Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan (12 page)

On a different occasion my in-laws brought wet sticks and wood and put them in my room. I thought they were going to use them to beat me with, but later realised they were just being stored there and they were for the sheep. This is how it is when you are beaten daily. You can’t think straight and become paranoid. Nobody was kind to me. Not my own family and certainly not my in-laws; they were my enemies
.

In the morning I would be made to go and collect cow dung, even though I could barely walk because I was so weak with hunger. I’d go with some of the older girls in the house and they would make me carry their cow dung all the way back, but then when we got nearer the house they would
hit me and take my basket from me. They would tell my mother-in-law that I’d done no work all morning and that I had fallen asleep. My mother-in-law would shout at me for being lazy and useless and then tell her young grandson to beat me with a stick
.

Every day my mother-in-law would give me far harder jobs than she would to her own daughters. They were a big family and quite rich, too, and they owned a large area of land and had lots of cows and sheep. We often had to collect hay for the cows, and even though I was the youngest child they would force me to get on with the job by slapping my face and pulling my hair. Sometimes they even punched me until I collapsed. If I’d had any ideas about escaping, I would have been stopped by my sisters-in-law who always kept a close eye on me. They told me not to fall behind when we were out because they were afraid I might run away or that my father might come and rescue me
.

When we got back with the hay, they would tell my mother-in-law they had collected it all and that I had done nothing, giving her an excuse to give me yet another beating. They used to beat me day and night. After a while some people in the neighbourhood suggested I should be allowed to go home and visit my family, but my in-laws said that I wouldn’t be allowed to go back until after the matrimonial ceremony. I had no idea what this ‘matrimonial ceremony’ was, but whatever it was I wanted it to be over quickly so I could see my family again, so I went and asked my father-in-law when it would happen. ‘You dirty shameless woman, can’t you wait for it?’ he said, spitting in my face
.

Everyone started laughing but I couldn’t understand why. There was one occasion, though, when I did manage to escape and go back to my parents’ house. My mother cooked me lots of delicious food but I knew my in-laws would guess where I was; I was their property now and they would kill my parents if I didn’t go back. When I reappeared they demanded a sheep from my family as compensation for my behaviour, and I was beaten and told to go and sleep in the cow’s shed
.

My suffering continued for about three years. I got used to eating leftovers and stealing what I could from the kitchen. When I got caught
I would be beaten, but I didn’t care because it was as if my body had turned to stone. I no longer felt any pain, and had forgotten what love and kindness were. I was alone. Then when I was about twelve years old my monthly bleeding started. I had no idea what it was when menstrual blood first leaked through my tattered
shalwar,
and was too busy with my early-morning chores of making a fire and heating the water to notice it. As usual I was hurrying so that no one could complain I was slow, and use this as an excuse to beat me, but then I began to feel a mild aching in my back and legs. The next thing I knew my father-in-law came striding towards me and slapped me hard across the face. ‘You filthy slut. How dare you show your shame and blood to everyone like this? Go and clean yourself up.’ I had no idea what he meant and started crying. One of my sisters-in-law handed me an old cloth and told me that now I’d grown up I’d soon be getting a husband. Then she laughed. Later my mother-in-law came into the cowshed where I was sleeping
.

‘
Shereenjan, you are an evil girl and you are lucky my husband is a kind Muslim and said that we should wait until you became a woman before giving you to my son. Now, though, you are going to sleep with my son and give him babies. It will be you who brings children into this family instead of my murdered son and they will be of our blood
.’

In a way she was right. If they had been an even crueller family they would perhaps have forced me to sleep with their son earlier. I think I could have coped with it, though. Someone like me can endure any amount of suffering. Their aim had always been to take revenge on me for the death of their son, and they were very good at it. From the older members of the family down to the very youngest, they would always find some new way to hurt me and take satisfaction from my suffering. My father-in-law was angry all the time and would shout out, ‘Beat her!’ And whenever I heard these words I’d start to shake. I wanted to escape to safety but there was nowhere for me to go, and as they beat me with a stick I would cry out for my mother. How I longed for a soft word, a warm hug or any form of kindness
.

