I suggest that we visit a former mayor of Kabul whom everyone calls Papa, and whose second wife is a friendly German woman and someone I have met before.
Papa is known for having strung lights all over the mountains and for having been one of the few Afghans who was educated in Europe in the 1920s. He speaks German and French as well as his native Dari/Farsi and Pushto.
A picture of the exiled “emancipator king,” Amanullah, still hangs in Papa’s small but cozy living-dining room. Papa is no longer in politics. He owns a small business, and his wife has a dress shop. He receives us in bedroom slippers—a sandy-haired, warm-eyed grandfather of a man. It is late afternoon and it is growing cold and dark.
A servant brings in wood and piles it into the pot-bellied stove. Soon the water begins bubbling, and the wood-paneled room is filled with warmth and shadows. A Swiss clock ticks on the wall; a collection of leather-bound books stands on the shelf beneath the window. White curtains frame the windows and cover the table. Two freshly baked cakes have been placed near the plates and glassware.
Abdul-Kareem and Papa drink dark beer in Bavarian mugs as we wait for Mutti. She comes in, her cheeks reddened from the cold air.
“Ach, sorry I am late. You have been here long? My friend at the Deutsch embassy had a birthday party today—do you know that my cousin Heidi is made manager of the new hotel! Yes, she leaves for Munich in a month to get the staff. And what a hotel it will be, with a band, a cocktail lounge, only European food.”
While she is still talking, Mutti has removed her fur coat and started to pour tea. It is hard to get her alone, but I finally manage it. Quickly I ask her if she will help me get out. She says she will.
Now, so many years later, I wonder if she actually would have done so. And would she have been punished, divorced—even banished from the country? Would her husband have been imprisoned? This all could have happened. I also wonder why so many Germans seem to be living in Afghanistan. Did they flee the war? Or did they have to flee Germany after the war?
I decide to write to my parents and ask them to call Mutti and wire her money for my plane ticket. I write the letter but I never send it. I save it and I have it still. It documents a telephone call between me and my parents. (I have no memory of it.) I write, in part:
I am sure that my ticket and traveling expenses will be provided for me and I am not particularly averse in having such expenses fall upon the shoulders of he-who-has-made-the-journey-desirable. . . . Also, I want to finish college now. . . . I am quite torn about leaving Abdul-Kareem but I can’t live here. I suppose I can lose myself in academic pursuits but I seem to be involved in a much larger “study” here, larger than anything I might learn in school. . . . Also, my books and papers have been held up at the border and I hate to leave without them.
I am no longer talking to Abdul-Kareem. We are fighting. By now after ten weeks in Kabul, I am stir-crazy, angry, frightened, and willing to risk anything in order to get out. I still cannot eat the ghee-drenched food. Abdul-Kareem still refuses to do anything about this.
Fawziya gently explains to me, again and again, that Bebegul will not allow the cook to use Crisco for our meals and she will not allow the cook to prepare meals separately for me. Fawziya is sad but there is nothing she can do. Apparently Bebegul told them that I am now a proper Afghan wife, not an American.
Many years later I learn that I might have gotten sick anyway. It seems that many smiling Afghan fruit sellers are known to pierce their shrunken melons and dunk them in the drainage ditch overnight. By morning the melons will have swelled and will look most appetizing.
My parents have told absolutely no one that I have married a Muslim man and gone off with him to Afghanistan. In their Orthodox Jewish circles what words would they use without revealing the extent of my rebellion against their entire way of life? If they tell people and I return home, would people still accept me? They maintain a prudent silence.
Rereading the letter I’ve written, I wonder: Why do I write that “I am torn about leaving Abdul-Kareem”? I am utterly miserable. He has put me in harm’s way. Why am I still loyal to him?
Well, this is 1961 and I have not yet become a feminist—no American has. I may fancy myself a bohemian, but I am also a little bit of a 1950s-style wife.
