Fozia Karzai’s life has also changed in the days since Sept. 11.

Immediately after the attack, Karzai says, her storefront was defaced and passers-by often yelled insults. But Massachusetts police officers spoke with Karzai and her family and advised her on measures to retain her anonymity.

“Massachusetts police?––excellent,” she pronounces.

Karzai says she has been heartened overall, by America’s response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

“People attacked us before they knew what we were,” she says. “Now that in the news they have explained that we are for democracy, they offer support.”

She says Helmand’s clientele has become much more knowledgeable about Afghan culture due to the media coverage in the past months.

“Before Sept. 11, a lot of people didn’t even know where Afghanistan is,” she says, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

Since then, she says, many loyal clients have come to the restaurant even more often.

“Most of our customers, if they came once a week, they’ll come twice a week, if they came once a month, they’ll come twice a month, to show their support,” she says.

A Family Enterprise

Although the Cambridge location has only been around for five years, the Karzais began the restaurant business soon after their flight from Afghanistan in the early 1980s.

Shortly after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Karzais fled first to Pakistan and then on to Washington, D.C.

“We left because many of our friends and family members were put in jail, many of them were killed,” says Zaki Royan, Karzai’s husband and the restaurant’s manager.

Royan, who had been Afghanistan’s director general of government and economic statistics, says the family’s exodus forced him to abandon his political career.

But despite the family’s pleas, Karzai says, her father and brother Hamid remained behind, unwilling to leave the country.