We have just started a new cookery course for people with disabilities. The instructor is Fatàh Jan, my cook. The latest pupil is Bilal, aged 26, who has one leg paralysed from the knee down from a projectile, when he was a boy. The course should have lasted six months, but there wasn’t enough time so Fatàh Jan had to cut it down to three. With the arrival of the foreign organizations the demand for cooks has increased. Can’t let the opportunity slip – especially if the request comes from the BBC, the radio everyone listens to – a much coveted job.
I remember the final revision session the week before the interview. My kitchen looked like a restaurant: new recipes, dishes all prepared, quantities never before seen. Master and pupil wanted me to try everything. If I said it tasted good, everything had to stop. Didn’t I like it? They were incredulous, they got angry. Then Bilal spent the night studying English. I don’t know how many times I had told him to do that, but he had never listened to me.
The day of the test arrives. Bilal comes recommended, certainly, but he is still only a beginner. However, they tell me he was quite self-assured and that his English is actually pretty good. Afghan miracles. Now that he’s been taken on, he spends every morning closeted in great secrecy with Fatàh Jan, getting suggestions for the day’s menu. Then bit by bit he gains experience. He makes his own decisions and comes to ask for advice only when there are a lot of guests, or if it’s an important meal.
Today he tells us he has cooked for twenty people. “Pizza.” I look reproachfully at Fatàh Jan who never makes that for me. "Chicken pizza", he adds proudly. Oh. "How was the chicken cooked?" I ask. " On the spit. Served whole, placed on top”, and with his arms and his whole body he imitates the position. Three cheers for the BBC and the English, fine hearty eaters.
But there are other foreigners who are a good deal more demanding. A few days ago I had dinner with some embassy officials. “It’s so hard to get good staff”, complained the blonde hostess, brusque and irritable. I look at the maid, a Hazara woman who has probably been on her feet since four in the morning to attend to who knows how many children, get everything done and arrive on time.
The blonde says something to her in an English so pure and fast that even I find it hard to understand. She gets up crossly, making a grimace. The Hazara woman gives a quick, apologetic smile. I see that she is full of goodwill: when I reply to her, in Dari, that I do take sugar in my tea, she stirs it carefully. But the foreign lady is not happy: the shirts always have creases and the curtains are badly hung.
“The problem is, she’s not in the least methodical”, she concludes. Raising her eyes to heaven, with a sigh.
Alberto Cairo
