The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (14 page)

“Maybe the groom had to leave for the front and that was why they were in such a hurry?” Laila added.

Hours later Malika was still rewinding the events of the last two days in her head. “I just don't believe it,” she said. She was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, having stopped moving for the first time all day to enjoy a cup of tea and a plate of spaghetti.

Kamila grinned.

“This is good news,” she said. “At least we know some of the Taliban like our work!”

The event confirmed what Kamila and Malika had long suspected: Taliban outside Khair Khana now knew about their operation, both Kamila's school and Malika's made-to-measure business. And so far, not only were the soldiers not shutting down their ventures, they were quietly supporting them.

Kamila had known for some time that this was the case when it came to local Talibs who served at the lowest levels of government, far from the decision makers in Kandahar. A few months earlier, two sisters had come to her asking to join her courses. Kamila knew their family well; they were Pashtuns from the south who had lived for many years in Khair Khana, just behind the Sidiqis and next to the neighborhood mosque. The girls' uncle was a good friend of Najeeb's. Kamila had heard a while back that Mustafa, the girls' father, was now working with the Taliban. He patrolled Khair Khana with minimal force, using his relationships with his neighbors to try to keep their corner of Kabul from attracting his bosses' notice. Kamila had told the sisters that she would be happy to have them join the school. She was eager to help her brother's friends, and besides, she thought, she was glad to have their father on her side. Not long afterward, the oldest of the two girls, Masuda, had asked her teacher if she could speak with her in private, away from the other students.

“My father has asked me to pass along a message,” she said, tightly gripping her sewing kit. “He asked me to please tell Kamila Jan that I know that she has a business, and that I also know she is an honorable woman whose work is helping families in Khair Khana. She should please be careful to make certain that no men come to the house, ever. If she follows the rules and if she makes sure that only women are working with her, she should not have any problems. Tell her that I will try to let her know if any of my bosses are asking about her business or planning to come to her house.”

From the way that Masuda had recited her father's words, gazing upward as if trying to pry open the pages of an invisible notebook, Kamila could see that she had worked hard to memorize his message without missing a word. The importance of what he shared had not been lost on her, despite her youth.

“Please tell him my sisters and I very much appreciate his help,” Kamila replied, taking Masuda's hands in her own. “We will do everything we can to follow his advice.”

As the weeks went by and their operation grew, Kamila was sure that the Taliban must be asking about her business at the mosque, just as they had with Malika's school. She gave thanks every day that so far she had heard nothing from the government's men.

She would do all she could to keep it that way.

A New Opportunity Knocks

Evening arrived and with it came electricity along Khair Khana's main road. The girls rushed to plug in the sewing machines and make the most of the power for as long as it lasted. Sewing well into the evening, they interrupted the whirrs and clacks of their machines only to flip on the BBC's nightly news program. More fighting in the north was the headline, but that was hardly new. The Taliban may have brought security to the streets of Kabul, but peace remained elusive.

Suddenly the girls heard the front gate creak open. They sprang to their feet and looked at one another in alarm, the machines now bobbing up and down on their own without hands to guide them. Kamila's heart beat in her ears. Who would have a key? she wondered. And who in the world would come this late at night? It was just before nine.

“I'll go see . . . ,” said Kamila.

She dropped the dress she was hemming, grabbed a dark scarf that hung on the rack near the door, and stepped into the courtyard. She could hear Saaman right behind her and Laila yelling for Rahim back inside.

A dark figure, thin and tall, moved toward her. Standing still in the chill autumn air she cried out the words that set her sisters at ease:

“Father, it's you!”

In relief and joy she rushed to embrace him, nearly leaping into his long arms as she had so often when she was a girl. “Oh, we are so happy to see you,” she said, helping him through the front door. “You must be hungry--it must have taken you hours to get here.”

“Yes,” he replied, “there are checkpoints everywhere and almost all the paths into the city are blocked.” He stopped and gave her a look she knew well: forgiving if also a bit stern. “It's not easy getting in or out of Parwan.” Then, the glower softening into smile: “As you know.”

She nodded. Just a month earlier she had visited Parwan, braving the Taliban and Northern Alliance checkpoints and hours of travel by bus and on foot with her nephew Adel. At ten years of age he was old enough to serve as a mahram but too young to attract attention from the soldiers. The two had started out before five o'clock that morning on a ramshackle bus that took them out of Kabul through Taliban territory. After clearing the first checkpoint they continued on to Dornama, a small district at the foot of the Hindu Kush mountains. Kamila and her companion then trudged for more than six hours through the high mountain pass, at the other end of which they at last caught another bus, which took them along the bumpy road to Gulbahar.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Sidiqi had demanded when he opened the door and found the bedraggled travelers. His voice bore the sharp tone of a senior military officer who would brook not even the slightest opposition. “Don't you know how dangerous it is to travel now?”

