Letters to My Daughters (23 page)

I arrived home preoccupied with my tortured thoughts to see a familiar face emerge from the bathroom.

There Hamid stood. Water was still glistening on his hollow cheeks, droplets hanging off his beard.

I thought I was dreaming. Or that I'd lost my mind.

My husband was standing in the hallway smiling at me as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He moved towards me uttering my name, his weak legs faltering beneath him. I rushed to him, embracing him before he could fall. His usual male strength had been sapped by the violent abuse meted out by his jailers. The unexpected emotion of his sudden appearance was too much for us to bear and we both sobbed with relief. Hamid, my Hamid, my love, was home.

It had been just over twenty-four hours since his arrest, but without warning they had released him. I made him a breakfast of eggs and sweet tea, and he lay down to rest. I was exhausted from the roller coaster of emotion, but I had no time to rest myself. Now that Hamid was released they would surely renew their attempts to imprison my brother. We had to find another house for him to hide in. Fast.

I remembered a woman, a very tough character, who used to go to my English class. She lived nearby, only a few blocks away. She had a bad leg that made it very hard for her to walk, and since her husband died she had struggled to take care of her two daughters alone. They weren't a political family; they were just ordinary people trying to survive in the craziness that had become Kabul. No one would look for Mirshakay there. I knew their house would be a perfect place for him to lie low until we could work out a way to get him out of the country.

I put on my burka and ran to the woman's house. It was a very modest home, made all the more spartan by the shortages of the war. A few threadbare rugs lay on the living room floor. There were very few luxuries, and I guessed that others had long since been sold to buy rice, cooking oil and gas to fuel the stove. The woman limped around her living room, urging me to take a seat as she ordered her elder daughter to make tea for us. I explained that I wanted my brother to stay with her but that it might be dangerous for her if the Taliban caught him there. Her tone immediately became a little offended. She was not angry because I had come into her living room and made such an outrageous request but rather, in true Afghan style, because I thought such a request was even necessary. Of course he could stay—what a silly question!

I finished my tea and hurried off to collect Mirshakay. We gathered a few clothes and some extra food—I knew the lady would probably feign offence if I brought food, but she was already taking a great risk hiding my brother. An extra mouth to feed would stretch her meagre resources to the limit. We returned to the lady's house together. It was imperative that I go with my brother—not because he didn't know the way but because the surest way to arouse suspicion was for a strange man to enter the house alone. A man and a woman in a burka look like a social visit; a man by himself looks like a morality crime in progress and would surely set local tongues wagging, provoking a visit from the Taliban.

The woman and her family were very kind to Mirshakay, and I think he was able to relax a little. He stayed in that house for ten days. After that, we decided things had cooled down enough for him to move to my house. It was still too dangerous for him to move home with his family. As it was, the Taliban often harassed his wife, dropping by uninvited and unannounced, threatening her with quietly menacing voices: “Where is your husband? When did you last speak to him? Tell us.” He was a hunted man, and they watched for him daily.

In the end, his wife became so scared she also moved into my house.

Hamid and I were still newlyweds—we should have been enjoying our new life together, but I was so busy running the house it was hard for us to snatch more than a few moments of quiet together. I suppose young wives all over the planet have romantic ideas of how those first few months of marriage will be, but for me, and I think for a lot of other women, the realities of adult life soon overtook the girlish notions of marital bliss. At first, I was quite resentful of the intrusion on what was supposed to be one of the happiest periods of my life, but such feelings were short-lived and my sense of duty soon took over. Also, this was my brother, whom I loved dearly. I remembered how kind he had been to me as a child, and how much of an influence he had had on my life. I felt guilty for having such selfish thoughts. Now it was my turn to take care of him and his family. I knew he would do the same for me, no matter what the risks or hardships.

Mirshakay was determined to flee Afghanistan. It was the only way to guarantee his safety, even though it meant a life of uncertainty as a refugee abroad. For the next three months, he didn't trim his beard but let it grow long, thick and dark. After a while, we barely recognized him. We prayed the Taliban wouldn't recognize him either.

The plan was to get a taxi to Torkham, the busiest town at the border with Pakistan. It is close to the famous Khyber Pass and lies on the edge of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a region ruled by tribal elders and over which Islamabad has little control. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has never been formally recognized in Afghanistan. It's known as the Durand Line, and even today it is one of the greatest sources of tension between the Pakistani and Afghan governments. The Afghans refuse to recognize the line. The Americans and other NATO forces fighting the War on Terror claim that this loose border is home to thousands of al-Qaeda fighters. Pakistan denies this but does little to control fundamentalism in the area.

The local codes of honour are so strong that even when American bomber planes have pounded the area while ground troops look for bin Laden or his sympathizers, the villagers refuse to reveal their whereabouts. Bombs may rain down on their houses, but “honoured guests” will never be betrayed. I realize it is hard for people in the West to understand this. Going to the region is like stepping back five hundred years. Understand that and you begin to understand the area. Fail to understand it, as successive governments and foreign forces have, and you will always be defeated.

Unlike nowadays, in 1997, when we were planning my brother's escape, Afghans didn't need a visa to enter Pakistan across the main border crossing. My brother was hoping he could slip across the border unnoticed amid the noisy chaos of trucks, traders and travellers that continually flock through Torkham.

Mirshakay had arranged for a taxi to come to collect him early in the morning. I was rushing around helping get him ready to leave—organizing food for the journey, some naan and hard-boiled eggs to sustain him—while his wife packed his suitcase. There was a knock at the door, and before I had time to stop and think I opened it wide, expecting to see the driver. Two black turbans stood in the doorway—Taliban. They pushed their way into the apartment waving their guns. Everybody froze. There was no time to react, and nowhere to hide. We exchanged looks—this was it—we were caught.

