebir shop
whilst a pickup truck full of fighters waited outside. Omar was
manning the desk whilst his father was fixing up an air conditioner
in the workshop out back.
The
stranger's hard dark eyes made Omar shudder.
“Who
are you boy?”
“I
am Omar. Omar Kebir, sir.”
“Where
is your father?”
“He
is in the workshop, sir."
“Get
him.”
Omar
fled and told his father a stranger wished to see him. A Taliban
stranger.
Malik
froze at the sight of his twin brother. For a moment his mouth was
too dry to speak. At last, he managed a few words.
“Omar,
this is Akram. Your uncle. My brother.”
Once
again the dark eyes seemed to burn through Omar.
“So
this is the son of your whore."
“Akram,
please.....”
“Shut
up. As you can see, I am back. I will speak and you will listen. I
will not accept any behaviour that will bring shame to me. I expect
your whore to dress like a Muslim wife. I expect you to abide by our
laws. You can expect no favours from me. Do you understand me,
brother?"
“I
do.”
Omar
shrank back into the corner of the shop and watched the unfolding
scene with a wild mixture of emotions. He had heard about is uncle
Akram. Of course, he had. Everyone had heard of great Akram. And of
course, he also knew his uncle Akram was his father's twin: his
identical twin.
But
now as he stared at the two brothers there was almost nothing
identical about them. His father had shrunk in the years which
followed his torture at the hands of the Russians. Weight had fallen
off him leaving brittle bones. His clothes hung off him and his skin
was grey and pale. The lines of a much older man criss-crossed his
face and his eyes were those of a frightened animal.
Akram seemed at
least twice as big. He filled the room with an overwhelming presence.
His black robes did nothing to hide the power of the man underneath.
Years under the mountain sun had burned his skin almost black and his
ferocious dark eyes brimmed with violence.
It
seemed to Omar like his uncle stood and stared at his father for a
very long time. Maybe it was a very long time. Maybe it was merely a
few seconds. At last, Akram turned and stalked out into the street
without another word leaving Malik Kebir staring down at the floor.
And
shaking from head to toe.
The
first eight years of Omar's life hadn't exactly been a picnic. He had
never known a Kabul other than the war torn Kabul. He was used to the
sound of shelling and the constant dull pain of hunger. He had never
known the smiling Malik Kebir who had so impressed his Russian tutors
at the university. He had never seen his mother in a pair of jeans or
a summer dress. Instead, he had only ever known a broken, terrified
father and a mother hidden away behind her black Burqa.
Omar
had never attended a school and he had never flown a kite. The only
world he had ever known was the shop and the two dark rooms at the
back where they lived. His furthest horizon had never extended
further than the end of their street. He had never had the chance to
make any friends. He had no brothers and no sisters. He had no
grandfather or grandmother. He had no toys. Instead, he spent the
hours of his days taking apart the old radios and televisions and
kettles which lived in a pile in the back yard.
His
life had been hard and hungry and restricted and lonely and
frightening and bleak. He fell asleep to the sound of shelling and
distant explosions and he woke up to the sound of shelling and
distant explosions. The only two human beings in his life were his
mother and his father and they were broken human beings.
So
it hadn't been much of a childhood. But now his first eight years
were about to seem like some kind of a golden era. For now, Omar
Kebir's life moved into the darkness of a nightmare.
Three
days later the battered Toyota pickup truck returned. Once again
every door and window on the street closed as it skidded to a dusty
halt outside the Kebir store. Five black clad figures jumped down
from the back. Three took up station on the road with weapons at the
ready.
Two
stood and waited for Akram who took a moment before climbing out from
the front seat. He stood for a long moment staring at nothing in
particular. His men waited with expressionless faces. He was Akram
Kebir. It was enough.
At
last, he seemed to give a small nod and entered the shop. Once again
his twin brother was a picture of naked terror. A shrunken man locked
into a shrunken life.
