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back in his red leather chair and replied, “You Americans seem inordinately preoccupied with the chaderi. Look!” and he pointed to the chair in the hall. “My own granddaughter wears the chaderi and her mother graduated from the Sorbonne.” I looked again at the fawn-colored shroud.
    “Does your granddaughter enjoy doing so?” I asked.
    “We do not concern ourselves about that,” Shah Khan replied.
    “But the Russians do,” I responded, touching a sore point with the old man. “They say they will force you to set your women free, as they have done theirs.”
    I knew instinctively that he wanted to speak further on this point, that he agreed with me and the Russians that the chaderi must go or revolution come, but he stopped the conversation with this observation: “I learned today that the young woman from your embassy, Miss Maxwell, was assaulted by three mullahs from the hills. You rescued her, I believe. Then you know how powerful these fanatics still are. The chaderi will remain.”
    “I assured the Jaspars,” Moheb continued, “that Ellen would not have to wear one, but that Nazrul-Iah’s family would hate her if she didn’t. I also warned them that if Ellen appeared in public without the chaderi, mullahs might spit at her.” His voice grew harsh as he added, “Miller Sahib, I told the Jaspars of every fact relating to ferangi wives in Afghanistan and later on I told Ellen herself. I was as honest as a man could be. I warned her that if she married Nazrullah she would become a woman without a country, a woman without a judge to protect her, a woman with no human rights at all, an animal … an animal.” He rose and walked with great agitation up and down the fortress room. “And I remember exactly what I said, Miller, because a year later I had to tell another girl, from Baltimore this time, the same dismal story, and this girl had sense enough not to marry me, but your damned Miss Jaspar went ahead and married Nazrullah, and now senators are trying to find out where she is.”
    He fell into a chair, poured himself a drink and reflected, “This preposterous Afghan government. It says, ‘When young Afghans go abroad they must live like gentlemen.’ So the government provides huge expense accounts and we buy Cadillacs. What allowance do you suppose I got when I was at the Wharton School? One thousand dollars every month. No wonder the girls wanted to marry us. But when that same government brought me home, you know the salary I got—twenty-one dollars a month. Right now, Nazrullah heads an irrigation project west of Kandahar and earns twenty-seven dollars a month … more or less.”
    “Is his wife with him?” I asked bluntly.
    “Which wife?” Shah Khan asked.
    I was startled. “What do you mean, which wife?”
    “Didn’t you tell the Jaspars about that?” Shah Khan asked his son.
    “There are some things an Afghan doesn’t discuss in a foreign country,” Moheb replied.
    “Was Nazrullah married before he went to America?” I pressed.
    “He had a family wife, of course,” Shah Khan explained. “But that signifies nothing.”
    “That’s not in the file,” I protested.
    “Enter it now,” the old man said. “Nazrullah was married before he met the American girl. That should put the Jaspars at ease.” As soon as he had said this, he apologized. “I’m sorry, Miller Sahib. That was ungenerous. I’m as worried as the Jaspars must be. Where is their daughter? They haven’t heard from her, you tell me, in more than thirteen months? What a terrible burden on good parents.”
    The old man began to cry, and wiped tears from his dark eyes. Afghans, I had learned, were very apt to cry on little notice, but these tears were real.
    When he had mastered his weeping he added in a beautiful French whisper, “Our family showed the same prudence as Nazrullah’s. Before we allowed Moheb to leave for England we married him to a local girl from a good Muslim family. We reasoned, ‘Later on,