The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [87]
“I want to go,” he said. “Can you get me a ticket?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
And I didn’t. In truth, I was reluctant to bring him, to report alongside him. I hadn’t dated a journalist in years, and I was still leery. When we had reported together on breaking stories in Pakistan, it wasn’t necessarily fun. We were interested in different parts of a story. We had sniped at each other while on deadline in a shared hotel room. He had a temper. I was stubborn. While working, we didn’t necessarily play well. I was also reluctant to introduce him to Farouq and my life in Afghanistan, which had always been my separate world. Out of everyone, Farouq and his opinion mattered. He had seen me through every relationship overseas. Despite our ups and downs, Farouq was the constant. And although he never passed judgment, any silence spoke volumes. My boyfriends usually ended up with nicknames, none flattering.
So I said I would try to get Dave a ticket, and then I changed the subject. But I didn’t try. Even though we had talked about sharing a house in Islamabad, even though I wanted to make us work, I didn’t necessarily want to work with him. And I was selfish. This was my story. No one had yet written about the Pashtun female finalist, even though a woman had never performed this well.
The day of the show, I called Dave as Farouq and I drove to the taping. I thought he had forgotten about it. But he fumed.
“You didn’t even try to get me a ticket, did you?” he said. “You knew I wanted to go.”
“It’s difficult,” I replied.
“Is it? You don’t want me to go.”
Farouq could overhear the argument.
“Kim,” he whispered. “Tell him to come. We’ll get him in.”
Realizing my worlds were colliding, I invited Dave. Farouq and I parked outside the Afghan Markopolo Wedding Hall, a phantasm of mirrors and columns, and walked past the crowds of young men waiting outside. We showed our passes to the burly security guards and climbed the stairs. Being here was like attending any celebrity event anywhere, only tinged with the possibility of an insurgent attack. Farouq looked for someone in charge.
“I’m going to schmooze some people,” he said, using a word I had taught him.
“Schmooze away.”
Farouq easily found the media guy and convinced him to let Dave into the show. That handled, we found seats, saving a seat next to Farouq, so he could translate for both of us. Dave soon showed up, wild-eyed and out of breath.
“I was just assaulted,” he said. “A bodyguard just slammed me in the chest. He took the wind out of me. He thought I was a Pashtun.”
I considered that objectively. With his coloring and beard, Dave did resemble a Pashtun. A beefy Afghan who had clearly been pumping iron in one of the many bodybuilding gyms of Kabul then walked up to him.
“I’m sorry again, sir.”
Dave started yelling at him. “You can’t treat people like that. I’m a journalist.”
Farouq looked at me, his eyebrows raised. Dave had a point. But the security guard had apologized, several times. Now Dave was shaming him in public, which contradicted any Afghan code imaginable. His anger was spilling over from me to the world. What had he seen on his embeds? I didn’t know, because he didn’t want to worry me, but I imagined bombs, gunfights, the kind of violence that I had somehow avoided. Dave had started to change. Always passionate and intense, he now seemed just angry.
Finally he sat down, still upset, barely speaking to me because of the ticket fiasco. This was not a fun date. Poor Farouq was stuck in the middle.
But we were all soon distracted. White lights flashed, and the loudspeakers pumped music. The host ran onstage, announced “In the name of God—hello,” and