In My Father's Country (3 page)

T
WO

I
was first proposed to when I was nine.

Well, actually it wasn’t really to me that the proposal was made. I only found out because one day not too long afterward, my brother, who had heard about it from the adults, was pulling my hair and harassing me, so I went crying to Mamai. When Mamai got mad at him, he said something like, “Oh, yeah, well, hopefully Baba will say yes and soon we will be rid of you!” I started crying even harder, hoping Khalid was wrong, and that there was no way Baba would give me away so soon. But if he were to follow our centuries-old customs, he would do exactly that. Marriages were arranged by grandfathers and fathers, between tribes and families, to strengthen their ties. Neither the appropriate age nor the consent of the children was necessary. The tribe that had wanted to be linked with mine was well respected, very wealthy, and powerful, and my grandfather would not have been unjustified in agreeing to the marriage.

I knew all of that, even from a very early age, because I had grown up hearing about my obligations and responsibilities toward the family and had always had a sense that my childhood days were numbered. I don’t think I thought that I would be spared the harsh life of a married Afghan woman forever. I just didn’t want my married life to begin at age nine.

Astonishingly, Baba didn’t disappoint me. He told the other family
that his granddaughter was too young for that kind of silliness, and that he had hopes that I would be able to at least graduate from sixth grade before marriage. The first time he refused a marriage proposal, he was very respectful, knowing how quickly you can make a mortal enemy out of a Pashtun by insulting him. But over the next couple of years, I heard stories of him kicking out men who came into our
mehmaan khana
, guest house, asking for my hand in marriage for their sons, Baba yelling at them, “Are there no other girls left in the world? Leave my granddaughter alone!”

As I grew older and became more aware of what he was doing to protect me, I loved him all the more. But in a culture where you are not allowed to express your love by declaring it casually, I didn’t know how to show him what he meant to me. I would make his tea and take it to him, a large scarf covering my four-foot height, tripping on the edges of it as I walked up to the
mehmaan khana
where he stayed. He would usually be reading, but whenever he saw me enter the room, he would put his book down, give me a brilliant smile, and pat the ground next to him. I would put the teapot down, pour him a cup, and sit beside him. I was too shy to say anything about what he was doing, but he knew exactly what I felt and would put his arm around me. “Don’t worry,” he would say. “Everything will work out. As long as I am alive, everything will be fine.” I believed him completely, and with him on my side, I felt like I could conquer any obstacle in life.

I felt lucky. Life was good for me. I knew that I was different, and not just in the way that most of us feel during preadolescence. For one thing, I went to school, which none of my friends were allowed to do. Sometimes I would be resentful that they were at home, playing with dolls and learning how to be little women, while I was forced to go to school and learn about subjects that I knew I would never use as a Pashtun woman. And when my friends would ask me to play with them after school, I had to say no because I would have homework to do.

I was the only girl in my class, until sixth grade—my fellow students never forgot to remind me that I was an abnormality and not a real girl, because real girls didn’t go to school. For their vicious words, like a true
Pashtun, I took revenge. I earned the best grades every year, and memorized poems and times tables for extra credit. Yes, I admit, I became the teacher’s pet and was asked to lead the prayers during the assemblies. I was also selected as the class proctor whenever our teacher had to leave the classroom, and was given a ruler to use to keep the boys in line. I used it without mercy. None of the boys were allowed to say a word, and if they gave me so much as a wrong look, I would ask them to stretch out their arms and would hit them on the back of their hands with the ruler. I used the back of their hands because I knew it hurt more than their palms.

Back at home, my brother would complain to Baba and Mamai because a couple of his friends were in my class and I wouldn’t allow them to talk in class or to be rough on the playground. Baba would laugh, the deep laugh I loved, and look at me with a twinkle in his eyes.

