Letters to My Daughters (10 page)

My siblings and I fought and argued and sometimes we would kick, punch and tear each other's hair, but we never stopped loving each other. Or looking out for each other. I battled hard against my brothers to remain in school and be independent, and even though they didn't like it they loved me and let me do it. Of course now they are so very proud of their little sister the politician. They are also proud of themselves for having been open-minded enough to help me achieve my dreams. By doing so, we have helped to keep our family status and our political honour.

I wish I had given you a brother. A fine, decent young man who would have loved his two sisters so much. I am sure you would have squabbled and fought with him too. But I know you'd have loved him. I would have named him after the brother I lost.

Muqim.

With love,
Your mother

· · SIX · ·
When Justice Dies

{
May 1992
}

A SHORT STORY for Shuhra and Shaharzad

The wind and the rain lashed down from the Hindu Kush mountains onto Kabul that Friday night. The dusty roads quickly turned to mud, thick and slippery underfoot. Open sewers filled with brown water and burst their filthy banks, forming ever-growing stinking ponds. The streets were deserted, except for a barely discernible movement in the shadows. A man breathed heavily in the dark, the rain catching in his beard and forming rivulets that cascaded into the ankle-deep puddle he was standing in. He loosened his grip on the AK-47 assault rifle. The Russian-made gun was heavy and slippery. He made his way slowly, deliberately, through the black quagmire, placing each foot carefully, testing the ground before trusting it with his full weight.

Then he turned to face the six-foot-high compound wall and delicately lifted his gun onto the top. Even on a night like this, the clatter of a badly controlled weapon could carry a long way. Steadying himself, he paused, arms held up at shoulder height, before springing like a cat, grasping the top of the wall cleanly with both hands. He dug his toes into the bricks, searching for purchase on the wet surface. The muscles in his arms and back strained as he fought to control his weight. Throwing his right elbow onto the top of the wall, he pressed his face into the rough cold cement, swinging his left leg in an arc to catch the high edge. Heaving the rest of his torso onto the top of the wall, he panted silently, scanning the dark compound for any sign of guards. Seeing none, he dropped to the ground, his feet splashing noisily as they made contact. He pushed the safety lever on his AK-47 down with his thumb, clicking it into the firing position.

Crouching low, he used the cover of the shadows of the fruit trees to move towards the main house. Inside, everything was dark. The rain obscured his vision, and he fumbled at the brass door handle. It turned with a scrape of the bolt. He held his breath now, easing the door open a crack, slowly widening it as his eyes adjusted to the dark room. It was quiet inside. The sound of the rain was muffled against the heavy roof tiles, but he was aware that he was dripping loudly on the tiled floor. He moved across the living room in his crouch, gun poised. The tap-tap, tap-tap of his sandals on the floor was amplified against the close brick walls of the hall. He found the bedroom door and paused. He readied the gun, holding it pistol style in his right hand, and with his left he tested the knob. It gave and opened a crack.

And then, the man murdered my brother in cold blood.

The assassin had emptied his gun into Muqim as he lay sleeping in bed. A Kalashnikov's magazine holds thirty bullets. The gunman held the trigger down until the gun was empty. Then he fled.

My sister-in-law woke to the sound of gunfire. She and my brother were asleep upstairs on the other side of the house. My brother tried to calm his wife, assuring her that the firing was probably just someone shooting in the air to celebrate a wedding or the victory over the Russians. Then a terrified neighbour started shouting from outside the yard that Muqim had been shot.

He was only twenty-three when he died. Tall, handsome and clever, a law student with a black belt in karate—very unusual at that time, even in Kabul—he was one of my favourite brothers. We had grown up playing and fighting and loving and falling out. A kind word from him would make me smile for hours; a harsh one would bring tears to my eyes in an instant. He, Ennayat and I had been playmates our entire lives. Muqim had narrowly survived being murdered as a little boy when he was hidden from would-be assassins under a woman's skirt. This time, there was no one to hide or protect him.

It was such a devastating blow. I felt like a part of me had been killed. After my father's death, all my brothers had taken on a much greater role in my life. Muqim relished his new patriarchal powers and would order me about, telling me to wash my socks or brush my clothes. I was his adoring little sister and I didn't mind his bossiness. All I wanted was his approval and attention.

Most of the time, he encouraged my education and would say to me, “Fawzia, I want you to become a doctor.” Knowing that he had such belief in me always made me feel very special. But sometimes, if he was upset or frustrated, he would forbid me from going to school the next day, wagging his finger at me sternly and declaring, “Tomorrow you stay at home. You are a girl. For girls, home is enough.”

So he could be very traditional in his outlook—but I always forgave him for it because it seemed to be his way of dealing with stress. He was a bit like my father that way. Usually the day after he'd banned me from going to school he would come home with a gift—perhaps a new school bag or pencil case. Then he would ask me to go back to school and remind me of how smart he thought I was and what great things I was going to do with my life. If one of my other brothers said I couldn't go to school, they really meant it. But with Muqim, I knew it was just talk.

From the clothes he wore to the food he ate, Muqim was always very particular about what he wanted. So when he told me he was in love with a girl he had met at university, I knew he was serious. He was in his first year of law school, and she was starting her medical training. When he told me she was very beautiful, I didn't doubt that either. He used to point to my prettiest doll and say, “This girl is as beautiful as that doll. Except she has blue eyes.”

He had loved her for four years, but in all that time he had never been able to tell her how he felt. He used to spend hours hanging around outside her house, hoping for the merest glimpse of her. Muqim had sent her letters declaring his love, but she sent them back unopened. She was a very traditional girl, and a traditional girl doesn't open letters from unsanctioned suitors. But he was hoping to change that. He was looking forward to my mother's return to Kabul because she was going to visit the girl's family and propose the match. If my father had been alive he would have done it, but instead it fell to my mother in her role as matriarch. But he was killed before the proper, decent approach could be taken.

