"Yes, awake."
"I have something to tell you. I got married."
Mortenson heard a click, then squinted into the beam of the flashlight he"d just brought from America for his friend. Twaha sat up next to him, studying his face under the novel electric light to see if he was joking.
Then the flashlight fell to the ground and Mortenson felt a sharp flurry of fists pummeling his arms and shoulders in congratulations. Twaha collapsed on his pile of bedding with a happy sigh. "Haji Ali say Doctor Greg look different this time," Twaha said, laughing. "He really know everything." He switched the flashlight experimentally off and on. "Can I know her good name?"
"Tara."
"Ta... ra," Twaha said, weighing the name, the Urdu word for star, on his tongue. "She is lovely, your Tara?"
"Yes," Mortenson said, feeling himself blush. "Lovely."
"How many goat and ram you must give her father?" Twaha asked.
"Her father is dead, like mine," Mortenson said. "And in America, we don"t pay a bride price."
"Did she cry when she left her mother?"
"She only told her mother about me after we were married."
Twaha fell silent for a moment, considering the exotic matrimonial customs of Americans.
Mortenson had been invited to dozens of weddings since he"d first arrived in Pakistan. The details of Balti nuptials varied from village to village, but the central feature of each ceremony he"d witnessed remained much the same-the anguish of the bride at leaving her family forever.
"Usually at a wedding, there"s a solemn point when you"ll see the bride and her mother clinging to each other, crying," Mortenson says. "The groom"s father piles up sacks of flour and bags of sugar, and promises of goats and rams, while the bride"s father folds his arms and turns his back, demanding more. When he considers the price fair, he turns around and nods. Then all h.e.l.l breaks loose. I"ve seen men in the groom"s family literally trying to pry the bride and her mother apart with all their strength, while the women scream and wail. If a bride leaves an isolated village like Korphe, she knows she may never see her family again."
The next morning, Mortenson found a precious boiled egg on his plate, next to his usual breakfast of chapatti chapatti and and la.s.si la.s.si. Sakina grinned proudly at him from the doorway to her kitchen. Haji Ali peeled the egg for Mortenson and explained. "So you"ll be strong enough to make many children," he said, while Sakina giggled behind her shawl.
Haji Ali sat patiently at his side until Mortenson finished a second cup of milk tea. A grin smoldered, then ignited at the center of his thick beard. "Let"s go build a school," he said.
Haji Ali climbed to his roof and called for all the men of Korphe to a.s.semble at the local mosque. Mortenson, carrying five shovels he had recovered from Changazi"s derelict hotel, followed Haji Ali down muddy alleys toward the mosque, as men streamed out of every doorway.
Korphe"s mosque had adapted to a changing environment over the centuries, much like the people who filled it with their faith. The Balti, lacking a written language, compensated by pa.s.sing down exacting oral history. Every Balti could recite their ancestry, stretching back ten to twenty generations. And everyone in Korphe knew the legend of this listing wooden building b.u.t.tressed with earthern walls. It had stood for nearly five hundred years, and had served as a Buddhist temple before Islam had established a foothold in Baltistan.
For the first time since he"d arrived in Korphe, Mortenson stepped through the gate and set foot inside. During his visits he had kept respectful distance from the mosque, and Korphe"s religious leader, Sher Takhi. Mortenson was unsure how the mullah felt about having an infidel in the village, an infidel who proposed to educate Korphe"s girls. Sher Takhi smiled at Mortenson and led him to a prayer mat at the rear of the room. He was thin and his beard was peppered with gray. Like most Balti living in the mountains, he looked decades older than his forty-odd years.
Sher Takhi, who called Korphe"s widely dispersed faithful to prayer five times a day without the benefit of amplification, filled the small room with his booming voice. He led the men in a special dua, dua, asking Allah"s blessing and guidance as they began work on the school. Mortenson prayed as the tailor had taught him, folding his arms and bending at the waist. Korphe"s men held their arms stiffly at their sides and pressed themselves almost p.r.o.ne against the ground. The tailor had instructed him in the Sunni way of prayer, Mortenson realized. asking Allah"s blessing and guidance as they began work on the school. Mortenson prayed as the tailor had taught him, folding his arms and bending at the waist. Korphe"s men held their arms stiffly at their sides and pressed themselves almost p.r.o.ne against the ground. The tailor had instructed him in the Sunni way of prayer, Mortenson realized.
