The Favored Daughter (9 page)

On the way back to his house, Nadir continued to protect me, saying that the lady had made a mistake. I knew in my heart he was wrong, but I chose to believe the lie rather than accept the terrible truth.

Perhaps it was the uncertainty of whether Muqim really was dead or not, but I found life in the village very difficult after that. I was really beginning to miss my family, especially my mother. I was having trouble adjusting to life in the country, too, and I found myself longing to be back among the bustle and energy of a city, preferably Kabul. Everything was just so unfamiliar. I even found the basic village food of boiled meat and naan inedible. I began losing weight. Most of all I was missing my classes.

There was no television or radio, so once the evening meal had been eaten and tidied away, the family simply went to bed—normally by seven o'clock each night. It was far too early for me. To occupy myself on those quiet evenings, as I lay in bed I would go over different math problems, formulas for chemistry and physics. It kept my mind occupied and helped me feel at least some connection with the lessons I missed so much. And as I remembered the numbers and symbols, part of me hoped I could soon return to Kabul and find it like it was when I left more than a year ago.

Not long after, I asked Nadir to let me return to Faizabad. I missed my mother so much and really needed to be near her. I started discussing this with my family, but it was decided that instead of returning to Faizabad, my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and I would all move back to Kabul together. Mirshakay, my mother's second son, was by now a police general in the capital, and he had decreed Kabul to be safe enough.

I took a flight to the city of Kunduz, where I met up with the others. I was so happy to be back with my family, and especially my mother. I did not tell her what I had been told about Muqim's death, because I still couldn't bring myself to believe it was true. When I felt the nagging sickening waves of unease wash over me, I simply shut it out of my mind. My mother was very pleased to have me back, too, and although neither of us knew what to expect in Kabul, we were all very excited to be returning.

From Kunduz we had to take a 186-mile bus journey. That July was very hot, even by the usual summer temperatures of Afghanistan. The sun scorched the mountains, and the rocks became so hot around midday that you could not touch them for fear of burning your hand. The wind whipped up the dust so that it swirled around in little tornados, getting everywhere—in houses, inside cars and machinery, constantly in your eyes.

I was becoming used to my burqa, but of course I still resented it. The dust did not respect women's modesty, and it would find its way inside the blue cloth and stick to my sweating skin, making me itch and wriggle even more than usual. At least on the horse ride to my brother's house I was in the open air, but when I was crammed into a stifling bus with my family and dozens of other people trying to get to Kabul, the temperature inside my burqa was unbearable.

The road from Kunduz to Kabul is one of the most dangerous in Afghanistan. It has improved over the years, but even now it can be a nerve-wracking journey. The road's narrow, rutted surface winds around the jagged mountains in spirals that on one side pierce the turquoise sky, while on the other plunge hundreds of feet down to the jagged rocks of the gorge below. Many unfortunate people have met their deaths down there. There aren't any safety barriers, and when trucks and larger vehicles like our bus met while going in opposite directions, they would squeeze past each other a few inches at a time while the wheels teetered along the crumbling lip of the cliff.

I have always been nervous in cars. I sat in my bouncing, swaying seat listening to the roar of the bus's engine as the driver worked his way furiously up and down the gears, occasionally tooting his horn to remonstrate passing motorists. Fortunately I had my physics calculations and formulas to distract me, and I would happily drift off in a trail of numbers. Anything to keep my mind from the rivers of sweat that ran down my back and matted my hair inside the hood of my burqa.

As the heat of the day began to wear off, the mountains turned lilac. The landscape softened, and now and then we passed a shepherd squatting near his flock of goats and sheep as they grazed the sweetest grass around the riverbeds and shadier spots. Donkeys snuffled among the wild poppies, and every few miles the burned and abandoned remains of a Soviet tank or truck littered the side of the road.

