Two weeks later I took a train to Basel, Switzerland, where I rented a room and phoned Hasan. The next night he met me at the German-Swiss border. From there we went to a tavern in Lorrach to have a drink and meet Thomas Knorr.

Thomas was a small, thin man in his early thirties. He had curly, blond hair, a handsome smile, and amiable, blue eyes. He had first met Hasan eight years before in Iran when he smuggled everything from guns to hashish to make a living. In recent years he had turned to a more legitimate and profitable trade. Through Hasan, he began buying rare and valuable carpets and selling them to collectors in Germany. He was proficient in Farsi and Pashto and now spent six months of every year travelling into the deserts of Iran and Afghanistan to live and trade with nomad tribes. He was the proprietor of a veritable house-museum and an expert on the art and history of the Near East.

After several beers we retired to Thomas's house in the hills above Lorrach. His wife and two children were in bed, but Ataullah was still awake and greeted me warmly. Thomas showed me around the two-storey, brick-and-stone farmhouse. Inside were hundreds of hand-woven carpets of every conceivable size, shape, color, and pattern. They were everywhere, abounding on the floors, in large, wooden chests, and on the walls of every room. There were also many other types of artwork scattered here and there: china, pins, bracelets, jewelry, boxes, paintings, stoneware, sculptures of bronze and stone, everything ranging in age from centuries in the past to the present age.

Thomas led us outside to his barn. Inside the barn was assembled a yurt. It was circular with a fence of thin, pointed reeds that surrounded the base. The basic support was an interwoven framework of branches of a thick, strong wood curved at the top to form half-arches. Overlaid on the foundation was a covering of animal hides that formed the walls and ceiling. Inside the yurt a circle of stones was placed in the center of the dirt floor. This was the fireplace. There was an open spot in the center of the ceiling for smoke to escape.

Hasan was tired and returned to the house to go to bed. Thomas lit a kerosene lamp. He, Ataullah, and I sat down on some carpets and smoked a pipe of hashish.

"Hasan says you are a writer," Thomas said. "What kind of book are you writing?"

I explained how I was trying to use my experiences as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War as the basis for a novel about a drifting, alienated generation in search of itself.

"I hope you can be comfortable while you are here. You may use the yurt as your room and workplace for as long as you like. Ataullah also sleeps here, but he is quiet and won't bother you."

Ataullah nodded and smiled.

"You're very kind," I said.

"Think nothing of it. Many people in many lands have helped me on many paths. I was a stranger to all of them, yet they willingly gave of themselves. I am in a position now to provide help, so I do. It is the way of the nomad. And now I must go to bed. I have to get up early in the morning. Please consider my place as yours while you are here. Good night."

After Thomas left the yurt, Ataullah wrapped himself in some thick blankets and I crawled into my down sleeping bag. I extinguished the flame in the lamp and fell asleep.

The days at Thomas's passed quickly. There was a continual stream of vagabonds, poets, musicians, drug smugglers, and art connoisseurs from all parts of the world passing through. It seemed Thomas's house was a stopping point where they could share a meal, a story, a drink, and a pipe of hashish. A zest for adventurous living pervaded the place. Thomas and his wife, a stocky woman with a gentle face, were kept busy from sunup to sundown. They treated all of their guests as if they were members of a large, international family.

Of all the people who passed through the doors of Thomas's house, Ataullah remained the one who attracted my attention most. We often went for long walks together in the afternoons. Ataullah spoke longingly and proudly of his home. He did not like the fast pace of the Western world, the way people "all are like machines." He spoke of the vast stretches of desert and of the remarkable way the desert could change, like an ocean, and how a man could think and feel a closeness with the Creator, the Almighty Allah, in such an environment. There was no need for the machines of the West, no need for the crazy, reckless traffic, the airplanes and modern skyscrapers and computers and insurance and a mad obsession for money. He longed for the simplicity and leisureliness of Afghanistan, where people had time for one another, where there was a pride in their virility, strength, and tradition.

One day while walking along a path in the hills behind Thomas's place, Ataullah said, "I like this path.
There are no cars on it and I think of Afghanistan, my other life. It is much different here, David-jan. You must come to visit me. There are no cars or machines. We are a close family and do not need these things. The children laugh and play. The men and women are happy. The people here in Europe are all for themselves and their machines. In Afghanistan we need only the family to be happy. How is it with your family in America?"

