the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

family members. Finally his mother helped broker a truce. Samad and
his wife moved back home. And Samad started calling my oce
manager, begging for his job back.
I felt I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to train a new driver. And I
blamed myself for tempting Samad, giving him too much trust and
responsibility. He had reacted like any young man to an empty house, a
pool table, and free booze—actually, he had reacted better than most.
And I had bigger issues to worry about than a missing bottle of Midori
liqueur. Dave was moving out. We had broken up, and the split was
hardly amicable. Just before ying in from Kabul, he sent me an e-mail,
apologizing for the hurt he had caused but saying he had wanted to be
honest about his feelings. “I have no doubt you’ll be run o your feet
when I come through, as it always was,” he wrote. “Maybe I do need
someone who has time to tend for me when I come in.”
Maybe so. Samad helped him move out, even though it was confusing
for him, a bit like subjecting a three-year-old to a divorce. Samad had
bought all three of us key chains, each with our rst initial. He had
been thrilled when I started dating Dave, talking about my wedding and
naming our rstborn before our one-month anniversary. Although
divorce and single adults over thirty were quite common in my
Pakistani circle of friends, in Samad’s family such things were
scandalous.
While packing up, Dave was kind and polite. I wondered if we were
making a mistake. But then friends forced me to go out for dinner
instead of moping at home, and to go to the UN club for a drink.
“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s where he always goes.”
“That’s where everyone in Islamabad goes,” a friend said, reminding
me how miserable our options were. “You can’t let him run your life.”
So we went, hiding in the back garden because Dave had been
spotted inside. After a while, my curiosity won out.
“What was he doing?” I asked.
“Singing karaoke,” a friend said.
“What song?”
“ ‘My Way.’ ”
Meanwhile, Pakistan started to simmer again. It was August 2008.
President Pervez Musharraf, who had managed to hold on to his