When we approached the outskirts of Kabul, tired, still damp with sweat, and irritated by the layer of dust that tickled our noses and made our skin itch, our bus slowed to a crawl in a long line of traffic that stretched out in front of us. Hundreds of cars blocked the road, packed bumper to bumper. We waited, uncertain of what was happening. Without air flowing through the windows it became unbearably hot once again. Many of the children were crying, pleading with their mothers to give them water. A man with an AK47 rifle approached the bus, sticking his bushy black beard and brown
paqul
hat (a wool round shaped hat, usually grey or light brown in color) through the door. His shalwar kameez was sweat-stained and dirty. The passengers strained their ears to hear the conversation. The delay, the gunman told the driver, was because a mujahideen commander, Abul Sabur Farid Kohistani, was being appointed prime minister of the new government, and the roads in the capital had been closed as a security precaution to let his convoy through. I took it as a bad sign. Not even the Russians had needed to bring an entire city to a halt to move dignitaries around. Kabul was in the hands of the mujahideen; they were veteran fighters, not politicians or civil servants. How could they run the country efficiently?

When the roads were eventually opened again we made our way through the city. There were signs of recent fighting—destroyed buildings and burnedout vehicles, and mujahideen stood at checkpoints, guns at the ready. We went to my brother Mirshakay's apartment in an area called Makrorian, a series of Russian-built apartment blocks. He lived on the fifth floor, and the apartment was very busy. He'd had been given a very senior job at the Ministry of the Interior, where he was helping run the police force. He was a very important man, and when we entered the apartment the living room was full of guests, men mostly, waiting to speak to him. Some were there on official business— police policy and organization. Others were there to plead the case of friends or relatives who were in jail; while others, many from Badakhshan, were making a social visit. It was a chaotic scene. He came to meet us on the third floor and I burst into in tears. The city was so different from the last time I was here, and I was afraid of what it meant for my family and my country. But I was most concerned that my brother Muqim wasn't there to greet us, too. It played to my worst fears. I knew in my heart he was dead, but his absence confirmed it to me. Still, nobody seemed prepared to acknowledge the fact.

When I asked where he was, I was told he had gone to Pakistan and planned to go to Europe. When? I asked. About 40 days ago, I was told. But I knew I was being lied to. Then I saw his photograph on a shelf in the living room. The frame had been decorated with silk flowers. It was an ominous sign, and the first outward confirmation of my worst fears.

“Why did you decorate the photo frame with flowers?” I asked my sisterin-law. She squirmed uncomfortably. “Because, you know, since Muqim went to Pakistan I just miss him so much,” she replied. My heart sank and I knew she was lying. In Afghanistan we decorate a photograph with flowers as a sign of mourning, as a tribute. My family was trying to protect me. But I didn't need protecting—I needed the truth.

Later that evening I was casually exploring the apartment, picking up the books and photographs that lined my brother's living room. I found a diary and opened it out of bored curiosity rather than genuine suspicion. Inside was a poem. It was the terrible truth laid out in verse.

Written by a man called Amin, who had been my brother's best friend, it was a poem of lament, describing how Muqim had been killed. I had read only the first three lines before a scream exploded from my lips. It was more a wail of anguish than rage. Here was elegant proof of Muqim's murder. A murder no one in my family seemed prepared to openly acknowledge. My mother and brother rushed into the living room to see what was the matter. I was crying uncontrollably and barely able to talk. Instead I just stood there, holding the journal in my hand, waving it at my mother. She took it from me with trembling hands. My brother looked horrified, but he didn't stop my mother from staring down at the poem. Unable to read the words, she looked up at me blankly. “It's about your son,” I whispered. “He's dead.” The time for lies, no matter how well intended, was over. My mother's scream was heartbreaking. Its piercing crescendo echoed off the concrete walls, drilling down into our brains. The irrefutable evidence of my brother's death had struck me like a hammer blow. For my mother it was almost crushing. My family gathered in the room, the secret of Muqim's fate now in the open.

That evening our grief bonded us—myself, my mother, my sister, my brother and his two wives, my three aunts. We were all left weeping and asking why? Why a young man who was so good and strong had been taken so unfairly away from us. Another of our family's brightest shining stars was gone.

 

SIX

WHEN JUSTICE DIES