Well, it was better, the Young Man supposed, that he believe the problem to be one of inefficiency rather than intention. But he felt some revulsion all the same. This was the General’s prize candidate, our pro-Western friend, faithful unto death … Spitefully, the Young Man told him that he should be happy, that thanks to the Roos there was a good, solid dictatorship in Afghanistan now. Fortunately the Brigadier did not understand. Later the Young Man was ashamed of himself.
In Peshawar at that time the Mujahideen were divided into six major factions based on tribal antagonisms and on ideological ambitions. They had formed two coalitions, each of which (typically enough) was called the Islamic Unity of Afghan Mujahideen. The first Islamic Unity was composed of the fundamentalists and mullahs: Jamiat-i-Islami, Gulbuddin and Khalis.a The second was made up of the liberals and social democrats: Hazarat, Mahaz-i-Islami, Herakat. The Brigadier’s party, Wahdati-i-Islami, or National Liberation Front, was not officially recognized. Through an interpreter the Brigadier explained that many of the administrators in the liberal parties, and a few in those of the fundamentalists, were working secretly for him and diverting arms to the N.L.F. Naively, the Young Man asked the interpreter why, in that case, the Brigadier needed American weapons. But this made the interpreter angry, and the interview came to an end.
For a time the Young Man paid court to the Jamiat-i-Islami fundamentalists. They were strong in Afghanistan’s Panjsher Province, where the fighting was heaviest at that time, and the Young Man wanted very much to go there. But the Jamiat distrusted him. He spent many hot afternoons in their offices, listening to the buzzing of the fans, watching their leader, the famous scholar Dr. Rabbani, talking behind his desk; Dr. Rabbani resembled a saint with his long silver-white beard; and the fans buzzed and the Young Man drank Sprite after Sprite sitting on the carpet between Jamiat warriors, who teased him and told him that since he was pale-skinned he must pretend to be a Nuristani to fool the Roos when he went inside, and in his intoxication at the idea of going to Afghanistan the Young Man was not even afraid. — At first the Jamiat said that they could not take him because he did not know the Qur’an, and so could not represent their point of view to the Amerikis. But the Young Man had learned to bluff his knowledge in school; he quoted a few passages of the Qur’an back at them. — Next they told him that they could not take him because he was too young; it was too dangerous. He pointed out that many of their Mujahideen were younger than he, and that he could surely help them by taking his pictures.b Then they said they’d let him know if something came up.
“You are not well, Young Man,” the General told him. “Why must you go into Afghanistan? You can take pictures of Afghans with guns in Pakistan. The journalists do it. It will be all the same to the Americans. I am concerned about you. You cannot go into the battlefield with a loose tummy; I speak to you as a soldier.”
But the Young Man was adamant.
The General was not without influence. General Zia, now the man who ran Pakistan, had once been his subordinate. He arranged many interviews which the Young Man could never have gotten otherwise — for, unlike the Amerikis, the General believed him capable of actually Helping, and so took him seriously.c As a result of these interviews the Young Man was able to string the beads of important men’s words into his necklaces of analysis, somewhat as follows:
The major political dichotomy in Pakistan seemed to be liberalism versus Islamization, or (not to beat around the bush) the People’s Party of Bhutto versus the established regime of Zia, who had revived Islamic law to such an extent that public floggings were now broadcast on television. At present, the People’s Party was almost impotent, Bhutto having just been hanged in 1979, the invasion year. — “He was executed for murder,” said the General. “He was a Communist, and all of us in the North-West Frontier were very satisfied to see him replaced by Zia. You see, Young Man, Bhutto was a schemer, but Zia is a just man!” (It was not until half a dozen years after, when Zia was killed in that mysterious plane crash, that Bhutto’s charismatic daughter Benazir was able to ride her rallies into power; until then the People’s Party barely clung to existence.) The General maintained sufficient relations with a few officials of the Bhutto regime to arrange for the Young Man to speak with them in his presence. One had been jailed several times under Zia. When they visited the man, the General pointed out an automobile parked by his house. — “They keep an eye on him, you see,” he said. — They were hospitably entertained. It was Ramazan, and Muslims could not eat or drink until sunset, but the Young Man was brought a Coke on a saucer and many cordialities were exchanged. The Young Man thought that the General and the former official must be friends. Then, as they left, the Young Man’s cassette nicely magnetized full of interesting information, the General remarked, “He is a very stupid man, you see. He will be back in jail again, and he should be.” The Young Man wondered how he’d ever know who his enemies were.
One day they drove to a funeral in a small village to the east, just the three of them: the General, the Young Man and the Brigadier. The village was pro-Bhutto, and the General knew a former minister there who would give the Young Man his recollections. Unfortunately, the man was too busy, although he said hello to the Young Man politely enough and found the time to make a few digs about the postponement of the elections. The General remained calm. — The bier was carried through the mud-walled streets. The Brigadier’s deep frown was softened into the expression that he wore when he read his Qur’an. He strode through the crowd and shouldered a corner of the bier. At the mosque they set the dead man down for the ceremony, uncovering his face for a moment so that the relatives could kiss it. He was an old man, with a long white beard. His mouth was open, his head twisted to one side, like a crawl-stroke swimmer. The next morning the Young Man saw a run-over cat in the same posture, with the same intense, rather scholarly gaze. The man had died that morning. He was already swelling and yellowing in the heat. — They drove home in the General’s car, with the Young Man in the back seat. The Brigadier made a remark about the liberals; the Young Man could not understand the language but he understood the sneer. — The General laughed and nodded.
The Young Man admired the General in almost every respect. He was a very moral man who tried to do good. He initiated the building of a mosque, of a park (the Young Man saw him on the news once, standing with a group of dignitaries in his new mosque). He did a considerable amount of social work; the Young Man was one of his cases. Not only did he give him instruction in Islam, he also tried to find an appropriate group for him to go to Afghanistan with. On this subject he had his opinions. Being a soldier like the Brigadier, he despised the fundamentalists. When the Young Man asked a guerrilla commander why he belonged to Herakat and not Jamiat-i-Islami, the General answered for him: “Because he is not a fool.”