An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World by William T. Vollmann Read Free Book Online Page B

from a developed country, brought him on a plate a real
fork
and
knife
with a paper
napkin
wrapped around them. At King’s he hadn’t had a napkin. This was pretty good. —In front of him stood a blue pitcher of cool
obuh
, * doubtless full of disease … and now he was whisked his dinner with dismaying speed considering that (a) he was the only customer, (b) they were staring at his every move, and (c) he somehow had to kill two hours waiting for Dr. Tariq. Well, anyhow, what
was
his dinner actually, let’s see, he’d first ordered an onion steak at fourteen rupees, on the principle that a protracted stay demanded an expensive purchase, but today was a meatless day, so he was stuck once again with a chicken roast: mm-hm, half-raw meat given the position it deserved in the middle of the plate, encircled by okay onions, putrid peppers, merely wilted peppers and some perfectly acceptable tomatoes … Time passed, the meal passed, and the sick hot evening improved until when Dr. Tariq came he was in the middle of a conversation with some Jordanians about how dull the nightlife had been here ever since the imposition of martial law. The Young Man paid his bill, shook hands all around, and proceeded into the swelter with Dr. Tariq, who had invited him to stay the night with his family.
    The household was headed by Tariq’s father, Major General N., a fine old man who influenced the guest more than anyone else in Pakistan, for in the end he stayed not a night, but a month. The General’sfamily gave him food, lodging, clothes and presents. He came to feel love for them.
MY CLOTHES (1987)
     
    I no longer have the plastic scraps of a butterfly mine from Afghanistan, because I gave them to Dr. Tariq’s younger brother Zahid (since become a doctor in his own right). One of the yellow glass bangles that the family gave me for my fiancée broke on the trip home; the others left with her when she left me. I do still have a stack of photographs, through which I used to flip with some complacency, the vividness of the color dyes convincing me that I must not have failed in Afghanistan after all, and for a while I busied myself with them, blowing them up into fund-raising posters that cost more than the money they brought in—for I was and still am a most lamentably ludicrous Young Man—but within three or four years I had studied those pictures so many times that not a single image was real. I retain my illegal pen-pistol from Darra, but seldom roll its fat coldness between my fingers. My best aid to memory (for I doubt that I will ever go to Afghanistan again) is the set of clothes that General N.’s family gave me. —They hang in the back of the closet, whose white door is now shut, with its black knob like a sphere of darkness extruded from the darkness inside. —My shirt (which I think once belonged to Zahid) is a baggy affair that hangs down to my knees like an apron. The pants are wide enough around the waist for two people; they tighten with a drawstring. —On hot days, this loose cotton skin of mine feels cool, luxurious.
THE BRIGADIER (1982)
     
    The other guest of the N. household was, of course, the Brigadier, with whom the Young Man shared the double bed. Thirty-six years ago the General and the Brigadier had been pals, back in British days, when the Pakistanis (or Indians, as they then were) had been involved in aninsurrection in Kashmir. † —“I was his teacher,” said the General, “and I regarded him as an honest man.
    “You think I have picked him up now for no reason? I am convinced he will be of use. He has been with me now for six months. Every day he writes letters. He is the leader of a national party
inside
, you see, and he is trying to obtain weapons. If he had not been of use I would have gotten rid of him long ago. But if your people would just give him weapons, he would be a great thorn in the side of the Russians. When you go back to America, Young Man, you must tell people about