End of Manners (15 page)

“Sure, why not. I don’t think I’ll need it, but what the hell.”

Roshana, when asked, looked at me with an unfriendly expression and said it was not doable.

“I’ll explain why. Obviously it’s not for the same reason as the other women that I don’t want my picture published. It’s just that we’ve created a shelter here, a secret place in Kabul, for women who’ve run away from home to escape the violence of their husbands. It’s for their safety that my picture must never appear in the papers. I have to protect them, so my identity must remain hidden.”

I put the camera back inside the bag. Roshana had started to escort us to the gate.

“And how about the shelter?” Imo asked. “Could we take some photos in there? That would be just perfect for our story.”

“Oh, no. That isn’t possible. We’re protecting women who are in danger of their lives. If they were recognized and found, they would risk having their throats cut.”

Imo began to forcefully twist her hair in a bun, in the attempt to conceal her exasperation.

“But listen, Roshana…” Imo mimicked her politeness and diction. “This story will appear in the
Observer
magazine in London. It’ll get serialized and receive a lot of thoughtful attention. And I’d be happy to print the details of the shelter, where readers could send their contributions.”

Roshana gestured to the guard at the sentry box to open the gate to let us out.

“It’s a matter of principle for me—call it professional ethics if you like. If their faces, or my face for that matter, started appearing in the papers,
any paper,
even in Papua New Guinea, these women wouldn’t trust me anymore.”

“Frankly, I doubt that in the villages where these women’s husbands live there will be newsstands that sell the
Observer.
”

“
Frankly,
their safety is more important to me than the careers of Western journalists,” Roshana replied, holding out her hand. Obviously our time with her was up.

“But without Western journalists, there wouldn’t be an international public opinion, and without a public opinion, there wouldn’t be NGOs or the funds you need to do what you’re doing,” Imo insisted, withholding her hand.

“I realize this. Of course I do. And I also realize it may seem a vicious circle. But everyone has their priorities. If I were you, I’d speak to Florence. She’s an exceptional woman and her experience on this issue, even as a foreigner, is worth ten times more than anything I could tell you. Thank you for your visit,” she said, and smiled.

“That went really well,” snapped Imo as she slammed the car door. “Go figure, women sabotaging stories about women. We’re not going to get any help from Lady Roshana, I’ll tell you that much.”

“We knew it wouldn’t be easy outside Kabul. It said just that in the guide.”

“But if what she said was true, then we would’ve never seen a single photo of an Afghan woman since the Taliban fell. No, she clearly has a problem with Western journalists, except for her friend Florence with the oh-so-chic headscarf, whom she has a lot of respect for. And she’s going to make it as difficult as she possibly can for us, believe me.”

The surge of excitement I had felt the day before while playing with the camera around the city, acquainting myself with that piercing mountain light, with shooting outdoors for the first time in years, was already beginning to fade and give way to anxiety. I realized my real assignment was going to be incredibly tough and that I didn’t have a strategy. I had no clue how to go about it. I needed to be more aggressive about making contacts, to talk my way in and gain access on my own behalf to get the photos we needed. I couldn’t let Imo do it for me. I had to get into shape fast.

“Maybe I should try and talk to that French photogr—”

“Better not. You know what’ll happen: she’ll get all worked up the minute she finds out you want to take the same photos she’s shooting. The only thing we need to do is get out of the city as soon as possible and head into the interior. Can’t you see how
controlling
everyone is? It’s just so annoying. Hanif, excuse me, we need to stop somewhere with a decent bathroom. A hotel, a restaurant, anywhere civilized.”

She had lowered her voice and clasped my hand.

“It’s come.”

“What has?”

“Montezuma’s revenge in the Hindu Kush. The nightmare begins.”

Imo collapsed in the space of two minutes as if she’d been struck by lightning. One minute it was her, with her cool hand, spicy perfume and light makeup, the next she came undone, her features gone slack, her body shuddering.

