The fifth or sixth of at least hundred rockets whistled over his head……
He always wondered where from his father took the power to stay so calm? By now, he had already his first signs of weakness.
He had arrived the day before on board of an Aeroflot flight from Tashkent, his last layover on the way from Berlin to Kabul.
Unlike the Kabul residents, he was blessed to not witness almost every day the cruelty of an undeclared noise that was raining on the city he had just entered for the last time. All he knew, or wanted to know, about that place was some broken pieces of news in the German newspapers he read. The news about his country sounded so far, so unreal, that he wasn’t really touched by it. He had successfully forgotten his now nightmarish country of his childhood and adolescent years.
But his last summer visit in Kabul was a grave reminder of things he hoped to forget: war and chaos in order of things. He could see it at the firmament, he could swear, he saw a blood and dust sky. The Kabul skies of his childhood were no more…….
He stayed at his parent’s apartment in Microrayon Three and at his in laws in Microrayon One during that last visit to the “no man’s land” of his imagination. The dust and the heat were reminders of a place he wished didn’t exit. It were travels to a present, to a place, he had already left forever.
He loved his parents and his family tough, and they were in Kabul. But of all places on earth, they had chosen Kabul?! How could one live there?
He knew he was unfair. Kabul had chosen them. But, could they not see what he read in those German newspapers?
And his dad! The Buddha, he always thought. The calm man who, while a rocket was passing by, just said: all will be fine, my son. And nothing really was fine.
During all his summer visits, day or two after he arrived, he got sick. It always started with his stomach. There was a hidden connection between the rockets and his stomach. He had learned form Kabul friends that if one hears the sound of a rocket, one is safe. But, what if I one doesn’t hear that sound? He thought.
He could not help them if something happened……He was the young son, husband and father who was supposed to protect his family. But he had become the concern of his family. They wanted him to go away as soon as he came to visit. They couldn’t promise protection. Protection for him!
His stomach again……
His mother in law had the medicine ready for him. It was a whitish liquid, prepared from a powder in a small Soviet made nickel can with black handle, which she had always ready for him. She seemed to never run out of that whitish drink. It had become tradition that he was always welcomed with a drink from that Soviet nickel can. Her eyes were demanding. He knew he had to drink that whitish drink; it was a must! He appreciated it tough.
His father in law, an important man, was projecting still his authority on him. He seemed to keep the dignity of a flag bearer on the sinking ship that he felt could not be saved anymore. He wore his dark suits and smoked his elegant Kent. In his presence, things resembled normality. Once the treatment with the whitish liquid was over, he was offered another liquid, this time by his father in law, one far more pleasant than the previous one: Czech Pilsner Urquell!
His father in law seemed to never run out of those liquids either and he enjoyed dinking those beers with his son in law. He was tired too. Tired from too much work that seemed to never end and that he had to bring home with him, after a 12 or more hours work day at his ministry and meetings.
Yes, he was a minister in a government without a country. His clinics were blown out, destroyed. His doctors killed, his nurses running out or staying home.
And he……, he tried to keep the appearance, and flew on board of old and shaky Soviet built helicopters to far away places to assure his unthankful people of a government that really seemed to care for them! He had on board with him his doctors and mobile clinics that were supposed to replace the destroyed ones, and he had medicine with him…….
The so much needed medicine!
He wondered about him too: Where did he get the power to pretend?
To him, the young student, the place didn’t mean anything anymore, except for those old and young women and man he deeply felt for. He felt ashamed that he felt so. But he couldn’t help it.
He never admitted to himself that he didn’t want to return to this godforsaken country.
It seemed that his loved ones who stayed in Kabul, all of them, did so out of a loyalty. But, loyalty to what? To an imaginary homeland? To a system that had gone wrong? To an idea of how things supposed to be?
No! They stayed there out of loyalty for each other! They felt ashamed just by the thought of leaving the city while others were still trapped in it; others who in turn felt the same shame to leave too. They maintained the love the city had long stopped giving them back.
Loyalty and love become more insane in times of war, he thought.
