But a boy could never approach Shahnaz and Shapairi just to chat and be friends. Such things were never done. Our traditions did not allow a boy to talk to a girl in public without risking great disdain from those in the neighborhood. It would be shameful and full of bitter consequences for a girl to be seen alone with a boy. She would gain a certain reputation. Still, there were ways that a girl could know who was interested in her.
Boys often followed Shahnaz and Shapairi home from school—always at a distance, always in a group, always without speaking directly to them. Boys followed them when they walked to the bazaar to shop for the fine material they desired for their dresses and skirts, or to the ice cream shop, or to the mall.
I would wait by our front door for them to return from school. They both wore their uniforms: black dresses, black hose, high heels, and white scarves around their necks. One day, Shapairi, full of exasperation and fluster, tore through the door, reciting the names of boys who had been trailing behind her, none of whom had a chance of ever catching her eye. Shahnaz strolled in quietly behind Shapairi as if she had not noticed anyone following them at all. To her it was just another beautiful day in Kabul.
After Shahnaz graduated from high school, she began working at Ariana Airlines. At the airport where she worked, a tall, handsome pilot took immediate notice of her. If she ever did anything to encourage him, it would not have been more than a well-timed smile or suggestive glance from her green eyes, heavy with smoky makeup. They could chat only in passing. He would stop and offer some pleasantry, and she would smile in her way. Shahnaz always looked her best at work, in her high-fashion tight skirts, elegant silk blouses, and her expensive jewelry—ready to greet a prime minister or royalty or a president when they stepped off their planes.
She and the pilot could never touch each other. And they would never be in a room alone until his parents talked to my parents and the courtship was approved.
They learned about love from a distance. This is the truest love of all, when two people must wait and build up great ideas about each other until the passion becomes so unbearable and deeply rooted that they must have each other. That is how love becomes the most desirable and lasting. I wanted this love more than anything. I wanted the traditions to work for me. I wanted my life to end up like the romance stories that Shahnaz would read to me and three of my other siblings—Laila and Zulaikha, and my brother Zia, my closest friend and playmate.
Shahnaz used to gather us together in our living room and tell us about a story she had just read. She was always reading, mostly novels, and the one she had just completed was even more astonishing than the one before. We sat raptly at her feet in our living room of expensive Italian furniture and listened intently to the tales of women falling in love with noble men who were courageous and dashing and handsome. We would laugh and blush in wonder. I remember gazing into her face that glowed with passion as she recounted each story, hinting that she knew these happy endings to be true. After she finished reading, Shahnaz had this way of looking through us with a far-off look, as if she could see something in the distance, something possible that we couldn’t see. I wanted to be like her and know about this world beyond the white stuccoed walls of our compound, beyond the streets of our neighborhood and the trolleyed streets of the city.
There came a day when this man who followed her did call, or rather his mother called Mommy, who then spoke to Padar.
It was not always possible in my large family at my young age to figure out how events were coloring my future, what they would mean to me when I grew older. Yet it was simple to know something important was taking place.
We lived in a spacious home with sitting rooms, a formal dining room, and a large living room, where my parents greeted distinguished guests. Every room had crystal chandeliers imported from Europe. We had maids’ quarters and a guesthouse. In one of the side yards, we had a volleyball court, a badminton court, a playground, and over an acre of fruit trees surrounded by a high white stucco wall that divided all the properties of the wealthy Karte Seh neighborhood.
Padar, Abdullah Ahmadi, was tall with jet-black hair and a broad forehead and a manliness that always held my admiration. Besides being my father, Padar was many things: a businessman, a property owner, a communications engineer employed by the American embassy, fluent in seven languages, a man of great bravery, and, to our great family shame, an alcoholic. But before he was any of these things, he was a poet. He had memorized most of Rumi’s and Hafiz’s poems. The other passion in his life was his total devotion to his wife, our mother, Miriam, who took that dedication with a dram of insouciance that could be at times subversively hostile.
Padar’s habit after dinner was to recite his favorite poem from Hafiz, and halfway through he would stop. Mommy would then take up and finish as we sat raptly at their feet, listening to them speak of love and courage and dedication, and the words of the great Hafiz washed over us.
One night they spoke alone. After dinner we were asked to go to our rooms. I asked Laila, who was five years older and much smarter about these things, about all of this. She explained that Shahnaz had a suitor, and Padar, from what she knew, liked him, but Mommy thought Shahnaz could do better, a wealthy businessman or a diplomat.
When Laila said “diplomat,” it filled all my thoughts with the American man who often came to our home for Padar’s parties. Padar had worked at the embassy since he and Mommy were first married, and so he had friendships with many Americans, including the ambassador. He had many other diplomatic friends and acquaintances.
Several times a year, my father would host parties for his friends. All of us had to dress in our best clothes because the prime minister and ambassadors and politicians would be there. Diplomats from embassies all over Kabul would drive through our gates in their long black cars, and the men in handsome suits and elegant ladies in dresses that glittered would be welcomed into our home. Noor, our family’s longtime housekeeper, and the household staff prepared for days at Mommy’s meticulous direction. If the party was large, she’d hire a caterer, who would take over the side yard and prepare mounds of food. Everything had to be perfect—the music, the food, the house, and of course her children.
At the party, men and women mingled, the men drinking while the women smoked up the whole house. There were so many flashy, well-dressed men, but one man stood out: the American diplomat—tall and handsome beyond anything in Shahnaz’s storytelling. We heard he had his eye on her. If he had, Mommy would have been very happy. But the American never called and spoke to Padar.
In time, Mommy agreed to the courtship of Shahnaz and the pilot, Saleem Rodwal. Saleem’s father was an important general in the army, and Saleem was allowed to visit our home, and he and Shahnaz could sit on the Italian sofas and sip chai tea and talk. I had no idea what else they would do. Yet wasn’t that the greatest part of love, to talk? I imagined they spoke poetry to each other, like Padar and Mommy, and her man would get that dreamy look in his eye the way Padar did for Mommy when he recited Hafiz.