Do I still love him? I will never really know. I argue with Abdul-Kareem many times about why I think he should leave Kabul, that there is no way he will ever transform his country, that Afghanistan is not populated with people who will enjoy Ibsen, Strindberg, Tennessee Williams, and the operas of Verdi and Puccini.
“Abdul-Kareem,” I would say, “why not trust in your talent? Let’s return to America. Here you are a rich man’s son, and that may pave your way to a government position. But whatever you do here will never be what you can do in America.”
Ah, but Abdul-Kareem is an outsider in the West, just as I am an outsider here. He could pass in both worlds, but he belongs to neither the East nor the West. Abdul-Kareem is genuinely a man without a country no matter where he lives.
In a sense his American education has ruined him for life in Kabul, but, even if he could succeed in America, he would never feel that he was a real American. His roots in America are fragile, recent, in comparison to the countless centuries his ancestors have lived in Afghanistan.
Abdul-Kareem is an Afghan and a Muslim, and as such he needs to be part of a large Afghan family, without which he has no identity, no social world, no sure footing. His family does not live in the West, nor are they truly cosmopolitan. The women live in the past even when they dress to kill, Western style. The men keep them there, firmly in the “past present,” which is the title of Edward Hunter’s riveting book.
Perhaps Abdul-Kareem is afraid of having to compete against other theater and film directors without his well-connected family’s backing. He may be a loner—but he has not been trained to go it alone.
I have—I am a post–World War II American from a family with no connections but who is from a country filled with books, museums, libraries, concert halls, and scholarships.
I have been asking for a language tutor every single day. So far no one has arrived. I have threatened to walk out again on my own to visit the museum in Kabul. To my surprise Bebegul decides to accompany me herself. Apparently one of her many relatives has arranged it all.
To my shock her relative has had the museum emptied of all other visitors so that we might visit it undisturbed. It is thrilling but spooky to be the only ones in an otherwise empty museum. Amanullah built this on Darul Aman Road; Darul Aman means place or abode of peace.
I vaguely remember seeing some Roman-era glass figurines and a large gold and silver coin collection. Some coins date to the sixth century BCE and are pre-Islamic. There are Greek-Bactrian coins from northern Afghanistan, but there are also Hindu and Buddhist sculptures from the early centuries of the Common Era and lovely Indian ivories.
The museum has no paintings of women, although it has some beautiful pre-Islamic goddess figurines and sculptures.
Bebegul is coy, even charming. She teases me a bit.
“Are you sure there are no elephants in America?”
When I had first arrived, she had asked me this question quite seriously. After many conversations in halting English, French, and Dari (always with an interpreter), she understands that neither elephants nor camels roam America’s city streets. Bebegul may have seen elephants when she and Ismail Mohammed were on their way back from exile in Iran and passed through India. When my father-in-law had to flee his country, Bebegul accompanied him; they fled Herat together. Bebegul hid the family’s jewels and gold bars under a baby in the baby carriage.
Bebegul cannot believe that Americans actually keep dogs as pets. Kabul’s dogs are wild and wolfish and always starving. The children stone them or worse. Dogs are considered dirty, religiously unclean. At night y
ou can hear them howling.
As I have mentioned, an Afghan shepherd’s dog is quite another matter. These are large fierce dogs trained to kill anyone but the shepherd and his family; they keep the sheep from straying. Afghan dogs are also trained to fight each other unto death. In situ Afghan dogs vary widely in terms of appearance and are not necessarily friendly or gentle. They are not like those more familiar “Afghan hounds,” which were shipped off to England and Scotland in the 1920s, bred with other breeds, and trained as show dogs.
I love dogs but not necessarily when they are wild and starving. I see how dangerous they can be when a pack of five such dogs attacks a crippled pet deer I have named Lara. These dogs have managed to climb the wall—or find an open door—and have cornered Lara in our garden.