A few months earlier, Mortenson had read in the Islamabad papers about Pakistan"s latest wave of Sunni-Shiite violence. A Skardu-bound bus had pa.s.sed through the Indus Gorge on its way up the Karakoram Highway. Just past Chilas, a Sunni-dominated region, a dozen masked men armed with Kalashnikovs blocked the road and forced the pa.s.sengers out. They separated the Shia from the Sunni and cut the throats of eighteen Shia men while their wives and children were made to watch. Now he was praying like a Sunni at the heart of Shiite Pakistan. Among the warring sects of Islam, Mortenson knew, men had been killed for less.
"I was torn between trying quickly to learn how to pray like a Shia and making the most of my opportunity to study the ancient Buddhist woodcarvings on the walls," Mortenson says. If the Balti respected Buddhism enough to practice their austere faith alongside extravagant Buddhist swastikas and wheels of life, Mortenson decided, as his eyes lingered on the carvings, they were probably tolerant enough to endure an infidel praying as a tailor had taught him.
Haji Ali provided the string this time. It was locally woven twine, not blue and red braided cord. With Mortenson, he measured out the correct lengths, dipped the twine in a mixture of calcium and lime, then used the village"s time-tested method to mark the dimensions of a construction site. Haji Ali and Twaha pulled the cord taut and whipped it against the ground, leaving white lines on the packed earth where the walls of the school would stand. Mortenson pa.s.sed out the five shovels and he and fifty other men took turns digging steadily all afternoon until they had hollowed out a trench, three feet wide and three feet deep, around the school"s perimeter.
When the trench was done, Haji Ali nodded toward two large stones that had been carved for this purpose, and six men lifted them, shuffled agonizingly toward the trench, and lowered them into the corner of the foundation facing Korphe K2. Then he called for the chogo rabak. chogo rabak.
Twaha strode seriously away and returned with a ma.s.sive ash-colored animal with n.o.bly curving horns. "Usually you have to drag a ram to make it move," Mortenson says. "But this was the village"s number-one ram. It was so big that it was dragging Twaha, who was doing his best just to hold on as the animal led him to its own execution."
Twaha halted the rabak rabak over the cornerstone and grasped its horns. Gently, he turned the animal"s head toward Mecca as Sher Takhi chanted the story of Allah asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, before allowing him to subst.i.tute a ram after he pa.s.sed his test of loyalty. In the Koran, the story appears in much the same manner as the covenant of Abraham and Isaac does in the Torah and the Bible. "Watching this scene straight out of the Bible stories I"d learned in Sunday school," Mortenson says, "I thought how much the different faiths had in common, how you could trace so many of their traditions back to the same root." over the cornerstone and grasped its horns. Gently, he turned the animal"s head toward Mecca as Sher Takhi chanted the story of Allah asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, before allowing him to subst.i.tute a ram after he pa.s.sed his test of loyalty. In the Koran, the story appears in much the same manner as the covenant of Abraham and Isaac does in the Torah and the Bible. "Watching this scene straight out of the Bible stories I"d learned in Sunday school," Mortenson says, "I thought how much the different faiths had in common, how you could trace so many of their traditions back to the same root."
Hussain, an accomplished climbing porter with the build of a Balti-sized sumo wrestler, served as the village executioner. Baltoro porters were paid per twenty-five-kilogram load. Hussain was famous for hauling triple loads on expeditions, never carrying fewer than seventy kilograms, or nearly 150 pounds, at a time. He drew a sixteen-inch knife from its sheath and laid it lightly against the hair bristling on the ram"s throat. Sher Takhi raised his hands, palms up, over the rabak rabak"s head and requested Allah"s permission to take its life. Then he nodded to the man holding the quivering knife.
Hussain braced his feet and drove the blade cleanly through the ram"s windpipe, then on into the jugular vein. Hot blood fountained out, spattering the cornerstones, then tapered to pulses that slowed with the final thrusts of the animal"s heart. Grunting with effort, Hussain sawed through the spinal cord, and Twaha held the head aloft by its horns. Mortenson stared at the animal"s eyes, and they stared back, no less lifeless than they had been before Hussain wielded his knife.
