The Favored Daughter (19 page)

My wedding was so bittersweet. My mother was dead and my living sisters, who were still scattered across the country, couldn't come. My mother, who had at my birth wanted me to die, had then worked so hard for me to have a future. It was she who had effectively picked out my husband for me, telling me on her deathbed that “this man will be enough for us.” Preparing for my ceremony without her there to hold my hand and whisper words of encouragement was as painful as walking on burning needles.

At six a.m. the hairdresser put the rollers in my hair and I nodded off in the chair. I slept there until about 10:30 and then she started to do my makeup. I looked in the mirror and realized I really did look awful, with redrimmed eyes and a spotty face. By the time we entered the house I was feeling really blue. The other big disappointment was that I wanted to have the wedding secretly filmed with a video camera or a proper photographer. The Taliban had banned video, but some of the video operators still did it anyway. They just charged triple to compensate for the risk. But my brother wouldn't allow it. Some of my brother's friends were these days working in low-level government jobs and he was worried they would report us to the Taliban authorities they now worked for. I have no photographic memories of my wedding, except for a few grainy snapshots friends managed to take with their personal cameras.

I didn't know many of the people at the wedding—they were my brother's friends and their wives or his work colleagues. I started to get a bit angry inside, wondering if they had come just for the chance of some free food. It certainly didn't feel like they were there for me.

For the actual religious part of the marriage—conducted by a mullah— they took Hamid and I and our two witnesses to a separate room. That was when I cried for the first (but not the last) time that day. And of course all my makeup, the only thing making me look a little bit pretty, started to run down my cheeks. I wiped my eyes then forgot myself as I inadvertently wiped mascara over my pretty pink dress. Fortunately after the ceremony it was time to change into the white dress. In the white gown, with its lacy sleeves and long veil, I like to think I looked a little bit more beautiful.

Later in the evening the tradition is that the elder of the family, either a father or brother, takes a cloth containing some sweets and clothes and ties it to the bride's wrist. It's symbolic of sending the new bride to her husband's home. It's a very moving and personal scene. When my brother took the braid and started to tie it on my wrist, I started to cry. He started to cry too. We were hugging each other and crying our eyes out. I think it was more than the moment that got to us. We were crying because of all the people who weren't there, those dead and those killed. My mother, my brother Muqim, my father. We cried for all the family we had lost, for our lost status, our homes, our way of life. In that private few minutes my brother and I hugged and cried in silence, both of us understanding the enormity of loss, the joy of moving forward, and the pain of change.

Eventually he gathered himself and with a stern, “Come now, Fawzia jan,” he gently touched the tip of my nose and led me out of the room.

 

THIRTEEN

AN END BEFORE A BEGINNING

My wedding day marked the next new chapter of my life—as a wife. I had no inkling just what a short and tragic chapter it was destined to be.

My husband lived in an apartment in fourth Makrorian. It was a threebedroom purpose-built apartment, simple, solid, and functional. He had made a real effort (I suspect with the help of his sisters) to decorate our bedroom nicely. He'd bought new pink curtains, a pink bedcover, and even some pink silk flowers in a pink vase by the side of the bed. It was such a thoughtful gesture, but everything looked so very . . . pink. I had to stifle a giggle.

By the time of my wedding night I'd been awake for 24 hours. Thankfully my husband was also exhausted after such a long day and didn't make demands on me. We both fell fast asleep.

In the morning I awoke first, and for a second I panicked. My eyes opened and I saw a pink curtain with hazy sunlight outside, and I was in a strange bed with a man beside me. For a split second I struggled to work out where I was, then I came to. I was married to Hamid, to the man sleeping next to me. He snored gently, and I smiled indulgently at him as I stroked his cheek. This was the first day of my new life.

Hamid's sister and her two children were also living with us. She had recently been widowed and had nowhere else to go. I was happy about this, thankful for the comforting presence of another woman about the place. She had been a teacher and was an intelligent, feisty woman. We got on famously.

At last I was a little bit content with life. Hamid was the kind, warm man I always suspected he was. We basked in each other's company, we laughed, and we made plans for our future. I hadn't felt a joy like that since the first day I started school at seven years old. Life was finally going my way.

A week after our wedding, we had another ceremony called
takht.
The bride and groom sit under decorations, flowers, and ribbons, and visitors come and congratulate them and give them gifts. That lasts for three days, and the last day is called
takht jami.
That signifies the end of the marriage celebrations.

In my childhood days my sisters and mother would of course regale me with stories of all the riches I would receive on my
takht jami
—a new car perhaps, or a house in the mountains, or a whole ton of gold. But of course, life during Taliban time wasn't so ostentatious. Friends and family came, bringing what they could—a tablecloth, some new dishes, 50 dollars.

About an hour earlier we'd said goodbye to our last guests and Hamid had popped into his office for half an hour to check on things. His sister and I were about to make a cup of tea when there was a knock at the door. My sister-in-law went to open it and there stood bearded men in black turbans.

Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, had heard my brother was back in Kabul and had an arrest warrant for him. They had been searching for my brother for the past three days and he'd already gone into hiding. The family had not informed me of this because they wanted me to enjoy my honeymoon period.

Now here they were at my door. They barged into my newly married bliss like the battering rams of doom. Without asking they walked into the living room, where I was sitting under flower garlands in all my silly makeup and finery. As they looked at me, all the color drained from my face. I had had enough trouble in my life already to know that their arrival meant the end of this happy chapter already. They barked at us to stay where we were and then went into my bedroom. They started tearing the bedsheets off the bed, the bed where less than a week ago Hamid and I had begun our married adult life together.

