The Favored Daughter (26 page)

“Here sister,” he said, passing a small plastic bag to me. “The man forgot to get the raisins.”

It was a simple act of kindness, from one human being to another. Under the Taliban we would have been considered criminals. Yet here it was—courtesy, good manners and respect. Nothing more, nothing less but it was so unexpectedly touching my eyes pricked with tears.

That incident put me in a much better mood and I enjoyed the spring landscape. The mountain peaks were beginning to cast off their wintry jackets of snow, while the new growth of grass and flowers further down the slopes sprouted toward the sun's rays. It gave me a sense of hope for my country. No matter how cold and cruel the Taliban might be, I felt that they too, one day, might melt away like the snow.

At Puli Khumri we went to stay at the home of another of Hamid's sisters and her husband. This was the couple who had come to my brother's home once to negotiate the marriage proposal, and I liked them very much. But I was mindful I had a lot to live up to. Their neighbors all knew their brother Hamid had married this girl who cost $20,000, an enormous amount of money. They would all be curious to see me and assess me. And that brought with it an enormous expectation that after months of stress, days of travel, and only weeks away from childbirth I couldn't help but feel I was struggling to live up to.

Hamid's sister was kind. She knew exactly how I felt and had already begun to make preparations for a bath. By that I mean a bucket of water heated over the cooking fire, but I can tell you that when you are exhausted and caked in dust and sweat, pouring enamel jugs over your head from a bucket of what had hours earlier been pure mountain water amounts to an experience as indulgent as any five-star hotel spa imaginable.

With each splash I scrubbed away the stress, the strain, and the filth of my life under the Taliban. Days previously I had left Kabul accorded no more value than that of a dog. With each soaking I regained a little more of my humanity and a little more of my self-worth. All I had to deal with now was the scrutiny of the neighbors, and as self-conscious as I might have felt, the terrible rule of the Taliban had also given me an inner strength I was only just beginning to realize. The fact is I wasn't the young and naive bride I hade been not so long ago. Now I was a wife who had negotiated with fundamentalist tyrants, I was an expectant mother who had climbed mountains, and I was an idealistic and hopeful woman who was finally beginning to find the firm ground of maturity beneath her feet.

However, when I emerged the neighbors made it clear from their faces that they didn't think Hamid had gotten his $20,000 dollars worth. They barely bothered to conceal the raised eyebrows and pursed lips. I can only imagine what they said about me once they went home.

Once we were alone Hamid laughed about it. He kissed my forehead gently and told me not to care what people said or thought. We had each other and that was all that mattered.

After a night's rest we continued our journey north. When we got to Talakan we had to hire a jeep because floods from the winter snow melt had washed out parts of the road to Kisham. From there we would have to go by truck to Faizabad, the capital of my home province Badakhshan. This wasn't the news I wanted to hear. Traveling atop a truck is the lowest form of transport in Afghanistan and usually the preserve of the Kuchis (the country's small gypsy population). And the spring melt had caused havoc with the roads here, too. I asked Hamid to see if he could find us a car, but despite his best efforts, there were no small vehicles going to Faizabad.

I was horrified when I saw the truck. I was an educated city woman of high breeding, and this was a lorry normally used for transporting goats. Today it was piled high with sacks of rice. If I had been offered this vehicle to escape Kabul I would have gladly climbed aboard, but now that I was safe and regaining my confidence my pride was getting the better of me. Hamid gave me an ultimatum: This was the last truck going to Faizabad and if I didn't get on it we would be stuck in Kisham. I had no choice but to swallow my pride and get aboard. I had put my burqa back on, for warmth and to protect me from the dust as much as for any reason, but even with the anonymity it afforded, I spent the next four hours with my head tucked into my knees, in case we should pass somebody I knew. Occasionally I would look up to enjoy the view, but the shame of being seen swaying on top of that goat truck always got the better of me and I would bury my head once more.

The road was incredibly steep and rough. As we crawled our way up one hill the driver lost traction and came to a halt. But when he tried to use the brakes he discovered they didn't work. They had become overheated on the downhill sections, and the truck started rolling backward toward the river. That gave me cause to look up, and we were gathering speed toward the icy clutches of the fast-flowing floodwaters. Hamid, myself, and the other passengers perched on the rice sacks all braced ourselves for the expected collision into river. A mental image of the freezing water clawing at my sodden burqa, dragging me under, smashing me against the rocks, filled my head. I closed my eyes in sheer panic, fingers digging into the rice sack as if it might offer some protection. The tires of the truck skidded backward, fighting to gain a hold on the slippery gravel as we bounced and lurched amid shouts and screams of passengers and driver alike. Suddenly we stopped, just yards from the water's edge. I turned to Hamid, whose hand was being crushed in my adrenaline-fueled grip. We turned to each other and laughed a relieved, nervous laugh. The driver tooted the horn in feeble celebration as cries of “
Ahamadullah
” (“Praise be to Allah”) rang out. My knees felt weak as we climbed down from the truck. I was glad to back on my own two feet, any thoughts of social embarrassment purged from my head by the near-death experience.

The truck wasn't going anywhere. The brakes were cooked and it was beginning to get late. Besides, as close as I was to Faizabad, the last thing I wanted to do was to get back on top of the truck. Instead I walked around the rocks on the river bank, drinking in the landscape. I was free of the Taliban, free of the threats of beatings, free of their persecution of Hamid, free of the burqa if I chose. That night we slept on top of the truck. I didn't care anymore. Tomorrow I would be in Faizabad, sleeping underneath the mountain skies of my home province.