The minute we got to Babur’s Lodge she bolted up the stairs three at a time to the bathroom. I waited for her on the landing, still shocked by the force of the thing that had struck her down, and I couldn’t help hearing her grunting, gasping and groaning. After an agonizing silence, the door swung open and another Imo emerged, a Medusa bathed in sweat, her curly hair plastered to her face like swirling snakes and dark rings under her feverish eyes. She waved a hand, as if to say “don’t speak,” and lurched to her room.

“I have to be very still. If I don’t move I’ll be okay.”

I followed her all the way into her room, unrolling a petulant string of questions.

“Shall I call a doctor? Should we go to the hospital? Do you think you’ve got a temperature? Maybe a good idea to call Hanif? Do you need antibiotics? Do you want some water? Some tea?” But I was really the one who needed help. Seeing her like that had sent me into a panic.

Imo raised her hand with her palm facing me, as if to keep me at a distance. She pulled her sweater and undershirt over her head in one go, got out of her pants, boots and socks, dropping piece after piece on the floor as she went towards the bed like a sleepwalker. She stood for a moment in her black lace bra and matching panties—way too elaborate underwear for the place we were in—her hair damp, her body trembling. Then she collapsed under the duvet.

She kept her eyes closed as she whispered, “I don’t need anything, I just need to close my eyes and stay still. Can you just close the curtains, please? The light is killing me.”

I drew the curtains and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Where’s the first-aid kit? There should be some medicine in there. Do you want me to call Pierre and get the insurance to send a doctor?”

Imo shook her head. Her teeth were chattering under the duvet.

“With what they paid for the insurance, the least they can do is—”

“Please, Maria,
be quiet,
” she managed to say through her clenched teeth in a weak but firm tone. “Go to your room now and leave me alone.”

Not even an hour later, the same avalanche cascaded over me like a dam bursting. I’d gone down to the dining room, ordered a cup of tea and was checking my e-mail on the hotel’s old-fashioned computer.

There were messages from my assistant Nori saying that absolutely nothing new was happening in Milan, work was slow and she was dying to hear my exciting news. There was one from my father giving me an indignant summary of the latest misdeeds of the Italian government and sending me a link for an article in the
Guardian
about an Afghan film director. The food editor of a weekly magazine was offering me a gig shooting an Easter lunch spread for the April issue of her magazine. She went on at length about the feeling the pictures had to have, suggesting I scatter flower petals among the pizzas and salamis.

Since I had arrived in Kabul I hadn’t given a single thought about what might await me once I got back to Milan. The thought of how much energy, money, people there were behind a table laden with food once again struck me as madness. But it was the word “salami” that set off the alarm bells. My body started to perceive a sort of distant thunder, which, although still in the distance, did not bode well. It wasn’t yet a symptom, just a churning. But before I could click on “Reply” I felt a claw clutch my intestines and twist them inside out like a glove. A wave of cold sweat broke over my forehead and in that precise instant I knew that a frontal attack had been unleashed on my system. Something had sunk its fangs in and was punching and clawing at me. Something unknown, but above all, something Afghan, and therefore potentially mortal.

I was stretched on the couch in my room at Babur’s Lodge, my nose pressed against the dusty fabric. This, I thought, was how I was going to die. Murdered by a kebab. Was this a food photographer’s karmic punishment?

I knew for sure that none of those horrible men who chewed beans at breakfast would notice my disappearance or Imo’s. In three, four days, someone—Hanif, possibly, or the Tajik cleaning woman with ruddy cheeks I’d run into every morning on the stairs—would find us in our respective rooms still and composed, like little birds struck by lightning.

The fever rose and fell like a roller coaster. One moment I was racked with the shakes, the next I was burning up. I could feel the angry monster make way, destroying everything in its path like a bombardier spraying napalm. I didn’t have much time left, I knew that it would annihilate me if I let it, but I didn’t even have the strength to crawl on my hands and knees to Imo’s room to ask her for help, let alone do a whole flight of stairs to ask General Dynamics to please find me a doctor. Anyway, at four in the afternoon, Babur’s Lodge was deserted. Its occupants were out doing the jobs they were being handsomely paid to do. Some buying arms, some selling information, some watching someone’s back with a loaded machine gun.

