Two chairs have been put out in the yard. They must sit down at the same time. If the groom sits down first, the bride will dominate all decisions. Neither wants to sit down, and in the end Sultan walks up behind them and pushes them down on to the chairs, exactly at the same time. Applause all around.
Shakila’s older sister Feroza drapes a blanket over the newly married couple and holds up a mirror in front of them. They must both look into it. According to tradition, this moment is the first time their eyes meet. Wakil and Shakila stare hard into the mirror, as they should, and as though they have never seen each other before. Feroza holds the Koran over their heads and a mullah reads a blessing. With bowed heads they accept the word of God.
Then a dish containing a pudding made of cake crumbs, sugar and oil, seasoned with cardamom, is put in front of them. They feed each other with a spoon while everyone applauds. They also pour drink into each other, signifying that they desire a happy life for their spouse.
But not everyone is equally enthralled with the slurping of lemonade.
‘Once upon a time we toasted in champagne,’ an aunt whispers. She remembers more liberal times, when both wine and champagne were served at weddings. ‘But those times will never return,’ she sighs. The era of nylon stockings, western dress, bare arms and – not least – the era before burkas, are faint memories.
‘A third-rate wedding,’ Sultan’s oldest son Mansur whispers back. ‘Bad food, cheap clothes, meatballs and rice, tunics and veils. When I get married I’m going to hire the ballroom at the Intercontinental. Everyone will have to wear modern clothes and we’ll serve only the best. Imported food,’ he emphasises. ‘Anyhow, I’m going to get married abroad,’ he adds.
Shakila and Wakil’s wedding feast takes place in Mariam’s mud house, in the backyard where nothing grows. The walls are peppered with bullet holes and the evidence of shell splinters. The couple pose for the photographers staring fixedly ahead. The lack of smiles and the bullet holes in the background give a tragic atmosphere to the picture.
They have arrived at the cake. They hold the knife and concentrate on cutting. They feed each other through half-open mouths, as though they shrink from opening them completely, and spill crumbs all over each other.
After the cake there is music and dancing. For many of the guests this is the first wedding they have celebrated since the Taliban left Kabul, in other words the first wedding with music and dancing. The Taliban deprived people of half the joy of wedding feasts when they took the music away. Everyone throws themselves into the dance, except the newlyweds, who sit and watch. It is late afternoon. Owing to the curfew, wedding feasts have been moved from evening to daytime; everyone must be home by ten.
When dusk arrives the newly married couple disappear from the party, accompanied by hooting and howls. They drive to Wakil’s house in a car decorated with ribbons and flowers. Anyone who can bag a seat in a car joins the cortège. Eight people cram into Wakil and Shakila’s car, even more in other cars. They take a turn through the streets of Kabul. As this is the time of eid the roads are empty and the cars tackle the roundabouts at sixty miles an hour, battling to lead the procession. Two cars crash, which puts a small damper on the celebrations, but no one is seriously hurt. The cars, lights broken and chassis dented, drive off to Wakil’s house. The trip is a symbolic surrender. Shakila leaves her family and is adopted by her husband’s family.
The closest relatives are allowed into Wakil’s house where his sisters await with tea. These are the women with whom Shakila will share the backyard. Here they will meet at the water pump, here they will wash clothes and feed the chickens. Snotty-nosed kids look inquisitively at the woman who is to be their new mother. They hide behind their aunts’ skirts and look reverently up at the shimmering bride. The music is far off, the jubilant shouts have subsided. Shakila steps into her new home with dignity. It is reasonably large with high ceilings. Like all other houses in the village it is made of clay and has heavy rafters. The windows are covered in plastic. Not even Wakil dares hope that the bombs have stopped dropping, so he will wait to change the plastic sheeting.
Everyone takes off their shoes and walks quietly through the house. Shakila’s feet are red and swollen after a day in the tight, white high heels. The remaining guests, the closest family, walk into the bedroom. A huge double bed takes up virtually all the space. Shakila admires the shining, smooth, red bed cover and cushions she bought, and the new, red curtains that she made herself. Her sister Mariam fixed the room the day before, hung up the curtains, made the bed, arranged the wedding decorations. Shakila herself has never been in this house; from now on and for the rest of her life, it will be her domain.
During the entire wedding ceremony no one has seen the newlyweds exchange a single smile. Now, in her new home, Shakila can’t help smiling. ‘What a wonderful job you’ve done,’ she says to Mariam. For the first time in her life she will have her own bedroom. For the first time in her life she will sleep in a bed. She sits down beside Wakil on the soft bedspread.
The final ceremony remains. One of Wakil’s sisters hands Shakila a large nail and a hammer. She knows what to do and walks quietly over to the bedroom door. Over the door she drives in the nail. When it is right in everyone applauds. Bibi Gul sniffles. The implication is that she has nailed her destiny to the house.
The next day, before breakfast, Wakil’s aunt comes over to Bibi Gul, Shakila’s mother. In her bag she has the piece of cloth that Leila nearly forgot, the most important item of all. The old woman takes it reverently out of the bag and hands it to Shakila’s mother. It is covered in blood. Bibi Gul thanks her and smiles while tears run down her cheek. Quickly she recites a prayer of thanks. All the women of the house rush up to have a look and Bibi Gul shows anyone who wants to see. Even Mariam’s little daughters are shown the bloody piece of cloth.
Without the blood, it would have been Shakila, not the piece of cloth, that was returned to the family.
The Matriarch
A wedding is like a small death. The bride’s family mourns in the days following the wedding, as though it were a funeral. A daughter is lost, sold or given away. The mothers especially grieve. They have had complete control over their daughters, where they go, who they meet, what they wear, what they eat. They have spent most of the day together, got up together, swept the house together, and cooked together. After the wedding the daughter disappears, completely; she goes from one family to the other. She cannot visit when she wants, only when her husband allows her. Her family cannot drop in on her without an invitation.
In an apartment in block no. 37 in Mikrorayon a mother laments her daughter, who now lives an hour’s walk away. But it makes no difference whether Shakila is in the village Deh Khudaidad immediately outside Kabul, or in a foreign country thousands of miles away across the sea. As long as she is not on the mat by her mother’s side, drinking tea and eating sugared almonds, the loss is just as hard to bear.
Bibi Gul cracks another almond; she had hidden it under the mattress so her youngest daughter Leila would not find it. Leila makes sure that her mother does not eat herself to death. Like a nurse at a health-spa, she has forbidden sugar and fat and snatches the food out of Bibi Gul’s hand if she helps herself to something banned. When she can afford the time she cooks special fat-free food for her mother. But Bibi Gul pours fat from the family’s plates over her food when Leila is not watching. She loves the taste of cooking-oil, warm mutton fat and deep-fried pakora, or sucking marrow from bones at the end of a meal. Food is her comfort. If she feels peckish after supper she often gets up at night to lick pots and scrape pans. Bibi Gul never loses weight, in spite of Leila’s efforts; on the contrary, her girth increases every year. And anyhow, she has her little stashes everywhere, in old chests, under carpets, behind a crate. Or in her bag. That’s where she carries cream toffees: discoloured, mealy, grainy cream toffees from Pakistan, cloyingly sweet and sometimes even rancid. But they are cream toffees, there is a picture of cows on the wrapper and no one can hear her sucking them.