The Favored Daughter (20 page)

With Hamid behind the gates, my thoughts turned to my brother. It was him they had come to arrest. Was he safe? Where was he?

I had no money left for another taxi so I ran as fast as I could in heels across the city and back to my brother's apartment. His wife was there and she told me he was hiding in different relatives' houses. For the past three days he'd been changing places every night so as not to be discovered. Right now she told me he was in Karte Seh, an area west of Kabul that had been badly destroyed during the civil war. I couldn't do anything for Hamid now but I could still try to help my brother.

I went to my relative's house and entered the house rudely. I didn't stop to say salaam or greet the family. I just needed to see my brother with my own eyes. The couple who owned the house are both professors. The husband is a professor at the Faculty of Economics at Kabul University and the wife was a teacher. They had no children. Because female teachers had been banned from working, she was one of the several brave Afghan women who took great personal risks secretly running a school from home.

The room had no sofa, just lots of cushions lining the walls. My brother Mirshakay was lying on a mattress, facing the wall. When he saw me his face registered alarm. It was the first time he'd seen me since my wedding day, when he'd hugged me and wept as I went to my new life. Now we had entered chaos again.

Very quickly I told him the whole story about Hamid and how they were searching for him now. It wasn't safe for him here, they would be searching all of our relatives' houses one after the other. It wasn't safe to take a taxi either. There were Taliban checkpoints everywhere and if they stopped us they might have my brother's photo and recognize him.

We left the house and started to walk. I was still in the blasted heels and my feet were killing me.

This was the first time I'd worn a burqa to walk such a long distance. I was never very good at walking in it anyway, but in heels and with such anxiety it was even worse. I stumbled over what felt like every stone and crack in the pavement. We walked out of the city toward the outer suburbs. We didn't have anywhere specific to go, but we had limited choices. Somewhere too public or central and there would be checkpoints; in the outer suburbs there would be buildings we could hide behind but not so many people. So we headed out. As we walked we chatted. My brother asked me about Hamid, about whether he had met my expectations as a husband. In some ways I was happy to tell my brother that yes, indeed, Hamid had and I was right to marry him.

I told him how Hamid and I had discussed where we would live, whether we should leave Afghanistan. Hamid had suggested a new life in Pakistan. But I'd told him I couldn't; I would not leave while my brother was still in Kabul. Then we'd discussed moving back to Faizabad, the capital city of Badakhshan province, and the place I had first gone to school. Badakhshan was not controlled by the Taliban. My sisters were there and Hamid's family was there, and we both missed the region. So that had been our plan. We would move back to the countryside, where I could teach and Hamid could run his business.

Telling my brother these plans was more painful than the weeping blisters that now coated my heels. All those newlywed dreams and plans were now in ruins.

After fours hours of aimless walking we hailed a taxi. I remembered one of Hamid's relatives, a lady who lived alone with her son. I didn't know the exact address but knew it was fourth Makrorian, near where Hamid and I lived. On the way we passed a checkpoint. We sat inside the car, terrified they would wind the window down and see my brother, but we were lucky. They waved the car past without looking inside.

My brother had met this woman when Hamid's relatives had come to ask for my hand in marriage and she was among them. He had not warmed to her. He said she wore too much makeup and her nails were too long. In Mirshakay's view that was the sign of a lazy woman. But now he had to throw himself on her mercy. I asked around and was pointed to her apartment. I quickly explained the situation and asked if she could prepare a room for my brother for one night. She said yes but she wasn't happy. She was understandably scared—if she had been caught sheltering a non-blood relative she would have been arrested and taken to the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. I felt awful putting her in that position but I had no choice.

I left my brother there and walked home. By the time I reached the house my feet felt like they were on fire, sweat caked my eyes and ears, and my hair was like a mattress of caked grease on my head. I threw the wretched burqa up and off my head, ran into the bedroom, and wailed with frustration.

 

FOURTEEN

THE DARKNESS PERVADES

I was half mad with worry and fear. My brain was racing, thinking of anyone who might be able to help me. All night I barely slept, trying desperately to think of a plan.

In the morning as I stood in front of the mirror brushing my teeth, an idea came to me.

I remembered a friend who told me she had been teaching embroidery to the wife of a Taliban official. I threw on the burqa and ran to her house. She listened, wide-eyed with shock and sympathy, as I recounted what had happened to Hamid. We didn't know if it would do any good, but she said she would take me to their house and make the necessary introductions. We walked there together across the eerily quiet roads of this once bustling city. A few cars and taxis spluttered noisily into life, the early morning sun dancing in the dust of empty street stalls and boarded-up shops. I caught my reflection in the grimy window of an empty photography shop. I saw a dejected-looking woman with hunched shoulders in a blue burqa. For a second I didn't recognize it was me looking back at myself. The burqa had stripped me of so much identity I didn't even know myself.

