End of Manners (13 page)

On the landing on our floor at the guesthouse, there was a door to a third room. I strongly suspected it was occupied by the owner of the hairs caked in that bathroom soap.

We met him at the communal table where all the guests of Babur’s Lodge had breakfast every morning, like a family. Or not him—actually it was them—for there were two occupants to that room. They were both American, and after the third day at the lodge they had become a familiar sight. One was tall, blond, with Scandinavian skin, long hair and white albino eyelashes. He must have been twenty-five at the most and looked like a basketball player or a student; he seemed to lack the savagery of the others. He always wore the same faded T-shirt, a pair of cargo pants and a
pakol
on his head. At breakfast he never said a word, but kept his eyes glued to the paper, hiding behind the
Kabul Daily
as if it were a fence. His buddy was smaller, with a leaner, nervy physique, black hair and a goatee. He had a good-looking face, a bit too pointy for my taste, like the snout of a weasel. There was something darker, more menacing about this one.

Every morning the smaller one had ordered scrambled eggs and refried beans with onions and ketchup. A disproportionately large plate would arrive and he would attack it slowly, with method. I thought that this eggs-and-beans affair must have been some kind of ritual that held a special meaning for him, as if those eggs were an umbilical cord to some diner back home, in some forsaken town where he’d had breakfast every day. He must have spent a considerable amount of time instructing the kitchen on exactly how to prepare his plate. The young Afghan waiter who brought it to him did so with great pride, as if every morning a miracle had taken place in the kitchen. The waiter would place the eggs in front of him, each time seeking his approval, which the American accorded with a slight nod.

These two guests hadn’t introduced themselves, they had never even acknowledged our presence or spoken to us, but I thought of them as
il Biondo e il Bruno.
Whenever we passed each other on the landing on the way to and from the bathroom, I felt I’d intruded on their space, that our presence across from their room annoyed them. They were intimidating and always made me feel on edge.

Imo was oblivious to their existence. She had already invaded the bathroom, pushed their stuff into a corner of the windowsill, filled the edge of the tub with her bottles of sandalwood and tangerine shampoo, aromatherapy conditioner, jars of day cream, night cream, the whole female arsenal of cleansers, makeup pads, non-alcohol deodorant, brushes, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Although I had carefully avoided leaving any clue of my existence and kept all my stuff in the room, I felt responsible for this territorial invasion. After all, there wasn’t a tag with Imo’s name above this cosmetics store that was now on display in their bathroom and I knew they must resent me as well for it.

When they finished eating, il Biondo and il Bruno went off together without saying good-bye to anyone, pushing their chairs back and dropping their soiled napkins on the table. They went out the door, and a few seconds later a roaring engine carried them away.

“Security,” Imo whispered in my ear.

“Meaning?”

“They’re bodyguards.”

“Whose?”

“I don’t know. But they look like killers to me.”

“How do you know?”

“I just can tell, and then I asked the waiter, the older one. I sneaked a peek in their room when the cleaning woman was in there. They’ve got automatic weapons right on the bedside table next to their mineral water bottles.”

The other guests were equally graceless and made me feel uneasy. Another American—salt-and-pepper hair, chunky and compact like an action doll with pumped-up muscles—always sat at the head of the table in a crisp shirt and multipocketed vest. His breakfast seemed as if it were part of some weight-loss plan: a small glass of orange juice, oatmeal and fruit. He spoke in a steady rhythm without inflection. It wasn’t clear who exactly he was talking to; he seemed happy to keep talking indefinitely until the charge ran down. The others chewed on, nodding now and then, all except il Biondo, who kept his eyes steadfastly planted on the front page of the paper. The only one who actively paid any attention, commenting at intervals, was a mousy-looking little guy with a tiny moustache and a strong South African accent.

The second day, as we were all sitting at breakfast, the chunky American had been banging on at length about a specific type of tank that had been used in Korea. Imo looked up from her bowl of yogurt and interrupted him.

“I don’t understand this thing about frozen terrain.”

There was a moment of general ruffling of wings around the table.

The American looked at Imo as if he were noticing her for the first time. The others all moved their eyes from him to Imo, then back from Imo to him, as if they were following a tennis ball. The man considered the question and didn’t miss a beat. He kept talking in the same monochromatic tone, like those military spokespeople who brief journalists in the pressroom at the White House.

“These are tanks that we used in Korea, but the heat they produced during the day melted the frozen surface of the terrain, so they used to sink into the rice paddies at night. We’d have to keep moving them back and forth to prevent them from bogging down. But I think they could work over here, because Afghan terrain is pretty solid and stony. They wouldn’t sink here like they did over there.”

Imo held his gaze and popped a piece of buttered bread in her mouth, squinting slightly.

“What is it you
do
exactly?”

The question landed on the table with a clunk.

I cringed. I thought it was a given that one shouldn’t ask such direct questions to people like that. It was more than rude, it was against the rules.

“I’m General Dynamics,” he replied, as if he were stating, “I’m Mormon,” or “I’m Spanish,” or “I’m a vegetarian.”

“That is to say?” Imo countered.

“We supply war matériel, armaments, communications systems, to the Afghan government based on our acquisitions experience.”

“And what does that mean
exactly
?”

The man curled his lip in a patronizing smirk and translated.

“It means I go around the world shopping on behalf of the Afghan government, using my connections and my expertise to buy arms, munitions and vehicles suited to this terrain and climate.”

“Funny, isn’t it, that they should ask Americans to do this kind of shopping on their behalf,” Imo commented with her mouth full.

The man didn’t move a muscle.

