the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

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Taliban’s clutches in Pakistan. “So, are you nding yourself spending too much time at home, by yourself?” he asked. “Definitely.” “And you’re drinking too much?” “Possibly.” “And you’re dancing around your apartment a lot, listening to loud music, doing a lot of cocaine?” “Um, no. Perhaps that was you.” But he was right. It was no picnic coming o the adrenaline of a war zone cold turkey, or losing that sense of importance that infused even the most banal activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I felt like I was trudging through life, waiting for the “what next,” craving airports and a x. I constantly felt uneasy, like I should be doing something else. Out to dinner with friends, I sensed some unknown deadline hanging over my head. I angered easily. I could not relax. I could not sit still. I could not connect. I had more in common with many U.S. soldiers than I did with my family. I talked often to Farouq, who earned straight A’s in his rst semester of a master’s degree. Eventually his family was able to join him in his new Western home. He wanted to return eventually to Afghanistan to help lead the country; he worried that it wouldn’t be safe for his children. With the passage of time the pull lessened slightly, and the adrenaline monkey on my back shrank to more of a sea monkey. The longer I was in the States, the farther away the war seemed. Maybe it was the loft party in Brooklyn with a misshapen-apple mirrored disco ball dangling from the ceiling and a giant inatable rat in the corner, but New York started to feel more like home. Still, the region wouldn’t let me go that easily. An amateurish bomb was planted in an SUV in Times Square, just blocks from my apartment, and for hours, my neighborhood was shut down. The wannabe bomber clearly had attended the jihadi short course in Pakistan as opposed to summer camp; he used the wrong kind of fertilizer and left his keys in the car. Improbably, the Pakistani Taliban —a group that was very skilled at bombing, much more so than the Afghan Taliban—was blamed for the botched eort. The Taliban was stalking me! Even if I was moving on, clearly they could not.
stalking me! Even if I was moving on, clearly they could not. Then, in May 2010, with my fellowship almost over and unemployment looming, the call came. It was a major news organization. Would I go back to Kabul? My rst thought was, Hell yes! Yes to Kabul, yes to bombs, yes to that electrical jolt I got just thinking about Kabul. Yes to chaos and crazy, yes to toga parties, yes to Kabul High, yes to insh’Allah, yes to endless cups of tea, just yes. I thought about it seriously for a few days, before waking up one morning and realizing—no. Just like I couldn’t go back to Chicago, I couldn’t go back to Kabul. I had already graduated, after all, and everyone knows you can’t go back to high school. Especially when that high school is a war zone, especially when that war zone is falling apart. I rationalized my decision: I could always go back for the class reunion, which if the past was any guide would be in another ten or twelve years, when history would probably repeat itself, when all the same players or their latest incarnations would start the dance again.
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Copyright © 2011 by Kim Barker The
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Cover Title Page Copyright Dedicati
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KABUL
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CHAPTER 1
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enough to make it into my newspaper
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championship game. Like everyone el
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grueling way we came, seven hours,
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nothing like the Taliban. But they
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clear sign I was a foreigner, we dr
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I CHAPTER 2 MONTANA ew home to Chic
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nancial ruin. I cobbled together re
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city of about three or four million
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one is supposed to be happy at an A
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CHAPTER 3
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can work with someone who says bad
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thrown at their palace compound. I
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confused with the recently opened A
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smiled, even when talking about tra
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convinced Ismail Khan to abandon He
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CHAPTER 4 THERE GOES MY GUN D espit
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U.S. troops were killed in the ghti
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John Wilson. And always, their miss
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I knew this from Afghans—they fea
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A boy poured the sweet milky tea fr
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watch me take notes. In return, I w
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I CHAPTER 5 ONE WAY OR ANOTHER n Ka
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We said goodbye to the taxi driver
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Nasir looked at me, as if I had any
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“They want money,” Farouq told
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CHAPTER 6
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Warlords then took positions outsid
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three pigs were elsewhere at the ti
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me back and all was forgiven, espec
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Sean, the British journalist who wa
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eversed one of its only decisions t
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I CHAPTER 7 MONKEY GONE TO HEAVEN l
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oy. But now it was too cold for suc
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pressure cooker, going from home to
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Kabul High. One night, as I sat wit
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force, maybe two to three thousand
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CHAPTER 8
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landed rst in Pakistan, then the Un
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Indian capital’s dingy airport be
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laid out carpets in the dirt for us
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simply lming a documentary on the h
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sleep early. At 3 AM, my phone star
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CHAPTER 9
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neighborhood of Shir Pur, where the
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“Sami thinks he’s got a way to
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seemed adamant about returning norm
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for everything. In short, he needed
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apart, and entire chunks had crumbl
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years, no one will recognize you li
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1980s, they had been reluctant to l
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mysteriously end up dead. We soon d
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CHAPTER 10 HELL YES S ure, Operatio
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this to be the best embed possible.