“Bring
Aleema.”
“Akram,
please.....”
“Bring
her.”
But
Malik did not need to bring his wife from the rooms at the back of
the shop. She came out on her own with her head held high and her
fierce eyes matching those of the Taliban fighters
“I
am here.”
Akram
looked her up and down with disdain. And when he spoke his voice was
flat. Quiet. Uninterested
“Aleema
Kebir, you have been found guilty of behaviour abhorrent to the
teachings of our Prophet Mohamad and the laws of Allah. You have been
found guilty of behaving like a filthy whore. Sentence has been
passed and the sentence is death by stoning. I am here to make sure
the will of Allah is carried out."
Without
further words, he turned and walked out. His men grabbed a hold of
Aleema and dragged her from the room. Malik tried to hold one of them
back. He clung hard to the man's robe all the way out of the door and
onto the street until he was felled by the butt of a rifle which
splintered his nose. Omar ran out in time to see his mother force her
face forward to spit in the face of his uncle.
She
didn't utter a sound as they beat her to the floor and kicked and
kicked. Akram never said a word either. He just watched. He didn't
bother to wipe the saliva from his face.
As
they kicked, the dull thudding sound of heavy boots crashing into
half-starved flesh crawled deep into Omar's mind.
At
last one of the men looked to Akram and Akram gave a curt nod. They
picked Aleema from the dust like some kind of broken toy and threw
her down onto the hot metal floor of the truck. They climbed on board
and drove away leaving nothing but a burning silence.
Aleema
Kebir was stoned to death two hours later in the centre of Kabul.
Malik's
face eventually healed, but the last part of him which hadn't been
broken before was now broken for good. He functioned at the most
basic of levels. He ate. He slept. He carried out basic repairs. But
never again did he speak so much as a single word. He locked himself
down. He departed the scene.
Omar
had no choice other than to grow up fast. He ran the shop and bought
their food and cooked their basic meals and washed out their
threadbare clothes. Only the small donations of food from their
neighbours kept them from starving. Aleema's mother would call round
most mornings from her family's long closed book shop to tutor Omar
in his domestic tasks.
Father
and son found a way to get through one day and then another day and
then another. There was no more shelling in the night. The city
belonged to the Taliban now. People hid behind their locked doors and
prayed for it all to end.
It
was the time when there was no music. Only the call to prayers from
the city's minarets broke the oppressive silence that gripped the
city. Only the kites soaring the thermals of the mountain sky brought
any kind of colour.
Akram
returned three months later and this time his brother didn't shrink
back in fear. Malik never looked up from the toaster he had been
trying to re-wire for three days.
“Will
you not greet your brother?”
Nothing.
Just the scratch of a screwdriver.
Omar
swallowed hard and forced out some words. "My father doesn't
speak anymore. I don't think he can."
Akram
nodded. This was nothing new to him. He had seen the fiercest of
warriors struck dumb by the horrors they had all witnessed in the
mountains.
He
dropped the cardboard box he was holding at the feet of the boy.
Inside was a walkie-talkie set which had been stripped out of a
Soviet jeep.
“Can
you make it work, boy?”
Omar
nodded.
“Good.
I will return in two days.”
Omar
fixed the radio set and a new routine was established. Every week
Akram visited with a new batch of electrical equipment and the kind
of food supplies which could no longer be found on the stalls of the
city's markets.
Omar fixed everything brought to him. Soon other
Taliban commanders came to call bringing him electrical items to
bring back to life. Many of the items were banned, but it seemed most
of the hard faced men felt no requirement to abide by the Shia Law
they enforced with such brutal vigour.
Word
of Omar's strange brilliance spread. He became known as 'the boy with
magic in his fingers'.
In
March 1997 Akram visited with supplies but no broken electronics.
“Make
tea.”
Omar
made tea whilst the two brothers waited in silence.
Once
the tea was served Akram gestured for his nephew to sit.
