The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [55]
“Fun House,” my housemate said.
I’m not sure who named the house, maybe a driver from the taxi company. A cast of about ten people shifted in and out of the five bedrooms of the Fun House, a low-slung poorly laid out building where one bedroom spilled into another, severely limiting privacy. Lawyers, journalists, UN workers, a human-rights worker, a vague consultant, almost everyone had been in and out of Afghanistan for a long time, since the rockets on the rooftop of the Mustafa, Jack Idema, the toga party. And everyone else knew the Fun House. I rented a room and charged it to my company, which was much cheaper than staying at the Gandamack and, obviously, much more fun. The friendships we forged here, through adversity, curfews, and lack of power, were the quickest and most intense I had ever made. All of us were on the same acid trip, regardless of whether we grew up in London or Johannesburg or Billings, Montana. We were instant family—just add war.
How fun was the Fun House? So fun that the housemates bet on who would be the first to have sex outside on the daybed, so fun that grown men had been known to wear wigs and perform drunken somersaults in the living room, so fun that my housemate Tom and I procrastinated one afternoon by holding target practice on a melon with a battery-powered BB gun bought at the World of Child toy store down the road.
“I know you can shoot because you’re from Montana,” said Tom, the British freelance journalist I had traveled with to Kandahar.
I aimed at the melon. I shot Tom in the shin.
In other words, the fun at the Fun House was the kind that interrupted the monotony of life in Afghanistan like a sharp kick to the kneecap. (Tom was fine.) Even as the Taliban gathered strength in the south and the Afghans increasingly seethed against the foreigners, the foreigners in the capital pushed back. Restaurants like L’Atmosphère were in full swing. Thursday-night theme parties and Friday-afternoon barbecues were regular. There was a salsa night, a trivia night, and a fledgling poker night on which contractors would soon shrug off losses of thousands of dollars. It was junior year at Kabul High—a time when we knew all the different players and were no longer gawky freshmen in the wrong clothes but weren’t as jaded as we’d eventually become. It was party time, and this was the party summer, the summer of 2006, the Summer of the Fun House. Kabul was an oasis.
Adding to the fun, Sean had also just returned to Kabul from one of his earliest forays to meet Tango, a crapshoot that involved actual Taliban insurgents pointing guns at him and Sami, his fixer. While in Helmand, Sean had called me every few days. At one point, he complained that Sami had abandoned him in his hotel after announcing he just couldn’t work with Sean anymore. But Sami returned to Sean like the bad habit he was. Sometimes Sean wouldn’t answer his phone when I called, and once, he disappeared for a week. He spoke in whispers. He wouldn’t talk about what he was doing, convinced his calls were being monitored, so our conversations were perfunctory and laced with Tango.
“People are listening,” he said.
“Oh, like you’re so important.”
Out for his first Thursday night since coming back, Sean told us his story of meeting Tango. Even though I had heard the story a dozen times, it continued to be entertaining. He knew how to massage a tale. He’d tell it once, watch his audience’s reaction, and modify the story the next time, always perfecting his delivery.
None of us wanted the night to end, so we piled out of various taxis, walked into the Fun House garden, and collapsed on cushions on the daybed, a freestanding wooden deck covered in stained brown-and-cream Afghan carpets the texture of burlap. The power was out, as usual, but we lit gas lanterns, poured drinks, and put on music, a mix that featured the song