It was a matter of respect to the holders of the wake that he didn’t dare to tell them he didn’t like to return to Kabul! It seemed to him that all his family just hold a dead wake in that vast graveyard his country had become. A dead wake over corpses which were dead long before they were alive. He smelled the sweet smell of the death. His family seemed to not smell it. They just pretended. And he pretended too, at least for those few weeks of his last visit.
Only his stomach……his stomach was honest; it reminded him that things were not what they appeared to be.
He was happy that he would leave soon again. And he was saddened by the feeling of his happiness……
He had just realized that some of those loved ones remained there, in Kabul, so he could leave! They all had to stay so few others could leave.
As if they had to keep the dead wake so others could live……
The End
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Nobility
His mom was always proud of her heritage. She was "noble by birth". She was a sardar. He saw that. When she spoke of her mother and her nobility, or when she spoke of her father, the deposed mayor of the summer capital of the deposed King Amanullah, her eyes sparked. It wasn’t false pride.
And her stories…he loved them. They were stories from not too long ago. They were full of proud and beautiful women, funny cousins, loving nannies, loyal servants and goofy carriage drivers, patriotic uncles, good and bad kings and queens, and noble and vicious sardars. And they seemed to have happened centuries ago.
Sometimes she recited a poem or two by Saa’di saheb. He didn’t really understand the verses, but he wondered why she was calling this Saa’di, a poet, not a sardar or holy man, always saheb.
The storytelling took place in his mom’s tailor shop. The shop was on the street level, adjacent to the apartment they had built and lived in. She used to work until late hours of the night, her store windows being sometimes the only illuminated ones in the whole block.
After finishing his homework and supper, he would go down to the shop to bring his mom her can of strong, hot black tea, and to listen to her stories. By then, her two employees had gone home. She was working on this wedding gown that had to be done by the next day or that dress that needed the last corrections. He helped her sometimes and pretended that holding a side of a gown that she was zipping through the machine, or holding the candle so she could burn the corners of a dress to give it the new fashionable curly style, made him an indispensable aide to her. She didn’t mind. And he was rewarded with her stories.
When his hand on aid was not needed, he read to her from the new issues of the two or three Iranian and Afghan magazines, Zan-e Roz, Etla’at Haftagee and Jowandoon that his sisters had subscribed. She corrected his many mispronounced words with a warm smile and without interrupting her work.
He didn’t mind her corrections.
He loved those moments…..in those moments he had his mom all to himself.
Sometimes his youngest, not by much older than him, sister annoyed him with her visits, usually to discuss her next birthday party with his mom or to get money from her for the notebook she needed for school, and sometimes his other, the little older, sister came running down to share the latest Indian song broadcast from Radio Ceylon on her transistor radio, to which she seemed to be glued since he was old enough to become aware of her existence. But, they usually left as abruptly as they had come down to the store. Soon the youngest sister would be on the phone anyway, humming and reciting the poem of the latest Ahmad Zahir song with one of her many classmates.
He didn’t mind his siblings being busy with their own lives.
During the day his mom was occupied with her, at times, crowded store. The customers were almost all women. Some had their cars with husbands or chauffeurs waiting outside, and some were women who could finally afford their first hand-tailored dress. And then, there were the block night watch, the shopkeepers, the beggars, and the many, many salespersons who were coming to the store to conduct their businesses, or who were just peeking through the door curtains to say salaam bibi.
His three uncles often came by the store to say hello, before or after visiting his dad at the apartment. They checked on their younger sister whom they always addressed respectfully with shoma, instead of too which would have been more customary when older siblings addressed their younger ones.
He also thought about those uncles in another regard. While his family car, driven by his older brother, a Kabul University law student, was an English Vauxhall, one of only two Vauxhalls in Kabul as far as he knew, two of the uncles rode bicycles. They drove bicycles and they were 'sardars'? he wondered.
His mom used to buy a lot. Most of it was some sort of food; as if she was afraid her family would run out. Rice from a semi nomadic woman from the Laghman province who not only tended her herd, but also delivered the sacks full of rice with her sons to Kabul customers on her spring visits, dried meat from another nomad, vinegar from a man who had his commodity in a sheep skin bag on his back, quroot from an Hazara woman, cheese from an old man shouting aashawa paneer, aashawa paneer, fresh tomatoes, eggplants and other vegetables and fruits from man who had their products on the back of donkeys or on hand or donkey driven carts. They always stopped at the store, sometimes just to chat for a little while with his bibi. They were offered a cup of tea or a glass of cold water and kept moving, singing aloud their products’ praises for the next customer.
