An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir (13 page)

Are most Afghan patriarchs this distant toward their sons, this physically cold? Is this precisely the way to guarantee filial obedience and permanent rivalry among sons for their father’s withheld affection?

In her book about the Shah of Iran, the author Margaret Laing quotes Empress Farah, the Shah’s wife, who ascribes her husband’s reluctance to hug and kiss his own children to his not having been hugged or kissed by his own father; such things were not done.

This kind of father-son relationship seems to characterize many of the relationships between polygamous Muslim fathers and their sons. Some sons become subservient grovelers—who will never overthrow their father’s (or leader’s) tyrannical regime. The system works. Such sons end up adoring as well as fearing their father. Some sons—like Osama bin Laden, who was one of fifty-seven children—take a different route.

Bebegul’s second son, Reza, is much taller than Hassan. Reza has a British accent and a slow, wry wit. He is ironic about his return from England. He returned to
Kabul for what he calls his “golden castles in Asia,” leaving behind a heartbroken young mistress and an illegitimate son . . . or so I was told.

Like Abdul-Kareem, Reza was also kept on a rather short financial leash. This is a government decision. They do not want young Afghans to experience the kind of high life that might make them think twice about returning home. Hassan was never allowed to leave the country, at least not as a student. I am not sure why, but I am sure that Hassan resents this enormously. It doesn’t matter that he is being groomed to one day take over his father’s place at the bank.

For now both Hassan and Reza work for their father. Hassan works at the bank, Reza at the import-export company, each in positions analogous to their order of birth. They parade and enjoy these positions as much as they feel cheated by them. Their salaries are minimal; they make
no decisions, only their father does. At first Reza could not or would not adjust to life back in Kabul. He wanted no part of his father’s feudal and emasculating authority. Reza took to his rooms and brooded for almost a year. And then he emerged. Reza himself tells me, “I finally accepted it. I am working for my father, and I’m engaged to a girl whose mother is English. I’ve seen her once, and even though she doesn’t speak English, she is presentable enough.”

Aside from his minimal salary, which pays for cigarettes and snacks, Reza does not have enough money to live on his own. Reza visits his fiancée, Mahtab, and her parents every week. His is a modern engagement. Traditionally an Afghan bride and groom meet for the first time on the day of their wedding, which is essentially a ceremony conducted only by and for men. The bride and groom meet afterward, when they first see each other reflected in a mirror.

As I came to learn, the bride cannot express any emotion whatsoever on her wedding day. If she looks happy, it will insult her mother and father, whose home she will be leaving forever. If she looks sad, that would be seen as an insult to her husband’s family, especially her mother-in-law, with whom she will be living.

Reza spends his spare time visiting the house his father is building for him. He does not like the house. “Nothing works, nothing is right. He did not hire an architect. He sketched the house in the margins of a newspaper himself.”

Reza’s only satisfaction resides in the still more inferior position at the office occupied by his older half-brother, Samir (the first son of Agha Jan’s second wife, Tooba). And Reza patiently points this and other facts out to Samir, and suggests and encourages him to petition their father for redress, sympathizing with Samir when their various strategies fail, as always. In this way Reza both reaffirms his slight edge over Samir and gets to enjoy a vicarious confrontation with their father at Samir’s expense. Thus victorious, Reza has genuine compassion for Samir, who is still unmarried.

Samir is an absurdly skinny, angular boy-man. A frayed black karakul (Persian lambskin) hat is perched on his small sad head. He looks frightened at all times. His father has never arranged a marriage for him. Rumor has it that once, when the women “went out for him,” the designated girl’s parents rejected the match.

One day Samir, on behalf of his mother, Tooba, and sister, Rabia, invites me for tea. He ushers me happily into his modest home with high shrill feminine giggles of greeting.

Tooba serves us a plate of English lemon cookies—a luxury they can scarcely afford. It is late afternoon and cold. The three of us, strangers in every way, happily drink our tea. A feeling of closeness passes between us in place of bright conversation.

Tooba shows me Samir’s room. It is like stepping into a luxurious miniature engraving. Light silk curtains fall on either side of the window. The bed occupies an alcove and is covered with a brilliant electric turquoise spread. A small tapestry hangs over the bed, and a lovely prayer rug is rolled up nearby. His is a beautiful, really perfect, room. No pretentious East-West clutter here, no heavy Germanic fireplaces, no heavy velvet drapes.

