In the backseat, the boys humor him and listen for a short while, or at least pretend to. Idris can sense their boredom. Then Zabi, who is eight, asks Nahil to start the movie. Lemar, who is two years older, tries to listen a little longer, but soon Idris hears the drone of a racing car from his Nintendo DS.
“What’s the matter with you boys?” Nahil scolds them. “Your father’s come back from Kabul. Aren’t you curious? Don’t you have questions for him?”
“It’s all right,” Idris says. “Let them.” But he is annoyed with their lack of interest, their blithe ignorance of the arbitrary genetic lottery that has granted them their privileged lives. He feels a sudden rift between himself and his family, even Nahil, most of whose questions about his trip revolve around restaurants and the lack of indoor plumbing. He looks at them accusingly now as the locals must have looked at him when he’d first arrived in Kabul.
“I’m famished,” he says.
“What do you feel like?” Nahil says. “Sushi, Italian? There’s a new deli over by Oakridge.”
“Let’s get Afghan food,” he says.
They go to Abe’s Kabob House over on the east side of San Jose near the old Berryessa Flea Market. The owner, Abdullah, is a gray-haired man in his early sixties, with a handlebar mustache and strong-looking hands. He is one of Idris’s patients, as is his wife. Abdullah waves from behind the register when Idris and his family enter the restaurant. Abe’s Kabob House is a small family business. There are only eight tables—sheathed by often sticky vinyl covers—laminated menus, posters of Afghanistan on the walls, an old soda machine, a “merchandiser,” in the corner. Abdullah greets the guests, runs the register, cleans. His wife, Sultana, is in the back; she is the one responsible for the magic. Idris can see her now in the kitchen, stooped over something, her hair stuffed up under a net cap, her eyes narrowed against the steam. She and Abdullah had married in Pakistan in the late 1970s, they have told Idris, after the communist takeover back home. They were granted asylum in the U.S. in 1982, the year their daughter, Pari, was born.
She is the one taking their orders now. Pari is friendly and courteous, has her mother’s fair skin, and the same shine of emotional sturdiness in her eyes. She also has a strangely disproportionate body, slim and dainty up top but weighed below the waist by wide hips, thick thighs, and big ankles. She is wearing now one of her customary loose skirts.
Idris and Nahil order lamb with brown rice and bolani. The boys settle for chapli kabobs, the closest thing to hamburger meat they can find on the menu. As they wait for their food, Zabi tells Idris that his soccer team has made the finals. He plays right wing. The match is on Sunday. Lemar says he has a guitar recital on Saturday.
“What are you playing?” Idris asks sluggishly, feeling jet lag kicking in.
“ ‘Paint It Black.’ ”
“Very cool.”
“Not sure you’ve practiced enough,” Nahil says with cautious reprimand.
Lemar drops the paper napkin he has been rolling. “Mom! Really? Do you see what I go through every day? I have so much to do!”
Midway through the meal, Abdullah comes over to them to say hello, wiping his hands on the apron tied around his waist. He asks if they like the food, whether he can get them anything.
Idris tells him that he and Timur have just returned from Kabul.
“What is Timur jan up to?” Abdullah asks.
“To no good as always.”
Abdullah grins. Idris knows how fond he is of Timur.
“And how is the kabob business?”
Abdullah sighs. “Dr. Bashiri, if I ever want to put a curse on someone I say, ‘May God give you a restaurant.’ ”
They share a brief laugh with Abdullah.
Later, as they are leaving the restaurant and climbing into the SUV, Lemar says, “Dad, does he give free food to everyone?”
“Of course not,” Idris says.
“Then why wouldn’t he take your money?”
“Because we’re Afghans, and because I’m his doctor,” Idris says, which is only partially true. The bigger reason, he suspects, is that he is Timur’s cousin, and it was Timur who had years earlier lent Abdullah the money to open the restaurant.
At the house, Idris is surprised at first to find the carpets ripped from the family room and foyer, nails and wooden boards on the stairs exposed. Then he remembers that they were remodeling, replacing carpets with hardwood—wide planks of cherry in a color the flooring contractor had called copper kettle. The cabinet doors in the kitchen have been sanded down, and there is a gaping hole where the old microwave used to sit. Nahil tells him she is working a half day on Monday so she can meet in the morning with the flooring people and Jason.
“Jason?” Then he remembers, Jason Speer, the home-theater guy.
“He’s coming in to take measurements. He’s already got us the subwoofer and the projector at a discount. He’s sending three guys to start work on Wednesday.”
Idris nods. The home theater had been his idea, something he had always wanted. But now it embarrasses him. He feels disconnected from all of it, Jason Speer, the new cabinets and copper-kettle floors, his kids’ $160 high-tops, the chenille bedspreads in his room, the energy with which he and Nahil have pursued these things. The fruits of his ambitions strike him as frivolous now. They remind him only of the brutal disparity between his life and what he’d found in Kabul.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“Jet lag,” Idris says. “I need a nap.”
On Saturday he makes it through the guitar recital, on Sunday through most of Zabi’s soccer match. During the second half he has to steal away to the parking lot, sleep for a half hour. To his relief, Zabi doesn’t notice. Sunday night, a few of the neighbors come over for dinner. They pass around pictures of Idris’s trip and sit politely through the hour of video of Kabul that, against Idris’s wishes, Nahil insists on playing for them. Over dinner, they ask Idris about his trip, his views on the situation in Afghanistan. He sips his mojito and gives short answers.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like there,” Cynthia says. Cynthia is a Pilates instructor at the gym where Nahil works out.
“Kabul is …” Idris searches for the right words. “A thousand tragedies per square mile.”
“Must have been quite the culture shock, going there.”
“Yes it was.” Idris doesn’t say that the real culture shock has been in coming back.