She also had to keep an eye on the house, tell the cook what he should prepare for lunch or dinner, or go to the kitchen herself for half an hour to quickly cook something when the cook wasn’t there, or if they had no cook at that time. Then the kids would come from school, college, or work, joining their dad who was now retired; they would all be hungry soon and want a warm meal on the large dinning table. His mom usually ate lunch at the store with her employees. She sometimes joined the family at the dining table when the store wasn’t very busy, and her longtime assistant Mehrohjan was in a good mood and didn’t mind being left alone with the teenage Hossain, the shop intern.
His mom was a noble and smart businesswoman. Noble because she treated all her customers and business partners with the utmost respect, regardless of who they were, a respect that perhaps only hard working people have for each other. And smart because she got the best deals and prices for the clothes she made and the things she bought from others. The best deals sometimes included price discounts she gave certain customers who otherwise could not have afforded hand-tailored clothes for the regular, higher prices.
Yes, that was his bibi, a woman proud of her heritage, he saw now, because she herself had a proud, noble and self-conscious soul.
He remembered one occasion when his mom took him along to a visit to the Laghmani rice woman. The women had kept inviting his mom to her tent. His mom was a very busy wife, mother of nine demanding teenage and adult children, a respected host or guest of many and never ending extended family gatherings and events, and a busy tailor shop owner, but she could no longer deny her equally proud and noble Laghmani rice woman a visit.
The Laghmani rice woman lived with her family at a nomad’s tent camp outside of the Taimani district. He couldn’t recall now if they drove there or if they took the long walk to the campsite, but he vividly remembered the visit.
The tent was a usual, old, black, and patched Kochi tent. The small camp was clouded in a fog of smoke from burning branches, smells of animal wastes, of boiling milk and fresh chapatti bread.
He was mesmerized by that wild and crystal clear symphony of plants, animals, and humans.
The Laghmani rice woman’s eyes were sparklingly thankful for his mom’s visit and she and her family welcomed them inside the tent.
Of all the palaces and castles his mother had built in his young imagination with her noble stories, this tent was the most majestic place. This tent was the most real palace the queen, his bibi, and he, the prince had ever entered in their lives.
The End
And her stories…he loved them. They were stories from not too long ago. They were full of proud and beautiful women, funny cousins, loving nannies, loyal servants and goofy carriage drivers, patriotic uncles, good and bad kings and queens, and noble and vicious sardars. And they seemed to have happened centuries ago.
Sometimes she recited a poem or two by Saa’di saheb. He didn’t really understand the verses, but he wondered why she was calling this Saa’di, a poet, not a sardar or holy man, always saheb.
The storytelling took place in his mom’s tailor shop. The shop was on the street level, adjacent to the apartment they had built and lived in. She used to work until late hours of the night, her store windows being sometimes the only illuminated ones in the whole block.
After finishing his homework and supper, he would go down to the shop to bring his mom her can of strong, hot black tea, and to listen to her stories. By then, her two employees had gone home. She was working on this wedding gown that had to be done by the next day or that dress that needed the last corrections. He helped her sometimes and pretended that holding a side of a gown that she was zipping through the machine, or holding the candle so she could burn the corners of a dress to give it the new fashionable curly style, made him an indispensable aide to her. She didn’t mind. And he was rewarded with her stories.
When his hand on aid was not needed, he read to her from the new issues of the two or three Iranian and Afghan magazines, Zan-e Roz, Etla’at Haftagee and Jowandoon that his sisters had subscribed. She corrected his many mispronounced words with a warm smile and without interrupting her work.
He didn’t mind her corrections.
He loved those moments…..in those moments he had his mom all to himself.
