The serving station boasted an array of glass bottles that I knew were not meant for children. My father did drink on occasion. It seemed to make him more playful, like the version of him that would crawl on the floor with Faheem and me. But I’d also seen some of his friends become terribly angry after a couple of glasses. At a party two months ago, one general scolded me for not greeting him formally. When I saw him vomiting in the bushes later that evening, I raced to the upstairs room where all the children had gathered, even waking the ones who had drifted to sleep. I brought them outside with the promise of Russian chocolates if they helped me surprise a general in need of cheer. The man was still hunched over with a handkerchief to his mouth when the little gang I’d assembled greeted him with a loud salute, their flat hands raised to their foreheads.

My father only pretended to chastise me for that one.

I spotted my mother on the far end of the room. She was standing with Neelab’s mother and grandmother, the first lady, as they spoke to a few foreign women. They could have been posing for a magazine cover with their small purses tucked primly under their arms, pleated skirts falling just below their knees, and tortoiseshell hair clips. I continued to scan the room.

“I see your grandfather,” I whispered. “But where’s the box?”

Surely the box wouldn’t be far from the president. I kept my eyes on Kaka Daoud, who stood beneath a wide tapestry depicting a team of buzkashi players on horses. The horses, thick-veined and muscular, seemed ready to leap out of the fabric. The players wore sheepskin coats and stretched their hands to the ground to capture the goat carcass and score a point. One player, a whip between his teeth, had the carcass in one hand and red reins in the other.

The president, a solidly built man with a high forehead, wore a simple black suit. He seemed to be looking at the floor, frowning, as he listened to a military officer I did not recognize. The officer, in an olive jacket with brass buttons, looked flustered. His hands moved frantically as he spoke, one of them landing on the president’s arm.

I hadn’t noticed my father approaching, and yet there he was, leaning in to whisper something in Daoud Khan’s ear. He issued a polite nod to the military officer and with a hand on the president’s back, guided him toward a Russian dignitary. His slim frame made the president’s paunch more prominent, and I found myself wishing our president would at least pull his shoulders back.