Prince of Afghanistan Read online

  There’s a whine in the sky and I see another plane, coming closer and lower at a breathtaking speed. Prince is staring at the destruction, trying to make sense of it. I snatch him by the collar and we run to the front gates. We pass one of the madmen trying to lift the other one into the wheelbarrow. I stop, and with one heave throw the second man into the barrow. Then before I can move, a plane is right above us and two rockets overshoot the compound and detonate in a blast that stuns me. I look to the south and see the tiny outline of another jet coming towards us.

  Prince and I run out of the compound. I turn back on hearing more explosions and see that most of the buildings are on fire. The wheelbarrow emerges from the black clouds of smoke, with one of the madmen sitting inside it, while the other, laughing wildly, pushes it through the gates.

  That seems to be the last of the planes. We’re safe for now. Gazing at the destroyed buildings the thought occurs to me – the Taliban must have found out about the bombing raid and had fled. I hear the cry of Excuse me! Excuse me! The madman is pushing the barrow towards me but my attention is taken by a noise behind me and I spin around. A jet is coming in, this time from the east. Prince and I have nowhere to hide. I see two rockets coming directly towards us and instinctively I grab Prince in a bear hug and fall to earth with him, closing my eyes and readying myself. The ground bounces. The deep and powerful roar makes my ears ring and my insides shudder like jelly. Dust and pebbles rain down on me. I feel dazed and weak but force myself to sit up. The madman, now covered in a grey powder, is still pushing his wheelbarrow towards me, completely unconcerned that he just missed being obliterated. Both men are laughing as if life has become just a big joke to them.

  In a couple of hours it’ll be dark. I feel groggy but know we must head west to the valley for water and food. Come on, Prince, I say, thinking he’s beside me. But he isn’t. He’s vanished. I stagger to my feet and look around. There’s a chill feeling in the pit of my stomach. I must have let go of him when the bomb hit. All I can hear is the constant cry of Excuse me, Excuse me!

  In the distance I see what looks like a faint black dot heading over a distant crest. The exploding earth, smoke and chaos must have spooked Prince into fleeing. There is nothing else to do but go after him.

  The madmen pause a few metres from me. They’re covered in a ghostly, white-greyish dust. I point to the distant hills. My dog, I have to get my dog. They giggle as if amused by my plight. I start off at a slow jog. I know I have to pace myself in the heat but the fear of losing him drives me on. As I set out, the two men, one in the wheelbarrow, the other pushing it, head off into the desert, whistling happily.

  9

  Before long I slow down to a walk. I stop often to see any signs of Prince, but it’s as if he’s been swallowed up by the earth. The only thing I can do is aim for the valley. I’m counting on the fact that he will smell the water and is making for the river too. I feel awfully weary, and my insides are still quivering from the explosions, but I keep moving.

  A few days ago I would have been annoyed that Prince had run off but now I can understand why he did. I know I’m in a war, he doesn’t. The sniffing out of roadside mines is a game to him. After he’s found one, the only reward he wants is to play with his square ball. This is a war between humans and he has been caught up in it through no wish of his own. Now he’s deaf, he’s been shot, he’s struggled through unbearable heat, and he’s had the ground blow up around him. On top of that he’s lost Casey and he’s ended up with me. No wonder he took off.

  I can’t let him or Casey down. Prince is my comrade now and my friend, so I’m not going to leave him behind. The very thought that he may die or I won’t be able to find him eats away at me.

  I travel across ridges and dips, swells and bluffs. Night’s coming when I crest a flat-topped mound, and my heart soars when I see the dark ribbon of the stream winding its way along the valley floor. A couple of kilometres to the right are the lights of a hamlet. That means there are fields nearby and therefore fruit and vegetables. I sip the last of my warm water and walk carefully down the steep hill, in a zigzagging pattern. My hope is that Prince is already there, having found the water.

  When I reach the valley I walk alongside the stream, searching for him. The waning moon isn’t as bright as it’s been the past few days so it’s harder to see. A shadow seems to move, as if it’s Prince. My heart prickles with hope but it’s not him. I continue for several hours moving back and forth across the stream, eating pomegranates, the only ripe food available.

