From Souk to Souk Read online

  ‘Perhaps a nice waistcoat?’ he calls after us, but we are already back outside.

  I ask James why it is called Chicken Street, as we saunter past a huge hole between two houses. Foundations have been laid for a new building, but the site is empty. He says it is because many years ago there was indeed a poultry market, only later being replaced by the sort of shops we see around us today. Walking along the road, we are greeted by smiles and the occasional ‘Hello!’ from storekeepers standing in doorways. We stop in front of one shop selling carpets, not the traditional patterns one might expect, but rugs with images of tanks, machine guns and fighter planes woven into them. I try to decide if they are a tasteless gimmick aimed at foreigners or a contemporary version of the genuine article, adapted to reflect life as experienced by people here. I wonder whether I should buy one, the novelty of the strange item starting to appeal. Perhaps it is the altitude.

  James suggests we go to the international bookshop, famous for featuring in the controversial tale The Bookseller of Kabul in which the Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad recounted her stay with the owner and his family, a depiction which he strongly contested. I can buy my stamps and postcards there, James tells me. We make our way along the high pavement, passing stores selling paper, soft drinks or haircuts, until we arrive at a makeshift roundabout where a policeman is half-heartedly attempting to control the erratic traffic. Red and white barricades stand randomly in the middle of the roads leading to the junction. We wait for a gap between the cars before dashing across the street to the green-fronted store. Inside, it is as quiet and library-like as bookshops the world over. Near the entrance, its walls are lined from floor to ceiling with an amazing selection of publications, mostly about Afghanistan and the region, but in the farther corners of the labyrinthine shop there are children’s editions, foreign-language dictionaries, course books and encyclopaedias. I ponder my baggage allowance for the return flight before starting to select a handful of postcards from the wacky collection that fills the racks. Next to photographs of magnificent scenery and historical buildings, palaces and mosques are pictures of bearded Afghans cheerfully brandishing semi-automatic weapons. Looking at a lurid image of the twelfth-century Minaret of Jam in the Ghor Province, I realise I am unfamiliar with most of the places featured on the cards and feel ashamed that I have arrived in Afghanistan knowing so little about the country’s architectural riches. I reflect glumly on the cycle of violence and poverty, and how the security situation chokes off the development of tourism, an industry that could do so much to help improve the lives of people here.

  I take my selection of postcards to the man sitting behind the counter. He is filling out what looks like an old-fashioned ledger. In his late thirties, I wonder if he is the Sultan Khan character featured in the book, but think better of it than to ask. I have never read the work and, for all I know, the protagonist might be eighty years old. With his Western-style shirt and trousers and absence of any form of scarf or turban, the clean-shaven man in front of me looks like any mature student from the Middle East one might see in London. I enquire after stamps and am surprised to be given a handful of specimens dating from years ago. They are still valid, the man earnestly assures me through his thick-rimmed glasses as if reading my mind while I study a stamp commemorating the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Picking up another, I am surprised to see the words ‘Postes afghanes’ in French. A faint smile brightening up his face, the seemingly telepathic bookseller tells me it is because the former king was a Francophile. I wonder which one he means: the last monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shar, was, in 1973, ousted in a coup, a fate he shared with three of his four predecessors. I return to browsing the shelves where tales of Boys Own-style nineteenth-century battles are interspersed with reviews of the political situation and studies on the role of Islam in the region. I could spend hours in the place: it is crammed full with books one would never come across in a shop at home.

  But we must go, says James with a friendly smile, if I want to visit the bird market, the last remaining authentic bazaar in Kabul. I have accumulated a handful of books, but decide to buy just one, a volume entitled Afghanistan Over a Cup of Tea penned by the ageing American Nancy Hatch Dupree, an expert on the history, art and archaeology of the country who has lived here on and off for decades. The text on the back says that each of the forty-eight chronicles can be read in about the time it takes to drink a cup of hot chai. As I finish handing over my Afghanis to pay, James is already hovering near the door. He bundles me out of the shop while ringing his local partner. The call over, he explains that the bird market is less safe than other parts of the city and that the visit will have to be brief.