They are eating her alive, gnawing frantically on one hind leg. I run down. The dogs draw back, their eyes gleaming in fear and hatred. Lara lies in a twisted heap, death filming her large eyes. One whole leg has been chewed to the bone, it lies exposed under the stars, a dull white. Lights flash on in the house. “Chee-as?” (What is it?) The dogs turn round and round, then spring into the darkness. I slit Lara’s throat with a kitchen knife. A sleepy, frightened gate watchman begs pardon of everyone.
I wrote about this awful episode many years ago, closer in time to when I had been in Kabul. Now I can barely remember it. Was it an omen about what happens to living beings if they are vulnerable? Was it a warning to me that I had better stay strong and healthy?
It is too late. Before I can put any escape plan into motion, fate steps in to rescue me in a rather risky way.
One afternoon I faint in the garden. I have never fainted before.
I have a temperature of 105 degrees. No one but me seems perturbed. At home at the first hint of a cold a doctor would be consulted. Most Jewish mothers in New York would rush someone with such a high fever—be it an adult child or a husband—to the emergency room.
Abdul-Kareem does not seem too worried, even though we know that foreigners have been “falling like flies” with a virulent strain of hepatitis.
I ask to see a doctor. Hours pass. Darkness has fallen. I am burning up and physically weak. It is soon late at night. I do something that I’ve never done before, something that is quite beyond my physical capacity to do.
I creep over to my father-in-law’s house, ask to see him—and then ask him to summon a doctor as soon as possible. He explains that “our doctors don’t usually come out in the evening.” But he promises to look in on me.
I am feeling worse (if that is possible). I beg Abdul-Kareem to bring a doctor in to see me. It seems that all the family cars are in use, none are available. At about 3 a.m. a car is reluctantly dispatched, and it returns with an annoyed eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist.
I am burning up. The man looks me over—and ventures that it is “only nerves.” He says, “These foreigners, especially the women, have weak stomachs and very jumpy nerves.”
I fall into a brief coma, another first. I turn muddy yellow. I start throwing up. I am nauseous. A day or two later another doctor arrives. First he is served tea and engaged in polite small talk. Then he looks me over and says that I have what the other foreigners have—hepatitis.
He says that there is really nothing he can do.
I fear that I will die and be buried in a Muslim cemetery somewhere out in the wild countryside. I have just turned twenty-one and am seriously contemplating my death. Even this is not as frightening as Abdul-Kareem’s apparent indifference.
What should I do? Kabul has no good hospital. Wealthy Afghans travel to Europe and America for their serious medical needs. Hospitals in Kabul do not even serve food; a patient’s family has to bring it in, together with clean towels, fresh sheets, and the prescribed pharmaceuticals.
I do not want to see any more Afghan doctors. I beg to see an American doctor. And so Bebegul’s entire family accompanies me to an American doctor in town. Eight people in two cars accompany me. Their presence, however well meaning, does not allow the doctor to see me privately.
By now I am paranoid. It feels as if my family is openly spying on me. (In retrospect my paranoia was justified.) Their presence is meant to intimidate me into saying only positive things about my Afghan family to the foreign doctor.
The American doctor understands this and engineers a way to take me to the far corner of the room where we can whisper to each other. He tells me that I might be the only foreigner who is still alive with this strain of the disease this winter and that I ought to get myself on a plane and go home. But he also tells me that he can “set up an intravenous line” for me at home for a week in order to stop my too-rapid weight loss and to get some nutrients into me.
He sends a nurse over who inserts the tubing. Suddenly, half-asleep, half-awake, as if I’m dreaming, I feel that someone is tugging on my IV line. It is Bebegul and she is trying to pull it out.
I am afraid she is trying to kill me.
I cry out. Fawziya, Hassan’s wife, is just passing by. She hears me, comes in, and sees what is going on. She sees that I am terrified. That gentle soul offers to stay with me until Abdul-Kareem comes home. This is a bold thing for her to do.
Fawziya: Wherever you are now, thank you.
When Abdul-Kareem comes home, he does not believe that Bebegul has tried to hurt me. He says that I must have had a hallucination.
