The Best Women's Travel Writing (4 page)

Although at first it seemed unchanged, upon closer inspection I noticed subtle nods to the present day—hidden fixtures brightened the female forms painted on the wall, and the lace curtains that once ran along the perimeter had been replaced by etched glass.

But the soul of Le Grand Véfour was still there, preserved not only in the décor but also in the traditional recipes, which Martin was constantly reinterpreting and updating. The point, he said, was to allow for the inevitability of change and to let history propel you forward rather than weigh you down. Nothing stays the same, he insisted, because nothing ever can.

“I'm growing every day,” he said. “The same goes for my cooking. It's not a static thing. It is always in perpetual motion.”

I wondered out loud whether there was some wisdom to be gleaned here, and what I could extrapolate about life and marriage. Mark and I had survived, but I still sometimes wondered how I could wake up to the same man, every day, for the rest of my days here on earth. Martin said that in his case, the key was to remember the person he was back then and to trust the impressions that had brought him there in the first place.

“When I came here from Savoie, the Palais Royal gardens smelled like home. I couldn't believe I was in Paris,” he said. “The first time I pushed in the door of the restaurant, I gasped. It was just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It was a
coup de coeur
, like when you meet someone—you aren't certain, but you know something happened. You just know. I knew I belonged here.”

In other words, I needed to envision the young man I'd fallen in love with and trust that I would feel the same way about him if we met today. I needed always to remind myself why it was Mark I'd chosen to marry. And I needed to recall the much younger woman I had been—the one who was never going to settle—and believe that even if I tended to be guided somewhat by passion, I also possessed a good dose of sense to harness the free will required for a sound decision.

I closed my eyes and saw Mark and me with our limbs entwined, never imagining that I could one day be middle- aged and scarred by an episode of doubt, looking to a Paris restaurateur to shine a light on my future while illuminating my past.

For twenty years, Martin had setbacks and dark times, and when Michelin took away his third star, it was his own version of the infidelity that nearly destroyed my marriage—and certainly my faith in the institution. But as guardian of Le Grand Véfour's culinary legacy, he also led it into the twenty-first century with the same devotion that motivates those too optimistic, or hopeful, to entertain the idea of failure: hard work, flexibility, creativity, love.

“I never thought I'd be here for twenty years,” he says.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“Sometimes I'm still surprised.”

“Yes, me too,” I said.

“But as long as I feel good here, and as long as I have faith in what I do, I'll stay,” he said. “Life is very short.”

That, I realized, could also mean, why bother? Other adventures and other paths constantly tempt every man and woman in this life, forever posing the question of whether it takes more courage to stay put or move on. After all, in marriage—and in food—twenty years is already no small achievement.

This time I sat in Jean Cocteau's chair with my old friend, who had been here with us two decades ago. It was a strange thrill to now feel my own history in this room. The chilled bottle of pink Champagne we drank was the same kind Mark and I had served at our wedding, probably the same kind I'd shared with Nicolas, and the same I'll drink with my husband on our fortieth anniversary. Even the food managed to be revelatory: Martin's modern turn on Le Grand Véfour's classic ravioli, now prepared with the finest foie gras in the land, seemed to prove that the best use of the past is to chart the course for the path ahead.

Still, I missed Mark. He had alluded to his tenacity all those years ago, and because of it, I had something to celebrate. We had weathered what for many couples would have been insurmountable. And if I could learn anything from a restaurant that had withstood centuries and wars and misfortune—and a chef who taught me that fidelity does not have to mean compromise—then we too would last forever.

I knew that just outside in the gardens, lovers kissed, babies tumbled, and a work crew trimmed the lawn, leaving the smell of cut grass. We could see none of it above the newly etched windows, just the sky over Paris—eternal, faithful, delicious.

