The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan (27 page)

Returning to Tashkagon the same evening, I stayed at a newly rebuilt government hotel, complete with the largest hotel pool I’d ever seen. As an ardent swimmer, this was for me a gift from the Great Mother.

Paul is forever telling everyone how I swam the Bosporus after swimming the English Channel. He explains lewdly how he massaged five pounds of butter into every pore of my body. Every time he tells that bogus story at parties I nod affirming his “put-on” with a lascivious smirk and silently nod my head in agreement.

“Now she wants to swim from Key West to Havana, 90 miles. I keep telling her it’s too dangerous. Great white sharks frequent those waters. But does she listen? No, she laughs at me. Talk about over-confidence, she has it in spades. She thinks citronella will repel all predators.”

“Look, my love, it’s not at all as dangerous as you suggest. The media agreed to accompany my swim with two large cabin-cruisers on either side of me. The Cuban government will provide specially equipped “spotter” boats at the half-way point. It’s an entire protective fleet running interference. What could be safer?” The game ended when one or both of us burst out laughing.

The Tashkagon region was devastated by a major earthquake last year. Many countries contributed to restoring this region, principally U.S., Russia, China, India, Iran and Pakistan, in that order. While in the area, there were daily after-shock rumbles for a week. Hotel guests were requested to sleep in the comfortable cabanas surrounding the pool.

I almost forgot to mention Japanese architects donated plans for an earthquake-resistant hotel. The desk clerk provided handouts to guests explaining the safety features. The hotel was built on a granite outcropping. All hotel buildings were single story, supported on rotating ball pivots. All windows and doors were made of pop-out Lucite. No glass was used in the entire hotel.

Electric power was provided by large arrays of solar devices (gifts from Germany) and wind generators (gifts from Denmark). The wind towers were cleverly anchored to dozens of large tree trunks in the hotel park (a Canadian innovation).

Wind rotors caped each tree, reminding me of ornaments on the top of Christmas trees, actually quite attractive. Six months after completion, the hotel power was functioning independent of the power grid, mostly from wind power. The hotel was spread out like a network of cottages, Los Angeles style.

I picked a pool cabana since I took an early morning swim as well as an evening swim. This way I was close to the pool. It felt like I was in California, surrounded by gardens, splendid trees (topped with wind ornaments), and snow-capped mountains to the north. It felt more secure and comforting in the cabana than in the hotel.

It was incredibly hot for October. At various times of the day the flies were so thick they were like little black clouds. Water rationing would begin two days later and there would soon be no showers. The pool was continually re-filtered and most of the guests would spend time there.

The next morning at the Tashkagon bazaar, I bought ten sets of camel decorations for $15 each, complete with silver bells; so much for one of the more elaborate merchant hypes I’d seen the day before. It was not the first and not the last, but certainly the most overreaching I experienced.

Mike, Kit, Kim, and I explored some of the tribal settlements near Mazar-al-Sharif. Kit, now the official Health Planning Advisor to the Health Ministry, was checking the health conditions in the new tribal settlements.

She was planning additional clinics oriented to the specific needs of the tribes in that region. Kim, the Chinese Embassy U.N. Advisor, agreed to share the costs between Russian and Chinese benefactors. Now that Rosy was part of our little team, she insisted that the U.S. would pay for anything else that’s needed for the clinics, like infant formula and food.

Rosy had been slim, attractive, and athletic in high school and now, twenty years later she was more attractive than ever. While driving, I asked if she still played basketball. She mentioned that she had organized co-ed basketball teams among the embassy staff.

In high school we had fun baiting each other about boys. Now I began baiting Rosy again, only on a different topic “Rosy, I’ll bet you have some background in geology.”

“Jeez, Lela, how in hell did you know that?”

“Come off it, Rosy. Everyone in an embassy position is hunting for that mythical ocean under our feet. Don’t pretend innocence. We know each other too well. Friendship aside, you’re here for that reason, yes?” She gave me an affirming look but said nothing.

Kim said the Chinese played basketball also, but that table tennis was their main sport. Kim invited Rosy, Kit, Mike and me to a table tennis afternoon at the Chinese Embassy, and Rosy did the same for basketball and a swim meet at the U.S. Embassy. It was all sweetness and light among us. Too bad embassy women don’t run their nations.

Mike was now the Interior Minister. His main job was road planning and implementation, especially to link health facilities to key towns and cities. My interest was finding tribal art. Merchants would get to these tribal settlements before me however, and I would have little in the way of purchases to show for the week roaming the region.

The main business of Kit and Kim was ‘monitoring’ (Kim’s word) Chinese and Russian activities. In reality, they were ordered to keep an eye on each other. Toward this end, a cooperating agreement was in effect.

All four of us kept notebooks and made frequent entries, each for her own purpose. Now my school chum Rosy, U.S. Cultural Attaché (rhymes with CIA), had joined the ‘watchers daisy chain’, with my assistance, of course.

NURISTAN VISIT:

I’d been negotiating for days to get a government pass to visit Nuristan, the northeastern province of Afghanistan. This province had been closed for years because of widespread banditry and warlord control, or so I was told repeatedly. I had attempted to get into Nuristan every six months since doing business in Afghanistan and received the same response.

