In the Light of What We Know: A Novel

by Zia Haider Rahman

  What had become of us by then was neither fish nor fowl but somewhere in between, skating the surface: Do fish think of the boundary between water and air as a surface, only coming at it from below? We had technically parted. Technically, too, we remained in love, insofar as one can ever know these things. Love was a garland strung with doubts and uncertainty. There were of course small matters, such as my never featuring in her conversations with anyone, something I had gathered over time, sometimes through the looks of sheer surprise in the faces of people who surely would have been bound to know. And there were other things, too, that had kept the relationship in a state of permanent beginning. In her dealings with me, Emily Hampton-Wyvern was the most unreliable person in the world. It confused me at first because in her professional life, by exasperating contrast, she was the pillar of reliability.

  It is not the Bible’s only splendid irony that it is to Peter to whom Christ says you will be the rock upon which I will found my Church, so that today the Church of Rome accords to Peter the status of its first pontiff. An irony, because this is the same Peter who, when approached by centurions in the garden of Gethsemane, denied Christ, not once, not twice, but three times before the cock crowed; the same Peter who had earlier insisted, three times, that he would do no such thing. I am reminded of the injunction that you should treat a man as you believe him capable and he will become that person—a ridiculous homily. It seems to me that the picture is somewhat different: not more complex, less so.

  * * *

  I know that even when I put down all that I have heard, I cannot complete the picture. Zafar, like everyone, I suppose, is to be pieced together out of the fragments that fall about us. I have set out and will set out what I know, but I know so little, in the end, and least of all causes, which my father’s scientist in me longs for. It is no consolation to reflect that every cause itself is an effect, making the search for causes and reasons a fool’s errand.

  I am too much an imitator to be a true writer. But if I were writing a novel, rather than simply setting out the facts I know—those that I have been told, those that I have read, and those that come to me through my own experience—then I might have given a thought to hanging upon the bare facts the ornamentation of reasons. That kind of elaboration, on my reading of works of fiction, seems to be the fashion, to tell a story that begins at the beginning, in childhood, and trace out the trajectory of a life that is marked by its very beginnings. Is that psychoanalysis? Whatever its name, the story I would write, were I so inclined, would say something about how Zafar’s childhood formed him; it would set forth incidents that account for the deep alienation he felt (an alienation I would, in the writing, confidently locate in him); it would explain how he came to know that he was two years younger than he had long ago been led to believe; and it would make more of the nature of his parentage, more than the few facts I have at my disposal, which don’t even tell me how he came to know that his father, his true father, was a Pakistani soldier who raped his mother, and that this mother, his true mother, was the young sister of the man who raised him as his own son.

  Which last fact really should get a banner headline rather than a buried aside in ruminations on the difficulties I face in writing. And yet what have I now but his notebooks? Notebooks that show an old and recurring interest in the subject of rape in war and rape in Bangladesh during the liberation struggle. Notebooks that record no more than bare sentences containing the facts I’ve mentioned. But think for a moment: Why would he have recorded anything more than that in his notebooks? Certainly not as an aide-mémoire. For how could you possibly forget anything of a conversation in which you learned the shocking truth of your origins?

  In my possession there is only what I have learned. This fact alone constrains the story I can tell, the sense of a life, the forces that made it. Besides, I have to say, I do not set great store in the hydraulic conception of the human psyche that psychoanalysis presents, that a push here and a yank here, and out, over there, comes the consequence, or that holding in anger is like holding in a sneeze. Lacking authority here, I know I am speculating, but it seems to me that in the appropriate context, the psychoanalyst might say: You can see why the man doesn’t get close to women; the boy was never close to his mother. But equally, the psychoanalyst might say of another man: You can see why he is always too eager and quick to get close to women; the boy was never close to his mother.

  I don’t know what story I would write to account for Zafar, to provide the buttresses of causes and effects that support the structure of a human life, as it could be described, as it might be understood. The job is not made easier by all the vacancies, the questions left unanswered and others thought of only later, like the witty riposte that arrives halfway up the staircase, too late to be of any use. Zafar spoke abundantly, as never before, but in the end all I can include is whatever I can draw from what he said or wrote. How then to span the piers?

  My father is too generous a man to actually roll his eyes when he’s invariably asked at dinner parties what his work is about. Give a sense, a flavor of what it’s about, is what they ask him to do. Being a civil and courteous man, perhaps believing that it probably doesn’t matter, a flavor is what he supplies—or at least what his dinner guests believe they’ve been given. And he will listen as well, smiling warmly, as a guest invokes—as a theoretical physicist’s guest will do—Einstein’s theory of relativity as metaphor for some proposition in the social sciences. Relativity, my father will hear, demonstrates such and such (in some field as far removed from science as everything but science). My father will remember but will never mention what Einstein came to wish after long suffering to hear the abuses to which the mere heading of his theory had been put, as if to invoke the name of the theory was to import all the authority of the ancient and timeless lambdas, epsilons, and deltas of a beautiful mathematical argument. Einstein wished to hell that he’d called it the theory of invariance, which is to say, he wished he’d given it a name whose meaning was exactly the opposite of relativity and which, he said, would have been just as accurate.

