Deborah Rodriguez - Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil

Contents

This book is dedicated to my father, Junior Turner, who passed away June 5, 2002, while I was on my first trip to Afghanistan. Dad, I never got a chance to tell you about Afghanistan and the school.

You left me too soon. I know you would love Sam, my husbandhe is just like you, but Afghan style. I know you would be worried, but also very happy that I am following my dream. I miss you.

T he women arrive at the salon just before eight in the morning. If it were any other day, Id still be in bed, trying to sink into a few more minutes of sleep. Id probably still be cursing the neighbors rooster for waking me up again at dawn. I might even still be groaning about the vegetable dealers who come down the street at three in the morning with their noisy, horse-drawn wagons, or the neighborhood mullah, who warbles out his long, mournful call to prayer at four-thirty. But this is the day of Roshannas engagement party, so Im dressed and ready for work. Ive already had four cigarettes and two cups of instant coffee, which I had to make by myself because the cook has not yet arrived. This is more of a trial than you might think, since Ive barely learned how to boil water in Afghanistan. When I have to do it myself, I put a lit wooden match on each of the burners of the cranky old gas stove, turn one of the knobs, and back off to see which of the burners explodes into flame. Then I settle a pot of water there and pray that whatever bacteria are floating in the Kabul water today are killed by the boiling.

The mother-in-law comes into the salon first, and we exchange the traditional Afghan greeting: we clasp hands and kiss each others cheeks three times. Roshanna is behind her, a tiny, awkward, blue ghost wearing the traditional burqa that covers her, head to toe, with only a small piece of netting for her to see out the front. But the netting has been pulled crooked, across her nose, and she bumps into the doorway. She laughs and flutters her arms inside the billowing fabric, and two of her sisters-in-law help her navigate her way through the door. Once inside, Roshanna snatches the burqa off and drapes it over the top of one of the hair dryers.

This was like Taliban days again, she cries, because she hasnt worn the burqa since the Taliban were driven out of Kabul in the fall of 2001. Roshanna usually wears clothes that she sews herselfbrilliant shalwar kameezes or saris in shades of orchid and peach, lime green and peacock blue. Roshanna usually stands out like a butterfly against the gray dustiness of Kabul and even against the other women on the streets, in their mostly drab, dark clothing. But today she observes the traditional behavior of a bride on the day of her engagement party or wedding. She has left her parents house under cover of burqa and will emerge six hours later wearing her body weight in eye shadow, false eyelashes the size of sparrows, monumentally big hair, and clothes with more bling than a Ferris wheel. In America, most people would associate this look with drag queens sashaying off to a party with a 1950s prom theme. Here in Afghanistan, for reasons I still dont understand, this look conveys the mystique of the virgin.

The cook arrives just behind the women, whispering that shell make the tea, and Topekai, Baseera, and Bahar, the other beauticians, rush into the salon and take off their head scarves. Then we begin the joyful, gossipy, daylong ordeal of transforming twenty-year-old Roshanna into a traditional Afghan bride. Most salons would charge up to $250about half the annual income for a typical Afghanfor the brides services alone. But I am not only Roshannas former teacher but also her best friend, even though Im more than twenty years older. She is my first and best friend in Afghanistan. I love her dearly, so the salon services are just one of my gifts to her.

We begin with the parts of Roshanna that no one will see tonight except her husband. Traditional Afghans consider body hair to be both ugly and unclean, so she must be stripped of all of it except for the long, silky brown hair on her head and her eyebrows. There can be no hair left on her arms, underarms, face, or privates. Her body must be as soft and hairless as that of a prepubescent girl. We lead Roshanna down the corridor to the waxing roomthe only one in Afghanistan, I might addand she grimaces as she sits down on the bed.

You could have done it yourself at home, I tease her, and the others laugh. Many brides are either too modest or too fearful to have their pubic hair removed by others in a salon, so they do it at homethey either pull it out by hand or rip it out with chewing gum. Either way, the process is brutally painful. Besides, its hard to achieve the full Brazilianevery pubic hair plucked, front and backwhen you do it on your own, even if youre one of the few women in this country to own a large mirror, as Roshanna does.

At least you know your husband is somewhere doing this, too, Topekai says with a leer. My girls giggle at this reference to the grooms attention to his own naked body today. He also must remove all of his body hair.

But he only has to shave it off! Roshanna wails, then blushes and looks down. I know she doesnt want to appear critical of her new husband, whom she hasnt yet met, in front of her mother-in-law. She doesnt want to give the older woman any reason to find fault with her, and when Roshanna looks back up again, she smiles at me anxiously.

But the mother-in-law seems not to have heard her. She has been whispering outside the door with one of her daughters. When she turns her attention back to the waxing room, she looks at Roshanna with a proud, proprietary air.

The mother-in-law had picked Roshanna out for her son a little more than a year after Roshanna graduated from the first class at the Kabul Beauty School, in the fall of 2003, and opened her own salon. The woman was a distant cousin who came in for a perm. She admired this pretty, plucky, resourceful girl who had been supporting her parents and the rest of her family ever since they fled into Pakistan to escape the Taliban. After she left Roshannas salon, she started asking around for further details about the girl. She liked what she heard.

Roshannas father had been a doctor, and the family had led a privileged life until they fled to Pakistan in 1998. There, he was not allowed to practice medicinea typical refugee storyand had to work as a lowly shoeshine man. By the time they returned to Kabul, he was in such ill health that he couldnt practice medicine. Still, he staunchly carried out his fatherly duties by accompanying Roshanna everywhere to watch over her. The mother-in-law had detected no whiff of scandal about Roshanna, except perhaps her friendship with me. Even that didnt put her off, since foreign women are not held to the same rigorous standards as Afghan women. We are like another gender entirely, able to wander back and forth between the two otherwise separate worlds of men and women; when we do something outrageous, like reach out to shake a mans hand, its usually a forgivable and expected outrage. The mother-in-law may even have regarded me as an asset, a connection to the wealth and power of America, as nearly all Afghans assume Americans are rich. And we are, all of us, at least in a material sense. Anyway, the mother-in-law was determined to secure Roshanna as the first wife for her elder son, an engineer living in Amsterdam. There was nothing unusual about this. Nearly all first marriages in Afghanistan are arranged, and it usually falls to the mans mother to select the right girl for him. He may take on a second or even third wife later on, but that first virginal lamb is almost as much his mothers as his.