From Souk to Souk (10 page)

‘Welcome to Afghanistan!' they chime, almost in unison. Like everyone I see here, their tanned faces look weathered, a result, I imagine, of the bitter-cold winters and hot, dry summers. They are keen on a sale and the older one with the thick moustache assures us he has beautiful gifts we could buy for our families, vowing solemnly to make us a special price. We smile our excuses, say we might come back later and continue on our way.

A shop selling waistcoats, jackets and hats catches my attention. I am tempted by the piles of
karakuls
, the typical Kabul caps made from curly Astrakhan fur, and the heaps of traditional
pakuls,
a sort of woollen beret in earthy colours: either one would make an exotic addition to my hat collection. But, when we go in, I am dismayed to see the place is full of fur coats, aimed, no doubt, at well-paid expats working here. The hook-nosed owner, a man of indeterminable age with greasy hair, emerges from a recess, black eyes flashing. Are we looking for hats? Or perhaps a nice leather jacket? he grimaces, whisking a cheap-looking black three-quarter-length coat off one of the crowded rails and thrusting it at us. Put off by the snarling fox pelts dangling everywhere and the unpleasant, musty smell, I say I am just browsing and make for the open door.

‘Perhaps a nice waistcoat?' he calls after us, but we are already back outside.

I ask James why it is called Chicken Street, as we saunter past a huge hole between two houses. Foundations have been laid for a new building, but the site is empty. He says it is because many years ago there was indeed a poultry market, only later being replaced by the sort of shops we see around us today. Walking along the road, we are greeted by smiles and the occasional ‘Hello!' from storekeepers standing in doorways. We stop in front of one shop selling carpets, not the traditional patterns one might expect, but rugs with images of tanks, machine guns and fighter planes woven into them. I try to decide if they are a tasteless gimmick aimed at foreigners or a contemporary version of the genuine article, adapted to reflect life as experienced by people here. I wonder whether I should buy one, the novelty of the strange item starting to appeal. Perhaps it is the altitude.

James suggests we go to the international bookshop, famous for featuring in the controversial tale
The Bookseller of Kabul
in which the Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad recounted her stay with the owner and his family, a depiction which he strongly contested. I can buy my stamps and postcards there, James tells me. We make our way along the high pavement, passing stores selling paper, soft drinks or haircuts, until we arrive at a makeshift roundabout where a policeman is half-heartedly attempting to control the erratic traffic. Red and white barricades stand randomly in the middle of the roads leading to the junction. We wait for a gap between the cars before dashing across the street to the green-fronted store. Inside, it is as quiet and library-like as bookshops the world over. Near the entrance, its walls are lined from floor to ceiling with an amazing selection of publications, mostly about Afghanistan and the region, but in the farther corners of the labyrinthine shop there are children's editions, foreign-language dictionaries, course books and encyclopaedias. I ponder my baggage allowance for the return flight before starting to select a handful of postcards from the wacky collection that fills the racks. Next to photographs of magnificent scenery and historical buildings, palaces and mosques are pictures of bearded Afghans cheerfully brandishing semi-automatic weapons. Looking at a lurid image of the twelfth-century Minaret of Jam in the Ghor Province, I realise I am unfamiliar with most of the places featured on the cards and feel ashamed that I have arrived in Afghanistan knowing so little about the country's architectural riches. I reflect glumly on the cycle of violence and poverty, and how the security situation chokes off the development of tourism, an industry that could do so much to help improve the lives of people here.

