bonnie tsui


December 12, 2001
A Snapshot of the Helmand

There's a picture hanging on my bedroom wall that I look at every day: A young waiter in a black vest, crisp white shirt, and long checked apron is standing sideways in an open doorway, chatting with another waiter. He is looking towards the camera, and seems surprised, as if he suddenly realizes he is being observed.

I took that picture in 1998 at The Helmand, an Afghan restaurant in Cambridge. A good friend first took me there and I loved its warm interior and uniquely-flavored dishes. I was taking a photography class at the time, and when I had to choose a subject for the final project, my decision was easy. The open-air bread oven, the waiters' simple uniforms, the quiet elegance of the staff—in essence, the Helmand chose itself.

The restaurant, in East Cambridge, is named for a river in Afghanistan. The interior is Western-style, with bright yellow walls and beautiful rugs, and it's one of three restaurants owned by the Karzai family. The first location in Chicago has since closed, but Qayum Karzai opened and still runs the location in Baltimore, while Mahmood started the Helmand in San Francisco. IN 1994, Mahmood also opened the Boston location. Their sister, Fozia Karzai, and her husband, Zaki Royan, now manage the Cambridge restaurant.

Last week their brother, Hamid Karzai, who had been a deputy foreign minister in the pre-Taliban government, was named interim prime minister of Afghanistan. The restaurant's phone began ringing off the hook.

But when I photographed them just three years ago, Fozia Karzai and Royan were going about the daily business of preparing their unusual food and trying to explain it to an eager public.

When I visited—always about 4 p.m., when preparations were underway for dinner—Zaki fed me the staff's communal meal. Vegetarian kaddo, pan-fried and baked sweet baby pumpkin with yogurt sauce, was my favorite dish on the menu (and is immensely popular among customers). But by far the best things I've eaten there were dishes that weren't on the menu, for which I don't know the names: chicken with thick spicy sauces, sauteed green vegetables with rice. I ate with Zaki, next to the open-air bread oven and its flickering light.

Afghan food is labor-intensive and aromatic. The Helmand serves a lot of vegetable dishes, but there are also many made with beef and lamb. Yogurt, hot peppers, garlic, mint, and cilantro all play major roles. Spices are blended from black and green cardamom, cumin, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

The Helmand is only open for dinner and the dining room, when I was there, was always packed at night. From my post at the back along the restaurant's wine wall, I stood with Jamal, a young headwaiter. He had a gracious, soft-spoken manner. As he canvassed the crowd, I tried to be unobtrusive as I photographed him in the dim light. We discovered that we both had friends and family in Queens, New York, where I was born, and he spoke about the difficulties of making friends in Cambridge.

"I only really know how to get from home to the restaurant and back," he'd say sheepishly. I always tried to encourage him to meet my friends for a drink, but he never took me up on it. Later, he told me that his name wasn't really Jamal, but Jamil; I had misheard him the first time he said it. But he never corrected me. When I asked why, he smiled and shrugged. "I like it," he said. "It's different."

Many of the restaurant staff traded turns on six-month-long (or more) work shifts, so they could return to their families in Afghanistan. Musafer, the burly, bearded bread maker, spent his evenings making flatbreads in the open oven in the dining room. Though he didn't speak much English, he always had a bag of breads waiting for me to take home at the end of the night. When he left, indefinitely, to visit an ailing family member, I missed his big presence and his patient stance as I took pictures of him working at the oven. He was often leaning against a counter, waiting for his bread to bake.

Much of the time in a restaurant is waiting: for an order to go in, the dough to rise, the oven to heat, the sauce to boil. Musafer's face never showed strain as he moved along the counter, kneading dough, tossing it high in the air, thrusting it into the intense heat of the oven. As he baked, he had the best view in the house; as soon as he pulled the loaves out of the oven and set them in baskets, they were whisked away to grateful patrons seated in front of him. This was his role at the restaurant, and he filled it with an easy grace that belied his large frame.

Daoud, who cut a dignified figure as a headwaiter when I first arrived, later became a cook when the head chef went back home. To me, Daoud personified the idea of welcome. He made sure I had what I needed to do my work, and that I was always fed.

"Try this," he would urge me as he chopped and seasoned some meat. Or he would gesture to a fresh pot of vegetables: "Would you like some of this?" Food was the basis of our friendship.

One day after my photography project was finished, Daoud met me in Harvard Square for lunch, dressed to the nines. I had never seen him out of his waiter's uniform. He insisted on treating me, and invited me to go to Afghanistan one day to visit his family. There was always something a little sad in his demeanor and it seemed clear that he missed his family and his homeland; I like to think that in some way, our conversations and our friendship eased that feeling.

What did I know about his homeland? Not much. It was years before anyone's eyes would turn to Afghanistan with the rapt attention they have focused today. After September 11, I found myself wondering where my friends are now.

I worked up the courage to call Zaki. Did he remember me?

"Of course," he said. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," I said, "but I'm calling to find out how you are."

We chatted for a while. Business had slowed for a few weeks after the attacks, he said, but had since returned to full capacity. Things were going well. And my friends?

"Daoud moved to New Jersey with his family," Zaki reported. "You remember Jamil? He's still here, and Musafer is back, still making bread."

I felt a bit like a lost relative asking about the kids. I asked him how he felt about the events of the last two months, and the changes taking place in his homeland.

"I hope that everything will be better than before in Afghanistan," said Zaki. "I hope it will be soon."

Now when I look at the photos, I see Jamil waiting on a table; Musafer just before he returned home; Daoud about to move his family here.

And then there's the picture on my wall. Omar is facing the camera. Jamil stands outside the door in the background, waiting to come inside. In the photograph, a transition like that seems more poignant.

Could either have guessed what lay ahead?


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