The other soldiers were too fearful of being reprimanded to risk a moment of lightness. We gave them even more teasing names, perhaps out of spite. The guard who was forever squinting we named Kishmish, because his entire face took on a wrinkled appearance when he looked at anything farther than his outstretched arm. A soldier who sniffled with allergies we called Darya, for his nose seemed to run like a river. Shair, or Sham, was a soldier who always stood straight and silent as a candle. Perhaps the most disciplined of the soldiers, he was quickest to click his heels together in salute. Rostam, on the rare afternoons when he was not with his private tutor, did a most perfect impression of Shair’s deep and deferential voice.
The day after the party, Neelab and I were still anxious for a closer look at the velvet-wrapped treasures from Ai-Khanoum. I was certain we could find the collection, but a thorough search of the palace had left us exhausted and empty-handed. Over a breakfast of fried eggs and tomatoes, Neelab suggested we ask Boba to open the crate for us. I cringed at admitting defeat, but I knew the relics would soon be moved to the museum and I would lose my chance to see them up close. We planned to soften up Boba by emphasizing our keen interest in this newly discovered piece of Afghan history. I studied my parents’ interests and habits and knew that if I could tug at our mutual love for history, I could get Boba to break some rules too.
We raced down a hallway bathed in morning light. Arg sat on eighty-three glorious acres in the heart of Kabul. With its many buildings and open green spaces, it was a city within a city with stories upon stories. Neelab’s grandfather had become the country’s first president by self-declaration, ending the rule of the king, his own cousin, while the monarch visited Europe. But the deeper story, true or not, was that people were planning on ending the king’s life as well as his rule, so Neelab’s grandfather had done him a favor.
“Do you think he will let us hold it in our hands?” Neelab asked, biting her lip.
“Yes, but only if we don’t tell a soul about it.”
A man’s voice interrupted our chatter.
“Don’t tell a soul about what?”
We whirled around to see who had overheard us. It was Sham, or Shair, which made sense. No one else could have approached us so noiselessly.
“A sparrow,” I replied swiftly. Any pause would have suggested I was lying, so I blurted out the character from the nursery rhyme about a sparrow served for dinner. The verse had been trapped in my mind since morning. I’d watched my mother hold Faheem’s hand in her own and trace circles in his palm, bending in each of his fingers and turning them into characters of the song:
Lilly lilly the little pond
Where algae grew round and round
And caused a slick that in a wink
Slipped a sparrow who’d come to drink
This finger took him
This finger cooked him
This finger put him on a plate
This finger sat down and ate
And when little pinky asked, to be fair
Auntie, Auntie, where’s my share?
In the pot, she said short and sly.
But the pot is empty, was his reply.
Then it must be in the cat’s belly round.
But the cat is nowhere to be found.
Here he is! Meow Meow Meow Meow!
With the cat’s meows, Madar’s fingers would tickle at Faheem’s sides and he would fall into a fit of laughter. Sometimes afflicted by delighted hiccups, he would stick his palm out and beg for another round.
“A sparrow?” Shair repeated.
“Yes, you must have heard of them. They are winged creatures who live in the trees,” I explained. Neelab lowered her face to hide her smirk.
My snarky reply barely seemed to draw a reaction, and I thought perhaps Shair was tolerating my mischief because of my mother.
My mother couldn’t stand keeping aloof from the people who guarded over us. She made small talk with all the soldiers. She knew the names of their wives and parents. She remembered where their families were from and always made a point to draw some line of connection—a common high school or a relative who had descended from the same province. She stopped when she spoke to the soldiers, instead of speaking only in passing. It took just a couple of seconds to look a person in the eye and give them the respect they were due, she insisted.
But they are just soldiers, I’d once said to my mother.
We are all soldiers of some kind was her obscure reply.
