Letters to My Daughters (26 page)

It was a Friday afternoon, a day I could usually gain access to meet Hamid. Khadija put on her blue shuttlecock burka and I the black Arab-style
niqab
, and we walked to the prison together.

As we waited at the gate, the guard went inside to call Hamid. As he did so, he left the door open and I was able to peek inside the main building. I watched as a second young guard, barely out of his teens, washed his hands and feet for the ablutions required before Islamic prayers. The first guard approached him and the man asked in Pashto, “
Sa khabara da
? What is up?”

The guard replied,
“Hamid khaza raghili da.
Hamid's wife is here.”

The young man put down his water pot and started to walk towards us. I turned away so they didn't see I had been watching. Some other men walked past and I heard them speak in Urdu, the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. They weren't prisoners, and I can only assume they were Pakistani Taliban sympathizers working in our prisons. I took Khadija's hand, hoping the young man might have good news about Hamid's release. He walked straight up to us and asked,
“Hamid khaza chirta da?
Who is Hamid's wife?” I stepped forward, holding my
niqab
across my face with my left hand. “I am.”

Without saying another word, the man bent down, picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at my head. I recoiled in shock. “You woman. You complain to your Badakhshanis about us? Who are you to do this? Go, get out of here, woman.” For a few seconds I was too shocked to move. I started to speak, to try to explain that I had only been trying to free my innocent husband. The man picked up a second stone and threw it again. It just missed my head, and as it did so I moved my hand protectively, giving the man a glimpse of my painted fingernails.

He sneered and spat at the ground. “Look at your nails! You are a Muslim yet you have the fingers of a whore.”

The blood rushed to my cheeks in anger. I wanted to tell him that he had no business judging or commenting on another man's wife. I was a Muslim woman unrelated to him, so he had no right to talk about me. He was the bad Muslim, not me.

Khadija could read my thoughts and stepped forward to stop me. The man grabbed another stone and threw it. “Get out of here, woman.” Khadija grabbed me and we half ran, half walked back to the gate. Once at a safe distance, I turned and said to her loudly, so they could hear me, “These men are not Muslims; they are not even human beings.” The man waved another stone at me menacingly and then turned to go back inside, cursing and swearing with words no decent Muslim I know would ever use.

Then, the awful reality of what had just happened hit me: I had been insulted and my attempts to speak to the Badakhshani in Puli Charkhi had backfired badly, which would now make things even worse for Hamid.

I started to shake and cry loudly under my
niqab
. Khadija also cried. Luckily we managed to find a taxi driver who was prepared to break the rule against driving female non-relatives. I don't think I trusted my legs to walk; I was shaking too much from a combination of anger, fear and pure humiliation. Once home, I threw myself on my bed and howled.

That evening, Khadija and I reached the awful decision that it was safer not to try to visit Hamid for a while. We feared it would only make things harder for him and lead to more beatings. The guards had decided his wife was an insolent whore for trying to protest his imprisonment and for wearing nail varnish. I was furious with the Badakhshani from Puli Charkhi. I suspected that not only had he chosen not to help us, but he had deliberately caused trouble for us. The fact was, I hadn't even complained to him of conditions. I had spoken only of Hamid's illness and his innocence.

That night, my last hopes for Hamid's release died.

FOR TWO weeks I didn't attempt to see him. I didn't want to be insulted or humiliated by those guards, and I feared that even if they did let me see him I'd break down and cry in front of him. The last thing he needed was to worry about my being upset. But by the following Friday, I could bear it no longer. I needed to see my husband. I also needed to ask him something important. As a married woman, I needed his permission to travel and I had decided that I wanted to go to my brother's in Pakistan to give birth. I couldn't bear the thought of delivering my first baby in Kabul, where the Taliban had banned all female doctors from working and male doctors from treating women.

Khadija insisted on coming with me for safety, and as we approached the prison gates I was a bag of nerves. I wasn't very optimistic that they would let me see him. I stayed a few paces back, while Khadija approached the guard and asked for Hamid. He disappeared, then came back accompanied by the same young guard who had thrown stones at me. I kept quiet, and so did Khadija, expecting a rock to come flying at my head at any moment. He looked straight at me and ordered, “Come close, woman.”

Slowly I inched forward, promising myself that if he threw another stone at me, I would throw it right back at him.

“Show me your left hand,” he ordered. I said nothing and I didn't show him my hand, instead hiding them both under my
niqab
. The man was coarse and rude and, in my eyes, totally unfamiliar with the Afghan custom of showing politeness and manners at all times.

He laughed as I hid my hands and said, “I am telling you. Don't put nail polish on your fingers anymore. If you do, you are not a Muslim.”

I glared at him through the safety of my covered face. He dared to tell me I wasn't a Muslim, but then permitted himself to comment on the makeup worn by another man's wife! “Why do you wear it? Tell me,” he ordered.

I replied as calmly as I could. “We have been married for only four months. It is customary and cultural for a new bride to wear makeup and nice clothes for the first year of marriage. Surely as an Afghan man you know this?”

He laughed a mocking and guttural laugh, showing a hint of his yellow teeth as he did so. “I see. So do you want me to release your husband?”

I didn't know what to say. I assumed he was just mocking me. I answered, “What is his crime? He has committed no crime.”

The guard shrugged his shoulders and said, “Go, and come back with a male relative. Bring a man who is prepared to show me evidence of property. If the man will use his property as a guarantee that your husband will not attempt to leave Kabul, then I will release him.”

