Not long after that, Sam and I were watching television in our room over the school after work. Suddenly, we heard the sound of about thirty guns being cocked at once. I grabbed my shoes and scarf and was getting ready to run outside to see what was going on, but Sam pulled me back. “You want to get yourself killed?” he hissed. So we went across the hall to a small room where I’d set up the ob-gyn table for massages and peeked out the window. On all the rooftops around our house, men in dark clothes with their guns drawn were creeping toward the bad neighbors’ compound. Then they jumped down from the roofs and rushed inside. We watched for about an hour and a half while the guys in dark clothes came in and out. The women of the house were swarming around one of the outbuildings, and we could hear them crying. Then we saw the guys in dark clothes drag a bunch of handcuffed men outside, put them into cars, and drive them away.
The next day I was going nuts. The hairdresser in me just had to find out what had happened. I put on my scarf and went to the tailor, but he didn’t know what had happened. I went to the flower shop and the little beauty salon up the street, but they didn’t know. I went to Karzai. He jumped up and saluted me as always, but he didn’t know. He probably didn’t even know what day it was.
Finally, Achmed Zia found out what had happened. The police had suspected that our bad neighbors were connected to the Clementina Cantoni kidnapping, so what we saw the night before was a raid. The police didn’t find Clementina, but they found a cache of weapons and drugs. They also found two Afghans who had been kidnapped. That was their lucky day—the police would probably never have bothered looking for them. But it made those of us who lived on the street realize just how bad these guys really were.
About a week later, and after the bearded thug came and yelled at us about the chowkidor hut, I overslept and stumbled downstairs in my pajamas, even more groggy than usual. The first thing I saw was Achmed Zia with blood running down his chin. He had punch marks all over his face, his shirt was torn, and his lip was split open. “What the hell happened?” I asked. “Who beat you up?” He didn’t need a translator. He just pointed morosely down the street, toward the bad neighbors’ house.
I’ve never been a morning person. I need my coffee, my cigarettes, and a little bit of downtime before I start my day. I get really pissy without those things. If people want to agitate me, they have an easier time doing it in the morning, especially if I’m at that certain dangerous point in my cycle. I went into a mindless rage. I grabbed my head scarf and Sam’s machine gun, and with all my staff trailing along behind me, I stomped down to the bad neighbors’ gate in my pajamas and started kicking it. No one came, but I could see the gate gaping open, as if it were barely latched. And finally, I just pushed it and went inside.
The bad neighbors’ women streamed out, and I demanded to know where their men were. Not here, they said. I kept shouting that I wanted their men. I could see all the neighbors crowding around the gate. I was still shouting, using up every word I knew in Dari—probably even the words for “carpet” and “hairbrush.” Then three men pushed through the crowd at the gate and came inside. Two of them were the ones who had hassled us about the chowkidor hut, and the other was a tall, handsome guy I had seen on the street before. I knew they were brothers, even though they didn’t look at all alike. The three of them just stood there, smirking. That made me even madder.
“Which one of them hurt Achmed Zia?” I asked my staff. No one seemed to know or want to say, so I grabbed the good-looking one by the shirt. I turned my head slightly, so I could see my staff. “You guys go call the police. I’m going to make sure they stay here.”
Then things got a little humorous. My staff stood there with their faces crinkled up as Laila translated. They talked among themselves. It seemed that no one knew how to call the police. No one ever called the police in Kabul because doing so was pointless—they never came. And there’s no all-purpose emergency number like 911 to call in Afghanistan. So all of my staff except Achmed Zia wandered off to try to figure out how to call the police station, leaving me with the criminal brothers at gunpoint. At least they were no longer smirking. Finally, the police actually arrived. I don’t know if it was because I was an American or because they already had an interest in the bad-neighbor family. The other neighbors were more surprised by the appearance of the police than they had been by my assault on the criminals’ house in my pajamas.
The police took the three men away, and I went home to get my coffee, dress, and start working on customers. I was right in the middle of putting highlights in a missionary’s hair when Laila came running into the salon. “The criminals’ mother is here!” she announced.
Clustered outside our gate were the bad guys’ mother, grandmother, several aunts and wives, and all sorts of children. Their whole extended crime family had arrived to plead for me to drop the charges. Their mother was a tall woman with a sad, ravaged face, dressed as if she were going to a funeral. “I’d dress like I was going to a funeral, too, if I had sons like hers,” I told Laila. “Tell her that I will not drop the charges.”
The mother kept trying to take my hands, but I put them behind my back. She spoke to Laila in low, placating tones, but Laila snapped right back at her. “She says that she will have her sons write you a letter of apology!” Laila was clearly enjoying her role as the intermediary.
“What good will that do me?”
“She says her sons will not bother you again.”
“Since when did a woman in this country have any control over her men? They probably treat her as bad as they treat everyone else.”