The women prepared rice and dal dal while the men skinned and butchered the ram. "We didn"t get anything else done that day," Mortenson says. "In fact we hardly got anything else done that fall. Haji Ali was in a hurry to sanctify the school, but not to build it. We just had a ma.s.sive feast. For people who may only get meat a few times a year, that meal was a much more serious business than a school." while the men skinned and butchered the ram. "We didn"t get anything else done that day," Mortenson says. "In fact we hardly got anything else done that fall. Haji Ali was in a hurry to sanctify the school, but not to build it. We just had a ma.s.sive feast. For people who may only get meat a few times a year, that meal was a much more serious business than a school."
Every resident of Korphe got a share of the meat. After the last bone had been beaten and the last strip of marrow sucked dry, Mortenson joined a group of men who built a fire by what would one day soon, he hoped, become the courtyard of a completed school. As the moon rose over Korphe K2, they danced around the fire and taught Mortenson verses from the great Himalayan Epic of Gezar, beloved across much of the roof of the world, and introduced him to their inexhaustible supply of Balti folk songs.
Together, the Balti and the big American danced like dervishes and sang of feuding alpine kingdoms, of the savagery of Pathan warriors pouring in from Afghanistan, and battles between the Balti rajas and the strange European conquerors who came first from the West in the time of Alexander, and then, attended by their Gurkha hirelings, from British India to the south and east. Korphe"s women, accustomed by now to the infidel among them, stood at the edge of the firelight, their faces glowing, as they clapped and sang along with their men.
The Balti had a history, a rich tradition, Mortenson realized. The fact that it wasn"t written down didn"t make it any less real. These faces ringing the fire didn"t need to be taught so much as they needed help. And the school was a place where they could help themselves. Mortenson studied the construction site. It was little more than a shallow ditch spattered with ram"s blood. He might not accomplish much more before returning home to Tara, but during that night of dancing, the school reached critical ma.s.s in his mind-it became real to him. He could see the completed building standing before him as clearly as Korphe K2, lit by the waxing moon. Mortenson turned back to face the fire.
Tara Bishop"s landlord refused to let the couple move into her comfortable converted garage apartment, so Mortenson hauled the few of his wife"s possessions that would fit to his rented room at Dudzinski"s and filled his storage s.p.a.ce with the rest of them. Seeing her books and lamps nestling against his father"s carved ebony elephants, Mortenson felt their lives intertwining as the elephants did-tusk to tail, lamp cord to milk crate.
Tara withdrew enough from the small inheritance her father had left her to buy a queen-sized futon, which swallowed much of the floor s.p.a.ce in their small bedroom. Mortenson marveled at the positive effects marriage had on his life. For the first time since coming to California, he moved out of his sleeping bag and into a bed. And for the first time in years, he had someone with whom he could discuss the odyssey he"d been on since he first set foot in Korphe.
"The more Greg talked about his work, the more I realized how lucky I was," Tara says. "He was so pa.s.sionate about Pakistan, and that pa.s.sion spilled over into everything else he did."
Jean h.o.e.rni marveled at Mortenson"s pa.s.sion for the people of the Karakoram, too. He invited Mortenson and Bishop to spend Thanksgiving in Seattle. h.o.e.rni and his wife, Jennifer Wilson, served a meal so extravagant that it reminded Mortenson of the banquets he"d been fed in Baltistan, during the tug-of war for the school. h.o.e.rni was keen to hear every detail and Mortenson described the abductions by jeep, the duplicate dinner in Khane, the entire yak Changazi had served in Kuardu, and then brought him up to the present. He left his own food untouched, describing the groundbreaking at the Korphe School, the slaughter of the chogo rabak, chogo rabak, and the long night of fire and dancing. and the long night of fire and dancing.
That Thanksgiving, Mortenson had much to be thankful for. "Listen," h.o.e.rni said, as they settled before a fire with oversized goblets of red wine. "You love what you"re doing in the Himalaya and it doesn"t sound like you"re too bad at it. Why don"t you make a career? The children of those other village that try to bribe you need schools, too. And no one in the mountaineering world is going to lift a finger to help the Muslims. They have too many Sherpa and Tibetans, too many Buddhists, on the brain. What if I endowed a foundation and made you the director? You could build a school every year. What do you say?"