His anger took Kamila aback, and she barely managed to mumble a reply.

“We . . . we just came to see you and Mother. The girls and I have been so worried about you both, so we thought that Adel and I would come to make sure that everything is okay.” Kamila had dared to make the journey so she could bring her parents some of the money the girls had earned from their sewing business in Khair Khana--“just in case you need anything.”

“Kamila Jan, that is foolish,” Mr. Sidiqi said. “A young girl like you traveling by yourself and taking such risks? Anything could happen. You know that. I appreciate your support of the family, but you must listen to me and promise not to come again. Don't worry about your mother and me. We will be fine so long as we know all of you are safe there in Kabul.”

He made her promise to leave the very next day, but meanwhile, the family would have a joyous evening together. Cousins and friends from around the neighborhood came for dinner to catch up on all the news and hear about what was happening in Kabul. As luck would have it one of the cousins knew of a group that was leaving for the city at dawn. Mr. Sidiqi announced that Kamila and her small companion would be happy to join them.

And so once again they were up with the sun, for the long trek home. After a two-hour bus ride through Parwan, they followed the long trail of women and a few older men, retracing their steps across the mountain pass and occasionally struggling to share the trail with the donkeys and horses that were carrying more fortunate travelers. The nylon chadri trapped the sticky daytime heat with unrelenting efficiency, and Kamila watched enviously as the older ladies in the group pulled back their veils to see better as they navigated the uneven terrain. As a young woman, Kamila knew she was a target for fighters on both sides of the conflict, as well as bandits who were out only for themselves. So she kept her face covered, holding the slippery chadri in place with her hands while rivers of sweat streamed down her face.

But all of that seemed like ages ago. Tonight it was her father who had dared to make the treacherous daylong journey from the north. Kamila gave thanks to Allah for having protected him along the way, but she worried that if her father was here, something must be the matter. She knew he would never leave Parwan otherwise.

Hurrying to help him onto a pillow in the living room, the younger girls brought him a cup of tea and immediately began a barrage of questions. How is Mother? What is going on in Parwan? How much fighting is there? How long will you stay? Did you see all the dresses hanging in the living room?

“Girls,” he interrupted, smiling, “I'm very glad to see all of you. And yes, of course I see that you have quite a workshop here!”

He stopped a moment, looking at each of them, and turned serious.

“I know things are very difficult for you all. You miss your classes and your friends and you've had to put all your plans for the future on hold. But you are doing such great work for the family and also for this community. It makes me very proud. One day, Inshallah, we will have peace. Schools will be open and we'll all be together again. But for now, you must continue to sew and listen to your sisters and learn as best you can. I know that you will.”

“Yes, we will, Father,” said Laila; she was the only one who spoke.

“And now,” he said, his narrow face widening into a playful grin, “we are all going to have a nice dinner, and then I am going to speak with Kamila Jan for a while.”

Following a meal of rice, naan, and potatoes, with a bit of meat to celebrate the special occasion of his visit, Kamila and her father sat by themselves in a corner of the living room. He barely recognized it, what with all the hanging fabric and the machines that took up every last bit of space. It was late and the electricity was long gone, so Kamila lit a gas lamp.

“Kamila Jan,” he began, “tomorrow I am going to Iran to stay with Najeeb. The fighting is getting too close and it's just too dangerous for me to stay. The Taliban are looking for anyone who they think has supported Massoud, and they've started asking all of our neighbors about me. It's better for all of us if I'm out of the country.”

Knowing how much her father loved Afghanistan, Kamila couldn't imagine how difficult it was for him to finally decide to leave. He had never had to flee his own land before, no matter how bad things had gotten. “There's just no role for me here anymore; I can't work and the fighting is destroying everything in the north.” Ever the soldier, he betrayed little of the emotion Kamila was certain he must be feeling. “I want you to know I'm proud of you. I never for one moment doubted that you would be able to take care of our family and that you could do anything you set your mind to. You must stay at it, and you must try as hard as you can to help others. This is our country and we must stay and see it through whatever comes. That is our obligation and our privilege. If you need anything at all while I am away, send me a message and I will be there. Okay?”

Kamila promised her father she would. She had no right to feel sorry for herself, she thought. At least her family had managed to stay safe so far, and their business was earning enough to keep everyone fed and cared for. Her job was to get on with her work. Her father's words reminded her of that. Still, it would be difficult to know that he was so far away. And she knew how dangerous a journey he still faced.

Early the next morning he set off for Iran. Kamila sent with him an envelope that contained a letter for Najeeb and as much money as she could afford to give them.

Only a few weeks after he left, Mrs. Sidiqi arrived. Before he had departed from Khair Khana, Mr. Sidiqi had instructed Rahim to return to Parwan and bring his mother back to the capital, where she could live with her children rather than remain alone in the north.

