Uzma Khan - Thinner Than Skin

“Who’s that?” we asked.

“Our armed escort.”

I laughed. “ That ?”

“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you. He’s a relative of Maryam’s, he’s from Kaghan, and he’s coming with us. Now we’re ready.”

I’m sure I climbed into the jeep with an open mouth.

We were packed inside again, six of us now. The escort sat in the boot. When I looked back at his friend riding away on the motorcycle, I saw Naked Mountain, his jagged torso hovering just beyond my shoulder, following the bend of the road.

We were entering disputed territory. Wes and Farhana had to register at every checkpoint. It was a repeat of the inspections on the road to Kaghan, except here there were even more. At least we were in a private vehicle and wouldn’t trouble an entire bus with the stops. But if before Farhana had been testy and Wes congenial, now it was the opposite. Perhaps she was making him sleep on the floor.

After the first stop, on returning to our jeep, Wes faced us from the passenger seat. “We are in Kashmir?”

“Yes,” answered Irfan.

“We’ve left Pakistan?”

“In a sense.”

“And yet you don’t need a visa? It’s us who are checked, by Pakistani soldiers.”

“It’s for your own safety,” said Irfan.

“Yeah, you said that already.”

After a while, he added, “So, will this ever be part of Pakistan?”

“We can hope. But not till India holds a plebiscite in Kashmir.”

“It won’t happen. Your country’s wasting itself on a war you lost long ago.”

“That is not how we see it.”

“India has a lot of friends.”

“It has the most important one.” After a heavy beat, Irfan added, “Though it’s us who fight its wars.”

It was the first time Irfan had let himself be provoked, at least in my presence. They continued arguing, Wes saying, “It’s a democracy,” and Irfan insisting, “Third-world military dictators are especially popular with free-world democracies .”

Nur Shah, who till our stop at the petroglyphs had been quiet, now turned his attention to me. “First time?”

“No, I’ve been here before.”

“It’s my first time,” said Farhana.

He said, in English, “Welcome.”

It was not something we’d heard in Kaghan Valley.

“Where are you going, after Gilgit?” he asked, in Urdu again.

In a mix of Urdu and English Farhana told him she’d come to study glaciers. He seemed unsurprised. “People come here for all reasons,” he declared. He then asked if she knew that 25 percent of the Karakorams were under ice.

She laughed. “Of course I know.”

“There are thousands of glaciers,” he said.

“Well, hundreds.”

“I can take you.”

“Thank you.”

“But not to Siachen.”

She kept laughing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her so gay.

Nur Shah knew not only glaciers. He knew stories and, at least at first, how to share them to dissipate the tension in the jeep. Originally from Hunza, he’d moved to Gilgit soon after the Karakoram Highway was built and claimed that, as a child, he was “best of friends” with the grandson of the Mir of Hunza. This Mir had famously joined the struggle for the creation of Pakistan, and, according to Nur Shah, it was the Mir’s unique way of training his men that won us independence from Hindustan.

The Mir’s way was indeed unique. The officers of the Eskimo Force had to plunge their hands in the icy Hunza River for hours at a time and wade through ice sheets without shoes. “They had skin as thick as a glacier,” he looked at Farhana. Perhaps each time he made her laugh, he counted additional rupees. “It was an old technique,” he continued. “Before the freedom fight, it toughened men for raiding caravans passing from Kashmir to Yarkand. You know Yarkand? In Chinese Turkestan? On the Silk Road?”

Farhana smiled.

“The Hunzakuts would walk on ice to reach the highest mountaintops, then pounce down on the enemy on the Silk Road and take his food and weapons. Later, they used the same skill to pounce down on soldiers in Kargil.”

Farhana stifled a yawn.

Still the driver continued. “In Kargil, the Eskimo Force joined up with the Ibex Force. You know the Ibex Force?”

“No,” said Farhana.

“The Tiger Force?”

“No.”

“You do not know the Tiger Force — sahib?” He looked at me.

“No.”

“They would advance while growling like tigers, keeping the Indian Force away.”

Farhana started laughing.

“Millions of men growling is nothing to laugh about, baji,” Nur Shah said softly.

“And what did the Ibex Force do?” she cleared her throat.

“It hopped.”

Before she could laugh again Irfan motioned to her to stop. He whispered that it would be very rude to insult what was a well-documented strategy, and a source of pride.

She whispered back, “Do we need your permission to laugh now?”

Nur Shah whispered, “Many Pakistanis do not know their own history.”

From the boot of the jeep, we heard a cough. Our man from Kaghan, Maryam’s relative. He’d been so silent since joining us I’d almost forgotten him. Next to me Irfan whispered in English that this was the “concession” he’d made Maryam’s family, in addition to the payment, in order for us to proceed peacefully on our journey after Kiran’s death. He added, “You’ve no idea how lengthy the monetary negotiations were. Agreeing on the escort was the easy part.” I would have to ask him for details later.

As Nur Shah continued to recount stories in praise of Hunzakuts, the escort muttered what sounded a lot like, Tell this son-of-an-owl to shut up . He sat hunched over an automatic weapon, knocking his head into the roof each time we hit a pothole, which was often. Irfan patted his shoulder and the man made a sound a tiger might make as he stifled a growl. If a million men were to growl like him, it might well encourage an army’s retreat.

It was raining when we arrived in Gilgit, the largest town we’d seen since leaving Islamabad over a week ago. It was crowded, and the army was everywhere, in part to contain the not infrequent Shia — Sunni squabbles that erupted here.

In our hotel room, Irfan told me that our escort’s black mood had in part to do with his distaste for the Shias of Gilgit, though differences transcended lines of sect. No matter how settled they might be today, the Gujjars who likely came down from the Central Asian steppe thousands of years ago would always be considered grazers .

“So why did he come?”

“He has work.”

“What work?”

“Trade. What else have people ever done here?”

We took turns in the shower (hot, thankfully) before joining Wes at the restaurant. Farhana had gone for a walk, with the driver, in the rain.

Wes had already ordered food. Wet hair lay flat across his forehead and a line of moisture trickled down his temple. Irfan and I had dried our hair vigorously with towels before stepping into the chilly evening. It was a difference I’d noted to Farhana once, soon after we’d met. Pakistanis avoided combining wet hair with cold air, believing it a recipe for sickness. Americans didn’t. Farhana didn’t.

Whether he was courting a cold or not, with the arrival of the meal of spinach, mutton korma, and pilau, Wes’s spirits revived. “Simple and great,” he announced to the three waiters who topped his glass of water after every sip, proffered fresh naan before the one on his plate could grow cold, and apologized when his napkin fell off his lap.

The naan came wrapped in newspaper written in a script that was neither English nor Urdu. I asked one of our waiters where it was from.