Greater Province of Kabul

City of Kabul - Sar-e-Chowk Roundabout

Same Day

Leo surveyed the roundabout, one of the busiest junctions in the city. Sar-e-Chowk was much more than an intersection – it was a marketplace, not just for material goods but for an exchange of information and services. Wagons were set up around the edge of the traffic, displaying produce. Behind them were busy tea rooms populated with men perched on plastic chairs surveying the activity like lookouts on the bows of ships. Clutching glasses of tea, with cigarettes snagged between long thin fingers smouldering dangerously close to their wire-wool beards, no men had ever looked wiser. Deals were done, ideas disputed, people discussed. This was a hub – a commotion of gossip, rumour and trade churned through the population as if by the circular motion of the traffic, a hub entirely outside the Communist regime’s control with no phone lines to tap or letters to intercept.

With a calculated air of nonchalance, Leo ambled between market wagons, drifting among the hundreds of people as they headed home at the end of the day. Some were still buying, some were stopping to talk: other vendors were packing up as the daylight began to fade. He did not have long to find his target. Captain Vashchenko was fixed upon taking their prime suspect into custody today. Nara Mir’s mother had given them the name of a young man – Dost Mohammad. According to her confession, he was the principal organizing force behind the attacks. He had approached Nara’s father with news of the plan, asking them to be away on a specific date.

To the captain, speed was the priority, not prudence. Leo sensed the question of guilt was of secondary interest. There had been no serious investigation into the allegation. The bare minimum of checks had been made. The Afghan police knew very little about the man beyond the basics of his occupation. They couldn’t find a photograph among their files. Their bureaucracy was woefully undeveloped. Information was the spine of any credible authoritarian regime – a government needed to know its people. Despite the numerous shortcomings, the captain would not waiver from his determination to make an arrest within twenty-four hours of the attacks.

When Leo had opposed rushing into the market without even knowing what the suspect looked like the captain had chided him, pointing out that in Afghanistan they couldn’t behave as the KGB had done in Leo’s time, making arrests at four in the morning when everyone was asleep. It would appear to the enemy as a feminine act of deception and subterfuge. If they wanted to subdue Afghanistan they needed to demonstrate bravery, courage and audacity. Guile and slyness were vices here, not virtues. A public display of justice in one of the busiest roundabouts in the city would be a robust and proportionate response to the savagery of last night’s murders. As for the danger of resistance within the crowd, the captain did not see this as a problem. He went as far as to hope that the enemy would show themselves. Let them take up arms. They would be killed.

Without a photograph, they knew only that the suspect owned a wagon normally found at this roundabout, selling a variety of typical Afghan sweets, dried fruit and sugared and honey-coated nuts. As a suspect profile, it was one of the worst Leo had encountered. According to some, Dost Mohammad was twenty-five years old, according to others he was thirty. Since many men didn’t know how to count, an age was often chosen as a signifier of appearance. Leo would have to strike up a conversation, assess whether the man was Dost Mohammad. He was then to return to the team waiting nearby, allowing them to storm the market and make the arrest. It was presumed that no one would be suspicious of a man in green flip-flops with the telltale signs of opium use in his eyes and face. Leo wasn’t so sure.

Searching for the stall, Leo assessed the problems. It would be impossible to secure the area: there were countless exits even with a large team of reinforcements. There were many vantage points for the enemy. There might be lookouts. The suspect had been working here for many years. He knew the market dynamic, the ebb and flow of customers; he would have an instinct for when something was wrong. Leo decided to make a purchase to seem a little less out of place. One old man sold nothing but eggs, cartons stacked high. He showemarkable composure despite the frantic bustle around him threatening to bring his stock crashing to the ground. At a fruit stall Leo bought pomegranates, and was handed the thinnest of plastic bags that stretched with the weight of fruit – the last batch of the season. He’d almost completed a full circuit of the market. There was only the north end of the roundabout remaining.

