A Rose in Every Cheek 3

                         “Shining eyes, cheeks that glowed with a deeper rose each hour, and an  
                           indescribably blest expression in a face which now was both brilliant
                           and dreamy”
                                                  Louisa May Alcott, A Modern Mephistopheles, 1877


The Bolton Mail thundered on through the desert night, onto the Iranian plateau and through the Sistan Basin. We passed by the Kharan, where Pakistan had detonated her first real mushroom cloud, only five months before our arrival. But it was on beyond Quetta, and through the mouth of the Bolan Pass, where Mohammed Omar’s ‘fire and hell’ was really happening.
The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan four years earlier, and they were quickly absorbing the lessons that all previous invaders had learned. When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, and go to your gawd like a soldier. The Russians called the tribal resistance ‘dushman,’ enemy. The name the rebels had chosen rolled off their tongues more eloquently. Mujahideen.
Robyn and Julie had stolen into my sleeper berth. I sat up, half asleep and rocking with the rails. A crescent moon carved an arc through the horizontal window bars of the dark compartment. There were no doors between the carriages. The only other light filtered back from the next one, through the framed rectangular entrance at the end of the cabin. Fade to black. I looked up in my stupor, to a halo of thin rays struggling to bend around the obstruction. Whatever it was, it was big.
At first I thought it was a bear, but I’d never seen one with a turban, wearing orange pajamas. The rest of him was all black beard and white teeth. I could hear him thinking whether he wanted to be friendly or not.
He entered the cabin, and hovered above.
“Sit down.” He ordered. I was already sitting.
“Am-er-ica goo-od?” He asked. I nodded in the affirmative. He was pleased.
“Rus-sha goo-od?” Was the next question. I had it covered. Definitely not good. His teeth were blinding.
“Come.” He ordered, pulling my elbow with a hand the size of the rest of me. We went forward through several empty cars, until we reached the Afghan enclave in cattle class. The carriage ascended to the rafters with u-shaped tiered wooden shelving, packed solid with turbans and beards and teeth and weapons. A single filament bulb swung from its ceiling cord, keeping perfect time and pitch with the tracks. I was glad I had arrived with a date. A chair was placed in the middle of the remaining floor space.
“Sit down.” Said the bear. I was already sitting. He raised an index finger to the rest of the tribe, and there commenceth the lesson.
“Am-er-ica goo-od?” He asked. You dance with the one that brung you. I knew the drill. They were pleased.
“Rus-sha goo-od?” Was the next question. I went for broke.
“No!” I exploded, cutting the air with my right hand. If teeth were the measure of success, I should have thanked the Academy. It felt good to have so many new friends.
The bear’s name was Lala, a big sweet earnest puppydog guy, who we would get to know and love in the days to come. But it was still night, and in the still night, he escorted me back to first class.
“Sleep.” He said, handing me a fistful of guavas.
“Who was that?” Robyn asked, running her fingers through my hair.
“Lala.” I said.
“What does he do?” She asked.
“Public relations.” I said. And slept.
The train continued on up towards the hills and the surreal sunrise on the copper red and russet sloped rock outcroppings and crests. We stopped for heavenly chai ambrosia at some obscure station about six am, making room for two railway guards, who shared their chickpeas and candies the rest of the way to the ‘Fruit Garden of Baluchistan.’ Time is more jagged than we remember. Beneath the brooding craggy peaks of Chiltan and Zarghun and Koh-e-Murdar, we finally pulled into the Oriental bustle and confusion of Quetta around ten thirty. There were baggy pants and big moustaches vying for our attention, but Lala took us in hand, and through the mob.
The four of us piled into a richly ornamented three-wheeled motorickshaw, packs and all. Tearing into the traffic, we two-stroked down dust roads filled with camelcarts and pushcarts and horsecarts, bicycles pulling milkcans and foodstalls, chand gari moon cars, magic buses, and other vehicles of every description. We roared along white ornamented mosques and mudbrick bazaars with cement wainscoting, corrugated tin roofs and sliding accordion doors, all trapped in a web of naked power lines. I looked around and directly into the left eye of a horse’s head that had momentarily found its way inside our vehicle. Around the next corner, our driver had his license suspended for overcrowding. It was like being fined for chaos.
There was no sign of Robyn’s sister and brother-in-law at the hotel they would be staying at, so we switched to two motorickshaws, and ningningninged and potatopotatopotatoed down Mission Road, to the interior courtyard of the Hotel Naveed. We bought Lala a Coke and he said he would return for a visit the following day. Robyn and Jules and I settled into a fifty rupee three-bed room, with a private hole in the floor. It would become a cherished possession in the next week.
We went out for chicken curry and lassis at the Orient Restaurant. Next door to our hotel, a signboard stood outside what passed for a chemist shop in these parts:

                                        “Piles Cure
                                         Hemorrhoids Cure
                                         Hemorrhage Cure
                                         Fissure Cure
                                         Fistula Cure
                                         Constipation Cure
                                         Flatulence Cure”

“I wonder why there seems to be so much emphasis on digestive problems.” Said Julie. The answer, waiting for us at the Orient, would put a rose on every cheek.