I didn't say a word but turned and ran out the gate as fast as my legs could carry me. Khadija ran after me. We didn't know if he meant it, but we knew we had to try. We stood looking at each other, two women standing on the streets of a male-dominated world gone mad. We didn't know who we could ask or what to do next. My brothers had all left Kabul, and Hamid's family were mostly living in Badakhshan.

Then I remembered a cousin who owned a shop. We ran across the streets to get there. We reached it, both panting and out of breath, only to find it closed. In our excitement, we had forgotten it was Friday, the day of prayer and rest.

I didn't want to give the prison guard the chance of changing his mind and losing this possibility of releasing Hamid. We ran back to the prison. The guard was sitting on a chair enjoying the sunshine. I was pleased to see he looked relaxed.

I didn't want to go close to him in case I made him angry again. So Khadija went and explained the situation. He stood up, not saying a word to her, and went back inside the prison for what seemed like hours but was in reality only a few minutes. Then he reappeared with Hamid and another, even younger-looking guard. Then he spoke. “Hamid can go with you and this man will go too. If you can bring a letter back from a neighbour or friend, then I will release him.”

He ordered a Taliban driver with a Hilux pickup truck to take us. We all got in. I dared not look at Hamid for fear of the guard, but I sneaked a sideways glance at him and saw he looked white as a sheet and on the verge of collapse.

The young Talib who was accompanying us told us he was from Wardak province. He seemed kind but very young, and I doubted he had any power or influence in the prison. I was terrified none of the neighbours would be able to help us and he'd drive Hamid straight back to prison. Dusk had fallen by the time we drove into Makrorian. Khadija recalled that one family among our neighbours owned their apartment; she didn't know them very well but we had no choice but to approach them for the guarantee. She went to talk to the man while Hamid and I and the young Talib went upstairs to wait in our apartment. It was emotional agony. Hamid was sitting in his own living room, but I couldn't even talk to him and at any second he might be taken back to prison.

I was still wearing my
niqab
but I noticed the young Talib was looking at my face, trying to read my eyes. I was scared and looked down. I think he saw how sad and scared I was. He was a native Pashto speaker but he spoke to me kindly in broken Dari, the language he knew Hamid and I spoke. “Don't worry, sister. I too am newly married, only twenty days. So I understand your pain. Even if you don't find a guarantee, I will leave Hamid here tonight and will come again tomorrow to get the letter.”

He risked the wrath of his superiors by making that offer. It was another one of those surprising acts of random kindness when least expected. Hamid and I both thanked him.

We all sat and waited in silence for Khadija to return.

I heard male voices in the corridor of our apartment. I went out and saw half a dozen male neighbours. They smiled and said how happy they were that Hamid was being released. All of them told me not to worry; they would collectively offer Hamid his guarantee. I was so grateful to them that I could do nothing but cry. They went into the room and Hamid hugged them all. Two of the neighbours who owned property signed the letter of guarantee, which stated that Hamid, an engineer, would not leave Kabul and would attend appointments at the Interior Ministry whenever the Taliban required it. Failure to do so would result in the two men forfeiting their property. It was an awfully big risk for our neighbours to take, and once again I was amazed at the generosity some people show to others at such times of war and conflict.

I took a small lace handkerchief I had recently embroidered and gave it to the young Talib as a gift for his new bride. He thanked me sincerely. I wondered how this kind and sweet young man had come to join the Taliban's ranks. He was so unlike the rest.

It seemed like an age before the kindly neighbours left and I could finally be alone with my husband. He looked like a ghostly shadow of himself. Khadija and I tried to make him smile and told him jokes; he started to laugh and as he did so, his breath caught and he coughed. A terrifying, hacking cough that refused to stop. Khadija and I looked at each other, grim-faced. Hamid had TB. The cough was a sign of worse to come.

Dear Shuhra and Shaharzad,

There will be times in your life when all hope and strength leave you. Times when you just want to give up and turn your face away from the world. But, my darling daughters, giving up is not something our family does.

When your father was arrested in those early days of our marriage, I wanted to give up. Perhaps if I had not been pregnant and feeling Shaharzad kicking in my belly, I might have done so. But knowing I was about to give a new life meant I had to fight even harder for the life I had. I also remembered my mother, your grandmother. Imagine if she had given up after my father died. Imagine if she had taken the easy route and married a man who didn't want us and placed us in an orphanage or neglected us. She never would have done this because giving up was something that woman did not know how to do.

Imagine also if your grandfather had given up when the central government had told him it was not possible to build the Atanga Pass. Think of how many lives would have been lost on the mountains. By refusing to give up the project, he saved countless lives over the years.

Thank God I have both of their blood in me. Because of them, giving up is not something I can do either.

And you, my dear daughters, come from that same blood too. If there comes a day in your life when the fear takes hold of you and squeezes the fight out of you, then I want you to remember these words. Giving up is not what we do. We fight. We live. We survive.

With love,
Your mother

· · FIFTEEN · ·
Back to My Roots

{
1998
}

DURING HIS WEEKS of incarceration, Hamid had been beaten senseless, manacled and left outside for days in the wind, rain and snow as punishment. He had contracted a fatal disease. And for what? Nothing. He was guilty of nothing and they had charged him with nothing. Sadly, Hamid's story is not an unusual one for the Taliban era. Many other innocent men and women found themselves in Taliban prisons and suffered similar fates.

The year was 1998. It was the beginning of spring, and the heavy snows of winter were thawing fast as each day got progressively warmer. It was a welcome relief to feel the sun again. It was good for Hamid too. He was still very sick and coughed constantly.

By now, I was almost seven months pregnant and my baby was very active, kicking and wriggling inside me. I was having trouble getting a good night's sleep with my unborn child testing her growing strength and Hamid exploding into coughing fits at regular intervals throughout the night.