It was such an invasion of privacy, of decency, and an affront to our culture. But these brutes didn't care about that. They started looking under the bed and pulling things out of cupboards. They said nothing, they just turned the house upside down, tearing at the nice furniture with their dirty, unwashed hands.

Then they spoke, yelling at me: “Where is Mirshakay? Where is the police general?” They waved an arrest warrant in my face. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized who they wanted. I told them calmly I had no idea. By now they'd ripped apart my house so they knew I wasn't lying. Then my heart stopped again. Hamid!

“Please don't come back from the office yet,” I silently willed my husband. “Stay at work, don't come home yet. Please. Don't come home yet.”

They left and I listened with bated breath as they walked down the five flights of steps to the door of the main building. With each click-clack of their boots on the stair treads I breathed a little easier—four floors to go, three floors, two. Then on the first floor I heard a door open. I gasped in horror. “No please, please don't let that be Hamid.” He was seconds away from danger. He had bounded happily through the front door with a gift of chocolates for me and walked right into them. If only he'd paused to buy a newspaper, chat with a neighbor, or even bent down to tie his shoelaces, he might have missed them.

Angry at their failure to find my brother, they arrested Hamid. He had done nothing. He had committed no crime, but they took him.

I ran down the stairs, screaming. I begged them. “We've only been married seven days, he knows nothing. This is my husband's house, we are newlyweds, we are innocent people, leave us alone.”

They simply asked me again: “Where is Mirshakay?”

They handcuffed Hamid. He barely moved or spoke; he was in shock. The flowers he'd been holding for me dropped to the floor. A few neighbors had gathered to watch the scene. Nobody said anything. I grabbed my burqa and followed my husband. Hamid knew better than to tell me to stay at home and wait.

They put Hamid in a red Taliban pickup truck. They pushed me aside, laughing when I tried to get in after him. I flagged down a taxi. The driver wound down the window and said: “I am sorry ma'am. I am sorry sister. Do you have a
muharram
[male blood relative] with yourself?” I snapped at him: “What? Just let me in. I have to follow that car.” He shook his head: “You need a
muharram
with yourself, sister. These stupid people, these men you want to follow, if they see you alone with me they will put both of us in prison.”

Then he drove away. I followed the pickup with my eyes as it turned down the street and along the main road, then it took a left toward Share Naw (the new town area of Kabul). I was desperate not to lose sight of it.

I hailed another taxi. This time I spoke before the driver had chance to. I begged for all I was worth. “Brother, dear brother, please please help me. Please. They are taking my husband. I need to follow him. I'm alone. Can you please take me?”

He told me to get in. As we drove he spoke hurriedly. “If they stop the car say you are my sister, my name is . . . , I live in . . .” As we drove, this kind man, this complete stranger, downloaded to me all the key details of his life should I, just a random passenger, have to pretend he was my brother. It was so absurd. But the driver's actions were another reminder to me that whatever those in power threw at the ordinary men and women of my nation, Afghan values of decency and kindness prevailed.

They had taken Hamid to the intelligence agency office, a building in the center of town, close to the Ministry of the Interior. I don't know how much money I gave the driver, but I know it was quite a lot. I was just so grateful he was prepared to help a woman despite the risk to himself in doing so. I thought if I paid him well he might just help another woman in the same circumstance. I went to the gate but they refused me entry. Now I took a massive risk. I lied to the Taliban at the gate. I told them that the other Taliban had arrested me but I couldn't go with the men in their vehicle, and so they had ordered me to come into the building. I said if they didn't let me in they'd be blamed. They let me in.

Once inside the main gate I found the prison building. Hamid was standing there, surrounded by two Talibs. Hamid was barely reacting, and I think he was in shock. One moment he was dashing home with chocolates for his new wife, the next he had been arrested. I ran over and grabbed Hamid's hand. I looked directly at the Talibs through my burqa and spoke: “Look, look at my hands. This is bridal henna. You are talking about Islam but you do not act as Muslims. We are just married. If you put him in prison I have no more
muharram.
How should I live? How should I survive? I have nobody to do shopping, to take care of me. I am just a young girl. I am helpless.”

I was hoping that I could appeal to their sympathy and that they would let him go. But these were men who remained unmoved by the pleas of a mere woman. They ignored me and they walked Hamid to another gate, with me following, still holding his hand and still pleading.

When they opened the gate my heart sank as I could see hundreds of prisoners inside. Some were handcuffed, some were bound, others were standing, all were crammed into a central stinking courtyard. One of the Talibs took Hamid's other hand. We'd started our new life, it had just begun, and now they were taking him away from me, tearing us apart. I was terrified that they would just execute him with no trial. They had arrested him without charge, so it was entirely possible. I was holding on tight and not letting go. I was begging: “I'm coming too. How can I go alone? I am a woman, I cannot live alone outside. You are a Muslim, how can you do this?”

The Talib answered me in Pashto; he spoke crudely, with the accent of an uneducated village man. “Shut up woman, you talk too much.” Then the man pushed me hard, so hard that I fell. I was still wearing my high heels and a fancy dress. It was less than an hour ago that we'd been receiving guests. I fell over into a puddle of stinking water, and Hamid turned his head to try and help me up, but the Talib pushed him in the opposite direction, inside the gates. My last glimpse of my husband was as I struggled to stand up and the gates closed.