I had walked away instead of persisting. I didn’t wear a uniform or carry a rifle over my shoulder. I hadn’t sworn to protect the nation or the president. But I kept these arguments to myself because I was certain my mother would otherwise launch into the many ways in which I could improve my character. And sometimes I wanted to revel in my imperfections.
One day I watched my mother fold a pile of clothes I’d outgrown. She’d used a length of satin ribbon to tie them into a neat bundle, which she then delivered to Shair when we arrived at the palace. As we walked to the parlor where Neelab’s mother awaited us, I asked Madar why a soldier would need girl’s clothes.
Shaking her head, she told me that Shair had three children, including a daughter two years younger than me.
Clothes look better on children than in drawers, she’d said.
Impossible as it seemed, I tried to imagine Shair as a father. I wondered if he stood on guard in his home as he did here in the palace. I shared this thought with Neelab and then hunched over to salute tiny, imaginary children with a sour expression on my face. Neelab had laughed so hard that she snorted, which led to both of us doubling over.
“I thought you were leaving today. Has your mother not asked you to ready yourself?” Shair asked. I’d never heard him string so many words together. “Perhaps she is looking for you.”
“No,” I replied. “We’re staying with my father. He and the president have had much to discuss.”
Shair looked stymied, as if he were trying to translate words into a language he didn’t speak.
“Are you all right?” Neelab asked. She had my mother’s heart. She sensed uneasiness in others and felt an urgency to do something about it. But Shair did not look at her. He cleared his throat and waved us off without another word.
“The candle is not at his brightest today, is he?” I murmured as we hastily walked down the hallway. Neelab shook her head.
When we were far enough away, I turned to see if Shair was still watching us. Backlit by the sunlight that fell through the windows behind him, he had both hands on his hips. Face to face, I’d felt comfortable enough to speak freely with him, but from this distance, his dark silhouette quickened my step.
Neelab pulled on my arm.
“He’s just doing his job. If he didn’t scold us, someone would scold him. And much more severely.”
She was right. During a parade, Neelab and I had stood shoulder to shoulder, watching rows of soldiers march in sync past the president and his family. To the public’s eye, the formations were perfect. Men in uniform were propelled to synchrony by a drumbeat, by stripes and stars on breast pockets and tasseled epaulets. We watched the pomp of our country’s military with pride that day.
The very next week, Neelab and I snuck away from dinner and slipped into the former harem of King Habibullah. Decades after the king’s assassination, his killer had still not been identified. There was an abundance of suspects: his son who then assumed the throne, an English spy, a disgruntled peasant. The harem had once been home to forty women, all of them vying for the king’s attentions. I was convinced that we could find some hidden message or overlooked clue confirming that one of his concubines had had a hand in arranging his end.
But instead of solving the mystery of the murdered king, we stumbled upon a general glaring at a soldier accused of accepting a bribe. The soldier stood with his arms at his sides, his lip trembling. He denied the charge, first in a bold voice and then, as the general barked his contempt for liars, in a whimper.<
br />
From behind two columns wide enough to hide our presence, we watched the general’s hand slice through the air and clap violently against the soldier’s cheek. The sound reverberated against the walls of the two-storied room. We ducked our heads as if afraid to be struck by the ricocheting sound.
I wondered if Shair had ever been reprimanded so brutally. If I were more like my mother, I might have found a reason to ask him. It was odd, I realized, not to know anything about the men who were tasked with defending us against all the rest of the world.
But I did not give it more thought. With the carelessness of children, we continued our quest, followed by the ghosts of kings and concubines, of roosters and soldiers, of all the many pompous creatures who strutted with pride just before their fall.
Chapter 4
A few paces before reaching my father’s office, we slowed to catch our breath and compose ourselves. I stole a glance through the glass door and saw Boba in his usual position—a pen pinched between his fingers, poised as if to strike the page before him. He didn’t even notice when we opened the door.
“Boba,” I said softly.
My father looked up, eyebrows raised.
“Girls! What good fortune brings you my way this morning?”
