Not In Kabul

July 22 1979

Jesus, I thought my third day at the tavern would be a relief, but then I had to reluctantly force myself to go there after I couldn't bear my apartment. It has been a couple of months since we've settled in what may very well become our new home. But for how long? The aftertaste of the spirit sucking migration had still not been cured. Not even a bottle of Ale is enough to keep my worries and fears at bay.

It is a shame. My baba promised me before, that I could join him and the boys at Beroohz's for my first drink. But when the crisis happened, all he gave me was a tired tussle on my hair.

I cannot blame him though. Baba is desperately searching for any employment, but when I watch him out my window, melting into the pedestrians, he is ambiguous as to the conflict that brought us here. Kabul, the largest city in this outrageous country.

Mama is far from naive, yet she continues to gaze through her pipe in hope. It was her prayers that made her strong, she says. Unlike Baba, it is her endurance in this hell, in spite of the relocation reducing her downright beautiful life to nothing but a memory. I had friends back home too, whom I'm sure made it to a more enlightened area. They had the money. We didn't.

Tickets were auctioned faster than we anticipated and most of our money during that panicked week was spent buying bags of food and enough gas tanks. I still recall my sister, sobbing when mother pulled on her and too feverish to apologize.

"But mother, can we not come back? What about our friends, and my friend Laleh? She's coming, right?" My sister asked as my mother swung a suitcase past her for me to snatch.

"No Sara," she said, drenched in the beating sun, as if to put an end to her innocence forever. "We cannot stay here any more. Our friends will fucking manage, but we must take care of ourselves. Shut up. Rashad, help your baba with the gas!"

I never said a word of hostility against any of them that day, or any day since. Albeit the first hour of the trip dashed past me with the screams of Mama, and Baba over his walkie talkie. Baba had formerly been an officer, but despite fair compensation from the department and support from his fellow officers, his authority was no good any longer. He was on his own.

~~~~~

August 15 1979

It's curious. Leaving our home to seek refuge in Kabul has weakened our defining traits. Most of us are now uninspired pedestrians with only one measure of interest: 'Traumatic Pasts'. Our new Rafigh only ever wants to talk business with Mama and Baba or get together for lunch. Mama loved social events back home, but this was the first time I heard her decline something over the phone. I barely knew any of this, but Sara told me after eavesdropping, a new pastime.

Mama has heedfully asserted recently that the timorous life of running may end here. Baba rolled his eyes and thrusted his folding chair away from our marketplace table to slunk to the sink. I don't think he could stand that he was riding on her money as a nurse to provide. Months after that 'reassurance', some flavor of lucidity appeared to have finally been resorted to our lives. Then again, did we ever have such a luxury. That's almost as if to say saving ourselves has entailed no reward or purpose.

 and that her children should never have endured.

It was hardest on my Baba, who has now developed a stronger kinship with his fellow man at his new labor. I drive our only rented car to pick him up every day. Arguably that's the only interesting time of my day: the travel. He'd never let me get a job, even when I argued it was better than lying on my ass all day.

Watching the vagrant people slunk past the tattered white and blue houses, and occasion

al half acre of unowned land. While none of them were in a rush, every man or car moved just fast enough to give the owner some remote feeling of accomplishment.

The bustling languidness of Kabul gives me the impression that this is a place teetering on the edge of chaotic civilization. Many of the citizens here, refugees or natives, had experienced many months of peace, but again for how long? It seems as though the cycle of senseless spontaneity would never end.

My sister dismissed my musings as philosophical crazes that were born out of the bleak stillness surrounding us. I suppose she enjoyed conversing with me more than Baba. Even I can't remember the last piece of advice he gave me other than the daily chore demands.

~~~~~

October 26 1979

As we settled into anxious idleness, an odd thought crossed me, one which reminded me that my diary still existed and awaited in a dusty embrace. The thought, in question, concerns that of what defines our people. Growing up in Iran surrounded by friends and family would patently satisfy any man. But this invasion, this chaos that trades logic for random impulsiveness, shifts the term classification for me.

Now, immigrants from Iran have joined the brethren of suffered African and Asian souls here. As the Soviets press southward in intimate pursuits, ordinary people have been slaved into acting as the fodder of conflict by the communist bastards seeking to rule.

In spite of these tribulations imposed on my family and our people, I wanted to be of some service to the city. I knew a job would do little to change lives; that was the dream of children. But if nothing else, I thought I would get what everyone else in Afghan coveted: stories. However, Baba said he needed me to look out for Sara and Mama until the Summer was over. Both his and Mama's job would suffice for the next month.

Baba told me that there's more to this country than simply topographical waste and rugged foreign faces. He described to me during a pick up at the employee center how beneath the plateau beyond the city lies high value minerals. Cobalt, copper, niobium, and iron. Scandinavians would pay millions for it, and he was contributing to the workforce. Such were the painful ambitions a tired unlucky man like Baba, who will indulge in as he perpetually swings a sledgehammer.

He was not oblivious to his sentiments. "Who the flying fuck would spend their time in this lousy matchless shithole except to hallucinate?" He hissed at me sarcastically, when I asked him if the job felt rewarding. I immediately regretted it. "There's no country for great men. You can only be what the world tells you to be."

