Bibi Gul tumbles out with Leila and the cousins in tow. Then on with the clothes. No one brought a change; they pull on the same clothes as the ones they arrived in. The burkas are pulled over clean heads: the burkas with their own odours. Little air gets in and so the burkas have their own peculiar smell. Bibi Gul’s reeks of the indeterminable aroma she surrounds herself with, old breath mixed with sweet flowers and something sour. Leila’s smells of young sweat and cooking-fumes. Actually, all the Khan family burkas stink of cooking-fumes, because they hang on nails near the kitchen. The women are now spotlessly clean under the burkas and the clothes, but the soft soap and the pink shampoo desperately fight against heavy odds. The women’s own smell is soon restored; the burkas force it down over them. The smell of old slave, young slave.

Bibi Gul walks ahead; for once the three young girls linger at the back. They walk together, giggling. In an empty street they whip off the burkas over their heads. Only little boys and dogs roam around here. The cooling wind feels good on their skin, which is still sweating. But the air is not fresh. The back streets and alleyways of Kabul stink of rubbish and sewage. A dirty ditch follows the mud road between the mud huts. But the girls are not aware of the stink from the ditch, or the dust which sticks to their skin and closes their pores. The sun gets to their skin and they laugh. Suddenly a man on a bicycle turns up.

‘Cover up, girls, I’m burning,’ he shouts as he whizzes past them. They look at each other and laugh at the funny expression on his face, but when he turns up again, they cover up.

‘When the King returns, I will never use my burka again,’ Leila says, suddenly serious. ‘Then we’ll have a peaceful country.’

‘He’ll surely never come back,’ the covered-up cousin objects.

‘They say he’ll return this spring,’ says Leila.

But until then it is safest to cover up, the three girls are anyhow alone.

Leila never walks alone. It is not good for a young girl to walk about without company. Who knows where she might be going? Maybe to meet a man, maybe to commit a sin. Leila does not even walk alone to the greengrocer a few minutes away from the apartment. She usually takes a neighbour’s boy along with her, or asks him to run errands for her. Alone is an unknown idea for Leila. She has never, ever, anywhere, at any time, been alone. She has never been alone in the apartment, never gone anywhere alone, and never remained anywhere alone, never slept alone. Every night she sleeps on the mat beside her mother. She quite simply does not know what it is to be alone, nor does she miss it. The only thing she wishes for is a bit more peace and not so much to do.

When she gets home, chaos reigns; cases, bags and suitcases everywhere.

‘Sharifa has come back! Sharifa!’ Bulbula points, happy that Leila has returned and can take over as hostess. Sultan and Sharifa’s youngest child, Shabnam, runs around like a happy filly. She hugs Leila, who hugs Sharifa. In the middle of it all, Sultan’s second wife Sonya stands smiling, her daughter Latifa on her arm. Unexpectedly, Sultan has brought Sharifa and Shabnam back from Pakistan.

‘For the summer,’ says Sultan.

‘For always,’ whispers Sharifa.

Sultan has gone to the bookshop, only the women remain. They sit down in a circle on the floor. Sharifa doles out presents. A dress for Leila, a shawl for Sonya, a bag for Bulbula, a cardigan for Bibi Gul and clothes and plastic jewellery for the rest of the family. For her sons she has several outfits, bought at Pakistani markets, clothes not available in Kabul. And she has her own precious things. ‘No going back,’ she says. ‘I hate Pakistan.’

But she knows that all rests in Sultan’s hands. If Sultan wants her to return, she will have to.

Sultan’s two wives sit and prattle like old friends. They inspect the material, try on blouses and jewellery. Sonya pats the things she was given for herself and her little daughter. Sultan rarely brings presents for his young wife, so Sharifa’s homecoming is a welcome interruption in her monotonous existence. She dresses Latifa in the pink tutu dress, which makes her look like a doll.

They exchange news. The women have not seen each other for over a year. There is no phone in the flat so they have not spoken either. The major happening in Kabul is Shakila’s wedding, which they recount in detail: the presents she got, the dresses they wore, other relations’ children, engagements, marriages or deaths.

Sharifa relates news from refugee life. Who has returned home, who has stayed. ‘Saliqa is engaged,’ she says. ‘It had to turn out like that, even if the family were against it. The boy owns nothing, he’s lazy too, useless,’ she says. Everyone agrees. They all remember Saliqa, always dressed up to kill, but they feel sorry for her because she has to marry a poverty-stricken layabout.

‘After they met in the park she was grounded for a month,’ Sharifa says. ‘Then one day the boy’s mother and aunt came to ask for her. Her parents agreed, they had no choice; the damage had already been done. And the engagement party! A scandal!’

The women listen wide-eyed. Especially Sonya. These are stories she can relate to with all her senses. Sharifa’s stories are her soap operas.

‘A scandal,’ Sharifa repeats, to underline the fact. It is customary that the groom-to-be’s family pay for the feast, the dress and the jewels when a young couple get engaged. When they were planning the party, the boy’s father put a few thousand rupees in Saliqa’s father’s hand. Saliqa’s father had returned from Europe to help resolve the family tragedy. When he saw the money he just threw it on the floor. ‘Do you think you can make an engagement party out of chicken feed?’ he shouted. Sharifa was sitting on the stairs listening to it all, so it is absolutely true. ‘No, you take your money and we’ll foot the bill,’ he said.

Saliqa’s father wasn’t flush with money either. He was waiting to be granted asylum in Belgium and to fetch his family over. Holland had already rejected him and he was now living on money given to him by the Belgian government. But an engagement party is an important symbolic ceremony, and an engagement is virtually unbreakable. If it dissolves the girl will have big problems marrying again, whatever the reason for the break. The engagement party is also an indication to the world how the family is coping. What sort of decorations? What did they cost? What sort of food? What did it cost? What sort of dress? What did it cost? Orchestra, how much did that cost? The party is supposed to show how the boy’s family value the new family member. If the feast is miserly, it means they do not appreciate the bride, nor her whole family. That her father had to run up a debt for an engagement party that no one but Saliqa and her sweetheart was happy about meant nothing compared to the shame of hosting a cheap party.

‘She’s already regretting it,’ Sharifa reveals. ‘Because he has no money. She soon saw what a good-for-nothing he is. But it’s too late now. If she breaks the engagement no one will want her. She walks around jingling six bracelets he gave her. She says they are gold, but I know, and she knows, that they are metal bracelets painted in gold colour. She didn’t even get a new dress for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Have you ever known a girl who didn’t get a new dress from her fiancé for New Year’s Eve?

‘He’s in their house all day now. Her mother has no control over what they do. Awful, awful, what a disgrace, I have told her,’ Sharifa says, before the three others bombard her with new questions.

About that one, and that one and that one. They still have many relatives in Pakistan, aunts, uncles and cousins who do not yet think the situation safe enough to return. Or they have nothing to return to: bombed house, mined land, burnt-down shop. But they all long for home, like Sharifa. It is nearly a year since she last saw her sons.