It is always hard to come to terms with the death of a loved one. The sense of loss is enormous, and the hole the person's absence leaves feels like it will never be filled. The ache of knowing you will never see that person again throbs like a bad tooth. Except there's no painkiller you can take to relieve the pain.

The fighting between the Mujahideen forces and the government meant the police were unable to mount much of an investigation. Even my elder brother's status as a senior police commander could do little to bring Muqim's killer to justice. The only evidence the killer left was a sandal dropped by the wall as he fled. But it was the type of sandal worn by men all over Afghanistan, and this was long before the days of DNA testing and forensic evidence. Afghanistan was in a state of war, and during wars people die. The fact that Muqim's death was murder meant little under the circumstances. Hundreds of people were being murdered every day, women were being raped and homes were being looted and destroyed. Food and water was scarce. Justice was in even shorter supply.

Mirshakay blamed himself for Muqim's death. Not only had he failed him as a policeman by not capturing his killers, but he also felt personally responsible. As a police general, he had a team of bodyguards. They would travel with him everywhere, and at night their job was to guard the house as he and his family slept inside. Because it was a Friday, the day of prayer and observance, and such a horrible, wet night, my brother had felt sorry for his bodyguards and dismissed them early, telling them to go home to be with their families. Muqim got home from the gym at around 10 P.M. He was soaked to the skin in the rain and complaining about an eye infection. My sister-in-law fetched her kohl from her makeup bag. In Badakhshan, women often use a type of kohl eyeliner made from herbs found in the mountains that are said to be very good for treating eye infections. She put some on his eye, then he went to bed. That was the last time anyone saw Muqim alive. If the bodyguards had been on duty, there's no way the gunman could have entered the house and Muqim would still be alive. Mirshakay was torn apart with fury at himself that he had let the guards go home early.

One of the great questions we ask ourselves in life is why. Why do things happen? As a Muslim, I have my beliefs. I believe them to be true, and they are a large part of me. I believe God alone decides our fate. He chooses when we live and when we die. But even that certainty doesn't make the painful events and losses of my life easier to bear.

With Muqim's death, we simply didn't have any answers to the question of why. Why would somebody kill such a kind, intelligent, gentle young man? He was a brilliant student trying to make a life for himself. He wanted a career and a wife and a family. He wasn't a threat to anybody. But his life was taken away in an instant. In Islam, a dying person is supposed to recite the name of Allah three times before passing away. Poor Muqim didn't have time to do that.

Not having time to say goodbye to someone I loved was something I was becoming used to. But there was no point in asking why that was either. It was just how our life was in those days.

Dear Shuhra and Shaharzad,

As you grow older, you will learn about loyalty. Loyalty to your faith, to family, to friends, to your neighbours and to your country. In times of war, our loyalty can be sorely tested.

You must be loyal to the true and good nature of your Islamic faith, helping and loving those around you even when you might feel you cannot. It is important to be loyal to your family, both the living and the dead. Our family bonds do not cease at the grave, but we must also be careful not to remember the dead at the expense of the living. You must be loyal to your friends, because that is the action of a true friend. And if they are true friends themselves, then they will also be loyal to you and be ready to act when you need their help.

You must be loyal to your fellow Afghans. Not all Afghans are the same; we speak many different languages and live in many different ways. But you must be able to see past those ethnic and cultural differences and remember the thing that unites us—Afghanistan. You must be loyal to your country. Without loyalty to our country, we have nothing as a nation. We must work hard to improve our country for your children and their children.

Loyalty can be a hard lesson to learn sometimes, but there are few lessons more valuable.

With love,
Your mother

· · SEVEN · ·
The War Within

{
1992–1993
}

I WAS GLAD to be back in Kabul and was eager to resume my old life—or what little of it remained in what was now becoming a full-blown civil war.

We were still living in my brother's apartment in Makrorian, a word that roughly translates as “living space.” The apartments had been built by the Russians using the latest technology, such as a communal hot water system that served over ten apartment blocks, each block housing fifty apartments. It is a testament to the quality of Soviet-era construction that many of the Makrorian blocks have survived even today despite being shelled countless times; even the hot water system still works. Today it remains a sought-after neighbourhood.

I was able to resume my English language lessons in Kabul. They were too important to me to give up, even though they meant regular journeys through the streets, which had become the battleground where the Mujahideen commanders and their men played out their deadly power struggles.

Kabul was divided into different sectors. The central parts, Khair Khana, Makrorian and around the King's Palace, were controlled by the Mujahideen government, which was by then headed by President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former general from Badakhshan and a man my family knew well—hence my brother's senior position at the Interior Ministry. The famous “lion of the Panjshir,” Ahmad Shah Massoud, was his minister of defence.

The west of Kabul was controlled by a man named Mazary, the leader of an ethnic group called the Hazaras. (Said to be the direct descendants of Genghis Khan, the Hazaras are identifiable by their classic Mongol looks, round faces and large almond-shaped eyes. They are unusual in being Shia Muslims; the majority of Muslim ethnic groups in the country are Sunni.) An area on the outskirts of Kabul, Paghman, was controlled by a man named Sayyaf and his people. Yet another area was controlled by the fearsome Abdul Rashid Dostum, the leader of the ethnic Uzbeks. Just outside the city walls, towards the south, was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a group called Hizbi Islami; a second Hizbi Islami leader, Abdul Sabur Farid Kohistani, was the prime minister.