Mortenson squeezed his wife"s hand. The idea felt so right that he was afraid to say anything. Afraid h.o.e.rni might change his mind. He sipped his wine.
That winter, Tara Bishop became pregnant. With a child on the way, Witold Dudzinski"s smoke-filled apartment looked increasingly unsuitable. Tara"s mother, Lila Bishop, heard glowing reports about Mortenson"s character from her contacts in the mountaineering world and invited the couple to visit her graceful arts and crafts home in the historic heart of Bozeman, Montana. Mortenson took immediately to the rustic town, at the foot of the wild Gallatin Range. He felt that Berkeley belonged to the climbing life he"d already left behind. Lila Bishop offered to loan them enough money for a down payment to buy a small house nearby.
In early spring, Mortenson closed the door on Berkeley Self-Storage stall 114 for the last time and drove to Montana with his wife in a U-Haul truck. They moved into a neat bungalow two blocks from Bishop"s mother. It had a deep, fenced yard where children could play, far from the secondhand smoke of Polish handymen and gangs of fourteen-year-olds wielding guns.
In May 1996, when Mortenson filled out his arrival forms at the Islamabad airport, his pen hovered unfamiliarly over the box for "occupation." For years he"d written "climber." This time he scrawled in his messy block printing "Director, Central Asia Inst.i.tute." h.o.e.rni had suggested the name. The scientist envisioned an operation that could grow as fast as one of his semiconductor companies, spreading to build schools and other humanitarian projects beyond Pakistan, across the mult.i.tude of " "stans" that spilled across the unraveling routes of the Silk Road. Mortenson wasn"t so sure. He"d had too much trouble getting one school off the ground to think on h.o.e.rni"s scale. But he had a yearly salary of $21,798 he could count on and a mandate to start thinking long-term.
From Skardu, Mortenson sent a message to Mouzafer"s village offering him steady wages if he"d come to Korphe and help with the school. He also visited Ghulam Parvi before he set off "upside." Parvi lived in a lushly planted neighborhood in Skardu"s southern hills. His walled compound sat next to an ornate mosque he had helped to build on land his father had donated. Over tea in Parvi"s courtyard, surrounded by blooming apple and apricot trees, Mortenson laid out his modest plan for the future-finish the Korphe School and build another school somewhere in Baltistan the following year-and asked Parvi to be part of it. As authorized by h.o.e.rni, he offered Parvi a small salary to supplement his income as an accountant. "I could see the greatness of Greg"s heart right away," Parvi says. "We both wanted the same things for Baltistan"s children. How could I refuse such a man?"
With Makhmal, a skilled mason whom Parvi introduced him to in Skardu, Mortenson arrived at Korphe on a Friday afternoon. Walking over the new bridge to the village, Mortenson was surprised to see a dozen Korphe women strolling toward him turned out in their finest shawls and the dress shoes they wore only on special occasions. They bowed to him in welcome, before hurrying on to visit their families in neighboring villages for Juma, Juma, the holy day. "Now that they could be back in the same afternoon, Korphe"s women started regular Friday visits to their families," Mortenson explains. "The bridge strengthened the village"s maternal ties, and made the women feel a whole lot happier and less isolated. Who knew that something as simple as a bridge could empower women?" the holy day. "Now that they could be back in the same afternoon, Korphe"s women started regular Friday visits to their families," Mortenson explains. "The bridge strengthened the village"s maternal ties, and made the women feel a whole lot happier and less isolated. Who knew that something as simple as a bridge could empower women?"
On the far bank of the Braldu, Haji Ali stood, sculpted as always, to the highest point on the precipice. Flanked by Twaha and Jahan, he welcomed his American son back with a bear hug and warmly greeted the guest he"d brought from the big city.
Mortenson was delighted to see his old friend Mouzafer standing shyly behind Haji Ali. He too hugged Mortenson, then held his hand to his heart in respect as they pulled apart to look at each other. Mouzafer appeared to have aged dramatically since Mortenson had seen him last and looked unwell.
"Yong chiina yot?" Mortenson said, concerned, offering the traditional Balti greeting. "How are you?" Mortenson said, concerned, offering the traditional Balti greeting. "How are you?"