 

SIXTEEN

A DAUGHTER FOR A DAUGHTER

Hamid and I settled into Faizabad life quickly. I was delighted to see all my relatives again. All of my full sisters, my mother's other daughters, had married local men and never left. Many of my half brothers and sisters had also stayed behind when war broke out. I hadn't seen any of them in years and was delighted to be reunited with them. My sisters hadn't even known I had gotten married or was pregnant.

Faizabad itself became a haven for me, just the way it had when as a small child we'd fled there from the mujahideen. I had forgotten what a beautiful city it is, highly elevated with fresh air, its old bazaar of mud-plastered shops, and a clear turquoise river running right through the center of the city.

We rented a house and Hamid was able to run his finance business. He also started teaching at the university. I was able to relax and prepare to give birth. I was as nervous as any first-time mother and had no idea what to expect from labor, except that it was likely to hurt. The hospital in Faizabad wasn't hygienic and I knew I'd rather give birth at home than on a wire-framed bed with a paper-thin mattress in the dirty public ward the hospital offered.

It was July 8, 1998, when my first-born daughter made her entry to the world. I'd been invited to lunch at one of Hamid's relatives but I felt so sick I could barely touch my food. At three o'clock I went home and by 10 p.m. my little angel was born.

The labor was relatively short but it was tough. I had a female doctor friend with me but no pain relief. In our culture it is really hoped a woman will give birth to a son first, it's almost expected. But I didn't care what I had so long as my baby was healthy. After the baby was delivered she was taken from me to be washed and dressed in swaddling clothes. No one had yet told me the sex.

Then Hamid was allowed to enter the room. In most Islamic societies it is not normal for men to be present during the birth. He came over the bed and stroked my hair, smoothing the perspiration from my forehead. He spoke softly: “Daughter, we have ourselves a daughter.”

He genuinely wasn't bothered he didn't have a son. Our baby was a perfectly formed 9.9 pounds of delight, and we were both overjoyed. She looked like Hamid, with thick black hair.

In the days after her birth when, like all new mothers, I struggled to learn how to breastfeed and deal with sleepless nights and exhaustion, I became very reflective. As I stared at her tiny sleeping form I prayed so hard for a better world for her, a better Afghanistan. I didn't want her to know any of the discrimination and hate that women suffer in our country.

As I held her to my breast I had this sense that she was my world now. Nothing mattered but her. My clothes, my appearance, my own petty and selfish desires all just melted away.

I had to argue with my family to be allowed to breastfeed immediately. In Badakhshani culture there is a tradition of not starting to breastfeed until three days after the birth. The people believe that something bad is in the milk in those first few days. Of course, the opposite is true. In those first few hours breastmilk contains colostrum, something essential for a child's immune system.

Without food in those first few hours the baby gets weak and cold. And of course, if a woman doesn't start to express her milk straight away she's at greater risk for infections like mastitis or of not being able to express milk when the time comes. This misperception about breastfeeding at the start is yet another reason why maternal and child mortality is so high in my province.

Because I had studied medicine at the university I knew the truth, but I had to argue with my sisters so they wouldn't prevent me from feeding her. They tried so hard to stop me, shouting at me that I was hurting my baby by feeding her so soon. I tried to explain to them that it was good for her, but they just looked at me accusingly, as if they thought I was being a bad mother. In their eyes, years of tradition and being told the same thing far outweighed whatever their sister may have learned at the university.

But my sisters were kind to me in other ways, forcing me to stay warm and wrap up in blankets (even though it was July and was baking hot), cooking me my favorite foods to keep my strength up, and forbidding me from doing housework. But the joy of the baby was tempered by the acute agony of missing my mother. I wished so much she had lived to see her granddaughter. She'd have known that another one of us had been born, another woman of strength and determination had entered the world.

Six days after her birth we were so proud of her that Hamid and I threw a big party to celebrate. We invited half the town and we had music and a video camera; we had everything we weren't allowed to have at our wedding. I think in some ways that party became the proper wedding day we'd never had. It was a genuine celebration of our love and our new little family unit.

Hamid and I found a house of our own and I decided to teach again. I rented a big house with three rooms and advertised myself as an English teacher. Within a month I had 300 students, ranging from young girls to male doctors, students and teachers. I didn't have a lot of teacher training, so I ordered audio and visual material from overseas. These things had never been used in Faizabad before and my school got a reputation as a modern professional place of learning. I couldn't believe my luck. I was earning a good income, around 600 dollars a month, running my own business and doing something I loved. I had my baby in the classes with me and the students loved her, and some of them became close friends of mine. For the first time in my life this was real, proper independence.

I still wore my burqa daily, but what was strange was that it no longer bothered me. There was no Taliban rule in Badakhshan and no law forcing me to wear it. But culturally most women seemed to do so; my students all wore them. It was important I got respect from people for the sake of my school, so I decided to wear it, too. I didn't mind it because it was my choice to wear it, and it wasn't imposed on me.

The only blot on the happy landscape was my husband's health. He had also found a teaching job at the university that he also enjoyed. But he struggled. The chalk dust from the blackboards got into his lungs and made his coughing worse.

But generally life was good. Then, when Shaharzad was just six months old, life took another unwanted twist.

I got that familiar nauseous feeling again. I was pregnant.

I was devastated. I didn't want another child so soon. My school was running successfully, I had my friends and my life. I didn't want a baby.