  We make our way back to the guesthouse where Taimur, James’s business associate, and the driver are waiting for us. Clad in a 1950s-style leather flying jacket and a black tumbaan, the surprisingly long-haired man introduces himself in grammatically perfect English with the sort of refined Pakistani accent that makes me think of Benazir Bhutto. In countries where life is hard, looks can be deceptive, but I reckon Taimur, like James, is about thirty. He says we should get going. We pile into the van and are once again back in the city’s traffic, now gridlocked in one-way streets, moments later free-flowing along wide roads. We trundle over a bridge that spans the narrow Kabul River, its shallow, foaming waters streaming past all manner of rubbish on the riverbed in the way I imagine many urban rivers in Europe used to until comparatively recently. Languishing somewhere at the bottom of the World Bank’s development list of 180 countries, Afghanistan is the poorest place I have visited, but, even so, I find myself surprised, not just by the deprivation, but by the lack of development. In India, too, I saw grinding poverty, but it existed cheek-by-jowl with signs of great wealth, both past and present. Here, as we drive through Kabul, all I see are dilapidated buildings, garbage and what looks like a medieval society dumped, bewildered, into an alien world. There are glimpses of modernity, but they look as if they will leave with the troops when they finally go, or otherwise quickly succumb to whatever follows the withdrawal.

  ‘Where has all the aid money gone?’ I ask.

  Taimur says some has gone on reconstruction and on improving roads, such as the one to Bamyan in the centre of the country, but a lot has simply disappeared.

  ‘You know, my friend, Afghan society is very different to that in the West,’ he adds, turning to face me from his seat in the front of the van and echoing James’s words with a slight lecturing tone. ‘You can’t expect everything to function here like in your country.’

  ‘What do you think will happen when the international troops pull out?’ I venture, deciding to change the subject.

  Looking again at the road ahead, Taimur utters a short, cold laugh. I cannot decide whether it is of resignation or because he considers my question naïve. His gaze still fixed at some point beyond the windscreen, he says the Taliban will be back in power within a fortnight. James is more optimistic: he thinks enough people will be reluctant to see a return to the sort of regime they had before to prevent that scenario. They make light of their diverging views, as if the discussion is one they have aired many times before. They agree to differ and we drop the subject.

  A short while later, our silver van pulls up amidst a chaotic mass of vehicles, some parked, others with their engines running. Ostensibly, we are at the side of a road, but it looks more like a yawning gap between two rows of crumbling buildings separated by a hotchpotch of lorries, cars and carts. Crowds mill about in front of hole-in-the-wall shops above which colourful hoardings advertise everything from mobile phone services to baby food. Hawkers wander around, some limping, as they try to sell pens, paper handkerchiefs and little bags of nuts, wizened hands proffering cheap goods while weary faces silently tell of souls that have tired of life. Taimur appears nervous: since the end of the discussion about the country’s future, he has made half a dozen phone calls, the subject of which I could only guess from the intonation and, whenever he looked at
the driver, from the expression on his face. He tells James to wait in the van and then, turning to me, says we will only be able to make a quick tour of the bird market, known locally as the Ka Farushi bazaar. I slide open the door and slip out into the noisy, messy world of the shopping street, meeting Taimur in front of the vehicle. He stomps off towards a gap in the buildings where a narrow lane, the Alley of the Straw Sellers, the strangely-named home to the bird market, begins. I walk briskly after the stocky figure, doing my best to keep up and feeling very conspicuous in my bright orange parka, despite my tumbaan and voluminous scarf. We dash through the bazaar, my attempts to linger and look at the doves, canaries and finches that fill the stacks of cages being curtailed by Taimur’s constant exhortations to hurry up. Among the cooing and chirping that fills the air, I think I recognise the sound of a nightingale’s whistle, but there is no time to investigate: I do not want to lose sight of my guide among the stallholders and shoppers. Scurrying along, now and then I catch a faint whiff of avian odours, but the cold air does much to suppress what in the heat of summer must surely be more pungent smells.