"I was fine that day, all thanks to Allah," Mouzafer says, speaking a decade later, in the soft cadences of an old man going deaf. "Just a little tired." As Mortenson learned that night over a meal of dal dal and rice at Haji Ali"s, Mouzafer had just completed a heroic eighteen days. A landslide had once again blocked the only track from Skardu to Korphe, and Mouzafer, freshly returned from a 130-mile round trip on the Baltoro with a j.a.panese expedition, had led a small party of porters, carrying ninety-pound bags of cement eighteen miles upriver to Korphe. A slight man then in his mid-sixties, Mouzafer had made more than twenty trips bearing his heavy load, skipping meals and walking day and night so that the cement would be at the building site in time for Mortenson"s arrival. and rice at Haji Ali"s, Mouzafer had just completed a heroic eighteen days. A landslide had once again blocked the only track from Skardu to Korphe, and Mouzafer, freshly returned from a 130-mile round trip on the Baltoro with a j.a.panese expedition, had led a small party of porters, carrying ninety-pound bags of cement eighteen miles upriver to Korphe. A slight man then in his mid-sixties, Mouzafer had made more than twenty trips bearing his heavy load, skipping meals and walking day and night so that the cement would be at the building site in time for Mortenson"s arrival.
"When I first met Mr. Greg Mortenson on the Baltoro, he was a very friendly talking lad," Mouzafer says, "always joking and sharing his heart with the poor person like the porters. When I lost him and thought he might die out on the ice, I was awake all night, praying to Allah that I might be allowed to save him. And when I found him again, I promised to protect him forever with all my strength. Since then he has given much to the Balti. I am poor, and can only offer him my prayer. Also the strength of my back. This I gladly gave so he could build his school. Later, when I returned to my home village after the time carrying concrete, my wife looked at my small face and said, "What happened to you? Were you in prison?" " Mouzafer says with a rasping laugh.
The next morning, before first light, Mortenson paced back and forth on Haji Ali"s roof. He was here as the director of an organization now. He had wider responsibilities than just one school in one isolated village. The faith Jean h.o.e.rni had invested in him lay heavy on his broad shoulders, and he was determined that there would be no more interminable meetings and banquets; he would drive the construction swiftly to completion.
When the village gathered by the construction site, Mortenson met them, plumb line, level, and ledger in hand. "Getting the construction going was like conducting an orchestra," Mortenson says. "First we used dynamite to blast the large boulders into smaller stones. Then we had dozens of people snaking through the chaos like a melody, carrying the stones to the masons. Then Makhmal the mason would form the stones into amazingly regular bricks with just a few blows from his chisel. Groups of women carried water from the river, which they mixed with cement in large holes we"d dug in the ground. Then masons would trowel on cement, and lay the bricks in slowly rising rows. Finally, dozens of village children would dart in, wedging slivers of stone into the c.h.i.n.ks between bricks."
"We were all very excited to help," says Hussein the teacher"s daughter Tahira, who was then ten years old. "My father told me the school would be something very special, but I had no idea then what a school was, so I came to see what everyone was so excited about, and to help. Everyone in my family helped."
"Doctor Greg brought books from his country," says Haji Ali"s granddaughter Jahan, then nine, who would one day graduate with Tahira in the Korphe School"s first cla.s.s. "And they had pictures of schools in them, so I had some idea what we were hoping to build. I thought Doctor Greg was very distinguished with his clean clothes. And the children in the pictures looked very clean also. And I remember thinking, if I go to his school, maybe one day I can become distinguished, too." schools in them, so I had some idea what we were hoping to build. I thought Doctor Greg was very distinguished with his clean clothes. And the children in the pictures looked very clean also. And I remember thinking, if I go to his school, maybe one day I can become distinguished, too."
All through June, the school walls rose steadily, but with half the construction crew missing on any given day as they left to tend their crops and animals, it progressed too slowly for Mortenson"s liking. "I tried to be a tough but fair taskmaster," Mortenson says. "I spent all day at the construction site, from sunrise to sunset, using my level to make sure the walls were even and my plumb line to check that they were standing straight. I always had my notebook in my hand, and kept my eyes on everyone, anxious to account for every rupee. I didn"t want to disappoint Jean h.o.e.rni, so I drove people hard."