“Many
are impressed by your skills Omar. We must nurture these skills if
you are to make a proper contribution. You must do the work of Allah.
I am sending two men to tutor you. They will come every day. You will
learn from them. Do you understand?”
Omar
nodded. He understood. Nothing more was said. Both of the men had
once been professors at the university. One taught Omar English. The
other introduced the boy to computers. After a year his English was
good enough for him to understand the thick manuals Akram brought to
him. After two years he was as at home with the logic of the silicon
chip as he was with the physics of electricity.
By
the time he was thirteen, the men sent by Akram to teach him informed
the Taliban commander there was nothing more they could teach. The
pupil had left the masters far behind. They said the boy was a
genius.
Sometimes
in the years that followed Omar wondered what his uncle had planned
for him. It was something he would never know because in September
2001 everything changed. In a city far away, men crashed planes into
high buildings and within a few short weeks, the Kabul night was once
again shaking with high explosives. This time the high explosives
were American and within weeks the Taliban were nowhere to be seen.
Akram
Kebir returned to the mountains and the boy with magic in his fingers
became a thriving shop keeper. Kabul was a city broken by thirty
years of more or less constant war and it was filled with millions of
broken items which needed fixing. Now Omar worked sixteen hours every
day and he and his silent father wanted for nothing. No longer were
they reliant on Akram's weekly visits for their daily bread. Now they
stood on their own.
There
was nothing about the chilly day in February 2006 to suggest anything
momentous. People came in and out in a steady flow. Omar agreed on
prices and lined up appliances to repair.
The
stranger came in a little before lunch. A white man. A European. And
straight away there was something about the man Omar warmed to. The
man wore jeans and a padded jacket. His face was tanned and his hair
uncombed. He smiled and spoke.
“I
don't suppose you speak English do you?”
“Yes
sir. I speak English. Can I be of assistance?”
The
smile widened a notch. “Hope so. People say you're the man I need.”
“I
will do my very best sir.”
A
battered laptop emerged from a well-used back pack.
“Bloody
thing won't boot up. The lights go on but the screen stays black. I'm
useless with this stuff. Any chance you could take a look at it?”
Normally
Omar would have explained his strict first in last out policy, but
this seemed different somehow. He had never had a European in his
shop before.
“I
will try sir. Would you like some tea?”
“Yeah.
Please. That would be great.”
“You
can sit here sir. This is my father. He does not speak.”
“Right.
Nae bother." The man waved at Malik whose eyes hadn't once
lifted from the same toaster he had been fixing for years.
“Nice
to meet you sir. I'm Davie. Davie Fisher.”
The
words washed over Malik as if no words had been spoken at all. The
son stepped into the father's silence and filled the void.
“I
am Omar. I will make the tea.”
“Thanks
Omar. That's great.”
It
took the boy five minutes to coax the laptop back into life. His thin
fingers raced across the keyboard as line after line of
unintelligible script rolled across the screen. At last, he sat back
with a small smile.
“It
is working now. If it is OK I can install some anti-virus software.
Would you like this please?”
“Yeah.
Great. Whatever you think. Seems you're as good as they say you are
with this stuff.”
Omar
shrugged and continued with his work. The man called Davie waited in
comfortable silence, every now and then taking a sip of mint tea.
There was something about him which made Omar comfortable enough to
speak.
“Are
you in Kabul for long, Sir?”
“No
idea. Maybe.”
“You
are English I think.”
This
was almost enough to cause a spitting out of tea.
“Christ
no. Bloody hell Omar, never call me that. Jesus. No. I'm Scottish, my
friend. Do you know it? Scotland?”
“Only
from books and the internet. I only know one place. Here. Kabul. I
have never been anywhere else.”
“Fair
enough. So tell me. Do think Kabul is a beautiful city? You know. All
those snow-capped mountains and the big sky and everything?”
Omar
paused and considered. Nobody had ever asked him such a thing before.
