The Underground Girls of Kabul (13 page)

Three years later, after getting her degree from a teaching academy in Badghis while working for a United Nations office as a translator, a friend offered to lend her the two hundred dollars needed to register to run for parliament in the first national elections. At twenty-eight, and now a mother of four, Azita decided it was more money than she could afford to repay if she lost. She simply had to win.

A
MID THE ENDLESS
cement, blast-protecting sandbags, and dust of Kabul, the desire for beauty can become overwhelming. To those who make the five-hour journey past the infamous Bagram air base,
where
Afghans have been tortured to death by U.S. forces, through several Taliban-controlled areas, and down a dirt road where small homemade bombs frequently disrupt traffic, an untouched fairy-tale world is said to open up.

On this Friday, Azita has sent her husband and the girls off to that place for a picnic outing. While they are gone, she will rest. As she waves good-bye to her family from the third-floor window, she sees that Mehran has taken the front seat next to her father. The older girls, bubbly with excitement, share the backseat as long lines of cars head out of town early in the morning. Friday is the day for prayer, but it is also a day off that families can spend together. Going on a “picnic” is a much appreciated way for less conservative Afghans to meet, and for some to clandestinely drink, away from neighbors and other gossips in Kabul. Alcohol is banned, but that rule is freely bent, just as many other cultural and religious decrees in Afghanistan often are.

Our Friday morning convoy also includes a local fire chief, who is an old friend of Azita’s husband. His car is followed by two trucks with young Kalashnikov-carrying firefighter escorts.

The destination we arrive at is Kapisa province, an old mujahideen stronghold, where large stone formations and hills break up a dwindling green landscape just on the verge of bursting into full summer. Harsh winters have made knotty branches on century-old trees more resistant, and they reign over almost invisible paths through high grass and into fields where children herd sheep. On the other side of a hill are fields of shell peas and cucumbers, where a river feeds the thick, dark soil. Next to it, spread out on the grass, picnicgoers from Kabul sit together in groups. Some women have removed their head scarves and laugh loudly.

The young chain-smoking firefighters unload a large plastic sheet, two heavy Oriental rugs, and several large baskets and buckets from their trucks. They carry it all, plus guns and ammunition belts, across the pretty streams by jumping from stone to stone. When Mehran, dressed in white just like her father, falls and plunges knees-first into the water, she is swung back up and carried on his shoulders. She rides
triumphantly, overlooking the procession at the tail end of which her sisters slip in their flat sandals, struggling to pick up the pace.

The firefighters act as pathfinders, who after a half-hour trek settle on the perfect tree, unfurling large plastic sheets underneath it. In this traditional rite of spring, the tree soon begins to vibrate, and clusters of little white and red berries patter down on the plastic sheet, held by two of them. A third firefighter, who has climbed up to the top of the tree, and wrapped his legs around a thick branch, lets out a loud, satisfied laugh when he is asked to give the branch another shake. And the mulberries rain down again, making their way from the plastic sheet into baskets. Our caravan sets off again, and the loot is carried to the side of a river stream that holds another little secret. A hole has been carved into the ground and lined with stones, allowing water from the stream to flow in. Baskets are emptied into the bathtub-like reservoir filled with ice-cold, clear water, and everyone squats around the tub to greedily scoop up the dark purple berries, scarfing them down by the handful. When all have eaten more than they can really stomach, hand-knotted rugs are spread out on the grass. For the prescribed digestive routine, several of the berry eaters go from cross-legged to fully lying down while large containers of runny yogurt are passed around.

A
ZITA
’
S HUSBAND OF
thirteen years smiles broadly and turns his face toward the sun. In search of attention, Mehran crawls up onto him, only to be carefully pushed off his very full belly. It is rare for him to get out of Kabul, and to show his children much other than the apartment where they all spend most of their time.

He tells me he married Azita because she was his cousin, but also because he loved her. But mostly, he explains, he did his uncle and his family a favor. Otherwise Azita could have been forced to marry a stranger in wartime.

“That is why I stepped in. The whole family agreed it was the best thing.”

“But you already had a wife?”

“Yes. But Azita is the daughter of my uncle. Since I lost my father, he became like a father to me. When he said he did not want to lose her to another family, I wanted to help.”

He looks at Mehran. “He is completely like a boy, don’t you think? He looks like a boy, and he behaves like a boy. He is a good son for us.”

I look at Mehran, whose facial features resemble her father’s, especially when she wrinkles her forehead or frowns. Grinning, he agrees that Mehran is more pampered than his other children. But she is the youngest, so she just needs a little bit more love—one must remember that, too. It’s the same in every family. And Mehran will go back to being a girl; there is certainly no confusion about that. Ten or twelve may be a good age. Or a few years later, depending on how she looks. Her father is not entirely sure: “It is the first time we have done this. Let’s see what will happen.”

He does not foresee any trouble for Mehran, or believe that her time as a boy will be confusing later on. Planning for or even thinking much about the future is best avoided. Through a turbulent history and several wars he has learned that trying to foresee the future is often just cause for disappointment. “This is the need for today, and I don’t know about tomorrow. She knows she is a girl, and when she grows up she will understand the difference better, too.”

The deceit has worked so well he has almost fooled himself. “To be honest, I think of him as a boy. When I see him, I see my only son.”