One clear afternoon at the beginning of August, Haji Ali tapped Mortenson on the shoulder at the construction site and asked him to take a walk. The old man led the former climber uphill for an hour, on legs still strong enough to humble the much younger man. Mortenson felt precious time slipping away, and by the time Haji Ali halted on a narrow ledge high above the village, Mortenson was panting, as much from the thought of all the tasks he was failing to supervise as from his exertion.
Haji Ali waited until Mortenson caught his breath, then instructed him to look at the view. The air had the fresh-scrubbed clarity that only comes with alt.i.tude. Beyond Korphe K2, the ice peaks of the inner Karakoram knifed relentlessly into a defenseless blue sky. A thousand feet below, Korphe, green with ripening barley fields, looked small and vulnerable, a life raft adrift on a sea of stone.
Haji Ali reached up and laid his hand on Mortenson"s shoulder. "These mountains have been here a long time," he said. "And so have we." He reached for his rich brown lambswool topi, topi, the only symbol of authority Korphe"s the only symbol of authority Korphe"s nurmadhar nurmadhar ever wore, and centered it on his silver hair. "You can"t tell the mountains what to do," he said, with an air of gravity that transfixed Mortenson as much as the view. "You must learn to listen to them. So now I am asking you to listen to me. By the mercy of Almighty Allah, you have done much for my people, and we appreciate it. But now you must do one more thing for me." ever wore, and centered it on his silver hair. "You can"t tell the mountains what to do," he said, with an air of gravity that transfixed Mortenson as much as the view. "You must learn to listen to them. So now I am asking you to listen to me. By the mercy of Almighty Allah, you have done much for my people, and we appreciate it. But now you must do one more thing for me."
"Anything," Mortenson said.
"Sit down. And shut your mouth," Haji Ali said. "You"re making everyone crazy."
"Then he reached out and took my plumb line, and my level and my account book, and he walked back down to Korphe," Mortenson says. "I followed him all the way to his house, worrying about what he was doing. He took the key he always kept around his neck on a leather thong, opened a cabinet decorated with faded Buddhist wood carvings, and locked my things in there, alongside a shank of curing ibex, his prayer beads, and his old British musket gun. Then he asked Sakina to bring us tea."
Mortenson waited nervously for half an hour while Sakina brewed the paiyu cha paiyu cha. Haji Ali ran his fingers along the text of the Koran that he cherished above all his belongings, turning pages randomly and mouthing almost silent Arabic prayer as he stared out into inward s.p.a.ce.
When the porcelain bowls of scalding b.u.t.ter tea steamed in their hands, Haji Ali spoke. "If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways," Haji Ali said, blowing on his bowl. "The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die," he said, laying his hand warmly on Mortenson"s own. "Doctor Greg, you must make time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated. But we are not stupid. We have lived and survived here for a long time."
"That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I"ve ever learned in my life," Mortenson says. "We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We"re the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their "shock and awe" campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them."
Three weeks later, with Mortenson demoted from foreman to spectator, the walls of the school had risen higher than the American"s head and all that remained was putting on the roof. The roof beams Changazi pilfered were never recovered, and Mortenson returned to Skardu, where he and Parvi supervised the purchase and construction of wood beams strong enough to support the snows that mummified Korphe throughout deepest winter.
Predictably, the jeeps carrying the wood up to Korphe were halted by another landslide that cut the track, eighteen miles shy of their destination. "The next morning, while Parvi and I were discussing what to do, we saw this great big dust cloud coming down the valley," Mortenson says. "Haji Ali somehow heard about our problem, and the men of Korphe had walked all night. They arrived clapping and singing and in incredible spirits for people who hadn"t slept. And then the most amazing thing of all happened. Sher Takhi had come with them and he insisted on carrying the first load.
"The holy men of the villages aren"t supposed to degrade themselves with physical labor. But he wouldn"t back down, and he led our column of thirty-five men carrying roof beams all the way, all eighteen miles to Korphe. Sher Takhi had polio as a child, and he walked with a limp, so it must have been agony for him. But he led us up the Braldu Valley, grinning under his load. It was this conservative mullah"s way of showing his support for educating all the children of Korphe, even the girls."