Kabul had never given him much of a reason to feel any affection for
his home town.
“Maybe.
I like it when they fly the kites when the sun is going down. It is
pretty I think."
“Well
if you like that kind of thing I reckon you would like where I come
from. Here. Pass me the laptop. I'll show you.”
Davie
Googled his way into a selection of images of the Highlands of
Scotland and Omar nodded in grave agreement. It was indeed a
beautiful place.
“I
think there is a very big difference between Scotland beautiful and
Afghanistan beautiful. You have beautiful and life. We have beautiful
and death. It is a very big difference I think.”
The
older man smiled at the accidental wisdom. His mind locked down the
sentence which would become the centrepiece of his next feature on
the war ravaged city. He pulled a well-used notebook from his inside
pocket and scribbled.
“Here.
Name, address, mobile number and E mail. Check me out if you're ever
in Scotland. I'd enjoy showing you round.”
Omar
took the paper and stared down at the selection of letters and
numbers from another world.
A
better world. A world where fathers were not taken away to be
tortured and mothers were not stoned to death.
“Thank
you sir. If I ever come to Scotland I will make contact.”
“You
do that Omar. I look forward to it. Anyway, I'm taking up too much of
your time. How much do I owe you? I guess you'd prefer dollars?”
“Dollars
are very good. Can I say twenty please?”
“You
can and I'm not in the mood to haggle so twenty it is.”
The
man from Scotland settled his account and Omar filed away the
encounter. He had never spoken with a European before. A white man.
One his uncle Akram would have called Kuffar. Unbeliever. Enemy. His
uncle Akram would have opened up the man's throat and thought nothing
of it.
He
never expected to see Davie again but he was wrong. For the next few
months, the Scot became a regular visitor. Occasionally he had
something in need of fixing up, but mainly he just called in to drink
mint tea and pass the time of day. Omar told him all about the
desperate realities of Kabul and asked question after question about
Scotland. For the very first time, he managed to find the words to
describe the worst day of his life when his uncle had dragged his
mother out to the pickup truck. Davie hadn't said anything. He
understood there were no words available to say anything. Instead, he
met the despair in the boy's eyes with what he hoped was compassion
in his own eyes.
Inside
he felt sick to the stomach. And inadequate. And useless and
worthless and fraudulent and despicable. He tried to stretch his
imagination around the utter horror the boy had lived through. He
tried to comprehend the extraordinary strength the boy had managed to
find in order to carry on. To run the shop. To look after his broken
father. To get through one day and then another and then another
hundred. And what was there to say? There was nothing he could say.
He was just a man who was passing through. Taking snap shots. Penning
colour pieces. Pretending to himself and the world that it all washed
over him.
In
the end, he said the first thing to come into his mind.
“One
day you need to leave, Omar. And when you do leave, you should come
to Scotland. And call me. Will you do that?”
Omar
thought for a moment and then gave a slow nod of assent.
“That
a promise?”
“Yes
sir. It is a promise.”
Davie
left Kabul a month later but they kept in contact via e mail.
Time
passed. Many people continued to bring their broken things to the boy
with magic in his fingers. Malik spent all the hours of his days
trying to mend the same toaster.
And
failing. And still he never spoke. He ate, he slept and he fiddled at
the toaster whilst his son managed the business.
And
then two months before Omar's 20th birthday in the autumn
of 2008, the darkness once again reached out and dragged him into the
pit. It was a sunny morning and the air was carrying the chill of the
coming winter. The street was busy and buzzards glided the thermals.
Omar was buying vegetables when the air around him squeezed into
itself and then burst through his ears and deep into his brain. One
moment he was filling an old carrier bag with apricots, the next
moment he was down in the dust and the apricots were spread out all
around him.
The
street was no longer his street. Everything was incomprehensible.
Black smoke billowed up into the blue sky above. There were bodies
everywhere. Some were whole. Others were in pieces. Some were oddly
naked. Old cars had become crushed tin cans. Faces were screaming but
the screams were silent. Everything was silent.
