The rich family

The Afghan refugees across the hall at the hotel were sweet to the point of obsequiousness. They loaned him their soap, rushed to get water when he was thirsty, and even washed his shirt. They made him elaborate Afghan meals. — Every day the “uncle” went to the consulates or the Mujahideen political offices. The boy stayed inside all day. (The Young Man thought of him as a boy even though he had a wife and child.) The Young Man let the boy’s brother sleep in his room, on the spare bed, so that he would not have to sleep on the floor with the baby anymore. — One hot night the boy and his brother invited him to go out for a walk. They strolled through Saddar, turned around, went for ice cream … All the males his own age seemed like boys to him, because (1) they didn’t drink alcohol; (2) they didn’t have much money; (3) they deferred to him.

“Why did you come to Pakistan? ” he asked the boy.

The boy looked at him with nervous brown eyes. “It was — I was in the Kabul. I was a student of agriculture, and all of my family was investigated. They investigated my father, and they took him in the jail. Afghanistan, it is — it is all in the jail.”

“He is not my nephew, ” explained the “uncle, ” who spoke excellent English. “But I let him call me uncle to show respect. His father, his mother and all his brothers except that one were detained by the Russians and killed one by one. I am all he has now.”

The Young Man bought the boy a bunch of bananas, and a detective novel to help him with his English. — “Why do you never go out? ” he asked him. But the boy would not answer.

The “uncle” had three beautiful daughters, who were very shy, but when the Young Man said that he was trying to help they let him take their picture. Standing on the flat roof of the hotel, they smiled sadly. One of them shaded her eyes with her hand. In the evenings they helped him with his Pushto. (It was unfortunate, he reflected, that the word for “sister” sounded like “whore” prefaced by an expectoration, but the moving of one’s tonsils among the Pathans would seem to be as much a necessity — here the worms turned over in his intestines — as the moving of one’s bowels.) — The girls also practiced their English on him. After he had essayed, with great effort, “I am your … friend, ” or “It is very hot today, ” they would reward him by smiling, and saying an English sentence that they had memorized: “Brezhnev — is— dog! ” Then they burst into giggles. — Once he said, consulting his English-Pushto dictionary at every other word, “I … like the Afghan … people. I … hope … I can help you.” —They smiled and giggled. —“Dera miraboni.” ^‡ They made him dinner. They stood and served him while he ate. He was made to sit. They prepared for him curry and meat and vegetables, with plums for dessert. Later he saw them eating old bread.

“There are two kinds of refugee, ” the hotel proprietor explained to him over green tea. “Rich refugee and poor refugee. Rich refugee, he live in Peshawar, in hotel. Poor, he live in camp. Afghan refugees no good. They wear everything out, break everything. Too many of them.”

There were nine people in that family, counting the uncle’s old wife. They existed in two rooms. Each room had a table and two single beds. They had been there for two months. They were trying to go to the United States or West Germany, but so far they had found no sponsors. In another month, said the uncle, if they still had no luck they would go to India. They were the rich refugees.