by Bapsi Sidhwa
Encircled by Abdul Abbas’s hospitality, Ruth formed an impression of the country. Despite its obvious poverty, Afghanistan was a moderate nation state, reasonably in touch with the times. Some of the women in the cities wore Western-style clothing; many taught in schools and worked in hospitals and government offices. Ruth saw a few tent-like burkhas only in the bazaars. The Soviet presence was discernable, especially in the network of roads and tunnels crisscrossing the country, but their influence appeared benign.
A year after their return to Lahore Rick brought the news that Abdul Abbas had been exiled in the overthrow. He and his family had fled to the United States. Soon, the Khyber Pass was closed to tourist traffic and civilian flights to Kabul, suspended. Ruth was not able to visit Afghanistan again.
Ruth felt a surge of warmth as she meandered her way to Abdul Abbas; his hospitality had made their visit to Afghanistan memorable. When Abdul Abbas noticed her, Ruth extended her hand and said: ‘I’m Ruth Walker. Remember me?’
Abdul Abbas recognized her almost at once. He smiled and held her hand in both his. ‘Of course, of course, my dear,’ he said, ‘I’m so happy to see you. And how is your dashing husband?’
That was not a word she’d choose to describe Rick; but for an instant she recalled Rick as a young activist, his thick sun-streaked hair falling to his shoulders, a scant beard downing his cheeks, holding up anti-Apartheid and anti-war banners—yes, the youthful Rick had had an air about him … his cropped hair was still thick and she wished he was with her at this moment to share in her delight in chancing upon Abdul Abbas—share the pleasure and adventure of their visit to Afghanistan his presence recalled.
Ruth smiled: ‘You look quite “dashing” yourself!’ With the camel-coloured Afghan coat draped over his broad shoulders and his tidy beard, Abdul Abbas looked well-groomed and classy. She noticed the fine cut of the expensive American suit beneath the coat.
Abdul Abbas introduced Ruth to the two young Americans standing with him. Of late, Ruth had noticed men like them at the larger, more anonymous receptions she was invited to; men so alike they could be clones. Bushy-bearded, brawny-muscled, with dark close-cropped heads and reserved countenance, they hardly looked American—dress them in Afghan attire and even the Afghans wouldn’t tell them apart. She had assumed they were undercover operatives, even commandos, and had kept her distance. She had no wish to know them, or, for that matter, what they were up to.
Still, she was here, and she ought to be polite. ‘Hi,’ Ruth said, briefly holding out her hand to each and forcing an ironic, lopsided smile. She turned back to the Afghan. ‘I heard you and Nabila had migrated to America?’
‘We had to flee Kabul with only the clothes on our backs,’ he said. ‘My whole family is there.’ Ruth imagined the extended family of uncles, aunts, siblings, cousins, and their children, and shook her head in sympathy.
After a moment’s pause, Ruth, desperate to lighten the mood quipped, ‘Did you take your goats and rooster with you?’ She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, the hint of a smile twitching her lips.
‘Only the clothes on our backs, my dear,’ said the Afghan, responding to her amusement with a quiet, rueful look.
Ruth blushed. She shouldn’t have said that. ‘Sorry,’ she said, including the young men in her embarrassed glance. ‘I didn’t mean to be flippant.’
‘Please don’t upset yourself,’ Abdul Abbas said pleasantly, and added: ‘We ate the fellow in the end.’
‘Oh no,’ said Ruth pulling the requisite face, and then asked: ‘Where’s Nabila?’
‘Back in the States. I’m here alone.’
As she and Abdul Abbas chatted, Ruth gradually became aware of how pleased the young Americans were to see her. It disconcerted her. While she talked to Abdul Abbas their disarmed, puppy-eyes lingered on her, soaking in the comfort and familiarity her presence afforded them. Ruth felt her heart soften. They must miss home. They were so young, almost boys, caught up in war games—acting out their adolescent fantasies and those of older men. Her smiles became warmer, her tone tinged with indulgence as she included them in the conversation. She laughed when they slipped in a humorous remark and, swept by an unexpected wave of tenderness, every now and then she was almost overcome by the urge to touch them.
‘Where do you guys come from?’ she asked.