Instead of the expensive Western-style leather bedroom slippers that most wealthy Afghan men wear, a pair of comfortable Persian-style slippers stands near Samir’s bed. Some magazines are arranged on the floor near the window. They carry illustrated stories of some of Samir’s favorite places: a hotel overlooking the Nile, a garden in Shiraz, a folk festival in Uzbekistan.

Samir rubs one hand in the other, embarrassed and pleased at my obvious pleasure. He offers me more tea and “perhaps some fruit”?

How he must suffer, I think!

I am going crazy with boredom and loneliness. My sister-in-law Fawziya, Hassan’s wife, tells me: “Pretend you are an Afghan woman. Forget that you were ever American. It’s the only way you’ll survive.”

In Edward Hunter’s book about Afghan women in purdah, he describes a “pattern of depression, weeping spells, and cruelty” among
Afghan
women, who were not raised as Americans. He quotes an unnamed informant who describes women crying, sobbing, and slapping themselves: “These poor, pent-up creatures have nobody else whose face they can slap. Except the faces of other females who must submit to them, a daughter-in-law perhaps, or a daughter. Outsiders simply cannot conceive how dreadful the feeling of isolation from life can be in purdah.”

At the time everyone, including Abdul-Kareem, treats what I view as my captivity as a spoiled American woman’s overly dramatic reaction to how things simply . . . are.

Hassan barely speaks to Fawziya. Once, right in front of her, Hassan asks me what I think of his wife: “If ten is the rating for beauty, what number would you give her? A two?”

Fawziya keeps smiling brightly. I am sure she understands his question.

I hug her. I tell Hassan that I would rate her far beyond a ten.

“Maybe Fawziya is a twenty. What do you think you are, Hassan?”

I do not like this vain and arrogant brother-in-law, who is so heartless toward his gentle wife.

Everyone in Abdul-Kareem’s family has submitted to an arranged marriage. Only Abdul-Kareem has married a woman without any Afghan ancestors. He has not expanded his family’s social or economic reach. He has married selfishly, for love. It is a scandal. Given what I now understand, I believe that his family was as warm and welcoming to me as they could be. But they are starving me. I am always hungry. I cannot persuade Bebegul or Abdul-Kareem to allow the cook to use Crisco.

I still find this impossible to believe. In all the years I was with Abdul-Kareem in America, he cooked for me so tenderly. I love all his Afghan dishes. I considered myself lucky to have had such a brilliant personal chef. Yet here in Kabul he does not seem to care that I am hungry but unable to eat the food.

Years later, in 1978, Aziz, one of Abdul-Kareem’s younger half-brothers, comes to visit me in Manhattan. Aziz reminds me that I used to slip across to the home of his mother, Meena (she is the third wife), and politely ask for some food. Their cook used Crisco. The food was always gone but Aziz, who was ten at the time, would promise me that “next time” he’d save something for me. He never managed it.

I
hear that a new restaurant, an American-style cafeteria, has opened in town. I decide that this would be a perfect opportunity for me to get some much-needed nutrition and for Abdul-Kareem and me to have some time alone together.

I have meat loaf, mashed potatoes, string beans, and apple pie. I am thrilled. Abdul-Kareem looks miserable the entire time. His mouth is turned down; he does not eat with me. He steers me to a far corner of the room “where people won’t be able to see us making fools of ourselves.”

Who is this man? My life is in the hands of a stranger.

“Abdul-Kareem, let’s just move out. Can’t we live at the Kabul hotel? Or, better still, why don’t we travel a bit, see the country? Or can we at least rent a furnished home?”

He sneers at me. “You are a child. Do you mean to ruin me before I’ve even begun? News of this little meal of yours is going to land on
some minister’s desk, and it will be used against me. When will you understand that Afghans do not dine out in restaurants? It is not done.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Afghan,” I respond. “I see men in
choi chanas
(teahouses) sitting on raised platforms and drinking, eating, and smoking all over town. Don’t you mean that
women
are not supposed to eat out or be seen in public?”

“I will not dignify that with a response. I will not talk about this.”