  But our private conversations, between father and son, are free of the disingenuous concessions of dinner parties. Metaphors have their place, he says, but never as explanations, never as substitute for the thing itself, which is the only thing that can turn on the lights or leave us in the dark. His suspicion of metaphors recognizes that our proclivity toward them probably springs from our very nature, which is given to analogize, to link one thing with another, and to make whole the disparate. But exercising this instinct is not the same as giving an explanation.

  His respect for my mother would keep him from saying so explicitly, but psychoanalysis is only a grand metaphor, he says. It is not even a work in progress but a stopgap until work has progressed on the real thing.

  I see that I have gone far enough down one road and now I want to return. In the result, I cannot tell the story that is not a metaphor, the only story that is true. Perhaps it’s as simple as this: I don’t have it in me.

  * * *

  Zafar returned to his account. He had explained how Emily had come to be in Afghanistan, and on another occasion he had talked about a telephone call from her, asking him to join her. This raised the question of if and when he would meet her. But his narrative first picked up where he had left off. Suleiman had given him a tour of Kabul, taking in the view from a hill overlooking the city, after which they returned to AfDARI.

  He and I, said Zafar, had not been standing long in the courtyard of AfDARI, under the dappled shade of a mature mulberry bush, before a young woman arrived at the main entrance. The gatekeeper drew open the iron gate, its hinges resisting with a shrill. I noticed that he did not acknowledge her, no smile, not even a nod. I put that down to deference toward her sex and perhaps her station. She was a white woman, a pasty, unhealthy white, and wore a pale gray shalwar kameez with a dark blue hijab on her head, curls of mousy hair peeking from underneath. From one shoulder hung a tan le
ather satchel unbuckled and stuffed with papers. The Afghans are racially diverse and even include men and women with eyes as blue as a Norwegian fjord, but the manner in which this woman carried herself, her confident stride, her unhesitating eye contact, instantly marked her as a Westerner.

  Someone waved at her, and I tendered a perfunctory smile as she strode past toward the main building and climbed the steps before disappearing inside.

  The director of AfDARI, explained Suleiman, is a married man. In France, he has a wife and two children, and in Afghanistan he keeps a photograph of them on the desk in his office. We can count our blessings that we are standing in the courtyard and not in the office adjoining his.

  Why’s that? I asked.

  Because they do not have the shame even to hide the sound of what they are doing.

  Suleiman drew his breath.

  AfDARI needs new leadership, he said. The current director is a holdover. He was appointed by donors during the Taliban days and AfDARI was a token gesture. This man is corrupt through and through. Forget his sexual morals; he’s creaming off huge sums, and of course it will only get worse with all the money now pouring in. What can we expect? He’s an outsider fitting out a nice second home on the French Riviera. The question is: Do you want the job?

  Me?

  Yes.

  Suleiman, I’m flattered. But how do you know I’d be any better?

  You would be better. You’d be much better.

  It’s very nice of you to say so, but I’m not sure it’s my cup of tea. I’m not sure, for that matter, what it is I’d be better at. Besides, you only just met me, and I can no more take his job, my friend, than you can, if I may say so, offer it.

  I’d been in Kabul not even forty-eight hours. I knew already that this was a time and a place where things could happen very quickly, where bureaucratic decisions were being taken in an instant by youngsters unencumbered with history, where government departments were being run by foreign administrators barely old enough to run their own bath. Decision making here was unimpeded by the demand to consider and reflect on experience. Even so, what exactly was the basis of Suleiman’s choice? He obviously took a liking to me. But was there more? Does Suleiman have his own career prospects in mind? Has he hit a glass ceiling for Afghans that might first be cracked by someone like me, halfway between insider and outsider?

  Your reputation precedes you.

  Your flattery is flattering, I replied.

  I had no reputation, I thought—which, I suppose, is a reputation of a sort. Without any reason, I wondered if Suleiman was hinting at knowing the colonel.

  I spoke to some of our elders this morning, he said. They are Afghans who are nominally consulted on major decisions taken by the executive director, a sort of advisory board. Of course they haven’t met you, but what I said convinced them very quickly.

  And what did you tell them? I asked.

  I told them you’re smart. I told them that you’re a very intelligent man who is not an outsider.

  Suleiman, do you think I’m one of you?

  You are from a poor country like mine. You are a Muslim. And you’ve lived among them so you know them, you know how to press their buttons.

  If I am not for them, I am against them?

  Precisely.

  My dear Suleiman, I think you might find you have more in common with George Walker Bush than you’d like to think.

  How is that?

  Tell me what your elders said.

  A change is what we need here and they will support it.

  If I have to give an answer now, I’ll say no.

  Then why don’t you think about it?

  An hour later I was standing in the entrance hall of AfDARI, a large room with high ceilings and a crisscross of black-and-white tiles. Three doorways opened onto the hall; one of them was wedged open and led into a long corridor. At one end of the hall, there was an improbably large mirror with an elaborate gilded frame. On the wall opposite the main doors, facing the arriving visitor, was an array of mounted displays, posters, and notices all showcasing AfDARI’s good works.