He
sat up and felt at himself as his brain slowly caught up with the
mayhem all around him.
Bomb.
Big bomb. His ears were damaged. But not forever. For now, the sounds
to go with the pictures were starting to make their way into his
brain. He slowly registered the fact that he was OK. Intact. Whole.
Just deaf and breathless. As as the pieces slotted into place, he
realised the bomb must have exploded close to his shop.
He
clawed his way to his feet and half staggered, half ran through the
screams and the blood and the pieces of people.
And
now he was a part of the screaming. He wasn't aware of it. He was
beyond being aware. And there were no actual words in his screams.
Just a howling sound.
He
knew what he would find thirty metres before he got to the place
where his shop had once stood. There was no shop any more. Instead,
there was a roaring inferno of flames. Instead there was hell come to
earth. He started towards the flames only to be dragged back by
neighbours.
He
never saw his father. And he never heard his father. It would be two
more days until the embers were cool enough for Malik Kebir's bones
to be put into a cardboard box and buried.
Later
he learned some of the facts behind the nightmare. A Taliban suicide
bomber had been tasked to get as close as he could to a NATO vehicle
check point situated at an intersection half a mile away from the
Kebir store. Nobody ever knew why the bomber detonated so early. Most
who considered themselves to be in the know guessed at nerves and
agitation. An involuntary twitch of the finger. A trip caused by a
cracked paving stone. An accidental collision. Nobody for a moment
believed the shop had been deliberately targeted. It was just another
act of accidental carnage, hardly uncommon in Afghanistan in 2008.
Sometimes these accidents were delivered to earth from 30,000 feet
care of an F16 fighter. Sometimes they were delivered from the level
of the pavement by a terrified teenager in a suicide vest. Shit
happened. All the time.
Aleema's
parents took Omar away from the street and into their home. They
washed the ash from his face and spread butter on his burned skin.
They forced him to drink tea. They forced him to eat. And he wondered
if he was going to find himself in the same place as his father for
he had no words to speak. They put him to bed like a baby and he was
certain he would not sleep.
But
he did sleep. He slept until he was woken by a hard kick to the ribs.
There
were two of them in all to familiar black robes. One levelled an AK47
at Omar's chest whilst the other yanked him to his feet.
No
words were spoken. There was no need. Omar knew only too well what
was happening. These were his uncle's men. They took him out into the
night and threw him into the back of their pick up just like they had
thrown his mother into the back of their pick up. Two more robed men
sat up front. The two who had taken him tied him and gagged him and
kept him down with their boots.
They
left Kabul in the dark hour before the dawn. They drove for ten hours
on roads which were little more than tracks. Then they walked. And
walked, and walked, and walked.
They
walked all through the night. They walked until Omar's feet were
screaming with blisters. They walked until the pain in his thighs
sent tears streaming down his cheeks. They walked until the air was
thin and bitter cold in his lungs. They walked until he felt like he
was at the gates of death.
At
last, there were dark figures on the ridgeline. The sentinels. The
camp emerged out of the barren mountainside.
They
took him to the tent where his uncle waited. There was a well-used
carpet on the floor.
“Sit.”
Omar
sat and took the tea he was given. He chewed on the flat bread he was
given. He didn't speak.
At
last Akram Kebir laid down the bones of his new life. “I left you
in Kabul to care for my brother. Now Malik is dead. Now you are here.
You have great skills. It is time for you to use the skills Allah has
blessed you with to fight the Kuffar. It is time for you to embrace
Jihad. It is time for you to become Mujahideen. Now you are weak. You
are a city boy. We are men of the mountains and you too will become a
man of the mountains. It will be a very hard journey. If you
complain, I will beat you like a dog. You will become hard. And then
you will achieve your destiny. That is all. You will sleep in the
tent of my two sons. You can go.”
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