  My exhaustion finally gets the better of me and I flop down beside the stream, remove my boots and soak my aching, blistered feet in the water, wondering what to do next. Where is he? Has he already found the stream and having rested is now making for … making for where? What would have been on his mind after he stopped running and found himself alone? Would he have doubled back to search for me, or is he still spooked and wandering aimlessly? There are those other terrible thoughts: what if he’s been shot? Or has died in the heat?

  The possibilities are endless and I realise I that I will have to search for him during the day, as it will be easy to miss him at night. I have to believe that he’s alive. My aim will be to follow the river southwards in the hope that he’ll stay close to water, especially during the long, hot days.

  I’ve never felt so alone. I try to stop myself from feeling that I will not find Prince or make it back. I’m so tired and afraid that I have little mental strength left. I sit in the stream to cool down, as my mother used to do, not caring that my boots and clothes are soaking. The water soothes me and I wash my face clean of self-pity. I can’t allow these things to get the better of me. I find a hollow space in an embankment along the river and curl up inside it to sleep.

  I wake on hearing a cry of pain above me and realise it’s one bird calling to another. Because of the way I’ve slept, my shoulder throbs painfully, and I go through a series of exercises to relieve the soreness. I don’t want to take another morphine tablet, as I only have the one left. Getting ready I’m aware of an empty feeling in my stomach. I’ve had no food except for the pomegranates. If Prince is alive then he too must be hungry, unless he has caught some animal.

  I keep on along the river bank and rest in any shade I find on the way. I take a break under a tree and I’m about to get up and continue when I hear distant shouts and what sounds like a shot. I fall onto my stomach and peer over the long grass. A group of boys is playing cricket in the baking heat. They have three sticks for stumps and a bat carved out of a hunk of wood. The ball seems to be made of wood too, because it hits the bat with a loud crack.

  As I watch, I forget where I am. It’s like a game of cricket anywhere. There’s the laughter, the loud appeals for a catch, the protests of the batsmen given out. There’s much good-natured teasing and of course there’s the badly co-ordinated boy whose throw goes the wrong way, the one who is better at the game than anyone else, two nerdy boys meandering around the field chatting to each other paying no attention to what is happening, the fast bowler with his long run-up and the spinner tossing up slow full tosses that are whacked out of the field with the loud crack of a gun being fired.

  It seems such a long time ago that I was just a normal kid like them playing cricket. It makes me feel ancient, though I’m not even nineteen yet. My birthday is in two days’ time. Casey and I were given leave to go into Kabul to celebrate it when we returned. He was still kidding me about it the night before we went, I never thought a gronk like you would make nineteen. Perhaps he was right, perhaps I won’t make my birthday.

  Just after noon the boys pack up and head back to their village for lunch. Keeping a careful eye out, I take a wide detour around the village and make my way along the river, which is slowing to a trickle. A couple of hours later I spot a small village. It has a white domed mosque and one street with ramshackle buildings either side of it. I’m debating with myself how much distance I want to keep between me and it when I realise
that there don’t seem to be any people. There’s a chance that Prince is in there looking for food.

  The aroma of spices and animal and human muck fills my nostrils as I walk towards the house. I pause outside a mud wall and make sure the village is empty. It seems safe, so I set out down the only street. The buildings are either boarded up or their metal window shutters are half closed or warped. Mud stalls are collapsing. How did this end up a ghost town of collapsed houses and bombed-out shops? Clumps of grass are sprouting around the shops, which still smell of exotic spices. It must have been an important market, bustling and noisy, in contrast to its unnerving silence now. Judging by the desolation it’s been abandoned for a year or more.

  I look everywhere but I can’t find Prince or any evidence of him. The heat is unbearable and I seek out the shade of a mudbrick house where the front door is barely clinging from its hinges. As I brush by the door, it breaks free and falls onto the ground. I step over it and walk inside to be greeted by an upturned table, several smashed chairs and broken glass. Despite the mess, it’s cooler than outside. I sit down on the hard dirt floor and as I drink some water I hear a sound, like someone moving. My heart stops, I pick up my rifle and glance over my shoulder in the direction the noise has come from. There’s another room without a door. I listen but hear nothing. Maybe I’ve imagined it or else it might have been a rat. I’m about to put down my rifle, when I hear something like a groan or grunt.