I forced a smile which collapsed into the cold stare. For the first time, I realized that it was the very same expression that all folk carried with them in the city. The face my father had effortlessly adopted after all this madness, however painful it may have been.

As we drove, I nodded at everything he said without attempting to comfort him. There would be no point in it. We were both the same, and we both knew we had no purpose. This was his job now. Not even the safety of his family seemed to offer solace to him. Every time I asked him to help make life better for ourselves, he dismissed it.

"I can take care of this family myself, Rashad. We don't need to start anything that won't last." He would say to me. That startled me then, reminding me of how inactive Baba had been since the evacuation.

People say America was founded on misfits, but I don't think these ones cared enough to build a nation. It seems to me, this place was never meant to be a utopia, but a lawless asylum. A land that the benefactors war couldn't care less about except to become a landlocked bridge to other nations.

No more specialties. Nothing novel. Nothing any of us did was remarkable in Kabul.

~~~~~

November 25, 1979

I recall these previous passages from this year as I inscribed a much needed entry in my log that has been untouched for a couple weeks now.

My birthday was in October, and to celebrate, our family went to a Fresh Grill Steakhouse. Months of take out meals and three laborious jobs have paid off enough for Baba to indulge our ash filled mouths. Mama says the food is better than any she has tasted in Italy which, when I asked, she said she visited on vacation once. Baba said that's just because we've been eating shit all year, but my taste buds took her word for it.

I presume it's worth mentioning that I have a purpose in this world, a sordid job to serve my family. Baba has gotten me employed at Serena's, an Irish bar. Perhaps it was his way of making it up to me, but he says I'll need it given that he cannot finance this family working solely as a miner in the desert.

"What changed your mind, Baba?" I asked before entering the swamp colored establishment.

"Let us call it a fail safe. Better to have a mug than a gun in your hand, nowadays." He said, faceless. As he cursed the communists under his breath loud enough, he gave me another pat on the back. This one barley grazed my shoulder. Then he drove off leaving me on the curb, staring at the inn.

~~~~~

December 16 1979

I swept the rings of dew from the greenwood bar after stacking another mug from my satisfied customer, underneath the counter. My second customer, Ally, directed my attention to the TV. This was the third time he visited, and likely his last.

I barely heard any of his words as I froze facing the screen. Watching red flagged tanks and aircrafts zipping towards the cities, captured by long ranged cameras. In that moment, the horror returned with a devilish smile. Our old enemy had come back to haunt the orphans of his exploits, and make acquaintances with new men, ones who had yet to survive and earn that title.

I regained just enough consciousness in that moment to hear Ally at the exit shouting to everyone to get to the US Base outside the city now. I didn't even think to take the money in the register or say goodbye. I was in my car driving wildly to the station for Baba.

I can't write anymore now as we need

I have to hel

Baba

~~~~~

December 19 1979 (Recount)

I noticed Baba staring at the window of our apartment, and appeared entranced which startled me. I'd never seen Baba fascinated by something. He only ever widened his half opened eyelids when admiring a dr

awing by Sara back in our old country. Never real.

As I walked over to him from my bedroom that November night, I asked him to speak his mind. I sometimes spoke thusly to restore some contentment to him, but I must have spoken differently today. Rather than speak of ambition, he spoke of his faults. He gave a brief reminder of the family's past years, and his worries with Mama. He said he blames no one but himself for our hardships.

I tried to tell him that he was far from disgrace I knew. After all, he fathered me and Sara, and became a respectable officer in Iran. That is better than most dregs of society.

"Men like you are hard to find, Baba. You must feel some pride in yourself."

At the realization he was boring his soul more than he ever had before, he shrugged, "I'd have felt more proud if I used my real gifts from my youth. My computer skills, my engineering deg-"

"What!" I said, nearly forgetting my place. I was older, and thus felt more comfortable interrupting Baba with a question, but upon this reveal, all my reservations fell away.

"I never knew you learned computer sciences. Why not work at NOSA instead of the police?" I asked in astonishment during our consultation in our lamp lit kitchen. He smiled as he spoke, which either meant he was about to descend into regret once more, or, far less likely, he was reminiscing.

"I attended a prestigious university in Europe and worked at a company for two years, but I decided to become an officer when I met your mama. I'm teaching Sara what I know, and perhaps you can too. Make a greater contribution to our family's legacy than I have."

As he finished his draft of beer with a warm breath, I smiled for the first time in a while. I didn't consider at the time whether his advice was seasoned sarcasm or genuine encouragement, but it didn't matter. They were the words of a true father.

The account of last month serves as a reminder, and a parting not today, I write what I am sure will be my final entry, for a long time.

As I sit inside the US base with thousands of other families, caressing their loved ones and some weeping for friends or valuables lost. I pitied them, for such things did not seem to exist in this world, at least from my view. Not in Kabul.

In tired simple words, I cannot write anything new. But I will leave this entry filled with a past memory. It seems that the people here were right, these are precious.

They're all we have.