The little horror

Posted by Lianne Gutcher at 21:59 on 29 Dec 2009

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"Why are you so desperate to snare a husband?"

This from a Kabul friend who has now returned to civvy street. He himself is divorced. He has also become a clandestine Marie Claire blog fan. "Happily no one has caught me reading," he confided.

To be honest, my husband-hunting persona is sort of a defence mechanism. It helps dispel any pressure - real, imagined, perceived or self-imposed - that getting married and settled is what I ought be doing. It also dispels an uncomfortable feeling I get when I look at my married friends, many of whom are now having babies, that I am somehow being left behind.

On the whole though, I am mostly quite happy and while I would quite like a boyfriend, I am not that bothered about walking down the isle. I must be absolutely clear on this point. Kabul is small and I fear that if word gets out I am harbouring some crazy entrapment plan, I will never get a date in this town again. Ever.

To cheer myself this festive season, I have been finding solace in the unlikely source of pashtu poetry. Songs of Love and War is a collection of two-line couplets that have been improvised by village girls as they fetch water at the well.  

And it strikes me that, bad as it may be to be an ageing spinster, it's even worse to have a husband forced upon you.

Pashtu girls are articles of exchange (the couplets were collected in the eighties but this holds true) and the husbands they are forced to marry are frequently either mere children or decrepit old men. So, for example, as one couplet goes:

Fate brought me as husband a child I must raise
But, God, when he is tall and strong, I shall be old and weak.

Afghan women are strong, I wasn't in any doubt about that. But I was thrilled to learn about their rebellion, longing and love affairs at risk of death.

There is no tenderness or faithfulness expressed for the husband in this poetry. Love and faithfulness are reserved for the lover. Indeed, the husband is referred to as the "little horror."

I am quite taken aback by how explicit this poetry is.

Stretched out I want to take him into me,
But my lover is alarmed. He fears the the "little horror" might awaken.

And I am also quite shocked by the provocation:

Come and kiss me without thinking of the danger.
What does it matter if they kill you!
True men always die for the love of a beautiful woman.

And the mockery:

May God prohibit you from any pleasure as you travel
Since you left me while I, as yet unsatisfied, was sleeping.

Ouch.

So, much cheered, back to the boyfriend issue.

Father Christmas has clearly failed to meet the Dec 25 deadline this year for a boy in my stocking. Christmas stocking, I mean. Not suspender stocking. That would be OK too but all in due course. So I am going to suggest that Father Christmas teams up with the Tooth Fairy - who owes me BIG TIME for the four wisdom teeth I've just had out - and, hell, they can rope in the Easter Bunny if they want, for the task of delivering me a boy. We will split the difference between Christmas and Easter and set a new deadline of - what ho! - Feb 14. Is that cool with you, San'a Claus?

Now we have that settled, a belated Merry Christmas to you all and I do hope that 2010 brings much happiness.

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