Sometimes his youngest, not by much older than him, sister annoyed him with her visits, usually to discuss her next birthday party with his mom or to get money from her for the notebook she needed for school, and sometimes his other, the little older, sister came running down to share the latest Indian song broadcast from Radio Ceylon on her transistor radio, to which she seemed to be glued since he was old enough to become aware of her existence. But, they usually left as abruptly as they had come down to the store. Soon the youngest sister would be on the phone anyway, humming and reciting the poem of the latest Ahmad Zahir song with one of her many classmates.
He didn’t mind his siblings being busy with their own lives.
During the day his mom was occupied with her, at times, crowded store. The customers were almost all women. Some had their cars with husbands or chauffeurs waiting outside, and some were women who could finally afford their first hand-tailored dress. And then, there were the block night watch, the shopkeepers, the beggars, and the many, many salespersons who were coming to the store to conduct their businesses, or who were just peeking through the door curtains to say salaam bibi.
His three uncles often came by the store to say hello, before or after visiting his dad at the apartment. They checked on their younger sister whom they always addressed respectfully with shoma, instead of too which would have been more customary when older siblings addressed their younger ones.
He also thought about those uncles in another regard. While his family car, driven by his older brother, a Kabul University law student, was an English Vauxhall, one of only two Vauxhalls in Kabul as far as he knew, two of the uncles rode bicycles. They drove bicycles and they were 'sardars'? he wondered.
His mom used to buy a lot. Most of it was some sort of food; as if she was afraid her family would run out. Rice from a semi nomadic woman from the Laghman province who not only tended her herd, but also delivered the sacks full of rice with her sons to Kabul customers on her spring visits, dried meat from another nomad, vinegar from a man who had his commodity in a sheep skin bag on his back, quroot from an Hazara woman, cheese from an old man shouting aashawa paneer, aashawa paneer, fresh tomatoes, eggplants and other vegetables and fruits from man who had their products on the back of donkeys or on hand or donkey driven carts. They always stopped at the store, sometimes just to chat for a little while with his bibi. They were offered a cup of tea or a glass of cold water and kept moving, singing aloud their products’ praises for the next customer.
She also had to keep an eye on the house, tell the cook what he should prepare for lunch or dinner, or go to the kitchen herself for half an hour to quickly cook something when the cook wasn’t there, or if they had no cook at that time. Then the kids would come from school, college, or work, joining their dad who was now retired; they would all be hungry soon and want a warm meal on the large dinning table. His mom usually ate lunch at the store with her employees. She sometimes joined the family at the dining table when the store wasn’t very busy, and her longtime assistant Mehrohjan was in a good mood and didn’t mind being left alone with the teenage Hossain, the shop intern.
His mom was a noble and smart businesswoman. Noble because she treated all her customers and business partners with the utmost respect, regardless of who they were, a respect that perhaps only hard working people have for each other. And smart because she got the best deals and prices for the clothes she made and the things she bought from others. The best deals sometimes included price discounts she gave certain customers who otherwise could not have afforded hand-tailored clothes for the regular, higher prices.
Yes, that was his bibi, a woman proud of her heritage, he saw now, because she herself had a proud, noble and self-conscious soul.
He remembered one occasion when his mom took him along to a visit to the Laghmani rice woman. The women had kept inviting his mom to her tent. His mom was a very busy wife, mother of nine demanding teenage and adult children, a respected host or guest of many and never ending extended family gatherings and events, and a busy tailor shop owner, but she could no longer deny her equally proud and noble Laghmani rice woman a visit.
The Laghmani rice woman lived with her family at a nomad’s tent camp outside of the Taimani district. He couldn’t recall now if they drove there or if they took the long walk to the campsite, but he vividly remembered the visit.
The tent was a usual, old, black, and patched Kochi tent. The small camp was clouded in a fog of smoke from burning branches, smells of animal wastes, of boiling milk and fresh chapatti bread.
He was mesmerized by that wild and crystal clear symphony of plants, animals, and humans.
The Laghmani rice woman’s eyes were sparklingly thankful for his mom’s visit and she and her family welcomed them inside the tent.
Of all the palaces and castles his mother had built in his young imagination with her noble stories, this tent was the most majestic place. This tent was the most real palace the queen, his bibi, and he, the prince had ever entered in their lives.
The End
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