Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan (34 page)

Bakhtawara was still busy working when she heard her little nephew calling, ‘
Hajiani
,
Hajiani
, look, I’ve come with food.’

She pushed the
bailcha
into the ground and walked towards the tree where she had hung her turban and gun. Shah Mahmoud greeted her, put the food on the ground and went to fetch the water pot. He first poured it over Bakhtawara’s hands and then washed his own. This was one of Shah Mahmoud’s daily chores: after school he had to bring food for Bakhtawara, which they would share under the shade of a tree. Bakhtawara unwrapped the food and found potatoes and hot bread, which her sister-in-law had cooked on the griddle pan. She took the onion, pressed it down with her hand until it split and gave some to Shah Mahmoud.

‘Did anyone tease you at school today?’ she asked him.

‘Yes, the boys are still calling you a
narkhazak
.’

The mention of this word again set Bakhtawara’s mind back to the time when she’d become a woman. As she ate, she remembered the day it had happened. She had been playing marbles with the boys in the village – they all thought she was another boy and treated her like one. Suddenly she felt an ache in her back, then as she got up to chase the marbles she felt a pain in her legs and stomach but ignored it. She kept playing and running, and was on the verge of winning the game. She squatted down as she pushed her marbles into the little hole, making her the winner and then stood up in triumph. As she did so, she felt some liquid escape between her legs and thought that perhaps she had wet herself. She ran home to change, but when she looked down at her cream-coloured
shalwar
she noticed it was stained with blood. Bakhtawara ran towards the wash-room, shouting to her sister-in-law that she had been shot and was bleeding. When her sister-in-law saw where the blood was on Bakhtawara’s
shalwar
, she guessed it was her monthly period. Bakhtawara was still checking her legs to see where she had been shot. Her sister-in-law told her not to worry and that this sort of bleeding happened when girls became women. It was the first time Bakhtawara had heard such things; she was embarrassed and upset. She went into her room and wept.
She wanted to be like the other boys but nature had shown her otherwise. Alone in her room, Bakhtawara unwrapped her breasts and looked at them. She hated her body and hated being a woman. She wanted to play marbles with the boys and be free like a man.

Bakhtawara went to speak to her mother who was now old and weak. She told Bakhtawara that as her father had given her all the responsibilities it was impossible for her to return to being a normal girl. She had no choice but to accept living like a man. So Bakhtawara started to wear baggy clothes and a waistcoat to hide her female form.

Shah Mahmoud interrupted Bakhtawara’s memories. ‘
Hajiani
, should I go now?’

Bakhtawara told him to take the pots back to the house immediately and not to get involved in fights with other boys. Then she said her prayers and returned to work.

After several more hours’ work, Bakhtawara picked up her gun and turban and headed home. It was getting dark but she noticed that the small shop in the village was still open. She went inside to buy sweets for the children and a notebook for Durkhani. This was a typical day for Bakhtawara: working in the fields, sorting out problems in the village and providing for her family.

Back at home, Bakhtawara ate with the family and told them how tired she was and how she would be going to sleep early. Once she was alone in her room she tried to work out why so many past memories had come back to her today. She realised it was the word
narkhazak
that had reminded her of her past life. Bakhtawara had long accepted this was her fate but there had been one occasion when she had bitterly regretted it. A couple of years ago there had been a wedding for a close family member of her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law’s family knew that Bakhtawara was really a woman but there were some women from the more remote areas of the community who didn’t know this. This wedding was to be a grand affair because the family was rich.

In Khost a man might pay several thousand dollars for a wife. The man’s family is responsible for all the wedding expenses but sometimes
the cost of the bride’s jewellery and items for the couple’s new home would be shared. In rich families the event can last for three or four days. The groom’s family will start their celebrations a month in advance of the actual wedding. Women in the groom’s family will be bought several new outfits – the more expensive the clothes the happier they are. On the day that the bride arrives at the groom’s home, food is served to hundreds of people. Rich people will slaughter cows and sheep for the wedding feast. Women and men are kept in separate areas: the men usually gather outside in the courtyard and are entertained with professional musicians; the women are given a large room inside the house where there is singing and drum playing.

