Zia Rahman - In the Light of What We Know

What happened in the bar? I asked, interrupting Zafar.

I’m telling you what happened. What do you think I’m doing?

Zafar got up and walked over to the drinks cabinet and pulled out a bottle of whisky and two glasses. He set them down in front of us, poured himself a drink, and pushed the bottle toward me. I didn’t pour.

Two weeks before Kabul, in Dhaka, Dr. Hassan Kabir asked me if I’d consider accompanying him on a visit to Afghanistan; he needed someone to take notes and generally undertake tasks while there. I said I’d consider it, and he asked me to give him an answer in two days. But the following morning I received a call from his office, informing me that Dr. Kabir had been called to Geneva and New York and would be unable to make the trip to Afghanistan; also a visa had been arranged for me through the offices of the Afghani ambassador in Geneva and that arrangements for flights to Kabul had also been made. Given how keen Dr. Kabir seemed to be that I should go, I felt a refusal would have marred my relationship with him. Influential people seem to think that helping them would be an honor.

I thought you went to Afghanistan because of Emily. Didn’t you say she called you?

The call from her came the following day, but I didn’t let on that I was already set to go to Kabul for the UN rapporteur. I didn’t want to give her an excuse not to come through on her claims that there was work for me to do. I wanted to see what she would organize, what kind of introductions she’d make, if she thought I’d come to Kabul at her behest.

But why did you feel you needed to test her like this?

If she thought that I’d come to Kabul because she had wanted my help and I arrived to find there was nothing for me to do, then I’d know that she had asked me to come because she wanted to see me. How perverse is that? The idea that I could rely on her unreliability and see in it the intimation of love. Since when was unreliability a virtue? When did it ever do any good?

On the PIA connecting flight from Dubai to Islamabad, as I settled into my seat, pressed in against the window, a young man sat down beside me, tall and rather burly. Unavoidably his forearms extended over my own armrests. Mohsin Khalid introduced himself to me, at your service , in a thick Pakistani accent, and beamed from under a Red Sox cap.

Do you like flying? he asked.

Not particularly, I replied.

I hate it, he continued. Which is funny, to say the least.

I looked at him.

I climb mountains, you see. I don’t mind heights at all. But only if I can look down. Funny, isn’t it?

I smiled back at him. Would you like the window seat?

Oh, no. I need the space of an aisle seat. Besides, it’s not the same, looking out a window and looking down the side of a mountain.

I suppose it isn’t.

I climb mainly in the Karakoram, but I’ve done others. Everest, also. Always impresses the Westerners when I say that. But the idiots don’t know Everest is easy compared to K2, a climber’s mountain. You know of course that the K in K2 means Karakoram ?

I do know that, as it happens.

Of course you do. K2 is a fucker of a mountain, bhai sahib, oh, yes. Everest is bigger, but K2 is much tougher, a savage mountain any road up. But to the Western mind, big is all that counts, and the bigger the better. Americans especially. That’s all they want to know.

Did you go up from the Chinese side?

Very good. You know your geography.

I like maps.

As a matter of fact, I have climbed it from both.

Is it hard for a Pakistani to get into China — so close to the border, I mean?

In life, all things are possible. Did you know that we mountaineers have smaller amygdalae than most people and therefore have a smaller fear response?

Really?

So you know what the amygdala is, then? he asked.

Something like broccoli but in the brain, right?

I have no idea, but I think you might be right.

How do you know this about mountaineers? I asked him.

About the amygdala?

I nodded.

I read it. In one of those, those … what do they call them?

Books?

Precisely! I read it in a book. Although, as far as I can tell, everything and his uncle seems to be put at the door of the amygdala.

’Twas ever thus.

So where are you traveling to? he asked.

Same as you. Islamabad, I replied.

Of course, he chuckled. I’m sorry, I meant what is your final destination?

Kabul.

Afghanistan, the biggest mountain of all. Good luck. For whom do you work?

I trained as a lawyer.

They need lawyers?

I laughed.

I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t mean to be impertinent.

Not at all, I reassured him. You know the joke? What do you call five hundred lawyers at the bottom of a lake?

I don’t know, he replied.

A good start.

He laughed, and we passed the flight in amiable conversation. He discussed various aspects of mountaineering. I asked questions and he obliged with answers. When I asked him how he made a living at it, he explained that he didn’t.

From time to time, he said, I will guide parties on climbing expeditions. That brings in a little.

So what do you do?

I take them up. They have money and egos but no sense—

I mean, what do you do when you’re not rappelling the north face?

Ah. By day, I work in the family import-export business.

What do you import and export?

Anything. That’s the nature of the business. If we focused on one thing, we’d get caught up in someone’s supply chain and inevitably we’d get taken for a ride, and we don’t want to be held hostage, do we? So we import and export as requirements dictate.

Before we disembarked, Khalid expressed his pleasure at meeting me and gave me his business card. That might have been the last I saw of him, but half an hour later, as I emerged from the airport terminal onto a bustling outdoor concourse, where the overwhelming light had me reaching for my sunglasses, there was Khalid waving to me from the roadside. He offered me a ride to my hotel. When I explained that I had not made any reservations, he exclaimed, Oh, well! It’s settled, then. You will be my guest.

We arrived at a large house in the diplomatic enclave, below the Marghalla Hills. Mature climbers covered the walls of the building and rain had smeared the white stucco, leaving black patches and vertical runs of gray. There was nothing of the modern ostentation of houses in affluent neighborhoods in South Asia, none of the ornate iron gates or wide jutting terraces above the ground floor. Instead, the two stories of the house, its tall windows, and its aspect onto the road were all arranged, I thought, with such simplicity as to suggest that the house must once have stood in larger grounds.

The driveway took us under an archway of overhanging trees, down an incline, and around the back. The car had barely come to a stop when the door opened and an orderly addressed me. Please, sahib, he said, gesturing the way into the house. I was led through a spacious hall — it had a wide stairway — and was shown into a long, airy lounge. I saw no one else. There was an arrangement of sofas and side tables, all in cane, and some rugs, and a coffee table with a small pile of chess books. I looked for the open chess set. Tucked away in the far corner of the room, which was open to light on two sides, between two opposing chairs, was a table giving off the dull gray of cast iron. Something at the center of that table was covered in a piece of cloth embroidered with golden stitching. There was no lamp on the table, nor any nearby, and the words chess by daylight came to my mind, and the words seemed curious to me, carrying some incalculable significance.

Here and there were rugs. In the corner of one, I noticed — because I was looking for it — the tiny white square of nylon that bears washing instructions.