Less than an hour outside of Kabul on the way to Jalalabad, the taxi I was riding in with several others came to a halt. “What is it?” we all cried at once to the taxi driver. “Why are you stopping?”
“Police roadblock,” he replied. A policeman explained that the road to Jalalabad was closed for construction and we would have to detour through the valley. This was not good. It was late afternoon, and by the time we reached the valley, it would be dark. We all feared the officer was setting us up to be robbed.
“That way would be very dangerous,” our driver told the officer.
“It’s your choice,” he replied. “You can drive back to Kabul and try again tomorrow.”
One moment we were all terrified; the next moment we were all complaining that we did not want to spend two hours on that terrible road just to get back to where we had started. We told the driver to drive on. “If that’s what you want,” he said, “we will sit and wait.”
“Wait for what?” I asked.
“For other vehicles to arrive.”
Soon eight cars were ready to make the journey into the valley below the highway. In Afghanistan, as on the wild African plains, there is safety in numbers. After the worst journey ever, I arrived in Jalalabad.
The next morning I went to the governor’s office.
Everything about Governor Gul Agha Sherzai was thick: his eyebrows; his hair, which swooped in a semicircle over his forehead; his face, with its heavy, dark beard.
“I understand my house is ready for me,” I told him.
“Not so quick, Mr. Popal,” Sherzai replied coldly. “Tell me—why did you go above me and complain to the minister of land disputes? This is not America. You cannot just show up and demand to have someone like Hazrat Ali give up a house he occupies. You must take things slowly if you want to get your house back.”
“I know this is not America. I live in America. In America, if a government official orders something to be done, it gets done. Here I have an order from the Office of the President, and nothing has been done. Why did you tell the minister of land disputes I should come to Jalalabad if I could not get my house?”
“You have put me in a very bad position, Mr. Popal. If I do not tell the people in high positions what they want to hear, I will lose my job. And if I try to enforce this order against Hazrat Ali, we could both be killed and you will have accomplished nothing.”
“So then you lie to the government and to Hazrat Ali,” I said, losing patience.
“Give me some time to get this done peacefully, Mr. Popal. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I said. “It’s only one house. Feel sorry for Afghanistan. The Taliban have been gone for years, and the government cannot return one house to its rightful owner. How can the Afghan people trust such a government? All you do is pass around orders. How can you expect to bring change to the country when you can’t restore the ownership of one single house?”
“You cannot just come to Jalalabad and snatch your house back.”
“Snatch it back? Nay, I am not snatching anything back. You said my house was ready. I have made a very difficult journey to get it back. Nay, I will not wait any longer. I want my house returned to me now.”
“You don’t listen. I told you—you cannot rush into these things. You need to take things slowly. I tell you this for your own good.”
“Slowly! I have waited over twenty years to get my house back! Before the Russian invasion, government ministers would be insulted if their orders were ignored. They would see to it that their orders were carried out. Now government ministers have no power, and you have no power. Your only interest is in passing the problem on to someone else!”
Sherzai’s face grew redder and redder. He called out to his aide, “Close the door, and let no one enter.” Then he leaned toward me, looking as if he were about to explode. “Who do you think you are coming here from another country and giving me an order?”
“I’m not the one ordering you. The president of Afghanistan is ordering you.”
“Hazrat Ali has twenty thousand soldiers. I have only ten men. Why should I get myself killed for your house?”
“If a person attacks someone, would you sit there and do nothing because it’s too dangerous? Of course it’s dangerous. If you didn’t want a dangerous job, you shouldn’t have taken it. Now I’ll have to go to President Karzai and tell him you won’t do your job.”
I stood up to leave.
“Nay, wait, Mr. Popal,” Sherzai said, sounding conciliatory for the first time. “Hazrat Ali is the most powerful man in Jalalabad, maybe in all Afghanistan. I am only saying that you can’t go rushing in like this. You must begin like friends. Hazrat Ali’s security head, Hadji Jawid, controls your house. Let me arrange a meeting with Hadji Jawid for you. That’s what you want, right?”
“Nay, that’s not what I want. I don’t want to see Hazrat Ali. I don’t want to see Hadji Jawid. But you people give me no choice.”