I pulled out a packet and handed it over. Blue Eyes threw cigarettes to a couple of the others and lit up. She took a long drag.
“So why do you want to take our pictures? Why us?”
For a moment I hesitated, then came out with it. “I’m taking photographs of women who’ve suffered violence from their husbands or their families.”
There was a flurry of discussion between the women.
“Hah!” said one of them, very beautiful except for a jagged scar that stretched the length of her face. “That could be any woman in here.”
“Any woman in Kabul,” another said.
“Don’t you know the saying: ‘Women belong in the house or in the grave’? If you want more you pay the price.”
“Who would want to see such photographs?” the beautiful woman asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if anyone will. But I think it’s worth a try.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“You don’t know much!”
They laughed again, then talked among themselves.
“All right,” said Blue Eyes. “You can take our photographs. But make us look good.”
“Great,” I said. “Just try to act normally. I’ll work around you.”
The beauty session began again, and I moved around the room taking a few shots, trying to figure out the light. It was very bright, the sun streaming in through the windows, pooling on the floor.
I wondered about a sequence, starting with Sonia painting Leila’s fingernails, her graceful hands with their careful manicure, then more shots of the women in prison, their beauty routines, their nails. It might work, I thought, and so for an hour or so I took as many pictures as I could: close-ups of eyebrows threaded into solid shapes, hair combed smooth, fingernails filed and painted.
At noon the women spread an oilcloth across the floor and set large bowls of rice and meat in the middle. We sat cross-legged around the cloth and ate, forming balls of rice and meat with our fingers. The meat was gristly, the gravy thin and sour.
Afterwards some of the children were taken to the bathroom at the end of the corridor, then put, two to a bunk, to sleep. The women sprawled on the upper bunks or on the floor, staring out of the windows, drowsy in the heavy heat of the afternoon. I took some pictures of them, and then of the yard outside the window, its scrubby grass parched and yellow from the summer sun.
I decided to try a series of portraits, like police mug shots, two views of each woman, front and side, to put together with the women’s stories. I spent the rest of the afternoon getting the shots, while Rashida spoke to the women, getting them to tell her what had happened to them. Some showed me their own collections of photographs: wedding snaps, pictures of their children, themselves in happier times, and I took some other, gentler portraits to give to them.
By five o’clock the guards were getting twitchy and I knew it was time to leave. As we left, the stairwells echoed again with the sound of women and children. We passed through the layers of gates and security and finally were back outside the perimeter wall. Bazir was waiting, his car a welcome streak of silver in the dust.
Thirty-Six
ELIZABETH WILLOUGHBY’S DIARY
1st May 1915
A terrible day, which has left me more convinced than ever that something is very wrong with Robert.
It began with shocking news: a story in the Gazette of an alleged assault on a fifteen-year-old girl by yet another sub-assistant surgeon from the Kitchener. There was great debate in the courtroom over whether she should be believed. She failed to pick him out of a suspects’ parade, and her own stepmother gave evidence that she was “out of control” and prone to “wandering”. In the end, the surgeon was acquitted. As a medical man and an officer, his word held more weight than that of a girl whose story seemed somewhat fantastical.
Hugo was sent away from the breakfast table, and then Mamma and Papa asked if there was anything they needed to worry about. I reassured them that the Pavilion is very different from the Kitchener. Mamma said that the Kitchener is clearly not a very pleasant place, and Papa harrumphed and said that it is badly run. I tried to point out that the suspect was acquitted, but I could see they were thinking the same as Colonel MacLeod and all the others in charge: that Indians are not to be trusted.
This afternoon, I asked Hari if he thought that the sub-assistant surgeon had done it or that the girl was lying.
“I think,” he said, “that today is not a good day for you to be seen talking to me.”
I was about to protest when I sensed someone behind me and turned to see Robert, stumbling in my direction, his face flushed, clearly drunk.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’ve come to see my men.”
I was at a loss as to what to do, but one thing was certain: it would be a disaster if he were to be seen by Major Williams, or worse, Colonel MacLeod.
“Would you like to take a seat, Sahib?” said Hari. “Let me get you a chair.”
As Robert faltered, Hari took his arm, at which point Robert jerked away, shouting that he should take his filthy hands off him.
“Sit down,” I said. “Now.”
He fell into a chair, then sat, staring at us with an expression that had something dark and dangerous behind it.
“We have to get him out,” Hari said in a low voice. “Do you know where he’s lodging? If we can get him into bed he may be able to sleep it off.”
“A boarding house,” I said. “Not far away, in Kemptown.”
“I’ll take him.”
“I’ll come too,” I said, frightened of what Robert might do or say without me.