I take my selection of postcards to the man sitting behind the counter. He is filling out what looks like an old-fashioned ledger. In his late thirties, I wonder if he is the Sultan Khan character featured in the book, but think better of it than to ask. I have never read the work and, for all I know, the protagonist might be eighty years old. With his Western-style shirt and trousers and absence of any form of scarf or turban, the clean-shaven man in front of me looks like any mature student from the Middle East one might see in London. I enquire after stamps and am surprised to be given a handful of specimens dating from years ago. They are still valid, the man earnestly assures me through his thick-rimmed glasses as if reading my mind while I study a stamp commemorating the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Picking up another, I am surprised to see the words ‘
Postes afghanes
' in French. A faint smile brightening up his face, the seemingly telepathic bookseller tells me it is because the former king was a Francophile. I wonder which one he means: the last monarch, Mohammed Zahir Shar, was, in 1973, ousted in a coup, a fate he shared with three of his four predecessors. I return to browsing the shelves where tales of
Boys Own
-style nineteenth-century battles are interspersed with reviews of the political situation and studies on the role of Islam in the region. I could spend hours in the place: it is crammed full with books one would never come across in a shop at home.

But we must go, says James with a friendly smile, if I want to visit the bird market, the last remaining authentic bazaar in Kabul. I have accumulated a handful of books, but decide to buy just one, a volume entitled
Afghanistan Over a Cup of Tea
penned by the ageing American Nancy Hatch Dupree, an expert on the history, art and archaeology of the country who has lived here on and off for decades. The text on the back says that each of the forty-eight chronicles can be read in about the time it takes to drink a cup of hot
chai
. As I finish handing over my
Afghanis
to pay, James is already hovering near the door. He bundles me out of the shop while ringing his local partner. The call over, he explains that the bird market is less safe than other parts of the city and that the visit will have to be brief.

We make our way back to the guesthouse where Taimur, James's business associate, and the driver are waiting for us. Clad in a 1950s-style leather flying jacket and a black
tumbaan
, the surprisingly long-haired man introduces himself in grammatically perfect English with the sort of refined Pakistani accent that makes me think of Benazir Bhutto. In countries where life is hard, looks can be deceptive, but I reckon Taimur, like James, is about thirty. He says we should get going. We pile into the van and are once again back in the city's traffic, now gridlocked in one-way streets, moments later free-flowing along wide roads. We trundle over a bridge that spans the narrow Kabul River, its shallow, foaming waters streaming past all manner of rubbish on the riverbed in the way I imagine many urban rivers in Europe used to until comparatively recently. Languishing somewhere at the bottom of the World Bank's development list of 180 countries, Afghanistan is the poorest place I have visited, but, even so, I find myself surprised, not just by the deprivation, but by the lack of development. In India, too, I saw grinding poverty, but it existed cheek-by-jowl with signs of great wealth, both past and present. Here, as we drive through Kabul, all I see are dilapidated buildings, garbage and what looks like a medieval society dumped, bewildered, into an alien world. There are glimpses of modernity, but they look as if they will leave with the troops when they finally go, or otherwise quickly succumb to whatever follows the withdrawal.

‘Where has all the aid money gone?' I ask.

Taimur says some has gone on reconstruction and on improving roads, such as the one to Bamyan in the centre of the country, but a lot has simply disappeared.

‘You know, my friend, Afghan society is very different to that in the West,' he adds, turning to face me from his seat in the front of the van and echoing James's words with a slight lecturing tone. ‘You can't expect everything to function here like in your country.'

‘What do you think will happen when the international troops pull out?' I venture, deciding to change the subject.

Looking again at the road ahead, Taimur utters a short, cold laugh. I cannot decide whether it is of resignation or because he considers my question naïve. His gaze still fixed at some point beyond the windscreen, he says the Taliban will be back in power within a fortnight. James is more optimistic: he thinks enough people will be reluctant to see a return to the sort of regime they had before to prevent that scenario. They make light of their diverging views, as if the discussion is one they have aired many times before. They agree to differ and we drop the subject.