  ‘These are kowks,’ explains Taimur, suddenly stopping in front of a row of domed wicker cages containing plump birds with red legs and feet. ‘They are a special type of partridge,’ he says, his eyes widening. ‘We once had this British man who came on one of our trips. He knew everything about birds and he told me they are Chukars.’ As he says this, Taimur’s chest seems to swell like those of the birds themselves. With their grey and buff plumage, black collars and coral-red beaks, they look very much like the red-legged partridges found in Europe. Squatting in their cages, they seem content with their life of captivity and I wonder if they would know what to do if they were ever released.

  ‘And people eat these?’ I ask.

  ‘No! The kowks are used for fighting! It is a very popular sport here: men are gambling a lot of money on them. On Fridays, they take the birds to the park and make them fight.’ Taimur studies me for a moment and then turns and marches off.

  As I follow him, I am vaguely aware of bearded men in traditional dress and coats, dark eyes watching us from beneath white turban caps and mushroom-coloured pakuls as we hurriedly make our way through the cluttered street. Everything seems brown or beige, the buildings, the mud, the woodwork, even the smiles. After we have scuttled our way for a few more minutes, as if finally having satisfied a child’s misplaced curiosity, Taimur tells me that we have seen all there is to see and that we should turn back. I am disappointed: I had expected a visit to the ancient market to be one of the cultural highlights in Kabul with the opportunity to meander and browse. Instead, I have seen nothing more than a blur and have scarcely had time to absorb my surroundings. I get no sense of hostility or danger and wonder if Taimur is not overplaying the situation. But I am unfamiliar with the society and its ways. I know I might not pick up on signals of which he is astutely aware: my safety is in his hands and I have no choice but to scurry after him, suppressing my irritation. As we climb back into the Hiace, James asks cheerfully how it was.

  ‘Quick,’ I huff, and try to smile.

  As Aasif launches the little van into the mix of traffic, carts, and people, James says we will go to look at the old city walls. It is a short drive past crumbling buildings and stacks of timber, slender tree trunks lying next to planks of varying lengths and widths. I reflect on what I have seen so far and am struck by how normal, at least for a poor developing country, much of the city seems: daily life carries on. People are working, talking, plying their trades: nobody is rioting, stamping on flags or burning effigies. It is very different from the impression of Afghanistan I had formed before coming here. From out of the van window, I look up to see the fortifications snaking their way down the edge of a steep hill at the bottom of which the brown Kabul River flows. Tiny, flat-roofed houses cling to the hillside, looking more like make-do shelters than homes. I wonder how they can possibly afford protection from the severe Afghan winter: I can think of ski resorts in Europe at a lower altitude. My modest guesthouse starts to look cosy and inviting in comparison. We do not stop, but instead carry on through the bustling city towards the royal residence of Darul Aman. James is not sure whether we will be able to go in or not.

  The derelict palace stands on a small rise in the middle of barren ground some sixteen kilometres from the city centre. Remaining patches of snow brighten up the otherwise drab surroundings of muddy earth and stick trees, the scene evoking the landscapes depicted in depressing paintings of First World War battlefields. At the base of the driveway leading up to the main entrance, we pass a large billboard with a photograph of two boys bearing weapons. Over their image a large diagonal cross is ‘daubed’ in blood red as part of the poster. I cannot read the script, but Taimur confirms it is part of a campaign against child soldiers. At the top of the ramp we pull up and clamber out of the van. Only now do I notice an airship floating some distance away above the city, its silvery skin catching the sunlight. It is moored by a long cable that descends to earth like an umbilical cord before disappearing behind a cluster of buildings. Taimur says it is for aerial reconnaissance with its cameras watching what is happening on the ground. I am unsure whether to believe him, although, here, anything could be possible.

  A couple of soldiers stand guard in front of the improvised fence of rolls of barbed and razor wire. They pick up their guns and walk towards us, the jackets of their green and brown uniforms open, revealing khaki T-shirts beneath. With his round face, green eyes and curly hair, the younger of the two looks very different to other Afghans I have seen. His somewhat thickset colleague sports a khaki kepi on his head and looks us up and down suspiciously. The two men seem impervious to the cold, which I find mercilessly pervades the multiple layers of clothing I am wearing. Taimur greets the soldiers and, after an increasingly jolly exchange, they part the spaghetti-like mix of steel wire and, like doormen at a plush hotel, smilingly wave us through.