Like any little girl growing up, I had a best friend, Nafisa, who lived a few houses from mine. She had two older brothers and two younger sisters. I hardly ever saw her because she was not allowed to go to school, and in the evening she had to take care of all of her siblings, as her mother was always either pregnant or ill. At age twelve, Nafisa was the woman of the house, expected to not indulge in silliness like friendship and school and talking. Although she had beautiful almond-shaped eyes, dark hair, and light skin, I always remember her with scars and bruises, because her brothers beat her constantly. I would ask her, “What are they accusing you of now?” I remember her crying, saying, “I didn’t do anything, but they always find something to slap me for.” Sometimes they would hit her because she took too long laying out the laundry on the roof to dry and they thought that she was slacking off or—worse—looking at a boy on the street. Sometimes they would hit her when she didn’t get them tea or food fast enough. For one reason or another, they would leave a mark on her pretty face, turning it blue and yellow.

At no other time was the difference between my life and the lives of other Pashtun girls more clear. I would come home and busy myself with homework, terrified that at any point my life might be changed to what Nafisa had. I would look in fear at my brother, who was such a kidder,
even at that age, and I would wonder, Will he beat me one day? No, he would never, I would try to reassure myself. Still, I felt terribly guilty that my best friend was living in hell, and I wanted so badly to beat her brothers for putting her there. Unfortunately, her brothers didn’t go to school either, were much bigger, and could have easily killed me had I insulted them by interfering in their family business.

I felt like I was living in a delicate bubble. All around me were my female cousins and friends enduring an existence that I couldn’t imagine. They were no different from me—for all intents and purposes, I should have been leading the same life. But there I was in the courtyard, getting into a car in which all the windows were covered in sheets (so no one could see inside) and being driven to a private school, where I was the only girl in my class. What made me so special? Was I the chosen one, or the cursed one? It was hard to tell at that early age, but I did know that I did not want the life of a typical Pashtun female, and I lived in constant terror that I would be forced into living that life. I desperately wanted to believe that my Baba could save me from that fate, yet the fear that he might not be strong enough to defy the centuries-old traditions of our people created in me deep insecurities that took years to overcome.

T
HREE

I
n the 1980s, the Russian invasion and eventual withdrawal created a great deal of political instability in Afghanistan and sparked a civil war that wrecked Afghan society beyond recognition. It became apparent to Baba that he might not be able to keep his promise to me that everything would be fine. So he started talking to his son in America to see if he could sponsor me, my brother and sister, and three other cousins. Mamai and my aunt, whom we all called Babo, were okay with the boys going but were opposed to sending the girls. But Baba was firm; the boys would go only if the girls were allowed to go with them.

Like everyone else growing up in a poor and conflicted country, I dreamed about America before going there. I knew that there were freedoms there beyond my wildest imagination, and rights that would be mine, if I could get to that land of equality. America could rescue me from the cultural restrictions and ancient customs that threatened to define my fate—if I could only get there. But it all seemed like a fantasy. I never believed that my dreams could come true.

To prepare for our possible move to America, we were switched from the school where I was the only girl to a private school that specialized in English. Here the boys and the girls were taught in separate classes. For the first time, I was not the only girl in class, but these girls were all from Pakistani families and spoke Urdu, so I was still the only Pashtun
girl. We also began taking the bus to school and back because my uncle, the only one who knew how to drive, had gotten a job. (My mother and aunt weren’t allowed to drive.)

One Thursday (I remember the day because we were wearing our white uniform, as we did every Thursday) we were rushing out of the house, late for the bus. I got to the road and saw that the bus was about to pull out. In my haste to not be left behind, I ran, not noticing the speeding public bus going the other way. It slammed into my left side and lifted me—Khalid swore it was at least fifteen feet—into the air. After flipping many times I fell in the middle of the road, landing on my shoulder and head.

I don’t remember any of this. I woke up in the hospital after a three-day coma, from which nobody thought I would awaken. In Pakistan at that time there were no doctors trained in comas and no hospitals that offered trauma care, or at least not at the hospital in Peshawar. Mamai was told that if I woke up, it would be a miracle—and if I didn’t, no one should be surprised, and it wouldn’t be the doctor’s fault. In a country where hit-and-runs are the norm, and where there aren’t any insurance companies to deal with, I was told that the driver who hit me came to the hospital every day, bringing food for the family members who kept vigil for me. Three days after the accident I woke up and casually asked for some of the kebabs that I smelled. One of my relatives had brought them for Mamai, who had never left my bedside.