I put my arm through Robert’s as if we were going for an afternoon stroll and escorted him through the gardens. It was teatime, and so most of the patients and staff were inside the Pavilion, leaving our path clear, but the drivers were standing next to their vehicles, smoking. When they saw Robert approach, they threw away their cigarettes and stood to attention.
“Sir!”
Robert said nothing, simply swaying from side to side. I explained that he was feeling unwell.
“We’re escorting him to his lodgings,” Hari said. “Perhaps you could help?”
“Of course, Nurse,” said one of the drivers to me.
The drivers sat chattering to each other in the front of the ambulance, while we sat in silence in the back, Robert looking greener by the minute. As we bumped over the potholes, I was frightened that Robert might be sick, but soon we arrived safely at his street.
It was too narrow for the ambulance, and so I told the drivers to wait while we escorted him to the boarding house. As we manoeuvred him along the pavement, a woman came towards us. She looked somewhat bedraggled: her skirts were trailing, her hat askew. When she saw us she broke into a smile.
“Hello dearie,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon – not after last night.”
Robert looked down at her and gave a little groan.
I felt the buildings loom above me, closing in, until I could hardly see the sky, like Robert in the Lanes.
“Madam! I think you are mistaken,” said Hari, and we pulled Robert off the street and into the boarding-house vestibule.
Hari and I said nothing more to each other about it, but I was filled with shame. I may not be very worldly, but I know what sort of woman she was, and that she very clearly knew Robert.
Tonight, as I write, I feel many things. I am still angry, very angry with Robert. I keep thinking of that letter in which he complained of his life here being dull. It seems that he has found a way of making things more interesting, one that does not include me. I am angry at the way he treated Hari, but I am angry with Hari too, for calling him Sahib, for treating him as a master. That isn’t fair of me, of course: he was simply trying to help, just as he has done from the very start.
Thirty-Seven
“That prison was har
d work,” I said to Rashida the day after our visit to Badam Bagh. “Let’s give ourselves some time off, do something fun.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Is there anywhere else like Bagh-e Babur, somewhere we can relax?”
She thought for a second. “There’s the Qargha Lake. It’s a – how do you say? A place where water’s kept for people to drink.”
“A reservoir?”
“Yes. That’s it. I’ve been there with my family a few times. The air is clean and there are lots of trees. I think you would like it. But we can’t go around there on our own. Bazir would have to come with us.”
“Where is it?”
“About half an hour away, north of the city.”
I hadn’t been out of Kabul since I’d arrived three months before. “Let’s go!” I said.
To enter the town we passed under an archway saying “Welcome to Qargha”, in English and Dari. As we went through the inevitable checkpoint, I felt a sudden sense of space and calm. In contrast to the dusty mountains that surrounded it, the water of the lake was a startling green, speckled with little dots of yellow and red. As we came closer, I realized they were plastic pedalos in the shape of swans, pedalled by couples, wobbling slightly on the waves.
Rashida had been right, the air was definitely cleaner than in Kabul. I breathed it in, filling my lungs, soaking up the holiday atmosphere. Families gathered on the shores, brewing tea and roasting meat on portable gas cookers. Boys hawked balloons from enormous, bobbing bunches, and there was even a stall selling fluffy whirls of candyfloss.
“This is great,” I said.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“What shall we do?”
She pointed to a Ferris wheel by the side of the lake. “Shall we try out the fairground?”
I tried to hide my shudder. I’ve always been embarrassed at how scared fairgrounds make me, but I wanted Rashida to have a good time. “Sure,” I said.
Up close, the Ferris wheel looked pretty rickety.
“Have you been on this before?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” Rashida said.
“Come on then.” I swallowed nervously.
As the wheel turned and we rose higher, my stomach began to churn. The only way to cope with it, I decided, was to take some snaps and try to forget where I was. The views were great, and so were the colours: not just the pedalo swans and the green water of the lake, but the fairground rides and the holiday clothes of the girls who rode on them. I fired off a series of shots, hoping they’d come out well, then turned back to Rashida. She was the happiest I’d ever seen her – eyes bright, cheeks flushed with excitement, her headscarf coming loose in the breeze. I pointed the camera at her and took some snaps.
I was pleased to be back on the ground. Bazir, who had stayed behind, gave me a look as if he understood how I felt.
“Let’s get some lunch,” I said. “Where’s good? How about that place over there, right by the water?”
“Do you mind if we go somewhere else?”
“Sure,” I said. “But why?”
“That’s the Spozhmai Hotel. It’s a very nice place, I’ve been there with my family. But…”
She hesitated.
“What?”
“Last time we went, there were groups of men drinking beer. The restaurant sells it openly, the waiters carry it on their trays. My father disapproved. I don’t think he would like me to go there without him.”
“How about that place next door instead?”
“That looks better.”
We had our own tent at the restaurant, a little pavilion complete with a red carpet and flowered curtains.
“You have to try the sheer yakh,” said Rashida.