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out two large guns on the side of t
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so thin, they had no time to worry
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screen, we watched the bomb hit, se
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CHAPTER 11
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would be the rst to have sex outsid
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Alaska if you were a woman—the od
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omber had hit a U.S. military convo
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I could do, and I had to work. This
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in Kabul. The Fun House would soon
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CHAPTER 12 BARELY LEGAL M y eccentr
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good rule of thumb for most Afghan
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“He thinks you love him,” she s
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everyone talked about, the example
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“My idea is this,” I told the N
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PART II WHACK- A-STAN
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CHAPTER 13 UNDER PRESSURE T housand
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and West Pakistan, nearly a million
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ght. Throughout the 1980s, the Unit
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seizing power almost eight years ea
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moving much at all. The team’s to
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whenever we hit a town, or even an
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CHAPTER 14
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were killed. One head cleric, who h
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Samad called me “boss.” Often h
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platform just above the driver, we
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abbit hole I had fallen, I saw it a
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CHAPTER 15
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frantically called people in Pakist
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lown up near the local ISI office.
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deep-fried packets, and sweet milky
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cell phones—but each was close to
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spontaneous outpouring of grief, no
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CHAPTER 16
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power and allowed the plane to land
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nally told me, referring to Sharif
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“Yes, Mian Sahib’s schedule is
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“That was bad planning,” Sharif
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I snapped a photograph with my Blac
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CHAPTER 17 LUCKY STAR B uried by th
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the south weren’t allowed to work
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audience, who booed Lima. Some of t
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something. It’s very sensitive.
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Only then would I learn that everyo
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CHAPTER 18 SUSPICIOUS MINDS M y new
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up plates lled with various lukewar
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“Pull over,” I told Samad. We s
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kidnapped.” I felt ill. As far as
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handed me the keys. “We’re hiri
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CHAPTER 19 REBEL, REBEL S omething
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“What the hell?” I asked myself
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a very poor job keeping current pla
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minutes than we did in six hours.
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“All my ex-boyfriends? There’s
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I CHAPTER 20 WHY CAN’T WE BE FRIE
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President Pervez Musharraf, who had
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directionless as a headless chicken
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“Lady, give me your CV. CV,” he
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I had no idea who sent the message.
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CHAPTER 21 LONDON CALLING A fter na
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ad economy, the war, the Pakistani
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shook Nawaz’s hand—he had soft
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“BlackBerry, Nokia, or iPhone, Ki
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CHAPTER 22 DEADBEAT CLUB A s soon a
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ut it had always been Silver Fox pr
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probably killers. “Farouq?” I s
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the deal, reporting that the video
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CHAPTER 23
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Page 262 and 263: CHAPTER 24
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Page 268 and 269: Why did I want to stay so much, in
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Page 290 and 291: paying my salary. Many diplomats ra
Page 292 and 293: wrappers. After the usual deep-tiss
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Page 296 and 297: to do here. Karzai would eventually
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Page 306 and 307: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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