The Underground Girls of Kabul Read Online Free PDF Page A

Peshawar … he deals in essences and oils. He told me they deliver to a French perfumer who makes something rather famous out of this one. That’s just talk, of course, but it is pleasant, no?”
    I nod, and cannot bring myself to tell Carol that her purveyor is telling the truth. It’s a scent I know quite well. As the lights come onI smile. I, too, am a completely free woman, and just as Carol once decided to do, I have time to go deeper.
    B UT COULD I even write about Azita’s family, to start? Over the course of a few months, she and I have several takes of the same conversation.
    “You told me that you have four daughters,” I began my first such call to her. “You also told me about the family’s son …”
    It was a chance just to take it all back and tell me never to return. I almost hoped she would take it. It was only later that I understood she had already made up her mind.
    “I think we should tell the reality.”
    “But this is your secret. Are you sure?”
    “I think so. It could be interesting for people. This is the reality of Afghanistan.”
    With that, I was invited back to her house. And into her family.

CHAPTER THREE
THE CHOSEN ONE
    Azita
    A T FIVE A.M., she forces herself to rise from the pallet of long, bulky pillows on the floor of the dining room, which also serves as a bedroom.
    Before she makes the push to rally her children for the day, she flips through a carousel of images in her mind, aiming to remember five good minutes from the day before, to wake up her spirits with good thoughts. Perhaps she spoke without being interrupted by one of her fellow parliamentarians. Or maybe one of the girls showed her a new painting, and it was really quite accomplished.
    Only then does she walk across the hallway to wake her four daughters sleeping in their bunk beds under blue Winnie-the-Pooh covers. A small war over the bathroom usually ensues between Mehrangis and Mehran. The twins will eat some yogurt and naan bread left over from the day before. Mehran will likely refuse breakfast but agree to a roll or sugary cookies or an orange.
    The three eldest girls will dress in below-the-knee black dresses and white head scarves over shiny black ponytails. The youngest will don pants, a white shirt, and a red necktie. All four will grab one of the identical large nylon backpacks. Mehran’s is far too big for her, but she carries it with pride, just like her older siblings do. Their father will walk his children to the school bus, holding only Mehran’s hand.
    Azita has fifteen minutes left to get ready. But she is fast. In that time, she transforms herself. As soon as she steps out of the house, she will be upholding the honor of not only her husband and her family, but also her province and her country. Her appearance is a big part of that. She must dress carefully: to divert rather than to attract attention.
    Reputation is more than symbolic in Afghanistan; it is a commodity that is hard to restore once it has been damaged. Much like a credit score, it should constantly be preserved and ideally also improved upon, forcing both males and females to adhere to a web of strict social rules. In choosing each detail of her outfit, Azita considers the fundamentals of Afghanistan’s honor culture, where a woman’s purity is linked to the reputation of her family at all times.The Taliban no longer rules in Kabul, but the dress code for women is still very conservative. Carol le Duc clarified for me the informal but very real penalty system: “A woman who attracts improper attention to herself is inevitably a
whore
.”
    For a woman, being likened to a whore for dressing the wrong way or being seen speaking to a man who is not her husband can be of great consequence: Her neighbors will talk, her parents may be devastated, and shame will fall over her relatives and potentially tarnish their reputation and standing in society. For a female politician, this game is even more complicated, because politics by