Startled by the strangeness of that sensation I peered into the shop. It was long deserted. Faded photographs lined the walls, young men posing next to backdrops of waterfalls and posing like Bollywood actors; babies holding aloft balloons, smiling toothlessly at the parents who would have been standing just behind the camera trying to make them laugh; little girls in lacy dresses and ankle socks grinning shyly; brides in white veils standing proudly next to besuited husbands. I stared at the images, wondering what had happened to all those smiling faces. Who were they? And where were they now? By the time Taliban rule came to Afghanistan a third of our original population of 18 million was dead, killed in the fighting. Another third were refugees overseas. Only 6 million of the original 18 million remained. Were all the faces I was staring at dead? And where was the owner? All photography was now banned by law of the Taliban. With his livelihood gone he might have just closed the door and found another way to survive. Or he may have continued to work in secret, breaking the Taliban law. He could be in prison right now. With Hamid. The thought of the mystery photography studio owner lying next to Hamid in a cell brought me back to reality. My friend touched my arm gently and we walked on until we reached the Talib's house. He lived in a gated apartment block. A little boy played outside the front door. A scent of boiled mutton wafted out.

The man was there with his wife, a pleasant woman with green eyes who seemed to share her husband's sympathies for our plight. They welcomed us into their home and gave us hot green tea. He said he would try to help and he would go and make enquiries as soon as the official offices opened that morning. I was frustrated, but not ungrateful. I was surprised that a Taliban, any Taliban, could show humanity. This man was trying to help me when he didn't know me and didn't have to do so. That man changed my thinking about many Taliban. I realized that just because he didn't share my ideals or my politics didn't necessarily make him a terrible person. Many Afghan men aligned with the Taliban because of a shared ethnicity and culture, a sense of shared geography, or just out of economic necessity. It was the same then as it is today. If the Taliban pays a salary in a village with no jobs, what is a poor man to do? And of course many Afghan men, particularly in the southern cities like Kandahar or Helmand, agree with the more hardline aspects of Islamic culture. While I disagree with such, I have always had a strong understanding and respect for the many different views, ethnic groups, languages, and cultures that make up Afghanistan. Not many people know that over 30 languages are spoken across the country. For me that diversity is our strength. Or at least it is a strength during peaceful times. In wartime those ethnic divisions are our greatest weakness and the main reason people murder each other senselessly.

As we left the Talib's house he kindly walked us to the gates of the apartment block, but he made it clear he wasn't sure he could do much. On the walk home I began to prepare myself for the worst: news of Hamid's execution, or a life sentence based on false charges. I didn't want to think about it, but I knew I had to be ready to face what was very likely to be bad news. I tried not to think of Hamid being dragged, hands tied, into the prison courtyard to be shot. Or lying in a filthy, freezing prison cell, emaciated; slowly going mad with hunger and cold. The thought of it was enough to drive me insane, too.

I arrived home, preoccupied with my tortuous thoughts, when a familiar face emerged from the bathroom.

There Hamid stood. Water was still glistening on his hollow cheeks, droplets hanging off his beard.

I thought I was dreaming. Or that I'd lost my mind.

My husband was standing in the hallway smiling at me as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He moved toward me uttering my name, his weak legs faltering beneath him. I rushed to him, embracing his skinny frame before he could fall. His arms were like sticks around me, bony and thin. Their normal masculine strength had been stolen by the abuse meted out by his jailers. The unexpected emotion of his sudden appearance was too much for us to bear and we both sobbed with relief. Hamid, my Hamid, was home.

I made him some breakfast of eggs and sweet tea, and he lay down to rest. I was exhausted from the rollercoaster of emotion but I had no time to rest myself. Without warning they had chosen to release Hamid. But now that he was released they would surely renew their attempts to imprison my brother. We had to find another house in which to hide him. Fast.

I remembered a woman who used to go to my English class. She lived nearby, only a few blocks away. She was a very tough lady. She had a bad leg, which had made it very hard for her to walk, and since her husband died she struggled to take care of her two daughters. They weren't a political family, but were just ordinary people trying to survive in the craziness that had become Kabul. No one would look for Mirshakay there. I knew their house would be a perfect place for him to lie low until we could work out a way to get him out of the country. I put my burqa on and ran to her house.

It was a very modest home, made all the worse by the shortages of the war. A few spartan rugs lay on the living room floor. There were very few luxuries, and I guessed that what few they had possessed were long since sold to buy rice, cooking oil, and gas to fuel the stove. The woman limped around her living room, ushering me to take a seat as she ordered her oldest daughter to make tea for us. I explained that I wanted my brother to stay with her but that it might be dangerous for her if the Taliban caught him there. Her tone immediately became a little offended. Not that she was angry that I should come into her living room and make such an outrageous request, but rather, in a very Afghan way, she was angry that such a request was even necessary. Of course he could stay—what a silly question!

I finished my tea and rushed to collect Mirshakay. We gathered a few clothes and some extra food together—I knew the lady would probably feign offense if I took food, but she was already taking a great risk hiding my brother. An extra mouth to feed would stretch her meager resources to the limit. We returned to the lady's house. It was imperative I went with my brother—not because he didn't know the way, but rather because the surest way to arouse suspicion would have been for a strange man to enter the house alone. A man and a woman in a burqa looks like a social visit, while a man by himself looks like a morality crime in progress and would surely set tongues wagging locally, which would trigger a visit from the Taliban.

The woman and her family were very kind to Mirshakay and I think he was able to relax a little. He stayed in that house for ten days. After that we decided things had cooled down enough for him to move back to my house. It was still too dangerous for him to move home with his family. As it was the Taliban harassed his wife often, dropping by uninvited and announced, threatening her with quiet voices of menace: “Where is your husband? When did you last speak to him? Tell us.” He was a hunted man and they watched for him daily.