In Afghan weddings, especially Pashtun ones, the groom’s sisters and female family members will all dance. The women in the bride’s family will also wear new and expensive clothes – a sign that they are upset that their daughter is leaving. Sometimes the mother will be too upset to wear new clothes since she does not know if the new in-laws will treat her daughter well.

Bakhtawara’s sister-in-law had persuaded her to go to this wedding so that she could see what a rich bride’s wedding was like and enjoy the lavish celebration. Bakhtawara would usually go to village weddings as a man and attend the male parties. Occasionally, at close family weddings, she was allowed to go to the women’s party but this was the first time that she would be attending a larger wedding as a woman.

Bakhtawara wore a new white
shalwar kamiz
and her niece had polished her leather
chapli
until they shone like new. She felt happy and carefree when she left the house with her family. All the women were wearing brightly coloured and glittery Pashtun dresses and lots of makeup. Bakhtawara walked ahead of them with Shah Mahmoud. When they arrived at the house, they found the garden had been decorated with bright plastic flowers. Bakhtawara followed her sister-in-law into the part of the house where the women were gathering. As she got closer she heard the women giggling.

‘Oh, I see you’ve come with your
narkhazak
,’ they teased her sister-in-law. ‘What does this
narkhazak
carry in her trousers? A
kus
or a
khota
?’ And they dissolved into peals of laughter.

Her sister-in-law warned the women that if they didn’t keep quiet Bakhtawara would get angry and attack them. At this, the women quietened down. Meanwhile Bakhtawara went to sit by herself in a corner of the room. She pretended that she hadn’t heard any of this exchange because she knew her sister-in-law would be embarrassed at her family’s behaviour. Bakhtawara felt helpless. With men she had the strength and skill to fight them, but she had no idea how to defend herself against the mockery of these giggling women. For the first time Bakhtawara recognised she had less power and confidence amongst women than she did amongst men. On that day, too, she realised exactly what she had lost with the denial of her womanhood and she felt a grief almost as profound as when her parents had died. Her physical strength, her gun and turban all helped her gain respect from men, but she had nothing in her armoury to defend herself against the maliciousness of women.

Bakhtawara sat silently with Shah Mahmoud at her side. Delicious plates of food were brought in but Bakhtawara had no appetite. Her heart felt heavy and broken. Bakhtawara’s sister-in-law could see she was upset and came to ask if she needed anything more, but Bakhtawara shook her head and with that her sister-in-law fled, ashamed by her family’s attitude towards Bakhtawara. Bakhtawara wanted to cry but she was so used to being strong and manly that she couldn’t. Her parents had taught her that only weak men cry and that if she were seen to be weak people would take advantage of her. Tears may not have fallen down her face but her stony expression couldn’t mask the fact that Bakhtawara was shattered.

After all the guests had eaten, a young girl went around the room with a water pot, offering it to the guests to wash their hands. Bakhtawara moved her hands towards the girl so that she could pour water on them but the young girl couldn’t stop laughing. After Bakhtawara finished washing she asked, ‘What’s so funny? Have you heard a good joke?’

The little girl stepped back and said, ‘
Hajiani
, my friends and I think you are the joke!’

The girl burst into giggles again, and other young girls joined in the laughter.

‘You shameless girls,’ Bakhtawara said, her anger rising. ‘What’s so funny about me? Is there a joke written on my forehead?’

The girls ran to each other and shouted, ‘Yes, the joke is that you’re a man with no beard. You look funny, like a cartoon. You pretend to be a man but you’re really a
narkhazak
, aren’t you?’ And with that they laughed and went away.

