End of Manners (21 page)

“Malik says often they had to walk for days,” Hanif translated. “They slept on the ground, sometimes in a cave for warmth. They’d only have a little bread with tea for food.”

Imo and I expressed our admiration at their sturdiness with brief moans of wonder.

“Very strong men, the mujahideen.” Hanif chuckled.

Malik nodded and encouraged Hanif to translate more.

“He says no American soldier is strong enough to do what the mujahideen did. Americans can only fight a war sitting inside a plane drinking Coca-Cola. And besides, they don’t even know how to aim right!”

We all dutifully laughed at his joke and conceded.

Malik stopped laughing. His eyes hardened, as if the joke no longer amused him. He spoke to Hanif at length, raising his voice, moving his hands with fervor. When he was done talking he shook his head a couple of times, making a spiteful sound with his tongue. He seemed bitter.

Hanif translated in a hushed tone.

“Two months ago the people in the Helmand Province had to bury one hundred and seventy bodies because of a NATO air raid. Malik says the Americans bomb without bothering to look who they are killing. They say they have come here to protect the Afghan people, but they keep killing them like flies. It is time they go away.”

Imo said Malik was right, that it was a shame and she couldn’t agree with him more. She went on for a while, explaining how in the West many people were just as angry and wanted the troops out of Afghanistan, but Malik seemed to be only half listening to her. Maybe he didn’t care much for a woman’s opinion on the subject of war.

Abdur Raman took away the plates, bundling them in the oilcloth we’d eaten on. He disappeared into the next room, probably the kitchen, where the women of the household had cooked that sumptuous dinner and of whom, so far, we hadn’t had a glimpse. He came back with another basin of hot water for us to wash our hands, another sign of their presence next door. It struck me how the women had been looking so carefully after our banquet without making the slightest sound. I had noticed every detail of what had been coming from across the mud wall: the fragrance of their beautifully arranged plates, the way they had scattered flowers in the water basin. I envisioned them as magical, supernatural creatures invisible to human eyes.

Malik rinsed his fingers, still sitting in the same position. There was another silence that no one dared break. Abdur Raman came back in with two kerosene lamps and set them down on the floor. Outside, night had fallen and the stars were flickering through the icy air like bright gems pinned to the sky.

Now Malik spoke, looking Imo straight in the eye. He spoke with composure as before, in a quiet, neutral tone, moving his hands only to bring his cigarette to his lips. He then turned his palm to Hanif to translate.

“Malik says that you foreigners think that we treat our women as if we were living in the Middle Ages and that this is of great concern in the West and you always write about it in your newspapers.”

Imo said nothing, merely gesturing as if to say, “Go on.” She had adopted a placid, Buddhist demeanor, as though nothing could ruffle her. She had obviously devised a different strategy than the more aggressive one she had used with Roshana.

“He says that now women can study and learn to read and write. Even here in the village there is a school for women who had not been able to learn during the Taliban time and Malik is very happy that now they can go there.”

Imo nodded, showing how much that pleased her.

“He says that now women can walk in the streets, play music, laugh and dance at ceremonies, and that even here, not far from the village, there are women who are doctors and they are very good. He also says he himself fought for their freedom when he defended our country from the Taliban together with Massoud.”

Imo nodded again, with the same beatific smile.

“And he wishes that in your newspaper article you will say that Afghan women have reclaimed their freedom.”

“Of course,” Imo agreed in a whisper and bowed her head for a second, closing her eyes. Then she turned to Hanif.

“But tell him, please, that we would like to speak to the women of the village and hear from them about this—”

Malik raised his hand to interrupt her. He probably understood a little English and he must have grasped the sense of Imo’s objection. Hanif hastened to translate.

“Tomorrow you may go to the school and speak to the women who are learning, but Malik says you are not to distract them from their work.”

“Right. And?”

“And you may speak to them only for one hour, from seven till eight.”

After this disposition, which to me felt quasi-militaristic, Malik dismissed us. We were shown to a small room on the other side of the courtyard, where a stove had been lit and mattresses had been prepared with bedding rolled at their feet.

