Shahnaz’s engagement party was the biggest party Padar had ever thrown. It was an event of great happiness and celebration. Family and friends of the groom, Mommy’s family and relatives, Padar’s family, and all of his diplomatic friends from the embassy attended in force. It seemed the entirety of Kabul wanted to celebrate the engagement of Shahnaz and Saleem.
A caterer set up a huge white tent in the side yard and brought in his stoves and utensils. Kitchen workers prepared mounds of chicken and beef and lamb and fish kabobs, and brown and white and green rice, and every flavor of tea, along with desserts and breads and hors d’oeuvres.
Mommy dressed me in new yellow pants and a top. And when the crowd began gathering outside the tent, I climbed the pear tree by the gate to watch the waiters and waitresses bustle around the guests stretched out in our ample yard. Padar greeted everyone, pride evident in his smile, with kisses and hugs.
And Shahnaz, elegant with her long black hair pulled to the side like a princess, dazzled in the afternoon sun in her emerald-green pencil skirt with silver stripes. Her high cheekbones were highlighted by her bright-red lipstick and smoky eye shadow. She hugged Padar repeatedly and told him how thankful she was for such a grand party. She floated from person to person, from the tent to the house, hugging and shaking hands, receiving the best wishes of her guests and family in the honor of the moment till she burst with a radiant glow as if she had absorbed all of the happiness in Kabul.
Her eyes turned to the gates when a chain of big black cars pulled up, and men in suits hustled to open the doors. A barrel-chested man, General Rodwal, Saleem’s father, stepped out of one of the cars. With his bodyguards and his sons around, the general walked up the drive, and Padar went to him and greeted him with kisses on the cheek, the way men do, and hugs. Beside the General strode Saleem, tall and handsome with a definite swagger that caught my sister’s eye.
While I watched Shahnaz and Saleem greet each other, Padar called to me.
“Enjeela, come down from there.” His face upturned, he peered at me through the branches of the tree. “Come help me.”
Before climbing down from the tree, I glanced around. It was evening now, and down my street I could see the dim city lights and hear the faint rumble of traffic. To me, Kabul was the busiest and most wonderful place in the world.
“Enjeela, come down now,” Mommy said as she regarded me. Her mouth was set and her arms were folded across her chest.
I stepped from limb to limb until I touched the last branch and jumped the few feet to the ground.
Mommy had a heated look to her eyes. “Look at you.” I followed her gaze to the large black spot on my new yellow blouse. She took my hand and nearly dragged me to a table under the tent, where my two aunts sat smoking. Mommy slumped in a chair and dabbed at my blouse with the corner of a wet napkin.
Mommy’s two cousins came over, both in dark suits, with drinks in hand and stood nearby, somber-faced, watching Mommy work on my stain. Everyone had drinking glasses, and they would pretend they were sipping sodas, mentioning names of different soft drinks, but the smell of alcohol was heavy in the air. There was some chatting between them, but it was brief and staccato, as if they all had something else on their minds. My aunts smoked one cigarette after another, stubbing out one, then lighting another, as they scanned the crowd.
Somewhere behind me I heard Shahnaz laughing, her world so full of happiness. I couldn’t see her, but I imagined she was smiling and beautiful and everyone around her was enjoying themselves.
One of my aunts nodded toward the gate. “Look who’s here.”
Mommy turned and stared, her hand frozen in midair over my blouse. “Damn Parchamis. What’re they doing here?” She turned back to me, and she didn’t seem angry at me any longer. “I didn’t invite them.”
“They’re friends of the groom,” one of my aunts said.
Squinting as they watched the group of men stroll up the driveway, Mommy’s two cousins seemed to tense—their thin and angular faces turned pale, and their fingers twitched on the outside of their drink glasses. I knew that Mommy’s cousins worked in government, but I didn’t know what they did. Sometimes Mommy talked about them at dinner, and I knew she had long conversations with them over the phone.
Mommy gave up on my blouse and dropped the napkin on the table. She tightened her mouth the way she did when she grew angry. Her gaze turned to the crowd. My aunts smoked, and their eyes became bullets as they stared at the Parcham men. My cousins stood stiffly, as if they wanted to disappear.
Behind me, I heard Shahnaz thanking a guest for coming, her voice filled with enthusiasm and love. I turned and found her. Padar was nearby, greeting someone with his enthusiastic salaam that made you feel especially glad to know him. I worked my way to him and took his hand, and he gripped it tightly. Even with unwelcome invaders, there was love and hope on this night.
2
ABDULLAH
My padar, Abdullah, had a motorcycle and a degree in engineering from Kabul University and not much else when he met my mother. Part of the modernization under King Zahir Shah in the fifties and sixties was that anyone who qualified academically could find their way to the university, either through private or public scholarships. Under King Zahir Shah and then under President Daoud Khan, the economy was opening up with investment money from both the United States and Russia. Roads, secondary and primary schools, universities, hospitals, dams, and agricultural projects had been planned and built. New businesses were springing up, and Padar stepped right into this opportunity. Educated men and women were slowly replacing the traditional leaders and businessmen in the country, gradually implementing progressive changes in everyday Afghan life.
Padar had graduated from the university and begun working at the American embassy when he met Mommy. He had spotted Mommy when she was out with her sisters, probably in one of the bazaars or new shopping malls springing up in the best neighborhoods. After making inquiries, he found her family. Soon his mother, my paternal grandmother, approached her mother, and the courting began.
Mommy said he was sharply handsome when they met, a bit wild in that he drove a motorcycle, and definitely a tough guy, someone who knew how to take care of himself and get things done. We had no doubt, when she told us these stories, that she had been attracted to him.
When Padar first met her, she used to dye her short, lush hair blond. When she was on the back of his motorcycle, tooling through the streets of Kabul, she’d hold him tight around the waist and let her hair stream behind her in the wind. She thought he was cool and tough and handsome. He had been captured by her beauty and cultured ways. You didn’t have to be around Padar and Mommy for very long to realize he was deeply in love with her.
Had she loved him? If I had asked her that question directly, she probably would have brushed me off. Her stepmother, who had come into her home after her mother died, had wanted to marry off her husband’s three daughters, and here was an eligible, handsome suitor, who was intent on pursuing my mother. What my father may have lacked in money and possessions, he made up for in confidence and determination. He knew what he wanted, and he wanted Miriam Siddiqui. Her stepmother approved of this brash suitor and pushed for her marriage, and her father approved. Mother definitely had a say in the matter, and she often said she had found him overwhelmingly attractive but was a little bothered that he didn’t come from a family of successful businessmen. So Padar began to court her. Mommy was seventeen and was just finishing high school.