The Road to Jalalabad

The road to Jalalabad descends from Kabul through steep ancient rock, down, down from the winter browns and smokey fires of the capital city, curving like a serpent seeking heat, oblivious to the sheared walls of stone slabbing on one side of the bright bus and the empty drops on the other, falling away into grey nothing.

I am 16 years old and alone paralyzed with fear staring wide eyed at the frothy river tumbling glacial blue far below when the bus careens to the far side of the precipice before winding back into the shadow of the mountain face. In and out of sight I watch the river grow closer. The enormous boulders expand.

The driver is grinding the gears, his turban turning from side to side and the men are shouting to each other in Farsi while the women sit silently inside their chadors. Eyes hidden behind the tiny holes of the eye square, only their hands, hennaed and small offering any clue to the age of the inhabitant in the pleated, monocoloured shrouds. Blue, Grey, black floating wraiths and I can feel their eyes on me, curious about the white girl, wearing typical mens garb: loose brown cotton pants with an oversize shirt that comes to my knees. I can feel their shock and amusement even though I don’t understand a word of what they are saying about me.

I am on the run.

I have $100 in my pocket, a small fortune that I squeezed out of the British Consul back in Kabul. Kevin Bates was a slight man who wore suspenders and made the most of the free liquor supplied to diplomats. Perched within their immaculate mansions, thanks to servants , the British embassy preserved an air of the old Pukah sahib loftiness, meant to distance them from the dusty bowl that was Kabul and certainly from the riff raff. This is where any citizen of the commonwealth went if they were in trouble.

Trouble came in many forms when streams of unwashed travellers from every continent streamed across Asia in 1971 hunting for the adventure of a lifetime. Many found what they thought what they were looking for, often to their dismay. The manicured lawns and blindingly white pillars of the British embassy became a refuge for the sons and daughters of the middle class in England, Canada and Australia seeking help when the harsh reality of travelling unbound in this land turned dire.

I showed up at the embassy at the prodding of my first big love, Rolf.

“Shnooky, we’re broke. The British embassy can help. you have to go and get some money. You can do it.” He was beautiful to me. In the half light of the windowless room from where we rarely ventured out except to buy drugs and food. His grey eyes were large and his lips were womanly full but his expression was harder than it should have been. At the tender age of 16 the combination of an older man and the drugs he had introduced me to was enough to soften any hesitation I might have had.

We were stuck in Kabul. I met Rolf in Istanbul in the lobby of the hippy hotel where I was staying after running away from Tel Aviv, where I had family and was supposed to be working on a kibbutz like a good little Jewish girl. But this wild child with large breasts and torn jeans was not what my aunt and uncle were expecting when I was shipped over for a year to find my roots.

Kibbutz! I loved the word and wanted to be part of the flood of young Jews from around the globe. Get tanned, fit and finally feel like I was part of something. Anything.

Dirty and stoned I trundled off to a part of the city that was definitely not familiar to me. Rolf and I have been living in a mud room with a mud yard and a filthy shared toilet that required buckets of water. The British embassy was in a neighbourhood that was clean and expansive. The building was gleaming alabaster and every blade of grass stood at attention. I expected to be shooed away as I walked up the circular pathway. The Afghani gardener and the chaffeurs lounging next to the gleaming Mercedes stopped and watched me, but my foreign appearance gave me carte blanche. Never mind that my hair was a matted nest and crawling with lice. Never mind that there were scabs on my arms and legs from scratching and that my gut was riddled with amoebas and I was shitting blood. I had no money, no ticket, no sense of who I had been just a few months earlier but I was white and Canadian.

They ushered me in through the portals of the first world where I waited for my appointment with fate.

“Miss Klein! Lovely to meet you. Please sit..sit.” His eyes glittered unnaturally.

I sink into the large leather chair and look at the little man across the expanse of his immaculate desk. He opens a drawer and pulls out a silver cigarette box, flips it open and offers me a Rothmans. They are a luxury item in this dirty town of beggars and broke foreigners who lost their identity somewhere between Tehran and Dehli. The hippy trail that the entitled children of the middle class from every corner of the recovered world was created by the busloads of sandal clad backpackers who did not have a clue about the world they found themselves gorging on.

“I don’t smoke.”

He stared at me as if he did not believe this claim of healthy living on my part, especially considering the state of my dress and hygiene.

“Well, then, how about a little whiskey. This is the good stuff.” He produced a bottle of Johnny Walker. The golden liquid glowed in the sunlight that filtered through the wooden slats cascading down the long windows. I was not a drinker. I shook my head.

“Well you wont mind if I indulge?” without waiting for an answer he poured himself a glass and sipped. “Ah, that’s nice. Sure?” He smiled hopefully.

“No thank you.” I dug my dirty nails into my palms. I just needed him to give me some money so that I could return to my cave with Rolf.

“Well, Miss Klein, how can I help you?” He was smiling more than ever and leaning back in his buttery chair. He seemed to be enjoying his drink and my company.

“I want to leave this place. My father is in Israel waiting for me. I can meet up with him and he will take me home.”

He gave a slight shake of his head, “Yes, we have received telegrams from the embassy in Israel. Your father is desperately looking for you. You are a naughty girl, aren’t you?”

My nails were making half moon craters in the palms, like an SOS to myself.

“Actually you are quite famous Miss Klein. “ He pulled a paper from and sort of waved it towards me. “It seems that Interpol is looking for you.”

My heart began to hammer. Damn. I was hoping that he did not know about that yet. The blue paper tacked on the bulletin board of the cafeteria in the ministry of foreign affairs.

It came in a dream, in the stupor of the morphine night as I slept beside my first love, the candles guttering on plates around us. I dreamed that I was walking to the bulletin board in the cafeteria and my eye caught a light blue square announcement.

Attention: INTERPOL is searching for Gabriella Klein, a Canadian citizen. If anybody knows her whereabouts please contact us immediately.

I woke up drenched in sweat but I didn’t say anything. We had enough trouble on our plates and as a 16 year old who was sure that our love was different from anyone elses I tried to be compliant.

A couple of days later we were hungry and made our way to the busy side of town. We walked almost everywhere despite the cheap fares for the busses. They were always crammed with bodies in flowing clothes and prayers painted in brilliant colours matched the loud honking and shouting. It was a cacophony of sight and sound that entranced me despite the guard I had to keep up at all times as a young nonbeliever female. I was basically regarded as sub human.

A trip to the cafeteria was a treat. We loaded up our plates in a large noisy auditorium and sat down to wolf our food down. It would all come out in a few hours after we had our shots. Vomit and diarrhea was a daily occurrence.

As we were leaving I found myself gravitating towards a bulletin board on the wall and there it was, just like in my dream. Blue, square and my name typed front and centre, just like my vision, because I no longer thought of it as a dream. It was a message from my parents, a plea to go home: to clean up and come to my senses. The breath left my body. This could not be. I told Rolf and we both stared slack jawed at the evidence that I was a wanted fugitive and then we hurried out, like scuttling rats.