Not all the people of the Braldu shared Sher Takhi"s view. A week later, Mortenson stood with his arm over Twaha"s shoulder, admiring the skillful way Makhmal and his crew were fitting the roof beams into place, when a cry went up from the boys scattered across Kor-phe"s rooftops. A band of strangers was crossing the bridge, they warned, and on their way up to the village.
Mortenson followed Haji Ali to his lookout on the bluff high over the bridge. He saw five men approaching. One, who appeared to be the leader, walked at the head of the procession. The four burly men walking behind carried clubs made of poplar branches that they smacked against their palms in time with their steps. The leader was a thin, unhealthy looking older man who leaned on his cane as he climbed to Korphe. He stopped, rudely, fifty yards from Haji Ali, and made Korphe"s nurmadhar nurmadhar walk out to greet him. walk out to greet him.
Twaha leaned toward Mortenson. "This man Haji Mehdi. No good," he whispered.
Mortenson was already acquainted with Haji Mehdi, the nurmadhar nurmadhar of Askole. "He made a show of being a devout Muslim," Mortenson says. "But he ran the economy of the whole Braldu Valley like a mafia boss. He took a percentage of every sheep, goat, or chicken the Balti sold, and he ripped off climbers, setting outrageous prices for supplies. If someone sold so much as an egg to an expedition without paying him his cut, Haji Mehdi sent his henchmen to beat them with clubs." of Askole. "He made a show of being a devout Muslim," Mortenson says. "But he ran the economy of the whole Braldu Valley like a mafia boss. He took a percentage of every sheep, goat, or chicken the Balti sold, and he ripped off climbers, setting outrageous prices for supplies. If someone sold so much as an egg to an expedition without paying him his cut, Haji Mehdi sent his henchmen to beat them with clubs."
After Haji Ali embraced Mehdi, Askole"s nurmadhar nurmadhar declined his invitation to tea. "I will speak out in the open, so you all can hear me," he said to the crowd a.s.sembled along the bluff. "I have heard that an infidel has come to poison Muslim children, boys as well as girls, with his teachings," Haji Mehdi barked. "Allah forbids the education of girls. And I forbid the construction of this school." declined his invitation to tea. "I will speak out in the open, so you all can hear me," he said to the crowd a.s.sembled along the bluff. "I have heard that an infidel has come to poison Muslim children, boys as well as girls, with his teachings," Haji Mehdi barked. "Allah forbids the education of girls. And I forbid the construction of this school."
"We will finish our school," Haji Ali said evenly. "Whether you forbid it or not."
Mortenson stepped forward, hoping to defuse the violence gathering in the air. "Why don"t we have tea and talk about this."
"I know who you are, kafir, kafir," Mehdi said, using the ugliest term for infidel. "And I have nothing to say to you."
"And you, are you not a Muslim?" Mehdi said, turning menacingly toward Haji Ali. "There is only one G.o.d. Do you worship Allah? Or this kafir kafir?"
Haji Ali clapped his hand on Mortenson"s shoulder. "No one else has ever come here to help my people. I"ve paid you money every year but you have done nothing for my village. This man is a better Muslim than you. He deserves my devotion more than you do."
Haji Mehdi"s men fingered their clubs uneasily. He raised a hand to steady them. "If you insist on keeping your kafir kafir school, you must pay a price," Mehdi said, the lids of his eyes lowering. "I demand twelve of your largest rams." school, you must pay a price," Mehdi said, the lids of his eyes lowering. "I demand twelve of your largest rams."
"As you wish," Haji Ali said, turning his back on Mehdi, to emphasize how he had degraded himself by demanding a bribe. "Bring the chogo rabak chogo rabak!" he ordered.
"You have to understand, in these villages, a ram is like a firstborn child, prize cow, and family pet all rolled into one," Mortenson explains. "The most sacred duty of each family"s oldest boy was to care for their rams, and they were devastated."
Haji Ali kept his back turned to the visitors until twelve boys approached, dragging the thick-horned, heavy-hooved beasts. He accepted the bridles from them and tied the rams together. All the boys wept as they handed over their most cherished possessions to their nurmadhar nurmadhar. Haji Ali led the line of rams, lowing mournfully, to Haji Mehdi, and threw the lead to him without a word. Then he turned on his heel and herded his people toward the site of the school.