This was the second time Mamai was told to give a
khairath
, a sacrifice to show thanks to God for allowing me to continue living. Once I was released from the hospital, relatives and friends came to ask about my recovery, amazed that I was still alive.

I felt again like I had been saved for something—I didn’t know what, but I knew there was a reason I stepped away from events that I had no business surviving. It was as if an invisible hand was directing me toward a unique destiny. I could sense that there was something greater waiting for me. Finding out what that was, exactly, and seeking it out was a powerful motivation for me. I couldn’t wait for my future to unfold. As I lay there hearing Khalid tell the story of the bus hitting me, flipping me
several times in the air, landing me so hard that people around me swore they heard the sound of my body slamming into the road echoing for days, I finally believed that I was chosen, and blessed. The fear of living a life like my best friend Nafisa’s was still not far from my heart, but I began to consider then that I couldn’t have lived through two near-death experiences for nothing. After all, I was just a human, allowed only one life with which to leave my mark.

F
OUR

E
vents that would change my life forever had been set into motion. We all call him
Ustaz
, “the teacher” in Pashtu. He was my father’s oldest brother, and he had emigrated to the United States in the late 1960s to attend college. I’m not sure why he decided to stay in the States, but he settled in Portland, Oregon, which was a quiet city in the seventies. He then went on to gain tenure as a professor at a small liberal arts college there. The talks between him and Baba started out in secrecy. Something as significant as sending the children to America was not the kind of thing one discussed in public. I heard whispers, but the adults made sure that we weren’t around when they were discussing the plans to send us to America for a better future. Now that it was a real possibility, I couldn’t decide how I felt about the idea of going to America. On the one hand, it would take me away from everything I knew was wrong with the lives of Afghan women. I wouldn’t have to marry someone just to bear him many children and die. At the tender age of ten or eleven, this was the bleak view I had of what lay ahead. I knew Baba wanted to protect me for as long as he could, but he was just one man, up against thousands of Pashtun men who would kill anyone they thought was trying to defy
Pashtunwali
. I was very much aware of his mortality and could see that he was aging. He had become confusingly forgetful at times; I now know that he was exhibiting early signs of Alzheimer’s.

The knowledge that there wasn’t much other than Baba standing in the way of my Afghan fate scared me sleepless at night, filling me with dread that the next day would be the one when I would be told I couldn’t go to school and that the next month would be the ceremony to hand me over to another family to control my destiny for the rest of my life. This was not unfounded fear. I knew of many girls my age, some younger, who were told just a couple of weeks before their wedding day that they were now promised to be wed to a man they had never met. When I heard that Nafisa was being promised to one of her distant cousins, I cried and cried. Mamai thought that it was because I would miss Nafisa, so she tried to reassure me that she would come and visit her parents and see me, too. I couldn’t explain to her that I cried in part for myself, fearing that the same fate might be awaiting me. I felt so guilty for worrying more about myself than about my best friend, but I couldn’t help it.

NEARLY TWO YEARS
later my uncle Kaka told us that we had to have passport pictures taken, making the plan to go to America real. I should have been ecstatic beyond measure, but I knew the plan wasn’t foolproof, that people were denied entry for one reason or another all the time. I was afraid of setting my hopes too high, knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle the letdown if it didn’t work out. At the age of twelve, I already knew that I would be dealt many disappointments in my life, but this would be like no other, and for me there would be no returning to living like Nafisa, married to a distant cousin. I had to decide what I would do with my life if this didn’t work. Would I have the courage to end it all if I failed to fulfill my father’s prophecy? Without my being conscious of it, emigrating had become a life-and-death issue for me. On the one hand, I wanted to rejoice in the possibility of pursuing my destiny, living like no other woman in my whole family, tribe, or even in the province had ever lived. On the other hand, I couldn’t escape the terror of what I would have to do to myself if I was denied a visa.