Marcia DeSanctis is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in many publications, including
Vogue, Departures, The New York Times Magazine, Recce, Best Women's Travel Writing 2011, Best Travel Writing 2011
and
Town & Country.
Her story
Masha
won the Solas Grand Prize Silver Award for Travel Writing in 2011. Formerly, she was a network news producer for ABC, NBC, CBS and Dow Jones. You can visit her at
www.marciadesanctis.com
.

ANGIE CHUANG

Learning to Pray

In a Kabul kitchen, a journalist discovers the secrets of sisterhood.

T
he yellow door looked far heavier than it was. Every time we Americans—Laila and I—swung it open, we pulled or pushed too hard, and it flailed wildly on its hinges. Back and forth, back and forth. It had a large, crooked black English letter painted on it. “What does the K stand for?” I asked, puzzling at it as if it represented a secret code. “Kabul,” the city we were in? “Karzai,” a show of support for the president? Nearly three years after the U.S. had overthrown the Taliban, most Afghans still spoke of him with a trace of hope.

Nafisa smiled: “It stands for kitchen.” Our laughter filled the room.

This was our space, the room in the compound-style Kabul home where we four young women, American and Afghan, spent most of our waking time together. Nafisa and Nazo enjoyed our company as they did their household chores. The men had their own spaces, such as the
saloon
, or sitting room, in which they made important decisions. But the kitchen was the women's space, where we could have private conversations, sharing secrets with little worry that someone might walk in or overhear. The kitchen was where Nafisa and Nazo could be themselves.

Nafisa and Nazo were sisters-in-law, both in their twenties. Nafisa had moved a year before from Pakistan to marry Nazo's brother Ayub in a union arranged by their families. The two young women did all the cooking and most of the housework together, and as a result, they spent more time with each other than with anyone else in the house. Nafisa had liquid brown eyes and straight black hair, and was serene and serious. Nazo's startling green eyes had an impish glow, and her curly dark hair was always trying to escape from her
chador
, or headscarf. They chatted, bickered, and laughed with such ease that I sometimes wondered if Nafisa's marriage had been arranged for her compatibility not only with Ayub but also with his sister, Nazo.

Ayub was on a business trip in Kandahar when we arrived, so Laila, Nafisa, Nazo, and I shared the room usually occupied by the newlyweds—the only one in the house that had access to a western-style flush toilet. The room barely accommodated the double bed and the two sleeping mats.

It was May 2004. After September 11, I had begun to report on the Shirzais, an Oregon-based Afghan immigrant family, and their plans to reconnect with their country as it rebuilt post-Taliban. I first met Laila Shirzai in my official role as a journalist, but we soon became friends. She was an ideal travel companion, a hybrid between American and Afghan. She'd grown up in Pakistan's Afghan-refugee enclaves and attended high school and college in the United States. This trip had been her idea, and we stayed in the home of her aunt, who was Nazo's mother and, of course, Nafisa's mother-in-law.

Laila and I had fallen into the foreign yet comforting rhythm of the sisters-in-law's days. Shortly after the 4:30 A.M. prayer call, they would pray while we snoozed. Then they came in with a tray of bread and tea to rouse us. Many days, Laila and I helped the two young women in the kitchen as they prepared meals; we chatted as we stood side-by-side, chopping onions and tomatoes. We also went shopping together and attended a birthday party for Nazo's friend. And we visited Nazo's school, an overcrowded, slapdash attempt to restart girls' education a decade after the Taliban had banned it. (Nazo, at twenty-two, was in the tenth grade because of the time she had missed.) Often, we just sat on the edge of the concrete-covered well in the house's courtyard, leaning into each other under the fig trees.

One morning, I got up earlier than usual and lingered with a cup of tea in the kitchen as the household began its day. Nazo came in, wearing her school uniform of a black
shalwar kameez
, a traditional tunic-and-pants outfit, and a white headscarf. Her English was not as fluent as Nafisa's, so she often asked me for help with unfamiliar or forgotten words.

On this morning, she said, “I cannot remember the word that means you are sleeping but you are seeing things like you are waking.”

“Dream,” I said.

