Letters to My Daughters (17 page)

All this was supposedly in the name of God. But I do not believe these were the actions of God. I am sure God would have turned away to weep.

Thousands of the Taliban's supporters flocked into Kabul. Ultra-conservative families from the south moved into Kabul, buying houses at rock-bottom prices from those seeking to escape. Wazir Akbar Khan, which had been one of the smartest and most sought-after addresses in Kabul with modern, architect-designed houses, beautiful gardens and swimming pools, became known as the “street of the guests.” Favoured Arab and Pakistani fighters who had connections to the Taliban leadership were given houses there. If the house was empty, they just moved in and took over; if it had inhabitants, they were forced out at gunpoint, allowing the “guests” to move in.

Some families have still not regained control of properties they lost during this time. When the Taliban were defeated in 2001 by U.S. and Northern Alliance forces, many people who had been refugees in Europe or America returned to Afghanistan to regain their property. But with no documents and amid postwar chaos and a government rife with corruption, they found this to be a difficult process. I see many people who ask for my help in tracing property ownership. Few succeed. A building boom over the last couple of years has sadly destroyed—often illegally—hundreds of these beautiful, elegant villas with their fruit trees and grape arbours. They have been replaced with so-called “poppy palaces,” ugly Pakistani and Iranian-style buildings with gaudy decorations, smoked glass and lurid patterned tiles—an architecture that owes nothing to Afghan culture and everything to post-conflict profits, all too often gleaned from corruption or the proceeds of the heroin trade.

Today, different types of guests have taken over Wazir Akbar Khan. These houses, which have survived both the war and the developers, have stood the test of time and look just as stylish today as they did when they were built. Now they are inhabited by foreign aid workers and international journalists from global networks such as BBC, CNN and France24. The insecurity they feel in living and working in a capital city with frequent suicide bombings is denoted by the large sections of the neighbourhood that have been barricaded off. In an area known as the “green zone,” the streets are blocked with concrete bollards and checkpoints in an attempt to keep suicide bombers out. Those without identification or the correct passes are barred from entering or driving through, a measure that creates traffic chaos and is a constant source of frustration and anger among many Kabulis towards these latest guests.

The British Embassy has recently taken over an entire street of houses for its compound, blocking entrances at both ends. What was once a bustling, rich neighbourhood with children playing ball games on the streets is now a fortress, off limits to most Afghans except those who need to travel there for work.

BACK IN Puli Khumri, we waited for long days. I spent every moment hoping for a return to Kabul. The front line and the areas controlled by the Taliban or Massoud's men kept shifting. But what was becoming sadly clear was that the Taliban were slowly gaining more ground and pushing Massoud farther and farther back.

I had no idea if Hamid was still living in Kabul or if he and his family had also fled. I thought of him constantly, but I also knew there was still a lot of objection from my brothers to our marriage. One day, I was sitting in the yard enjoying the sun on my face and watching snow fall on the mountains beyond. I was yearning for the city and wondering what the weather was like in Kabul when Hamid's sister, her children and one of his uncles arrived at our gate.

It turned out that Hamid had gone to our house and found the curtains drawn and no one there. He had asked around and found out where we had gone. Then he realized that this could work to our advantage. If I was in Mujahideen-controlled land, I was around armed militias and commanders and therefore at higher risk of getting raped. Hamid figured my brother had enough on his plate keeping his own two wives safe without also having to worry about my honour. This might finally make him more open to the idea of our marriage.

So here was his sister at our door with the proposal. She and her uncle, along with her three and four-year-old children, had come from Kabul to ask Mirshakay once more for my hand. The journey had been a dangerous one. In addition to the fighting, they had gotten stuck when an avalanche narrowly missed their car and blocked the road in front of them; they had spent the night freezing. They could have been killed, and I felt rather angry at Hamid for having put them through all that because of me. Nonetheless, I was secretly thrilled at his newfound determination to make our wedding happen.

As Hamid had thought, my brother no longer had the power he had had in Kabul. He was exhausted and stressed. But he still wasn't quite ready to give in. In our culture, if you want to say no to someone's proposal politely you don't actually say so but rather give the person a list of requests they have no way of meeting. My brother knew Hamid's family had risked their lives to bring this request and he couldn't be so rude as to turn them away with no hope. But he still wasn't prepared to let the union happen. So after we had all finished dinner, he quietly told them the engagement could go ahead only if they paid for a house (which would be in my name) and gave large amounts of gold and jewellery and twenty thousand dollars in cash.

That was a lot of money, especially in wartime and especially for this family, who although not dirt poor were certainly not rich. I was not allowed to be part of the negotiations, of course. Hamid's sister and I were in the next room, and we strained our ears to the wall trying to keep abreast of proceedings. I gasped with horror when I heard my brother's conditions. Amazingly, however, Hamid's uncle agreed. He sounded somewhat shocked and not entirely happy but he did a good job of recovering himself and not appearing flustered. He must have been fuming inside, but he took his turban from his head and placed it in front of my brother as a sign of thanks for accepting the relationship.

Hamid's sister gathered up her children and hugged me goodbye with a warm smile before throwing her burka back over her head. The men put on their turbans before they left. The Taliban had made the wearing of turbans and beards obligatory for all men.

A few days later, my brother was asked to go to the Panjshir Valley, to help plan a new government-led attack on Kabul. After he left, the Salang Pass was closed once again and he was trapped on the other side. We had no news about him for forty days. The tension was unbearable. We had no idea what we would do if he was killed.

Finally, we received news that he had been in Badakhshan. He had been temporarily ordered back there by his commanders to create a new stronghold for the Mujahideen and to help organize a new line of defence. The Taliban were gaining more and more ground, and the commanders feared they were about to take more of the central and northern provinces. Eventually, he was returned to us safely.