“Oh, look at that,” Imo said. “Isn’t this cozy?”

I wasn’t particularly happy with our sleeping arrangement. It was cold and very dark, and I was afraid there might be mice scurrying across the floor.

“I bet all the men we’ve met till now have killed someone,” I said to Imo.

We were sitting on our mattresses, with blankets wrapped around our shoulders.

Shirin had laid her glasses and neatly folded headscarf at the foot of her bed and had gone to sleep straightaway; we could hear her regular breathing on the other side of the room. It was freezing. Imo had wrapped her precious shahtoosh around her head like a turban and now looked dashing and fairytale-like in the oblique light of the lantern. A little earlier a woman had glided into the room with a kerosene lamp. She had whispered the same word a couple of times, patting her hand repeatedly on the bed and then left as rapidly and silently as a ghost.

“You can bet on it,” agreed Imo. “I’d say all the clients at Babur’s Lodge, and a good eighty percent of the Afghans we passed on the road.”

“Not Hanif, though,” I added.

She thought about it for moment, tilting her head to one side.

“Yeah. I think you’re probably right.”

“No, I bet you anything. Hanif’s never killed anyone. You can tell.”

I knew it not only because it was inconceivable to imagine Hanif with a gun in his hand, but because he still seemed whole and unbroken.

“Are you asleep?” Imo’s voice whispered in the utter darkness.

“No.”

I couldn’t make myself go to sleep. I figured that by now it must be way past midnight.

“I was wondering…” Imo began almost absentmindedly. “Did you and Pierre ever have an affair?”

“Pierre and I? Oh, God, no. Why?” I wasn’t going to admit to Imo my pathetic fantasy.

“Just wondering. He’s such a
tombeur de femme.
I thought he’d be attracted to you. You’re very much his type.”

“Well, no, never. Did you?”

“Yeah. Ages ago,” she said offhandedly.

I waited for her to offer more details. I was hoping she would.

“Were you married to that man you broke up with?” she asked instead, after a brief silence.

“No.”

“I thought he was your husband for some reason.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like marriage.”

“What made it sound like we were married?”

Now I was wide-awake. I felt nervous that Imo would be mulling over these bits and pieces of my bio like a detective collecting the tiniest shred of evidence. Perhaps, I thought, under the scrutiny of her magnifying lens my life compared to hers was going to look hopelessly flat.

“I don’t know…it was just a feeling. Maybe because you look like the kind of person who would get married.”

“And is that good or bad?” I laughed.

“Hmm.” She paused. “It’s good…I guess.”

“Well, we did talk about it,” I confessed. “We had actually even set a date.”

There was a silence. Nothing came from her bundle for a few seconds. I thought she might have fallen asleep again.

“Were you ever married?” I tried.

“No. To vow to be forever and ever with one person sounds like an impossible task. I doubt I’d be good at it.”

“At the time I believed that was what I wanted the most,” I said, somehow forcefully. But I realized it was someone else I was talking about. Someone who had firmly believed that to have Carlo was all she wanted in order to be happy forever and ever. Someone who felt so sorry for herself when this happiness was denied to her that she crumpled to the floor. It felt like such a terrible waste of time, of opportunities. I’d given up so much for so little.

“Do you…are you in some kind of relationship at the moment?” I felt strangely embarrassed to ask. Imo was one of those people who have no problem asking others about their intimate lives but manage to keep theirs a secret. There was an invisible barrier whose boundaries she must have ingeniously set up when I wasn’t looking.

I heard her toss under the blankets.

“Yeah. I’m seeing someone. But I wouldn’t call it a relationship. He’s younger than me and very handsome and very spoiled.” She sighed. “It’s more like physical exercise. I know I sound horribly superficial, but…hey, I figure I’ll burn in hell later on.”

“You won’t burn in hell for seeing a beautiful young man,” I offered.

There was another long silence. I thought it might be a hint that it was time to go back to sleep. In fact, Imo was only eager to shift the conversation onto me again.

“So, do you despise your ex and wish him dead now?” she asked in a lighter tone.

“No. Not anymore. I just don’t think about him anymore. The whole idea of him bores me now.”