‘I’m from St. Paul, Minneapolis,’ said John. ‘Bill’s a redneck—from way down under.’
‘You’re from Australia?’ said Ruth, surprised.
‘No ma’am, I’m from Lubbock, Texas,’ drawled Bill, and punched his companion’s arm hard. ‘Don’t pay him no attention, ma’am. He thinks he is a stand-up clown.’
‘Stand-up comedian, you Neanderthal, you rodeo clown,’ said John, pushing Bill back with a series of small thrusts.
‘Ouch, ma’am, that hurts,’ complained Bill, looking at Ruth over John’s shoulder with comical pleading.
Ruth found herself laughing immoderately. It was as if her misgivings, her distaste, were being expelled in the dimly felt guilty rush of relief at having misjudged these boys. They were not the ruthless professional killers she had assumed them to be. They were kids. Bill wrapped his arms around John and clasped him in a tight embrace to stop the shoving. ‘Stop it, you two,’ Ruth said, still laughing as she tried to pry them apart. She might as well have tried to separate conjoined elephants. Their arms felt like truck tyres beneath their dark jackets. ‘That’s enough, boys,’ she said, wondering if they had even noticed her effort.
But acutely sensitive to her touch, Bill and John at once drew apart, and grinning with a touching mixture of apprehension and gratitude placed an arm around each other’s shoulders. Abdul Abbas, standing to one side, looked faintly forlorn.
And from her changed perspective Ruth noticed the two women, kicking up the hems of their swishing saris as they resolutely made their way through the crowd towards them. Ruth composed herself and acknowledged them with a smile. She fervently hoped it was too early for them to be drunk.
Jasmine, a lissome beauty with porcelain skin and thickly fringed cobalt-blue eyes, was married to a minor prince. Her French mother had separated from her Pakistani father when she was barely five and had gone back to live in France. She had had a disturbed childhood between her warring parents and, after the separation, she spent brief freewheeling spells with her mother in France. Their visits ended when her mother discovered her fifteen-year-old daughter in bed with her stepfather. She accused Jasmine of seducing her husband.
Chicks, short and curvaceous, was a divorcee with two small children. Her spherical chocolate face masked in white talcum powder, Chicks sported, like defiant trademarks, two clownish spots of rouge on her cheeks.
‘Too many sourpusses at this goddamn party,’ Chicks declaimed throatily in a recklessly loud and jovial voice as she came up to them. ‘Not fair, you’re hogging all the fun guys,’ she said to Ruth. ‘Mind if we join you?’
‘Sure,’ said Ruth, concealing her misgivings. She could never tell if Chicks was drunk or just acting drunk. She glanced at Abdul Abbas. He was smiling at the women uncertainly but with his customary courtesy. Ruth introduced Chicks and Jasmine to the men.
Repulsed and intimidated by her at first, Ruth had come to appreciate Chicks’s keen intelligence. So long as one wasn’t the target of her jibes, she was fun—in small doses. While Chicks’s outrageous behaviour amused Ruth, she recognized that it cloaked mutiny and a helpless fury.
With her soft, rounded features and lilting Bengali accent, Chicks had looked and sounded different from other Pakistani women, and Ruth had soon picked up her story. Chicks had come from what was then East Pakistan to work in Lahore and had married a local Punjabi man with whom she had two children. He had treated her brutally and she had, after protracted and humiliating court appearances, finally obtained a divorce. She was stranded in Lahore when, after a bloody revolt, East Pakistan, absurdly separated by a thousand miles of Indian territory, declared its independ
ence and became Bangladesh. Chicks belonged to a culture and race that was despised in the aftermath of the break-up of the two wings of Pakistan. Because of the custody terms of her children she found herself trapped in West Pakistan, a place where she didn’t want to be.
The Americans at once engaged the striking newcomers in conversation and Ruth, relieved, turned to Abdul Abbas to ask him where he lived in America.
He explained that he and his family had settled in a sparsely populated area about an hour’s drive from Albuquerque. The brown hills and rugged terrain of New Mexico reminded them of home.
‘You must miss Afghanistan,’ Ruth said.
The sympathy and kindness in her voice brought tears to his eyes.
He nodded: ‘Yes. Very much.’