  Moving as quietly as I can, I step to the side of the doorway. Adrenalin surges through me, my hands are damp with fear. I listen closely; nothing is stirring or moving. I look around the door frame into the windowless room. It’s dark except for a tiny flickering light in the corner where a thin Afghan, wearing brown baggy trousers, a white T-shirt and brown turban sits before a candle. His gaze is focused on something in his hands and he doesn’t seem aware I’m watching him. He places a thin metal pipe in his mouth and puts a strip of foil onto the candle flame. On the foil is a brown pool of resin. He strikes a match and places it under the foil and tilts it so that the resin slides downwards as he inhales. His eyes close and he smiles blissfully to himself: he begins to rock slightly. Then his body jolts as if hit by an electric charge and he spins around on his backside, staring goggle-eyed at me. His surprise becomes a frown. The longer he looks at me the more puzzled he becomes until he shakes his head, as if freeing himself of a bad vision. He wearily waves me away as one would a phantom. When I don’t move, he lifts up his right hand at me and, pretending it’s a gun, points two fingers at me, making a soft shooting noise – then, apparently believing he has killed the enemy soldier standing in the doorway, he turns his attention back to the opium and carefully dabs more on to the foil. He’s not so much a human being as a living skeleton, all alone with only his addiction for company. It’s certain he isn’t long for this world. Before he can put the foil on the candle flame again, he sighs with satisfaction, closes his eyes, and slowly falls backwards until he lies on the floor, drifting off into his own dream world.

  Even though the fellow poses no threat to me, I’m worried that there may be other Afghans around, so I set off again, trudging through the heat, looking for Prince. What I cannot shake from my mind are images of Ghulum and now this addict in the empty room. I’ve never seen two such broken and lonely men. The thought crosses my mind that if I were Afghan and my country had been at war so long, would I have ended up like them?

  Hours later I come upon another deserted hamlet. The irrigation channels leading to it are dry and the fields are overgrown with weeds. I make sure there are no locals around and I’m about to walk down the main street when I see a movement near a crumbling mosque. I catch my breath. It’s a dog. I start running towards it but as I get closer I notice that it’s not black and is larger and scruffier than Prince. It’s joined by two other dogs. I stop in my tracks. These are not dogs but wolves, scrounging around the compound for food.

  I’ve seen Afghan wolves before, silently casing a village or setting on a pack of wild goats. Because of drought in this part of the country the locals have had to sell or eat their flocks to survive. This has changed the balance of nature. Before the long dry the wolves would have picked off the odd sheep, but now that there are few sheep or goats left the wolves have been moving in on the only available food source: people. Children have been snatched and killed at night and now the wolves are becoming so bold there are reports they are attacking people during the day.

  On hearing me approach the three wolves take a few steps forward and stare directly at me. I know that if I run they’ll see me as prey. I stand as still as I can and hope that there is no wind to carry my scent. For some minutes we stare at each other until the wolves, perhaps unable to decide whether I am prey or not, slowly head back into the hills.

  It’s evening when I find refuge in a clump of oaks on the side of the stream opposite orchards and poppy fields. I’m so tired and hungry and full of disappointment that I haven’t found Prince or any signs of him that all I can do is slump in the undergrowth beneath a tree. My face is burning with the heat and I can feel moisture in my socks where the blisters, on the soles of my feet, have burst. It’s all I can do to stop from falling into despair and giving up my search for Prince and even the aim of making it home. How will I find the strength to continue?

  In the morning I wake up on hearing excited cries. There are a dozen or so children running across a paddock, launching kites into the air. The kites are blue, green and red and they dip and rise in the air currents. The boys and girls squeal with delight and make gunfire noises, pretending to be planes attacking each other. Two kites become caught up and fall to the ground just on the edge of the oak grove. I’m close enough to see that the two boys are wearing blue and red eyeliner. They untangle their kites and launch them again. I watch them rise into the blue sky. They look beautiful.