He fully expects Mehran to grow up to be a young woman, to marry and have children of her own. Anything else would be strange. “This is life in Afghanistan. Hopefully he will be lucky. Maybe it will be even easier for him since he is a boy now.”

At the kebab lunch, Mehran is given the honorable placement between her father and the fire chief. She has become friendly with several of the firefighters, who allow her to hold each of their Kalashnikovs in a wobbly grip. If the firefighters have any clue of her real gender, they are too polite to say. Very politely, they also avert their eyes when the three other girls come their way, and they all make an effort to keep a distance, to avoid any physical collision. None of
the other girls are offered a chance to hold the guns. After ingesting a large amount of food, the fire chief takes out a sweet-smelling hand-rolled cigarette and lights up. He offers it around to his circle of escorts, who happily put their guns on their laps and accept. It will make the drive back to Kabul a little less dull.

On the way home, Mehran falls asleep on her father’s shoulder, as the task of driving is turned over to a firefighter with droopy eyelids. Mehran has a few more years before the life of an Afghan woman begins. For now, she is on the side of privilege.

Zahra

S
TANDING ON TOP
of a table, she was an animal on display. There was cheering and loud laughter. Her body was frozen, and she could not move. When tears rolled down her cheeks she did not lift her hands to wipe them off. That she cried engaged them even more.
“Look, look.”
And she was looked at some more. Some clapped their hands with excitement. Finally, she buried her face in her hands, screaming, to block out the sound.

It would become one of her first very illuminated memories, and she would later describe it: “I made the world dark. I thought that when I could not see the world, the world could not see me.”

Arriving at kindergarten in Peshawar in the standard uniform for boys had been a mistake. Her mother had brought it to her, and Zahra had managed for a few days before the other children figured her out. The older ones began to taunt her: She was not a real boy, so why would she want to look like one? One of them ran for the teacher, who was not pleased to hear about the charade. Zahra’s parents were called over and quietly sat through a lecture about the importance of discipline and obedience in children from a young age. That was both the kindergarten’s and the school’s mission, and it was not to be made fun of. The parents would need to get a proper girl’s uniform for their daughter before she would be allowed to return.

At home, Zahra cried and tried to wriggle out of the blue skirt and white blouse. It was when she returned to school that she was put on a table, to serve as an example before the others.

“This is a girl,” the teacher announced. “Look at her. This is what a girl looks like. Do you see? She was never a boy. You will
all
remember this now.”

A
LMOST TEN YEARS
later, standing in the doorway of her family’s apartment in Kabul, Zahra has chosen her own outfit: a boxy black jacket, a buttoned-up shirt, and dark pants. She has the look of an elegant young man, walking a fine line on gender, with her round face, full lips, long eyelashes, and a shiny black Tom Cruise hairstyle with a neat side parting. She does not greet us with a smile. Nor does she lower her gaze, an impulse ingrained in most Afghan girls. She is unafraid, looking me straight in the eyes, resting one hand on her hip. And why would she not? Her exterior is of the ruling gender; mine is not.

Through another chain of rumors and introductions, I have found fifteen-year-old Zahra and her family. They are from Andkhoy in the northern Faryab province. There, according to several carpet dealers in Kabul, girls are commonly dressed like boys in order to help out as weavers in carpet production. But Zahra was never a
bacha posh
who did hard labor. Instead, her parents say their daughter just always
wanted
to be a boy. They had nothing to do with it. And just as with many stories of
bacha posh
I have encountered by now, that will turn out to be not entirely true.

Zahra is coming of a dangerous age.

An Afghan girl who is no longer a child but on her way to becoming a woman should immediately be shielded and protected to ensure her virginity and reputation for a future marriage. No matter how athletic, boyish, and buoyant the spirit of a
bacha posh
may have been, puberty—or, according to Dr. Fareiba, ideally sometime before—is the time when the curtain necessarily comes down for most girls. It
is when they must be undone, otherwise a
bacha posh
can become “a little strange in the head,” in Dr. Fareiba’s words, if she presents as something else going into puberty, when gender segregation goes into full effect. For this reason, by remaining in male disguise at fifteen, Zahra is slowly treading into far more complicated territory than a younger
bacha posh
. By her age, girls are commonly taught to focus on becoming proper, shy, and very quiet young women.

But Zahra lacks most traditional feminine traits and speaks for herself right away. She has lived as a boy for as long as she can remember and has no intention of changing. She does not ever want to become an Afghan woman. They are second-class citizens, she explains to me, always beholden to and ruled by men. So why would she want to join them?

“People use bad words for girls; they scream at them on the streets,” she says. “When I see that, I don’t want to be a girl. When I am a boy, they don’t speak to me like that.”

Zahra would rather work, support herself, and make her own decisions, without being under the guardianship of a husband, following that of her father, as Afghan culture dictates for women. Other teenage Kabul girls will say similar things as a joking fantasy, as defying one’s parents is rarely an option in Afghan culture. But Zahra is serious, and she speaks of the usual path for Afghan women as unthinkable to her. She does not want a family, nor does she desire children of her own. “For always, I want to be a boy and a boy and a boy,” she says.

There are no other
bacha posh
in her school, but she has come to this conclusion on her own, through observations of her neighborhood, and her own family. There, eleven people share three rooms, and Zahra sleeps with her sisters. As in many other Afghan households, moments of privacy extend, at most, to the bathroom. One of her eight siblings is always banging on the door to get in, or just banging on the door as they run by.