“What’s that?”
“Ice cream, made by hand. It’s famous here.”
And so, after a kebab lunch we did, while Bazir puffed away on a hookah.
“This is fantastic,” I said. “What’s in it?”
“Pistachios,” said Rashida. “And rose water.”
“What’s the spice?”
“Cardamom.”
I felt pretty happy, lying back on the cushions, looking out onto the lake. “Thanks, Rashida,” I said.
“What for?”
“For everything you’ve done. For today. We make a good team.”
She blushed. “Jo-jan—”
“What?”
“I… oh, it doesn’t matter. Look at that boy, there, on the horse.”
She pointed down to the beach. “My brothers always like to take out horses when we come here. They ride them through the water.”
Her voice was wistful.
“I always wondered what it would be like to ride one too.”
On our way back to town, Rashida was quiet, staring out of the window.
“Are you all right?” I said.
She inclined her head in a way that could have meant anything.
I waited, looking out of the window too, watching street after street of brown houses and dirt road pass by. The neighbourhood we were passing through wasn’t like Qala-e Fatullah or Wazir Akbar Khan. There were more donkeys than cars, carrying bundles of firewood or stacks of grubby plastic containers filled with water. It reminded me of Khoje Bahauddin.
“I have a problem,” Rashida said eventually.
“Tell me.”
“My brothers…”
She paused.
I knew that Rashida had three elder brothers: Ahmed, whom I’d met, and two others, one a teacher and another who was in import-export, whatever that meant.
“What is it?”
“They’re unhappy.” She stopped again.
“Why?”
“They’ve been asking questions about our work. What you photograph. Where we go.”
“And?”
“And, well… they’re unhappy.”
We had arrived at the wedding-hall district. A bride posed for pictures outside one of them next to a stretch limousine. A beggar lay on the ground outside the gates, his trouser legs roughly chopped off to accommodate his stumps, reaching up to guests as they arrived.
Rashida turned to look at me.
“They don’t approve of our project. They didn’t like that we went to the prison. They said the women in there have done bad things and I shouldn’t be mixing with them.”
“But Rashida, you know they’re not all criminals. Most of them are in for things like running away from a violent husband.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to my brothers. Those women have dishonoured their families. They’re worried that by mixing with them I’ll dishonour myself too, because people will think the worst. That’s enough.”
“Even if it’s not true?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause.
“There’s something else,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“My brothers are worried about what will happen after you’ve gone. When everyone’s left.”
“Everyone?”
“The ISAF forces, the NGOs, the journalists. They think the Taliban will start all over again. First they’ll punish the people who worked with the foreigners – the drivers, the interpreters, security guards. They’ll close down the guest houses where the foreigners stayed. And then they’ll move on to the people who spoke on television or wrote for newspapers or took photographs.”
“How would they know about you?”
“They find things out. People talk, they betray each other. That’s what happened last time, and it will happen again. There are enough people who would think that these photos are shaming for our country, that Westerners will look at them and say what a terrible place Afghanistan must be if things like this can happen.”
“It is terrible that these things happen, though, isn’t it?’
There was a pause. “I think so, yes. That’s why I’m working with you. I think that people should know the truth, but my brothers are right about one thing. The Taliban will come back
– and when they do, there will be trouble.”
I didn’t know what to say. I could have argued about the importance of bearing witness, of letting the world know what’s happening – it’s what I’ve based my whole career on. But I couldn’t argue about the Taliban.
“I’m so sorry, Rashida. I love working with you, but I don’t want to put you at risk.”
She smiled.
“What do you want to do?” I said.
“I don’t know. I need to think about it.”
I went back to the guest house, wondering what to do. Working in Kabul without Rashida would be pretty much impossible, but I didn’t want to push her. It was becoming clear to me that there wasn’t all that much between a brother’s disapproval and ending up in Badam Bagh.
That night I looked at my pictures of Leila and the prison. They were good – with one more shoot I’d have enough to put together as a feature. I spent the night trying to figure out what that final shoot might be, but came up with nothing. My dreams were filled with visions of barred windows and slammed doors and I was glad when I woke at dawn.
Rashida called soon after breakfast. She sounded odd, her voice strained.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Last night I had a call from Gulshan.”
“Gulshan?”
“From the women’s refuge, remember? She’s spoken to the director and he’s agreed to talk to us, today at two o’clock. Perhaps you’ll be able to persuade him to let you take some photographs.”
“That’s brilliant. Shall we meet outside, five minutes before?”
There was a pause. “Last night I promised my brothers to stop working with you. I had no choice: they insisted.”
“Ah.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. I understand. Don’t worry, I’ll manage.”
I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice.
There was another pause.
“I’ll come with you one last time, Jo-jan. I want to finish the job.”
The Repercussions Page 16