The son who was going to sleep with me was also very young; he was fifteen years old. He would also sometimes beat me while telling me that I was soon going to be his wife, but he didn’t beat me as much as the others did. Around this time a couple of neighbours told my family about the terrible conditions I was living under and how my in-laws were taking out their anger at the death of their son on me. Soon after my father came to visit me at the place where I’d collect cow dung, and I was on my own because my sisters-in-law no longer helped with that job. He had been hiding in one of the sheds and I was surprised to see him, and asked him what he was doing there. ‘I’ve come to take you away with me, Shereenjan. We’ll escape and live far away.’ I was afraid and began shouting that I didn’t want to go with him. He hadn’t come for me when I was younger and now I was twelve and had got used to my life with my in-laws. My existence was hellish but I had survived it by getting used to it, and couldn’t face the idea of it getting any worse so I told him I wouldn’t go with him. I started to cry. My father then recited some verses of the Quran before leaving, and that was the last time I ever saw him. I wept the whole time I collected that smelly shit in my hands, knowing that my in-laws would kick me because I smelt so foul
.

I have never been beautiful or vain, but I would envy my sisters-in-law. They would put colourful plastic clips in their hair and paint henna on their hands, and it seemed as though they always had new clothes and sandals to wear. I would stare at them and wish I too had those things. Instead, my clothes were my mother-in-law’s cast-offs, and because she was so much bigger than me her faded, ugly clothes hung loosely on my thin body. I could never have gone to a wedding or funeral dressed like that
.

There was one occasion when my mother visited me, and when she saw how thin I’d become and the terrible conditions I was living under, she went home and vomited up blood. I heard later that her distress had caused her to lose the five-month-old baby she was carrying at the time. After
that, no one from my family was allowed to visit me. But, Zari dear, somehow I managed to survive by learning some tricks, and despite all the hardship and beatings I was still quite naughty
.

At the mention of this Shereenjan covered her mouth with her hand, and giggled like a mischievous schoolgirl.

I got this naughty streak from my grandmother who used to tell me how she would misbehave with her in-laws. I would wait until the afternoon when everyone was asleep and the house was quiet, then I would sneak into the bathroom and steal some soap and quickly wash my hands, face and hair. I had hidden a piece of broken mirror in the shed where I was living so that I could see myself, then I would tell the cows how beautiful I looked when I was clean
.

Shereenjan laughed at the memory.

Of course, they didn’t take any notice and just carried on eating and mooing, but those cows kept me company and somehow I felt as though they loved me. I would give them their food regularly and keep their shed clean, and so in a way I had a family that no one else knew about. I was relieved my in-laws weren’t aware of my little world, as I feared they might separate me from the animals too
.

After seven days of my period, my bleeding stopped and my
Nikkah
day came. In the morning my mother-in-law informed me that I would today become Azam’s wife. I said nothing. I knew that a girl usually wore beautiful new clothes and make-up on her wedding day, but my mother-in-law gave me none of those things. I wore the same old clothes and was covered in the same old shit, although on this occasion she did tell me to wash because she said her son wouldn’t want to sleep with a smelly girl like me. For the first time in five years I was given shampoo to wash my long, thick hair, and I had to wash it four times because it was so full of dirt. It felt so good to smell fresh, and as I combed my clean hair I remembered the last time my mother had combed it and how she had been crying. I began to cry too. I missed her so much
.