"My father died a few years ago. My mother lives alone. And I have a brother I haven't seen for five years. There are many families that are broken and not happy. I think there's an obsession with machines in America, too. In some ways I miss my home because for much of my life it was the only way of life I knew. But I'm happy to be here now and learning the ways of other peoples. Too often in America we think that ours is the best life, but it isn't necessarily true."

"You must always be who you are, David-jan. I miss my home very much. That is why I smoke the hashish more in Germany than at home. So I can dream. But I am not afraid. I wear my own clothes here. I know the people laugh, but I am not afraid of them."

There was something about Ataullah's honesty and sincere need for open communication and companionship that I admired. His observations and feelings were expressed directly as seen and felt without the filtering of logic and convention. His knowledge of the world was that of direct experience, the world of the immediate senses. He was not a large man, but he was solid with strong, massive hands. His hair was cut short and cropped down on his head. When unkempt, it gave him the appearance of a savage. His beard was thick and black, his lips full and expressive. There was a light darkness to his skin, almost a sallowness, though he seemed a healthy man. Occasionally he complained of a sharp pain in his stomach, which he attributed to the different food he was eating. His eyes were dark brown, squinted between flat eyelids. His gaze was probing and mysterious. He had a look that showed no fear, yet his eyes revealed a profound understanding and compassion.

That evening Thomas offered to share a pipe with two local German friends, Ataullah, and me. Hasan had gone into Lorrach to one of the bars. We went outside to the barn and entered the yurt. Ataullah built a fire. We sat around the fire, smoked a bit, and passed around a bottle of wine. Thomas brought out a cassette player and put on a rock and roll tape.

I sat quietly, legs crossed, and watched the actions of the others. Thomas was intently rewiring one of the speakers. The two Germans, one somewhat laconic and meditative, the other giggly and drunk, were engaged in a private conversation. Ataullah stood up and began dancing at one side of the yurt in a rhythmic expression of the hands and face. He seemed unaware of the others. He was expressing bodily what he was feeling inside. The music was speaking to him and he was reciprocating.

The drunken German appeared to be making fun of Ataullah. There was a mockery in his laughter. Ataullah completed his dance and sat quietly before the fire. He took a drink from the bottle, a scowl slowly forming on his face. The drunken German reached for the bottle. Ataullah kept a firm grip on the bottle and looked the German hard in the eyes.

"You do not take the bottle. You do not order. You say please first." Ataullah's voice was both threatening and restrained.

There was a moment of tension in which Ataullah and the German stared at each other, both gripping the bottle. The moment passed. The German relaxed his grip and politely asked Ataullah to pass him the bottle.

After the two Germans went home, Ataullah turned to me and said, "David-jan, I know what that man is. I know his life. My inside eyes can see his inside eyes. He is nothing inside. But I am a guest here and cannot tell him the truth of what I know."

Thomas put on a tape of Afghan music. It was a mysterious and wonderfully erotic mixture of strange sounds. Ataullah explained everything in Afghan music was symbolic of a spiritual quest. The sound of birds could be heard mixing with the strange wailing of a human voice, the pounding of bongo-type drums in metaphysical rhythm, and the sad strumming of a dambura.

Ataullah began dancing again, his eyes closed, his hands moving in circular and outward gyrations, his body spinning in a whirlwind like an ice skater in a graceful twirl, his head jerking back and forth, seemingly sliding from shoulder to shoulder. The music was pleasing, the fire hypnotizing, the ambience mystical. I applauded the performance. Ataullah was pleased.

"When the Afghan dances he is trying to release the inside man to the outside." Ataullah pointed to the sky and showed the circular movements of his hands. "When a man has reached his best, he can do this. It is very nice, yes?"

Satisfied with the evening, Ataullah went to bed. I stayed up awhile longer with Thomas, enjoying the quiet, the fire, the companionship.

"It is very nice here in the yurt, don't you think? But in the winter it takes a lot of wood to keep warm. I am too lazy to cut so much. You can stay here as long as you want in the yurt if you want to cut the wood. It would be nice for you, David. You could have a typewriter here to work. It would be very peaceful."

"That's very kind of you to offer. But I'll continue to Iran with Hasan. One of these days, when you have some free time, I'd like to speak with you about that part of the world. I'm afraid I know nothing about it."

"Yes. When the time is right. When the time is right, I will tell you what I know and what you need to know. But not tonight. Soon. I promise you."