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Upon landing in Zurich, Zain had been picked up by an elderly couple who introduced themselves as Daafi and Pakeeza Darzada. He immediately recognized the names to be common in Pakistan. They drove him to an idyllic little home that looked out over the tip of Lake Zurich. If Zain had not spent the last four years near a large body of water, he would have spent every day staring out at the shimmering lake. However, the allure of water had faded over time. Now he just appreciated Lake Zurich for what it was—a beautiful lake.
The young man’s new guardians took him to the historic Bahnhofstrasse district in Zurich. The streets were filled with Swiss shoppers, business people, teens, yuppies, couples, and families. Streetcars slowly wended down the congested streets. Dozens of shops of every type were stuffed into both historic and new buildings lining both sides of the street.
Zain had never seen more people in one location in his entire life. At the most, back at the training camp, there had been a bunkhouse lodging a total of twenty men. Looking down the street of the Bahnhofstrasse, Zain could see hundreds, maybe thousands of people at one time. The long street was blocked off to traffic and the people swarmed like honeybees to a hive—in the thousands.
Daafi was dressed in a leisure suit and Pakeeza was dressed in a more traditional peach-colored chiffon suit with an embroidered neckline set off further by the exquisite detail of beads and sequins. Zain knew nothing about fashion. He had rarely seen a husband and wife dressed as fashionably as the older couple dressed. He was completely reliant on them to select and purchase for him.
In Peshawar, males and females wore traditional clothing. One never thought about which tie to wear with what shirt—those items didn’t exist. Here, large posters of men modeling suits hung in the front windows of several stores. His hosts took him to a store called PKZ MEN. A helpful man inside measured Zain for five suits and the salesperson selected an assortment of ties and shoes which complemented the suits he tried on and purchased. Having been insulated from Western culture, when he gazed at himself in the mirror, he couldn’t determine whether he looked good because that wasn’t an issue he’d ever considered.
After seeing himself in a suit and tie, Zain thought he looked like the men in the big pictures. Maybe his hair was longer, but he was not one to make such distinctions.
Pakeeza kept telling him how great he looked, but since he didn’t know her, he didn’t trust her opinion. The only person he really trusted was his father, but he was currently 5,000 miles away teaching his younger brother the family business. Whatever that was.
*_*_*
Zain felt completely out of place in Switzerland—like a cactus in a rainforest. He had been transplanted first from a Pakistani cave where he had learned to walk and hunt, then taken to a secluded training camp in Pakistan where he had learned to be a predator and how to kill. A few days after leaving the training camp, Zain found himself in an alternative reality—the clean, prim and proper, modern university setting in Zurich, Switzerland. Being transported from a cave to Disneyland wouldn’t have been more surreal.
The first thing he noticed about his classmates was their cleanliness. When growing up, it was common to bathe about once a week. At the training camp, he probably cleaned up twice a week. But here it was common to take a shower daily. How crazy was that? And the bizarre clothes the students owned and wore—that would take time to get adjusted to as well.