He continues more softly: “The problem, Phyllis dear, is that you do not know how to run a proper Afghan household. You do not speak the language; the servants will take advantage of you. They will steal everything. And you—you would ruin us with your parties and liquor and dancing and music—”

“Wait a minute. I am the one who reads books. I am not a party girl. You are the one who likes to party.”

“Don’t you understand that I am being closely watched?”

“Are we living in Soviet Russia? Is this a totalitarian regime?”

“Phyllis, I beg you. Please lower your voice. People are not used to an Afghan couple living alone. They would not understand it. It would be seen as disrespectful to my family. No one is used to having his wife run around town on her own to sightsee. People would talk.”

“Abdul-Kareem, I can’t remain locked up with your mother, who I believe hates me. Even Fawziya is afraid of her.”

Pro forma, Abdul-Kareem denies that I am in purdah. He insists that the women in his family and in his country are far happier and far more fulfilled than neurotic American women are. But he also takes his other standard tack.

“Things are going to change here. We can be a part of this. But until then I will have to be very careful. One scandal, one slip, and it can all be over for me. If you don’t ruin things, you will have many things to do by my side. You won’t have time to be ‘locked up,’ as you put it. I am going to be an important man here. Please trust me. So far, no one else will.”

The man is cunning. First he tries to cut me down to size, then he insults my country and my culture, then he dangles the carrot.

E
veryone knows that I’m at a loose and desperate end.

Thus I am beginning to get out a bit more but only under carefully supervised conditions. I see the longed-for sites as we pass them by on our way to visit someone. I see the beautiful tomb of Emir
Abdur Rahman (1880–1901) in Kabul—but from afar. It seems graceful, like something from a fairy tale, like the Taj Mahal. I see Amanullah’s
half-built palace, the Darul Aman (or Dar-al-Aman) palace, which commands an extraordinary view.

I see the old British fort. Whenever we pass it by, Abdul-Kareem and every other Afghan is sure to remind me that the Afghans drove the mighty British Empire out. In point of fact the British had agreed to withdraw, and the Afghans proceeded to massacre 4,500 mainly Indian soldiers commanded by British officers, as well as nearly 12,000 camp followers, which means women and children. Only one British man, Dr. William Brydon, managed to reach Jalalabad alive. He was the sole eyewitness to what is known as the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42).

I come to love the Blue Mosque of Kabul. It is a small mosque near the Kabul River in the center of town. Its dome is azure blue, sky blue, a heavenly color.

The family has homes and properties in Istalif, Paghman, Jalalabad, and Herat. Paghman is a summer resort just outside Kabul. After I suffer several bouts of truly wretched dysentery, Abdul-Kareem, his brothers, sisters, and their spouses take me on a visit to Paghman. It is an act of enormous kindness, an all-out effort to cheer me up and perhaps to impress me as well. I am duly impressed and grateful.

Shahs, emirs, and kings made this their summer home, and their courtiers quickly followed. At the start of the fifteenth century, when
Babur the Great conquered Kabul, he found that exquisite gardens already existed in Paghman. In the late nineteenth century Emir Abdur Rahman established his summer court here.

In addition to the Bala-Bagh (upper garden) palace, an ornate Afghan version of a European Victorian-era gingerbread house, there are other villas, a vast Versailles-like garden, showy statuary, fountains, fountain geysers, gazebos, waterfalls, lakes, flowers, trees—so many trees, and more greenery than I have ever seen.

There is even an arch built by King Amanullah in imitation of the Arc de Triomphe. This one commemorates the Afghan victory over the British.

This is not an example of simple and overt Western colonialism. This is an example of the Eastern appropriation of Western architecture and landscaping. In a culturally Eurocentric world, everyone, including wealthy Afghans, wanted a little bit of European culture at home.

This is ironic, since so many Western travelers to the East want to go native—wear turbans, ride camels, dine and sleep in tents or at least on carpeted floors, drinking tea and coffee flavored with cardamom.

Rosanne Klass, in
Land of the High Flags: Afghanistan When the Going Was Good,
explains it this way: The Afghans were in isolation for so long that when they emerged, “they realized they had been left aside in a changing world . . . so they rushed to accumulate what the world had in the meantime stamped as accepted goods, in arts and elsewhere.”