Åsne Seierstad - The Bookseller of Kabul

‘Do you know the Islam creed?’

‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet,’ Leila rattles off.

‘How many times a day must a Muslim pray?’

‘Five.’

‘Isn’t it six?’ the woman behind the counter asks. But Leila doesn’t allow herself to be knocked off her perch.

‘It might be for you, but for me it is five.’

‘And how many times do you pray?’

‘Five times a day,’ Leila lies.

Then there are mathematical questions, which she solves. Then a physics formula she has never heard of.

‘Aren’t you going to test my English?’

They shake their heads. ‘You can say whatever you want,’ they laugh sarcastically. None of them can speak English. Leila feels that they would rather neither she nor any of the other candidate teachers got a job. The exam is over and after long discussions between themselves they realise that one piece of paper is missing. ‘Come back when you’ve got that paper,’ they say.

Having spent eight hours in the Ministry they return home, despondent. Confronted with such bureaucrats not even the Minister’s signature was enough.

‘I give up. Maybe I don’t really want to be a teacher,’ says Leila.

‘I’ll help you,’ Karim smiles. ‘Now that I’ve started, I’m going to complete it,’ he promises. Leila’s heart softens a tiny bit.

The next day Karim goes to Jalalabad to confer with his family. He tells them about Leila, what sort of family she comes from and that he wants to propose to her. They agree, and now all that remains is to dispatch his sister. It drags on. Karim is frightened of being rejected, and he needs a lot of money for the wedding, for furniture, for a house. Besides, his relationship with Mansur starts to cool. Mansur has ignored him the last few days and greets him curtly with a toss of his head when they meet. One day Karim asks him if he has done something wrong.

‘I must tell you something about Leila,’ Mansur answers.

‘What?’ Karim asks.

‘No, I can’t say anything after all,’ says Mansur. ‘Sorry.’

‘What is it?’ Karim remains standing, open-mouthed. ‘Is she sick? Is there something wrong with her?’

‘I can’t say what it is, but if you knew you’d never want to marry her,’ Mansur says. ‘I have to go now.’

Every day Karim pesters Mansur about what is wrong with Leila. Mansur only draws away. Karim begs and implores, he’s angry, he’s sour, but Mansur never answers.

Aimal had told Mansur about the letters. In reality he would not have minded Karim marrying Leila, on the contrary, but Wakil too had got wind of Karim’s courtship. He asked Mansur to keep Karim away from Leila. Mansur had to do what his aunt’s husband asked. Wakil was family, Karim was not.

Wakil even threatened Karim. ‘I have chosen her for my son,’ he said. ‘Leila belongs to our family, and my wife wants her to marry my son. I want that too, and Sultan and her mother will approve. For your own sake, keep away.’

Karim could say little to the older Wakil. His only chance would be if Leila fought to get him. But was there something wrong with Leila? Was it true, what Mansur said?

Karim started to doubt the whole courtship.

In the meantime Wakil and Shakila visit Mikrorayon. Leila disappears into the kitchen to make food. After the couple have gone Bibi Gul says: ‘They have asked for you for Said.’

Leila remains standing, paralysed.

‘I said it was OK by me, but I would ask you,’ says Bibi Gul.

Leila has always done what her mother wanted. Now she says nothing. Wakil’s son. With him her life will be exactly as it is now, only with more work and for more people. In addition she will acquire a husband with three fingers, one who has never opened a book.

Bibi Gul dips a piece of bread in the grease on her plate and puts it in her mouth. She takes a bone from Shakila’s plate, and sucks up the marrow whilst regarding her daughter.

Leila feels how life, her youth, hope leave her – without being able to save herself. She feels her heart, heavy and lonely like a stone, condemned to be crushed for ever.

Leila turns, takes three paces to the door, closes it quietly behind her and goes out. Her crushed heart she leaves behind. Soon it blends with the dust, which blows in through the window, the dust that lives in the carpets. That evening she will sweep it up and throw it out into the backyard.

A few weeks after I left Kabul, the family split up. An argument resulted in a fight and the words that fell between Sultan and the two wives on one side, and Leila and Bibi Gul on the other, were so irreconcilable that it would have been difficult to continue living together. When Yunus came home after the quarrel Sultan took him aside and said that he, the sisters and mother were duty-bound to show him the respect he deserved, because Sultan was the oldest and they ate at his table.

The following day, before daylight, Bibi Gul, Yunus, Leila and Bulbula left the apartment taking only what they were wearing. None of them has been back since. They moved in with Farid, Sultan’s other ostracised brother, his nine months pregnant wife and three children.

‘Afghan brothers are not nice to each other,’ Sultan concludes on the telephone from Kabul. ‘It is time we lived independent lives. When they live in my house, they should respect me, shouldn’t they?’ he asks. ‘If the families don’t have rules, how can we form a society that respects rules and laws, and not just guns and rockets? This is a society in chaos, it is a lawless society, right out of a civil war. If the families are not guided by authority, we can expect an even worse chaos to follow.’

Leila has heard no more from Karim. When his relationship with Mansur cooled it was difficult for Karim to contact the family. Besides, he became uncertain of what he really wanted. He was awarded a scholarship from Egypt to study Islam at the al-Azhar University in Cairo.

‘He’s going to be a mullah,’ Mansur guffaws from Kabul on a crackly telephone line.

The carpenter went to jail for three years. Sultan was merciless. ‘Scoundrels cannot be let loose on society. I am sure he stole at least seven thousand postcards. What he said about his poor family is all lies. I’ve calculated that he must have made pots of money, but he’s hidden it.’

Sultan’s huge textbook contract fell through. Oxford University drew the longest straw. Sultan didn’t really care. ‘It would have sapped all my strength, the order was simply too large.’

Otherwise the bookshops are flourishing. Sultan has been awarded gilt-edged contracts in Iran; he also sells books to the western embassies’ libraries. He is trying to buy one of the unused cinemas in Kabul to set up a centre with bookshop, lecture room and library, a place where researchers can have access to his vast collection. Next year he promises to send Mansur on a business trip to India. ‘He needs to learn responsibility; that will be character-building,’ he says. ‘Maybe I’ll send the other boys to school.’ In addition, Sultan has granted his three sons a holiday on Fridays; to do with what they like.

The political situation worries Sultan. ‘Dangerous. The Northern Alliance was given too much power by Loya Jirga, there is no balance. Karzai is too weak; he is unable to rule the country. The best thing would be to have a government consisting of technocrats appointed by the Europeans. When we Afghans try to appoint leaders, everything goes wrong. Without cooperation the people suffer. And besides, our intellectuals have not returned. There is an empty space where they should have been.’