Åsne Seierstad - The Bookseller of Kabul

Like all children, Kheshmesh quickly learnt about the Taliban. Once Kheshmesh and a friend were beaten up by a Taleb in the stairwell. They had been playing with his son who had fallen and hurt himself badly. The father had grabbed them both and beaten them with a stick. They never again played with the little boy. The Taliban were those people who never let her go to school with the boys in Mikrorayon, they were the people who forbade singing or clapping, stopped people dancing. The Taliban were those people who prevented her from playing outside with her dolls. Dolls and furry toy animals were banned because they portrayed living creatures. When the religious police searched people’s homes, smashed up the televisions and cassette players, they might well confiscate children’s toys if they found them. They tore off arms or heads, or crunched them underfoot, in front of the eyes of stunned children.

When Feroza told Kheshmesh that the Taliban had fled, the first thing she did was to take her favourite doll outside and show her the world. Tajmir got rid of his beard. Feroza sneaked out a dusty cassette player and wriggled around the flat singing: ‘Now we’ll make up for five lost years.’

Feroza never had any more children to look after. No sooner had she adopted Kheshmesh than the civil war started and she fled to Pakistan with Sultan’s family. When she returned from the refugee existence, it was time to find a wife for Tajmir, not to look for abandoned baby girls in the hospital.

Like everything else in Tajmir’s life, finding a wife was also his mother’s prerogative. Tajmir was in love with a girl he met at English classes in Pakistan. They were sort of sweethearts, although they never held hands or kissed. They were hardly ever alone, but nevertheless, they were sweethearts, and they wrote each other notes and love letters. Tajmir never dared tell Feroza about this girl, but he dreamt of marrying her. She was a relative of Massoud, the war hero, and Tajmir knew his mother might fear all the problems that could involve. But regardless of who might be its object, Tajmir would never dare confide in his mother about his crush. He had been educated not to ask for anything, he never talked to Feroza about his feelings. He felt his subservience showed respect.

‘I have found the girl I want you to marry,’ Feroza said one day.

‘Oh,’ said Tajmir. His throat tightened, but not a word of protest escaped him. He knew he would have to write a letter to his pie-in-the-sky sweetheart and tell her it was all over.

‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘She is your second cousin, Khadija. You haven’t seen her since you were small. She is clever and hard-working and from a good family.’

Tajmir merely nodded. Two months later he met Khadija for the first time, at the engagement party. They sat beside each other during the whole party without exchanging a word. I could love her, he thought.

Khadija looks like a Parisian jazz-singer from the twenties. She has black, wavy hair, parted on the side, cut straight across the shoulders, white powdered skin and always wears black eye make-up and red lipstick. Her cheeks are narrow and her lips wide, and she might have been posing for art photographers all her life. But according to Afghan standards she is not very pretty; she is too thin, too narrow. The ideal Afghan woman is round: round cheeks, round hips, round tummy.

‘Now I love her,’ Tajmir says. They are approaching Gardes, and Tajmir has given Bob, the American journalist, his entire life story.

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘What a story. So you really love your wife now? What about the other girl?’

Tajmir hasn’t a clue what has happened to the other girl. He never even thinks of her. Now he lives for his own little family. A year ago he and Khadija had a baby girl.

‘Khadija was terrified of having a daughter,’ he tells Bob. ‘Khadija is always frightened of something and this time it was about having a daughter. I told her and everyone else that I wanted a daughter. That above all I wanted a daughter. So that if we did have a daughter no one would say, how sad, because after all that is what I had wished for, and if we got a boy no one would say anything because then everyone would be pleased no matter what.’

‘Hm,’ says Bob and tries to understand the logic of it all.

‘Now Khadija is worried she won’t conceive again, because we are trying but nothing’s happening. So I keep on telling her that one child is enough, one child is fine. In the West many people have only one child. So if we never have any more, everyone will say we didn’t want any more, and if we have some more then everyone will be pleased no matter what.’

‘Hm.’

They stop in Gardes to buy something to eat. They buy a carton of ‘hi-lite’ cigarettes at ten pence a pack, a kilo of cucumbers, twenty eggs and some bread. They are peeling the cucumbers and cracking the eggs when Bob suddenly calls out: ‘Stop!’

By the roadside about thirty men sit in a circle. Kalashnikovs lie on the ground in front of them and ammunition belts are strapped over their chests.

‘That’s Padsha Khan’s men,’ Bob cries. ‘Stop the car.’

Bob grabs Tajmir and walks over to the men. Padsha Khan is sitting in the midst of them: the greatest warlord of the eastern provinces and one of Hamid Karzai’s most vociferous opponents.

When the Taliban fled, Padsha Khan was appointed Governor of Paktia Province, known as one of Afghanistan ’s most unruly regions. As Governor of an area where there is still support for the al-Qaida network, Padsha Khan became an important man to American intelligence. They were dependent on co-operation on the ground and one warlord was no better nor worse than any other. Padsha Khan’s task was to ferret out Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers. His remit was then to inform the Americans. To this end he was supplied with a satellite telephone, which he used frequently. He kept on phoning and telling the Americans about al-Qaida movements in the area. And the Americans used firepower – on a village here and a village there, on tribal chiefs en route to attend Karzai’s inaugural ceremony, on a few wedding parties, a bunch of men in a house, and on America’s own allies. None of them were connected to al-Qaida but they had one thing in common – they were enemies of Padsha Khan. The local protests against the headstrong Governor, who suddenly had B52s and F16 fighter planes at his disposal to settle local tribal scores, increased to such an extent that Karzai saw no other solution but to remove him.

Padsha Khan then started his own little war. He sent rockets to the villages where his enemies were holed up and warfare broke out between the various factions. Several innocent people were killed when he tried to regain his lost power. In the end he had to give up, for the time being. Bob had been looking for him for ages, and there he is, sitting in the sand, surrounded by a bunch of bearded men.

Padsha gets up when he sees them. He greets Bob rather coldly but embraces Tajmir warmly and pushes him down beside him. ‘How are you my friend? Are you well?’

They had often met during Operation Anaconda, America ’s major al-Qaida offensive. Tajmir had interpreted, that was all.

Padsha Khan is used to ruling the region as though it were his own backyard, together with his three brothers. Only six weeks ago he allowed rockets to rain down over the town of Gardes. Now it is Khost’s turn. A new Governor has been appointed, a sociologist who has lived for the last decade in Australia. He has gone to ground, for fear of Padsha Khan and his men.

‘My men are prepared,’ Padsha Khan tells Tajmir, who translates while Bob scribbles in his notebook. ‘We are just now discussing what to do,’ he continues and looks at his men. ‘Do we take him or do we wait?’ Padsha Khan goes on. ‘Are you headed for Khost? Then you must tell my brother to get rid of the new Governor quick as a flash. Tell him to pack up and bugger off to Karzai!’