  The trouble is that I’m trapped. The marijuana and poppy plantations on the other side of the river come right down to the water’s edge and if I break cover from my hiding place I’ll be easily seen. I’ll have to wait for everyone to return to the village.

  Teenage girls and old men with long white beards slowly move through the sea of poppies, scoring the green pods with razor blades so that the brown resin rises to the surface like sticky, rubbery pus. When I arrived in Afghanistan I was amazed at how many poppy fields there were. But for many Afghans the crop is the only way of earning money. One opium farmer laughed when he told me he didn’t mind war because blood was a good fertiliser. I had no idea whether he was having me on or not, but then Afghans are so used to war that normal values don’t count. The coalition armies had to allow the cultivation to continue if they didn’t want to turn the locals against them.

  All I can do over the next few hours is observe village life, in a way I haven’t before. It seems so normal. Every time I’ve come upon a farmer or entered a village the adults and children have been on their guard. It’s always tense, because you have no idea if they are the Taliban or just ordinary people who might have a personal grudge against us foreigners.

  I see them go about their business as if there is no war. The workers harvest throughout the stifling day. A couple of motorbikes roar out of the village and go north. Girls with buckets on their heads collect water from a well on the outskirts of the village. It amazes me how the women are able to move around in their burqas. Most are covered head to toe, with a crocheted grille across the eyes which gives them such limited side vision that they are always bumping into things, and in a city like Kabul they’re run over by cars because they can’t see them coming.

  I’m daydreaming when there’s the sound of women not far from me and the splash of water. I crawl back further into the long grass. There’s giggling and more splashing. Three women, having removed their headgear, are standing in the shallows of the river and cooling their flushed faces with water. I’ve never seen Afghan women smiling and laughing. Usually they’re either wrapped inside a burqa or glaring
at you, full of suspicion and hate. These three are about sixteen or seventeen. One has long black hair down to her shoulders. She reminds me of my ex-girlfriend; the same hair, the same laugh that makes her face light up.

  Poor Lucia. She said that what made her go for me was that I made her laugh, unlike her previous boyfriend who was always too serious. It wasn’t long, though, before she began to complain about my dope-smoking and the fact that even in my final year of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. You’ve got to get out of Burning Mountain, she’d say, there’s no future here. She was going to leave, and why didn’t I? But the life of a slacker suited me.

  It all came to an end one night when we were in Wrightsville after seeing a movie. I had smoked a joint in the toilets before we set off back to Emerald Creek. Lucia was annoyed with me but there was no other car for her to go home in except for my bomb. I was so stoned that I didn’t realise just how angry she was with me. In fact, her criticisms made me laugh, which infuriated her even more. Near a turnoff I took the corner too sharply and the car slid across the muddy road and hit a tree. There was the sound of crunching metal and the windscreen shattering. Far from being shocked, I felt detached, as if I was watching a movie about the crash. I looked across at Lucia, who had shards of sparkling glass in her black hair and in her lap, but seemed unhurt. Once I realised I was fine too, I started to laugh, thinking it was the funniest thing, until I became aware of a strange noise next to me – Lucia was weeping.

  You’re just a boy! You don’t care about anyone but yourself! she cried, and when I went to stroke her arm she pushed me away and, jumping out of the car, called me an idiot, a gronk. Then she walked off into the night.

  And I was a gronk, an idiot, a total jerk. It wasn’t a surprise when she broke up with me. I knew that the way I lived and behaved was the cause, but I couldn’t give up dope – and the wonderful thing about weed is that the more you smoke, the more it eases the pain of someone leaving you. She didn’t wait until the end of the year to escape Emerald Creek and become a nanny in Scotland. I barely passed Year 12 and I lazed around, smoking bongs, watching DVDs of Family Guy and perfecting my Stewie voice. Then one evening, as I was drinking cask wine on top of the burning mountain, stoned out of my gourd, I found myself staring at the steam escaping from cracks in the earth and I was struck by just how alien the countryside looked: how scarred, how like Hell. At that moment I knew my future was like the wasteland around me, empty of promise.