That was when I saw the cell phone.

The effort would be minimal. I would just have to press a key—his name was still saved as number three on the speed dial, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to delete it. Besides, I was dying and I didn’t have much choice. He would understand this was an emergency.

And, he was an immunologist.

The idea of hearing his voice after so long made me anxious. I hadn’t talked or written to him in two years. I feared his name just like a sick person fears the name of his illness, even if only fleetingly reading it in a newspaper. A text message, maybe, would be a sensible compromise. To compose it I would have to press more than one key and that would cost me a considerable effort, but I had to hurry: the monster was goose-stepping through my system and my temperature was soaring.

AM IN KABUL, HAVE HIGH FEVER, CAN U HELP?

There, done. For the first time I didn’t care if my name lit up on the display of his phone as he was eating or sleeping or reading in bed next to her.

Stella, that was her name.

From the start, when I first discovered Carlo had been having an affair, I insisted on never saying her name out loud. I called her
quella,
“that one.” I didn’t want her to be a real person. I wanted her to remain a secondary character in a film, whose face wasn’t necessary to remember in order to follow the plot. But I was wrong.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

DIARRHEA? WHY R U IN KABUL?

There had been tears, late-night talks, desperate sobs. His clothing had been thrown in a bag and out the door, then retrieved in a bout of forgiveness. There had been frantic phone calls, more tears. He admitted he had made love to her at a medical convention in Turin. I wanted to know all the details, the where and the when so that I could retrace exactly what I had been doing (watching TV in my pajamas? eating dinner standing up in the kitchen staring at the microwave?) while he had been undressing her, kissing her, licking her body all over.

I told him he had to leave, that the damage was irreparable, and told him to sleep on the couch. He came to bed in the middle of the night full of grief and we made love magnificently, aroused by the pain. The next morning I offered some hope: maybe there was a way we could work this out? But over his cereal bowl he admitted he’d seen her more than once, that it hadn’t been just a one-night stand.

Pressed, he confessed he had fallen in love.

I threw his clothes out the window. I threw an ashtray. My brother had to come at three in the morning and calm me down with a Xanax in his pocket.

HAD IT. NOW ONLY RAGING FEVER & ACHING ALL OVER. WHAT DO I TAKE?

I had allowed him to come back after a month. He had written e-mails, left messages, cried over the phone. He said he’d been in agony, that he had made the biggest mistake of his life and wanted to come home. He came back, but my victory felt like a defeat. We sat around the house in the evening sprawled on the couch like two rag dolls that needed stuffing. There was nothing we felt like doing together—being back under the same roof again seemed more than enough. Our unhappiness spilled all over our food, our clothes, our agitated dreams. Every time his phone rang the air in the room would solidify, the atoms hardened and I felt them pricking my skin, his skin, like Chinese torture. We couldn’t wait for the other one to leave the house.

When he left again, I didn’t scream. I wasn’t even granted the dark splendor of rage to help me look dignified. I watched him pack his bags once more, feeling weaker and weaker, as if I were bleeding to death and he wasn’t even bothering to call the ambulance.

Beep. Beep.

IBUPROFEN RIGHT NOW
2
LOWER TEMP. THEN BROAD-SPECTRUM ANTIBIOTIC. CAN U CALL A DOC?

Carlo had ended up moving in with Stella. He had made it sound—when he talked to mutual friends—as if it were merely a fortuitous arrangement, as if her address had been the first that came to mind when he entered the taxi.

NO DOCTOR. TELL ME WHICH ANTIBIOTIC?

I was pleased with my urgent, imperative tone. I couldn’t have cared less where he was, who he was with, what he was doing. All I wanted was the name of the drug, the dosage, a cure. I had succeeded in moving from the couch and now was groping around in my medicine bag. I found the Advil and gulped down two tablets without water.

I had heard from friends that he and Stella were having problems. After two years of living together he had gained weight and she was on antidepressants.

Beep. Beep.