I’m not sure if Laila translated this, but she said something and all the thugs’ women started to talk at once. “They ask if you will drop the charges as a favor to them.”
“Nai!” I shook my head at the crowd of women. “Nai, nai! Your sons are nothing but thugs, and they’ve been bullying everyone on the street for too long. If I can get them into prison, that’s where they’re going.”
I went back inside and continued working, but I could tell by the noise coming in the door that the women hadn’t gone home. If anything, it sounded as if more people had joined them. I walked to the front door and looked outside. Sure enough, there were now about twenty people milling around outside the gate. Achmed Zia and Zilgai stood facing them with their arms crossed, and I could see Laila scolding an old guy with a fat gray turban. I was starting to feel as if my house was under siege and, for the first time that day, wondered if we were safe. Plus, all these damn people were interfering with business! One of my customers called to say that she and her driver had cruised past the gate but were afraid to stop when they saw the huge crowd. “It looks like you have some kind of riot outside your house,” she said. “Unless you’re giving away some really great shampoo samples.”
I got on my phone and called Sam. I called the American Embassy. I called the Afghan women I knew whose husbands worked in the government. I called the minister of the interior. I tried to find someone who could help me with this. While all these people were scrambling around trying to come up with the name of someone who might be able to keep these guys in jail and prevent their family from killing me, I got a call from the police asking me to come and tell them more about what had happened.
Down at the station, a big policeman in an olive drab uniform greeted me as if we were already friends. “Sit, Miss Debbie, sit!” he said, gesturing to a chair. Another policeman came into the room with tea. Through Laila, we exchanged the usual pleasantries about the weather and the traffic. Then he got down to business.
“We know these men well,” he said. “We think they’re part of the same crime family who kidnapped Clementina Cantoni. We didn’t find evidence of her in their house, but we still think they’re connected.”
“Are they terrorists?”
“Yes, but not Taliban. These ones just do it for the money and the power.”
I grimaced. “So you’re going to send them to prison?”
“We will try. But they have told me they wish to press charges against you, too.”
“Against me?” I was wondering if maybe I had yanked off too many chest hairs from the one I’d grabbed. I couldn’t figure out any other way I might have hurt them.
The policemen reddened a little and looked at the papers on his desk. “They wish to file immorality charges. They say that you stand naked on your balcony.”
Laila burst out laughing. “Very funny,” I told her. “Tell him to ask those guys what the tattoo on my ass says.”
I don’t think she chose to translate that for the embarrassed policeman. I told him this charge couldn’t be true. I didn’t stand naked on my balcony, not ever. And even if I had, those creeps wouldn’t have been able to see me from their compound. He nodded his head, as if he were ashamed that he’d even brought this unpleasant matter up.
On the way back to our van, I saw some of the international peacekeeping troops hanging around, leaning against their tank. I had met one of them somewhere, and I stopped to explain what was going on. I told him I was afraid that the thugs’ family might try to get back at me for having them arrested. “Next time you’re out patrolling, can you come down my street and stop in front of their house? Maybe point that big gun at them?”
He gave me a funny look.
“Hey, it’s not like I’m fighting with my neighbors because they let their grass get too high. They’re criminals! Ask the cops.”
He shrugged. “I’ll check with my boss.”
Laila and I were about to climb back in the van when one of the policemen came running out after us. “Ah, I see you have a van here,” he said.
When we nodded, he explained that the police station did not have a vehicle large enough to transport my three thug neighbors to the prison facility across town, which was where they belonged. Since I was the one pressing the charges, would it be possible for me to help the police by driving the thugs over to the prison in my van—with a security presence from the police, of course? He was a very small policeman with an anxious smile. I unaccountably found myself saying yes. He dashed back into the station, then returned with the three suspected kidnappers at the end of his gun. After they climbed into the middle seat of my van, he jumped in and closed the door behind him. So he was my security presence!
This may have been my most insane experience in Afghanistan. The little policeman was giving directions to my driver. The thugs were talking on their cell phones to their family, pausing every once in a while to turn around and smile in a comradely way at me and Laila, who were sitting way in the back. Finally, one of them turned around and handed me his cell phone. “Hello, Debbie!” a voice on the phone said. “I understand you have some trouble with my brothers. How about you let them go this time and it never happens again?”
From the neighborhood gossip, I knew that they had another brother—and he was reputed to be even bigger and badder than they were. He was supposedly hiding because the police wanted him for some other crime. I clicked the phone shut and tossed it back into the middle seat. The little policeman was carrying on a conversation with my driver about the best way to reach the prison—which roads had too much traffic at this time of day, which ones had terrible potholes, that kind of thing. He was paying no attention to the thugs, who were getting bolder and bolder in their entreaties to me. The handsome one turned around and patted me on the knee. “We’re not so bad. Why, we gave one of your friends a ride to Wardak and we didn’t kill her!”
The bearded one turned around. “If you don’t let us go, this will be a big problem for us. You’ll see—we will be good neighbors from now on.”