Abdul-Kareem knows that if I don’t die, I am going to leave. But in Afghanistan wives are not allowed to leave husbands. Even husbands don’t necessarily leave wives—they simply marry a younger woman or two if they can.
Abdul-Kareem may have made a love match and brought a Jewish American back as his bride. But he has no intention of allowing his wife to shame him before his entire family and country.
So Abdul-Kareem has contrived a way to keep me there against my will.
I am his wife; we both believe he has the right to have sex with me and that I do not have the right to say no. He is desperate that I stay and so—without words and in anger—Abdul-Kareem embarks on a campaign to impregnate me. He does not stop, even though he knows I am ill and weak.
I am too fatigued to even get out of bed. I can barely hold myself upright. I have to crawl down the hallway to go to the bathroom. What kind of pregnancy could I maintain?
But if I leave, how could Abdul-Kareem be trusted with an important position? An Afghan man must be able to control his own wife.
If I am carrying Abdul-Kareem’s child, I will never be allowed to leave Afghanistan. I will have to go through with the pregnancy even if it kills me, even if this possible future child would be born disabled. The husband who presumably loves me is willing to risk my death and the possibility of a deformed child—rather than risk losing his power over me or his honor.
These are not things we ever discuss. These are my conclusions now, many years later.
I may have loved Abdul-Kareem but I am now in a life-or-death situation. I discover that I love my life more than I love my husband.
One never forgets such lessons, especially when one is privileged to learn them at a relatively young age.
Abdul-Kareem begins to stay away from our bedroom until late at night. As the systematic attacks continue, Abdul-Kareem’s oldest sister, also named Fawziya, mercifully offers to sleep in our bedroom to help me during the night. She understands what is happening. I will never forget her simple act of kindness.
Fawziya: Wherever you are, thank you, thank you. Call me, please, come to me, anytime.
I am a hopeless invalid. I am muddy yellow. I am constantly nauseous. I dream of food—but I can’t eat anything. When I crawl into the bathroom to throw up, I see that a new National Geographic has been added to my pile of magazines. This one has a cover story about the Hunzas, who live nearby and whose diet of yoghurt, nuts, tea, and apricots has led to long lives.
The magazine features many photos of the region’s mountains. I look out the bathroom window and see a similar view.
I laugh. Then I cry.
I must be getting better. I am strong enough to crawl down the stairs in search of something, anything, to eat. I think I am hysterical with hunger. The house is quiet, deserted, no one seems to be around. Suddenly Reza, my English-speaking brother-in-law, appears. He is wearing an overcoat and is on his way out to visit his fiancée and her family. I beg him for some edible food. A plain cooked potato or some bread?
Slowly Reza puts on his leather gloves.
“I have no time right now, I’m already late.” Reza pauses. He says: “I don’t understand how Abdul-Kareem could have brought you here. I’ve told him that many times.”
And he walks out, leaving me in a huddled heap on the carpeted floor.
I have missed my period. True, I am ill. But I might be pregnant. This could be a death sentence for me in every way.
I have to get out and it has to be now. I have only one card to play: the royal card. I must appeal to the king, not King Zahir Shah but my father-in-law, Ismail Mohammed, who alone has the power to return me safely to my home.
Why would he want a dead American daughter-in-law on his hands—or even a permanently sickly one? Why would he want someone living under his roof who keeps trying to escape?
I do not know it at the time, but Abdul-Kareem is engaged in a monstrous power struggle with his father, who has not really approved of his son’s love marriage. Ismail Mohammed’s opinion has nothing to do with me personally. It has everything to do with his ambitions for his third son—the son whose education in Europe and America was part of a vow Ismail Mohammed had made to Allah.
When he was quite young, Abdul-Kareem had nearly died of spinal meningitis. He had endured a difficult and painful recovery; Abdul-Kareem had to learn how to walk all over again. At that time his father vowed that if this son managed to prevail against all odds, he would have a world-class education.
An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir Page 13