Letters to My Daughters (22 page)

He told me to get in. As we drove, he spoke hurriedly. “If they stop the car, say you are my sister, my name is . . . , I live in . . .” This kind man, this complete stranger, outlined to me all the key details of his life in case I, just a random passenger, should have to pretend he was my brother. It was so absurd. But the driver's actions were another reminder that whatever those in power threw at the ordinary men and women of my nation, Afghan values of decency and kindness prevailed.

They had taken Hamid to the intelligence agency office, a building in the centre of town close to the Ministry of the Interior. I don't know how much money I gave the driver, but I know it was quite a lot. I was just so grateful he was prepared to help a woman despite the risk to himself. I thought if I paid him well, he might just help another woman in the same circumstances.

I went to the gate, but they refused me entry. Now I took a massive risk. I lied to the Taliban at the gate. I told them that other Taliban had arrested me and ordered me to come into the building but that I couldn't go with the men in their vehicle. I said if they didn't let me in they'd be blamed. They let me in.

Once inside the main gate, I found the prison building. Hamid was standing there, surrounded by two Talibs. Hamid was barely reacting, I think from shock. One moment, he was dashing home with chocolates for his new wife, the next he had been arrested. I ran over and grabbed his hand. I looked directly at the Talibs through my burka and spoke: “Look, look at my hands. This is bridal henna. You are talking about Islam but you do not act as Muslims. We are just married. If you put him in prison, I will have no more
muharram
. How will I live? How will I survive? I have nobody to do shopping, to take care of me. I am just a young girl. I am helpless.”

I was hoping that I could appeal to their sympathy and that they would let him go. But these were men who could remain unmoved by the pleas of a mere woman. They ignored me and walked Hamid to another gate with me following, still holding his hand and still pleading. When they opened the gate, my heart sank as I could see hundreds of prisoners inside. Some were handcuffed, some bound, others were standing, all crammed into a stinking central courtyard.

One of the Talibs took Hamid's hand, while I continued to hold the other. We had just started our new life, and now they were taking him away from me, tearing us apart. I was terrified that they would just execute him with no trial. They had arrested him without charge, so it was entirely possible. I was holding on tight and begging: “I'm coming too. How can I go alone? I am a woman, I cannot live alone outside. You are a Muslim, how can you do this?”

The Talib answered me in Pashto. He spoke crudely with the accent of an uneducated village man. “Shut up, woman, you talk too much.” Then he pushed me hard, so hard that I fell over into a puddle of stinking water. I was still wearing my high heels and a fancy dress. Less than an hour ago we had been receiving guests. Hamid turned his head to try to help me up, but the Talib pushed him in the opposite direction, inside the gates. My last glimpse of my husband was as I struggled to stand up. The gates closed.

With Hamid behind the gates, my thoughts turned to my brother. It was him they had come to arrest. Was he safe? Where was he? I had no money left for another taxi, so I ran as fast as I could in heels across the city, back to my brother's house. His wife was there and she told me he was hiding in different relatives' houses. For the past three days, he had been changing places every night so as not to be discovered. Right now, she told me, he was in Karte Seh, an area west of Kabul that had been badly damaged during the civil war. I couldn't do anything for Hamid now, but I could still try to help my brother.

When I got there, I entered the house brusquely. I didn't stop to say
salaam
or greet the family. I just needed to see my brother with my own eyes. The couple who owned the house were both teachers. The husband was a professor in the economics faculty at Kabul University, and the wife one of the brave Afghan women who, under the ban on female teachers, took great personal risks secretly running a school from home. She and her husband had no children.

The room had no sofa, just lots of cushions lining the walls. My brother Mirshakay was lying on a mattress facing the wall. When he saw me, his face registered alarm. It was the first time he'd seen me since my wedding day, when he'd hugged me and wept as I went to my new life. Now we had entered chaos again.

Very quickly, I told him about Hamid's arrest and how they were searching for him now. It wasn't safe for him here; they would be searching all of our relatives' houses one after the other. It wasn't safe to take a taxi either. There were Taliban checkpoints everywhere, and if they stopped us they might have my brother's photo and recognize him. We started to walk. I was still in the blasted heels and my feet were killing me.

This was the first time I'd worn a burka to walk such a long distance. I was never very good at walking in them anyway, but when I was wearing heels and had such anxiety it was even worse. I stumbled over what felt like every stone and crack in the pavement.

We walked out of the city towards the outer suburbs. We didn't have anywhere to go as such, but we had limited choice in any case. Anywhere too public or central would have checkpoints; in the outer suburbs, there would be buildings we could hide behind, and not so many people. So we headed out. As we walked, we chatted. My brother asked me about Hamid and whether he had met my expectations as a husband. In some ways, I was happy to tell my brother that yes, indeed, Hamid had, and I had been right to marry him.

I told him how Hamid and I had discussed where we would live, whether we should leave Afghanistan. Hamid had suggested a new life in Pakistan, but I'd told him I couldn't leave while my brother was still in Kabul. Then we'd discussed moving back to Faizabad, the capital city of Badakhshan province and the place I had first gone to school. Badakhshan was not controlled by the Taliban. My sisters were there, as was Hamid's family, and we both missed the region. So that had been our plan. We would move back to the countryside, where I was to teach and Hamid could run his business.

Telling my brother these plans was more painful than the weeping blisters that now coated my heels. All those newlywed dreams and plans were now in ruins. After four hours of aimless walking, we hailed a taxi. I had remembered one of Hamid's relatives, a lady who lived alone with her son. I didn't know the exact address but knew it was 4th Makrorian, near where Hamid and I lived. On the way we passed a checkpoint. We sat inside the car terrified that they would wind the window down and see my brother, but we were lucky. They waved the car past without looking inside.

