Lemon Print Scarf
I’m stuck in traffic, just a block away from work. Every morning the roads in Kabul are a sea of Toyotas and yellow painted station wagons. I wonder if I should get out and walk the rest of the way? The cars are gridlocked but the drivers still tap on their horns, nudging each other to move, even if it means only inches. Through the heart decal stickers littering the rear windshield of my taxi, I see merchants carrying large Styrofoam boards of sunglasses weaving through the vehicles with unbothered expressions. A few women in blue burqas move like floating ghosts and others, like me, in head scarfs of lighter material with loose fitting clothes move gracefully in heels of practical height. They’re making their way on foot and I decide I should do the same if I don’t want to be late for work. I feel a flutter of nerves about safety these days that makes me move quickly.
Last month’s bomb attack killed eighty people just metres from where I get out of the taxi. The Taliban’s targeting of busier areas has made crowded areas feel dangerous, and I walk briskly to the unmarked gates of MAJLES TV studios. Big steel gates trimmed with barbed wire have sectioned off a chunk of the neighbourhood, a street that at least ten wealthy Kabuli families once called home. I knock on the smaller door and see the solemn eyes of the guard who recognizes me and closes the peephole without a word. As he lets me in, an armoured SUV pulls up to the larger steel gates marking the arrival of some foreign staff. The driver honks aggressively for the guards to hurry. One guard checks under the vehicle with a mirror attached to a long pole, searching under the entire perimeter for sticky bombs, while others quickly open the large gates and rush the vehicle inside. At the small door I’m welcomed with a nod from the guard, followed by a tedious process of purse checks, pat downs and sign-in sheets. Khala Hamida, the only woman who works security, places her hand on my shoulder after she’s searched me. Her bangles jingle under her uniform sleeve.
“I watched your show Mariam jan, very good cooking, my darling girl, afareen. A talented young woman like yourself with your own show on TV still brings tears to my eyes …Namekhoda!”
She looks deeply into my soul with her crinkly blue eyes.
“You are my pride, you’re like my own daughter, sadqe saret shawum. I just had one thought my dear. You didn’t put quite enough salt on your buranee banjan…the dish needs the saltiness to balance out the tomato, dear, and you don’t want the eggplant to be watery. Its the star of the dish. ”
She rubs her slender henna stained fingers together to emphasis how close I’d been to getting it right “emeeeeqa gak degam parto my dear Mariam jan.”
“Thank you Khala Hamida, I will definitely keep that in mind. It’s no secret you’re the better cook, but you’re too busy for TV.”
She blushes as I tease her with the loving banter we’ve developed over the years. I wish her a good morning, decline her offer for tea from her thermos, and promise her, more salt next time.
Cooking advice comes with the territory, and it’s a small price to pay for having my dream job. I’d imagined hosting my own cooking show every day since I was five years old. I had been teaching my siblings to cook eggs one morning, when my father laughed and said You make it so entertaining, it’s like a TV show.
Back then Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban who forbade television all together. We had no free media, never mind women in the public eye. Every morning as I enter, the thought crosses my mind that I’m doing what was once considered impossible. Not to my father though. He always repeated You’re a natural. The whole world should learn cooking from you.
I take all the unsolicited advice from viewers of my show, Meyman e Mariam, without complaint and with much gratitude. My aunt called me just last night to say I had put too much salt on the very same buranee banjan dish Khala Hamida critiqued. “You don’t want to dry out the eggplant Mano dear,” my aunt had said, sneaking in my family nickname to soften the insult.
Suggestions, or rather opinions, are a constant. My cooking with plastic gloves is approved by half the audience and annoys the rest. My jokes while chopping the onions delight some viewers and sicken others who use words like childish and improper to describe me. The stage requires thick skin, especially for women in the public eye.
I walk past the outdoor canteen where eggs are frying and the early arrivers from various departments are chatting over green tea and hot bread. I wave to Elias and Zubair from the editing team as I walk by more repurposed homes that have become a collection of offices and recording studios. Some houses remain as the structures families once lived in, now hosting production offices and finance teams. And some of those old homes have been demolished to have studios built in place. I follow the sound of the loud generator to our show’s office. Not in a house or new studio, but a repurposed shipping container because there’s no other space. Some of the women on the news team think we still don’t have an office because the men in management are being sexist. I think maybe this time they’re wrong. The company is constantly expanding because audiences in Afghanistan are hungry for the return of free media. It’s good news that we’re low on space.
