Letters to My Daughters (28 page)

I couldn't bring myself to talk to the hotel manager or the owner, who was cheerily waving his hands about in greeting. My attitude towards men had changed. They were cruel and not to be trusted, merely waiting to exploit women at the first opportunity that presented itself. And this terrible shift in my attitude had occurred in the name of Islam—though it was not an Islam I recognized. This division between the sexes was born of fear and suspicion, not respect as I had been raised to believe.

My mother came from a much more conservative generation, yet even she enjoyed the kind of liberation and empowerment that was being denied to me and hundreds of thousands of other women under the Taliban. She was allowed to visit her family when she wished and was given the responsibility of managing my father's businesses in his absence, of supervising his cattle herds on their annual journey to the higher pasture. Yes, my father beat my mother, which, as wrong as it seems now, was normal for village culture at that time; but for all that, I know he truly respected her. The Taliban were as violent towards women and more, but had none of the respect.

There was a huge silence inside me. Until now, I hadn't even noticed it. Little by little, it had grown with each prison visit, each woman I saw getting beaten on the streets and each public execution of a young woman who was just like me.

We went up to our room, which was typical of Afghan guest houses: small, with a mattress on the floor. I was in a weird mood; the emotion of being free of the Taliban churned up feelings I had buried deep for a long time. Hamid was in good spirits and almost danced around our little room with a boyishness I thought had been crushed out of him by those frozen nights in the prison yard. His enthusiasm was infectious, and I finally allowed myself to relax. Taking off my burka, I threw it in the corner of the room, casting some of my cares aside with it. Looking at the crumpled, dirty burka lying there in a heap, I wanted to jump on it and grind it into the floor.

“Put your scarf on, my darling wife,” Hamid said. “We're going out.”

The words seemed so foreign that for a moment I felt like he had just dared me to do something very naughty, as though we were mischievous children plotting something forbidden.

That's when the wave of euphoria washed over me. I could. We could. Go out in the street, like a normal couple. And I needed to cover only my hair, not my face. My pregnant belly was very large, but to this day it seems to me that my feet did not touch the stairs as we scampered outside like a pair of giggling teenagers.

The wind on my face was like the kiss of freedom. My scarf covered all my hair and my clothes were modest, in accordance with the teachings of Islam, yet without my burka I felt strangely naked. I began to think about how much the Taliban had damaged Islam. These were men who acted in the name of Allah, but they didn't respect the God they claimed to represent. Instead of following the Koran, they placed themselves above the teachings of the holy word, believing they, not God, had the right to become the moral arbiters, who decided what was righteous and what was forbidden. They had hijacked and corrupted Islam, turning it into a tool to achieve their own selfish ends.

The following morning, we took a small bus to Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province. Afghan buses can be very chaotic. Hamid and I climbed aboard and sat waiting for the other passengers to finish saying goodbye to friends and relatives, or argue with the driver, or try to stack an extra piece of luggage onto the already overflowing roof. Nearby, a street hawker was selling
Ashawa panir
—a type of cheese that is a regional specialty and a favourite dish at many Afghan picnics. Like most pregnant women, I had a very good appetite and I asked Hamid to go and buy me some. As a kind husband should, he dutifully indulged my request. The bus was nearly ready to depart when he climbed back on board, out of breath but clutching a small piece of the white cheese, which is mild and chewy and not unlike mozzarella. However, in his chivalrous dashing out to buy the mother of his unborn child some cheese, he hadn't remembered to get raisins—the traditional accompaniment to the cheese that helps bring out its flavour. I didn't want to seem ungrateful, but I was a little disappointed. The bus was beginning to move and there was no time to go back and get some. I was just resolving to enjoy the cheese despite the absence of raisins when a sharp knock at the window startled me. I spun around, expecting to see the black menace of a Taliban turban. Instead, I was greeted by the kind eyes of the elderly cheese merchant.