My brother had met this woman before; she was one of Hamid's relatives who had come to ask for my hand in marriage. He had not warmed to her. He said she wore too much makeup and her nails were too long. In Mirshakay's view, those were signs of a lazy woman. But now he had to throw himself upon her mercy. I asked around and was pointed to her apartment. I quickly explained the situation and asked if she could prepare a room for my brother for one night. She said yes, but she wasn't happy. She was understandably scared; if she was caught sheltering a man who was not a blood relative, she would be arrested and taken to the Vice and Virtue Department. I felt awful putting her in that position, but I had no choice.

I left my brother there and walked home. By the time I reached the house, my feet felt like they were on fire, sweat caked my eyes and ears and my hair was like a mattress of caked grease on my head. I threw the wretched burka up and off my head, ran into the bedroom and wailed with sorrow and frustration.

Dear Shuhra and Shaharzad,

Loss is one of the hardest things for any human being to bear.

But loss of those we love is a part of life and a part of growing, and no one can be protected from that. Perhaps you are reading this letter because I've died or been murdered and you've lost me. We know one day that will happen; we've discussed it, and I want you to be prepared for that inevitability.

Losing a home, as we did many times during the war, is also a horrible thing. Losing a home is hardest on children. It's something that has happened to millions of poor children in Afghanistan. Be aware of how lucky you are to have a house with a warm fire, a nice soft bed to sleep in, a lamp to read by and a table to do your schoolwork on. I know it doesn't sound like much, but not all children have this.

But perhaps the worst thing that can happen to any woman is to lose herself. To lose the sense of who and what she is or to lose sight of her dreams—these are some of the saddest losses a woman can experience. They are not inevitable but are forced on us by those who do not want us to dream or to succeed. I pray you will never lose your dreams.

With love,
Your mother

· · FOURTEEN · ·
The Darkness Pervades

{
1997
}

I BARELY SLEPT that night. I was half mad with worry and fear, and my brain was racing, desperately trying to think of anyone who might be able to help me and to formulate a plan. As I stood in front of the mirror brushing my teeth in the morning, an idea came to me.

I remembered a friend who told me she had been teaching embroidery to the wife of a Taliban official. I threw on the burka and ran to her house. She listened, wide-eyed with shock and sympathy, as I recounted what had happened to Hamid. We didn't know if it would do any good, but she said she would take me to the official's house and make the necessary introductions.

We walked there together across the eerily quiet roads of this once-bustling city. A few cars and taxis spluttered noisily into life, the early morning sun dancing in the dust of empty street stalls and boarded-up shops. I saw a dejected-looking woman with hunched shoulders in a blue burka. For a second, I didn't recognize her. Then I realized I was looking at myself. I had caught my reflection in the grimy window of an empty photographic shop. The burka had stripped me of so much identity I didn't even know myself.

Startled by the strangeness of that sensation, I peered into the shop. It was long deserted. Faded photographs lined the walls, young men posing like Bollywood actors in front of backdrops of waterfalls, babies holding aloft balloons and smiling toothlessly at the parents who would have been standing just behind the camera trying to make them laugh, little girls in lacy dresses and ankle socks grinning shyly, brides in white veils standing proudly next to besuited husbands.

I stared at the images wondering what had happened to all those smiling faces. Who were they? Where were they now? By the time Taliban rule came to Afghanistan, almost a third of our original population of eighteen million was dead, killed in the fighting. Another third were refugees overseas. Only around six million of the previous population remained. Were all the faces I was staring at dead? And where was the studio owner? All photography was now banned by diktat of the Taliban. With his livelihood gone, he might have just closed the door and found another way to survive. Or he may have continued to work in secret, breaking Taliban law. He could be in prison right now. With Hamid. The thought of the unknown photography studio owner lying next to Hamid in a cell brought me back to reality. My friend touched my arm gently, and we walked on until we reached a gated apartment block. The Talib's house. A little boy was playing outside. The scent of boiled mutton wafted out the door.

The man was there with his wife, a pleasant woman with green eyes who seemed to share her husband's sympathies for our plight. They welcomed us into their home and gave us hot green tea. He was a youngish man, perhaps thirty. He said he wasn't sure if he could do anything but kindly promised to try to help. He would go and make inquiries as soon as the official offices opened that morning. I was frustrated, but not ungrateful. I was surprised a Talib, any Talib, could show humanity. This man was trying to help me, a stranger. He did not have to do so. He changed my opinion of many Taliban. I realized that just because he didn't share my ideals or my politics that didn't necessarily make him a terrible person.

Many Afghan men aligned with the Taliban because of a shared ethnicity and culture, a sense of shared geography or economic necessity. It was the same then as it is today. If the Taliban pay wages in a village where there are no jobs, what is a poor man to do? And many Afghan men, particularly in southern provinces like Kandahar or Helmand, agree with these more hard-line aspects of Islamic culture. This is the opposite of what I believe, of course, but I have always had a strong understanding of and respect for the many different views, ethnic groups, languages and cultures that make up Afghanistan. Not many people in the West know that over thirty languages are spoken across the country. For me, that diversity is our strength—at least during peaceful times. In wartime, those ethnic divisions are our greatest weakness and the main reason for so much senseless slaughter.

As we left the Talib's house, he kindly walked me and my friend to the gates of the apartment block—again making it clear that he wasn't sure he could do much. On the walk home, I began to prepare myself for the worst: news of Hamid's execution or a life sentence based on false charges. I didn't want to think about it, but I knew I had to be ready to face what was very likely to be bad news. I tried not to think of Hamid being dragged, hands tied, into the prison courtyard to be shot. Or lying in a filthy, freezing prison cell, emaciated and slowly going mad with hunger and cold. The thought of it was enough to drive me insane too.