The office had just enough space for a wooden desk and two chairs. There was a curio behind his seat with book spines running the length of each shelf. On one wall was a trio of black-and-white photographs of uniformed men. A picture of our family sat on his desk, facing him. In the picture, I held Faheem while our parents sat on either side of us. Faheem looked ready to wriggle out of my arms, and I looked terrified of dropping him.
“We’ve finished our homework for the week and returned our books to the library. How is your work going?” I asked, easing into the true purpose of our visit. Boba leaned back in his chair. He seemed more intrigued than annoyed by our interruption.
“I might have better luck flying a kite in a box,” he replied with a sigh. He lowered his eyeglasses. “Where are your brothers?”
“Rostam is trying to train the white pigeons in the garden to do flips and loops, and Faheem is watching him.”
“And do you girls think he will be successful in this bold mission?” my father asked.
Neelab shook her head.
“Faheem told him to give up,” she said. “Everyone knows the pigeons who call Arg home cannot be trained.”
“Wise observation, Neelab-jan. Now, I can’t imagine you two came here to discuss the temperament of pigeons.”
Since my father respected straight talk, I placed both my hands on his desk and looked him in the eye.
“Boba, we want to see the treasures from Ai-Khanoum! You all kept the party off-limits to us, and now they’re going to be shipped off to the museum.”
“I see,” Boba said. He set his pen down gingerly and moved a glossy magazine aside so he could rest his elbows on the desk. “First of all, what do you girls know about Ai-Khanoum?”
“It was an old city in the north of Afghanistan when it was a kingdom of Greeks and Afghans, nestled at the crossing of two rivers,” Neelab recited dutifully.
“And King Zahir Shah stumbled upon it during a hunting trip,” I added.
“I was getting to that,” Neelab insisted, shooting me a look. She derived just as much pleasure from impressing my father as I did. I pressed my lips together and nodded, a silent apology.
Boba reached into his vest pocket and extracted his silver pocket watch with the image of a horse’s head on the case. The watch was a gift from my mother, one she had hoped would inspire him to come home from his work at a reasonable hour. He pursed his lips and rapped his fingers on his desk.
“Let’s go,” Boba said, rising from his chair. “You two have just as much right as anyone else to see what’s left of the great kingdom.”
We followed my father down the narrow stairs that led to the kitchen. We walked past the cook and his two assistants. The sweet smell of chopped cilantro mixed with the sting of diced onions. One of the assistants wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve, then brought his knife back to the marble cutting board. My father greeted them all by name. They paused in their work and issued cheerful replies, the chef putting a hand over his heart in a show of respect.
“Through here, girls.”
On the opposite side of the kitchen was a narrow hallway that ended with a door. My father opened the door and pulled at a chain that hung from the ceiling. I hesitated. We had ventured all over the palace and its gardens, even entering areas forbidden to others when soldiers had their backs turned. But intrepid as we were, we had never been below the palace. It was uncomfortably dark and had far too many hidden corners.
“The basement lighting isn’t great, so watch your step.” He looked over his shoulder at me and touched my head. If he sensed my nervousness, he did not acknowledge it. I glanced back at Neelab, whose hand gripped the banister as she strained to see ahead.
“You go first,” she whispered awkwardly. “Since it was your idea.”
Neelab was a year older than me, but she was not nearly as bold. Sensing a chance to outdo her, I pulled my shoulders back and followed Boba.
We couldn’t see much under the weak light of a single bulb. We descended the plank steps slowly. Each footfall elicited a creak of protest. At the bottom of the stairs, the expansive basement was cordoned off into sections with heavy braided ropes and folding dividers. To the left were stacks of cardboard boxes. A few feet away, enormous aluminum cooking pots and frying pans were haphazardly arranged on a metal rack. I spotted two old Russian radios on an end table. To my right, stacks of framed paintings leaned against the wall, along with mirrors and a few rolled-up carpets. I stayed close to my father and kept an eye on the lopsided boxes, which seemed ready to shape-shift in the thin light.