“Here, sister,” he said, passing a small plastic bag to me. “The man forgot to get raisins.”

Under the Taliban, we would have been considered criminals. Yet here we were treated with courtesy, good manners and respect. It was a simple act of human kindness, nothing more, nothing less, but it was so unexpectedly touching that my eyes pricked with tears.

The incident put me in a much better mood, and I enjoyed the spring landscape. The mountain peaks were beginning to cast off their wintry jackets of snow, while the new growth of grass and flowers farther down the slopes sprouted towards the sun's rays. It gave me a sense of hope for my country. No matter how cold and cruel the Taliban might be, I felt that they too might, one day, melt away like the snow.

At Puli Khumri, we stayed at the home of one of Hamid's aunts and her husband. This couple had once come to my brother's home to negotiate Hamid's marriage proposal, and I liked them very much. But I was mindful that I had a lot to live up to. Their neighbours all knew that our marriage had cost Hamid's family twenty thousand dollars, an enormous amount of money. They would all be curious to see and assess me. And that brought with it a huge sense of expectation that, after months of stress and days of travel and only weeks from childbirth, I couldn't help but feel I was struggling to live up to.

Hamid's aunt was kind. She knew exactly how I felt and had already begun to make preparations for a bath. By that, I mean a bucket of water heated over the cooking fire. But when you are exhausted and caked in dust and sweat, pouring enamel jugs over your head from a bucket filled with what had hours earlier been pure mountain snow is an experience as indulgent as the most luxurious five-star-hotel spa visit imaginable.

With each splash, I scrubbed away the stress, the strain and the filth of my life under the Taliban. Days before, I had left Kabul, accorded no more value than a dog. With each soaking, I regained a little more humanity and a little more self-worth. All I had to deal with now was the scrutiny of the neighbours, and as self-conscious as I might have felt, the terrible rule of the Taliban had also given me an inner strength that I was only just beginning to realize. The fact is I wasn't the young and naive bride I had been not so long ago. Now, I was a wife who had negotiated with fundamentalist tyrants, an expectant mother who had climbed mountains and an idealistic and hopeful woman who was finally beginning to find the firm ground of maturity beneath her feet.

However, when I emerged, the neighbours made it clear from their faces that they didn't think Hamid had got much value for his twenty thousand dollars. They barely bothered to conceal the raised eyebrows and pursed lips. I can only imagine what they said about me once they were home.

When we were alone, Hamid laughed about it. He kissed my forehead gently and told me not to care what people said or thought. We had each other and that was all that mattered.

After a night's rest, we continued our journey north. When we got to the town of Talakan, we had to hire a Jeep because floods from the winter snow melt had washed out parts of the road to Kisham, the next part of our journey. From there, we had to go by truck to Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan. This wasn't the news I wanted to hear. Travelling atop a truck is the most basic form of transportation in Afghanistan, and usually the preserve of the Kuchis, Afghanistan's small nomadic gypsy population. I asked Hamid to see if he could find us a car, but despite his best efforts there were no small vehicles going to Faizabad. The spring thaw had caused havoc with the roads here too.

I was horrified when I saw the truck. I was an educated city woman of high breeding, and this was a lorry normally used for transporting goats. Today, it was piled high with sacks of rice. If I had been offered this vehicle to escape Kabul I would have gladly climbed aboard, but now I was safe and as I began to regain my confidence my pride was getting the better of me. Hamid gave me an ultimatum: this was the last truck going to Faizabad and if I didn't get on it, we would be stuck here in Kisham. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and get aboard. I had put my burka back on, for warmth and to protect me from the dust as much as for any other reason, but even with the anonymity it afforded I spent the next four hours with my head tucked into my knees, in case we should pass somebody I knew and they recognized me. Occasionally, I would look up to enjoy the view, but the shame of being seen swaying on top of that goat truck always got the better of me and I quickly buried my head again.