“Ah, yes,” she said, with a sly giggle. “Drreeam.”

She paused, a glint in her green eyes.

“Did you have a dream last night?” I asked.

Her pale cheeks turned pink. “Yesterday I dream about Yellow Pants.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Yellow Pants” was her nickname for a black-haired young man whom she had spotted in Nafisa's wedding video, wearing bright goldenrod trousers and a black shirt. The men and women had celebrated and danced in separate rooms, so she hadn't seen him in person at the wedding—only in the video. A few days ago, Nazo had shown us the video of the men dancing in their room and told us she was having friends at her girls' school inquire about the man in the yellow pants.

There was no dating in Afghanistan, and chances were, Nazo would have an arranged marriage like Nafisa and her brother. But if she happened to spot someone, she knew how to put the wheels in motion. A vast and seemingly invisible network of women might contact Nazo's mother, and the two of them might be able to meet in a formal setting, in the presence of the two families.

“What was Yellow Pants doing in your dream?” I said, and playfully nudged Nazo.

She shrieked from behind her hands and pretended to run out of the kitchen. Then she returned, looked me in the eye, and deadpanned, “He was dancing. Just like in the video.”

I wondered if she really meant that, or if “dancing” was a euphemism. It was hard to know sometimes how innocent—or not—she and Nafisa were, what they understood of relationships, love, sex. Nafisa and Nazo had asked Laila and me about our love lives, but American-style dating was unfathomable to them. I told them about my past relationships—one with a man whom I wanted to marry, others with men I had no intention of marrying—and how and why they'd failed. But Nafisa and Nazo only furrowed their brows with compassion as I described various breakups, and I started wishing I had a simpler answer for them. As for Laila, she always changed the subject quickly, not wanting to tell them about the white American boyfriend from college she was keeping a secret from her family.

They watched Hollywood movies, but even those were viewed through the lens of their experiences. After the Taliban were overthrown and movie theaters returned to Kabul,
Titanic
was a runaway hit, perhaps because romance between early-twentieth century Americans felt almost like that of early-twenty-first century Afghans. A young, upper-class woman, Rose, forced by her family to marry a man from her social class, falls in love with Jack, a poor man of whom her family disapproves. Even the unhappy outcome—the two lovers parted eternally by the shipwreck—rang truer to Afghans than the typical Hollywood fare. Love-conquers-all endings seemed unrealistic. Disaster they understood. Of course, the version that was shown in Kabul theaters was censored. Scenes American audiences came to think of as Titanic's signature moments—Jack sketching Rose in the nude, or the two lovers fogging up the windows of her fiancé's Renault—were unceremoniously deleted.

Nafisa showed me pictures of her and Ayub at their wedding. He was tall, square-jawed, and handsome, with a trimmed beard and deep-set eyes. She wore the heavily beaded, multicolored dress of a Pashtun bride, piles of gold jewelry, and a mournful expression. “A bride must not smile, even if she is happy,” she said. “She must act like she is sad to leave her family.” Ayub had landed a lucrative wartime job with the United Nations and was sometimes on the road for weeks at a time, as he was when we'd arrived in Kabul.

Their wedding was less than a year ago, and Nafisa was now in her second trimester of pregnancy, her otherwise lithe body just beginning to show under her
shalwar kameez
. Did she miss her husband, I asked?

“Yes,” she said, sighing. “But when he comes back it is very nice.”

A coy smile played on her face. “Very nice?” I asked.

“Very nice,” she repeated, looking down and blushing. She straightened herself up. “Now I must go do the laundry,” and breezily took leave of me. As she swung open the kitchen door, she glanced over her shoulder with her big brown eyes and winked.

A couple days later, Nafisa skipped her usual afternoon nap, took a shower, picked out a fresh outfit—a soft pink silk
shalwar kameez
—put on perfume and makeup, and tried on five different
chador
before settling on one. As we all sat in the kitchen, watching her put the finishing touches on dinner, I caught her eye. “You're nervous today,” I said. “And pretty.”