Kamila was struck by how tired she looked. The trip to Kabul was hard enough to exhaust a teenager, let alone a woman in her late forties who had suffered from heart problems since the birth of her eleventh child. And she must have worried for weeks about her husband's safety. Her gray braids hung loosely from their tight rows and her breath came in short, labored intervals. While the younger girls raced to roll out a mattress for her to rest on, Malika and Kamila served tea and warm bread. Kamila recounted how Malika had arrived several months earlier and helped get the business started, teaching the sisters everything that their mother had taught her back in high school.

When Kamila awoke the next morning, she found her mother already out of bed and hard at work making breakfast. How she had managed to get up before any of them, Kamila could not imagine, since it was barely seven. After washing and saying her prayers, Kamila entered the kitchen to find water already boiling on the small gas stove and toasted naan sitting on the counter. It had been a long time since she and her siblings had had their parents with them.

As they shared their tea, the girls told her the story of a wedding they had just attended in Kabul for their cousin Reyhanna. Any such celebration was a marketing opportunity for their business now, and the girls had designed four stunning new dresses for the occasion. Unlike the traditional clothes they made for the stores at Lycee Myriam or Mandawi Bazaar, the gowns they wore to the wedding dinner were both modern and stylish, designed with Kabul girls in mind--as much as the new rules would allow, anyway. Malika's had been light blue with a navy and gold beaded waistline and full sleeves that reached to the wrist, while Kamila's had been red with small and finely embroidered flowers ringing the sleeves and the neckline. After the wedding, their teenage cousins and a handful of the bride's friends had flocked to place orders for similar gowns. Laila told her mother that they were planning to make a new round of dresses in preparation for Eid al-Adha, the holiday commemorating the prophet Abraham's devotion to Allah. Though they themselves were on their own in the capital and had few visits to make, the girls' students and their parents now came to offer their respects during the holiday. The sisters in Khair Khana had become as much their family as any relative still living in Kabul.

After everyone had eaten and Rahim had put on his turban and headed off to school, Kamila and her sisters gave their mother a full tour of the workspace. Laila showed her the schedule she had created and described how Saaman would cut the long bolts of fabric for the seamstresses and get the material ready for the sewing, stenciling, beading, and embroidery that followed. With particular pride Kamila told her mother how Rahim had become an expert tailor and how Laila was helping manage not just the operations of the business but also the menu, since she helped prepare the girls' lunch each day.

As the morning wore on, the students soon began to arrive, one by one. Mrs. Sidiqi made sure to greet each of them. As she expected, she knew many of the young women's families; she asked after their parents and attentively listened to the stories of their hardships, silently shaking her head in sympathy and concern. Several of the girls seemed grateful to have someone they could trust outside their own family to discuss their problems with. One young woman explained that her mother, a widow, received the green ration cards from the United Nations' World Food Program to buy subsidized bread from the bakery nearby, but the help was hardly enough to feed a family of eight. That is why she needed the money she earned from her sewing, plus whatever her little brother earned selling candy on the street.

Mrs. Sidiqi listened to each of the young women and comforted them as best she could, reminding them how much they had already survived and assuring them that things would get better eventually. “Don't forget your school lessons,” she urged them; “you don't want to fall far behind when classes begin again.” In the meantime, she encouraged the girls to consider her home as their own and to help one another to get through the difficult times.

Saaman and Laila taught the morning's sewing classes while Mrs. Sidiqi sat toward the back of her living room looking on. She told Kamila later that she was deeply impressed to see how much the girls had grown up while she and their father had been away. Kamila, she said, must work with Malika to keep the family going now that her father was abroad. No matter what happened, she said, they must stay together and remain in their home. God would keep them safe if it was his will.

A few weeks later she returned to Parwan amid promises to return again soon.

Again the girls were on their own, and the fighting around them intensified. It was 1998, and the end of summer saw the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif fall to the Taliban once more, handing the new government a significant victory amid allegations of brutality on all sides that went beyond the usual wartime bloodshed to which they were all so accustomed. In Kabul, rocket attacks came at unexpected intervals, and the noose continued to tighten around the lives of families all over the city, particularly for the women. The Taliban decreed that women must be treated at female-only hospitals, but most of these had closed due to either a lack of supplies or of doctors. The one that remained open struggled to find beds for its patients, whom it cared for without the benefits of clean water, IV fluids, or functioning X-ray machines. With autumn came a frigid cold that threatened the desperate city with starvation, along with a cholera epidemic. Relief programs funded by the UN and other organizations tried to get wheat, oil, and bread to those who were worst off, but the need swamped anything that a single agency was capable of providing. Drinkable water was in short supply, and few families had much of anything left to sell.