The road was incredibly steep and rough. As we crawled our way up Qaraqmar, the most notoriously dangerous part of the road, the driver lost traction and came to a halt. But when he stepped on the brakes, he discovered they didn't work. They had become overheated on the downhill sections, and the truck started rolling backwards towards the river. That gave me cause to look up: we were gathering speed towards the icy clutches of the fast-flowing flood waters. Hamid, the other passengers and I perched on the rice sacks and braced ourselves for the expected explosion into the river. An image of the freezing water clawing at my sodden burka, dragging me under and smashing me against the rocks, filled my head.

I closed my eyes in sheer panic, fingers digging into the rice sack as if it might offer some protection. The tires of the truck skidded backwards, fighting to gain a hold on the slippery gravel as we bounced and lurched amid shouts and screams of passengers and driver alike. Suddenly we stopped, just metres from the water's edge. I turned to Hamid, whose hand was being crushed in my adrenaline-fuelled grip. We turned to each other and laughed a relieved, nervous laugh. The driver tooted the horn in feeble celebration as cries of “
Alhamdulellah
, praise be to Allah” rang out. My knees felt weak as we climbed down from the truck. I was glad to be back on my own two feet, any thoughts of social embarrassment purged from my mind by the near-death experience.

The truck wasn't going anywhere. The brakes were cooked and it was beginning to get late. Besides, as close as I was to Faizabad, the last thing I wanted to do was get back on top of the truck. Instead, I walked around the rocks on the river bank, drinking in the landscape. I was free of the Taliban, free of the threats of beatings, free of their persecution of Hamid, free of the burka if I chose. That night, we slept on top of the truck. I didn't care anymore if anyone saw me. Tomorrow I would be in Faizabad, sleeping underneath the mountain skies of my home province.

Dear Shuhra and Shaharzad,

When I was a young village girl and desperate to go to school, I felt dirty and rough. I had so few clothes and always wore my wellingtons and a big red scarf that I trailed in the mud. I normally had a disgustingly runny nose.

Today, it makes me smile when I look at you two dressed in your fashionable clothes and worrying about your hairstyles. You have grown up in Kabul, our capital city, and are properly sophisticated city girls. If you saw how I looked at your age, you'd probably recoil in horror.

I know when I take you home to Badakhshan these days, you sometimes find it hard to fit in because the village children look so different to you.

But girls, the one thing I do not ever want you to be is a snob, or someone who looks down on others. We came from a poor village and we are no better than these children in their rags. Negative circumstances may take either one of you back there to live in poverty one day.

And remember this. This place you come from will always welcome you back if you need it to.

With love,
Your mother

· · SIXTEEN · ·
A Daughter for a Daughter

{
1998–2001
}

HAMID AND I settled into Faizabad life quickly. I was delighted to see all my relatives again. All my full sisters, my mother's other daughters, had married local men and remained in our province. Many of my half brothers and sisters had also stayed behind there when war broke out. I hadn't seen any of them in years and was delighted to be reunited with them. My sisters hadn't even known I had got married or was pregnant.

Faizabad itself became a haven for me, just as it had been in my early childhood, when we had fled there from the Mujahideen. I had forgotten what a beautiful city it is, with a highly elevated position and fresh air, an ancient bazaar of mud-plastered shops selling anything and everything and a clear turquoise river running right through the centre of the city.

We rented a small three-bedroom house from where Hamid was able to run his finance business. He also started teaching at the university. I was able to relax and prepare to give birth. I was as nervous as any first-time mother and had no idea what to expect from labour, except that it was likely to hurt. The hospital in Faizabad wasn't hygienic, and I knew I'd rather give birth at home than on a wire-framed bed with a paper-thin mattress in the dirty public ward.

My first-born daughter made her entry into the world on July 8, 1998. I'd been invited to lunch at one of Hamid's relatives, but when I got there I felt so sick I could barely touch my food. At 3 o'clock, I went home, and by 10 that evening my little angel was born.