Finally, I called Sam on my cell phone and told him what was happening. He said, “You are a crazy woman! Get out of the car before they kidnap all of you.”
As it turned out, we were only a few blocks from our street. So I told the driver to go home and let all of us out, Laila and I as well as the little policeman and the thugs. Sam called the police and told them to come back and get their prisoners, but they never did. The thugs went home and were welcomed noisily by their family. I think Achmed Zia finally had to give the little policeman a ride home.
A few days later, five tanks from the international peacekeeping force rumbled down our street and groaned to a halt in front of my compound. I ran to the bad neighbors’ house and banged on the gate until one of the brothers stuck his head out. I pointed to the tanks and told him that if his family bullied anyone on the street again, I’d have their house blown up. Of course, I didn’t really have that power, but they didn’t know it. To my knowledge, no one in the neighborhood has had any trouble with them since. They became as cordial and well mannered as my old neighbors back in Michigan. And as far as I knew, the police never had enough evidence to connect them with any terrorist activities.
IT WAS A THURSDAY AFTERNOON, the time of the week when my beauticians did nothing but joke and twit one another about sex. Friday is the beginning of the weekend in Afghanistan, so practically the whole country has sex on Thursday night. Friday is called joma, Thursday night is called rozi joma. On that evening, the women cleanse themselves thoroughly, remove their pubic hair, and prepare to give it up to their husbands. In keeping with national custom, my girls would start to giggle and wink every Thursday afternoon and ask one another if they were ready for rozi joma. Bahar usually grimaced and turned her head when the teasing started. She’d tell everyone she hated sex, and she hated her husband.
But this afternoon Bahar sat in front of one of the mirrors and started freshening up her makeup. Baseera leaned over her shoulder and made kissy noises and said something so lewd that it made Topekai blush. But instead of grimacing, Bahar got a huge smile on her face. She sashayed around the room while all the rest of them clapped their hands and called out, “Rozi joma!”
I pulled Laila aside. “I thought she hated her husband.”
“She has fallen in love with him again,” Laila assured me.
“How can that be, when he’s so mean to her?”
Laila flashed her Kewpie doll eyes at me. “Oh, Debbie, he’s changed! She took him to a doctor and he takes some medication for his problems. Now he’s a good man again.”
I first met Bahar when I was interviewing prospective students for the beauty school. It was one of those days near the end of winter when the sky all of a sudden dumped a foot of snow on the city. There was no snowplowing equipment in Kabul—still isn’t, to my knowledge—so life pretty much came to a halt. When people attempted the roads in their cars, they just slid into the sewers and made an even bigger mess of the streets.
We had over one hundred applicants for the class, but because of the snow, only about twenty showed up that day for the interviews. I knew those twenty had to be really serious, and that gave them an extra edge. The funny thing is that I probably wouldn’t have admitted Bahar based on her history. She was already making about forty dollars a month—not a bad salary for Kabul—as a kindergarten teacher and had no background in hairdressing. I tried to admit only the women who both really needed this opportunity and could profit the most from it. Women with jobs usually went to the bottom of my list, so that was a lucky snowfall for Bahar.
She was about twenty-eight then, with a sweet face and gentle manner. She soon became one of the very best students. Bahar had such a nice way with people that I knew she’d do well as both a teacher and a beautician in my salon. This was a bright and ambitious class, though, and there were four women who would also do well as either teachers or beauticians. So I started getting more in-depth histories from them. When I heard Bahar’s story, I realized I had to help free her from her crazy husband. Like so many women, she was still threatened by terrorism, even though the Taliban were gone. She faced it daily from the man she had married.
I think that he had once been a good husband and that she had loved him. They lived with his parents, who were quite old, and Bahar happily cared for his parents as well as their two children. Her husband had
been a police officer in Kabul before the Taliban came to power, and they let him stay on in the job. But this quickly turned out to be very tough for him. He was often required to enforce their ridiculous edicts about white shoes and music and such. Worse, he had to stand by and watch as the Taliban brutalized men and women for the tiniest infractions and help maintain order during public executions. At some point, he ran afoul of a group of Taliban and they turned on him. They beat him so badly that he suffered a brain injury that caused all sorts of complications—depression, memory loss, and uncontrolled rage. He couldn’t work anymore.
He became a monster. He’d lock Bahar and their children in one of the rooms in the family house and leave, sometimes for days. His parents were in the rest of the house, but they were so senile that they didn’t notice anything was wrong. There was still food in the house, so the parents foraged and fed themselves. But Bahar and the children had nothing to eat. Worse still, Bahar was pregnant with their third child. Her husband locked her up without food so often that the baby was starving in her womb. He beat her often, too. There was no one she could turn to for help—certainly not their Taliban overlords, since they never thought wives had valid grievances against husbands. Bahar’s third child was born with disabilities, doubtless because of this abuse. She is six years old now and still can’t walk.