Thinner than Skin. Uzma Aslam Khan
and belonged to a world of fairies and spirits. She was accessible only to those who worshipped her, and when she appeared, she wasn’t dressed like a Kalash woman at all. She wore mist and rode a horse.
Or had the word Kaghan come from Khagan, a grander version of Khan? The Turkic rulers who’d spread from Turkey to China on the ancient Silk Road had divided into two, one branch becoming the lion khans, the other, camel khans. Now this valley had neither lions nor camels. But it did have owls. And horses. Were its earliest inhabitants owl khans? Horse khans?
Most of the horses in the valley belonged to the semi-nomadic tribes that spent their summers in the mountain pastures and winters down in the plains. We’d be seeing them later today at the lake. No one knew where the nomads had come from but they were believed to have ridden down from the Caspian steppe thousands of years ago, and perhaps had once been Turkic-speaking. A third rumor held that Kagan had been one of them. And she had been a pari khan—ruler of fairies.
Beside me, Farhana inched a little higher on her pillow, blowing glacier steam in my eyes. Apart from her, nothing stirred. Kaghan mornings in our cabin were windless.
I walked to her side of the bed. On the bedside table lay a map, with Kaghan Valley circled in red at the easternmost corner of the North-West Frontier Province, on the edge of Kashmir. I’d drawn the circle on the bus to the valley, telling Farhana that to see the Frontier, you had to imagine it as the profile of a buffalo’s bust, facing west, with the capital Peshawar the nose, Chitral Valley the backward tilting horn, Swat Valley the eye, and Kaghan Valley the ear. The Frontier listened to Kashmir at its back while facing Afghanistan ahead, and it listened with Kaghan.
On the bus, Farhana had refused to listen to me, or to Kaghan. She’d picked at her lip, reminding me that we were never meant to be here at all. Until last night, I didn’t think she’d ever forgive me.
I opened the cabin door. I listened to Kaghan. Around me rose rounded hills, scoops of velvet green on a brick-red floor. Like the mossy moistness of rain-kissed tailorbirds. It was for this I’d come, not to upset my beloved. Around us the valley undulated like the River Kunhar that gave it shape, cupping nine lakes in its curves, sprouting thick forests of deodar and pine, towering over 4,000 meters before halting abruptly at the temples of the Himalayas and the Karakoram. The only way through the mountainous block was by snaking along hair-thin passes, as if by witchery. Here the overwhelming sensation was not a closing or crowding. Not exactly. It was more a cautioning—a slope to the side, a wait and see. The buffalo’s ear is always cocked.
I knew that in colonial times, the British considered it a pretty sort of wedge, this ear, nicely if incidentally squeezed between the more considerable Kashmir and the more incomprehensible, and feared, hill tribes of the west. And so they mostly left the valley alone. Today, most of the hotels, restaurants, and shops were run, though not owned, by Kashmiris and Sawatis. Even those who couldn’t read or own a television were keenly aware of what was going on, and where. They liked to say that the buffalo is as attuned to what lies behind as what lies ahead. Why else did shivers keep running up and down its spine? Why else did it keep sweeping its hide with the smack of its tail?
I’d noticed military convoys yesterday, soon after our arrival. It was unusual in this valley. I’d been too preoccupied to give this much thought. The trucks were as twitchy as buffalo tails, creeping up and down the valley’s spine, seeing nothing, fearing the worst. The whole country was teeming with convoys of one kind or another. So what? We were here to enjoy the place, even if we couldn’t enjoy the time.
A shadow flickered on the doorframe. There were other areas— the ceiling beams, the paneling by the bed—also randomly spotted with light and dark timber. With the curtain drawn, despite the checkerboard paneling, it was night in the cabin.
That flickering shadow was a lizard, sidling for a mate.
I kissed her, slowly, drinking her, hoping to keep her beside me a little longer, just us.
“I once heard a story,” I whispered, stroking her hair. The scent of her shampoo pooled with the musk lingering on my fingers from last night. It wasn’t the walls that exuded the scent, it was Farhana. And it wasn’t pine, or even musk. It was, curiously, tobacco. She’d never smoked in her life and abhorred the habit. How to tell her that her own most intimate odor was that of a cigar? I slid between her knees.
She smiled into her pillow. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Maybe they’re already eating.”
“You were going to tell me a story.”
“It can wait.”
“I think I hear them.”
“You hear us.”
She laughed. “I can hear them. I bet they’re coming here for breakfast. Who wants to walk to the restaurant?” She pressed her knees, whispering, “Tell me the story.”
I ignored this.
“Is it the one about the lake? And the jinn. And the princess. Please?” She arched her back. I threw off the sheets.
“You already know it.”
“I work with facts. I forget the fairy tales.”
So I told her again.
As soon as we finished, we heard the knock. Farhana’s colleague, Wes, and an old friend of mine from Karachi, Irfan. They were staying in the adjoining cabin. We were meant to meet at the restaurant for breakfast before leaving for the lake, but here they were now, as Farhana predicted, because no one felt like trudging a quarter mile for eggs. So we dressed in a hurry, welcomed them inside, and ordered in.
The omelettes were cold by the time the waiter arrived, but still crisp around the edges, the interior plump with finely minced tomatoes and green chilies. Irfan and the waiter talked at length in Kashmiri. Or was it Hindko? I could identify only a few sounds—akh, gari gari—focusing more on Irfan’s expression. The news wasn’t good.
Wes and Farhana discussed glaciers. They might as well have spoken Gujri. I chewed my omelette in silence. Red, yellow, and green. The colors made a familiar flag, though I couldn’t remember which. Afghanistan’s had the red and green, though its eggs weren’t yellow but black. And I wasn’t even sure what flag it flew these days; after the American invasion, Taliban white had been dyed to something like the flag that had flown under the monarchy. Senegal; Sri Lanka. Yes, they flew these three colors. On the plate before me, I replaced the lion of Sri Lanka with the owl of last night. I decided to tell everyone.
Irfan said the sighting was an ill omen (though I still couldn’t help thinking I was the one being sighted). Irfan was the reason our route had changed, which was the reason Farhana and I had argued yesterday, at a shop that sold shawls. My hurt at the way she rejected the one I’d draped around her shoulders, and her anger—“We didn’t need to come to Kaghan at all”—was all of it still raw? I looked at her now, afraid of losing the peace of waking up together this morning. Was it already beginning to fade? But she remained cheerful— no lip-picking today!—saying that in some places, owls were believed to be holy spirits of shamans, and when I said, “As holy as ours?” she tossed me a winsome look and Irfan shifted disapprovingly. Perhaps he’d heard us last night. Or this morning.
Wes glowed as if he were the one we’d all stayed up listening to. “Take any pictures?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see.” He chewed with his mouth open.
“They didn’t come out.”
“What do you mean they didn’t come out?” His smile was an oval of eggy goo.
“Just that.”
“With a digital? You’re literally in the wrong business.”
Farhana laughed. “Don’t tease him. That’s a touchy topic.”
What if I revealed all her touchy topics?
“We should leave.” I stood up. “The lake is crowded by