The loud rumblings from the massive machine next to our container give us a lot of privacy. Bezad, my assistant producer, is there before me as usual. Sitting at his desk and typing away, his fluffy curls poke out from behind his laptop.
“Sob Bakhair Bezad jan!”
His chair slides back as he stands. He’s the only male on our small team and always respectfully has his hand to his heart when he greets any of us.
“Good morning Khanum Mariam!”
“Bezad jan! It looks like you want your birthday to last a week, do you?”
He blushes but knows I am only teasing him. The withering balloons taped on his desk by his friends are pleasant sight. A reminder that outside of this room where Bezad is formal and shy around his female colleagues, he has a lot of fun with his friends in the other departments of the office. Young men like him, no older than twenty were excited to surprise and embarrass him with balloons and a box of cream rolls that he shared with as many people as he could. He’s updated the shooting schedule on the whiteboard, in English so our boss Allan, the executive producer can read it. I’ve never managed to arrive earlier than him, but he always claims he just arrived, I suspect to help me save face.
“Bezad jan, please can you make sure all the groceries are purchased before ten? I have a meeting with Allan this morning. Don’t get the eggs with the stamps on them, it looks so bad on camera. Local eggs! Still warm to the touch if you can.”
Bezad nods. I used to hate that he doesn’t write things down, but I’ve learned that usually it’s me who misses an item or two, and Bezad quietly takes care of it. I once heard from one of the women that his dream is to produce a full feature film and I don’t doubt that he will.
“I’ll save you a piece of the cardamom cake, I promise,” I smile.
“From your hands, the food is always delicious Khanum Mariam,” he says on his way out, moving quickly with his little black Nokia phone in hand. The ID badge around his neck has to be worn on office grounds, but like the rest of us Afghan staff, he will remove it once he is outside.
An hour later I’m in a quiet air-conditioned office with wooden floors and a water dispenser. A suit jacket hangs on a wooden coat hanger and a large window overlooks a rose filled backyard garden. Allan’s office is always so quiet. From behind his large wooden desk, he presses a button to alert his assistant Karim, who promptly sets a cup of tea in front of Allan and one on the side table next to me.
“Mariam, is everything looking good for the Eid show? I told the set team they will get extra budget to decorate accordingly.”
I nod along to the small talk. I like Allan as a person. He’s polite and he doesn’t leer at women like some others. But I don’t know him much beyond that. He’s the third producer I’ve had to answer to since I got this job and I don’t find him particularly involved in the department, which is fine by me. Marco, the man before him, had it in his head that he should redesign the show, trying to inject his own idea of what a cooking show should look like. Every week I’d roll my eyes at the YouTube videos of American chefs screaming into the camera. Allan doesn’t do much beyond asking us for updates in weekly meetings before he goes on a business trip abroad.
Generally we like the space he gives us. But when Allan emails me with the subject line “quick chat,” I anticipate news that will annoy me.
As I await bad news of some kind, I take a sip from my tea and picture my father, who tells me there’s nothing I can’t solve. Ko ar cheqa beland basha, sar e khud ra dara my little Mano, he tells me. And he’s right, there is a path on every mountain. I would steer my way around whatever Allan had to say.
“I received a death threat about our show,” he says in his thick accent. He takes a big slurp of tea, knowing that I’ll have something to say.
My lips are pursed as I try to hold in my irritation. This did not require a meeting. I inhale and try to translate quickly to English, the thoughts that sound so clear to my mind in my native tongue.
“Mr. Allan. Threats are normal thing for woman on TV. We all have threat. The woman in news, Shukria from talk show, all of us.”
Allan opens his mouth to talk, but I have been preparing for this conversation to repeat, since last time he’d made a thing of it.
“I have received threats since two years sir, it’s not problem for me. Do you know a lady…Melanie Maddock? She is from a food show in your country, Australia. I found on the internet that she have also death threat. I think so, it’s normal for TV woman.”
Allan looks surprised. I lean back in my chair, satisfied that I’ve found my way over this mountain even faster than usual. He scratches his white hair. “Err no.. I don’t reckon I know her, but this threat is different from last time Mariam.”
