Page 176 - And the Mountains Echoed (novel)

anything other than “Commander Sahib,” even though the Russians were long

gone now and Baba jan hadn’t fired a gun in a decade or more. Back at the
house, there were framed pictures of Baba jan’s jihadi days all around the living
room. Adel had committed to memory each of the pictures: his father leaning
against the fender of a dusty old jeep, squatting on the turret of a charred tank,
posing proudly with his men, ammunition belt strapped across his chest, beside a
helicopter they had shot down. Here was one where he was wearing a vest and a
bandolier, brow pressed to the desert floor in prayer. He was much skinnier in
those days, Adel’s father, and always in these pictures there was nothing behind
him but mountains and sand.
Baba jan had been shot twice by the Russians during battle. He had shown
Adel his wounds, one just under the left rib cage—he said that one had cost him
his spleen—and one about a thumb’s length away from his belly button. He said
he was lucky, everything considered. He had friends who had lost arms, legs,
eyes; friends whose faces had burned. They had done it for their country, Baba

jan said, and they had done it for God. This was what jihad was all about, he
said. Sacrifice. You sacrificed your limbs, your sight—your life, even—and you
did it gladly. Jihad also earned you certain rights and privileges, he said, because
God sees to it that those who sacrifice the most justly reap the rewards as well.
Both in this life and the next, Baba jan said, pointing his thick finger first
down, then up.
Looking at the pictures, Adel wished he had been around to fight jihad

alongside his father in those more adventurous days. He liked to picture himself
and Baba jan shooting at Russian helicopters together, blowing up tanks,
dodging gunfire, living in mountains and sleeping in caves. Father and son, war
heroes.
There was also a large framed photo of Baba jan smiling alongside President
Karzai at Arg, the Presidential Palace in Kabul. This one was more recent, taken
in the course of a small ceremony during which Baba jan had been handed an
award for his humanitarian work in Shadbagh-e-Nau. It was an award that Baba
jan had more than earned. The new school for girls was merely his latest project.
Adel knew that women in town used to die regularly giving birth. But they
didn’t anymore because his father had opened a large clinic, run by two doctors
and three midwives whose salaries he paid for out of his own pocket. All the
townspeople received free care at the clinic; no child in Shadbagh-e-Nau went
unimmunized. Baba jan had dispatched teams to locate water points all over

town and dig wells. It was Baba jan who had helped finally bring full-time
electricity to Shadbagh-e-Nau. At least a dozen businesses had opened thanks to