Long years after that day, the Afghan guerrillas I came to know as friends, on a mountain near the siege of Kandahar, talked for hours about Indian films and their favourite Bollywood movie stars. Indian actors are the greatest in the world, one of them said once, because Indian people know how to shout with their eyes. That back-street fried-foods cook stared at me, with shouting eyes, and stopped me as surely as if he'd pushed a hand into my chest. I couldn't move. In my own eyes, there were words - I'm sorry, I'm sorry that you have to do this work, I'm sorry that your world, your life, is so hot and dark and unremembered, I'm sorry that I'm intruding...
Still staring at me, he grasped the handles of his dish. For one, two, thudding heartbeats, I was gripped by the ridiculous, terrifying thought that he was going to throw the boiling oil in my face. Fear jerked at my feet and I moved, easing my way past him with my hands flat against the damp surface of the stone wall. Two steps beyond him, my foot struck a crack in the path and I stumbled, and fell, dragging another man down with me. He was an elderly man, thin and frail. I could feel the wicker- basket of his bones through his coarse tunic. We fell heavily, landing near the open entrance to a house, and the old man struck his head. I scrambled to my feet, slipping and sliding on a pile of shifting stones. I tried to help the man to stand, but there was an elderly woman who squatted on her haunches there, in the open doorway, and she slapped at my hands, warning me away. I apologised in English, struggling to find the words for I'm sorry in Hindi-What are they? Prabaker taught me the words... Mujhako afsos hain... that's it-I said it three, four times. In that dark, quiet corridor between the buildings, the words echoed like a drunkard's prayer in an empty church.
The old man moaned quietly, slouching in the doorway. The woman wiped his face with a corner of her headscarf, and held the cloth out for me to see the bright stain of blood. She said nothing, but her wrinkled face was creased with a frown of contempt. With that simple gesture, holding out the bloodstained cloth, she seemed to be saying Look, you stupid oaf, you great clumsy barbarian, look what you've done here...
I felt choked by the heat, smothered by the darkness and the strangeness of the place. The walls seemed to press upon my hands, as if only my arms prevented them from closing in on me altogether. I backed away from the elderly couple, stumbling at first, and then plunging headlong into the shadow-land of the tunnel street. A hand reached out to grab at my shoulder. It was a gentle touch, but I almost shouted out loud.
"This way, baba," Prabaker said, laughing quietly. "Where are you taking yourself? This way only. Along this passage now, and you must be keeping your two feets to the outside because too much dirty it is, in the middle of the passages, okay?"
He was standing in the entrance to a narrow gap formed between the blank walls of two buildings. Feeble light gleamed in the teeth and eyes of his smile, but beyond him was only blackness.
He turned his back to me, spread his feet out until they touched the walls, braced himself with his hands, and then shuffled off, sliding his feet along the walls in small, dragging steps. He expected me to follow. I hesitated, but when the awkward star of his shuffling form melted in the darkness and vanished, I too put my feet out against the walls and shambled after him.
I could hear Prabaker ahead of me, but it was so dark that I couldn't see him. One foot strayed from the edge of the wall, and my boot squelched into a muddy slime that rested in the centre of the path. A foul smell rose up from that viscous ooze, and I kept my feet hard against the walls, sliding them along in short steps. Something squat and heavy slithered past me, rasping its thick body against my boot.
Seconds later, another and then a third creature waddled past me in the darkness, rolling heavy flesh over the toes of my boots.
"Prabu!" I bellowed, not knowing how far ahead of me he was.
"There are things in here with us!"
"Things, baba?"
"On the ground! Something's crawling on my feet! Something heavy!"
"Only rats are crawling here, Lin. There are no things."
"Rats? Are you kidding? These things are as big as bull terriers.
Jesus, this is some tour, my friend!"
"No problem big rats, Lin," Prabaker answered quietly from the darkness in front of me. "Big rats are friendly fellows, not making mischief for the people. If you don't attack them. Only one thing is making them bite and scratch and such things."
"What's that, for God's sake?"
"Shouting, baba," he replied softly. "They don't like the loud voices."
"Oh, great! Now you tell me," I croaked. "Is it much further?
This is starting to give me the creeps and-"
He'd stopped, and I bumped into him, pressing him against the panelled surface of a wooden door.
