“She’s a beautiful girl, and they’re a wonderful family.” Yusuf’s mother sighed. She’d repeated this more times than he could count in the four weeks before his departure. “All I’m asking is that you spend some time with her.”
Yusuf’s mother would only consider his trip to Afghanistan a success if he came back engaged. That was not something he had to infer. She had stated it very clearly, especially after he’d rejected the many prospects she pointed out in their New York community. She accused Yusuf of being too picky and warned him of the dangers of procrastinating.
“Too much makeup, too little schooling, too tall, too short. You need to spend less time finding faults in these girls and more time looking for the right one. You wait too long and there’ll be no one left to choose from.”
But the Afghan girls in New York didn’t seem that much unlike American girls. He’d spoken to many at community events or at student associations and hadn’t found anyone who wanted anything to do with Afghanistan. Their idea of cultural identity, he gathered, was putting on a traditional Afghan dress once a year at a wedding and carrying in a tray of henna. Too often, getting to know them involved secretive phone calls and elaborately concocted stories to disguise their whereabouts from their parents, only to find that they had nothing in common.
But Meena was a different story. He’d laughed at his mother’s suggestion the first time she’d mentioned it. She’d put her hands on her hips and sternly told him that Meena’s mother was not opposed to the idea. Meena was the right age and had recently finished college. She was taking computer classes, and they wanted to see her married to a good person. They knew Yusuf’s family and heard that Yusuf had a job as an attorney. He would be a good match for her, Meena’s parents decided and hinted as much to Yusuf’s mother.
While homeland pulled Yusuf like a magnet, there was a quietly growing curiosity in him about Meena as well. He’d seen a picture of her and knew she was quite beautiful. But there was much he didn’t know. So many years had passed since he’d last seen her, her small arms wrapped around his neck as he knelt down to say good-bye to her. He’d wiped the tears from her cheeks, his face flushing to see her so saddened.
“I’ll call them in the morning and stop by later in the day. Good enough?” he promised his mother, making it sound like he was only doing this to humor her.
“Fine. Remember, you only have a few days in Kabul before you go out into the provinces. Use that time to get to know her.”
YUSUF MADE HIS WAY TO KAKA SIAR’S HOUSE THE NEXT DAY, PASSING through swarms of grinning street children with outstretched hands and curious eyes.
“Mister, mister. . it’s good to give!”
“Hello, how are you!” they called, erupting into giggles as they practiced their stiff English. Their clothes were tattered, their fingernails black half-moons. Yusuf wondered if they were orphans or the overflow of an impoverished household.
Yusuf laughed with them, tousling one boy’s hair and giving another boy the ballpoint pen he had in his pocket.
“Do you boys go to school?” he asked them.
“I do!”
“Me too!”
They were future pilots, doctors, and professors, they promised him. They were persistent and not in the least bit shy, their confidence boosted by their collective number.
He passed women in burqas and others in jeans, teased hair beneath their loose head scarves and platform shoes stretching their height from top and bottom. Some men were dressed in traditional tunics and pantaloons with turbans on their heads. Others wore slim denim jeans or trousers and Adidas athletic shirts. A man sat on a stool outside his shop, an arc of reed birdcages over his store’s entrance. Parakeets, finches, and canaries sat on thin perches, looking like flittering, multicolored gems.
Kaka Siar’s family members were living in the home one of their relatives had abandoned. Their own home and the home Yusuf had grown up in had been reduced to rubble while they were away. Yusuf knocked on the front gate and waited, nervously, for someone to let him in. He carried a bag of gifts all picked out by his mother: chocolates, clothes for Kaka Siar, and bottles of perfume for his wife.
It was Kaka Siar who opened the door, shaking his head in disbelief and pulling Yusuf into their courtyard. He’d hugged him tightly and kissed his cheeks. When he stepped back to get a better look at the boy he hadn’t seen in over twenty years, his wife, Khala Zainab, came out and hugged him, her palm stroking his cheek with a maternal touch. Yusuf bent and tried to kiss her hands, but she pulled back and tugged him into the house instead.
“You look just like your father,” Khala Zainab said. “How are they doing? Your brother and sisters are well?”
“Praise Allah, what a fine man you’ve become! If I’d seen you on the street, I would not have recognized you,” Kaka Siar added.
Their two eldest daughters had married but returned to their parents’ house with their husbands and children that evening to see Yusuf. They were unrecognizable, as was Meena. Yusuf stood when she entered from outside. She’d just returned from her job — something to do with the United Nations, Yusuf’s mother had told him. She was dressed in black slacks and a long, chartreuse blouse that fell to her hips. She wore a loose, gauzy head scarf and had a warm smile.
Something about her reminded Yusuf of Elena, but he pushed that thought aside. Meena took a seat on floor cushions between her two sisters, a one-year-old niece crawling gleefully onto her lap. Meena tickled the little girl’s stomach and she shook her head in false protest, her pigtails brushing against Meena’s lowered face.
She was lovely, Yusuf admitted, and reminded himself not to stare. He was returning as a family friend and not officially courting her, but the presence of two single people of the same age filled the room with tension. He wished his parents could be here to diffuse the attention. Instead, all eyes and questions were directed to him. A few times during the evening, he caught Meena looking at him, but as soon as he noticed, she would tuck her hair behind her ear and look for a niece or nephew to hold her attention.
They were like two horses with blinders on, standing side by side and pretending not to be aware the other existed. But how was Yusuf going to get to know her if they never spoke? Was he expected to reach some conclusion about the rest of their lives just by eating in the same room?
Meena’s older sisters inquired about his own. Though they were closer in age to Yusuf, the presence of children on their laps and husbands at their sides extinguished any impropriety. They could ask questions and joke with him and made a point to do so, obviously hoping to elicit information on their younger sister’s behalf.
What does your sister’s husband do? Do they live near your parents? And your sisters, what did they study in college?
Yusuf’s mother would have been proud to hear him describe how his sister had married a banker and they’d chosen to live close to home. He left out that it was the rent-controlled apartment that kept her and her husband in the same building as his parents. With a baby coming, they couldn’t afford to think about moving. His other sister was studying accounting, he told them. He neglected to mention that she had finished in five semesters what others had finished in three and worked part-time as a makeup artist in a department store. For his brother, Yusuf focused on the credentials of the restaurant he managed. It was booked to capacity nearly every night and highly rated.
Kaka Siar nodded in approval. Khala Zainab smiled encouragingly. They were already imagining what their home would feel like without their youngest daughter, picturing her making her way to the United States and being welcomed by Yusuf’s parents.