“
Inginir
,” she said, using the family's nickname for her husband—the Pashto word for “engineer” meant an educated man—“is coming home today.”

Then, turning to me so only I could see it, she took her delicate hand, balled into a fist, and bit down on her pinky knuckle. She gasped softly, feigning breathlessness, grinned at me, then returned to stirring the stew. It was sexier than all the deleted scenes from
Titanic
combined.

We saw less of Nafisa after that evening, though the four of us still slept in the couple's room. She still joined us at night, only later than usual. Nazo, meanwhile, announced that she was having friends inquire about another young man she'd seen at the birthday party we'd attended.

“White Suit,” she said, eyes dreamy.

I remembered him—he was, indeed, wearing an all-white suit with a bright red shirt. He had a smooth face and was a flamboyant dancer.

“What about Yellow Pants?”

She laughed. Yesterday, we had contemplated some questionable meat in the freezer after one of the city's frequent power outages. I taught her the word “expired,” explaining the labels in American grocery stores that indicated when something should be discarded.

“Yellow Pants,” she said, flipping the end of her
chador
dramatically over her shoulder, “has expired.”

I took a temporary hiatus from Nazo's updates and Nafisa's revelations when Laila and I took a road trip to the family's rural village in the Ghazni province. We traveled with the younger brother of Nazo and Ayub, Asad, who fulfilled the essential role of escort and bodyguard.

Within the confines of his mother's house, I had kept my eyes averted from her only single son, like a proper female houseguest. But as we ventured out onto rural Afghanistan's unpaved roads, I stole glances in the rearview mirror of our hired car. Asad's dark, deep-set eyes were fringed by lashes so long they cast shadows on his brown cheeks. He passed time on the long drive by telling us Mullah Nasruddin jokes, laughing loudly at his own punchlines about the legendary Sufi wise fool.

Soon, we were back in Kabul, and our remaining time passed quickly. We spent our final days saying goodbyes, savoring last meals, exchanging gifts, and posing for pictures. By the time the four of us retired to our room together one final time, I was relieved. We were sprawled across our sleeping mats and cushions.

Nafisa looked impatient. She kept trying to catch Nazo's eye. Nazo was making a list of qualifications for her future husband—among them “a little fat” and “a lot of money”—when her sister-in-law interrupted her.

“I think it is Angie's turn,” she said.

I felt my cheeks grow warm. “I don't have a list.”

“O.K., Nazo and I will help you write your list,” Nafisa said. “Number one: name begins with ‘A.' Ends with ‘D.' Do we know anyone like this?”

Nazo giggled.

“Nafisa!” I said, face growing hotter. Asad. After the roadtrip, he had been ducking into the kitchen now and then to ask me about English vocabulary, just like his sister had. I laughed a little too loudly at his jokes and tried to wipe the grin off my face after he left, all the while wondering when his next visit would be. Each time, I felt Nafisa and Nazo's eyes boring into me as they pretended to be absorbed with the cooking.

“You like my brother?” Nazo said. Her green eyes danced cartoonishly.

“He is very nice,” I said carefully.

“She says he's very nice,” Nazo said to Nafisa, as if she were an interpreter.

“You like him,” Nafisa said, leaning close to me. “You like us. You should marry him.”

Nafisa's face could look so serious, with those big eyes, that naturally downturned mouth.
But surely she's joking.
Nazo nodded, looking earnest herself. I turned to Laila for a hint, but she was keeping a close-lipped smile on her face.

“What? Marry?” I said, my voice sounding strained. “You're kidding.”

“No,” Nafisa said, her uncovered black ponytail flipping emphatically over her shoulder. “You marry him. You will be our sister.”

“I can't marry him. I hardly know him!” I protested.

“You have known him for twelve days,” Nafisa said. She had counted the days since our road trip to the village? “That is more time than I knew my husband before I decided to marry him. And look, we are happy.”