He crossed the traffic, arriving at the last few stalls positioned in front of the tea rooms. There were two fold-out tables covered with steel bowls filled with pumpkin seeds, green lentils, pulses and grains. Neither man seemed remotely interested in Leo. He moved on, pausing by a wagon spread with cuts of meat. A butchered cow’s head stared into the sky, cheek populated with flies walking a sinew tightrope. Mingled with the smell of offal was something sweet and following the smell he arrived at a narrow wagon covered with wooden boxes. The boxes were like small drawers each filled with an array of sugary snacks, nuql-e-nakhud, sugar-coated chickpeas, nuql-e-badam, sugar-coated almonds, nuql-e-pistah, sugar-coated pistachio nuts. Leo didn’t look at vendor, examining the products, choosing one, before making eye contact, saying at the same time:

—Nuql-e-badam, three hundred grams.

The man was young, no older than thirty, with smart eyes. Unlike the other two men he was interested in Leo. His expression gave little away and in so doing gave everything away. The control was practised, hatred contained. He filled a paper bag with the sugar-coated almonds. Leo paid for them, reaching for his wallet, putting his pomegranates down on the edge of the wagon. The man took the money and watched as Leo moved off. There had been no opportunity to ask his name without alerting his suspicions, no way of engaging him in conversation. Leo reckoned the odds that he was the suspect were high. However, hatred of the occupation was not confined to the insurgents.

At the end of the road, some five hundred metres from the roundabout, Leo met an impatient captain. Nara was standing beside him. Leo said:

—There’s a man selling sugared almonds at the north end of the market.

—Is it him? Is it Dost Mohammad?

—I couldn’t ask his name.

—You have a sense for these things? Was it him?

Leo had worked many cases, arrested many men.

—It was probably him. Captain, I should warn you, this is going to end badly.

The captain nodded.

—But not for me.

***

Leo sat on the steps of a house, looking down at the paper bag of sticky sugar-coated almonds. A fly landed, sticking to the nuts, legs flailing, wings congealed with sugar and syrup.

The hidden troops emerged, guns ready. The captain set off, leading his team, intent on making his arrest and sending his powerful statement to the city. Leo closed his eyes, listening to the screech of the tyres, the commotion in the market. There was screaming, shouting, a mixture of Russian and Dari. Shots were fired. Leo stood up. Beside him was the figure of Nara, perhaps the loneliest-looking person he’d ever seen.

Together, they walked towards thdabout, past the blockade of soldiers, into the crowded market area, arriving at the same time as a helicopter circling low above them. The wind from its blades caught the tarpaulin tops of the market stalls and they filled out like sails. Some turned over, spilling their produce. Leo checked on the eggs. They were smashed, shell and yolk on the ground.

Leo and Nara passed through crowds of Afghans, many on their knees, hands behind their heads, gun barrels pressed against their backs. The man who’d sold him pomegranates looked up at him, full of hatred. With the invasion, Leo could no longer hold a position in the margins, ignored and irrelevant, unseen, living an invisible existence. No longer a ghost, he was the face of the occupation as much as the zealous captain.

The suspect was not dead. The Afghan and Soviet soldiers had cornered him in a space not far from a spice stall. He’d been shot in the arm: his hand was dripping blood. Nara touched Leo, remaining behind him, hidden from the suspect. Leo asked, already knowing the answer:

—Was this the man that attacked you?

She nodded.

The suspect lifted up his shirt. Several plastic bags were attached to his torso – the kind used by juice stalls. They were leaking, liquid pouring down his body, soaking his clothes. Then a spark and a flame appeared in his hand, a burning match produced from nowhere. He slapped his trousers and the material caught alight, flames spreading to his shirt, the bags ablaze. In a second he was engulfed. His beard turned to fire. His skin shrank from his bones. The pain became too much and he ran from side to side, arms flailing, flames leaping into the sky. One of the soldiers raised his gun to kill him. The captain pushed the barrel down.

—Let him burn.

The suspect burned, eventually collapsing to his knees. The flames died down, the gasoline exhausted. He continued to move, less like a human, more a smouldering corpse animated by dark magic, coming to rest under one of the tables laden with spices. The table began to cook, spice pods popping in the heat. The air reeked, burnt flesh and sumac spice. Leo’s eyes followed the unusual coloured smoke into the sky, wisps of blues and greens. At every window, as far he could see, there were faces, young boys, young men, the spectators that the captain had so eagerly wanted for the arrest.

In the tea rooms old men clutched their glasses, cigarettes between their fingers, as calm as if they’d seen this all before and were sure they would one day see it all again.