In My Father's Country (20 page)

“Can we at least promise each other that we’ll get engaged once your family has had a chance to meet me and gotten to know me a little?” Eric asked.

“You mean like a promise-ring exchange?”

“Yes, something like that. I want your promise that you will always be mine, no matter how much pressure you get from your family.” Hmm, does he know that the only pressure he needs to worry about is from within me? I thought.

I told him that if he could find a ring I loved, I would consider it, knowing there was nothing remotely resembling an engagement ring at the local bazaar or in the small shop inside the wire.

I wasn’t being coy, or playing with his emotions. This really was a decision that I had never thought I would be asked to make. From a very early age, I knew I was not going to marry an Afghan man because I refused to give in that much to another human being, especially one who is himself so controlled by his culture. After my fights with the uncles, I had also decided that I didn’t want to face them in another battle, ever. It was not because I was a coward but because I was afraid of what I might end up doing if I heard one more “If your father was alive, he would be ashamed of you” judgment. I knew I was going to lose it. Therefore, my solution was that I would never marry, and no one who knew my father would ever get another chance to say that to me. I was more than happy being in a committed and loving relationship, without making it everyone’s business by getting a license for it. Eric, on the other hand, had a different mind-set: You are mine and I want to claim you legally and in the eyes of God. I guess he hadn’t counted on our having two different gods.

In telling him to find a ring I would like, I hoped he would take the time to rethink things and realize that marriage was a complication that might best be avoided. A week passed, then two. He showed up at my bench bearing a plain gold-and-ruby ring. I said I didn’t like the bright yellow of the twenty-two-karat gold. A few days later he presented me with a small sapphire ring. I said I never wore anything blue—how was I going to match anything to the ring? He told me he would keep trying. I tried to convince him to let me keep the rings just as tokens of his love, but he said he would save them and give them to me when I least expected it, like on our tenth anniversary, or the birth of our first
daughter, who would look just like me but would have a sweeter personality, like his (he was sure I was going to change my mind about not wanting kids). I would try not to panic when he would draw this picture of our future; I would tell myself that if he had enough time, he would come to his senses, and I would be spared another painful decision.

One day there was a meeting with Mrs. Sadiqqi, the director of Women’s Affairs. She was covered in the black Iranian
hijab
, but her hands were exposed and on one finger she wore a beautiful ring of rose gold and ruby. It was so striking in its simplicity that I couldn’t stop staring at her hand as she rearranged her scarf or picked up her teacup. I always translated at meetings with her because she felt more comfortable having another woman in the room. I’m sure my translation was sloppy that day, because I was so distracted by her ruby ring.

After the meeting, I told Eric I might seriously have to consider his offer if he could get me a ring like that.

“You know it’s impossible for me to ask her about it,” he said. “In Afghan culture it’s completely wrong for me to even acknowledge that she’s wearing a ring, much less that I like it.”

I smiled at him. “You know life with me is going to be one impossible thing after another. If you are not able to take the challenge, just admit it and I will think that this was just a fling for you.” He hated it when I would imply that our relationship wouldn’t stay strong in the real world outside Afghanistan. Plus, I wanted to see what he would do when faced with an impossible task in an alien and complex culture.

Eric accepted the challenge.

ONE FRIDAY THE
governor was called to Kabul for something and there was no barbecue that we had to attend. Fridays were also considered down days, although the soldiers still had to be prepared at a moment’s notice to get out there if necessary. Fridays were also the day when the PA played music from 7:00
A.M
. to about 7:00
P.M
. The choice of music depended on who was manning the desk at the TOC. I heard some interesting music while in Farah; the first time I heard country music was while sitting on a bench under the hot, dry sun of an Afghan
sky. That day, I was sitting in my usual spot, with a line of water bottles in front of me on the bench, some empty, others full. One thing I learned very quickly was that if I wanted to sit in the Afghan sun, I had to drink a lot of water to compensate for the sweat pouring down my back. Eric always knew where I was, and he easily found me that afternoon.