"It was one of the most humbling things I"ve ever seen," Mortenson says. "Haji Ali had just handed over half the wealth of the village to that crook, but he was smiling like he"d just won a lottery."
Haji Ali paused before the building everyone in the village had worked so hard to raise. It held its ground firmly before Korphe K2, with snugly built stone walls, plastered and painted yellow, and thick wooden doors to beat back the weather. Never again would Korphe"s children kneel over their lessons on frozen ground. "Don"t be sad," he told the shattered crowd. "Long after all those rams are dead and eaten this school will still stand. Haji Mehdi has food today. Now our children have education forever."
After dark, by the light of the fire that smoldered in his balti, balti, Haji Ali beckoned Mortenson to sit beside him. He picked up his dog-eared, grease-spotted Koran and held it before the flames. "Do you see how beautiful this Koran is?" Haji Ali asked. Haji Ali beckoned Mortenson to sit beside him. He picked up his dog-eared, grease-spotted Koran and held it before the flames. "Do you see how beautiful this Koran is?" Haji Ali asked.
"Yes."
"I can"t read it," he said. "I can"t read anything. This is the greatest sadness in my life. I"ll do anything so the children of my village never have to know this feeling. I"ll pay any price so they have the education they deserve."
"Sitting there beside him," Mortenson says, "I realized that everything, all the difficulties I"d gone through, from the time I"d promised to build the school, through the long struggle to complete it, was nothing compared to the sacrifices he was prepared to make for his people. Here was this illiterate man, who"d hardly ever left his little village in the Karakoram," Mortenson says. "Yet he was the wisest man I"ve ever met."
CHAPTER 13.
"A SMILE S SHOULD B BE M MORE T THAN A M MEMORY"
The Waziris are the largest tribe on the frontier, but their state of civilization is very low. They are a race of robbers and murderers, and the Waziri name is execrated even by the neighboring Mahommedan tribes. They have been described as being free-born and murderous, hotheaded and light-hearted, self-respecting but vain. Mahommedans from a settled district often regard them as utter barbarians.
-from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica Encyclopedia Britannica
From his second-story hotel room in the decrepit haveli, haveli, Morten Mortenson watched the progress of a legless boy, dragging himself through the chaos of the Khyber Bazaar on a wooden skid. He looked no older than ten, and the scar tissue on his stumps led Mortenson to believe he"d been the victim of a land mine. The boy made grueling progress past customers at a cart where an old turbaned man stirred a cauldron of cardamom tea, his head level with the exhaust pipes of pa.s.sing taxis. Above the boy"s field of vision, Mortenson saw a driver climb into a Datsun pickup truck loaded with artificial limbs and start the engine.
Mortenson was thinking how badly the boy needed a pair of the legs stacked like firewood in the pickup, and how unlikely it was that he"d ever receive them, because they"d probably been pilfered from a charity by some local Changazi, when he noticed the truck backing toward the boy. Mortenson didn"t speak Pashto, the most common local language. "Look out!" he shouted in Urdu, hoping the boy would understand. But he needn"t have worried. With the highly developed sense of self-preservation necessary to stay alive on Peshawar"s streets, the boy sensed the danger and scuttled quickly crabwise to the curb.
"A SMILE SHOULD BE MORE THAN A MEMORY"
Peshawar is the capital of Pakistan"s wild west. And with the Korphe School all but completed, Mortenson had come to this frontier town straddling the old Grand Trunk Road in his new role as director of the Central Asia Inst.i.tute.
At least that"s what he told himself.
Peshawar is also the gateway to the Khyber Pa.s.s. Through this pipeline between Pakistan and Afghanistan historic forces were traveling. Students of Peshawar"s madra.s.sas, madra.s.sas, or Islamic theological schools, were trading in their books for Kalashnikovs and bandoliers and marching over the pa.s.s to join a movement that threatened to sweep Afghanistan"s widely despised rulers from power. or Islamic theological schools, were trading in their books for Kalashnikovs and bandoliers and marching over the pa.s.s to join a movement that threatened to sweep Afghanistan"s widely despised rulers from power.