To give him time to recover, Ruth told their little group about her visit to Afghanistan and of the hospitality Abdul Abbas and his wife had shown them.
‘You wouldn’t recognize Kabul now,’ the Texan drawled. ‘The Soviet tanks have flattened it. There are very few walls left standing.’
She had guessed as much from the images on TV. ‘Do you go there often?’ she asked Bill.
The Texan shrugged: ‘We’re with the US AID program,’ he answered. Devoid of the animation that had enlivened his features just a moment before, his blank face drew Ruth’s scrutiny. She wondered at the stock answer he had provided and more or less guessed the reason for it: although America was a conduit for the arsenal and hardware procured from all over the world that poured into Afghanistan, the Americans were forbidden on Afghan soil. The Americans did not want to provoke Russian sensibility by showing a too blatant support for the Afghan Mujahedeen. This reserve suited the Pakistan government, who did not want their close alliance with the American military to be known.
Abdul Abbas had recovered his composure and to include him in the conversation Ruth said: ‘Tell us—what brings you to Lahore?’
‘I am on my way to Kabul.’
‘Can you get there?’ Ruth said, surprised. ‘I thought the border is closed.’
‘For two years, I’ve longed to be in my country, to breathe its air—to stand on its soil—to kiss its earth,’ he said, the melodrama of his words diluted by the palpable ache of his longing. ‘One way or another I will get there.’
Abdul Abbas had been warned by his clansmen that it was too dangerous for him to visit; they could not assure his protection. As guerrilla fighters, the mujahedeen’s lives and the success of their attacks depended on their agility and speed. His presence would endanger their missions. ‘They are as fleet and surefooted as mountain goats,’ he boasted, and Ruth’s tongue flicked at the savour of the word ‘fleet’: it appeared to fit aptly the quicksilver nature of the war being waged by the mujahedeen against their mightily armoured and lumbering enemy. ‘I was like them when I was younger,’ Abdul Abbas added matter-of-factly.
Abdul Abbas’s clansmen had finally given in to his persistence and agreed to escort him to Kabul. ‘My friends,’ he told Ruth, ‘will see me across the Khyber Pass to a designated village on the other side.’
There was nothing in his manner to indicate that he was alluding to Bill and John, but Ruth knew he meant them. ‘Isn’t it too risky?’ she asked, glancing at the Americans in alarm.
Their faces were noncommittal, their boyishness eclipsed. How quickly they reverted to trained roles.
‘Oh dear,’ said Chicks. ‘What’s this? More sourpusses!’
‘More sour pussies,’ said Jasmine, slurring her words and rolling her huge cobalt eyes at the Americans.
Ruth realized they were both drunk.
Bill and John’s faces hardened and turned red. Ruth gauged the steely discipline of their professionalism and turned her face away. This is what had made her keep her distance from men like them—they were trained assassins.
‘The mujahedeen will protect me with their lives once I am in Afghanistan,’ said Abdul Abbas, choosing to ignore the drunk women.
‘My, my! Don’t we look constipated?!’ purred Chicks, turning inquiringly to Ruth. ‘What’s wrong with this party?’ she asked. And all at once her husky voice, vibrant with amusement, rose to hector the public in general. ‘I know what—everyone needs a good dose of castor oil, that’s what!’ she declared, wagging a rebuking finger at the chattering throng. ‘No more booze till you’ve had your castor oil.’
The few people who recognized Chicks’s voice turned with a knowing smile, amused and unperturbed by her antics. Outrageous behaviour was to be expected of Chicks and Jasmine when they were together.
‘Don’t mind Chicks,’ said Ruth. ‘She’s like this when she’s drunk.’
Ignoring the newcomers, the Americans gave Ruth and Abdul Abbas a brief nod, and saying, ‘See ya,’ slipped into the crowd.
‘Oh dear! Look what we’ve done,’ moaned Chicks, clasping her hands and pulling a comically contrite face. ‘We’ve driven the lovely men away.’
‘Who cares,’ said Jasmine. ‘I don’t.’
‘You’re right. Who cares,’ said Chicks and turned her attention to Abdul Abbas: ‘So, tell me—you were a big-shot in Kabul? A really big, big-shot?’
‘Who cares,’ said Jasmine. ‘I don’t.’