“Do you know this song, Saima?” he asked as he sat across from me.

For the first time, I paid attention to the song. “It’s country, and you know that I don’t really know any country songs or singers. Don’t ask me what it is, but I’m sure you can find out whose MP3 it is.” I smiled at him. He looked so dashing and handsome in his uniform.

“It’s mine, and I am playing it for you. I want you to listen to the words.” Eric looked very serious but still had a twinkle in his eyes. I listened and realized how sweet the tune was. The name of the song was “To Make You Feel My Love.” Here I was in my father’s war-torn country, sitting across from a man whom I felt I could be with for the rest of my life, who had just dedicated a love song to me. No one had ever done that for me. I didn’t know what to say, but at that moment I made up my mind that I would be okay with a man who could render me speechless with such a tender gesture.

“I want you to remember that you were listening to this song when you promised yourself to me, and I promised to make you the happiest woman on earth, no matter how many tests you try to put me through,” he said. He took out a folded napkin and handed it to me. We were still in public and had to be discreet. I opened up the napkin, and there sat the ring I had coveted on Mrs. Sadiqqi’s hand.

He was eager to tell me how he had met my challenge. After the meeting with Mrs. Sadiqqi he had told Omar that he wanted to buy the ring for his mom, and sent him to try to get it. Eric learned something else about Afghan culture that is sometimes puzzling to Americans. When you admire something on someone, like a ring or scarf, they will try to give it to you, and quite forcefully. Mrs. Sadiqqi refused to sell the ring but offered it to Eric as a gift. Eric refused; he knew it was expensive and she couldn’t afford to simply give it away. Omar went back and forth several times. Finally, they agreed that in exchange for the ring,
Mrs. Sadiqqi would receive a new generator for the women’s center. Eric bought an Iranian generator and a couple of barrels of fuel at the local bazaar with his own money. He hadn’t stopped there; he had also gotten the matching earrings, which he told me would be mine on our first anniversary. This was one of the very few times in my life that I became choked up with my own happiness.

And so we were promised to each other.

S
EVENTEEN

L
ess than a month later I stood inside the gate at BAF, anxiously waiting for my cousins. It was difficult to contain my excitement. I was finally going to be able to live in Afghanistan as just another Pashtun woman among my people. Knowing that I was finally going to have real interaction with my own family members, no matter that I had never met most of them before, had made it a little easier to say good-bye to Eric the week before.

I watched the guards bustle around. Every day hundreds of local laborers are searched before going through the gates of BAF. It took an hour or more for the cooks, the cleaners, and the local interpreters to work their way through the Entry Control Point (ECP). While I waited, I stood around talking easily with two soldiers whose names I only knew because they were stitched on their pockets. I had become very much at ease talking to soldiers. In just a few short months my discomfort had become a distant memory. I knew the two soldiers weren’t related to each other but they could have been brothers, with their blond brush-cuts and sunburned cheeks. Finally, one of the other guards, his CAT I trailing behind him, came up to me and handed me a big black bundle. “It’s from some man who says he’s your cousin,” he said. “He said to put this on and come outside.” I had told my cousin that I would be waiting at the gate for him and to let the guards know when he was there.

Sabir had arrived and had brought me a burqa to wear during the trip south to Ghazni Province, where they lived. My female cousins and aunts wore the traditional sea-blue
chadri
with the lace grill over the eyes. The black burqa was new. The fabric was heavy and serious.

A few soldiers came to watch as I pulled it over my head. It took me a while to get it right. One very young soldier said, “I’ve never seen one of these up close. We only see them on the street. How does it feel under there?” This was before the burqa had made its appearance at the local shops on FOBs all over the country, where soldiers bought them as Halloween costumes for just $15, more than three times what the locals paid for them outside.

“Are you going to be able to walk wearing that?” one of the soldiers asked with real concern.