He hands me a sheet of paper and begins to fiddle with a pen while I read the contents. It’s a printout of a message sent to the show’s email address. It says Mariam is a whore. The writer says that my singing embarrasses them and that I should be at home. I’m not bothered. I had told Allan last time that I’m used to hearing words like this. I’d explained that Afghanistan has gone back very quickly to many things that existed before the Taliban. In the 70s and 80s it was normal to have women on TV. Just recent years ago however, women’s faces weren’t even seen in market places. Of course it makes sense that some people, mostly men, aren’t ready for rapid change. I don’t care! This is all gibberish to me. I continue to skim the paragraphs until I arrive at what is presumably making Allan squirm in his leather office chair.
I know where her assistant Bezad lives. I will take him, I will beat him and I will cut his ears off, and then I will kill him.
The email goes on to give details on Bezad’s address, his family members’ names and his schedule. My head begins to spin with confusion and building anxiety. I set the paper down next to the tea so roughly that it swishes around in the cup.
“Why…why you don’t tell him? Why you tell me only?”
Allan takes a breath and straightens his back. He speaks gently.
“He knows. He won’t quit and says he has his father’s blessing”. Allan shrugs and continues. “He’s convinced it’s a prank but his mother is terrified. She called me directly, Mariam, many times. She wants to meet with you, and wants you to fire him for his safety. I promised I’d ask. I know Mariam, it’s not fair to you, but…”
“Yes, it’s not fair! Every day I am worrying for my family and my father says to my mother, let her to work. She is so talented, she is our pride. Now you are making me to be in control for Bezad? What about the company? Why you don’t give him safe car like you have? And guards?”
As I spit the words in his direction, I know what I’m saying is pointless, and directed somewhere that isn’t Allan specifically. National staff don’t get armoured vehicles or bodyguards, they never have. Such an understood policy that Allan doesn’t even bother addressing it.
“I’m just keeping you informed Mariam. We didn’t give his mother your phone number obviously, but she is determined to speak with you. Do what you want with the information, I can’t decide for you.”
He looks uncomfortably at his phone and I know he’s about to tell me he’s busy or has some urgent meeting to attend. Before he can dismiss me, I stand and try to sound calm to avoid any repercussions or labels of rudeness.
“Thank you, Mr. Allan for telling me. I will go for filming. I know also, you are very busy.”
Allan nods, thanks me for coming and buzzes Karim to take away the cups. I head to studio B, downstairs in the same building as his soundproof office. A few deep breaths and nods of hello to colleagues I pass in the hall don’t calm me. I don’t say much as Zuhal does my hair and makeup. The fashionable young girl who usually giggles with me about her fiancé and his antics, respects my mood today. She quietly pats blush on my cheeks and sprays my hair, pinning my signature headscarf in place. I wear one at all times, but for the show I switch to one my father bought for me, when I was first hired. It’s navy blue with tiny lemons on it.
Don’t misunderstand it to mean you are sour, Mano! he had joked. My father is my biggest supporter, I remind myself. I know telling him about Bezad will make me feel better, though I also know he won’t give me advice.
You must grow through both right and wrong choices. I won’t tell you what to do, that is your heart’s job.
Zuhal sprays me with her favourite perfume. She has been teased for this, wasting perfume for TV cameras—but says her job of beautifying is not complete without it. She smiles tenderly and rubs a circle on my back as I head to the studio. The camera and lighting guys are adjusting the angles towards the set and nod to greet me.
The marble counter I film behind has perfectly laid out ceramic bowls of small fresh local eggs, sugar, and mixing cups. There’s a bowl of rose buds and another of crushed pistachio for decorating the cake. I look at the milk in the glass jug to ensure there’s enough. I don’t have assistants prepare anything in advance for me. I cook in real time and we edit accordingly, so it has to come out perfectly. The ingredients look just right. Cook with love, like it is for me every time! my father always says. That reminder always puts me at ease, able to hum songs and tell the jokes so many viewers enjoy, no matter what else is going on.
As I see Bezad add a vase of fresh yellow roses to the set, I take a deep breath. I will cook with love, like it is for my father, for all women on TV, and for Bezad. He looks up and greets me, with his hand on his heart.
Photo by Åsa Pålsson on Unsplash
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