A mullah came to perform the
Nikkah
ceremony (the contract between a man and a woman in Islam), although no one bothered to ask whether or not I agreed to the marriage. It was all just a formality to allow my in-laws to show the neighbours that they were good Muslims. Afterwards I carried on with my normal house and farm jobs. I didn’t know what was going to happen, even when my mother-in-law told me that tonight I would sleep in the house. When I asked her why this was, she said it was because I was now married to her son and that she was waiting for me to give her a grandson. I had no idea what she was talking about, but the prospect of sleeping on a
charpoie
in the house had already begun to frighten me, so I told her I was happy in the cowshed. In response, she shook me and slapped my face before telling me to wash and then go to Azam’s room. ‘Girl, this will be your gift to me to avenge the murder of my son.’ I ran to the bedroom and found Azam waiting for me. He locked the door and started touching my body and I was shocked and frightened, and started crying. He ordered me to pull down my
shalwar,
which I did although I was shaking with fear, and he penetrated me so hard that I started to bleed. Once it was over, he kicked me, told me to collect my clothes and to go back to the cowshed
.

‘
Don’t think that because this has happened you’ll become my wife. You’re only going to be the vessel for my children. They will live in the house but you will only come to my room when I need sex so that you can bear me a son
.’

This sexual violence became just another part of my life as a woman. I was abused in almost every way possible. Beaten and deprived, my very soul had died. After a month, I fell pregnant and soon gave birth to a baby boy. This baby is now the son who looks after me. His arrival marked the beginning of a better chapter in my life. My in-laws were getting older, and I was happy when my father in-law died. Meanwhile my husband, Azam, married the girl of his choice when he was twenty and it was a great relief because it meant I no longer had to go to his room and be abused by him. My mother-in-law also passed away and her daughters married, one by one, and went to live with their husbands, leaving me with Azam, his brother,
his second wife and their children. But I also had my own dear son with me – the person to whom I was closest – and I took great care of him. And although his mother was a despised servant, his father still loved him
.

As the elders in the family passed away, I too grew older. My son grew up but he stayed with me, even when he got married and had children, and those children are very good to me. God save them. But now I’m getting old and ill, and I think the effects of all those years of suffering are starting to take hold. All those beatings made my bones and joints weak and painful, and I’m not very mobile. I was young then, but now I’m old, and one day I will go to Paradise
.

I don’t think badly of my in-laws, besides they’re all dead now. It was my destiny to end up with them and nothing could have been done to change that. If anything, I blame my father. How could I have expected my in-laws to be kind to me when my own parents gave me away? If I curse my in-laws, then I would have to curse my own parents first, and I don’t want to disturb their souls. What would it change? My husband became kind for a while before he died and I even pray for him sometimes, because if it hadn’t been for him then I wouldn’t have the beautiful son who now takes such good care of me. This, my child, is the story of my life
.

After I had finished recording Shereenjan’s story, her daughter-in-law brought us fresh sour yoghurt – we call this
shrombi
in Pashtu. We ate it with flat bread that had been freshly baked in a
tanoor
(oven), and as Shereenjan and I tucked into the food, I thought how privileged I’d been to hear her incredible story. I was honoured that she had entrusted it to me. Before I left, I gave Shereenjan’s daughter-in-law a BBC timetable so they would know when to listen for their mother on the radio. Everyone seemed pleased with this and wished me a warm goodbye – ‘
Khuda Hafiz
’, ‘May God be your guardian.’

Back at the guesthouse in Kabul, I decided to phone Pana’s auntie in Pakistan and ask how Pana was. She told me she was out in the yard playing with some of her friends but that the next day she would be going to her in-laws. It struck me then that nothing much had changed
in Afghanistan. The same thing that had happened to Shereenjan all those years ago was about to happen to Pana now. I asked the auntie if there was any other way to solve the dispute; might the family accept money instead? She said that Pana had been promised to them, that this was the arrangement and that nothing could be done to change it. All we could do was pray to God that the family would be kind to her.

I felt helpless. I could do nothing to save this eleven-year-old girl. I asked the auntie how Pana was feeling and she replied, ‘This is how it is for the daughter of such an unfortunate mother. Pana’s still a child and doesn’t realise she will be going to this new house for ever; and once she’s there she’ll not enjoy the usual privileges of a bride because she’s going there to settle a dispute. The poor child won’t have a wedding party like other girls and she won’t ever be allowed home to see her brother. She’s going there to appease the anger of that family, and they will take satisfaction from treating her like a slave because they will want the daughter of their enemy to suffer.’