  Built in the 1920s, the 150-room, neo-classical building could be anywhere in Europe, perhaps Berlin in 1945: it was shelled by the Mujahadeen after the Soviets left and its walls are pockmarked with bullet holes. The metal girders that mark the outline of what was once the roof remind me of the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. We make our way inside, picking our way over rubble, avoiding puddles and passing piles of plasterwork that has given up trying to cover the brick walls. We head up a curved concrete staircase without a banister to the first floor where icicles are dangling from the roof. A gaping hole the size of a car in the floor of the main corridor is surrounded by rubble and looks as if it could expand at any moment to wrench the ground from beneath us. I look out from a gap in the wall at a large, low building directly opposite a few hundred metres away.

  ‘It’s the new parliament, ‘ says James.

  Still under construction, like the palace, it is an empty shell. I wonder if it will one day be completed or if these two buildings will forever remain testimonials to failures of governance in this country riven by tribal and ethnic rivalries. Beyond the symmetrical architecture of the would-be legislature with its pointed, arched windows lie the snow-covered mountains of the Hindu Kush, their imposing beauty in stark contrast to the drabness and poverty of the rapidly growing Afghan capital, their serenity a foil to the underlying fear of violence that hangs in the city like an invisible gas.

  We continue up to the top floor. An icy wind blows through the corridors where graffiti scribbled by Russian soldiers, complete with dates from the early 1980s, still marks the candy-pink and peach plasterwork. We enter what must once have been an elegant room with a view across the city. Now, it is mostly bare brickwork and open to the sky, a concave network of rusting iron hanging precariously above our heads. We crunch our way across the thin layer of snow to the half dozen or so arched windows and look out on the low-rise metropolis of four million. The hum of distant traffic, punctuated by car horns, drifts over the rooftops. I contemplate the urban sprawl that covers the valley
floor and consider how it compares to the Kabul of the era when the British East India Company army under Elphinstone made its disastrous retreat in 1842. Of the 4,500 troops who tried to reach the British garrison in Jalalabad, only one officer survived. The rest, along with some 12,000 civilians and camp followers, fell at the hands of Afghan forces led by Akbar Khan, the country’s Emir for just three years. Afghanistan, it seems, is a country nobody can subjugate. Even Alexander the Great, who founded numerous towns here, including Herat, Bagram and Kandahar, was unable to bring the fierce tribes under lasting control. Over the course of the last two hundred years, the British, the Soviets, the Americans and the British, again, have tried to hold sway over these tough people, seemingly unable to learn from past mistakes or the experience of others. I try to make sense of the mismatch between the reputation Afghans have for merciless ferocity when defending their country with the friendliness I have encountered so far.

  James says we should be on our way, bringing me out of my daydream and making me suddenly aware of the cold wind blowing in my face. I take a couple of pictures, framed by what were once windows, before turning to follow James and Taimur back through the palace. As we make our way carefully down the stairs, I ask myself what Amanullah Khan, the country’s modernising king who had the place erected during his ten-year reign, would think if he could see it today. And I wonder what my own house, built some four decades before this royal abode, will look like eighty years hence. Or if it will even be still standing.

  Back outside, the guards are keen to know if we enjoyed the visit and willingly pose for photographs in front of the rolls of defensive wire, guns in their hands, broad smiles on their faces. We thank them and head back to the van where Aasif is listening to local music on the radio. We roll back down the raised driveway, the resilience of our tinny vehicle never ceasing to amaze me as we bounce in and out of yet more potholes. Taking a swig from a bottle of water, James says we still have time to go to the Nadir Shah hill to see the kite-flying. He asks if I have read the novel The Kite Runner; I am ashamed to admit that I have not. We make our way through the city’s chaotic traffic, a mixture of small Asian cars filled with Afghans and Toyota Land Cruisers chauffeuring expats, who, I imagine, work for NGOs or donor country development agencies and are on the way to their next important meeting. Occasionally, a Hummer ploughs past, its loud horn impatiently demanding that the slow-moving mass of vehicles let it through.