DATELINE AFGHANISTAN: Saturday, May 4, 2002
06/14/2002
I'd never met a king before, or an ex-king for that matter. So when Mohammad Zahir Shah enters the living room, I'm not sure what to do.
The elder monarch extends his hand, slightly drooped, as if expecting me to kiss it.
I shake it instead.
Hashim Mohmand, my translator, rushes over and rubs his face against Zahir Shah's hand and kisses it. Both men are Pashtuns, members of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
This is not how I envisioned meeting with Afghan royalty. My shoes are caked in mud, my hat soaked in sweat and my pants stained with mutton juice.
I had just returned from the minefield when I got the message to head to the royal residence, a relatively modest house behind the Pakistani embassy.
Zahir Shah, 87, takes a seat in a plush white chair in front of a large Afghan flag in the living room. His assistant says I cannot ask questions (those must be submitted in writing), but I am welcome to shoot pictures.
The king is wearing a gray suit and light blue tie. His cheeks are ruddy. He is smiling. He says nothing.
Zahir Shah returned to Afghanistan on April 18. He had been living in exile in Rome since his cousin forced him to abdicate his throne in 1973.
The former king's cousin, son-in-law and close adviser, Gen. Abdul Wali, walks over and sits next to Zahir Shah. Dressed in a black leather jacket, Wali, 77, leans his cane against the chair.
Earlier that afternoon, Wali allowed me to speak with him for 15 minutes, as we sipped orange soda from tall glasses in a corner of the royal residence.
Wali wouldn't say whether Zahir Shah should be restored to the throne during the loya jirga, but he thinks his cousin can help unify the country in any capacity.
"I don't consider him my cousin. I consider him my king and my master," Wali says in an impeccable British accent.
The king's two grown grandchildren hover around the aging monarch, making sure he's comfortable.
Zahir Shah has some of the tightest security in Kabul. At the gate, a soldier wearing gray fatigues and holding a machine gun takes my backpack and examines my camera, while another pats every inch of my clothing. He even looks under my hat.
A man posing as a journalist tried to kill Zahir Shah in 1990, while he was in Rome. Now that the monarch has returned to Afghanistan, he's not taking any chances.
Zahir Shah has a busy schedule today.
He will meet with more than 100 people, mostly tribal leaders coming from across the country to pay their respects and ask for his help in resolving disputes.
"He's not the king in an executive position," says Zia Mojadedi, his assistant. "But it's hard to convince them he's not the king."
The Pakistan ambassador has arrived. My time is up.
I retrieve my backpack from the guards and walk through the gate. Outside, there's a man wearing a black and white checked scarf and dark sunglasses.
It's Jack.
I hadn't seen him since he fired a gun into the sofa I was sitting on at the Mustafa Hotel. Now, he's standing outside the royal residence among a crowd of tribal leaders in turbans.
"How's Afghanistan?" he asks.
I tell him it's been great, but I have to run.