The green shoots of spring were already pushing through the snow, but I had started to feel depressed again. Springtime should have meant a new term for me, and I desperately wanted to be back at university.

One day, my sister-in-law asked me to go shopping for the family dinner. For some reason, I kept imagining I was seeing Hamid's face everywhere at the bazaar. Every time I left a shop or turned a corner, I thought I saw him. Then he disappeared. I started to think I might be going mad. When I got home, we had a visitor. He was a teenage boy, one of our distant relatives who was also related to Hamid by marriage. I started to feel depressed again and politely excused myself to go to my room. The boy followed me to say goodbye. As he did so, he thrust a small piece of paper into my hand.

I closed the door of my room and opened the paper. It was a letter. My eyes scanned to the end of the page to see who it was from, but in my heart I already knew. Hamid. He was here in Puli Khumri. I hadn't been going mad at the bazaar. I was really seeing Hamid. He had been following me in secret. The letter told me he was here and that he was going to come the next day to talk to my brother about our marriage. This time, he would ensure that it would really happen.

I barely slept that night. The next day, just as he had promised in the letter, Hamid came to our house and asked to see my brother. Mirshakay was surprised, and possibly a little horrified, when Hamid produced the twenty thousand dollars in hard cash and documents showing proof of a house purchase. Despite all this, Mirshakay still wasn't prepared to give Hamid my hand in marriage. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to say the final and direct yes that Hamid was waiting for.

Although the family was far from rich, they did own land in Badakhshan and had sold some of it to get the money. It wasn't as if they had nothing, but of course my brother, who owned four houses in Kabul and a house in Lahore, didn't see it that way.

Once again, the negotiations were strictly a male affair and we women sat in a different room. That was a strange feeling for me, sitting quietly and straining my ears to hear my future being argued over like a business transaction. In some ways, it reminded me of my childhood, sneaking up to my father's guest rooms to eavesdrop on the discussions inside. As I listened, I felt an odd mixture of pride, curiosity and powerlessness.

When I heard they had the money, I let out an involuntary squeak. My life had been pretty much dust in Puli Khumri. No university, no stimulation and nothing to do. I had no idea how marriage was going to be, but I figured it had to be less boring than this.

Engagements in Afghanistan are binding and as serious as the marriage contract. Only in exceptional circumstances can they be broken. The enormity of that suddenly hit me. I started to think about all the warnings my brother had given me. His voice kept repeating in my head: “Fawzia jan, do not marry this poor man. You can have any man you want. You will not be able to survive on his monthly salary. Marry a rich man, a powerful man.”

I must admit, I started to have second thoughts. It is hard to imagine your life as a newlywed when your country is in ruins. Staying safe and alive took precedence over indulging in dreams. I had no idea what was going to happen, how long the Taliban would be here, whether the fighting would ever end, where we would live, whether I would be able to study again or ever be able to work.

My elder sister saw that I had gone white. She looked at me sternly and said, “Fawzia, you must decide. Now. Right now. If you don't want this to go ahead, this is your last chance to say so. Do you understand?”

A few days earlier, in a last effort to tempt me away from marrying Hamid, Mirshakay had promised me I could go to Pakistan and stay with his second wife in his house in Lahore. He said I could enrol in a Pakistani university. The idea of studying medicine again in a country not blighted by war was a wonderful one. But although I barely knew Hamid, what little I had seen of him convinced me we could make our marriage work. I knew he was an unusual Afghan man, one who would treat me like an equal and genuinely support my desire to work. He was not rich and the future was full of uncertainty, but he still felt like the right choice for me. Because he was my choice.

As is so often the case in my family history, it needed a woman to take the decisive action. When my sister Maryam told me to make a decision, I nodded a silent yes. Then she knocked and entered the men's room and asked to speak to my brother. Outside the room, she bravely and sternly told him to stop challenging these poor people. They had the money as promised. It was time for him to make a decision. Yes or no. He pursed his lips and rolled his eyes dramatically, let out a large sigh and then agreed with her, albeit reluctantly.

My sister prepared a bowl of sweets and put some flowers and a handkerchief with a small red flower on it inside the bowl. I still have that handkerchief. The items in the bowl were a sign of our family's final acceptance. The bowl was ceremoniously sent into the room where Hamid was sitting. I wish I could have seen the joy on his face when he saw it and realized his dreams were coming true at last. The sharing of sweets is the traditional Afghan way of formalizing the engagement. The groom's family then put money in the bowl to pay for the wedding. Hamid took a sweet, unwrapped it carefully and ate it, then put another five thousand dollars inside the bowl. He had been prepared for that cost too.

The next day, they came back again for lunch. I was in the kitchen from early morning. As I washed rice and peeled cucumbers, I smiled as I realized how much love I was pouring into the cooking. The simple pleasure of preparing food for those they love is something all women feel at some time. It must be something ancient within us, so much part of our biology and nature. I was reminded of my mother cooking for my father and how she always wanted things to be perfect for him. Here I was doing the same. As I chopped the vegetables, I made sure to cut them just so, into lovely little straight pieces that he would delight in eating.

I was still not allowed to see my husband-to-be. The only glimpse I got of him was as he and his family left. I hid behind a curtain at the window and sneaked a glance at him as he walked to the gate. I think he knew I was going to be watching him, because he stopped and paused, pretending to scratch his head. I think he considered sneaking a glance back at me, but he obviously decided it was too risky in case my brother saw.

As Hamid walked to his car, I felt a surge of excitement. It had been almost four years since his first proposal. He had never given up on his quest to marry me. I was now twenty-one years old, and I was finally going to be a bride.