The two men were openly triumphant as they grabbed my brother, forcing him to the floor. The larger of the pair—both looked like they were only in their twenties—jammed his knee hard into the small of my brother's back, making him yelp with pain. The other, in an act of barely concealed spite, grabbed Hamid by the neck and pushed his head towards the living room floor as though he were a rag doll. They laughed and jeered at my sister-in-law and me as they dragged and shoved our men into the hall and down to their pickup truck. As they went, my brother shouted at me not to follow them and to stay at home. Even in a moment as bleak and desperate as this, his male pride could not allow the disgrace of a woman coming to jail to try to get him out.

At the police station, my brother managed to persuade a guard to smuggle a note to the family. It contained instructions for us to contact an old colleague of my brother's who had held a senior position at the Ministry of Defence during the Communist years and was now working for the Taliban government. Under Communism, this man had been a general and now he was a senior Taliban military advisor. My brother hoped this man might be able to pull some strings to get both him and Hamid out. The note included an address for an apartment near the airport.

Once again, it was a brutal waiting game. For once, my strength left me and I lay on the bed for two days, paralyzed by frustration and fear. Hamid had been taken from me again. But this time, it was not only me he'd left behind. It was also our unborn child.

Three days earlier I had learned I was pregnant. Like many new mothers, I had my suspicions when I started being very ill and vomiting in the mornings. Hamid and I were delighted, of course. But the excitement we felt was tempered by the turmoil in our lives. There are perhaps few things as worrying as being a first-time mother in a time of war. In war, everyday survival is a battle in itself and only the strongest survive. Was it fair to bring a helpless infant into that kind of hell? Perhaps not.

But I also knew that life goes on despite the bullets and bombs. And in some ways, the desire to celebrate life and creation, however bad the circumstances, is an intrinsic part of the human spirit. Yes, I was scared but I also thought it would be wonderful to have something as precious and positive as a newborn child to focus on.

But despite my joy, it was clear from the outset that this was not going to be an easy pregnancy. Afghanistan has one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world. A lack of health resources and a cultural reluctance to openly talk about gynecological and pediatric care means that doctors can be hard to find, and the few who do exist can sometimes be badly trained. Families often resist seeking medical attention for a woman until there is absolutely no other choice and it's clear she will die without medical help—by which time it's often too late to save either the child or the mother. To be a doctor and work in these conditions takes great skill, patience and dedication. In earlier times, some of Afghanistan's best doctors were women. I'm sure women everywhere feel more comfortable being treated for intimate health issues by someone of their own gender. For a long time, I wanted to qualify as a doctor myself and join their ranks.

However, the Taliban had banned women from working, a decree that had completely depleted Afghanistan's medical staff. And then, in a further twist of insane cruelty, they banned male doctors from treating women. A male doctor was not even allowed to prescribe aspirin for a common cold to a woman. The result? Hundreds of women died unnecessarily under the Taliban—from flu, untreated bacterial infections, blood poisoning, fever, broken bones or pregnancy. They died simply because these brutal men who ran the country thought a woman's life as worthless as a fly's. These men, who claimed to be men of God, had no sense of sanctity for one of God's greatest creations: woman.

My morning sickness was really bad. And it wasn't just limited to the first few hours of the day. I can joke about it now, but trying not to vomit into the face covering of my burka was no laughing matter at the time. I hope no other young mother ever has to learn to pull up the hood of her garment, tilt her head forward and aim for the gap between her feet—all while fighting the natural urge to drop to her knees.

For three months, I vomited most of what I ate. It was a burden I could have done without—especially on the day I took my brother's letter and set off to find the house of his former colleague. My brother knew it was a long shot asking this man for help, but long shots were all we now had to cling to.

I was feeling very sorry for myself when I entered that house. But as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized I still had an enormous amount to be thankful for. Most Afghans are desperately poor, but they are also immensely proud. They take pride in their homes, however simple they may be, and always offer food, tea and sweets to guests. Perhaps that is why I was so shocked by the terrible state of the living room. The floors were filthy and had clearly not been swept or washed in a long time. I wanted to take the carpets outside and give them a good dusting. The walls needed wiping, and I wanted to throw the windows wide open to let in some light and fresh air to clear the musty smell that filled the house.

The lady of the house greeted me. That was when I realized she was just a very simple woman who had never been taught any better. Even her manner of greeting a guest and the very way she carried herself were stilted and awkward. Looking around the room, I scanned a row of dirty faces of her children and other members of the extended family, each one grubbier than the next. That at least explained the smell.

I couldn't find anywhere clean to sit but squatted down in the least dirty spot. I felt desperately nauseous. I kept my burka on, even though I was indoors and prepared for a long wait. I was becoming familiar with dealing with the Taliban now. The first rule was patience. I was told the man would speak to me in twenty minutes, but I was prepared to wait all day if necessary. It seems strange in retrospect, but I was now far less worried about Hamid. The fact that he was in prison with my brother, not alone, was a big comfort. I knew they would both draw a lot of strength from each other, no matter what terrible things were being done to them.

I sat waiting, idly watching the woman clean the river of black and green snot oozing out of a boy's nose. We made small talk, but it was difficult. I found it hard to be civil sitting in a filthy room, in a filthy house, waiting for a filthy man who was now one of the key security advisors of my country's government. What sort of nation can you create when even your own home is filthy and the women and children who live there are trapped in ignorance? What hope was there for Afghanistan, I thought, while these uneducated people are in power? And then I shivered with horror. The realization had come to me. If this was the family living room of a senior Taliban advisor, what must Taliban prisons be like?