Bakhtawara didn’t want to make a fuss and spoil the wedding for her sister-in-law, so she told herself that she must say nothing and suffer in silence. A crowd of women were singing as they walked in procession with the bride. They were leading the bride to her place in the corner of the room. Bakhtawara gazed at the bride in her red glittery dress, green shawl and gold jewellery. She looked so young and happy. As Bakhtawara joined in the clapping for the bride, she again felt that yearning to be a woman, a mother and a bride. How she wished that she was standing in the bride’s place. Surely she deserved all this, too, but she remembered that she was over thirty years old and that no one had ever praised her for her beauty, no one had ever knocked on her door to ask for her hand in marriage. She knew, however, that people would soon come and ask her for her niece Durkhani’s hand. It wasn’t the first time that Bakhtawara had felt this hunger to be cared for and loved as a woman. Whenever she saw her brother behaving attentively towards his wife she felt this pang of envy and whenever her sister came to the house with her children she wished she could have a family too; but she never spoke to anyone about these feelings.

She stopped clapping and went back to sit in the corner with Shah Mahmoud. She felt suffocated surrounded by all these bitchy women and wished she were at the men’s party where they respected her for behaving like a man. She was considering making an excuse and leaving, when the groom’s family entered the room singing. They hadn’t met
Bakhtawara before and didn’t know the truth behind her masculine exterior. When some of the women spotted Bakhtawara sitting in the corner watching them they assumed she was a man and suddenly stopped singing and covered their faces with their scarves. The mother could hear that the singing had stopped abruptly.

‘What’s happened? Why have you all stopped?’

One of the women stepped forward. ‘We have all our female relatives here. Yet there’s a man here who keeps staring at us. It’s very shameful and disrespectful to be treated in this way.’

Another joined in: ‘You know, we came to your house with trust. All our men have gone to the men’s room. Why is this one still here sitting and watching us? It’s an insult.’

The mother of the bride saw Bakhtawara and smiled. ‘That is our
Hajiani
. She’s not a man. Come, let’s carry on singing.’

But the women were not so easily reassured or diverted. ‘No, I’m going to call for the family men to come here and look at him. If he’s not a man then I’m a man!’

The bride’s mother said, ‘Bakhtawara is a
narkhazak
. She’s neither a man nor a woman. Don’t worry, we know how to keep the respect of our guests. Come on, let’s carry on singing.’

When Bakhtawara heard the bride’s mother refer to her as
narkhazak
she got very upset. She stood up and went over to face the women.

‘Do you have a question about me and my gender? I’ll tell you what I am. I’ve got the same things as you have, I have the same breasts and the same hair and what’s more I’ve got the same feelings as you. It’s just that I’ve been unlucky, I’ve been brought up as a man – my parents raised me as a boy because they needed a son. I’m going to leave now. I just want you to be careful not to do what my mother did to me. Never change your daughters into sons because no one can change the feelings God has given us. You can change a person’s clothes, you can change the way they walk and talk, but you can’t change their feelings. I may look and act like a man but my feelings are the same as yours!’

Finally, Bakhtawara pointed to her sister-in-law and said, ‘She will go home with Shah Mahmoud.’

That night Bakhtawara cried until the early hours of the morning. Her dress, her sheets and pillow were all wet from her tears. She would never go to another women’s party at a wedding again.

The days were usually easier for Bakhtawara because she didn’t meet many women and she was busy with her work. She also knew that in many ways she was freer than other women. She didn’t have to stay at home, didn’t have to suffer domestic violence; she could meet men in public and they respected her. She was in charge of her own life. There was no one to tell her what to do. She worked hard and had money of her own, which she could spend as she liked. If she needed to see a doctor, she just went. No one would gossip about her if she were seen talking to a strange man. She was given respect in the home and in the village.

But at night she felt tired, lonely and unloved and it was hard to forget she was a woman. She wished she could have a family of her own. It hurt her that no one had asked for her hand in marriage and she was frightened of becoming old and frail. She worried that she would be abandoned when she no longer had the strength to farm the land, attend the
jirga
and provide for the family.

Each day on her way to the fields, Bakhtawara would pass men in the village. She would shake hands with them and stand chatting for a few minutes with each of them. The men would talk to her as they would to any other man but they would not greet her with a kiss or embrace, as they would with other men, because they knew she was really a woman. Bakhtawara was a powerful figure in the village. She was influential and enjoyed the respect and attention she got from men in her community. She felt comfortable in their company; they didn’t call her spiteful names; she was just considered a good Muslim and a hard-working person. Men judged her less, and so for a long time Bakhtawara stopped mixing with women.