Shooting Kabul (4 page)

Zafoona murmured, “Oppression is the worst thing in Allah's eyes. He forbade it not only for himself but also for us.”

“True,” said Habib, “but unfortunately, the world is full of oppression—oppression of men against men, group against group, and nation against nation.”

Fadi sighed. Life in Afghanistan had become more and more dangerous for their family, especially since the Taliban's most recent visit to their house.

“Where are they?” grumbled Noor, interrupting Fadi's thoughts. She tapped her foot and pulled back her burka, revealing flashing brown eyes under arched eyebrows.

“They should be here any minute,” Habib said in a soothing voice.

Fadi pulled Mariam under the tattered awning as she tried to inch toward a skinny dog nosing through a pile of garbage. She hadn't spoken a word during the white-knuckled six-hour ride from their home in the capital city of Kabul. Now she clutched Gulmina at her side and looked up at Fadi, a frown marring her usually cheerful round face.

“It'll be great, you'll see,” he whispered. “There's lots of chocolate where we're going. And Barbies,” he added with a grin.

She nodded, fingering the bright pink burka that enveloped Gulmina. Noor had sewn it for her just the week before, during a fit of boredom. The Taliban had banned all toys that depicted human figures, since they were considered sacrilegious, so Gulmina was hidden away in the folds of the bright cloth. “If you say so,” murmured Mariam.

“I do say so,” said Fadi, ruffling her hair. He sensed that Mariam knew they were never going back to their sprawling villa on Shogund Street, with its airy rooms and plum trees in the backyard. Well, only one plum tree. Since the war, the trees had been cut down for firewood. And after years of neglect and lack of money for repairs, the house was falling apart.

“Remember,” whispered Habib, pinning an especially stern gaze on Mariam, “under no circumstance are you to tell anyone your real name. If anyone asks, tell them we are farmers escaping the fighting in our village.”

Mariam nodded with a gulp. She'd been warned repeatedly not to reveal who they were or they could be arrested and taken back to Kabul.

“And, Fadi, pay attention. We won't have a lot of time
once the truck shows up.”

Fadi nodded, straightening his back.

Habib glanced down at his wrist, but it was bare. He'd given his watch to their faithful servant, Shamim, that morning as they'd left the house. “What time is it, Noor?” he asked, pulling thoughtfully on his white-streaked beard.

“Seven minutes past midnight,” replied Noor, glancing down at her glow-in-the-dark Mickey Mouse watch with the frayed strap.

A braying donkey rounded the corner, its owner in tow, causing the family to shrink against the building, trying to disappear into the shadows. Fadi peeked around the cement wall to watch the one-legged man pet the long-eared animal. Fadi closed his left eye and imagined the scene through his camera's viewfinder. There was something sad yet endearing about the image. Many men, women, and children had lost limbs to land mines across the country. Fadi blinked, his eyes watery. For all the problems in Afghanistan, this was still home. Dread crept into his heart. Would this be the last time he ever saw it?

“Oh, Rosebud, my lovely four-legged friend,” coaxed the man. “Let's go home so you can have potato peels for dinner.”

Rosebud tried to bite her owner, causing Mariam to smother a giggle.

Fadi smiled and shrugged off his morose thoughts. His mind wandered back to Claudia and her great escape.
We need to be successful in ours.
He didn't want to imagine what the Taliban would do to his father if they were caught.

A
T 12:42 AN ARMY GREEN TRUCK
rounded the corner and stopped a few blocks down the road. Its canvas top ruffled in the wind as it paused and shut off its lights. Habib stepped out from the shadows to get a better look, but without warning the truck revved its engine and drove off, disappearing around the corner. Muffling a curse, Habib returned to his spot next to his wife, who sat on a wooden crate Noor had found.

Fadi held on to Mariam's skinny arm while tightening his grip on his backpack. Everything he owned was in that bag—a change of clothes, the family photo album, his Matchbox cars, an old honey tin, and his camera, the
old Minolta XE. At the last minute he'd thrown in his ragged coverless copy of
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
. It was the only book he had been able to save from being sold.

Since the banning of books, people had resorted to illegally trading them on the black market. Every few months Fadi would accompany his mother and Noor to a carefully chosen location arranged by a bookseller whose renowned shop had been raided and shut down. After digging through piles of old books, they'd quickly make their purchase. Within minutes they'd emerge onto the road and head home, the books hidden in bags under piles of vegetables.

The bookshelf in their living room at home now held only an assortment of religious bound volumes and his father's periodicals on agriculture. All the family's other books—the thick novels, compilations by the great Afghan poet Rumi, children's books, and magazines—were stashed in the unused chicken coop in the backyard, next to the lone plum tree that hadn't been chopped down for firewood. It was the tree Fadi had fallen out of when he was eight, when he broke his nose.

“Fadi,” whispered Mariam, poking at a pile of soggy paper with a stick she'd found. “I'm bored.”

“Me too,” said Fadi with a sigh. “Be patient. We'll leave soon.”

“Shhh!” hissed Noor, glaring at them.

Fadi was in the process of giving her a cross-eyed I-dare-you-to-hit-me look in return when they heard the rumble of an engine coming from a side street.

“Hush, all of you,” scolded Habib, peering down the street.

Two orbs of bright light reappeared where the green truck had disappeared.

Fadi tensed.
There it is! The same truck.
It revved its engine and slowed down. The truck traveled a few blocks farther from the tea shop, then sat idling, as if waiting for something. Or someone.

Habib stepped forward and squinted at the row of numbers printed on its side. “Three-two-nine-three-eight,” he whispered, then checked a scrap of paper in his hand. “Quickly,” he ordered, grabbing the suitcases. “Fadi, take Mariam.”

