Free The Afghan Queen: A True Story of an American Woman in Afghanistan by Paul Meinhardt Page A

liveried wedding band. Bringing up the rear were servants with bottles of vodka and baskets of fruit. Those not costumed, wore their best clothes. All were exuberantly strutting fashion-plates.
    The journalists showed their photos of the so called wedding party with themselves decked out as classic Perrot and Harlequin clowns and continued their story.
    Bottles of vodka were passed around to the border guards first. The wedding dance started while packets were exchanged between a border guard and the Gypsy chief.

    Pierrot and Harlequin, Paul Cézanne 1888 Pushkin Museum, Moscow *
    Fire eating and sword swallowing clowns on stilts greeted the border guards. The sword swallower did an act that had everyone howling with laughter. She was a tall, attractive middle-aged woman in a medieval mummer’s outfit. As soon as the fire eater in the group did his routine, he introduced his wife, the sword swallower, with a wild pantomime, but no words.
    The sword swallower began by handing around, to the guards first, a long, straight sword. When they returned the sword to her, she walked her stilts over to some low-hanging branches, followed by a helper, and hacked off one of them in a single blow. She then had the helper retrieve the hacked tree branch and pass it to her while she passed the sword to the helper.
    She stilted back to the crowd and made a big show of handing the hacked branch around for inspection. Her helper then passed her what looked like the same sword. The band played an elaborate fanfare as she slowly waved the sword around her head. The helper dramatically oiled the blade with a bottle labeled Extra Virgin Olive Oil , handing the bottle around for all to see.
    As the sword swallower was about to go into her act, the helper waved a pair of metal mesh meat cutter’s gloves to the crowd. This was intended to further impress everyone with the danger of sword swallowing. The helper then put on the gloves, and the sword swallower threw him the sword. One by one, he took off each glove and tossed the gloves to her.
    The sword swallower adjusted her stance and bent her head back a few times, as if to loosen the neck muscles. She gave out a short whistle and held out her hand for the sword. The helper then unscrewed the sword hilt and carefully handed the naked blade up to her. A short drum roll followed. Slowly, she upended the sword, point toward her mouth.
    Tambourines gently accompanied the movement of the sword as she tilted her head back, opened her mouth wide, and slowly lowered the sword point into her mouth. It took her a few minutes as she carefully rotated her neck and body as if to ease the passage of the sword.
    Onlookers clapped rhythmically along with the tambourines. As the sword swallower held the last of the sword in her mouth, the helper handed her a large white bandanna. This she took with her empty hand, waved it around her head, and covered her sword hand as she extracted the blade a few inches.
    Seeming to change her mind, she lowered the sword again completely into her mouth. At the same time the kerchief hand slowly descended to her rear end. The kerchief hand slowly eased the sword point and the entire sword out of her posterior. The border guards cheered hysterically, and everyone applauded wildly.
    The sword appeared to have a small amount of blood on it. The sword swallower took the kerchief and carefully wiped off the blood, while some of the Gypsy women screamed as if on cue. The helper took the naked sword blade and screwed the hilt back on, lifting the point toward the sword swallower. She then draped the bloodied kerchief over the sword point as the helper circled the crowd with it as if it were a battle flag.
    The sword swallower immediately opened her mouth revealing a compressed sword blade as a cleverly compressed bogus sword. She then lifted the back of her tunic as the helper inserted the real blade into the leather case strapped to her back. Everyone applauded with sighs of relief