Behind the stacks of kitchen supplies and a divider painted in green and gold, Boba led us toward a narrow alcove. I could almost touch both sides of it with my outstretched arms. Another rolled carpet, thick as a tree trunk, was propped against the far corner of the space, and a stack of wooden crates sat opposite it.
“I know you won’t run off talking about this, but I still want you both to promise to be discreet about what you’re going to see. Look away, girls.”
My father must have felt my stare over his shoulder, but he said nothing. I couldn’t look away without knowing what I was looking away from. I watched as Boba pressed his hand against the wall until his fingers caught on a small latch. He turned the latch clockwise, and we heard a soft click. With a pull, the lower part of the wall suddenly became a door. Inside was a hollow space and a second door with a metal handle and three dials with numbers from 1 to 99. The dials were inches apart from one another and arranged in a triangular configuration. Boba turned the dial to the left first, slowly adjusting the knob until the notch above it pointed to 63. Then he set the top dial to 27. Once he’d spun the bottom dial to a number hidden behind his jacket sleeve, he pulled the handle downward. Between the sheets of metal, the teeth of the cams clicked into alignment and released the hasp.
Neelab and I both jumped at the heavy footsteps overhead.
“You weren’t scared of the kitchen staff a moment ago. No need to be scared of them now,” Boba chided without looking up.
With a quiet pop, the door opened, and Neelab and I peered into the dark interior of the enormous safe. It was almost as tall as me. My father stepped into it with his back hunched and retrieved the same crate we’d seen at the party. Neelab grabbed my hand, an electric thrill passing through our intertwined fingers as Boba lifted the top off the crate and pulled out the first velvet-lined box.
One by one, he showed us pieces we’d not been able to see the night before. His penlight illuminated a plaster medallion, an intaglio, and a collection of bronze coins. He let us bring our faces close enough to them that I saw grains of sand on their surfaces and could trace the curves made by third-century carving tools.
“The
archaeologists found the remains of a royal palace in Ai-Khanoum, a building with tall columns, storerooms, a library, pools, and fountains. It was home to architects and doctors, tradesmen and politicians. Think of how long ago this was and how much those people had managed to build.”
I recognized the box that held the ring well before my father opened the clasp. This was the only piece we’d glimpsed last night. Neelab let out a dainty ooh. My best friend was the kind of daughter mothers wanted, one who would wear prim dresses and pearls. She could sit for hours without making a peep and didn’t go home with muddy knees, as I did.
While Neelab was mesmerized by the gold and the stones, I was stunned by the ring’s ability to outlive anyone who had worn it.
“This piece is exquisite,” Boba admired. The turquoise shone richly against the lustrous gold. “Just imagine that two thousand years ago, a craftsman made this ring by hand with nothing more than a hammer and a flame. The design comes from Greece, but the gold and turquoise are Afghan. Such intricate settings. As if the craftsman knew his work would become evidence of a lost civilization.”
“Maybe he did know,” I suggested.
“It’s unlikely. People cannot imagine their civilization will not endure forever. Pride is blinding.”
“Why will this all be put into the museum? Why not display it here in the palace?” Neelab asked.
“Because it’s part of Afghanistan’s history and history belongs to the people.”
As I watched my father pack the boxes away and slide the top back on the crate, one question nagged at me.
“What brought the end of Ai-Khanoum, Boba?”
My father gave the crate one quick tap with the heel of his fist.
“Didn’t invaders come at them from the East?” Neelab asked.
Boba straightened his back and looked at us, the slanted light of the bulb reflecting off his lenses.
“Yes. But if it hadn’t been invaders from the East, it would have been invaders from the West,” he explained. “Our land seems to attract the most restless men. Every single one looking to make a name for himself, no matter the price.”
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