“I don’t know. This is my first time,” I replied. “I’ll let you know when I get back.” I wondered if the Afghan men out there looking at their women were ever concerned about their ability to walk wearing the burqa. I found this casual kindness of the American soldiers endearing and touching. I had seen it when they were talking to little Afghan kids, or old Afghan men, or even one another. The war brought out the kindness in most people, although I wasn’t naïve about the ugliness it brought out in others.

Outside the gate Sabir stood waiting for me. He had a dark, clean, short beard. He looked me up and down sternly before turning and nodding toward a taxi he’d hired in Kabul. I had not seen him since I was nine years old, and he didn’t even say hello to me. There were no welcoming words, no indication that he was glad to see me. It was essential that Sabir maintain distance and authority. Later, I would discover that he had a quick smile. Even though the morning was cool, beneath my burqa I was already sweating—dripping beneath my hair and on the bridge of my nose. I felt like I was suffocating on my own breath and sweat.

Inside the taxi sat two women in their blue
chadri
and one with a huge black scarf covering her from head to toe and her face showing, stern and wrinkly. These were my cousins and my aunt. I got into the backseat
without saying anything, but I squeezed their hands. One of them—I had no idea at the time which one she was—held my hand all the way to Kabul.

These were my mother’s people. Unlike many Afghan married couples, my parents weren’t cousins; they weren’t even related. My mother was a chatterbox; at home in Portland she talked loudly on the phone all day long to her friends. But as we drove to Kabul my aunt and my cousins were silent. On the way to the taxi Sabir had warned me not to say a word. He suspected that the cabdriver, whom he didn’t know and who kept glancing at me in his rearview mirror, was mixed up with the insurgents. The driver was probably just an Afghan trying to make a living in the war, but it was also likely that he was being paid for any information he might glean from the conversations of his passengers, especially ones he drove to and from the airfield. I was an oddity worth keeping tabs on. I’m pretty sure that in all his years of driving this cabbie had never picked up a Pashtun woman working with the Americans.

I despise wearing anything on my head. Even before I arrived in America, when I was still living in Peshawar, my relationship to the scarf was hostile. Every minute it was on my head I hated it. That light pressure, the bit of friction it always created, the pure nuisance of worrying whether it was going to slip onto my shoulders or even the floor, as if it was a trick by men to keep us occupied—I had no patience for it. When an Afghan girl of seven or eight is told that soon she is going to be able to wear a scarf, she is usually excited. The adults make a game of it, giving girls pretty scarves when they’ve been good. By the time they’re forced to start wearing them, they’ve already amassed a little collection. Najiba couldn’t wait to start wearing her scarves, but I grumbled and complained. My mother would see me without my scarf and ask me where it was, and I would make excuses, saying that Najiba had stolen it or that I couldn’t remember where I had it last. She could tell I just didn’t like wearing it, and tried not to pester me too much, unless her friends were coming to visit. Then I had to find it and wear it tightly on my head, so none of them could say that my mother was not doing her Pashtun duty by me.

I SMOOTHED THE
fabric of my burqa and tried to relax. Our taxi was clean. Beads hung from the rearview mirror and framed pictures adorned the dashboard. I was touched to realize that Sabir had probably made an extra effort to hire this specific taxi so that he could transport me in style.

In Kabul we switched taxis and drove to a small restaurant, where we ate lunch, also in silence, and then switched cabs. Sabir had a habit of clenching and unclenching his jaw. I could tell he was on edge; traveling with four female relatives was a huge responsibility. At any moment a man could shame him by allowing his gaze to rest on one of us. He would then have an obligation to take some kind of protective and territorial actions. He’d be required to beat up the offender or even kill him, depending on the level of offense. Often Afghans are portrayed as bloodthirsty thugs eager to commit murder, but I could see that for gentle, distracted men such as Sabir, upholding this tradition was a big cultural burden. So he was careful to take precautions. Later, when I e-mailed Najiba back home in Portland, I told her I had felt like James Bond, changing taxis several times, walking quickly through the alleys of Kabul, trying to lose some unseen Taliban spy collecting information for the insurgents, who would use that intelligence to make an example out of me and my family.