typist, who was quite plump.
“She told you the truth,” Sir Herbert interrupted. “Our man in Washington saw it last month. Laughed so much he airmailed me a script.”
There was a moment of emptiness, into which the Swedish girl said loudly, “Couldn’t we start? Miss Maxwell doesn’t participate until Act Two.”
“I think it would be better if we waited,” Sir Herbert insisted. “After all, the dear girl did much of the typing, Mr. Miller informs me.”
Miss Askwith added, “And after her bout with the mullahs …”
“Do you think the mullahs are gaining ground in their battle for control?” Sir Herbert asked Moheb Khan.
“No,” the Afghan replied cautiously. “On the other hand, they’re not losing ground, either.”
“Some time ago there was talk of discarding the chaderi,” Sir Herbert suggested, and our discussion proceeded from that point. I had found, even in my short stay, that Afghanistan had two topics of conversation which, were positively guaranteed to excite participation: the chaderi and the latest cure for diarrhea, for with the kind of drinking water available in Kabul, this latter scourge was sooner or later bound to infect everyone. Sure enough, not long after the chaderi was disposed of I heard Signorina Risposi advising the group.
“A German doctor has invented something much better than entero-vioform. It’s called sulfas, I believe. Developed during the war.”
“Does it work?” the Swedish girl was asking.
“My theory,” Sir Herbert interrupted, “has always been to fill the lower bowel with some bland bulk producer like one of the new mucils. You’d be surprised how this slows down the bowel action.”
“Really?” the Turkish ambassador’s wife pursued. “I’ve relied on entero-vioform, and it seems to concentrate rather effectively on the upper bowel. But when it fails, it fails.”
The dialogue now switched to French, for one of the scientists in that country had developed a radically new drug which the French ambassador’s wife was explaining, and I thought: This must be the only capital in the world where a sophisticated international audience can discuss with all seriousness the control of the upper and lower bowel. Yet no aspect of Afghan life was more significant than this, for when the virulent Asiatic diarrhea, known locally as the Kabul Trots, struck, it was not like a stomach ache back home. It was a sickness which nauseated, embarrassed, debilitated and outraged the human body. In a land where toilet facilities were not excessive, diarrhea was a scourge, and I was willing to gamble that not a single person in that softly lit room, lined with books, was without his or her secret vial of pills and even more secret roll of personal toilet paper.
“What do you do for the disease?” the French ambassador’s wife asked Moheb Khan in French.
“It’s very simple,” Moheb replied in lilting English. “You Europeans are always shocked at ouropen water supply into which little boys urinate. Or worse. But what happens? From drinking such water most of our children die, and that’s neither a curse nor a blessing. They die and that’s that. So the life expectancy in Afghanistan is about twenty-three years. But that figure doesn’t mean what it says, not really. For if by chance you are one of the babies who does not die, you are inoculated against positively everything. Look about you. See the large number of our men who live to an extreme old age. With the women, I can assure you, it is the same. If you drink our water till you are seven, nothing can kill you but a bullet.” He thumped his chest and laughed.
A rotund English doctor, on temporary duty in Kabul, said quietly, “You know, of course, he’s not teasing. Take poliomyelitis, which strikes so many children in an antiseptic country like America …”
“Here no child gets polio,” Moheb Khan insisted. “But you Europeans who come to us later in life, when you’ve not had the
“She told you the truth,” Sir Herbert interrupted. “Our man in Washington saw it last month. Laughed so much he airmailed me a script.”
There was a moment of emptiness, into which the Swedish girl said loudly, “Couldn’t we start? Miss Maxwell doesn’t participate until Act Two.”
“I think it would be better if we waited,” Sir Herbert insisted. “After all, the dear girl did much of the typing, Mr. Miller informs me.”
Miss Askwith added, “And after her bout with the mullahs …”
“Do you think the mullahs are gaining ground in their battle for control?” Sir Herbert asked Moheb Khan.
“No,” the Afghan replied cautiously. “On the other hand, they’re not losing ground, either.”
“Some time ago there was talk of discarding the chaderi,” Sir Herbert suggested, and our discussion proceeded from that point. I had found, even in my short stay, that Afghanistan had two topics of conversation which, were positively guaranteed to excite participation: the chaderi and the latest cure for diarrhea, for with the kind of drinking water available in Kabul, this latter scourge was sooner or later bound to infect everyone. Sure enough, not long after the chaderi was disposed of I heard Signorina Risposi advising the group.
“A German doctor has invented something much better than entero-vioform. It’s called sulfas, I believe. Developed during the war.”
“Does it work?” the Swedish girl was asking.
“My theory,” Sir Herbert interrupted, “has always been to fill the lower bowel with some bland bulk producer like one of the new mucils. You’d be surprised how this slows down the bowel action.”
“Really?” the Turkish ambassador’s wife pursued. “I’ve relied on entero-vioform, and it seems to concentrate rather effectively on the upper bowel. But when it fails, it fails.”
The dialogue now switched to French, for one of the scientists in that country had developed a radically new drug which the French ambassador’s wife was explaining, and I thought: This must be the only capital in the world where a sophisticated international audience can discuss with all seriousness the control of the upper and lower bowel. Yet no aspect of Afghan life was more significant than this, for when the virulent Asiatic diarrhea, known locally as the Kabul Trots, struck, it was not like a stomach ache back home. It was a sickness which nauseated, embarrassed, debilitated and outraged the human body. In a land where toilet facilities were not excessive, diarrhea was a scourge, and I was willing to gamble that not a single person in that softly lit room, lined with books, was without his or her secret vial of pills and even more secret roll of personal toilet paper.
“What do you do for the disease?” the French ambassador’s wife asked Moheb Khan in French.
“It’s very simple,” Moheb replied in lilting English. “You Europeans are always shocked at ouropen water supply into which little boys urinate. Or worse. But what happens? From drinking such water most of our children die, and that’s neither a curse nor a blessing. They die and that’s that. So the life expectancy in Afghanistan is about twenty-three years. But that figure doesn’t mean what it says, not really. For if by chance you are one of the babies who does not die, you are inoculated against positively everything. Look about you. See the large number of our men who live to an extreme old age. With the women, I can assure you, it is the same. If you drink our water till you are seven, nothing can kill you but a bullet.” He thumped his chest and laughed.
A rotund English doctor, on temporary duty in Kabul, said quietly, “You know, of course, he’s not teasing. Take poliomyelitis, which strikes so many children in an antiseptic country like America …”
“Here no child gets polio,” Moheb Khan insisted. “But you Europeans who come to us later in life, when you’ve not had the
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