* * *
THE DISCORDANT SOUND of music blasting out of a car full of young Afghan men, together with the pungent smell of an overflowing sewer, brought Sofia out of her reverie just as they were turning into the entry of the five-star Serena Hotel. With its extensive gardens, fountains, swimming pool, members’ lounge and dining experience, together with its security and high walls locking out the chaos of Kabul, it tended to be the preferred choice of foreign visitors and dignitaries with little or no interest in getting dirty in the reality of Kabul.
The walls and very visible security may have imbued confidence in its well-heeled guests, but with three terrorist attacks on the Serena Hotel since 2008, security was so beefed up that it sometimes took twenty minutes to get through the various checks before reaching its impressively ornate front doors.
As they pulled into line to wait for the boom gate to open and begin the first security check, Sofia asked Tawfiq how his mother was faring after recently undergoing a cataract operation paid for by Jabril. The groan he gave in response had Sofia regretting her question.
‘I tell you, Dr Sofia, my mother doesn’t respect Kaamisha, and now that she can see again everything’s worse.’
Tawfiq’s wife, Kaamisha, and their three young sons remained in the compound of his parents’ house in Mazar-i Sharif, the fourth largest town in Afghanistan and about seven hours north of the capital. While traditionally it was the daughter-in-law’s job to look after her husband’s parents, Tawfiq considered himself a modern man and had been trying to save enough money to buy a small flat in Kabul where his wife and children might join him. For the past six years he had shared a two-bedroom apartment with five other men in one of the worst suburbs of Kabul. With the responsibility of sending money to his parents each month, together with his share of the rent and food for the apartment, there was little to put toward a deposit.
‘It was better when my mother couldn’t see,’ Tawfiq said. ‘At least then she couldn’t see the dirt that isn’t there. Kaamisha, she must clean all the time, but it’s never clean enough. I tell you, Dr Sofia, my mother’s giving me grief, my wife’s giving me grief. I am grief,’ he added with a dramatic flourish, laying his head on his hands which were resting on the steering wheel.
‘You don’t look like grief, Tawfiq,’ Sofia said with a smile.
‘What?’ he asked, lifting his head and turning around in the seat to look at her.
‘Never mind. I was being silly.’
They sat in silence watching the car in front being screened until Tawfiq spoke again. ‘Is it true that life gets better when you get older?’
Sofia was only six years older than Tawfiq but it was obvious that he considered her much older. She didn’t take offence. She was a thirty-two-year-old woman in a country where thirty-five was considered old. Someone of her age in a village might have been married at fourteen and a grandmother by thirty. ‘I’m not so sure,’ she said.
Tawfiq flopped his head on his hands again, forcing his woollen pakol further back on his head. Clearly, it had not been the answer he’d been looking for.
From the moment she had arrived in Afghanistan, Tawfiq had been a stable presence in her life. On their initial excursions around the city alone he had pointed out landmarks, recalled the history of a building, or where the war had a particularly major impact. He showed her where she could find the freshest food, a trustworthy tailor, and the safest Western cafés. In time, Sofia felt she knew the capital as well as Tawfiq. When they travelled outside Kabul her lessons in Afghan history continued, often leaving them both laughing at the absurdity of something an Afghan might do or despairing over the seemingly insurmountable problems facing the country they both loved. During those drives Tawfiq’s family had been a constant in their conversations until Sofia felt as if she knew them well.
‘I will be your guide,’ he had said to her on their first foray into the city. He had become much more. He had become her brother.
When the car in front was released through to the next security check, Sofia leaned over and tapped Tawfiq on the shoulder. ‘I think we can move forward now.’
‘Perhaps things do improve when we get older,’ Sofia offered as the Serena guard began running a mirror under the car. ‘Perhaps then you get a better perspective on life and you don’t worry about things so much.’ Tawfiq’s head did not move from where it was back resting on the steering wheel. Sofia watched as one of the gardeners moved around with his broom, sweeping up the litter that had blown in from the street the night before, restoring the Serena to its perfect order, an oasis of calm and cleanliness in a city of dirt and chaos.
While she loved to hear about Tawfiq’s kids, Sofia had long ago exhausted her enthusiasm for the running saga of discontent between his mother and wife and was happy to let the subject drop, but Tawfiq lifted his head off the wheel, his soft brown eyes with the long lashes looking at her in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Perhaps you’re not old enough to know these things,’ he offered.
Sofia shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Can I take that as a compliment?’
‘If you want,’ he mumbled, his head on the steering wheel again.
Maybe Tawfiq was right. Maybe you didn’t know life was better until the ‘better’ had passed. Or maybe people talked about how much better it used to be because they’d forgotten how bad it was.
They passed through the second security point to pull up in front of the impressively tall columns of the Serena’s portico. ‘Maybe when you’re older you’re able to rewrite history in a kinder light,’ she mused.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Honestly, neither do I.’
Sofia was