To be able to pronounce those words and for the first time realize they were true was exhilarating.

“Excellent. Being bored is a true sign of victory.”

“Then I must be victorious.”

We laughed.

“I’ve got to pee,” Imo said.

“Me too. But where?”

“Right outside. Come on, no one’s around at this time.”

I heard her moving, then the door creaked on its hinges.

“Wow, it’s fucking freezing out here. Maria, bring your blanket with you or you’ll die on the spot.”

“I don’t want to, it’s too cold.”

“Don’t be silly, come on, it’s amazing out here.”

I grudgingly pulled on my boots and swaddled myself with everything I had. The moon was high; I could make out the mountain peaks shimmering in the silvery light.

Outside in the courtyard the air smelled sweet. After breathing all that dust and the kerosene fumes of millions of stoves hovering over Kabul, to me this felt like the purest, freshest scent imaginable. All I could hear was my own quick breath and the sound of my boots creaking on the frozen ground. I pushed the thick door that closed the compound and peeked outside on the alley. The flicker of oil lamps sitting on the windowsills lit the rest of the village randomly. Imo pointed in the distance, towards the opposite side of the valley. There was another village, perched on the ridge, facing us. Its lights were distant and tiny but in the total darkness they glittered with piercing clarity. We stood there, leaning against the crumbling mud-brick wall, in that absolute quietness that was like a blanket, like the regular breathing of husbands, wives and children sleeping next to each other.

I imagined seeing myself from above, from a satellite roaming through space, and homing in on the exact spot where I was at that moment on the map of the world. As soon as I tried to envision the distance between the village courtyard and my renovated one-bedroom in Milan, it seemed impossible that my apartment actually existed somewhere on the planet. I tried to visualize it: steeped in the quiet hum of appliances, its shutters closed, the clean sheets folded in the closet, the chocolate cookies I had bought just before I left sitting in the cupboard, the frozen food in the fridge. In a breakneck rewind I retraced the journey that would take me from that courtyard looking out on the valley back home. I reversed from the village, through the gorge with the fierce-eyed men, over the endless graveyard and its fluttering flags, over to Kabul along the Jalalabad road and then soaring over Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, all the way to Italy. There was way too much space and too many unknowns between me and my front door—to which I still held the key in my purse—for me to believe that I could re-cover all that ground and succeed in putting my key in that lock. I felt a shock, as if I had just discovered where I was—dangling in the void, way too high, and I’d never be able to come down again.

The idea that there is only one route out of a thousand that leads one back to the assigned seat on the plane that will take one home—and that it needs to be followed to the letter without any detours, delays or accidents in order not to miss it—is terrifying. That’s why I’d been carrying all around Afghanistan a key ring in the shape of a rubber frog wearing a crown that held my house keys. Despite its absurdity, the frog and those thick long keys reassured me. Their presence in that particular moment seemed the only incontrovertible proof that I did have another life.

I heard a subdued gurgling. Imo had crouched down next to me: she was actually peeing at ten below zero. I saw the steam rise from the ground.

“Ohhh, how lovely,” she lilted. “You know what, darling? This is so perfect, so magical. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. Would you?”

The first morning prayer woke me before dawn.

A deep, powerful voice was singing without the aid of a microphone not far from us. Almost immediately the voice of the muezzin from the village across the canyon traveled from the opposite direction and their different modulations of Allah Akhbar echoed in ripples throughout the valley. It was still pitch-dark, but I could feel the village begin to stir. I listened to the sequence of noises from underneath my blankets, not daring yet to move away from the warmth I had managed to create during the night. Rustles and hushed voices at first, water being poured from a jug, a baby crying in the distance. A rooster. The shrill voice of a woman calling another, the deep raucous cough of men clearing their throats, their sleepy voices blurting out quick, commanding phrases. The door to our room creaked and a barefoot woman slipped inside holding a kerosene lamp and a bucket of steaming hot water, followed by a little girl. The woman gently shook Imo’s and Shirin’s shoulders, and when she touched mine I could smell firewood and soap on her skin. The girl put down a tray with teapot and glasses.