The German consulate called Abbas and told him to come to the consulate to apply for his passport and visa. Abbas made one last attempt to convince me to go with him, but I stood firm.
The next day the two of us made the four-hour bus ride to Islamabad, over an undulating ribbon of highway bordered by farmlands. Islamabad is literally a city of the twentieth century. Unlike the cities in Afghanistan and the other cities in Pakistan whose histories extend back thousands of years, Islamabad was built after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. The new Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Land of the Paki—those who are spiritually pure) wanted a capital city that would reflect the central role of Islam in their country. The government chose to build the new capital, Islamabad (City of Islam), on a broad, flat plain near the foothills of the Himalayas, far from the coast (which was vulnerable to attack from the Arabian Sea) and far away from Karachi’s summer weather, which was unbearably hot and steamy. Islamabad’s climate was mild year round. The new capital was close to Rawalpindi, home to Pakistan’s military. From the very beginning the military and civilian governments constantly battled each other for control, the military often taking power by force.
We were impressed by Islamabad’s broad, well-organized, clean streets, which had been constructed in a grid pattern—a complete contrast to Kabul, Jalalabad, and Quetta. Most people in Islamabad worked for the government, making Islamabad a prosperous city, full of trees and well-built homes. It was a world completely apart geographically and every other way from the Pashtun tribal lands to the west that lie beneath towering snowcapped mountains.
A clerk at the German consulate welcomed Abbas and took his papers.
“Go over there and get your photograph taken,” he said. “We’ll call you in a few days when your passport and visa are ready.”
With German efficiency, the documents were ready two days later. Abbas was anxious to depart. As soon as we left the consulate, we took a taxi to Rawalpindi, where he could get a train to Karachi for his flight to Germany. I could not remember seeing him so happy.
“I’m glad for you, Abbas,” I told him just before the train left. “I owe you my life and wish you only the best.”
“Come to Germany, Bar,” Abbas said. “You know you don’t want to stay here. Trying to go elsewhere is just a waste of time. I’ll take care of all the paperwork in Germany and call you.”
“That would be good.” I lied.
Abbas looked at me, perhaps, like me, wondering if it would be for the last time. He broke the silence. “Remember, Bar, this is a dangerous world. Don’t trust anyone. The Pakistanis are as bad as the Russians.”
I left Dr. Ahmad’s house early each morning, taking an auto rickshaw to downtown Peshawar. I spent my days among other Afghan refugees in the Sadar Bazaar, a long stretch of three-story buildings with small shops on the ground floor. The noise of auto rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, and buses mixing with the constant din of shoppers and merchants in that canyon of a space was deafening.
At a restaurant where refugees like me gathered hoping to find some way out, some way to get a visa to another country, we talked endlessly about what to do and got nowhere. But breaking bread and drinking green tea with fellow Afghans made my situation bearable.
When I heard it might be possible to get a visa at the Indian consulate, I decided to try. The consulate was packed with so many people seeking visas, it seemed that every Afghan refugee in Peshawar was there. After hours of waiting in line, I handed the clerk my passport. “I cannot issue you a visa,” he said. “Next!”
“Why?” I asked.
“You have no entry stamp. You are here illegally. Next!”
“There are four million Afghan refugees in your country,” I said loudly. “Do you think they all have entry stamps?”
“You should have stayed in Afghanistan,” he said, then added in a softer tone, “Please don’t blame me. I’m only a clerk. India does not want to deal with four million war refugees.”
The next day at the restaurant, one of the men asked me if I had registered as a refugee. When I said I hadn’t, he told me I needed to. “It’s the first step to getting a visa—or at least having your application considered by a consulate,” he said. “The United Nations aid office will help you apply for a visa and give you money.”
The United Nations Humanitarian Aid Office was a huge one-story concrete building with a yard the size of a large field. Even though I arrived early, five or six hundred Afghan refugees were already lined up outside, talking and shouting. After we waited for several hours, a man came walking down the line. “Anyone who can read and write, go to that line,” he said, pointing.
Only fifty or sixty of those hundreds followed him. At the new line the man said, “Those who can speak a foreign language, go over there.” Only five of us left. At a table a man pressed my thumb onto an ink pad and rolled it onto the page of a book. He handed me food coupons and money and directed me into the building.
“What languages do you speak?” a woman behind the desk asked me in Dari.
“English and a little Pashto.”
“Wonderful! Would you like a job?” she said in English. When I heard these words, I thought my English was not as good as I thought. Surely she had not just offered me work. When I did not respond right away, she repeated the question more slowly.
“Baleh—yes, that would be very good,” I said.
“Go talk to those men,” she said, indicating three middle-aged men dressed in slacks and short-sleeved shirts. “They are reporters looking for an English translator.”
Two of the men had light complexions and hair, the third, shorter and darker, wore gold wire-rimmed glasses. All had thin faces and beards. Expensive-looking cameras with long lenses hung from the necks of two of them. I took a deep breath and introduced myself. It had been a long time since I’d spoken English.
“Hello. My name is Baryalai Popal. You are in need of a translator?”
“Jones,” one of the blond men said with authority, extending his hand. He spoke with an Australian accent, which I found difficult to understand. “We’re headed across the border into Afghanistan—not very deep. We just want to take some pictures.”
Afghanistan! This I had never considered. The thought of returning gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Afghanistan . . . ,” I muttered.
They stared at me, waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t.