  Poster after poster boasted AfDARI’s hand in a range of enterprises, from irrigation and drinking water projects to building schools and supplying teaching materials. No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamic of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need. All the children in the pictures were boys. Established in the time of the Taliban, AfDARI had been the main clearinghouse for whatever crumbs of foreign aid fell from the table to a country of little interest to the United States, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  A door in the hall opened. The woman whom I had seen arrive only half an hour ago stepped out, glanced at me, and then struck out across the tiles. I heard the main gates creak open and listened for their shutting but heard instead a growing sound of female voices. As they closed in on the building, I made out American accents, and among them an English one.

  I considered removing my sunglasses; I was indoors, after all. I was wearing a suit and a smart shirt and polished shoes. The sunglasses would confirm the absurd picture of a pimp, or a drug dealer, or a Pakistani ISI officer with James Bond delusions.

  The women entered the hall. One broke away and came toward me in long swinging strides, as her face flashed a bright beaming smile. She was rather beautiful, a soft face and eyelashes sprinkling above bright blue orbs. She had a delicate nose, thin and turning up ever so slightly at the end. Large noses, misshapen noses, asymmetric noses, such noses are noticed; a beautiful nose is never noticed but found, and it is the rest of the face that alerts the eye to look. A head scarf lay far back on her head, barely clinging to it, so that her rich brown hair topped a picture of vitality. A red down-filled knee-length jacket, cinched at the waist and lowering over a pair of jeans, failed to subdue the imagination from picturing the curves of her figure. As she approached me, she removed her hijab and opened her jacket.

  Hello. My name is Nicky, Nicky Amory. Who are you?

  She spoke in a crisp English accent. She was not wearing a ring.

  Zafar, I said, removing my sunglasses.

  Hello, Zafar. Do you work here?

  I’m sorry, Nicky. I don’t. But perhaps I can help anyway?

  You’re British.

  Is it the accent or the good manners?

  Oh, not the manners, she said, now quite earnest.

  I mean you have excellent manners, of course, she added quickly, a little flustered.

  Such good manners on your part to say so, I replied. If I may say so, I added.

  No, no. The British aren’t a … a well-mannered lot.

  She hesitated, and I thought she was stopping herself from saying good-mannered.

  All smiles they might seem, she continued, but they’ll stab you in the back if it’ll win them a square foot of land that doesn’t belong to them. Dreadful place. Can’t stand it. Left fifteen years ago and haven’t looked back.

  There are codes of conduct to curiosity. Most people say a little about themselves and their work, a transactional advance into the account to draw down when they ask you what you do. Westerners do this, that is. It’s a payment for inquisitiveness. But South Asians in the main have no embarrassment about getting straight to their own curiosity. Yet Nicky, who was no South Asian, had none of the Westerner’s indirectness.

  Why are you here, Zafar? What do you do?

  Not sure, I replied.

  Oh, I see. Spying, are we?

  What do you mean?

  Kabul is full of spies. Turn your head and look—there’s another mysterious type lurking in the shadows. Or not. They call themselves advisers here, by the way. Who do you spy for?

  For myself, like everyone, I replied.

  I see. We’re all spies. Never the person we think we are.

  Least of all to ourselves.

  Oh, I like that. You must be the existential spy, she said.

  Any point in issuing a denial? />
  None whatsoever, darling.

  Nicky was disconcerting but in a pleasant way. A beautiful woman, seemingly not a day over thirty (though actually near forty, I would gather later), leading some kind of charge, sporting the combined personality of a campaigning journalist, Miss Moneypenny, and a determined nun. The name was fit for a porn star, completing the drama of this woman’s persona. I think what pleased me most about her was the confusing impression I had—even very quickly—that although she could easily write off entire nations, she would be the last person to judge another human being.

  The other women joined us. It appeared that this group of four was part of a larger contingent sent by a U.S. charitable foundation that organized exchange visits of professionals in American nonprofits with those in developing countries. Nicky was the deputy director of an international microfinance organization, an “initiative,” she called it, which helped communities in “LDCs” (less-developed countries, she added politely) find ways to borrow small amounts of money for business purposes. Women were central to this initiative. Other organizations were also represented, the figurehead for all of which was Bianca Jagger.

  Nicky turned to me and said, I’ve got a meeting with this chap, the executive director, eh …

  Maurice Touvier?

  I did not mention to Nicky the little I already knew about him. I knew that Emily had been impressed by young Monsieur Touvier’s expertise with Excel spreadsheets. She had forwarded by email a budget drawn up by the gentleman, for my comment, she said, adding that she thought it rather impressive. It was a list of hardware for a new UN unit to direct reconstruction efforts: umpteen Land Cruisers, computers, satphones, and so on. Emily had asked for my impressions, but I didn’t share them all with her: Monsieur Touvier had an excellent command of the coloring features of the software.