Noor, a good friend and business associate from Nuristan, said the official entry denials were not true. He said they wanted to seal off the province to isolate a growing Maoist revolution fueled by China. He also believed the Chinese were developing oil fields in Nuristan.

Sealing off Nuristan was virtually impossible as it shared a border with the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. Most feared was a proxy clash between China and Russia in Nuristan. As China was desperate for oil, such a conflict was a distinct possibility.

Via the influence of Kim at the Chinese embassy, as well as Kit and Mike, I was at last granted a pass, but only if I traveled with a security convoy. Mike was not going to Nuristan, though. He made that quite clear and tried, unsuccessfully, to talk me out of going.

So, here we were again, our watchers’ daisy chain gang of four (Kit, Kim, Rosy, and me) was off on another adventure. I was sure we would be safer traveling in a single vehicle, but my three companions overruled me, and Kit arranged for us to travel with a military convoy.

Nuristan, as expected, was an armed camp. The Afghan government, with the aid of Soviet Mongolian troops, controlled the main roads and towns. While the convoy remained outside the town, touring the countryside, Noor took our jolly group to his home.

I was able to find and purchase some unusual small chairs and little round folding tables, all hand carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. There were also reasonably priced irresistible embroideries and kilems that I could not live without. All in all, this had been a supremely profitable trip, as well as a great education. Now I was playing on the world stage.

A few days later, my friends and I were swimming at the Tashkagon hotel pool when a messenger said an old man was waiting to talk with me in the lobby. I left Rosy, Kim, and Kit while they were trading information. (Where else could American, Russian, and Chinese officials trade information so easily? From a distance it looked like a group of gossiping women.)

I’d been expecting a trader from the Tashkagon region to contact me, but this was not the man Noor had told me about. The little old man was talking with Noor in the lobby when I got there. The old man said he was a lampshade maker. Noor said that the man had come to his shop in Kabul a month ago with Hadad, the merchant we were expecting.

The lampshade maker had a large canvas bag with beautiful luminous silk shades. He pulled one shade out by a center loop, and it opened into a hemisphere of glorious color. These were items I knew I must have.

The old man spoke little English and Noor spoke with him in Pashtu for a while before explaining to me that the old man made the lampshades for his cousin Hadad. I thought to myself, ‘This country is one big family enterprise.’

Noor said that the old man wanted to sell the lampshades to me for less than Hadad would charge. It seemed that the old man and his cousin Hadad had a falling-out. The old man said he could not talk any longer, but asked that we meet him at the India Café at six that evening. This gave me time to discuss the situation with Noor.

Noor told me a story about the little old lampshade maker from Tashkagon. It seemed that he was in all kinds of trouble with the government and other merchants. We went to meet with him anyway. Noor immediately explained that we were reluctant to do business with him because of the stories we had heard.

The old man explained that it was his cousin Hadad, and not him who was the problem. That was why he had split with Hadad. The old fox began to cry, and I felt for him, but Noor was not fooled. Noor told him that we would check out the story at the police station; at that, the old trader was gone in a flash.

We then went to the police station. Two desk clerks looked at us knowingly. One of them asked, “Are you here about the lampshade maker?” Noor replied that he was. The clerk laughed and said we were the fifth complainants today and that the old fraud really got around.

The police clerk expressed the hope that we did not give him a lot of money. Noor replied that we’d been suspicious and wanted to check the old man’s story before proceeding further.

The police clerk said, “You were quite wise to check first. I could tell you stories about that ‘poor helpless old trickster’ that you would not believe. Old Ibrahim can document his age at 102 years, but the age documents are phony. He’s in his 80’s, that much we know from his daughter; she tries to smooth things over whenever her father gets in trouble.

“Not only did he cheat his cousin, but he continually tries to horn in on established traders with all sorts of underhanded schemes. No one will sign a complaint against him because of his age and out of a misguided sense of charity, so he remains out there carrying on, probably until the day Allah, blessed be his name, takes him from us.”

I was pleased with the traders I’d been dealing with over the years and did not want to jeopardize my pristine business reputation by dealing with the old fraud, no matter how appealing his lampshades were. I was salivating over those lampshades, though. Never had I seen anything like them.

Fortunately, most of my trading contacts remained intact. These people supported the revolution early in the struggle. Most were Kalq party members of long standing. My main trading partner was victimized by the old regime for his political views.

Mike and his wife had been forced by unhappy events to take refuge in the States with me for months prior to the 1978 revolution. It seems that her father, some years before, attended the funeral of a cousin killed by the Daoud regime. At the funeral, the police took pictures of all the attendees—instructed by the CIA, I was told.

Her father was followed and badgered for months then arrested. He was held in prison four years and released with the tuberculosis he contracted in prison. A few months later he died. I didn’t know any of this until she was safely in the States.

Her political sympathies were known among her relatives and friends. Political sentiments, together with our business relations, a rare combination for Western traders, paved the way for what I hoped would be a long and fruitful business relationship.