A short while later, our silver van pulls up amidst a chaotic mass of vehicles, some parked, others with their engines running. Ostensibly, we are at the side of a road, but it looks more like a yawning gap between two rows of crumbling buildings separated by a hotchpotch of lorries, cars and carts. Crowds mill about in front of hole-in-the-wall shops above which colourful hoardings advertise everything from mobile phone services to baby food. Hawkers wander around, some limping, as they try to sell pens, paper handkerchiefs and little bags of nuts, wizened hands proffering cheap goods while weary faces silently tell of souls that have tired of life. Taimur appears nervous: since the end of the discussion about the country's future, he has made half a dozen phone calls, the subject of which I could only guess from the intonation and, whenever he looked at the driver, from the expression on his face. He tells James to wait in the van and then, turning to me, says we will only be able to make a quick tour of the bird market, known locally as the Ka Farushi bazaar. I slide open the door and slip out into the noisy, messy world of the shopping street, meeting Taimur in front of the vehicle. He stomps off towards a gap in the buildings where a narrow lane, the Alley of the Straw Sellers, the strangely-named home to the bird market, begins. I walk briskly after the stocky figure, doing my best to keep up and feeling very conspicuous in my bright orange parka, despite my
tumbaan
and voluminous scarf. We dash through the bazaar, my attempts to linger and look at the doves, canaries and finches that fill the stacks of cages being curtailed by Taimur's constant exhortations to hurry up. Among the cooing and chirping that fills the air, I think I recognise the sound of a nightingale's whistle, but there is no time to investigate: I do not want to lose sight of my guide among the stallholders and shoppers. Scurrying along, now and then I catch a faint whiff of avian odours, but the cold air does much to suppress what in the heat of summer must surely be more pungent smells.

‘These are
kowks
,' explains Taimur, suddenly stopping in front of a row of domed wicker cages containing plump birds with red legs and feet. ‘They are a
special
type of partridge,' he says, his eyes widening. ‘We once had this British man who came on one of our trips. He knew everything about birds and he told me they are Chukars.' As he says this, Taimur's chest seems to swell like those of the birds themselves. With their grey and buff plumage, black collars and coral-red beaks, they look very much like the red-legged partridges found in Europe. Squatting in their cages, they seem content with their life of captivity and I wonder if they would know what to do if they were ever released.

‘And people eat these?' I ask.

‘No! The
kowks
are used for fighting! It is a very popular sport here: men are gambling a lot of money on them. On Fridays, they take the birds
to the park and make them fight.' Taimur studies me for a moment and then turns and marches off.

As I follow him, I am vaguely aware of bearded men in traditional dress
and coats, dark eyes watching us from beneath white turban caps and mushroom-coloured
pakuls
as we hurriedly make our way through the cluttered street. Everything seems brown or beige, the buildings, the mud, the woodwork, even the smiles. After we have scuttled our way for a few more minutes, as if finally having satisfied a child's misplaced curiosity, Taimur tells me that we have seen all there is to see and that we should turn back. I am disappointed: I had expected a visit to the ancient market to be one of the cultural highlights in Kabul with the opportunity to meander and browse. Instead, I have seen nothing more than a blur and have scarcely had time to absorb my surroundings. I get no sense of hostility or danger and wonder if Taimur is not overplaying the situation. But I am unfamiliar with the society and its ways. I know I might not pick up on signals of which he is astutely aware: my safety is in his hands and I have no choice but to scurry after him, suppressing my irritation. As we climb back into the Hiace, James asks cheerfully how it was.

‘Quick,' I huff, and try to smile.

As Aasif launches the little van into the mix of traffic, carts, and people, James says we will go to look at the old city walls. It is a short drive past crumbling buildings and stacks of timber, slender tree trunks lying next to planks of varying lengths and widths. I reflect on what I have seen so far and am struck by how normal, at least for a poor developing country, much of the city seems: daily life carries on. People are working, talking, plying their trades: nobody is rioting, stamping on flags or burning effigies. It is very different from the impression of Afghanistan I had formed before coming here. From out of the van window, I look up to see the fortifications snaking their way down the edge of a steep hill at the bottom of which the brown Kabul River flows. Tiny, flat-roofed houses cling to the hillside, looking more like make-do shelters than homes. I wonder how they can possibly afford protection from the severe Afghan winter: I can think of ski resorts in Europe at a lower altitude. My modest guesthouse starts to look cosy and inviting in comparison. We do not stop, but instead carry on through the bustling city towards the royal residence of Darul Aman. James is not sure whether we will be able to go in or not.