Zia Rahman - In the Light of What We Know

If I am not for them, I am against them?

Precisely.

My dear Suleiman, I think you might find you have more in common with George Walker Bush than you’d like to think.

How is that?

Tell me what your elders said.

A change is what we need here and they will support it.

If I have to give an answer now, I’ll say no.

Then why don’t you think about it?

An hour later I was standing in the entrance hall of AfDARI, a large room with high ceilings and a crisscross of black-and-white tiles. Three doorways opened onto the hall; one of them was wedged open and led into a long corridor. At one end of the hall, there was an improbably large mirror with an elaborate gilded frame. On the wall opposite the main doors, facing the arriving visitor, was an array of mounted displays, posters, and notices all showcasing AfDARI’s good works.

Poster after poster boasted AfDARI’s hand in a range of enterprises, from irrigation and drinking water projects to building schools and supplying teaching materials. No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamic of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need. All the children in the pictures were boys. Established in the time of the Taliban, AfDARI had been the main clearinghouse for whatever crumbs of foreign aid fell from the table to a country of little interest to the United States, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

A door in the hall opened. The woman whom I had seen arrive only half an hour ago stepped out, glanced at me, and then struck out across the tiles. I heard the main gates creak open and listened for their shutting but heard instead a growing sound of female voices. As they closed in on the building, I made out American accents, and among them an English one.

I considered removing my sunglasses; I was indoors, after all. I was wearing a suit and a smart shirt and polished shoes. The sunglasses would confirm the absurd picture of a pimp, or a drug dealer, or a Pakistani ISI officer with James Bond delusions.

The women entered the hall. One broke away and came toward me in long swinging strides, as her face flashed a bright beaming smile. She was rather beautiful, a soft face and eyelashes sprinkling above bright blue orbs. She had a delicate nose, thin and turning up ever so slightly at the end. Large noses, misshapen noses, asymmetric noses, such noses are noticed; a beautiful nose is never noticed but found, and it is the rest of the face that alerts the eye to look. A head scarf lay far back on her head, barely clinging to it, so that her rich brown hair topped a picture of vitality. A red down-filled knee-length jacket, cinched at the waist and lowering over a pair of jeans, failed to subdue the imagination from picturing the curves of her figure. As she approached me, she removed her hijab and opened her jacket.

Hello. My name is Nicky, Nicky Amory. Who are you?

She spoke in a crisp English accent. She was not wearing a ring.

Zafar, I said, removing my sunglasses.

Hello, Zafar. Do you work here?

I’m sorry, Nicky. I don’t. But perhaps I can help anyway?

You’re British.

Is it the accent or the good manners?

Oh, not the manners, she said, now quite earnest.

I mean you have excellent manners, of course, she added quickly, a little flustered.

Such good manners on your part to say so, I replied. If I may say so, I added.

No, no. The British aren’t a … a well-mannered lot.

She hesitated, and I thought she was stopping herself from saying good-mannered.

All smiles they might seem, she continued, but they’ll stab you in the back if it’ll win them a square foot of land that doesn’t belong to them. Dreadful place. Can’t stand it. Left fifteen years ago and haven’t looked back.

There are codes of conduct to curiosity. Most people say a little about themselves and their work, a transactional advance into the account to draw down when they ask you what you do. Westerners do this, that is. It’s a payment for inquisitiveness. But South Asians in the main have no embarrassment about getting straight to their own curiosity. Yet Nicky, who was no South Asian, had none of the Westerner’s indirectness.

Why are you here, Zafar? What do you do?

Not sure, I replied.

Oh, I see. Spying, are we?

What do you mean?

Kabul is full of spies. Turn your head and look — there’s another mysterious type lurking in the shadows. Or not. They call themselves advisers here, by the way. Who do you spy for?

For myself, like everyone, I replied.

I see. We’re all spies. Never the person we think we are.

Least of all to ourselves.

Oh, I like that. You must be the existential spy, she said.

Any point in issuing a denial?

None whatsoever, darling.

Nicky was disconcerting but in a pleasant way. A beautiful woman, seemingly not a day over thirty (though actually near forty, I would gather later), leading some kind of charge, sporting the combined personality of a campaigning journalist, Miss Moneypenny, and a determined nun. The name was fit for a porn star, completing the drama of this woman’s persona. I think what pleased me most about her was the confusing impression I had — even very quickly — that although she could easily write off entire nations, she would be the last person to judge another human being.

The other women joined us. It appeared that this group of four was part of a larger contingent sent by a U.S. charitable foundation that organized exchange visits of professionals in American nonprofits with those in developing countries. Nicky was the deputy director of an international microfinance organization, an “initiative,” she called it, which helped communities in “LDCs” (less-developed countries, she added politely) find ways to borrow small amounts of money for business purposes. Women were central to this initiative. Other organizations were also represented, the figurehead for all of which was Bianca Jagger.

Nicky turned to me and said, I’ve got a meeting with this chap, the executive director, eh …

Maurice Touvier?

I did not mention to Nicky the little I already knew about him. I knew that Emily had been impressed by young Monsieur Touvier’s expertise with Excel spreadsheets. She had forwarded by email a budget drawn up by the gentleman, for my comment, she said, adding that she thought it rather impressive. It was a list of hardware for a new UN unit to direct reconstruction efforts: umpteen Land Cruisers, computers, satphones, and so on. Emily had asked for my impressions, but I didn’t share them all with her: Monsieur Touvier had an excellent command of the coloring features of the software.

That’s it, said Nicky. I have a meeting with him. Why don’t you come along for the ride?

He’s not expecting me.

Who knows what to expect in this country? Anyway, I’ve taken a fancy to you and won’t hear no for an answer.

Excellent. When is your meeting?

Now.

Oh. I can’t do now. In fact, I’m already late for something else.

What?

If I told you, I’d be a terrible spy.

We’re all going for a drink tonight. Come with us?

Sounds good.

I lied about having another meeting. I just didn’t want to meet Touvier. Barely two days in Kabul and already I felt the stir of revulsion, already I confronted the stain of hypocrisy. But it didn’t come to me as a finding of fact, as a revelation in the behavior of others — it didn’t feel like that. Rather, it was a conclusion, a deduction from what I had always known, as if I’d proceeded a small step from footings already laid, like a syllogistic argument, All Cretans are liars, Epimenides is a Cretan , and all that I had done, which I could have done anywhere but in fact was doing in Kabul, was to conclude that Epimenides is a liar.