Free An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World by William T. Vollmann Page B

believed it even dirtier than it was. (I confess that I myself would rather die from an industrial cancer than through an amoeba’s agency; this is a question of upbringing.) —Then, too, there was the fact of being perpetually observed, accosted and remarked upon; this superfluity of attention was at times somewhat like dirt. Like other cheats, he wanted to study, not to be studied. As the attention was almost always kindly meant, responding to it eventually became a pleasure; but in the meantime the Young Man must also face the city itself: the stands selling rotten mangoes and meat so thick with flies that its own color was a mystery; the gasping men, cooling themselves off in the midst of their labor by sticking hoses down inside their shirts; the shops offering expired medicines, sugar syrup, cooking oil and brand-new fans. In the Saddar district, the sidewalks had buckled and upthrust, as if unsettled by the tunneling of giant moles. Here and there were three-foot pits without apparent purpose: little graves for fruit peels and the hooves of slaughtered cattle, with concrete shards mixed in like bones. When he boughtbananas they were soft and black. The gutters stank; the water in them was gray, like the underbelly of a dead snake. Everyone moved slowly in the heat.
    The Young Man wrote treatises on the effects of that heat: First you felt it in your wet forehead, as the sweat began running into your eyes in the first seconds. Next the sunlight penetrated your scalp. Your hair warmed uncomfortably. The base of your neck was sodden like your armpits, and you inhaled steam as though you were going through the motions of breathing; and soon you got dizzy and sick to your stomach. Some people (such as Afghan refugees) might bleed from the nose and ears.
    “Yes, it is hot,” sighed the proprietor of the hotel. “In Baluchistan, they say, there is a town where in summer the water comes from the tap hot enough for tea. I have never been there; I hope I never will,
in sh’Allah!
” *
FREE RIDES
     
    As the Young Man walked along, everyone looked up. They made the quick hissings used to attract rickshaw drivers, or called out to him: “Hey!,” “What you want?,” “Where you going?,” or simply, “Mister!” —To all of these, Mister returned an imperturbable and inane
“Asalamu alaykum”
—the traditional Islamic greeting. †
—“Walaykum asalam,”
they said automatically, becoming more friendly. From there it was only a few steps to the free soft drink, the tea, the guided tour with the rickshaw to his hotel paid for at the end of it, the multitude of improbable favors. Everyone said, surprised that he would even comment: “But you are a guest of our country!,” or, “It’s a question of national honor.”
    Coming back from the Austrian Relief Committee one evening, he became lost. It was Ramazan, so the General’s family had been without food or water all the long, hot day. He did not want to keep themwaiting to break their fast. —But where was Saddar? If he could find that, he could walk to the General’s house. —A cyclist came up the hill carrying a great load of fresh-cut tree boughs. The Young Man asked directions. The other beckoned to a passing rickshaw. But the Young Man had no rupees left; they had been stolen at a refugee camp. —“I pay for you!” smiled the Pakistani. —“No, no,” said the Young Man, embarrassed. It was not far to a crossroads that he knew; the Pakistani had explained it to him. He could easily walk there. —So then, making certain that the branches were lashed tightly to the rear wheel, the Pakistani set the Young Man sidesaddle just behind the handlebars and began to pedal. —“Allah, Allah!” he cried near the summit of the hill, sweat running down his face. The Young Man, ashamed, tried to dismount, but he shook his head. —“No, no! You friend! I take you there.” —In front of the General’s house, before the Young Man could thank him, he smiled