Kabul day 2: A roll in the night and the Ring of Steel.

Going out for dinner is the only time for me to see the city, as most of the time is spent confined in compunds. This is also the only time for me to experience anything noteworthy (hopefully). The drive over starts before nightfall, but it is the return in the dark that fascinates me. It is in the night that all things stand out and draws shape from whatever random source of light that may be near. What lurkes in the dark, sleeps in the day.

Kabul near dusk is busy. We drive past restaurants, mosques, shops, tailors, universities, government buildings, people are everyhwere. A zoo, I see a big camel. Kabul river opens the city for a while and an unuttered beauty and faint recollections of greatness is painted in water colour in the shallow river. We pass the place where the last attack on Kabul happened; a group of terrorists wanted to attack the Border Police in January, but did not manage to get through the security perimeter. So what they did instead was to go for the Traffic Police next door. Plan B sucks, could they not have parked illegally and refused to pay the fine instead?
The restaurant, Le Jardin, is accordingly the best protected restaurant in the city. Our driver stops in a dead end street. A high metal gate opens schreechingly, and we enter something that looks like a mine field. Through another steel door, we are searched with metal detectors before we can enter the last door (metal detectors remind me that if I should ever feel lonely, I should stuff my bra with coins and head back there). By the side of it there is a sign saying "no weapons"; Good to know, in case we for a moment should forget where we are. High walls encircles a garden, tables and chairs clutter the grass randomly. The cuisine is French-ish, but nice, slightly overpriced, but in this garden of no weapons and peace, I guess more than the price of smoked salmon is included in the sum at the bill.
We leave in the nightfall and the city is transformed yet again. Trolleys of fruits offer moments of lights in the otherwise dark drive. The lonely light of a spotlight, turns mountains of watermelons into cactai in a black desert, mangos turn into towers of gold. Kabul is surrounded by high rise constructions - during day time they are invisible, camouflaged in the pale mountains, but after dusk they rise up and thousands of windows light up the backdrop of the city.
It is a terrible realisation for my perception of my own humanity, but for any experienced traveller it is easy, too easy, to brush away beggars. Right before entering a Ring of Steel checkpoint, a woman, possibly old, cloaked in a blue frilly burka knocks on our window. Bent double over a walking stick, cupping her wrinkled hand in the air for it to be filled with some change. In return, not even percievable sympathy blows through her and we drive on.

Back home the Evening prayer has a sadness in it. A lonely iman tormented not by love for a woman, but for the absence of God, is lamenting the hardship of the mundane life to everyone within the reach of his voice. There is no escape from a heart broken priest with a microphone and a powerful speaker. I wish my life was that easy, however, I don't speak Arabic.