This is it,
thought Fadi, his heart racing. His father had paid human traffickers twenty thousand dollars, the family's entire savings, to get them out of Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan. But they wouldn't stop there. They had a long, dangerous journey ahead of them. He took Mariam's hand and hurried toward the truck.

Noor followed, half carrying, half dragging their mother toward the truck while Habib picked up the suitcases and followed.

Gripping Mariam's hand, Fadi avoided a pool of stagnant water and circled a heap of rusting metal parts.

“Where are we going again?” breathed Mariam.

“To Peshawar,” whispered Fadi. “It's a city on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Remember Mother told you that her cousin lives there? She and her husband run a clinic for refugees, and they're going to meet us at the border.”

“Oh,” replied Mariam, clenching Gulmina as Fadi dragged her past a narrow shadowy alley.

Fadi paused next to a burned-out car for the others to catch up. Noor and his mother came up beside them, and then a loud splash echoed on the right, followed by the sound of running feet. A group of men ran in front of them and veered toward the truck. Two women with three small children emerged from behind an oil drum near the truck and scrambled onto the back of the truck.

“Hurry,” yelled Habib, his eyes wide as he staggered past. “We have to get on that truck.”

Dozens of people emerged from hiding places, all scrambling toward the truck. Fadi and Mariam followed
Noor, bypassing a group of women carrying an old bearded man with sunken, tearful eyes.

“Come on, you two,” Noor shouted over her shoulder. She half lifted, half pushed their mother ahead, elbowing past two teenage boys with bundles under their arms.

Pushy as always,
thought Fadi, tightening his hold on Mariam's hand.

He tugged, but Mariam didn't budge.
What the …?
He looked down to see her fumbling with Gulmina. “Come on, Mariam,” he grumbled.

“Wait,” she pleaded, trying to tuck her Barbie under her sweater.

“We don't have time!”

“Can you put Gulmina in your backpack?” she asked, holding out her precious Barbie.

“No, not now. We don't have time,” Fadi turned back to the truck, dragging Mariam behind him.

“Noor!” echoed Habib's voice from up ahead. “Bring your mother this way.” Habib had thrown the suitcases onto the back of the truck and had clambered on board. He spotted Fadi and waved at him to hurry, then turned his attention back to Noor as she reached the truck. Habib leaned down and wrapped his arms around his wife as Noor pushed from below. He pulled Zafoona over the railing and helped her
inside.

With his eyes trained on the spot where his father had disappeared, Fadi started to run. Mariam clung to his hand, gasping for breath, trying to keep up. Habib reappeared at the back of the truck, and Fadi saw him reach down to pull Noor inside. He was about thirty feet from the back of the truck when a family in stained, torn clothes tumbled out from the warehouse next to them and pushed ahead.

“Ouch!” cried Mariam, losing her balance as one of the unkempt boys knocked her over.

“We've got to hurry!” cried Fadi, wasting precious seconds to pull her up. His heart raced. He couldn't see Noor or his father. He grabbed Mariam's sweaty hand and pushed through the mob.

The old man they'd passed earlier lay on the muddy street, surrounded by the women who had been carrying him. They were sobbing, talking to themselves, trying to figure out how to get the exhausted man on board.
He doesn't look good,
thought Fadi, feeling a pang of regret. But he couldn't help them even if he wanted to, so he scurried on, straining to see over the heads of the two girls at the edge of the crowd.

There he is!

Habib was a few feet away, standing on the truck's
bumper, combing the crowds. His eyes widened as he saw Fadi. “This way, Son!”

Fadi spotted a gap between two women in burkas and dove in.
Only a few more feet and we'll be on the truck.
He'd reached the rear tire when a panicked scream tore through the crowd.

“It's them!” shouted a fearful voice.

The crowd constricted around the truck, plastering Fadi and Mariam against the back tire.

“Who?” yelled someone from the truck.

“I can't breathe!” cried Mariam.

“The Taliban are here!” repeated the first voice.

The sound of tires squealed in the distance, back toward the tea shop.

Screams sounded at the edge of the crowd, and people began to push, struggling to get on board. Three men climbed on top of the truck, hanging on to the cables that fastened the canvas roof to the metal sides.

“I'm leaving now!” shouted the driver, his voice a worried growl.

Fadi inched around the back as strong hands reached down to grab his shirt. “I've got you!” cried Habib.

“Ouch!” cried Mariam, stumbling as she clung to Fadi's hand.

“Hold on to Mariam!” ordered Habib as the truck
revved its engine.

“I have her,” shouted Fadi, glancing back at his father.

Habib started pulling Fadi up. “Keep a tight grip,” he said. “I'm going to lift you both up.”

“Gulmina!” cried Mariam as Fadi jerked his face toward her.

He saw a blur of bright pink fall to the ground.

“We can't leave her,” said Mariam, twisting sharply.

“No!” cried Fadi, reaching out with his other hand to get a better grip, but he missed. Instinctively he clung to Mariam's hand, but her sweaty little fingers slipped through his just as the truck rolled forward and picked up speed.

Habib jerked him up just as she crumpled to the ground.

“Father,” he cried in desperation, “let go.” He tried to pull free of Habib's grasp, but he was already on the back of the truck.

Father and son looked at each other in horror as the truck raced up the alley, leaving stragglers behind. Mariam was swallowed up in the dispersing crowd, a tiny little girl in a sea of strangers. Screams filled the air as a black SUV made a U-turn near the burned-out car and closed in behind them. Men with long beards and crisp turbans hung off the sides, pointing in their
direction.

The driver hit the gas and the tires squealed as the truck made a sharp turn and then accelerated right through a bombed-out warehouse onto a parallel alley. Fadi looked from the edge of truck's railing in disbelief. His six-year-old sister had been lost because of
him
.