‘You were a great big, big-shot!’ decided Chicks.
‘And now he’s a great big small-shot,’ said Jasmine.
Abdul Abbas stared at the women as if hypnotized. He lowered his gaze and stood helpless.
‘A small-shot with a silly goat’s beard,’ Chicks said. And before Ruth knew what was happening, Chicks’s small hand shot out and grasped Abdul Abbas’s neatly groomed beard. On tip-toes, she stood braced against him. ‘Poor, poor fellow,’ she said, wagging his beard. Ruth watched aghast as Chicks’s scarlet-tipped probing fingers locked on Abdul Abbas’s chin. ‘My poor poppet misses his rotten country?’ she murmured, shaking the flesh of his chin from side to side. ‘His eyes thirst to see it?’ her husky, sugary voice mocked. ‘His lips long to kiss its soil? My, my!’
Jasmine closed in and as her slender pale fingers got entwined with Chicks’s chocolate suppleness the ambushed grey hairs of Abdul Abbas’s beard soon stuck out in brittle tufts. Traditional Afghan ways had not prepared Abdul Abbas for an onslaught by women like Chicks and Jasmine. He couldn’t be rough with these sophisticated strangers or force their arms away to deflect their attack. It would be inappropriate and cowardly to grapple with these women.
Hissing: ‘Stop it, you two! Stop it!’ Ruth moved from one to the other trying to pull them away. They proved surprisingly resilient. Engulfing Abdul Abbas with insulting baby talk they simply shrugged and elbowed her away.
Abdul Abbas’s arm appeared to grope randomly for a chair behind him as, thrown off balance, he awkwardly staggered backwards. A hand reached out to steady him and he collapsed in a chair hastily positioned there by an alert guest who had been watching the alarming scene. Chicks promptly planted herself on his lap and Jasmine removed his cap.
The women caressed his ears and stroked the stubby hennaed hairs on his shorn head. The few people who were near enough to notice them and hear their giggles and cooing assumed Chicks and Jasmine were indulging the elderly Afghan with their usual buffoonery. Their feckless ferocity had earned Chicks and Jasmine a special dispensation and they got away with behaviour that would be unacceptable in other Pakistani women. This was only partly because of the incorrigible persistence of their misdemeanours. Chicks and Jasmine, the one a Bengali and the other with a European mother, were not considered proper Pakistanis and, as such, their behaviour was condoned and often indulged, even as they were subtly marginalized and slighted. Although the same shortcomings, if she could call it that, applied to Ruth, she had realized that as an American, she had a different stature which reflected her country’s might. And her pale blonde looks were too exotic to be marginalized in the same way—in fact, she was treated with deference and lionized.
The little tableau on the chair was abruptly disrupted by the return o
f burly white presences. It happened very fast. Bill lifted Chicks off Abdul Abbas’s lap and held her as if she was a baby while the other grinning special operations clone drew Jasmine to his massive chest in a gentle embrace. As she nestled in his arms he unceremoniously nuzzled his face in her hair. Bill disappeared with Chicks. Thank goodness the young Americans had no compunctions about touching unrelated women, thought Ruth, as John drew up a chair to sit protectively with Abdul Abbas.
Ruth, too embarrassed to face Abdul Abbas after what had just occurred, quietly slipped into the crowd. The fragrance from grilling lamb kebabs and chicken tikkas seeped into the hall from the marquee-enclosed space outside and feeling the need to be with friends, Ruth sought out Nasira and Sherry.
Ruth had a lot to tell Rick when he returned from his tour. She told him about running into Abdul Abbas at the party and the way Jasmine and Chicks had behaved. She was soothed to see Rick’s face flush darkly at the outrage.
About a month after Rick’s return, when Ruth climbed into bed and settled down to read, Rick casually remarked, ‘Abdul Abbas is back from Afghanistan.’
‘Oh?’ Ruth asked surprised. ‘You met him?’
‘No,’ Rick said. ‘But I heard about it. The mujahedeen he was with were trapped and on the run in a narrow gorge … when the situation became too dangerous for him they tied him to a mule and sent him packing. They do that mostly to save their women and children.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Ruth said, turning to her husband and putting her book aside. ‘Tied him to a mule?’