“They don’t have a choice. They’re still fighting with guns from the eighteen hundreds; they have no idea how weapons have evolved, or where to buy them. If it were up to them they’d still be going to war with swords.”

The others gave a snicker to bolster him. Then General Dynamics wiped his napkin across his mouth, pushed his chair back and left.

He too, without bothering to utter a good-bye or a see-you-later.

In order to travel outside Kabul we needed a written permit from the Ministry of Information. Hanif explained it was necessary to have it with us at all times, in case we were stopped at any of the checkpoints outside the city. The ministry was an old building inside a beautiful shady garden, the only patch of green I had seen so far.

We walked up a creaky wooden staircase and sat in a spacious room furnished with office furniture from the thirties that my brother, Leo, would surely have appreciated. Two sleepy clerks gave us forms to fill out. I noticed there was a Bakelite telephone sitting on one of the desks; I saw no computers. I looked out the window at the view of the garden below and recalled how in
The Road to Oxiana
I had read about the lush gardens of Kabul, the sweet smell of oleaster, the shady arbors planted with Canterbury bells and columbines. And how once, after a reception for the king’s birthday at the British Legation, all the Afghan ministers—mad rose lovers—had sent their gardeners to request cuttings of the rosebushes they’d seen in full bloom. “British diplomacy now hangs on the Minister’s roses,” Byron laconically wrote.

While we waited for our permits to be issued, Hanif took us to see the Darulaman Palace. It was built for King Amanullah in the twenties, designed with an eye to European aristocracy, all cupolas, swirls and turrets. Sitting on a hilltop just outside the city, it was a solitary structure, imposing, neoclassical, overlooking a flat, dusty valley. You could see it standing out against the mountains on the horizon, commanding the landscape, but already at a distance you sensed that something wasn’t quite right. The palace had kept its shape, but it had been riddled by mortar fire everywhere and was slumping to the side, chipped and gaping. Not one single arch, capital, or column was intact. It might have been professional deformation, but it reminded me of a wedding cake that had been knocked around too much and the wisps and curlicues of the icing had gotten smashed. I took its picture from a distance; I liked its lopsided bearing against the deep blue of the windswept sky, the way it looked as if it would topple at any moment. A grandiose dessert, planned for a great event that didn’t turn out as it should have.

The soldiers behind the barrier warning “Military Zone No Pictures Allowed” looked bored. They gestured towards me and yelled something that sounded menacing. Hanif went over and introduced himself, I guess explaining who we were and what we were doing. There was an unusually long and cheerful exchange of greetings, shaking of hands and excited laughter. Hanif walked back to where Imo and I were standing.

“They want you to take their photo. They said they want me to be in the picture with them.”

“Oh, okay. Sure.”

“They see me on TV. Some of them also know me from the quiz show on Tuesday night,” he added shyly.

I moved behind Hanif towards the soldiers. They all seemed very young, barely in their twenties. I moved my hands quickly, pointing at the position they should take in order to get the right lighting. They giggled among themselves, exchanging jokes as they shuffled. Maybe they were excited by the presence of a Western woman, maybe they found it exhilarating that a woman would tell them what to do. I changed the lens, put in a 35 mm film and pointed the camera at the men. Their expressions changed immediately, the laughter and the smiles giving way to grave, serious faces. They stiffened and puffed up their chests, holding on to their guns. Hanif stood in the midst of them like a general among his troops.

“Okay, Hanif, what’s the best restaurant in Kabul?” Imo asked when we got back in the car. “I want to splurge on real Afghan food.”

Hanif laughed and nodded.

“The best? Sure. The best. Okay, I will take you there.”

Imo’s extravagance amused him but also daunted him. Her self-assurance, the way she moved as if she owned the place, had made him uneasy from the start. I watched him roll down the window and speak with an obsequious expression to a guard who had pulled us over for an inspection. The man asked him questions while unabashedly checking me and Imo out, the tip of his gun brushing Hanif’s moustache. In spite of his current status as a star, there was a mix of courtesy and fear in Hanif’s eyes whenever he had to deal with authority, like a dog that’s been beaten in the past and fears it could happen again, at the snap of a finger, without any warning.

The restaurant had no atmosphere whatsoever. It was vast, with very high ceilings, and badly lit. Long tables and plastic chairs were scattered about as in a factory cafeteria, and every sound reverberated with an echo. The few customers looked like Afghan politicians or businessmen shrouded in woolen shawls. There was also a long table of what seemed to be a group of aid workers lunching with their Afghan colleagues. At the head of the table sat a blond man in a beret, constantly talking on his cell phone.

Imo took out her glasses and studied the menu with great concentration while Hanif explained every dish in detail. Finally we settled on a very elaborate platter of grilled meat and chicken, Kabuli rice with pistachio nuts, cashews and saffron, and curd.

“But will that be enough for the three of us?” Imo asked. “I’m starved, aren’t you?”

Hanif confessed he was on a diet and he was going to eat very little.

“Oh, come on!” Imo nearly shrieked with laughter. “Why on earth do you want to lose weight? You look very good like this, you shouldn’t be any thinner.”

Hanif blushed at the compliment and patted his belly.

“My wife, she says I should lose a bit…”

“Really? Well, then, if your wife says so. She’s the one you should please.”

Hanif laughed and nodded.

“Tell us a bit about your wife.” Imo lowered her glasses on the ridge of her nose and smiled at Hanif.

“She is very young,” he admitted with a touch of embarrassment, his cheeks pinkening, as if he, a big-nosed forty-year-old with a few extra pounds to shed, had received an unhoped-for gift from heaven he felt unworthy of.